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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of How to Appreciate Music, by Gustav Kobbé
+
+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 Appreciate Music
+
+Author: Gustav Kobbé
+
+Release Date: December 9, 2010 [EBook #34610]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO APPRECIATE MUSIC ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, monkeyclogs, Dan
+Horwood and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  HOW TO APPRECIATE MUSIC
+
+
+  by
+  GUSTAV KOBBÉ
+
+  Author of "Wagner's Music-Dramas Analyzed," etc.
+
+
+  New York
+  Moffat, Yard & Company
+  1912
+
+
+  Copyright, 1906, by
+  Moffat, Yard & Company
+  New York
+
+  Published, October, 1906
+  Reprinted, February, 1908
+  Reprinted, September, 1908
+  Reprinted, May, 1912
+
+
+  The Premier Press
+  New York
+
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+To the Memory of My Brother
+
+PHILIP FERDINAND KOBBÉ
+
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  _HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE RECITAL_
+
+  CHAPTER                                                         PAGE
+        I The Pianoforte                                            29
+       II Bach's Service to Music                                   48
+      III From Fugue to Sonata                                      78
+       IV Dawn of the Romantic Period                              100
+        V Chopin, the Poet of the Pianoforte                       116
+       VI Schumann, the "Intimate"                                 134
+      VII Liszt, the Giant among Virtuosos                         142
+     VIII With Paderewski--A Modern Pianist on Tour                155
+
+  _HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT_
+
+       IX Development of the Orchestra                             167
+        X Instruments of the Orchestra                             179
+       XI Concerning Symphonies                                    197
+      XII Richard Strauss and His Music                            207
+     XIII A Note on Chamber Music                                  224
+
+  _HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC_
+
+      XIV Songs and Song Composers                                 231
+       XV Oratorio                                                 248
+      XVI Opera and Music-Drama                                    260
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+
+_HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE RECITAL_
+
+CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+I.--THE PIANOFORTE
+
+  Why the king of musical instruments--Music under one's
+  fingers--Can render anything in music--Liszt played the whole
+  orchestra on the pianoforte--Fingers of a great virtuoso the
+  ambassadors of his soul--Melody and accompaniment on one
+  instrument--No intermediaries to mar effect--Paderewski's
+  playing of "Hark, Hark, the Lark"--Music's debt to the
+  pianoforte--Developed sonata form and gave it to
+  orchestra--Richard Strauss on Beethoven's pianistic
+  orchestration--A boon to many famous composers, even to
+  Wagner--Its lowly origin--Nine centuries to develop pianoforte
+  from monochord--The monochord described--Joined to a
+  keyboard--Poet's amusing advice to his musical
+  daughter--Clavichord developed from monochord--Its lack of
+  power--Bebung, or balancement--The harpsichord--Originated in
+  the cembalo of the Hungarian gypsy orchestra--Spinet and
+  virginal--Pianoforte invented by Cristofori, 1711--Exploited by
+  Silbermann--Strings of twenty tons' tension--Dampers and
+  pedals--Paderewski's use of both pedals--Mechanical
+  pianofortes--Senseless decoration                                 29
+
+II.--BACH'S SERVICE TO MUSIC
+
+  Pianoforte so universal in character can give, through it, a
+  general survey of the art of music--Bach illustrates an
+  epoch--A Bach fugue more elaborate than a music-drama or tone
+  poem--Bach more modern than Haydn or Mozart--His influence on
+  modern music--Wagner unites the harmony of Beethoven with the
+  polyphony of Bach--Melody, harmony and counterpoint defined and
+  differentiated--Illustrated from the "Moonlight Sonata"--What
+  a fugue is--The fugue and the virtuoso--Not "grateful" music
+  for public performance--Daniel Gregory Mason's tribute and
+  reservation--What counterpoint lacks--Fails to give the player
+  as much scope as modern music--Barrier to individuality of
+  expression--The virtuoso's mission--Creative as well as
+  interpretive--Mr. Hanchett's dictum--Music both a science and
+  an art--Science versus feeling--Person may be very musical
+  without being musical at all--The great composer bends science
+  to art--That "ear for music"--Bach and the Weather
+  Bureau--The Bacon, not the Shakespeare, of music--What Wagner
+  learned from Bach--Illustration from "Die Walküre"--W. J.
+  Henderson's anecdote--Wagner's counterpoint emotional--Bach's
+  the language of an epoch; Wagner's the language of liberated
+  music--Bach in the recital hall--Rubinstein and Bach's "Triple
+  Concerto"--"The Well-Tempered Clavichord"--Meaning of
+  "well-tempered"--A king's tribute to Bach--Two hundred and
+  forty-one years of Bachs                                          48
+
+III.--FROM FUGUE TO SONATA
+
+  Break in Bach's influence--Mr. Parry on this hiatus in the
+  evolution of music--Three periods of musical development--Rise
+  of the harmonic, or "melodic," school--Began with Domenico
+  Scarlatti--The founder of modern pianoforte
+  technique--Beginnings of the sonata form--Philipp Emanuel Bach
+  and the sonata--Rise of the amateur--"The Contented Ear and
+  Quickened Soul," and other quaint titles--Changes in musical
+  taste--Pianoforte has outgrown the music of Haydn and
+  Mozart--Bach, Beethoven and Wagner the three great epoch-making
+  figures in music--Beethoven and the epoch of the sonata--His
+  slow development--Union of mind and heart in his work--His
+  sonatas, however, no longer all-dominant in pianoforte
+  music--Von Bülow and D'Albert as Beethoven players--Incident
+  at a Von Bülow Beethoven recital--Changes of taste in thirty
+  years--The Beethoven sonatas too orchestric--The passing of the
+  sonata                                                            78
+
+IV.--DAWN OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
+
+  What a sonata is--How Beethoven enlarged the form--Illustrated
+  in his Opus 2, No. 3, and in the "Moonlight Sonata"--The
+  three Beethoven periods--In his last sonatas seems chafing
+  under restraint of form--The sonata form reached its climax
+  with Beethoven--Hampers modern composers--Lawrence Gilman on
+  MacDowell's "Keltic Sonata"--The first romantic
+  composers--Weber--Schubert's inexhaustible genius--Mendelssohn
+  smooth, polished and harmless                                    100
+
+V.--CHOPIN, THE POET OF THE PIANOFORTE
+
+  An incomparable composer--Liszt's definition of tempo
+  rubato--The Wagner of the pianoforte--Clear melody and weird,
+  entrancing harmonies--Racial traits--Friends in Paris--Liszt
+  the first to recognize him--The Études--Vigor, passion,
+  impetus--Von Bülow on the great C minor Étude--The
+  Préludes--Schumann's opinion of them--Rubinstein's playing of
+  the Seventh Prélude--The Nocturnes--Chopin and Poe--The
+  Waltzes--Liszt on the Mazurkas--The Polonaises--Chopin's battle
+  hymns--Other works--"A noble from head to foot"--Huneker on
+  Chopin                                                           115
+
+VI.--SCHUMANN, THE "INTIMATE"
+
+  A composer with an academic education--Pupil in pianoforte of
+  Frederick Wieck--Strains a finger and abandons career as a
+  virtuoso--Marries Clara Wieck--Afflicted with
+  insanity--Attempts suicide--Dies in asylum--His music
+  introspective and brooding--Poet, bourgeois and
+  philosopher--Contributions to program music--"Carnaval" and
+  "Kreisleriana"--Latter title explained--Really
+  Schumanniana--Thoughts of his Clara--"Fantasie Pieces"--His
+  compositions at first neglected                                  134
+
+VII.--LISZT, THE GIANT AMONG VIRTUOSOS
+
+  A youthful phenomenon--Refused at the Paris Conservatory--"Le
+  petit Litz"--Inspired by Paganini--Episode with Countess
+  D'Agoult--Court conductor at Weimar--Makes Weimar the musical
+  Mecca of Germany--Produces "Lohengrin"--His "six
+  Lives"--His pianoforte compositions--The "Don Juan
+  Fantasie"--"Hexameron"--"Années de
+  Pèlerinage"--Progressive edition of the Études--Giant strides
+  in virtuosity--History of the famous "Rhapsodies
+  Hongroises"--Characterisation of his pianoforte music--A great
+  composer, not a charlatan--Liszt as a virtuoso--His tribute to
+  the pianoforte--A long and influential career--Played for
+  Beethoven and died at "Parsifal"                                 142
+
+VIII.--WITH PADEREWSKI--A MODERN PIANIST ON TOUR
+
+  The most successful virtuoso ever heard here--$171,981.89 for
+  one season--His opinion of the pianoforte--Perfect save for
+  greater sustaining power of tone--Has four pianofortes on his
+  tours--Duties of the "piano doctor"--How the instruments are
+  cared for--Thawing out a pianoforte--Paderewski's humor          155
+
+
+_HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT_
+
+IX.--DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORCHESTRA
+
+  Modern music at first vocal, and without instrumental
+  accompaniment--Awkward instrumentation of the
+  contrapuntists--Primitive orchestration in Italy--The orchestra
+  of Monteverde--Haydn the father of modern orchestral music--The
+  Mozart symphonies--Beethoven establishes the modern
+  orchestra--But few instruments added since--Greater richness
+  due to subtler technique--Beethoven's development of the
+  orchestra traced in his symphonies--Greater technical demands
+  on the players--Beethoven and Wagner--"Meistersinger" score
+  has only three more instruments than the Fifth
+  Symphony--Berlioz an orchestral juggler--Architectural
+  music--Wagner, greatest of orchestral composers--Employs large
+  orchestra not for noise, but for variety of expression--Richard
+  Strauss's tribute to Wagner--Wonderfully reserved in the use of
+  his forces--Wagner's scores the only advance worth mentioning
+  since Berlioz                                                    167
+
+X.--INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA
+
+  The orchestra an aggregation of instruments that should play as
+  one--Wagner's employment of orchestral groups illustrated by
+  the Love motive in "Die Walküre" and the Walhalla
+  motive--Division of the orchestra--The violin--Its varied
+  capacity--The musical stage whisper of a hundred violins--The
+  violins in the "Lohengrin" prelude--Modern orchestral
+  virtuosity--The sordine and its use--A pizzicato movement by
+  Tschaikowski--The viola, violoncello and double bass--Dividing
+  the string band--Examples from the scores of Wagner--Anecdote
+  regarding the harp in "Rheingold"--The woodwind--The
+  flute--The oboe in Schubert's C major symphony--The English
+  horn in "Tristan"--Beethoven's use of the bassoon in the
+  Fifth and Ninth symphonies--The clarinets in "Tannhäuser,"
+  "Lohengrin," and "Götterdämmerung"--Brass instruments and
+  various illustrations of their employment--The trumpet in
+  "Fidelio" and "Carmen"--The trombone group in "The Ring of
+  the Nibelung"--The trombones in "The Magic Flute," in
+  Schubert's C major symphony, and in the introduction to the
+  third act of "Lohengrin"--The tubas in the Funeral March in
+  "Götterdämmerung"--Richard Strauss's apotheosis of the horn,
+  and its importance in the Wagner scores--Tympani and
+  cymbals--Mozart's G minor symphony on twenty-two
+  clarinets--Richard Strauss, on the future development of the
+  orchestra                                                        179
+
+XI.--CONCERNING SYMPHONIES
+
+  The classical period of music dominated by the symphony--Its
+  esthetic purpose defined--A symphonic witticism--Some comment
+  on form in music--Divisions of the symphony established by
+  Haydn--Artless grace and beauty of Mozart's
+  symphonies--Beethoven to the fore--Climaxes and rests--The
+  Ninth Symphony--Schubert's genius--Mendelssohn and
+  Schumann--Liszt's symphonies and symphonic poems--Other
+  symphonists--Wagner not supposed to have been a purely
+  orchestral composer, yet the greatest of all                     197
+
+XII.--RICHARD STRAUSS AND HIS MUSIC
+
+  One of the most original and individual of composers--A
+  student, not a copyist, of Wagner--Independent intellectual
+  basis for his art--Originator of the tone poem--Unhampered by
+  even the word "symphonic"--Means much to the musically
+  elect--Not a juggler with the orchestra--A modern of
+  moderns--Technical difficulties, but not impossibilities in his
+  works--"Thus Spake Zarathustra" and other scores--Life and
+  truth, not mere beauty, the burden of modern music--Huneker's
+  "Piper of Dreams"--"Zarathustra" and "A Hero's Life"
+  described--An intellectual force in music--"A Hero's Life"
+  Strauss's "Meistersinger"--Tribute to Wagner in
+  "Feuersnot"--Performances of Richard Strauss's scores in
+  America--His symphony in F minor (1883) had its first
+  performance anywhere, under Theodore
+  Thomas--Straussiana--Boyhood anecdotes--Scribbled scores on
+  schoolbook covers--Still at school when first symphony was
+  played in public--Studied with Von Bülow--Married his
+  Freihild--Ideals of the highest                                  207
+
+XIII.--A NOTE ON CHAMBER MUSIC                                     224
+
+
+_HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC_
+
+XIV.--SONGS AND SONG COMPOSERS
+
+  Strophic and "composed through"--Schubert the first song
+  composer to require consideration; also the greatest--Early
+  struggles--Too poor to buy music paper--Becomes a
+  school-teacher--Impatient under drudgery--Publishers hold
+  aloof--Fortune for a song, but not for him--History of "The
+  Erlking"--How it was composed--Written down as fast as pen
+  could travel--Tried over the same evening--The famous
+  dissonances--As sung by Lilli Lehmann--Schubert only eighteen
+  years old when he composed "The Erlking"--His marvelous
+  fecundity--Died at thirty-one, yet wrote six hundred songs and
+  many other works--Schumann's individuality--Distinguished from
+  Schubert--Not the same proportion of great songs--The best
+  composed during his wooing of Clara--Phases of Franz's
+  genius--Traces of his knowledge and admiration of Bach--Choice
+  of keys--Objected to transpositions--Pitiable physical
+  disabilities--Brahms a profound thinker in music--Jensen,
+  Rubinstein, Grieg, Chopin, Wagner--Liszt one of the greatest of
+  song composers--Richard Strauss, Hugo Wolf and others            231
+
+XV.--ORATORIO
+
+  An incongruous art form--Originated in Italy with San Filippo
+  Neri--Scenery, action and even ballet in the early
+  oratorio--The influence of German composers--Bach's "Passion"
+  music--Dramatic expression in Händel--Rockstro's
+  characterisation of--First performance of "The
+  Messiah"--Haydn's "Creation" and "Seasons"--Mendelssohn's
+  "Elijah" next to "The Messiah" in popularity--Dramatic
+  episodes in the work--Gounod, Elgar and others                   248
+
+XVI.--OPERA AND MUSIC-DRAMA
+
+  Origin of opera--Peri and the Florentines--Monteverde--Cavalli
+  introduces vocal melody to relieve the monotony of
+  recitative--Aria developed by Alessandro
+  Scarlatti--Characteristics of Italian opera from Scarlatti to
+  Verdi--Gluck's reforms--German and French opera--"Les
+  Huguenots," "Faust," and "Carmen"--Comparative popularity
+  of certain operas here--Far-reaching effects of Wagner's
+  theories--Their influence on the later Verdi and contemporary
+  Italian composers--Wagner's music-dramas--A music-drama not an
+  opera--Form wholly original with Wagner--Gave impetus to
+  folk-lore movement--Krehbiel's "Studies in the Wagnerian
+  Drama"--Wagner and anti-Wagner--Finck's "Wagner and His
+  Works"--Wagner a melodist--Examples--Unity a distinguishing
+  trait of the music-drama--Wagner's method illustrated by
+  musical examples--The Curse Motive--The Siegfried, Nibelung,
+  and Tarnhelm motives--Leading motives not mere labels--Their
+  plasticity musically illustrated--The Siegfried horn call
+  developed into the motive of Siegfried, the hero, and into the
+  climax of the "Götterdämmerung" Funeral March--An
+  illustration from "Tristan"--Wagner as a composer of absolute
+  music--His scores the greatest achievement musical history, up
+  to the present time, has to show                                 260
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                                 PAGES
+  Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata"                                52, 53
+  "Two-Part Invention," by Bach                                     54
+  Love Motive from "Die Walküre"                                   181
+  Opening of the "Lohengrin" Prelude                               183
+  Walhalla Motive                                                  192
+  Curse Motive                                                     269
+  Siegfried Motive                                                 270
+  Nibelung Smithy Motive                                           270
+  Tarnhelm Motive                                                  271
+  Siegfried Horn Call                                              272
+  Develops into Motive of Siegfried, the Hero                      272
+  And into Climax of the "Götterdämmerung" Funeral March           272
+  Examples from "Tristan und Isolde"                          273, 274
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+"Are you musical?"
+
+"No; I neither play nor sing."
+
+Your answer shows a complete misunderstanding of the case. Because you
+neither play nor sing, it by no means follows that you are unmusical.
+If you love music and appreciate it, you may be more musical than many
+pianists or singers; and certainly you may become so.
+
+This book is planned for the lover of music, for those who throng the
+concert and recital halls and the opera--those who have not followed
+music as a profession, and yet love it as an art; who may not play or
+sing, and yet are musical. Among these is an ever-growing number that
+"wants to know," that no longer is satisfied simply with allowing
+music to play upon the senses and the emotions, but wants to
+understand why it does so.
+
+To satisfy this natural desire which, with many, amounts to a craving
+or even a passion, and to do so in wholly untechnical language and in
+a manner that shall be intelligible to the average reader, is the
+purpose of this book. In carrying it out I have not neglected the
+personal side of music, but have endeavored to keep clearly before the
+eyes of the reader, and in their proper sequence, the great names in
+musical history.
+
+I am somewhat of a radical in my musical opinions, one of those
+persons of advanced views who does not lift his eyes reverentially
+heavenward every time the words "symphony" and "sonata" are mentioned.
+In fact, I am most in sympathy with the liberating tendencies of
+modern music, which lays more stress upon the expression of life and
+truth than upon the exact form in which these are sought to be
+expressed. Nevertheless, I am quite aware that only through the
+gradual development and expansion of forms that now may be growing
+obsolete has music achieved its emancipation from the tyranny of form.
+Therefore, while I would rather listen to a Wagner music-drama than to
+a Mozart opera, or might go to more trouble to hear a Richard Strauss
+tone poem than a Beethoven symphony, I am not such an unconscionable
+heretic as to be unaware of the great, the very great part played by
+the Mozart opera and the Beethoven symphony in the evolution of music,
+or their importance in the orderly and systematic study of the art.
+Indeed, I was brought up on "Don Giovanni," the Fifth Symphony and the
+Sonatas before I brought myself up on Chopin, Liszt (for whom I have
+far greater admiration than most critics), and Wagner. Therefore, an
+ample portion of this book will be found devoted to the classical
+epoch and its great masters, especially its greatest master,
+Beethoven, and to the forms in which they worked. Nor do I think that
+these pages will be found written unsympathetically. But something is
+due the great body of music-lovers who, being told that they _must_
+admire this, that and the other classical composer, _because he is
+classical_, find themselves at a loss and think themselves to blame
+because modern music makes a more vivid and deeper impression upon
+them. If they only knew it--they are in the right! But they have
+needed some one to tell them so.
+
+"Advanced," this book is. But plenty will be found in it regarding the
+sonata and the symphony, and, through the latter, the development of
+the orchestra; and orchestral instruments, their tone quality, scope
+and purpose are described and explained.
+
+More, perhaps, than in any work with the same purpose, the great part
+played by the pianoforte in the evolution of music is here recognized,
+and I have availed myself of the opportunity to tell much of the story
+of that evolution in connection with this, the most popular of musical
+instruments, and its great masters. Why the greater freedom of
+technique and expression made possible by the modern instrument has
+caused the classical sonata to be superseded by the more romantic
+works of Chopin and others whose compositions are typically pianistic,
+and how these works differ in form and substance from those of the
+classicists, are among the many points made clear in these chapters.
+
+The same care has been bestowed upon that portion of the book relating
+to vocal music--to songs, opera, music-drama and oratorio. In fact,
+the aim has been to equip the lover of music--that is, of good music
+of all kinds--with the knowledge which will enable him to enjoy far
+more than before either an orchestral concert, a piano or song
+recital, an opera or a music-drama--anything, in fact, in music from
+Bach to Richard Strauss; to place everything before him from the
+standpoint of a writer who is himself a lover of music and who,
+although thoroughly in sympathy with the more advanced schools of the
+art, also appreciates the great masters of the past and is behind none
+in acknowledging what they contributed to make music what it is.
+
+"Are you musical?"
+
+"No; I neither play nor sing."
+
+But, if you can read and listen, there is no reason why you should not
+be more musical--a more genuine lover of music--than many of those
+whose musicianship lies merely in their fingers or vocal cords. Try!
+
+GUSTAV KOBBÉ.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE RECITAL
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE PIANOFORTE
+
+
+There must be practically on the part of every one who attends a
+pianoforte recital some degree of curiosity regarding the instrument
+itself. Therefore, it seems to me pertinent to institute at the very
+outset an inquiry into what the pianoforte is and how it became what
+it is--the most practical, most expressive and most universal of
+musical instruments, the instrument of the concert hall and of the
+intimate home circle. Knowledge of such things surely will enhance the
+enjoyment of a pianoforte recital--should be, in fact, a prerequisite
+to it.
+
+The pianoforte is the most used and, for that very reason, perhaps,
+the most abused of musical instruments. Even its real name generally
+is denied it. Most people call it a piano, although _piano_ is a
+musical term denoting a degree of sound, soft, gentle, low--the
+opposite of _forte_, which means strong and loud. The combination of
+the two terms in one word, pianoforte, signifies that the instrument
+is capable of being played both softly and loudly--both _piano_ and
+_forte_. It was this capacity that distinguished it from its immediate
+precursors, the old-time harpsichords and clavichords. One of the
+first requirements in learning how to understand music is to learn to
+call things musical by their right names. To speak of a pianoforte as
+a piano is one of our unjustifiable modern shortcuts of speech, a
+characteristic specimen of linguistic laziness and evidence of utter
+ignorance concerning the origin and character of the instrument.
+
+If I were asked to express in a single phrase the importance of this
+instrument in the musical life of to-day I would say that the
+pianoforte is the orchestra of the home. Indeed, the title of the
+familiar song "What Is Home Without a Mother?" might, without any
+undue stretch of imagination, be changed to "What Is Home Without a
+Pianoforte?"--although, if you are working hard at your music and
+practicing scales and finger exercises several hours a day, it might
+be wiser not to ask your neighbor's opinion on this point.
+
+
+The King of Instruments.
+
+"In households where there is no pianoforte we seem to breathe a
+foreign atmosphere," says Oscar Bie, in his history of the instrument
+and its players; and he adds with perfect truth that it has become
+an essential part of our life, giving its form to our whole
+musical culture and stamping its characteristics upon our whole
+conception of music. Surely out of every ten musical persons,
+layman or professional, at least nine almost invariably have
+received their first introduction to music through the pianoforte
+and have derived the greater part of their musical knowledge from it.
+Even composers like Wagner and Meyerbeer, whose work is wholly
+associated with opera, had their first lessons in music on the
+pianoforte, and Meyerbeer achieved brilliant triumphs as a concert
+pianist before he turned his attention to the operatic stage.
+
+Of all musical instruments the pianoforte is the most intimate and at
+the same time the most public--"the favorite of the lonely mourner and
+of the solitary soul whose joy seeks expression" and the tie that
+unites the circle of family and friends. Yet it also thrills the great
+audience of the concert hall and rouses it to the highest pitch of
+enthusiasm. It is the king of instruments, and the reason for its
+supremacy is not far to seek. Weitzmann, the author of the first
+comprehensive account of the pianoforte and its literature, speaks of
+its ability "to lend living expression to all phases of emotion for
+which language lacks words"; its full, resonant tone; its volume vying
+with that of the orchestra; its command of every shade of sound from
+the gentlest _pianissimo_ to the most powerful _forte_; and its
+mechanism, which permits of the most rapid runs and passages, and at
+the same time of sustained singing notes and phrases.
+
+
+Music Under One's Fingers.
+
+But this is not all. There is an overture by Weber entitled "The Ruler
+of the Spirits." Well, he who commands the row of white and black keys
+is ruler of the spirits of music. He has music, all that music can
+give, within the grasp of his two hands, under his ten fingers. The
+pianoforte can render anything in music. Besides music of its own, it
+can reproduce the orchestra or the voice with even greater fidelity
+than the finest engraving renders a painting; for only to the eyes of
+one familiar with the painting does the engraving suggest the color
+scheme of the original, whereas, through certain nuances of technique
+that are more easily felt than described, the pianoforte virtuoso who
+is playing an arrangement of an orchestra composition can make his
+audience hear certain instruments of the orchestra--even such
+characteristic effects as the far-carrying pizzicato, or the rumbling
+of the double basses or their low growl; the hollow, reverberating
+percussions of the tympani; sustained notes on the horns; the majestic
+accents of trombones; the sharp shrill of piccolos; while some of the
+most effective pianoforte pieces are arrangements of songs.
+
+Moreover, there are pianoforte compositions like the Hungarian
+rhapsodies of Liszt which, while conceived and carried out in the true
+spirit of the instrument ("pianistic," as they say), yet suggest the
+tone colors of the orchestra without permitting these to obtrude
+themselves too much. This is one of the many services of Liszt, the
+giant of virtuosos and a giant among composers, to his art. It has
+been said that Liszt played the whole orchestra on the pianoforte. He
+did even more. He developed the technique of the instrument to such a
+point that the suggestion of many of the clang tints of the orchestra
+has become part of its heritage. This dual capacity of the pianoforte,
+the fact that it has a tone quality wholly peculiar to itself, so that
+when, for example, we are playing Chopin we never think of the
+orchestra, while at the same time it can take up into itself and
+reproduce, or at least suggest, the tone colors of other instruments,
+is one of its most remarkable characteristics.
+
+Quite as remarkable and as interesting and important is the
+circumstance that these tone tints are wholly dependent upon the
+player. There is nothing peculiar to the make of the strings, the
+sounding-board, the hammers, that tends to produce these effects. They
+are due wholly to the player's subtle manipulation of the keys, so
+that we get the added thrill of the virtuoso's personal magnetism. The
+pianoforte owes much of its popularity, much of its supremacy, to the
+fact that a player's interpretation of a composition cannot be marred
+by any one but himself. It rests in his hands alone, whereas the
+conductor of an orchestra is dependent upon a hundred players, some of
+whom may have no more soul than so many wooden Indians. Even supposing
+a conductor to be gifted with a highly poetic and musically sensitive
+nature, it is impossible that so many men of varying degrees of
+temperament as go to make up an orchestra, and none of them probably a
+virtuoso of the highest rank, will be as sympathetically responsive to
+his baton as a pianoforte is to the fingers of a musical poet like
+Paderewski; for the fingers of a great virtuoso are the ambassadors of
+his soul.
+
+
+Melody and Accompaniment on One Instrument.
+
+This personal, one-man control of the instrument has been of
+inestimable value to the pianoforte in establishing itself in its
+present unassailable position. Moreover, in controlling it the pianist
+commands all the resources of music. With his two thumbs alone he can
+accomplish what no player upon any other instrument in common use is
+capable of doing with all ten fingers. He can sound together the
+lowest and the highest notes in music, for all the notes of music as
+we know it simply await the pressure of the fingers upon the keys of
+the pianoforte. It is the one instrument capable of power as well as
+of sweetness and grace which places the whole range of harmony and
+counterpoint at the disposal of one player. A vocalist can sing an
+air, but can you imagine a vocalist singing through an entire
+programme without accompaniment? After half a dozen unaccompanied
+songs the singing even of the greatest prima donna would become
+monotonous for lack of harmony. The violin and violoncello, next to
+the pianoforte the most frequently heard instruments in the concert
+hall, labor under the same disadvantage as the singer. They are
+dependent upon the accompaniment of others.
+
+The pianist, on the other hand, has the inestimable advantage of being
+able to play melody and accompaniment on one instrument at the same
+time--all in one. While singing with some of his fingers the tender
+melodic phrase of a Chopin nocturne, he completes with the others the
+exquisite weave of harmony, and reveals the musical fabric to us in
+all its beauty. Moreover, it is the pianist himself who does this, not
+some one else at his signal, which the intermediary possibly may not
+wholly understand. When Paderewski is at the pianoforte we hear
+Paderewski--not some one else of a less sensitive temperament whom he
+is directing with a baton. A poet is at the instrument and we hear the
+poet. A poet may be at the conductor's desk--but in the orchestra that
+is required for the interpretation of his musical conceptions poets
+usually are conspicuous by their absence. Even great singers suffer
+because their accompaniments are apt not to be as sensitive of
+temperament as they are; and it is a fact that the grace and beauty of
+Schubert's "Hark, Hark, the Lark" never have been so fully revealed to
+me by a singer as by Paderewski's playing of Liszt's arrangement of
+the song, because the pianist is able to shade the accompaniment to
+the most delicate nuances of the melody. How delightful, too, it is to
+go through the pianoforte score of a Wagner music-drama and, as you
+play the wonderful music--all placed within the grasp of your ten
+fingers--watch the scenic pictures and the action pass in imagination
+before your eyes in your own music room without the defects
+inseparable from every public performance, because the success of a
+performance depends upon the co-operation of so many who do not
+co-operate. Yes, the pianoforte is the king of instruments because it
+is the most independent of instruments and because it makes him who
+plays upon it independent.
+
+
+Music's Debt to the Pianoforte.
+
+It would be difficult to overestimate the debt that music owes to the
+pianoforte. Including for the present under this one name the various
+keyboard instruments from which it was developed, the sonata form had
+its first tentative beginnings upon it and was wrought out to
+perfection through it by a process of gradual evolution extending from
+Domenico Scarlatti through Bach's son, Philipp Emanuel Bach, to
+Beethoven. As a symphony simply is a sonata for orchestra, it follows
+that through the sonata and thus through the pianoforte the form in
+which the classical composers cast their greatest works was
+established. Richard Strauss, in his revision of Berlioz's book on
+orchestration, even goes so far as to assert that Beethoven, and after
+him Schumann and Brahms, treated the orchestra pianistically; but the
+discussion of this point is better deferred until we take up the
+orchestra and orchestral music.
+
+Here, however, it may be observed that in addition to its constant use
+as an instrument for the concert hall and the home, and for the
+delight of great audiences and the joy of the amateur player and his
+familiar circle, many of the great composers, even when writing
+orchestral works, have used the pianoforte for their first sketches,
+testing their harmonies on it, and often, no doubt, while groping over
+the keys in search of the psychical note, hit upon accidental
+improvements and new harmonies. Even Wagner, who understood the
+orchestra as none other ever has, employed the pianoforte in sketching
+out his ideas. "I went to my Erard and wrote out the passage as
+rapidly as if I had it by heart," he writes from Venice to Mathilde
+Wesendonck, in relating to her the genesis of the great love duet in
+"Tristan und Isolde," and I could quote other passages from my "Wagner
+and his Isolde," which is based on the romantic passages in the lives
+of the composer and the woman who inspired his great music-drama, to
+show the frequency with which he made similar use of the universal
+musical instrument.
+
+The pianoforte has in many other ways been a boon to some of the most
+famous composers. Many of them were pianists, and by public
+performances of their own works materially accelerated the appreciation
+of their music. Mozart was a youthful prodigy, and later a virtuoso
+of the highest rank. Beethoven, before he was overtaken by deafness,
+introduced his own pianoforte compositions to the public and was the
+musical lion of the Viennese drawing-rooms. Mendelssohn was a pianist
+of the same smooth, affable, gentlemanly type as his music. Chopin
+was not a miscellaneous concert player--his nature was too shrinking;
+but at the Salon Pleyel in Paris he gave recitals to the musical élite,
+who in turn conveyed his ideas to the greater public. Schumann began
+his musical career as a virtuoso, but strained the fourth finger of his
+right hand in using a mechanical apparatus which he had devised for
+facilitating the practice of finger exercises. His wife, Clara Wieck,
+however, who was the most famous woman pianist of her time,
+substituted her fingers for his. Liszt literally hewed out the way
+for his works on the keyboard. Brahms was a pianist of solid,
+scholarly attainments. In fact, dig where you will in musical soil,
+you strike the roots of the pianoforte.
+
+
+Its Lowly Origin.
+
+It must not be supposed, however, that the instrument as we know it
+attained to its present supremacy except through a long process of
+evolution. One of the immediate precursors of the modern pianoforte
+was the harpsichord, a name suggesting that the instrument was a harp
+with a keyboard attachment, and such, in a general way, the pianoforte
+is. But the harp is a very fully developed affair compared with the
+mean little apparatus in which lay and was discovered many centuries
+ago the first germ of the king among instruments. This was the
+monochord, and it has required about nine centuries for the evolution
+of an instrument consisting of a single string set in vibration by
+means of a keyboard attachment into the modern pianoforte. But do not
+be alarmed. I am not about to give a nine hundred years' history of
+the pianoforte. Such detailed consideration would belong to a
+technical work on the manufacture of the instrument and would be out
+of place here. Something of its history should, however, be known to
+every one who wants to understand music, but I shall endeavor to be as
+brief and at the same time as clear as possible.
+
+The monochord originally was used much as we use a tuning fork, to
+determine true musical pitch. If you take a short piece of string, tie
+one end of it fast, draw it taut and pluck it, its vibrations will
+sound a note. If you grasp the string and draw it taut from nearer to
+the point where it is tied, you shorten what is called the "node,"
+increase the number of vibrations and produce a higher note. The
+monochord in its simplest form consisted of a string drawn taut over
+an oblong box and tuned to a given pitch by means of a peg. Under the
+string and in contact with it was a bridge or fret that could be moved
+by hand along a graduated scale marked on the bottom of the box. By
+moving the bridge the node of the string could be shortened and the
+notes marked at corresponding points on the graduated scale produced.
+After a while, and in order to facilitate the study of the harmonious
+relationship between different notes, three strings were added, each
+with its bridge and graduated scale.
+
+It was more or less of a nuisance, however, to continually shift
+four bridges to as many different points under the four strings. As
+an improvement upon this awkward arrangement some clever person
+conceived about the beginning of the tenth century, the idea of
+borrowing the keyboard from the organ and attaching it to the
+monochord. To the rear end of each key was attached an upright piece
+called a tangent. When the finger pressed upon a key the tangent
+struck one of the strings, set it in vibration, and at the same time,
+by contact, created a node which lasted as long as the key was kept
+down and the tangent remained pressed against the string. To
+increase the utility of the instrument by adding more strings and
+more keys was the next obvious step, and gradually the monochord
+ceased to be a mere technical apparatus for the determining of pitch
+and became an instrument on which professionals and amateurs could
+play with pleasure to themselves and others.
+
+
+A Poet's Advice to His Musical Daughter.
+
+There has been preserved to us from about the year 1529 a reply made
+by the poet Pietro Bembo to his daughter Elena, who had written to him
+from the convent where she was being educated asking if she could have
+lessons upon the monochord, which seems to have been as popular in its
+day as its fully developed successor, the modern pianoforte, is now.
+
+"Touching thy request for permission to play upon the monochord,"
+begins Bembo's quaint answer, "I reply that because of thy tender
+years thou canst not know that playing is an art for vain and
+frivolous women, whereas I would that thou shouldst be the most chaste
+and modest maiden alive. Besides, if thou wert to play badly it would
+cause thee little pleasure and no little shame. Yet in order to play
+well thou must needs give up from ten to twelve years to the exercise,
+without so much as thinking of aught else. How far this would benefit
+thee thou canst see for thyself without my telling thee. But thy
+schoolmates, if they desire thee to learn to play for their pleasure,
+tell them thou dost not care to have them laugh at thy mortification.
+Therefore, content thyself with the pursuit of the sciences and the
+practice of needlework." These words of the poet Bembo to his daughter
+Elena--are they so wholly lacking in application to our own day? And I
+wonder--did or did not Elena learn to play the monochord? If not, it
+was because she lived a few centuries too soon. She would have had her
+own way to-day!
+
+
+The Clavichord.
+
+Monochord means "one string," and the application of the term to the
+instrument after other strings had been added was a misnomer. The
+monochord on which Elena, to the evident distress of her distinguished
+parent, desired to play, really was a clavichord, which was derived
+directly from the primitive monochord.
+
+If you will raise the lid of your pianoforte you will find that the
+strings become shorter from the bass up, the lowest note being
+sounded by the longest, the highest note by the shortest string; for
+the longer the string the slower the vibrations and the deeper the
+sounds produced, and _vice versa_. This principle is so obvious that
+it seems as if it must have been applied to the clavichord almost
+immediately and a separate string provided for each key. But for many
+years the strings of the clavichord continued all of equal length, and
+three or four neighboring keys struck the same string, so that the
+contact of the upright tangent with the string not only set the latter
+in vibration but also served to form the node which produced the
+desired note. Not until after the clavichord had been in use several
+centuries, were its strings made of varying length and a separate
+string assigned to each key. These new clavichords were called
+_bundfrei_ (fret-free or tangent-free) because the node of each string
+was determined by that string's length and not by the contact of the
+tangent.
+
+The clavichord retained the box shape of its prototype, the monochord.
+Originally it was portable and was set upon a table; later, however,
+was made, so to speak, to stand upon its own legs. In appearance it
+resembled our square pianofortes. It gave forth a sweet, gentle and
+decidedly pretty musical sound. It had a further admirable quality in
+its capacity for sustaining a tone, since by keeping the tangent
+pressed against the string the player was able to sustain the tone so
+long as the string continued to vibrate. Moreover, by holding down the
+key and at the same time making a gentle rocking motion with the
+finger he was able to produce a tremolo effect which German musicians
+called _Bebung_ (trembling), and the French _balancement_.
+
+A defect of the clavichord was, however, its lack of power. This
+defect led to experiments which resulted in the construction of a
+keyboard instrument the strings of which, in response to the action of
+the keys, were set in vibration by jacks tipped with crow-quills or
+hard leather. The sound was much stronger than that of the clavichord.
+But the jacks twanged the strings with uniform power, "permitting a
+sharp outline, but no shading of the tones."
+
+
+The Harpsichord.
+
+If you chance to be listening to a Hungarian band at a restaurant you
+may notice that one of the players has lying on a table before him an
+instrument with many strings strung very much like those of the
+pianoforte. It is played with two little mallets in the player's
+hands, and produces the weird arpeggios and improvised runs
+characteristic of Hungarian gypsy music. It is a very old instrument
+called the cembalo. About the fifteenth century, it seems, some one
+devised a keyboard attachment with quills for this instrument, tipped
+the jacks with crow-quills, and called the result a clavicembalo (a
+cembalo with keys). This was the origin of the harpsichord, the name
+by which the clavicembalo soon became more generally known.
+Harpsichords were shaped somewhat like our grand pianofortes, but were
+much smaller. A spinet was a small harpsichord, and the virginal a
+still smaller one. Sometimes, indeed, virginals were made no larger
+than workboxes, the instrument being taken out of the box and placed
+on a table before the player.
+
+For the purposes of this book this very general survey of the
+precursors of the pianoforte seems sufficient. The clavichord and the
+instruments of the harpsichord (harpsichord, spinet, and virginal)
+class flourished alongside of each other, but the best musicians gave
+the preference to the clavichord because of its sweet tone and the
+delicately tremulous effect that could be produced upon it by the
+_balancement_. Experiments in pianoforte making were in progress
+already in Bach's day, but he clung to the clavichord, as did his son,
+Philipp Emanuel Bach. Mozart was the first of the great masters to
+realize the value of the pianoforte and to aid materially in making it
+popular by using it for his public performances. And yet even then the
+clavichord, "that lonely, melancholy, unspeakably sweet instrument,"
+was not abandoned without lingering regret by the older musicians, and
+it still was to be found in occasional use as late as the beginning of
+the last century. How thoroughly modern the pianoforte is will be
+appreciated when it is said that a celebrated firm of English makers
+founded in 1730 did not begin to manufacture pianofortes until 1780
+and continued the production of clavichords until 1793.
+
+
+Piano and Forte.
+
+Neither on the clavichord nor on the harpsichord could the player vary
+the strength of the tone which he produced, by the degree of force
+with which he struck the keys. Swells and pedals worked by the knees
+and the feet were devised to overcome this difficulty, but "touch"
+as we understand it to-day was impossible with the instruments in
+which the degree of sound to be produced was not under the control of
+the player's fingers. The clavichord was _piano_, the harpsichord
+was _forte_. Not until the invention of the hammer action, the
+substitution of hammers for tangents and quill-jacks, was an
+instrument possible in which whether the tone should be _piano_ or
+_forte_ depended upon the degree of strength with which the player
+struck the keys. This instrument was the first pianoforte. It was
+invented and so named in 1711 by Bartolomeo Cristofori, of Florence,
+and, although nearly two centuries have elapsed since then, the
+action used by many pianoforte manufacturers of to-day is in its
+essentials the same as that devised by this clever Italian. The
+invention frequently is ascribed to Gottfried Silbermann, a German
+(1683-1753). But the real situation is that Cristofori was the
+inventor, while Silbermann was the first successful manufacturer of
+the new instruments, from a business point of view. Time and
+improvements were required before they made their way, and how slow
+many professional musicians were in giving up the beloved clavichord
+for the pianoforte already has been pointed out. But the latter was
+bound to triumph in the end.
+
+I shall not attempt to give a technical description of the mechanism
+of the pianoforte. But I should like to answer a few questions which
+may have suggested themselves to players who may not have cared to
+take their instruments apart and examine them, or have not been
+present when their tuners have taken off the lid and exposed the
+strings and mechanism to view. The strings of the pianoforte are of
+steel wire, and their tension varies from twelve tons to nearly
+twenty. Those of the deepest bass are covered with copper wire. Eight
+or ten tones of the bass are produced by the vibration of these
+copper-wound strings. Above these, for about an octave and a half, the
+strings are in pairs, so that, the hammer striking them, there are two
+unison strings to a tone, simultaneously, and producing approximately
+twice as powerful a tone as if only one string had been set in
+vibration. The five remaining octaves have three strings to a tone.
+
+
+All Depends on the Player.
+
+When the fingers strike the keys the hammers strike the strings, the
+force of the stroke depending upon the force exerted by the player,
+this being the distinguishing merit of the pianoforte as compared with
+its precursors. Under the strings are a row of dampers, and as soon as
+a finger releases a key the corresponding damper springs into place
+against the vibrating strings, stops the vibrations, and the tone
+ceases. Thus the tone can be dampened immediately by raising the
+finger or prolonged by keeping the finger pressed down on the key.
+This is the device which enables the pianist to play _staccato_ or
+_legato_. The damper pedal, or loud pedal, checks the action of all
+the dampers and prolongs the tones even after the fingers have
+released the keys. The soft pedal brings the hammers nearer the
+strings, shortens the stroke and produces a softer tone. The
+simultaneous use of both pedals is a modern virtuoso effect and a
+very charming one, for the damper pedal prolongs the gentle tones
+produced by the use of the soft pedal. I believe Paderewski was the
+first of the great pianists who have visited this country, to employ
+this effect systematically, and that he was among the first composers
+to formally indicate the simultaneous employment of both pedals in
+passages in his compositions. There is a third pedal called the
+sustaining pedal, but I do not think it has proved as valuable an
+invention as was anticipated.
+
+Within recent years there have been introduced mechanical pianofortes,
+which I may designate as pianolas, after the most popular instrument
+of their class. In my opinion, these instruments are destined to play
+an important part in the diffusion of musical knowledge, and it is
+senseless to underestimate this. There are thousands of people who
+have neither the time nor the dexterity to master the technique of the
+pianoforte, who nevertheless are people of genuine musical feeling,
+and who are enabled through the pianola to cultivate their taste for
+music. The device renders the music accurately; whether expressively
+or not depends, as with the pianoforte itself, upon the taste of the
+person who manipulates it.
+
+
+Decorations That Do Not Beautify.
+
+The pianoforte often is spoken of as an instrument of ugly appearance.
+This it emphatically is not. If the straight side of the grand is
+placed against the wall the side toward the room presents a graceful,
+sweeping curve, while the upright effectively breaks the straight
+line of the wall against which it stands. If the pianoforte is ugly,
+it is due to the so-called "ornaments" that are placed upon it--the
+knicknacks, framed pictures and other senseless things. To my mind,
+there is but one thing which it is permissible to place upon a
+pianoforte, a slender vase with a single flower, preferably a
+rose--the living symbol of the soul that waits to be awakened within
+the instrument.
+
+Sheet music or bound books of music on top of a pianoforte are an
+abomination. If scattered about they look disorderly; if neatly
+arranged in portfolios, even worse, for they create the precise,
+orderly appearance of paths and mounds in a cemetery. Often, indeed,
+the pianoforte is a graveyard of musical hopes. Because of that,
+however, it need not be made to look like one.
+
+Equally objectionable is the elaborately decorated or "period"
+pianoforte designed for rooms decorated in the style of some
+historical art period. A pianoforte has no business in a "period"
+room. If the person is rich enough to afford "period" rooms, he also
+can afford a music room, and the simpler this is, within the bounds of
+good taste, and the less there is in it besides the instrument itself,
+the better. The more proficient the pianist the less he cares for
+decoration and the more satisfied he is with the pianoforte turned out
+in the ordinary course of business by the high-class manufacturer.
+No--decorated pianofortes are for those who are too rich to be
+musical.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+BACH'S SERVICE TO MUSIC
+
+
+So important has been the rôle played by the pianoforte in the
+evolution of music that it is possible in these chapters on a
+pianoforte recital to give a general survey of the art, and thus
+prepare the reader to enjoy not only what he will hear at such a
+recital, but enable him to approach it with a more comprehensive
+knowledge than that would imply. This is one reason why I elected to
+lead with the chapters on the pianoforte instead of with those on the
+orchestra, as usually is done, because the orchestra is something
+"big." In point of fact, however, the pianoforte, so far as its
+influence is concerned, is quite as "big," if not, indeed, bigger than
+the orchestra; for often, in the evolution of music (as I pointed out
+in the previous chapter), this instrument, which is so sufficient in
+itself, has led the orchestra. In reviewing a pianoforte recital it
+therefore is quite possible to review many phases of musical history.
+
+Take as an example a composition by Bach, one of the preludes and
+fugues from "The Well-Tempered Clavichord," with which a pianoforte
+recital is quite apt to open. The selection illustrates a whole epoch
+in music which Bach rounded off and brought alike to its climax and
+its close. You will be apt to find this fugue rather complicated and,
+I fear, somewhat unintelligible, and this makes it necessary for me to
+point out at once that in some respects music has had a curious
+development. A Wagner music-drama, a Richard Strauss tone poem, seem
+elaborate and complicated affairs compared with a Beethoven sonata or
+symphony. Yet even the most advanced work of a Wagner or Strauss is
+neither as complicated nor as elaborate as a fugue by that past master
+of his art, Johann Sebastian Bach, who, although he was born in 1685
+and did not live beyond the middle of the following century, was so
+far ahead of his age that not even to this day has he fully come into
+his own. The result is that the early classicists, Haydn and Mozart,
+who belong in point of time to a later epoch, may more readily be
+reckoned as "old-fashioned" than Father Bach. When at a recital you
+listen to a fugue by Bach and find it hard and labored--many people
+regard it simply as a difficult species of finger exercises--you think
+that is because it is so very ancient, something in the same class
+with Greek or Sanscrit. In point of fact it is because in some
+respects it is so very modern.
+
+Were it not for the importance of preserving an orderly historical
+sequence in a book of this kind, and that Bach usually is found at the
+beginning of a recital program, it would be almost more practical, and
+certainly far easier, for the author to leave Bach until later. When
+you write of Mozart, or of Beethoven and the moderns, you can depend
+upon more or less familiarity with their works on the part of your
+readers, whereas, comparatively few laymen know much about Bach. They
+associate the name with all that is formal and labored. Yet among my
+acquaintances is a young woman who was brought up in a very musical
+family, and who, having as a child heard her mother play the preludes
+and fugues of the "Well-Tempered Clavichord," finds Bach as simple as
+the alphabet. But hers is a most exceptional case. The appreciation of
+Bach, as a rule, comes only with advanced age. My music teacher used
+to say to me: "You rave over Schubert and Wagner now, but when you get
+to be as old as I am you will go back to Father Bach." While I cannot
+say that his prophecy has come true, while I still am ultra-modern in
+my musical predilections, my musical gods being Schubert, Chopin,
+Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Richard Strauss and, above all, Wagner, I
+should consider myself unfit to write this book if I failed to realize
+the debt modern music owes to Bach, and that the more modern the music
+the greater the debt.
+
+
+Bach in Modern Music.
+
+One of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of the art--and a
+generalization like this is as much in place in discussing pianoforte
+music as elsewhere, because the instrument has had so much to do with
+the evolution of music--is the gap between Bach and modern music.
+While the following must not be taken too literally, it is true in
+general that Bach had little or no influence on the age that
+immediately came after him, the classical age of music, that age which
+we sum up in the names of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, the age of the
+sonata and the symphony. The three masters mentioned probably would
+have developed and composed much as they did had Bach never lived.
+But when a more modern composer, a romanticist like Wagner, wanted to
+enrich the means of musical expression handed down to him from the
+classical period, he reached back to Bach and combined Bach's teeming
+counterpoint with the harmonic system which had been inherited from
+Beethoven. To understand just what this means, to appreciate the
+influence Bach has had upon modern music and why he had little or none
+on the classical composers, it is necessary for the reader to have at
+least a reasonably clear conception of what that counterpoint is and
+wherein it differs from harmony; for with Bach counterpoint reached
+its climax, and all the possibilities of the style having been
+exhausted by him, music of necessity took a turn in another direction
+under the classicists and developed harmonically instead of
+contrapuntally; so that it can be said that modern music derives its
+counterpoint from Bach, its harmony from Beethoven, and its
+combination of the two systems from Wagner.
+
+There is another reason why the meaning of counterpoint should be
+explained and the difference between counterpoint and harmony be made
+clear to the reader now. Nearly all the early music, the music that
+preceded Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and that sometimes is to be
+found on recital programs, is contrapuntal--written in counterpoint.
+As I have said before, it would be much easier to start with the
+sonata form, with harmony instead of counterpoint, for of the two
+harmony is the simpler. But we must "face the music"--the music of the
+old contrapuntal composers--and the best way to do this is to explain
+what harmony and counterpoint are and wherein they differ.
+
+
+Harmony and Counterpoint.
+
+A melody or theme is a rational progression of single tones. Here is
+the melody or theme with which Beethoven begins the familiar
+"Moonlight Sonata":
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+It is a melody, but it does not constitute harmony, for harmony is the
+rational combination of several tones, as distinguished from the
+rational progression of single tones which constitute melody. But when
+Beethoven adds an accompaniment to his theme and it becomes:
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+the passage also becomes harmony, since it is an example of the
+rational combination of several tones. As has often been pointed out
+in books on music, and probably often will have to be pointed out
+again, because as a mistake it is to be classed with the hardy
+perennials, melody is not harmony, but only a part of it. When,
+however, a composer conceives a theme or melody he usually does so
+with the purpose of combining it with an accompaniment that shall
+support it and throw it into bold and striking relief. Composers of
+the contrapuntal school, on the other hand, conceived a theme, not for
+the purpose of supporting it with an accompaniment, but in order to
+combine it with another or with several other equally important
+themes. That, in a general way, is the difference between harmony and
+counterpoint.
+
+In harmony, then, or, more strictly speaking, in music composed
+according to the harmonic system, of which the "Moonlight Sonata"
+is a good example, the theme, the melody, stands out from the
+accompaniment, which is subordinate. Counterpoint, on the other hand,
+rests on the combination of several themes, each of equal importance.
+This is the reason why, when there is a fugue or other complicated
+contrapuntal work on the program of a pianoforte recital, the
+average listener is apt to find it dry and uninteresting. His ear
+readily can distinguish the themes of a sonata, which usually are
+heard one at a time and stand out clearly from the accompaniment,
+but it has not been trained to unravel the themes of the fugue as
+they travel along together. Counterpoint, the term being derived
+from the Latin _contra punctum_, which means point against point
+or note against note, when complicated, as in a fugue, is about the
+most elaborate kind of music there is, and a person who is unable to
+grasp a fugue may console himself with the thought that, excepting
+for the elect, it is a pretty stiff dose to swallow at the very
+beginning of a recital.
+
+There are, however, simpler pieces of counterpoint than a fugue.
+Sometimes, as in the charming little "Gavotte" by Padre Martini, which
+now and then figures among the lighter numbers on the programs of
+historical recitals, the contrapuntist combines a theme with itself,
+or, rather, "imitates" it, which is a simple form of the canon.
+Another form of canon is the round of which "Three Blind Mice" is a
+familiar example. How many people, when singing this, have realized
+that they were being initiated into that mysterious thing known as
+counterpoint? A comparatively simple form of counterpoint is well
+illustrated by a dapper little piece in Bach's "Two-Part Inventions,"
+in which the spirited theme given out by the right hand answers itself
+a bar later in the left, an "imitation" which crops out again and
+again in the piece and gives it somewhat the character of a canon.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+For any one who wishes to become acquainted with Bach there is
+nothing better than these "Two-Part Inventions," especially the
+fascinating little piece from which I have just quoted, compact,
+buoyant and gay, even "pert," as I once heard a young girl characterize
+it; a perfect example of old Father Bach in moments of relaxation when
+he has laid aside his periwig and is amusing himself at his clavichord.
+
+
+What a Fugue Is.
+
+Bach's fugues, and especially his "Well-Tempered Clavichord,"
+forty-eight preludes and fugues in all the keys, form the climax of
+contrapuntal music. Goethe once said that "the history of the world is
+a mighty fugue in which the voice of nation after nation becomes
+audible." This is a freely poetic definition of that highly
+complicated musical form, the fugue. Let me attempt to illustrate it
+in a different way.
+
+Imagine that a composer who is an adept in counterpoint places four
+pianists at different pianofortes, and that he gives a different theme
+to each of them, or a theme to one and modified versions of it to the
+others. He starts the first pianist, after a few bars nods to the
+second to join in with his theme, and so on successively with the
+other two. It might be supposed that when the second player joins in,
+the two themes sounding together would make discord, which would be
+aggravated by the addition of the third and fourth. But, instead, they
+have been so conceived by the contrapuntist that they sound well
+together as they chase and answer each other, or run counter to and
+parallel and enter into many different combinations, sometimes flowing
+along smoothly, at other times surging and striving, yet always, in
+the case of a truly great fugue, borne along by a momentum as
+inexorable as the march of Fate. Of course, it must not be supposed,
+because I have called four pianists into action in order to emphasize
+how distinct are these themes, which yet, when united, are found to
+blend together, that several players are required for the performance
+of a complicated piece of counterpoint like a fugue. What is demanded
+of the player is entire independence of the fingers, so that he can
+clearly differentiate between the themes and enable the hearer to
+distinguish them apart, even in their most complicated combinations.
+An edition of Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavichord" by Bernardus Boekelman
+prints the themes in different colors, so that they are easy to trace
+through all their interweaving, and is interesting to study from.
+
+
+The Fugue and the Virtuoso.
+
+In his book, "Beethoven and His Forerunners," Daniel Gregory Mason
+devotes a paragraph toward dispelling the mystery regarding the fugue
+that prevails with the public, and points out that "the actual formal
+rules, despite the awe they have immemorially aroused in the popular
+mind, are few and simple. After the first announcement of the subject
+by a single voice, it is answered by a second voice, at an interval of
+a fifth above; then again stated by a third voice, and answered by a
+fourth. This process goes on until each voice has had a chance to
+enunciate the motif, after which the conversation goes on more freely;
+the subject is announced in divers keys, by divers voices; episodes,
+in a congruous style, vary the monotony; at last the subject is
+emphatically asserted by the various voices in quick succession
+(_stretto_), and with some little display or grandiloquence the piece
+comes to an end."
+
+Further along in the same book Mr. Mason has a page of apostrophe to
+the Bach fugues. When he characterizes them as "the first great
+independent monuments of pure music," and refers to their "consummate
+beauty of structure," he pays them an eminently just tribute. But
+when he speaks of the "profundity, poignancy and variety of feeling
+they express," I am inclined to quote his own qualifying sentence
+from the next page of his book: "It is true, nevertheless, not only
+that the fugue form makes the severest demands on the attention and
+intelligence of the listener, but also that, because of the
+ecclesiastical origin and polyphonic style, it is incapable of the
+kind of highly personal, secular expression that it was in the spirit
+of the seventeenth century to demand." The same is even more true
+of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The progress
+of music toward individual freedom of expression on the part of the
+composer, and equally so on the part of the interpreter, has been
+steady, and when, through the very perfection which Bach imparted
+to counterpoint, it ceased to attract composers as a means of
+expression because he had accomplished so much there was nothing
+more left for them to do along the same lines, the progress I have
+indicated received a great lift and stimulus.
+
+
+What Counterpoint Lacks.
+
+The lack of highly personal expression in contrapuntal compositions
+explains why most concert-goers find them less attractive than modern
+music. The "D Minor Toccata and Fugue" or the "Chromatic Fantasie and
+Fugue" by Bach, even in the arrangements of Tausig and Liszt, on the
+program of a pianoforte recital, are tolerated because of the modern
+pieces that come later. Nine out of ten persons in the house would
+rather omit them. Why deny so obvious a fact, especially when it is
+easy enough to explain? To follow a contrapuntal composition
+intelligently requires a highly trained ear. Moreover, in such a work
+as a Bach fugue the individuality of the player is of less importance
+than in modern music. Yet a virtuoso's individuality is the very thing
+that distinguishes him from other virtuosos and attracts the public to
+his concerts, while those of other players may be poorly attended. I
+firmly believe in personality of the virtuoso or singer or orchestral
+conductor, for in it lies the secret of individual interpretation, the
+reason why the performance of one person is fascinating or thrilling
+and that of another not. Modern music affords the player full scope to
+interpret it according to his own mood and fancy, to color it with his
+own personality, whereas contrapuntal music exists largely for itself
+alone. It is music for music's sake, not for the sake of interpreting
+some mood, some feeling, or of painting in tone colors something quite
+outside of music. The player of counterpoint is restricted in his
+power of expression by the very formulas of the science or art of the
+contrapuntist. We may marvel that Bach was able to move so freely
+within its restricted forms. But I think it true that it is far more
+interesting for a person even of only moderate proficiency as a player
+to work out, however awkwardly, a Bach fugue for himself on the
+pianoforte than to hear it played by some one else, however great;
+for, cheap and easy as it is to protest in high-sounding phrases about
+the duty of the interpreter to subordinate himself to the composer,
+and against what I am about to say, I nevertheless make bold to affirm
+that it is the province of the virtuoso to express himself, his own
+personality, his moods, his temperament, his subjective or even his
+subconscious self, through music; and in music that is purely
+contrapuntal there is a barrier to this individual power of
+expression.
+
+
+The Mission of the Player.
+
+We often hear it said of the greatest contemporary pianist that he is
+a great Chopin player, but not a great Bach player. He could not be,
+and at the same time be the greatest living virtuoso. It is the
+worshiper of tradition, the reserved, continent, scholarly player, the
+player who converts a Chopin nocturne into an icicle and a Schubert
+impromptu into a snowball, who revels in counterpoint--the player who
+always is slavishly subordinating himself to what he is pleased to
+call the "composer's intentions" and forgets that the truly great
+virtuoso creates when he interprets. Some times the virtuoso may go
+too far and depart too much from the character of the piece he is
+playing, subjecting it more than is permissible to his temporary mood;
+but it is better for art to err on the side of originality, provided
+it is not bizarre or freakish, than on the side of subserviency to
+tradition.
+
+While I have no desire, in writing as above, to exalt unduly the
+virtuoso, the interpreter of music, at the expense of the composer, I
+must insist that the great player also is creative, in the sense that
+every time he plays a work he creates it over again from his own point
+of view, and thus has at least a share in its parentage. Indeed, it
+seems more difficult to attain exalted rank as a virtuoso than to gain
+immortality as a composer. The world has produced two epoch-making
+virtuosos--Paganini on the violin, Liszt on the piano. Within about
+the same period covered by the careers of these two there have been
+half a dozen or even more composers, each of whom marks an epoch in
+some phase of the art. "The interpretive artist," says Henry G.
+Hanchett in his "Art of the Musician," "deserves a place no whit
+beneath that of the composer. No two composers have influenced musical
+progress in America more strongly than have Anton Rubinstein by his
+_playing_, and Theodore Thomas, who was not a composer."
+
+
+Music as a Science.
+
+But, to return to Bach and the other contrapuntists, music owes them
+an immense debt on the technical side. And right here, so universal
+are the deductions that can be drawn from the program of a pianoforte
+recital, it should be pointed out that music differs from other arts
+in having for its basis a profound and complicated science, a science
+that concerns itself with the relations of the notes of the musical
+scale to each other. Upon this science are based alike the "coon song"
+and the Wagner music-drama. What is true of "Tristan" is true also of
+"Bedelia." Each makes its draft upon the science of music; the
+music-drama, of course, in a far greater degree than the song. This
+science has its textbooks with their theorems and problems, like any
+other science, and theoretical musicians have produced learned and
+useful works on the subject which the great mass of laymen, many
+virtuosos, and indeed the average professional musician, may never
+have heard of, let alone have read. For a person not intuitively
+predisposed toward the subject would find the science of music as
+difficult to master as integral calculus; nor, in order to appreciate
+music, or even to interpret it, is it necessary to be versed in this
+science. A virtuoso can play a chord of the ninth, the listener can be
+thrilled by the virtuoso's playing of the chord of the ninth, without
+either of them knowing that there is such a thing as the chord of the
+ninth.
+
+
+Science versus Feeling.
+
+In fact, the person who is so well versed in the science of music that
+he can mentally analyze a composition while listening to it is apt to
+be so absorbed in the mere process of technical analysis that he
+misses its esthetic, its emotional significance. Thus a person may be
+very musical without being musical at all. He may have profound
+knowledge of music as a science and remain untouched by music as an
+art, just as a physicist may be an authority on the laws of light and
+color, yet stand unmoved before a great painting. With some people
+music is all science, with others all art, and I think the latter have
+the better of it. A musical genius is equipped both ways. The great
+composer employs the science of music as an aid in giving expression
+to his creative impulse. He makes science of service to the cause of
+art. Otherwise, while he might produce something that was absolutely
+correct, it would make no artistic appeal whatsoever. Thousands of
+symphonies have been composed, performed and forgotten. They were
+"well made," constructed with scientific accuracy from beginning to
+end, but had no value as art; and music is a profound science applied
+to the production of a great art.
+
+The composer, then, masters the science of music and bends it to his
+genius. If he is a great genius, he soon will discover that certain
+rules which his predecessors regarded as hard and fast, as inviolable,
+can be violated with impunity. He will discover new tone combinations,
+and thus enrich the science and make it serve the purposes of the art
+with greater efficiency than before he came upon the scene. And always
+the composers who have grown gray under the old system, the system
+upon which the new genius is grafting his new ideas, and the theorists
+and critics, who are slaves of tradition, will throw up their hands in
+horror and cry out that he is despoiling the art and robbing it of all
+that is sacred and beautiful, whereas he is adding to its scope and
+potency. Did not even so broad-minded a composer as Schumann say, "The
+trouble with Wagner is that he is not a musician"? So far was Wagner
+ahead of his time! While the great composer nearly always begins where
+his predecessors left off, he is sure to outstrip them later on. Even
+so rugged a genius as Beethoven is somewhat under Mozart's influence
+in his first works, and Wagner's "Rienzi" is distinctly Meyerbeerian.
+But genius soon learns to soar with its own wings and to look down
+with indifference upon the little men who are discharging their shafts
+of envy, malice and ignorance.
+
+
+That "Ear for Music."
+
+And while I am on the subject of the scientific musician _versus_ the
+music lover, the pedant _versus_ the innovator, I might as well refer
+to those people who have in a remarkable degree what is popularly
+known as "an ear for music," and who are able to remember and to play
+"by ear" anything they hear played or sung, even if it is for the
+first time. This ear for music, again, is something quite different
+from scientific knowledge of music or from the emotional sensitiveness
+which makes the music-lover. It is a purely physical endowment, and
+may--in fact, usually does--exist without a corresponding degree of
+real feeling for music. It is, of course, a highly valuable adjunct to
+a genuine musical genius like a Mozart or a Schubert and to a genuine
+virtuoso. It is related of Von Bülow that his ear for music and his
+memory were so prodigious that once, while traveling in the cars, he
+read over the printed pages of a new composition, and on arriving at
+his destination, played it, from memory, at his concert. William
+Mason, who studied with Liszt, witnessed his master perform a similar
+feat. The average untrained person with a musical ear, however,
+instead of being a genius, is apt to become a nuisance, playing all
+kinds of cheap music in and out of season--a sort of peripatetic
+pianola, without the advantage of being under control. Such persons,
+moreover, usually are born without a soft pedal.
+
+
+Bach and the Weather Bureau.
+
+This digression, which I have made in order to discuss the difference
+between music as a science and music as an art, a distinction which, I
+have pointed out, often is so marked that a person may be thoroughly
+equipped on the scientific side of music without being sensitive to
+its beauty as an art, seemed to me necessary at this stage. I am
+reminded by it of the distinction which Edmund Clarence Stedman, in
+his "Nature and Elements of Poetry," so wittily draws between the
+indications of a storm as described by a poet and by the official
+prognostications of the Weather Bureau. Mr. Stedman quotes two
+stanzas:
+
+    "When descends on the Atlantic the gigantic
+      Storm-wind of the Equinox,
+    Landward in his wrath he scourges the toiling surges,
+      Laden with seaweed from the rocks."
+
+And this stanza by a later balladist:
+
+    "The East Wind gathered, all unknown,
+      A thick sea-cloud his course before;
+    He left by night the frozen zone,
+      And smote the cliffs of Labrador;
+    He lashed the coasts on either hand,
+    And betwixt the Cape and Newfoundland,
+      Into the bay his armies pour."
+
+All this impersonation and fancy is translated by the Weather Bureau
+into something like the following:
+
+  "An area of extreme low pressure is rapidly moving up the Atlantic
+  Coast, with wind and rain. Storm-center now off Charleston, S. C.
+  Wind N. E.; velocity, 54. Barometer, 29.6. The disturbance will
+  reach New York on Wednesday, and proceed eastward to the Banks and
+  Bay of St. Lawrence. Danger signals ordered for all North Atlantic
+  ports."
+
+Far be it from me to imply that contrapuntal music in general or Bach
+in particular represents the Weather Bureau. None the less is it true
+that Bach appeals more strongly to the scientific musician than to the
+music-lover who seeks in music a secondary meaning--love, passion,
+grief; the mood awakened by the contemplation of a forest landscape
+with its murmuring foliage, a boundless prairie, or the unquiet sea.
+
+The technical indebtedness of modern music to Bach is so immense, and
+the artistic probity of the man himself was so wonderful, for he worked
+calmly on, in spite of what was worse than opposition--neglect--that
+I think the tendency on the part of Bach enthusiasts, while not
+overrating the importance of the influence he has had during the
+past fifty years or more, is to underrate others as compared with
+him. When critics declare that one virtuoso or another is not a great
+Bach player, are they not ignoring what is a simple fact--that no
+player can make the same appeal through Bach that it is possible for
+him to make through modern music, and that, as a rule, when a virtuoso,
+however good a musician he may be, places Bach on his program, he does
+so not from predilection, but as a tribute to one of the greatest
+names in musical history? It seems to me that the extreme Bach
+enthusiasts can be divided into two classes--musicians who are able
+to appreciate what he did for music on its technical side, and people
+who want to create the impression that they know more than they really
+do.
+
+
+The Bacon, Not the Shakespeare, of Music.
+
+Bach's greatest importance to music lies in his having treated it in
+the abstract and for itself alone, so that when he penned a work he
+did this not to bring home to the listener the significance of a
+certain mood or situation, but from pure delight in following out a
+musical problem to its most extreme development. Algebra makes mighty
+interesting study, but furnishes rather a poor subject for dramatic
+reading. This simile must, of course, be taken with a grain of salt,
+and merely as illustrating in a general way my contention that Bach's
+great service to music was technical and intellectual. He was the
+Bacon, not the Shakespeare, of music, and the contrapuntal structure
+that he reared is to the art what the Baconian theorem is to logic. We
+can imagine the roamer in the field of higher mathematics suddenly
+becoming excited as he sees the end of the path leading to the
+solution of some complicated problem in full view. Thus there may be
+moments when even the cube root becomes emotional, the logarithmic
+theory a dissipation, and differential calculus an orgy. So, too, Bach
+put an enthusiasm into his work that often threatens to sweep the
+student off his intellectuals and make him regard a fugue as a
+scientifically constructed fairyland. Moreover, there are Bach pieces
+in which the counterpoint supports the purest kind of melody, like the
+air for the G string which Thomas arranged for his orchestra with all
+the strings, save the double basses, in unison, and played with an
+effect that never failed to secure a repeat and sometimes a double
+encore.
+
+
+What Wagner Learned from Bach.
+
+If we bear in mind that counterpoint is the artistic combination of
+several themes, each of equal or nearly equal importance, and that
+Bach was the greatest master of the contrapuntal school and forms its
+climax, we can, with a little thought, appreciate what his service has
+been to modern music. When Wagner devised his system of leading
+motives it was not for the purpose of employing them singly, like
+labels tacked onto each character, thing or symbol in the drama, but
+of combining them, welding them together, when occasion arose, in
+order to give musical significance and expression to each and every
+dramatic situation as the story unfolded itself. A shining example of
+this is found in that wonderful last scene of "Die Walküre," the
+so-called Magic Fire Scene. _Wotan_ has said farewell to _Brünnhilde_;
+has thrown her into a profound slumber upon the rock; has surrounded
+her with a circle of magic flame which none but a hero may penetrate
+to awaken and win her. How is this scene treated in the score? In the
+higher register of the orchestra crackles and sparkles the Magic Fire
+Motive, the Slumber Motive gently rising and falling with the flames;
+while the superb Siegfried Motive (signifying that the yet unborn
+_Siegfried_ is the hero destined to break through the fiery circle)
+resounds in the brass, and there also is a suggestion of the tender
+strains with which _Wotan_ bade _Brünnhilde_ farewell. The welding
+together of these four motives into one glorious whole of the highest
+dramatic significance is Wagnerian counterpoint--science employed in
+the service of art and with thrilling effect. Another passage from
+Wagner, the closing episode in the "Meistersinger" Vorspiel, often is
+quoted to show Wagner's skill in the use of counterpoint, although he
+employs it so spontaneously that few people stop to consider how
+scientific his musical structure is. W. J. Henderson, in his capital
+book, "The Orchestra and Orchestral Music," relates that on one
+occasion a professional musician was engaged in a discussion of Wagner
+in the corridor of the Metropolitan Opera House, while inside the
+orchestra was playing this "Meistersinger" Vorspiel.
+
+"It is a pity," said this wise man, in a condescending manner, "but
+Wagner knows absolutely nothing about counterpoint."
+
+At that very instant the orchestra was singing five different melodies
+at once; and, as Anton Seidl was the conductor, they were all
+audible.
+
+Wagner scores, in fact, teem with counterpoint, but counterpoint that
+palpitates, that thrills with emotion. Note that Mr. Henderson speaks
+of melodies. Wagner's leading motives are melodies, sometimes very
+brief, but always expressive, and not, like the themes of the old
+contrapuntists, conceived mainly for the sake of being combined
+scientifically with other themes equally adaptable to that purpose.
+Counterpoint may be, and usually is, something very dry and formal.
+But from the crucible of the master magician, Richard Wagner, it flows
+a glowing, throbbing, pulsating stream of most precious metal.
+
+
+The Language of an Epoch.
+
+In the difference between the counterpoint of Bach and the counterpoint
+of Wagner lies the difference between two epochs separated by a long
+period of time. With Bach counterpoint was everything; with Wagner
+merely an incident. It will help us to a better understanding of
+music if we bear in mind that the two great composers of each epoch
+spoke in the music of that epoch. Thus Bach spoke in the language of
+counterpoint. His themes, however greatly they may vary among
+themselves, all bear the stamp of motives devised for the purpose of
+entering into formal combinations and of being developed according to
+the stringent rules of counterpoint. Beethoven's are more individual,
+more expressive of moods and emotions. Yet about them, too, there is
+something formal. They, too, are devised to be treated according to
+certain rules--to be molded into sonatas. But with Wagner we feel that
+music has thrown off the shackles of arbitrary form, of dry rule and
+rote. His motives suggest absolute freedom of expression and
+development, through previously undreamed-of wealth of harmony and
+contrapuntal combinations which are mere incidents, not the chief
+purpose of their being. Each represents some person, impulse or symbol
+in a drama; represents them with such eloquence and power that, once
+we know for what they stand, we need but hear them again or recall them
+to memory to have the corresponding episode in the music-drama in which
+they occur brought vividly before our eyes. Bach's language was the
+language of the fugue; Beethoven's the language of the sonata. Fugue and
+sonata are musical forms. Wagner spoke the language of no form. His
+language is that of the free, plastic, unfettered leading motive--the
+language of liberated music, of which he himself was the liberator!
+
+Whether Wagner would have devised his system of leading motives
+without the wonderful structure of counterpoint left by Bach; whether
+Bach's counterpoint, his combination of themes, suggested the system
+of leading motives to the greatest master of them all, we probably
+never shall know. The system, in its completeness, doubtless is
+Wagner's own; but when he came to put it into practical effect he
+found the rich heritage left by Bach ready to hand. One of Wagner's
+instructors in musical theory, and the one from whose teaching he
+himself declares he learned most, was Theodor Weinlig, one of Bach's
+successors as Cantor of the Thomasschule at Leipsic. Wagner quotes him
+as having said: "You may never find it necessary to compose a fugue,
+but the ability to do it often may stand you in good stead." And the
+Cantor set him exercises in all varieties of counterpoint. There thus
+is presented the phenomenon of a composer who for nearly a century
+after his death had little or no influence on the course of music,
+suddenly becoming a potent force in its most modern development.
+
+
+Bach in the Recital Hall.
+
+Bach is so supreme in his own line that contrapuntal music, so far as
+the pianoforte is concerned, may be dismissed with him. Händel, too,
+it is true, was a master of the contrapuntal school, but he belongs to
+the chapter on oratorio. Bach's pianoforte works in smaller form are
+the "Two-Part Inventions" already mentioned; the "Three-Part
+Inventions," which go a step farther in contrapuntal treatment, and
+the "Partitas," the six "French Suites" and the six "English Suites."
+
+These partitas and suites are the most graceful and charming
+efflorescence of the contrapuntal school, and much could be
+accomplished toward making Bach a popular composer if they figured
+more frequently on recital programs. They are made up of the dance
+forms of the day--allemandes, courants, bourrées, sarabandes, minuets,
+gavottes, gigues, with airs thrown in for good measure; the partitas
+and English suites furnished with more elaborate introductions, while
+the French suites begin with allemandes. Cheerful and even frisky as
+some of the dance pieces in these compositions are, it must not be
+supposed that they were intended to be danced to when contrapuntally
+treated--no more than Chopin intended that people should glide through
+a ballroom to the music of his waltzes.
+
+Besides "sonatas" for pianoforte with one or more other instruments,
+among them the six "Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violin" (the term
+sonata as employed here must not be confused with the classical sonata
+form as developed by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven), Bach composed
+concertos for from one to four pianofortes. Of these latter the one
+best known in this country is the so-called "Triple Concerto," for
+three pianofortes with accompaniment of string quartet, which can at
+will be increased to a string orchestra. In 1873, during Rubinstein's
+tour, I heard it played in New York, under Theodore Thomas's
+direction, by Rubinstein, William Mason and Sebastian Bach Mills, and
+three years later by Mme. Annette Essipoff, Mr. Mason and Mr.
+Boscovitz. Mason, when he was studying under Liszt in Weimar in 1854,
+had performed it with two fellow-pupils, and Liszt had been very
+particular in regard to the manner in which they played the many
+embellishments (_agréments_) which were used in Bach's time. Later,
+Mason found that whenever three pianists came together for the purpose
+of playing this concerto they were certain to disagree regarding "the
+agreements," and usually wasted much time in discussing them,
+especially the mordent.
+
+
+Rubinstein and the "Triple Concerto."
+
+Accordingly, when Mason played the "Triple Concerto" with Rubinstein
+and Mills, he came to the rehearsal armed with a book by Friedrich
+Wilhelm Marburg, published in Berlin in 1765, and giving written
+examples of all the _agréments_. "I told Rubinstein about my ancient
+authority," says Mr. Mason in his entertaining "Memories of a Musical
+Life," "adding that we should be spared the tediousness of a
+discussion as to the manner of playing.
+
+"'Let me see the old book,' said Rubinstein. Running over the leaves
+he came to the illustrations of the mordent. The moment his eyes fell
+upon them he exclaimed: 'All wrong; here is the way I play it!'" And
+that ended the usefulness of "the old book" for that particular
+occasion, the other two pianists adopting, without comment,
+Rubinstein's method, which Mr. Mason intimates was incorrect.
+
+When, at the rehearsal with Essipoff, the mordent came up for
+discussion she exclaimed: "'I cannot play these things; show me how
+they are done.' After repeated trials, however," records Mr. Mason,
+"she failed to get the knack of playing them, as indeed so many
+pianists do; so at the rehearsal she omitted them and left their
+performance to Boscovitz and me."
+
+
+"The Well-Tempered Clavichord."
+
+Bach's monumental work for pianoforte, however, is "The Well-Tempered
+Clavichord," consisting of forty-eight preludes and fugues in all
+keys. I find much prevalent ignorance among amateurs regarding the
+meaning of "well-tempered" as used in this title. I have heard people
+explain it by saying that when a pianist had mastered the book he was
+"tempered" like steel and ready for any difficulties that other music
+might present! I even have heard a rotund and affable person say that
+"The Well-Tempered Clavichord" was so entitled because when you
+listened to its preludes and fugues it smoothed out your temper and
+made you feel good-natured! In point of fact, the word is difficult to
+explain in untechnical language. It relates, however, to Bach's method
+of tuning his clavichord--another boon which he conferred upon music.
+In general, the system may be explained by the statement that certain
+tone intervals, which theoretically are pure, practically result in
+harmonic discrepancies, which Bach's "tempered" system corrected. In
+other words, slight and practically imperceptible inaccuracies are
+introduced in the tuning in order to counterbalance the greater faults
+which result when tuning is absolutely correct from a theoretical
+point of view; just as, in navigating the high northern waters, you
+are obliged to make allowance for variations of the compass. The
+system was not actually the invention of Bach, but he did so much to
+promote its adoption that it is associated with his name. Before it
+was adopted it was impossible to employ all the major and minor keys
+on clavichords and harpsichords, and on the pianofortes, just
+beginning to come into use. It became possible under the tempered
+system of tuning, and was illustrated by Bach in "The Well-Tempered
+Clavichord," each major and minor key being represented by a prelude
+and fugue.
+
+Besides the system of tuning in "equal temperament," Bach modernized
+the technique of fingering by introducing the freer and more frequent
+employment of the hitherto neglected thumb and little finger. The
+services of this great man to music, therefore, were threefold. He
+left us his teeming counterpoint, upon which modern music draws so
+freely; he promoted the system of tuning in equal temperament; and he
+laid the foundation of modern pianoforte technique, and so of modern
+virtuosity.
+
+
+A King's Tribute to Bach.
+
+Besides being a great composer, Bach's traits as a man were most
+admirable. He was uncompromising in his convictions, sturdy, honest
+and upright. His fixedness of purpose is shown by an anecdote of his
+boyhood. In his tenth year he lost his parents and went to live with
+an elder brother, who was so jealous of his superior talents that he
+refused him the loan of a manuscript volume of music by composers of
+the day. Obtaining possession of it without his brother's knowledge,
+Bach secretly copied it at night by moonlight, the task covering
+something like six months. His reward was to have it taken away by his
+brother, who accidentally discovered him playing from it. Fortunately,
+this brother died soon afterward, and Bach recovered his treasure.
+
+While it is true that Bach remained unappreciated by the great mass of
+his contemporaries, there were exceptions, a notable one being the
+music-loving king, Frederick the Great of Prussia, whose service the
+composer's second son, Philipp Emanuel Bach, entered in 1746. At the
+king's earnest urging, Philipp Emanuel induced his father to visit
+Potsdam the following year. The king, who had arranged a concert at
+the palace, was about to begin playing on the flute, when an officer
+entered and handed him a list of the strangers who had arrived at
+Potsdam. Glancing over it, Frederick discovered Bach's name.
+"Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "old Bach is here!" And nothing would do
+save that the master must be brought immediately into the royal
+presence, before he even had time to doff his traveling clothes.
+
+The king had purchased several of the pianofortes recently constructed
+by Gottfried Silbermann and had them distributed throughout the
+palace. Bach and the assemblage went from room to room, the composer
+playing and improvising on the different instruments. Finally he asked
+the king to set him a fugue theme, and on this he extemporized in such
+masterly fashion that all who heard him, the king included, broke out
+into rounds of applause. On his return to Leipsic, Bach dedicated to
+Frederick the Great a work which he entitled "The Musical Sacrifice"
+(or offering), which he based upon the fugue theme the king had given
+him.
+
+No other instance of musical heredity is comparable with that afforded
+by the Bach family. Dr. Theodore Baker, in his "Biographical
+Dictionary of Musicians," gives a list of no less than twenty Bachs,
+all of the same line, whom he deems worthy of mention, and who covered
+a period ranging from 1604 to 1845, when the great Bach's grandson
+and last male descendant, Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach, died in
+Berlin. Thus for two hundred and forty-one years the Bach family was
+professionally active in music.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+FROM FUGUE TO SONATA
+
+
+If a pianoforte recital which begins with a Bach fugue continues with
+a Beethoven sonata, it does not require a very discriminating ear to
+note the difference between the two. The Beethoven sonata is in a
+style so entirely distinct from that of the fugue, and sounds so
+wholly unlike it, that it seems as if Bach had exerted no influence
+whatsoever upon the greatest master of the period that followed his
+death. Although Haydn and Mozart were nearer Bach in point of time
+than Beethoven was, a sonata by either of them, if it chanced to be on
+the program, would show the same difference in style, the same radical
+departure from the works of the master of counterpoint, as the
+Beethoven sonata.
+
+The question naturally suggests itself, did Bach's influence cease
+with his death? And the fact that this question calls for an answer
+and that this answer leads to a general consideration of the interim
+between Bach and Beethoven, again shows how broad in its scope as an
+instrument is the pianoforte and how comprehensive in its application
+to music as a whole is the music of that instrument. Two works on a
+recital program furnish a legitimate basis for a discussion of two
+important periods in the development of music! Who would have thought
+there was so much to a pianoforte recital?
+
+  "It would have been an eminently pardonable mistake for any
+  intelligent musician to have fallen into, in the third quarter of
+  the eighteenth century, if he had concluded that Johann Sebastian
+  Bach's career was a failure, and that his influence upon the
+  progress of his art amounted to the minimum conceivable. Indeed,
+  the whole course of musical history in every branch went straight
+  out of the sphere of his activity for a long while; his work
+  ceased to have any significance to the generation which succeeded
+  him, and his eloquence fell upon deaf ears. A few of his pupils
+  went on writing music of the same type as his in a half-hearted
+  way, and his own most distinguished son, Philipp Emanuel, adopted
+  at least the artistic manner of working up his details and making
+  the internal organization of his works alive with figure and
+  rhythm. But even he, the sincerest composer of the following
+  generation, was infected by the complacent, polite superficiality
+  of his time; and he was forced, in accepting the harmonic
+  principle of working in its Italian phase, to take with it some of
+  the empty formulas and conventional tricks of speech which had
+  become part of its being, and which sometimes seem to belie the
+  genuineness of his utterances and put him somewhat out of touch
+  with his whole-hearted father."
+
+This passage from one of the most admirably thought-out books on music
+I know, Sir Hubert Parry's "Evolution of the Art of Music," is no
+exaggeration. For many years after Bach's death, for nearly a century
+in fact, his influence was but little felt. And yet so aptly does the
+development of art adjust itself to human needs and aspirations, the
+very neglect into which Bach fell turned music into certain channels
+from which it derived the greater freedom of expression essential to
+its progress and gave it the tinge of romanticism which is the essence
+of modern music.
+
+The greatness of Johann Sebastian Bach, on the technical side at
+least, now is so universally acknowledged, and professional musicians
+understand so well what their art owes to him, we are apt to think of
+him as the only musician of his day, whereas his significance was but
+little appreciated by his contemporaries. There were, in fact, other
+composers actively working on other lines and turning music in the
+direction it was destined to follow immediately after Bach's
+death--and for its own ultimate good, be it observed. The simple fact
+is, that pure counterpoint culminated in Bach. What he accomplished
+was so stupendous that his successors could not keep up with him. They
+became exhausted before they even were prepared to begin where he left
+off. And yet the reaction from Bach was, as I have indicated,
+absolutely necessary to the further progress of music.
+
+The scheme of musical development which the reader should bear in mind
+if he desires to understand music, and to arrive at that understanding
+with some kind of system in his progress, was briefly as follows:
+
+
+Three Periods of Musical Development.
+
+First we have counterpoint, the welding together of several themes
+each of equal importance. This style of composition culminated in
+Bach. Its most elaborate form of expression was the fugue; but it also
+employed the canon and impressed into its service certain minor forms
+like the allemande, courant, chaçonne, gavotte, saraband, gigue, and
+minuet.
+
+Next, after Bach music began to develop according to the harmonic
+system, or, if I may be permitted for the sake of clarity to use an
+expression which technically is incorrect, according to the melodic
+system. That is, instead of combining several themes, composers took
+one theme or melody and supported it with an accompaniment so that the
+melody stood out in clear relief. This first decided melodic
+development covers the classical period, the period after Bach to
+Beethoven, and its highest form of expression was the sonata, which in
+the orchestra became the symphony.
+
+The romantic period comes after Beethoven. This, to characterize it by
+the readiest means, by something external, something the eye can see,
+is the "single piece" period, the period in which the impromptu of
+Schubert, the song without words of Mendelssohn, the nocturne of
+Chopin, the novelette of Schumann, takes the place of the sonata,
+which consists of a group of pieces or movements. Composers begin to
+find a too exacting insistence upon correctness of form irritating.
+Expression becomes of more importance than form, which is promptly
+violated if it interferes with the composer's trend of thought or
+feeling. Pieces are written in certain moods, and their melody is
+developed so as to follow and give full expression to the mood in
+which it is conceived. New harmonies are fearlessly invoked for the
+same purpose. Everything centres in the idea that music exists not as
+an accessory to form, but for the free expression of emotion. In his
+useful and handy "Dictionary of Musical Terms," Theodore Baker defines
+a nocturne as a title for a piano piece "of a dreamily romantic or
+sentimental character, but lacking a distinctive form." When we see
+the title "Sonata" over a composition we think of form. When we see
+the title "Nocturne" we think of mood, not manner. The title arouses
+within us, by anticipation, the very feeling, the very mood, the very
+emotional condition which the composer is seeking to express. The form
+in which he seeks to express it is wholly a secondary matter. A
+composition is a sonata because it follows a certain formal
+development. It is a nocturne because it is "dreamily romantic or
+sentimental." In no better way, perhaps, could the difference between
+the classical period of music and the romantic period which set in
+after Beethoven be explained. The romanticist is no more hampered by
+form than the writer of poetry or fiction is by facts. Form dominates
+feeling in classical music, feeling dominates form in romantic music.
+
+We still are and, happily, ever shall remain in the romantic period.
+The greatest of all romanticists and, up to the present time, the
+greatest of all composers is Richard Wagner, whose genius will be
+appreciated more and more as years go by until, as may be the case, a
+still greater one will arise; although as dramatic literature
+culminated in Shakespeare, so music may have found its greatest master
+for all time in Wagner. Wagner, of course, was not a composer for the
+pianoforte, but when he reached back and to the fuller harmony
+inherited from Beethoven added the counterpoint of Bach, thus
+combining the two great systems of composition, he indicated the only
+method of progress possible for music of all kinds.
+
+
+Rise of the Melodic School.
+
+It must not be supposed that the melodic school which came in after
+Bach and which, so far as the classical form of the sonata is
+concerned, culminated in Beethoven, was the mushroom growth of a
+night. So much has been said of Bach that a person unfamiliar with the
+history of music might draw the erroneous conclusion that Bach was the
+only composer worth mentioning before the classical period and Germany
+the only country in which music had flourished. On the contrary, Bach
+was the climax of a school to which several countries had each
+contributed its share, partly vocal, partly instrumental. Palestrina's
+name naturally comes to mind as representative of the early period of
+Italian church music; there also was the "Belgian Orpheus," Orlandus
+Lassus (or Lasso), the greatest composer of the Flemish school; and
+England had its Gibbons and other madrigal composers. Their music was
+vocal and requires to be considered more thoroughly under the head of
+vocal music, but it also was contrapuntal and played its part in the
+general development of the art before Bach came upon the scene. Of
+course, there also was instrumental music in counterpoint before
+Bach's day. There is "Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book," a manuscript
+collection of music made either during her reign or shortly afterward
+and containing pieces for the virginal by Tallis, Bird, Giles, Dr.
+John Bull and others, including also the madrigalist, Gibbons. The
+Englishman, Henry Purcell (1658-1695); the Frenchman, François
+Couperin (1668-1733), who wrote a harpsichord method; the Germans,
+Hans Leo von Hasler (1564-1612) and Froberger; and the Italian,
+Frescobaldi--these were some among many composers of counterpoint more
+or less noted in their day.
+
+Bach, however, brought the art of counterpoint to perfection, so that,
+so far as it is concerned, he neither required nor even so much as
+left room for a successor. It may not be pertinent to the argument,
+yet it may well be questioned whether, had the classical trio, Haydn,
+Mozart, and Beethoven, endeavored to carry on the contrapuntal school,
+they would not, in spite of their genius, have relegated music to a
+more primitive state than it occupied when Bach died. It seems a
+fortunate circumstance to me that Bach's son appears to have realized
+his inferiority to his father and that, in consequence, he turned from
+counterpoint to the development of harmony--the working out of a
+clearly defined theme or melody supported by accompaniment.
+
+Counterpoint is said to be polyphonic, a term composed of two Greek
+words signifying many-voiced, the combination in music of several
+parts or themes. Opposed to it is homophonic, or single-voiced, music,
+in which one melody or part is supported by an accompaniment. Italy,
+with its genius for the sensuous and emotional in music, already had
+developed a school of melodic music, and to this Philipp Emanuel Bach
+turned for a model. In Italy the pianoforte, through its employment
+for the freer harmonic support of dramatic solo singing in opera, an
+art form that is indigenous to Italy, gradually had emancipated itself
+there from counterpoint and acquired a style of its own. Girolamo
+Frescobaldi (1583-1644), a famous Italian pianoforte and organ
+virtuoso, whose first organ recital in St. Peter's, Rome, is said to
+have attracted an audience of thirty thousand, and whose mantle fell
+upon his two most renowned pupils, the German, Johann Jacob Froberger,
+and the Italian, Bernardo Pasquini, not only experimented with our
+modern keys, seeking to replace with them the old ecclesiastical modes
+in which Palestrina wrote, but also simplified the method of notation.
+For even what seems to us so simple a matter as the five-line staff is
+the result of slow evolution.
+
+
+Scarlatti's Importance as Composer and Virtuoso.
+
+The Italian genius who gave the greatest impulse to the progress of
+pianoforte music and who, for his day, immensely improved the
+technique of pianoforte playing, was Domenico Scarlatti (1683-1757),
+the famous son of a famous father, Alessandro Scarlatti, the leading
+dramatic composer of his time. Domenico Scarlatti interests us
+especially because he is the only one of the early Italians whose work
+retains an appreciable foothold on modern recital programs. Von Bülow
+edited selections from his works, and I recall from personal
+experience, because I was at the concert, the delight with which some
+of these were received the first time Von Bülow played them on his
+initial visit to this country during the season of 1875-76. Amateurs
+on the outlook for something new (even though it was very old) took up
+Scarlatti, and this early Italian's suddenly acquired popularity was
+comparable with the "run" on the Rachmaninoff "Prelude" when it was
+played here by Siloti many years later.
+
+Scarlatti has been called the founder of modern pianoforte technique.
+Although he composed for the harpsichord, he understood the instrument
+so thoroughly and what he wrote for it accords so well with its
+genius, that by unconscious anticipation it also was adapted to the
+genius of the modern pianoforte. It still is pianistic; more pianistic
+and more suitable to the modern repertoire than a good deal of music
+by greater men who lived considerably later. I should say, for
+example, that Scarlatti's name is found more frequently on pianoforte
+recital programs than Mozart's, although Mozart was incomparably the
+greater genius. But there is about Scarlatti's music such a quaint and
+primitive charm that one always listens to it with the zest of a
+discoverer, whereas Mozart's pianoforte music, although more modern,
+just misses being modern enough. This clever Italian gives us the
+early beginnings of the sonata form. He merely lisps in sonata
+accents, it is true, but his lisp is as fascinating as the ingenuous
+prattle of an attractive child. His best, known work, "The Cat's
+Fugue," the subject of which is said to have been suggested to him by
+a cat gliding over the keyboard, is indeed contrapuntal. But even
+this is a movement in a sonata, and the characteristic of his works as
+a whole is the fact that in most of them he developed and worked out a
+melody or theme, and that he established the fundamental outlines of
+the sonata form.
+
+Comparatively few laymen have more than a vague idea of what is
+meant by sonata form. To them a sonata simply is a composition
+consisting of several movements, usually four, three of them of
+considerable length, with a shorter one (a minuet or scherzo)
+between the first and second or the second and fourth. A sonata,
+however, must have one of its movements (and generally it will be
+found to be the first) written in a certain form. Regarding the
+Scarlatti sonatas, suffice it to say here that with him the form
+still is in its primitive simplicity. For example, the true sonata
+movement as we now understand it employs two themes, the second
+contrasting with the first. As a rule, Scarlatti is content with
+one theme. It is the peculiar merit of Philipp Emanuel Bach that he
+introduced a second theme into his sonatas, or suggested it by
+striking modulations when he employed only one theme, and thus
+paved the way for its further elaboration by Joseph Haydn. Mozart
+elaborated the form still further, and then came Beethoven, with
+whom the classical period reached its climax and whose sonatas for
+all practical purposes have completely superseded those of his
+forerunners.
+
+
+Rise of the Amateur.
+
+Characteristic of the period of transition from Bach to Beethoven,
+from the fugue to the sonata, was the development of popular interest
+in music. Scarlatti begins a brief introduction to a collection of
+thirty of his pianoforte pieces which were published in 1746, by
+addressing the "amateur or professor, whoever you be." Significant
+in this is the inclusion of, in fact the seeming preference given to
+the amateur. Music of the counterpoint variety had been music for
+the church, the court and the professional. Now, with the development
+of the freer harmonic or melodic system, it was growing more in
+touch with the people. During Philipp Emanuel Bach's life the increase
+of popular interest in music was remarkable. The titles that began
+to appear on compositions show that composers were reaching out for a
+larger public. Bie quotes some of them: "Cecilia Playing on the
+Pianoforte and Satisfying the Hearing"; "The Busy Muse Clio";
+"Pianoforte Practice for the Delight of Mind and Ear, in Six Easy
+_Galanterie Parties_ Adapted to Modern Taste, Composed Chiefly for
+Young Ladies"; "The Contented Ear and the Quickened Soul"; while
+Philipp Emanuel Bach inscribes some of his pieces as "easy" or "for
+ladies." Evidently the "young person" figured as extensively in the
+calculations of musical composers then as she does now in those of
+the publishers of fiction. Musical periodicals sprang up like
+mushrooms--"Musical Miscellany," "Floral Garnerings for Pianoforte
+Amateurs," "New Music Journal for Encouragement and Entertainment
+in Solitude at the Pianoforte for the Skilled and Unskilled," such
+were some of the titles. These periodicals often went the way of most
+periodical flesh and in the customary brief period, but they show a
+quickened public interest in music--the "contented ear and the
+quickened soul," so to speak.
+
+
+Changes in Musical Taste.
+
+If I dismiss Philipp Emanuel Bach rather curtly and, in this portion
+of the book at least, do the same with Haydn and Mozart, this is not
+because I fail to appreciate their importance in musical history, but
+because they have failed to retain their hold on the modern pianoforte
+repertoire. The simple fact is that the pianoforte as an instrument
+has outgrown their music. We can get more out of it than they gave it.
+If we bear in mind that the pianoforte, as well as music itself, has
+developed, it will aid us in understanding why so much music, once
+considered far in advance of its time and even revolutionary, has so
+soon become antiquated. Why ignore facts? Some examples of primitive
+music still survive because they charm us with their quaintness. But
+the classical period is retiring more and more into the shadow of
+history. Whatever importance Haydn and Mozart may possess for the
+student, their pianoforte music, so far as practical program-making is
+concerned, is to-day a negligible quantity. I remember the time when,
+as a pupil, I pored with breathless interest over the pages of
+Mozart's "Sonata in A Minor" and his "Fantasy and Sonata in C Minor."
+But to-day, when I read in a book published about twenty-five years
+ago that Mozart indulged in harmonies, chord progressions and
+modulations, "sometimes considered of doubtful propriety even now" and
+"quite as harshly censured as are to-day the similar licenses of
+free-thinking composers"--I wonder where they are. For his own day,
+nevertheless, Mozart was an innovator, as every genius is; for it is
+through those daring deviations of genius from established rule and
+tradition, which contemporaries regard as unjustifiable license, that
+art progresses. This should be borne in mind by those who were
+intolerant toward the opponents of Wagner, yet now are guilty of a
+similar solecism in proclaiming Richard Strauss a charlatan.
+
+Assuming that the modern pianoforte pupil is but indifferently
+nourished on the Mozart pabulum, let me add that this composer also
+was a virtuoso, and by his choice of the pianoforte over the
+clavichord did much toward making the modern instrument more popular.
+He also developed the sonata form so that Beethoven found it ready
+moulded for his genius. In fact the sonata form as we know it is so
+much a Mozart creation that Mr. Hanchett, in his "Art of the
+Musician," suggests calling the sonata movement proper a mozarta--a
+suggestion which I presume will never be adopted.
+
+
+Beethoven and the Epoch of the Sonata.
+
+In the history of music there are three figures that easily tower
+above the rest. Each represents an era. They are Bach, who stands for
+counterpoint, the epoch of the fugue; Beethoven, who represents the
+epoch of the sonata; Wagner, who represents the epoch of the
+music-drama. The first two summed up in themselves certain art forms
+which others had originated. Bach's root goes back to Palestrina,
+Beethoven's to Scarlatti. Wagner presents the phenomenon of being both
+the germ and the full fruition of the art form for which he stands. It
+is conceivable that the work of these men will at some time fall into
+desuetude, for in art all things are possible, and the classical
+period seems to be losing its grip on music more and more every day
+and we ourselves may live to see the sonata movement become obsolete.
+It certainly is having less and less vogue, and a composer who now
+writes a sonata with undeviating allegiance to its classical outlines,
+deliberately invites neglect, because the listener no longer cares to
+have his faculties of appreciation restricted by too rigid insistence
+upon form, preferring that genius should have the utmost latitude and
+be absolutely untrammeled in giving expression to what it has to say.
+Nevertheless, music always will bear the impress of these three master
+minds, just as our language, although we do not speak in blank verse,
+always will bear the impress of Shakespeare. "I don't think much of
+that play," exclaimed the countryman, after hearing "Hamlet" for the
+first time. "It's all made up of quotations!" Equally familiar, not to
+say colloquial, are certain musical phrases, certain modulations,
+which have come down to us from the masters.
+
+Although Beethoven no longer is the all-dominant figure in the musical
+world that he was fifty years ago, and it requires a performance of
+the "Ninth Symphony" given under specially significant circumstances
+(such as the conducting of a Felix Weingartner) to attract as many to
+a concert hall as would be drawn by an ordinary Wagner program, I
+trust I shall know how to appreciate his importance to the development
+of musical art and approach him with the reverence that is his due.
+Like all great men who sum up an epoch, he found certain things ready
+to hand. The Frenchman, Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), "the creator
+of the modern system of harmony," had published his "Nouveau Système
+de Musique Théorique"; the sonata movement from its tentative
+beginnings under Scarlatti had been developed through Philipp Emanuel
+Bach, Haydn and Mozart into a definite art form awaiting the final
+test of a great genius--which Beethoven proved to be.
+
+
+Beethoven's Slow Development.
+
+I already have pointed out that while pianoforte and orchestra have
+developed side by side, the general belief that the pianoforte merely
+has been the handmaiden of the orchestra is a mistaken one. On the
+contrary, until the end of the classical period, at least, the
+pianoforte was the pioneer. It has blazed the way for the orchestra
+and led it, instead of bringing up the rear. Thus the sonata form
+was developed by the pianoforte and then was handed over by that
+instrument to the orchestra under the name of symphony, which, the
+reader should bear in mind, simply is a sonata written for orchestra
+instead of for the pianoforte. Even Beethoven, before he composed
+his first symphony, which is his Opus 21, tested his mastery of the
+form and his ideas regarding certain further developments in it, by
+first composing thirteen pianoforte sonatas, including the familiar
+"Pathétique," which used to be to concert programs what Liszt's
+"Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" is now--the _cheval de battaille_, on
+which pianists pranced up and down before the ranks of their
+astonished audiences and unfortunate amateurs sought to retain
+their equilibrium.
+
+This experimentation, this comparatively slow development, was
+characteristic of Beethoven; is, in fact, characteristic of every
+genius who works from the soul outward. "Like most artists whose spur
+is more in themselves than in natural artistic facilities, he was very
+slow to come to any artistic achievement," writes Sir Hubert Parry.
+"It is almost a law of things that men whose artistic personality is
+very strong, and who touch the world by the greatness and the power of
+their expression, come to maturity comparatively late, and sometimes
+grow greater all through their lives--so it was with Bach, Gluck,
+Beethoven and Wagner--while men whose aims are more purely artistic
+and whose main spur is facility of diction, come to the point of
+production early and do not grow much afterward. Such composers as
+Mozart and Mendelssohn succeeded in expressing themselves brilliantly
+at a very early age; but their technical facility was out of
+proportion to their individuality and their force of human nature, and
+therefore there is no such surprising difference between the work of
+their later years and the work of their childhood as there is in the
+case of Beethoven and Wagner."
+
+In writing sonatas Haydn and Mozart had been satisfied with grace of
+outward form and a smooth and pretty flow of melody within that form.
+Beethoven was a man of intellectual force as well as of musical
+genius. He applied his intellect to enlarging the sonata form, his
+musical genius to supplying it with contents worthy of the greater
+opportunities he himself had created for it. There is a wonderful
+union of mind and heart in Beethoven's work. The sonata form, as
+perfected by him, is a monument to his genius. It remains to this day
+the flower of the classical period.
+
+
+The Passing of the Sonata.
+
+Nevertheless, the Beethoven sonatas no longer retain the place of
+pre-eminence once accorded them on pianoforte recital programs. When
+Von Bülow was in this country during the season of 1875-76 he
+frequently gave concerts at which he played only Beethoven sonatas.
+I doubt if any of the great pianists of to-day could now awaken as
+much public interest by such programs as Von Bülow did. I remember
+the concert at which, among others of the Beethoven sonatas, this
+virtuoso played Opus 106 ("Grosse Sonata für das Hammerklavier").
+After he had played through part of the first movement he became
+restless, and from time to time peered over the keyboard and into
+the instrument as if something were wrong with it. Finally he broke
+off in the middle of the movement, rose from his seat and walked
+off the stage. When he reappeared, he had with him an attendant from
+the firm of manufacturers whose pianofortes he used, and together
+they fussed over the instrument for a while, before the attendant
+made his exit and the irate little pianist began the sonata all over
+again. We considered the mishap that gave us opportunity to hear him
+play so much of the work twice, a piece of great good luck for us.
+Would we so consider it now?
+
+Von Bülow has passed into musical history as a great Beethoven
+player, and such he undoubtedly was. I doubt, however, if he was a
+greater Beethoven player than several living pianists. Some seasons
+ago Eugène d'Albert played a Beethoven program. His performance did
+not evoke the enthusiasm he anticipated. In fact there were
+intimations in the comments on his performance that he was not as
+great a Beethoven player as he thought he was. Personally, and having
+a very clear recollection of Von Bülow's Beethoven recitals,
+because I attended every one he gave in New York, and in my mind's
+eye can see him sitting at the pianoforte, bending away over, with
+his ear almost to the keyboard, I think d'Albert played his
+Beethoven program quite as well. What had happened, however, was
+this: A little matter of thirty years had passed and with it the
+classical period and its efflorescence, the sonata form, had faded
+by just so much, and by just so much no longer was considered by the
+public the crucial test of a pianist's musicianship. Incidentally it
+is worth noting that the public usually is far ahead of the
+profession and of the majority of critics in appreciating new
+tendencies in music and in realizing what is passing away; and the
+same thing probably prevails in other arts.
+
+
+Orchestral Instead of Pianistic.
+
+I am aware that Beethoven was a pianist of the first rank and that
+within the limitations of the sonata form he developed the capacity
+of the pianoforte. I also have read Richard Strauss's opinion, in his
+edition of Berlioz's work on instrumentation, that Beethoven treated
+the orchestra pianistically. Nevertheless, from the modern viewpoint
+the essential fault of the sonata, Beethoven's sonatas included,
+seems to me to be that it is too orchestral and not sufficiently
+_claviermässig_ (pianistic) in character; not sufficiently adapted to
+the genius of the pianoforte as we know it to-day. It is possible
+that for the times in which they were composed, the sonatas of Haydn,
+Mozart and Beethoven were most pianistic. But as music has become
+more and more an intimate phase of life, and as our most intimate
+instrument, the instrument of the household, is the pianoforte, we
+understand its capacity for the intimate expression of moods and
+fancies, the lights and shadows of life, as it never was understood
+before. The modern lover of music, if I may judge his standpoint
+from my own, feels that while the sonatas of the masters I have
+named were written for the pianoforte, they were thought out for
+orchestra, and that even a Beethoven sonata is an engraving for
+pianoforte of a symphony for orchestra. He composed nine symphonies
+and thirty-two sonatas. If he had written his nine symphonies for
+pianoforte, we would have had nine more sonatas. If he had composed
+his sonatas for orchestra, we would have had thirty-two more
+symphonies.
+
+This orchestral (as opposed to pianistic) character of the Beethoven
+sonatas accounts for passages in them so awkwardly written for the
+instrument that they are difficult to master, and yet, when mastered,
+are not effective in proportion to their difficulty. Between enlarging
+the capacity of an instrument through the problems you give the player
+to solve and writing passages that are awkwardly conceived for it, and
+hence ineffectual after they have been mastered, there is a great
+difference. Chopin, Liszt and others pile Pelion on Ossa in their
+technical requirements of the pianist; but when he has surmounted
+them, he has climbed a mountain, and from its peak may watch the world
+at his feet. I think the orchestral character of much that Beethoven
+wrote for the pianoforte partly accounts for the fact that his sonatas
+no longer attract the great virtuosos as they formerly did and that
+the public no longer regards them as the final test of a pianist's
+rank.
+
+I speak so unreservedly because I have lived through the change of
+taste myself. By way of personal explanation I may be permitted to
+say, that while I am not a professional musician, music was so much a
+part of my life that I studied the pianoforte almost as assiduously as
+if I had intended becoming a public player, and that I was proficient
+enough to meet once a week with the first violinist and the first
+violoncellist of the New York Philharmonic Society for the practice of
+chamber music. If there is any one who should worship at the shrine of
+the sonata form, and especially at that of the Beethoven sonatas, it
+should be myself, for I was brought up on the form and those sonatas
+were my daily bread. When I went to the Von Bülow Beethoven recitals
+it was with book in hand, to follow what he played note for note for
+purposes of study and assimilation. Those were years when, in the
+hours during which one seeks communion with one's other self, the
+Beethoven sonatas were the medium of communication. But now--give me
+the men who emancipated themselves from a form that fettered the
+individuality of the pianoforte, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, and the
+pianoforte scores of the Wagner music-dramas, which actually sound
+more pianistic than the sonatas of the classical period and in which
+it is a delight to plunge oneself and be borne along on a flood of
+free, exultant melody.
+
+Nevertheless, the sonata has had a great part to play in the history
+and development of music and has played it nobly, and we must no more
+forget this than we should allow present-day hero worship to supplant
+the memory of the heroes who went before. The sonata is the firm and
+solid bridge over which music passed from the contrapuntal period to
+the romantic, and doubtless there still are some who prefer to linger
+on the bridge rather than cross it to the promised land to which it
+leads. Always there are conservatives who stand still and look back;
+and that these still should let their eyes rest longingly on the great
+master of the classical epoch, Beethoven, is, to say the least,
+comprehensible. One would have to be unresponsive indeed not to be
+thrilled by the story of his life--his force of character, his rugged
+personality, his determination in spite of one of the greatest
+misfortunes that could befall a musician, deafness; and the
+intellectual power which he displayed in bending a seemingly rigid art
+form to his will and making it the receptacle of his inspiration.
+
+Well may these considerations be borne in mind whenever a Beethoven
+sonata is on a pianoforte recital program. If it does not move us as
+profoundly as music more modern does, that is not because its composer
+was less deeply concerned with the problems of life than those who
+have come after him. For his time he was wonderfully "subjective,"
+drawing his inspiration from the heart, yet always preserving a sane
+mental poise. If to-day the sonatas of this great genius and splendid
+man seem to us less dramatic and emotional than they once did to
+audiences, it is because of the progress of music toward greater
+plasticity of expression and our conviction that such should be its
+mission.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+DAWN OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
+
+
+All art begins with a groping after form, then attains form, and then
+emancipates itself from too great insistence upon rigidity of form
+without, however, reverting to its early formless condition. It was
+absolutely necessary to the establishment of music as an art that at
+some period or periods in its development it should "pull itself
+together" and focus itself in certain forms, and adhere to them
+somewhat rigidly and somewhat tenaciously until they had been
+perfected.
+
+Without saying so in as many words, I have sought, in speaking of the
+sonata, to let the modern lover of music know that if he does not like
+sonatas he need not be ashamed of that fact. A few minutes ago and
+before writing this sentence, I left my desk and going to the
+pianoforte, played through Beethoven's "Sonata Pathétique." It used to
+be a thrilling experience to play it or to hear it played. To-day the
+Grave which introduces the first movement still seemed portentous, the
+individual themes throughout the work had lost none of their beauty.
+And yet the effect produced in earlier years by this sonata as a whole
+was lacking. I shall not say that it sounded pedantic, for I dislike
+to apply that word to anything that sprang from the heart and brain
+of a genius like Beethoven's, but there was a feeling of restraint
+about it--the restraint of set form, the restraint of pathos patterned
+to measure, which is incompatible with our modern notions of absolute
+freedom of expression in music. Moreover, there is ample evidence that
+Beethoven himself chafed under the restraint of the sonata form and
+constantly strove to make it more elastic and more yielding to his
+inspiration.
+
+
+What a Sonata Is.
+
+The sonata form (that is to say, the movement from which the sonata
+derives its name) consists of three main divisions and can easily be
+studied by securing the Bülow and Lebert edition of the Beethoven
+sonatas in Schirmer's library, in which the various divisions and
+subdivisions are indicated as they occur in the music. The first
+division (sometimes with a slow introduction like the Grave of the
+"Sonata Pathétique") may be called the exposition. It consists of the
+main theme in the key of the piece, a connecting episode, a second
+theme in a related key and contrasting with the first, and a
+concluding passage. As a rule the exposition is repeated--an extremely
+artificial proceeding, since there is no esthetic or psychological
+reason for it.
+
+After the exposition comes the second division, the development or
+"working out," a treatment of both themes with much figuration and
+imitation, generally called the "free fantasia" and consisting
+"chiefly of a free development of motives taken from the first part"
+(Baker). This leads into the third division, which is a restatement
+of the first, excepting that the second theme, instead of being in a
+related key, is, like the main theme, in the tonic.
+
+
+How Beethoven Enlarged the Form.
+
+This is the form of the sonata movement which was handed down to
+Beethoven by Haydn and Mozart. It very soon became apparent that the
+greatest genius of the classical period found it too limited for his
+inspiration. In his third sonata (Opus 2, No. 3) he makes several
+innovations that, for their day, are most daring. Following the first
+episode after the main theme, he introduces a second episode with
+which he leads into the second theme. Then using a variant of the
+first episode as a connection he leads over to a third, a closing
+theme. In fact, the material of the second episode is so thematic that
+I see no reason why he should not be said to use four themes in the
+exposition instead of the customary two. In the free fantasia he
+insistently reiterates the main theme, practically ignoring the
+others, thus familiarizing the listener with it and making it as
+welcome as an old friend when the third division ushers it in again.
+
+Instead of closing the movement at the end of the usual third
+division, as his predecessors, Haydn and Mozart, did, Beethoven
+introduces what is one of the most important innovations grafted by
+him upon the sonata form--a coda with a cadenza. I can imagine that
+this movement made his contemporaries look dubious and shake their
+heads. It must have seemed to them originality strained to the point
+of eccentricity and more bizarre than effective. As we look back upon
+it, after this long lapse of time, it must be reckoned a most
+brilliant achievement in the direction of freer form, and from this
+point of view--please bear in mind the reservation--its creator not
+only never surpassed it, but frequently fell behind it.
+
+One of the movements of this sonata is a scherzo. Beethoven is the
+creator of this style of movement. It is much less formal than the
+minuet which Haydn introduced into the sonata. This especial scherzo
+has a trio which in the broad sweep of its arpeggios is as modern
+sounding as anything Beethoven wrote for the pianoforte.
+
+
+His "Moonlight Sonata."
+
+There are other sonatas by Beethoven that indicate efforts on his part
+to be less trammeled by considerations of form. Regard as an example
+the "Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia," Opus 27, No. 2, generally, and by no
+means inaptly, called the "Moonlight Sonata." This begins with the
+broad and beautiful slow movement, with its sustained melody, a poem
+of profound pathos in musical accents. It is followed by an
+Allegretto, "_une fleur entre deux abîmes_" (a flower 'twixt two
+abysses) Liszt called it; and then comes the concluding movement, a
+Presto agitato, which is one of Beethoven's most impassioned
+creations. There are only three movements, and the usual sequence is
+inverted, for the last of the three is the Sonata movement. At the end
+of the Adagio sostenuto and at the end of the Allegretto as well, is
+the direction "_attacca subito il sequente_," indicating that the
+following movement is to be attacked at once and denoting an inner
+relationship, a psychological connection between the three movements.
+Throughout the work the themes are of extraordinary beauty and
+expressiveness even for a Beethoven and the whole is a genuine drama
+of human life and experience. This impression is produced not only by
+the very evident psychological connection between the movements, but
+by the manner in which the composer holds on to his themes, developing
+them through bar after bar as if he himself appreciated their beauty
+and were reluctant to let go of them and introduce new material. The
+entire first movement, practically a song without words of the most
+exquisite poignancy, is built on a single motive with a brief episode
+which is more like an improvisation than a set part of a movement;
+while the last movement consists of four eloquent themes with only the
+merest suggestion of connecting episodes. The working out in the last
+movement is almost wholly a persistent iteration of the second theme.
+This persistent dwelling upon theme and the psychological relation
+between the different movements make this "Moonlight Sonata" to me the
+most modern sounding of Beethoven's pianoforte works, although when
+mere structural greatness is considered, most critics will incline to
+rank it lower than the "Sonata Appassionata" and the four last
+sonatas, Op. 106 and 109-11. Undoubtedly, however, it is the most
+"temperamental" of his sonatas--and herein again the most modern. My
+one quarrel with Von Bülow is that he made it so popular by his
+frequent playing of it and his exceptionally poetic interpretation of
+it, that the great virtuosos shun it, very much as they shun the sixth
+Chopin waltz (Mme. Dudevant's dog chasing its own tail), because it is
+played by every pianoforte pupil of every girls' boarding school
+everywhere.
+
+
+Striving for Freedom.
+
+In addition to what I have said of this sonata, it was an immense gain
+for greater freedom of form, and it is to be regretted that it is a
+more or less isolated instance and that Beethoven did not adopt it as
+a standard in shaping his remaining sonatas. Its most valuable
+attribute from the modern point of view is a characteristic to which I
+already have called attention several times--the fact that its several
+movements stand in psychological relation to one another; that there
+is such real soul or temperamental connection between them, that it
+would be doing actual violence to the work as a whole if any one
+movement were to be played without the others or if their sequence
+were to be inverted.
+
+But, you may ask, is there not in all sonatas this psychological
+inter-relationship of the several movements? Have we not been told
+again and again that there is?
+
+Undoubtedly you, and others who have been misinformed by enthusiasts
+who are unable to hear music in anything that has been composed since
+Beethoven, have been told so. But the sonata, with a few exceptions
+like the "Moonlight," simply is a group usually of four movements,
+three long-ones with a shorter one between, and, save for their being
+in related keys, there is no temperamental relationship between the
+movements whatsoever, and to talk of there being such a thing is
+nonsense. I believe the time will come when virtuosos will not
+hesitate to lift single movements out of the Beethoven sonatas and
+place them on their programs and that there will be a sigh of relief
+from the public because it can hear a movement that still sounds fresh
+and modern without being obliged to listen to two or three others that
+do not. Heresy? Maybe. Galileo was accounted a heretic--yet the world
+moves and the musical world with it.
+
+
+The Beethoven Periods.
+
+Beethoven was an intellectual as well as a musical giant. He thought
+before he wrought. The division of his activity into three periods, in
+each of which he is supposed to have progressed further along the road
+of originality and greatness, is generally accepted. Nevertheless, it
+is an arbitrary one, especially as regards the pianoforte sonatas,
+since it has been seen that the first movement of one of his earliest
+works, the third sonata (Opus 2, No. 3), is one of his most original
+contributions to music, and one of the most strikingly developed
+movements in sonata form that he has given us. The period division
+which assigns this sonata as well as the "Sonata Pathétique" to the
+first period is absurd. The fact is, that the works of the so-called
+first and second periods overlap; but there is a decided change in his
+style when we come to his third period which, in the pianoforte
+sonatas, begins with Opus 109. (The beginning of this period usually
+is assigned to the sonata Opus 101, which seems to me too early.)
+Because here a restless spirit seems to be brooding over his work, it
+is thought by some that his mind and heart were warped by his
+misfortunes--his deafness, the ingratitude of a worthless nephew to
+whom he had been as a father, and other family and material troubles.
+To me, however, Beethoven seems in these sonatas to be chafing more
+and more under the restraint of form and to be struggling to free
+himself from it, bending all his intellect to the task. Frankly, I do
+not think that in these last sonatas he achieved his purpose. He had
+outgrown the form he himself had perfected, and the thoughts which
+toward the last he endeavored to mould in it called for absolutely
+free and untrammeled development. He had become too great for it and,
+as a result, it cramped and hampered him in his latest utterances. It
+is my firm belief that had Beethoven come upon the scene fifty years
+later, he would not have composed a single sonata, but have revived
+the suite in modern style, as Schumann practically did in his
+"Carnaval," "Kreisleriana," and "Faschingschwank aus Wien," or have
+created for the pianoforte something corresponding to the freely
+developed tone poems of Richard Strauss.
+
+Because, however, Beethoven wrote thirty-two pianoforte sonatas and
+because he was for many years the all-dominating figure in the musical
+world, every great composer who came after him and composed for the
+pianoforte experimented with the sonata form, and always, be it noted,
+with less success and less importance to the real progress of music
+toward freedom of expression than when he followed his own inner
+impulse and wrote the mood pieces, the "music of intention," the
+subjective expressions of indicated thoughts and feelings, that were
+more consonant with the tendencies of the romantic period which
+followed Beethoven and for which he may be said to have paved the way.
+For just as Bach brought the contrapuntal form to such perfection that
+those who came after him could not even begin where he left off, let
+alone surpass him, so Beethoven brought the sonata form to such
+perfection that no further advance in it was possible. No wonder
+therefore that the pianoforte sonatas of the romanticists are
+comparatively few in number and the least satisfactory of their works.
+These composers seem to have written sonatas simply to show that they
+could write them and under a mistaken idea that length is a measure of
+greatness and that shorter pieces are minor achievements, whereas as
+much genius can be displayed in a nocturne as in a sonata.
+
+
+Sonatas Now Old-fashioned.
+
+Lawrence Gilman, one of our younger American critics, in his "Phases
+of Modern Music," a collection of essays, brief but containing a
+wealth of suggestion and breathing throughout the spirit of
+modernity, sums up the matter in speaking of Edward MacDowell's
+"Keltic Sonata": "I cannot help wishing that he might contrive some
+expedient for doing away, so far as he himself is concerned, with the
+sonata form which he occasionally uses, rather inconsistently, as a
+vehicle for the expression of that vision and emotion that are in
+him; for, generally speaking, and in spite of the triumphant success
+of the 'Keltic,' Mr. MacDowell is less fortunate in his sonatas than
+in those freer and more elastically wrought tone poems in which he
+voices a mood or an experience with epigrammatic concision and
+directness. The 'Keltic' succeeds in spite of its form, ... though
+even here, and notwithstanding the freedom of manipulation, one
+feels that he would have worked to still finer ends in a more
+flexible and fluent form. He is never so compelling, so persuasively
+eloquent, as in those impressionistically conceived pieces in which he
+moulds his inspiration upon the events of an interior emotional
+program, rather than upon a musical formula necessarily arbitrary
+and anomalous." This applies to pianoforte music in general since
+Beethoven. Such I believe to be the consensus of opinion among the
+younger generation of critics, to whom, after all, the future
+belongs, as well as the opinion of those older critics who refuse to
+allow themselves to be pitchforked by their years into the ranks of
+the old fogies and who still hold themselves ever receptive to
+every new manifestation in music that is based on a union of mind and
+heart.
+
+Unless otherwise specifically mentioned I have, in speaking of the
+sonata form, referred to it in connection with the pianoforte. But it
+also is the form employed for the symphony (which simply is a sonata
+for orchestra); for pianoforte trios, quartets and quintets; for
+string quartets and other branches of chamber music (which are sonatas
+written for the combination of instruments mentioned and such others
+as are employed in chamber music), and for concertos (which are
+sonatas for the combination of a solo instrument like the pianoforte,
+violin or violoncello, with orchestra). In these branches the sonata
+form has held its own more successfully than on the pianoforte, and
+for several extraneous reasons. In the symphony it is due largely to
+the greater variety that can be achieved through orchestral coloring;
+in chamber music largely to the somewhat super-refined and timorous
+taste of its devotees which would regard any startling innovation as
+highly indecorous; and in the concerto to the fact that a soloist who
+appears at an orchestral concert is supposed to play a concerto simply
+because the orchestra is there to play it with him, although he, as
+well as the audience, probably would find a group of solos far more
+effective. In fact I think that much of the applause which usually
+follows a great pianist's playing of a concerto is due not so much to
+the audience's enthusiasm over it as to the hope that he may be
+induced to come out and play something alone. So far as the symphony
+is concerned, it is liberating itself more and more from the sonata
+form and taking the direction indicated by Liszt in his symphonic
+poems and by Richard Strauss in his tone poems, the freest form of
+orchestral composition yet conceived.
+
+
+The First Romantic Composers.
+
+In music, as in other arts, periods overlap. We have seen that during
+Bach's life Scarlatti in Italy was laying the foundations of the
+harmonic system and shaping the outlines of the sonata form which was
+to develop through Philipp Emanuel Bach, Haydn and Mozart and find its
+greatest master in Beethoven. Likewise, even while Beethoven was
+creating those works which are the glory of the classical period, two
+of his contemporaries, Carl Maria von Weber, who died one year before
+him, and Franz Schubert, who survived him by only a year, were writing
+music which was destined to turn the art into new channels. Weber
+(1786-1826) is indeed regarded as the founder of the romantic school
+through his opera "Der Freischütz." It seems to me, however, that
+Schubert (1797-1828) contributed quite as much to the new movement
+through his songs, while the contributions of both to the pianoforte
+are important. Weber was a finished pianist, had an enormous reach (he
+could stretch a twelfth), and besides utilizing the facility thus
+afforded him to add to the brilliancy of pianoforte technique (as in
+his well-known "Concert Piece for Piano and Orchestra"), he
+deliberately, in some of his compositions, ignored the sonata form and
+wrote a "Momento Capriccioso," a "Polonaise," a "Rondo Brilliant," a
+"Polacca Brilliant" and the fascinating "Invitation to the Dance." The
+last, even in its original form and without the elaborations in
+Tausig's version of it, and the "Concert Piece" still are brilliant
+and effective numbers in the modern pianoforte repertoire. Considering
+the age in which they were composed, their freedom from pedantry is
+little short of marvelous.
+
+
+Schubert's Pianoforte Music.
+
+Schubert was not a virtuoso and passed his life almost in obscurity,
+but we now recognize that, although he lived but thirty-one years, few
+composers wrought more lastingly than he. Of course, the proper place
+for an estimate of his genius is in the chapter on song, but as a
+pianoforte composer he is, even to this day, making his influence more
+and more felt. Living in Vienna, Beethoven's city, and a fervent
+admirer of that genius, it was natural that he should have composed
+sonatas, and there is a whole volume of them among his pianoforte
+works. Nevertheless, so original was his genius and so fertile, that,
+in addition to his numerous other works, he composed eight impromptus,
+among them the highly poetic one in G flat major (Opus 42, No. 2),
+usually called "The Elegy"; another in B flat major (Opus 142, No. 3),
+which is a theme with variations, some of them brilliant, others
+profoundly expressive; and the beautifully melodious one in A flat
+major; six dainty "Moments Musicals"; the exquisite little waltz
+melodies from which Liszt fashioned the "Soirées de Vienne"; the
+"Fantasia in G," from which the popular minuet is taken; and the
+broadly dramatic "Fantasia" on a theme from his song, "The Wanderer,"
+for which Liszt wrote an orchestral obbligato, thus converting it into
+a highly effective and thoroughly modern fantasy for pianoforte and
+orchestra. These detached compositions are as eloquent in their appeal
+to-day as if they had been written during the last ten years instead
+of during the first quarter of the last century. They are melodious
+with the sustained melody that delights the modern ear. There is not,
+as in the sonata form or, for that matter, in all the classical music
+that Schubert heard around him, the brief giving out of a theme, then
+an episode, then another brief theme and so on, all couched in the
+formulas in which the classicists delighted, but instead of these
+postulates of formality, melody fully developed and wrought out by one
+who reveled in it and was willing that his hearers should revel in it
+as well. To distinguish between the classicists and this early
+romantic composer, whose work survives in all its freshness and beauty
+to this day, it may be said that their music was thematic--based on
+the kind of themes that lent themselves to formal working out as
+prescribed by the sonata formula; whereas these detached pieces of
+Schubert are based on melodies--long-drawn-out melodies, if you wish,
+and be grateful that they are--that conjure up mood pictures and
+through their exquisite harmonization exhale the very fragrance of
+romanticism.
+
+Naturally, the sonatas from his pen are more set. Nevertheless, so
+long as it seems that we must have sonatas on our recital programs,
+the neglect of those by Schubert is shameful. I am willing to stake
+his sonata No. 5, in A minor, against any sonata ever written, and
+from several of the sonatas single movements can be detached which I
+should think any pianist would be glad to add to his repertoire. Among
+these is the lithesome scherzo from the sonata No. 10, in B flat
+major, and the beautiful slow movement (Andante sostenuto) from the
+same work.
+
+Schubert also wrote many valuable pianoforte duets, among them several
+sets of marches and polonaises and an elaborate and stirring
+"Divertissement à l'Hongroise," which last seems to foreshadow the
+"Hungarian Rhapsodies" of Liszt. In these and the detached pianoforte
+solo pieces a special value lies in that they do not appear to have
+been composed as a protest against the sonata form, but spontaneously
+and without a thought on Schubert's part that he was doing anything in
+any way remarkable. They are expressions of musical feeling in the
+manner that appealed to him as most natural. The "Moments Musicals"
+especially are little mood pieces and impressionistic sketches with
+here and there a bit of realism. Who, for example, is apt to forget
+Essipoff's playing of the third "Moment" in Hungarian style, with a
+long crescendo and diminuendo (the same effect used by Rubinstein,
+when he played his arrangement of the "Turkish March" from Beethoven's
+"Ruins of Athens"), so that it seemed as if a band of gypsies
+approached from afar, danced by, and vanished in the distance?
+Thoroughly modern is Schubert, a most modern of the moderns, whether
+we listen to his original pianoforte compositions, or to the
+Schubert-Liszt waltzes, or "Hark, Hark, the Lark," "To Be Sung on the
+Water" (barcarolle) and other songs of his which have been arranged
+for the pianoforte by Liszt.
+
+
+Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words."
+
+Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, the musical idol of his day and now
+correspondingly neglected, contributed to the romantic movement his
+"Songs Without Words," short pieces for the pianoforte and aptly named
+because their sustained melody clearly defined against a purposely
+subordinated accompaniment gives them the character of songs, in the
+popular meaning of the word. Mendelssohn was a fluent, gentlemanly
+composer, whose music was readily understood and therefore attained
+immediate popularity. But the very qualities that made it popular--its
+smoothness and polish and its rather commonplace harmlessness--have
+caused it to lose caste. The "Songs Without Words," however, still
+occupy a place in the music master's curriculum, forming a graceful
+and easily crossed bridge from classical to romantic music. I can
+remember still, when, as a lad, I received from my music teacher my
+first Mendelssohn "Song Without Words," the G minor barcarolle, how it
+seemed to open up a new world of music to me. Many of these
+compositions, which are unique in their way, still will be found to
+possess much merit. That they are polished little pieces and poetic in
+feeling almost goes without saying. The "Spring Song" may be one of
+the most hackneyed of pianoforte pieces and the same may be true of
+the "Spinning Song," but it is equally true that the former is as
+graceful and charming as the latter is brilliant and showy. A tender
+and expressive little lyric is the one in F major (No. 22), which
+Joseffy frequently used as an encore and played with exquisite effect.
+A group of Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words" is never out of place
+on a pianist's program. At least half a dozen of them, I think, are
+apt to survive the vicissitudes of many years to come. Mendelssohn
+wrote three sonatas, a "Sonata Ecossaies" (Scotch), several capriccios
+and other pieces for the pianoforte, besides two pianoforte concertos,
+of which the one in G minor is the stock selection of conservatory
+pupils at their graduation exercises and later at their début. With it
+they shoot the musical chutes.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+CHOPIN, THE POET OF THE PIANOFORTE
+
+
+I must ask the reader still to imagine that he is at a pianoforte
+recital, although I frankly admit that I have been guilty of many
+digressions, so that it must appear to him as if he had been
+whisked from Mendelssohn Hall up to Carnegie Hall, then down to
+the Metropolitan Opera House and back to Mendelssohn Hall again.
+This, however, as I have sought to make clear before, is due to
+the universality of the pianoforte as an instrument and to the
+comprehensiveness of pianoforte music, which in itself illustrates
+in great part the development of the art.
+
+At this point, then, of our imaginary pianoforte recital there is
+likely to be a group of compositions by Chopin; and the larger the
+group, or the more groups by this composer on the program, the better
+satisfied the audience is apt to be. Baker calls Frédéric Chopin
+(1810-1849) the "incomparable composer for the pianoforte." But he was
+more. He was an incomparable composer from every point of view, great,
+unique, a tone poet, as well as the first composer who searched the
+very soul of the instrument for which he specialized. Extraordinary as
+is his significance for that instrument, his influence extends through
+it into other realms of music, and his art is making itself felt to
+this day in orchestra, opera and music-drama as well as in pianoforte
+music. For he was an innovator in form, an intrepid adventurer in
+harmony and a sublime singer of melody.
+
+
+Tempo Rubato.
+
+Before the pianist whose recital we are supposed to be attending will
+have played many bars of the first piece in the Chopin group, the
+individuality of this composer will become apparent. Melody will
+pervade the recital hall like the fragrance of flowers. At the same
+time there will be an iridescence not noticeable in any of the music
+that preceded Chopin, and produced as if by cascades of jewels--those
+remarkable ornamental notes which yet are not ornamental, but, in
+spite of all their light and shade, and their play of changeable
+colors, part of the great undercurrent of melody itself. Here we have
+then, nearly at the very outset of the first Chopin piece, the famous
+_tempo rubato_, so-called, which has been explained in various ways,
+but which with Chopin really means that while the rhythm goes calmly
+on with one hand, the other weaves a veil of iridescent notes around
+the melodic idea. Liszt expressed it exactly when he said: "You see
+that tree? Its leaves move to and fro in the wind and follow the
+gentle motion of the air; but its trunk stands there immovable in its
+form." Or the _tempo rubato_ is like a shower of petals from a tree in
+full bloom; the firm outline of the tree, its foliage are there, while
+we see the delicately tinted blossoms falling from the branches and
+filling the air with color and fragrance; or like the myriad shafts
+from the facets of a jewel, piercing in all directions while the
+jewel itself remains immovable, the centre of its own rays; or like
+the crisp ripple on a river, while the stream itself flows on in
+majesty; or, in one or two passages when Chopin becomes a cynic, like
+the twaddle of critics while the person they criticise calmly goes
+about his mission.
+
+
+The Soul of the Pianoforte.
+
+What you will notice about these compositions of Chopin--and I say
+"these compositions" deliberately, although I have not named any (for
+it makes no difference what pieces of his are on the program, the
+effect will be the same)--is the fact that in none of them is there
+the slightest suggestion of anything but pianoforte music. Chopin's
+great achievement so far as the pianoforte is concerned is the fact
+that he liberated it completely from orchestral and choral influences,
+and made it an instrument sufficient unto itself, brought it into its
+own in all its beauty of tone and expression and enlarged its
+capacity; sought out its soul and reproduced it in tone, as no other
+composer had done before him or has done since. The recognition of the
+true piano tone seems to have been instinctive with him. It appears in
+his earliest works. Nothing he ever wrote suggests orchestra or voice.
+For the beautiful singing quality he brings out in much of his music
+is a singing quality which belongs to the noble instrument to which he
+devoted himself. Not once while listening to a Chopin composition do
+you think to yourself, as you do so often with classical works, like
+the Beethoven sonatas, "How well this would sound on the orchestra!"
+Yet Chopin is as sonorous, as passionate, as pleading, as melancholy
+and as rich in effect, although he is played only on the black and
+white keys of the pianoforte, as if he were given forth by a hundred
+instrumentalists, so thoroughly did he understand the instrument for
+which he wrote. He was the Wagner of the pianoforte.
+
+
+A Clear Melodic Line.
+
+What you will notice, too, about his music is the general distinctness
+of his melody. There may be times, as in some of his arabesque
+compositions, like the "F Minor Étude," when the effect is slightly
+blurred. But this is done purposely, and as a rule there will be found
+a clear melodic line running through everything he wrote. Combined
+with this melody are weird, exquisite, entrancing harmonies, and those
+showers of _tempo rubato_ notes which glitter like a veil of mist in
+the sunlight and yet, although a veil, allow you to see what is
+beneath it, like a delicate fabric which seems rather to emphasize and
+reveal the very things it is intended to conceal.
+
+Chopin was a Pole. He had the melancholy of his race, but also its
+_verve_. Profoundly affected by his country's sorrow, he also had its
+haughty spirit. In Paris, where he spent the most significant years of
+his life, he was surrounded by the aristocracy of his own country who
+were in exile, and by the aristocracy of the arts. Liszt speaks of an
+evening at his salon where he met, besides some of the Polish
+aristocrats, people like Heinrich Heine, Meyerbeer, Delacroix,
+Nourrit, the tenor, and Bellini. Chopin admired Bellini's music, its
+clear and beautiful melodiousness, and I myself think that Chopin's
+melody often has Italian characteristics, although it is combined with
+harmony that is German in its seriousness, but wholly Chopinesque in
+all its essentials. In those numerous groups of ornamental, or rather
+semi-ornamental, notes, so many of them chromatic, and all of them
+usually designated by the technical term "passing notes," signifying
+that they are merely incidental to the melody and to the harmonic
+structure, there are nevertheless many that have far greater
+importance than if they were merely "passing." It is in bringing out
+this significance by slight accelerations and retards, by allowing a
+few of them to flash out here while the others remain slightly veiled,
+that the inspired Chopin player shows his true conception of what the
+composer meant by _tempo rubato_.
+
+It was Liszt, afterward the first to recognize Wagner, who was the
+first to recognize Chopin. It was Liszt also who introduced him to
+George Sand (Mme. Dudevant), the great passion of his life. Chopin was
+the friend of many women. They adored his poetic nature, and there is
+much in his music that is effeminate, delicate and sensitive; but
+altogether too much has been made of this side of his art, and of
+certain morbid pieces like some of the Nocturnes. The affair with
+George Sand was not only a passion, but was a tragedy, and like all
+such tragedies it left on his music the imprint of something deeper
+and greater than mere delicacy and morbidity. Then, too, we have to
+count with his patriotism and his sympathy with his struggling
+country, and there is much more of the virile and heroic in his music
+than either the average virtuoso or the average listener allows for.
+
+
+The Études.
+
+These contrasts in his music can readily be recognized when a great
+pianist makes up the Chopin group on his program from the Études,
+which are among the greatest compositions of all times, whether we
+consider them as pianoforte music or as music in general. They touch
+the soul in many places, and in many and varied ways, and they reflect
+the alternate delicacy and daintiness of his genius as well as its
+vigor and nobility. Suppose, for the sake of a brilliant beginning,
+the virtuoso chooses to start off with the fifth, the so-called "Étude
+on Black Keys," and flashes it in our eyes, making the pianoforte play
+the part of a mirror held in the sunlight. This gives us one side of
+Chopin's music, its brilliancy; and it is noticeable that while the
+tempo of the piece is given as _vivace_, the style in which it is to
+be played is indicated by the direction _brillante_.
+
+If the pianist continues with the third Étude, we shall hear one of
+the most tender and beautiful melodies that Chopin ever composed. Let
+him follow this with number thirteen, the one in A flat major, and we
+are reminded of what Schumann said, in his review of this book of
+Études, in which he speaks of the A flat major as "an æolian harp,
+possessed of all the musical scales, the hand of the artist causing
+them all to intermingle in many varieties of fantastic embellishment,
+yet in such a way as to leave everywhere audible a deep fundamental
+tone and a soft continuously singing upper voice."
+
+Schumann heard Chopin himself play this Étude, and he says that
+whoever will play it in the way described will get the correct idea of
+Chopin's performance. "But it would be an error to think that Chopin
+permitted every one of the small notes to be distinctly heard. It was
+rather an undulation of the A flat major chord here and there thrown
+aloft anew by the pedal. Throughout all the harmonies one always heard
+in great tones a wondrous melody, while once only in the middle of the
+piece, besides that chief song, a tenor voice became prominent in the
+midst of the chords. After the Étude, a feeling came over one as of
+having seen in a dream a beatific picture which, when half awake, one
+would gladly recall."
+
+
+Vigor, Passion, and Impetus.
+
+If now the pianist wishes to show by contrast Chopin in his full
+vigor, passionate and impetuous, let him take the great C Minor Étude,
+the twelfth, _Allegro con fuoco_. "Great in outline, pride, force and
+velocity, it never relaxes its grim grip from the first shrill
+dissonance to the overwhelming chordal close," says Huneker, adding
+that "this end rings out like the crack of creation." It is supposed
+to be an expression of the alternating wrath and despair with which
+Chopin received the tidings of the taking of Warsaw by the Russians in
+September, 1831, for it was shortly after this that the Étude was
+composed. No wonder, to quote again from Huneker, that "all sweeps
+along in tornadic passion."
+
+A pianist hardly can go amiss in making his selection from the
+twenty-seven Études, for the contrasts which he can effect are
+obvious, and there is among these compositions not one which has not
+its special merits. There is the tenth, of which Von Bülow said
+whoever could play it in a really finished manner might congratulate
+himself on having climbed to the highest point of the pianist's
+Parnassus, and that the whole repertory of music for the pianoforte
+does not contain a study of perpetual motion so full of genius and
+fancy as this especial one is universally acknowledged to be,
+excepting, possibly, Liszt's "Feux Follets." Then there is number
+nineteen in C sharp minor, like a nocturne with the melody in the left
+hand, with the right hand answering as a flute would a 'cello. For
+contrast take number twenty-one, the so-called "Butterfly Étude"--a
+wretched misnomer, because a pianist gifted with true musical
+clairvoyance can work up such a gust of passion in this Étude that any
+butterfly would be swept away as if by a hurricane. Nor, in order to
+accomplish this, is it necessary to make such a bravura piece of the
+Étude as so many pianists ignorantly do. We have, too, the "Winter
+Wind Étude," in A minor, Opus 25, number eleven--the twenty-third in
+the collection as usually published--planned on a grand scale and
+carried out in a manner equal to the plan.
+
+Von Bülow calls attention to the fact that, with all its sonorousness,
+"the greatest fullness of sound imaginable," it nowhere trespasses
+upon the domain of the orchestra, but remains pianoforte music in the
+strictest sense of the word. "To Chopin," says Von Bülow, in referring
+to this Étude, "is due the honor and credit of having set fast the
+boundary between piano and orchestral music which, through other
+composers of the romantic school, especially Robert Schumann, has been
+defaced and blotted out, to the prejudice and damage of both species."
+While agreeing with Von Bülow that Chopin was the great liberator of
+the pianoforte, I cannot agree with the exception he takes to the
+music of Robert Schumann. If he had referred back to the unpianistic
+classical sonata form, he would have been more accurate.
+
+
+The Préludes.
+
+I have gone into some detail regarding these Études because I regard
+them, as a whole, among the greatest of Chopin's works. But I once
+heard Rubinstein play the entire set of twenty-four Préludes, and I
+sometimes wonder, as one often does with the compositions of a great
+genius, whether these Préludes, in spite of their comparative brevity,
+should not be ranked as high as anything Chopin ever wrote. According
+to tradition, they were composed during the winter of 1838, which
+Chopin spent with George Sand at Majorca in the Balearic Islands. But
+there is authority for saying that they received only the finishing
+touches there, and are in fact the gleanings of his portfolios.
+
+It seems as if in these twenty-four pieces every phase of human
+emotion were brought out. If my memory is correct, Rubinstein played
+them as a solo group at a Philharmonic concert, or he may have given
+them about the same time at one of his recitals. It was in 1872; and
+while after this long lapse of time it is impossible to remember every
+detail of his performance, I shall never forget the exquisite
+tenderness with which he played the very brief Prélude in A major, the
+seventh. He simply caressed the keyboard, touched it as if his fingers
+were tipped with velvet; and though into the other compositions of the
+series he put, according as their character varied, an immense amount
+of passion, or more subdued emotion, I can still hear this seventh
+Prélude sounding in my memory, note for note and bar for bar, as he
+rendered it--a prolonged, tremulous whisper. Schumann regarded the
+Préludes as most remarkable, saying that "in every piece we find in
+his own hand 'Frédéric Chopin wrote it.' One recognizes him in his
+pauses, in his quick-coming breath. He is the boldest, the proudest
+poet-soul of his time."
+
+Each number in the series is complete in itself, a mood picture; but
+the series as a whole, in its collection of moods, its panorama of
+emotions, represents the entire range of Chopin's art. The fourth in E
+minor, covering only a page, is one of the most pathetic plaints ever
+penned. The fifteenth in D flat major, with its continual reiteration
+of the dominant, like the incessant drip of rain on a roof, is a
+nocturne--Chopin in one of his morbid moments; while the eighteenth in
+F minor is as bold a piece of dramatic recitative as though it had
+been lifted bodily out of a music-drama. And so we might run the whole
+range of the collection, finding each admirable in itself, yet
+different from all the others. What a group for a recital these
+twenty-four Préludes make!
+
+
+Nocturnes.
+
+If Chopin had not written the Nocturnes I doubt if those who play and
+those who comment on him would err so often in attributing such an
+excess of morbidness to him as they do, or lay the charge of
+effeminacy against him. Morbid these Nocturnes undoubtedly are in many
+parts, and yet they often rise to the dignity of elegy, and sometimes
+even of tragedy. Exquisitely melodious they are, too, and full of the
+haunting mystery of night. The one in C sharp minor, Opus 27, No. 1,
+is perhaps the most dramatic of the series, and Henry T. Finck, in his
+Chopin essay, is entirely within bounds when he says that it embodies
+a greater variety of emotion and more genuine dramatic spirit on four
+pages than many operas on four hundred. There are greater nocturnes
+than the one in G, Opus 37, No. 2, but I must nevertheless regard it
+as the most beautiful of all. It may bewitch and unman the player, as
+Niecks has said, but, on the other hand, I think its second melody,
+like a Venetian barcarolle breathed through the moonlight, is the most
+exquisite thing Chopin ever composed; and note how, without any
+undulating accompaniment, its rhythm nevertheless produces a gentle
+wavy effect.
+
+Probably the most familiar of all the Nocturnes is the one in E flat,
+the second in the first set, Opus 9. It has been played so much that
+unless it is interpreted in a perfect manner it comes perilously near
+to being hackneyed; but under the hands of a great pianist, who
+unites with absolute independence of all his ten fingers, the soul of
+a poet, it becomes an iridescent play of color, with a sombre picture
+of melancholy seen through the iridescence. Remenyi played a violin
+arrangement of it with such delicacy and so much poetry of feeling
+that he actually reconciled one to its transfer from the pianoforte to
+the soprano instrument of four strings.
+
+
+Chopin and Poe.
+
+John Field, an Irish composer (1782-1837), was the first to compose
+nocturnes, and it is not unlikely that Chopin got the pattern from
+him. Occasionally at historical recitals one hears a nocturne by John
+Field; but I think that if even those who love to question the
+originality of great men were familiar with the nocturnes of Field,
+they would realize how far Chopin went beyond him, making out of a
+small type an art form of such poetic content that, in spite of Field
+having been first in the lists, Chopin may be said to have originated
+the form. Naturally, Field did not relish seeing himself supplanted by
+this greater genius, and he said of Chopin that he composed music for
+a sick-room, and had "a talent of the hospital." On recital programs
+Chopin's nocturnes often appear, and, when played by a master like
+Paderewski, who is sensitive to every shade of Chopin's genius, they
+are heard with an exquisite feeling of sorrow. In these Nocturnes,
+Chopin always seems to me like Edgar Allan Poe in "Ullalume" or in
+"Annabel Lee"--and was not Poe one of the only two American poets of
+real genius?
+
+
+Waltzes and Mazurkas.
+
+A Chopin waltz will admirably afford contrast in a group of Chopin
+pieces on a recital program. Possibly the waltzes are the most
+frequently played by amateurs of all Chopin's compositions. But, to
+perpetrate an Irish bull, even those that have been played to death
+still are very much alive. It was Schumann who said that if these
+waltzes were to be played for dancing more than half the dancers
+should be Countesses, the music is so aristocratic. Indeed, to listen
+to these waltzes is like looking at a dance through a fairy lens. They
+seem to be improvisations of the pianist during a dance, and to
+reflect the thoughts that arise in the player's mind as he looks on,
+giving out the rhythm with the left hand, while the melody and the
+ornamental note-groups indicate his fancies--love, a jealous plaint,
+joy, ecstasy, and the tender whispering of enamored couples as they
+glide past. The slow A minor "Waltz," with its viola-like left-hand
+melody, was Chopin's favorite, and he was so pleased when Stephen
+Heller told him that it was his favorite one, too, that he invited him
+to luncheon. (Strange that we always should regard food as the most
+appropriate reward of artistic sympathy!) Each waltz, with the
+exception of some of the posthumous ones, has its individual charm,
+but to me the most beautiful is the one in C sharp minor, with its
+infinite expression of longing in its leading theme and its remarkable
+chromatic descent before the brilliant right-hand passage that follows
+in the second episode. These chromatics should be emphasized, as they
+are a feature of the passage and form gems of harmonization. But few
+pianists seem to appreciate their significance and pay sole attention
+to bringing out the upper voice.
+
+Thoroughly characteristic of Chopin, thoroughly in keeping with his
+Polish nationality and its traditions, are the Mazurkas--jewels of
+music, full of the finest feeling, the most delicate harmonization,
+and with a dash and spirit entirely their own. Weitzmann truly says
+that they are the most faithful and animated pictures of his nation
+which Chopin has left us, and that they are masterpieces of their
+class: "Here he stands forth in his full originality as the head of
+the romantic school of music; in them his novel and alluring melodic
+and harmonic progressions are even more surprising than in his larger
+compositions."
+
+
+Liszt on the Mazurkas.
+
+Liszt, too, pauses to pay his tribute to them: "Some portray foolhardy
+gaiety in the sultry and oppressive air of a ball, and on the eve of a
+battle; one hears the low sighs of parting, whose sobs are stifled by
+sharp rhythms of the dance. Others portray the grief of the sorely
+anxious soul amid festivities, whose tumult is unable to drown the
+profound woe of the heart. Others, again, show the tears, premonitions
+and struggles of a broken heart, devoured by jealousy, sorrowing over
+its loss, but repressing the curse. Now we are surrounded by a
+swirling frenzy, pierced by an ever-recurring palpitating melody like
+the anxious beating of a loving but rejected heart; and anon distant
+trumpet calls resound like dim memories of bygone fame." All this is
+very fine, although a trifle over-sentimental. The fact is that the
+Chopin Mazurkas are archly coquettish, passionately pleading, full of
+delicate banter, love, despair and conquest--and always thoroughly
+original and thoroughly interesting. In fact Chopin never is
+commonplace. A Mazurka or two will add zest to any group of his works
+on a recital program.
+
+The Polonaises are Chopin's battle-hymns. The roll of drums, the
+booming of cannon, the rattle of musketry and the plaint for the
+dead--all these things one may hear in some of these compositions. The
+mourning notes, however, are missing from the "A Major Polonaise,"
+Opus 40, and usually called "Le Militaire." It is not a large canvas,
+but it is heroic and one of the most virile of all his works. It was
+of this polonaise Chopin said that if he could play it as it should be
+played, he would break all the strings of the pianoforte before he had
+finished.
+
+
+Other Works.
+
+And then the Ballades and the Scherzos. These are perhaps Chopin's
+greatest contributions to the music of the pianoforte. They are
+wonderfully original, wonderfully emotional, yet never to the point of
+morbidness, full of his original harmonies, fascinating rhythms and
+glow. In the Scherzos he is not gaily abandoned, as the title would
+suggest, but often grim and mocking--tragedy mocking itself.
+
+Chopin also wrote Sonatas--felt himself obliged to, perhaps, because
+he was writing for the pianoforte, because pianoforte music still was
+in the grip of the thirty-two Beethoven pianoforte sonatas. By no
+means did he adhere to the classical form; yet these three sonatas are
+not to be counted among his most successful compositions. One of them,
+the B flat minor, contains the familiar funeral march which has been
+said to "give forth the pain and grief of an entire nation"--Chopin's
+nation, sorrowing Poland; and, indeed, the middle episode, the trio of
+the march, is pathetic to the verge of tears, while in the other
+portions the march progresses to the grave amid the tolling of bells
+and the heavy tramp of soldiery. It is played and played, possibly
+played too much; and yet, when well played, never misses leaving a
+deep impression. Because people will persist in "playing" certain
+popular pieces, there is no reason these should not be enjoyed when
+interpreted by a master. There is a vast difference between
+interpretation and mere "playing."
+
+This funeral march is followed in the sonata by a finale which aptly
+enough has been described as night winds sweeping over graves. The
+funeral march often is played at recitals as a detached piece. I
+cannot see why pianists do not add this finale, which has real
+psychological connection with it. The "Berceuse," a "Barcarolle," two
+"Concertos for Piano and Orchestra," which often are slightingly
+spoken of, and most unjustly, since they are full of beautiful melody
+and most grateful to play--beyond these it does not seem necessary to
+go here, unless, perhaps, to mention the Impromptus, which are full of
+the most delightful _chiaroscuro_, and the great F minor "Fantaisie."
+
+
+A Noble from Head to Foot.
+
+Because Chopin wrote only for the pianoforte, because as a rule his
+pieces are not long, his greatness was not at first recognized. The
+conservatives seemed to think no man could be great unless he wrote
+sonatas in four movements for the piano and symphonies for the
+orchestra, unless he composed for fifty or sixty instruments instead
+of for only one. But although Jumbo was large, he was not accounted
+beautiful, and worship of the big is a mistaken kind of reverence.
+Chopin's briefest mazurka is worth infinitely more than many sonatas
+that cover many pages. This composer was a tone poet of the highest
+order. While to-day we regard him mainly as the interpreter of beauty,
+in his own day he was an innovator, a reformer and, like his own
+Poles, a revolutionist. The pianoforte--the pianoforte as a solo
+instrument--sufficed for his most beautiful dreams, for his most
+passionate longings. Bie, in his "History of the Pianoforte and
+Pianoforte Players," tells us that Chopin smiled when he heard that
+Czerny had composed another overture for eight pianos and sixteen
+persons, and was very happy over it. "Chopin," adds Bie, "opened to
+the two hands a wider world than Czerny could give to thirty-two."
+
+Rubinstein, as quoted by Huneker, apostrophizes him as "the piano
+bard, the piano rhapsodist, the piano mind, the piano soul.... Tragic,
+romantic, virile, heroic, dramatic, fantastic, soulful, sweet, dreamy,
+brilliant, grand, simple--all possible expressions are found in his
+compositions and all are sung by him upon his instrument." Huneker
+himself says: "In Chopin's music there are many pianists, many
+styles, and all are correct if they are poetically musical, logical
+and individually sincere." Best of all, he enlarged the scope for
+individual expression in music. Once for all, he got pianoforte music
+away from the set form of the classical sonata. "He was sincere, and
+his survival when nearly all of Mendelssohn, much of Schumann, and
+half of Berlioz have suffered an eclipse, is proof positive of his
+vitality."--Thus again Huneker. Bie says, in summing up his position,
+that his greatness is his aristocracy; that "he stands among
+musicians, in his faultless vesture, a noble from head to foot." But,
+above all, he is a searcher of the human soul, and, because he
+searched it out on the pianoforte, is he therefore less great than if
+he had drawn it out on the strings, piped it on the reeds, blown it
+through the tubes and battered it on the drumheads of the orchestra?
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+SCHUMANN, THE "INTIMATE"
+
+
+Having finished with his Chopin group, the pianist is apt to follow it
+with his Schumann selections, and we meet with another original
+musical genius. Robert Schumann was born at Zwickau in June, 1810. His
+father was a book publisher and was in hopes that the son would show
+literary aptitude. In fact, the elder Schumann discouraged Robert's
+musical aspirations; and as a result, instead of receiving early in
+life a systematic musical training, his education was along other
+lines. He studied law at Leipzig in 1828 and in Heidelberg in 1829,
+and was thus what is rare among musicians--a composer with an academic
+education.
+
+His meeting with the celebrated pianoforte teacher, Frederick Wieck,
+the Leschetitzki of his day, determined Schumann to enter upon a
+musical career. Wieck took him into his home in Leipzig and he studied
+the pianoforte with a view of becoming a virtuoso. In order to gain
+greater freedom in fingering, he devised a mechanical apparatus by
+which one finger was suspended in a sling while the others played upon
+the keyboard. Unfortunately, through the use of this contrivance he
+strained the tendons of one hand and his dream of a virtuoso's career
+vanished. Meanwhile he had fallen in love with his teacher's
+daughter, Clara Wieck, and finally, after determined opposition on the
+part of her father, married her in 1840. Later in life a brain trouble
+from which he had suffered intermittently became more severe, and in
+February, 1854, he became possessed of the idea that Schubert's spirit
+had appeared to him and given him a theme to work out. He abruptly
+left the room in which he was sitting with some friends in his house
+at Düsseldorf and threw himself into the Rhine. Some boatmen rescued
+him from drowning, but he had to be taken to an asylum near Bonn,
+where he died in July, 1856.
+
+These circumstances in his life are mentioned here not only because of
+their interest, but because they explain some aspects of his music.
+Schumann was of a brooding disposition, intensely introspective.
+Compared with Chopin, his music lacks iridescence and shows a want of
+brilliancy. This will be immediately apparent if at a recital a
+pianist places the Schumann pieces after a Chopin group, as he is apt
+to do for the sake of the very contrast which they afford. But if
+Schumann's compositions are wanting in superficially attractive
+brightness, they more than make up for it in their profounder
+characteristics. All through them one seems to hear a deep-sounding
+tone. One might say that his works for the keyboard instrument are
+pianoforte music for the viola, and for that reason they appear to me
+so expressive and so appealing. The harmonies are wonderfully compact.
+One feels after striking a Schumann chord like stiffening the fingers
+in order to hold it down more firmly, keep a grip on it, and let it
+sound to its last echo.
+
+
+Poet, Bourgeois, and Philosopher.
+
+In Schumann's music the sensitive listener will find a curious
+blending of poet, bourgeois, and philosopher. He had the higher
+fancy, the warmth of the poet, a bourgeois love of what was
+intimate and homely, and the introspection of the philosopher.
+Sometimes he is so introspective that he appears to me actually to be
+burrowing in harmony like a mole. The melodies are interwoven;
+sometimes the upper voice flutters lightly down upon "contrapuntal
+collisions in the bass"; frequently his rhythms are syncopated;
+melodies are superimposed upon each other; he uses "imitations,"
+canonic figuration, and often by introducing a single note foreign
+to the scale, suddenly lowers or lifts an entire passage. There
+are interior voices in his music, half suppressed, yet making
+themselves heard now and then above the principal melody. He loves
+"anticipations"--advancing a single note or a few notes of the
+harmony and then filling in the sustained tone or tones with what
+was at first lacking. These characteristics are so marked that it is
+as easy to recognize Schumann as it is to distinguish Chopin in the
+first few bars of a work by either. Each is _sui generis_, each
+has his own hallmark, and it is a great thing in music, as in other
+arts, to have one's product so personal that there can be no
+mistaking whose it is.
+
+Schumann made valuable contributions to so-called program music. His
+pieces, besides intrinsic musical worth, have a distinct meaning,
+usually indicated by the titles he gives them. And these titles
+themselves often are suggested by the works of authors whom he
+admired, or hark back to certain fanciful figures like harlequins and
+columbines. His second work for the pianoforte, "The Papillons,"
+derived its inspiration from the poet, Jean Paul, who was at that time
+an object of his intense worship. But whoever expects to find
+butterflies fluttering through these Schumann pieces will be mistaken.
+They are rather symbols of thoughts still in the chrysalis state and
+waiting, like butterflies, to cast off the shell and gain air and
+freedom. This symbolism must be borne in mind in listening to "The
+Papillons."
+
+Schumann himself said, in a general way, regarding his programmatic
+intentions in this and other works, that the titles given to his music
+should be taken very much like the titles of poems, and that, as in
+the case of poems, the music in itself should be beautiful,
+irrespective of title or printed explanation. This is true of all
+program music that has survived. It will be found beautiful in itself;
+but it also is easy to discover that the titles and explanations which
+are calculated to place the hearer in certain receptive moods vastly
+add to his enjoyment.
+
+
+"Carnaval" and "Kreisleriana."
+
+I am always glad when a pianist elects to place the Schumann
+"Carnaval" on his program, because it is so characteristic of the
+composer's method of work and of his writing short pieces _en suite_,
+giving a separate name to each of his diversions yet uniting them into
+one composition by means of a comprehensive title. The complete title
+to this work is "Carnaval Scènes Mignonnes sur Quatre Notes pour
+Piano, Op. 9." The four notes are A S C H, and in explanation it
+should be said that in German S (es) is E flat, and H the B of our
+musical scale. Asch was the birthplace of Ernestine von Fricken, one
+of Schumann's early loves. Three of the divisions of the "Carnaval"
+are entitled Florestan, Eusebius, and March of the Davidsbündler.
+Schumann had founded the "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik," and he
+contributed to it under the noms-de-plume of Florestan, Eusebius and
+Raro; while his associates were denominated the Davidsbündler, it
+being their mission to combat and put to flight the old fogies of
+music, as David had the Philistines. Schumann himself is the looker-on
+at this carnival, a thinker wandering through the gay whirl, drawing
+his own conclusions, and noting down in music the varied figures as
+they pass, and his reflections on them. We meet Chopin and Paganini,
+each neatly characterized; Chiarina (the Italian diminutive of Clara)
+and Estrella (none other than Ernestine herself); also Harlequin,
+Pantalon, and Columbine. The Davidsbündler march in to the strains of
+the German folk-song,
+
+    "Grandfather wedded my grandmother dear,
+    So grandfather then was a bridegroom, I fear,"
+
+and the whole ends in a merry uproar. He wrote another carnival suite,
+Opus 26, the "Faschingschwank aus Wien," in which he introduced a
+suggestion of the "Marseillaise," which was at that time forbidden to
+be played in Vienna.
+
+The title of another work which ranks among his finest productions,
+the "Kreisleriana," also requires explanation. This he derived from a
+book by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who sometimes is spoken of as the German
+Poe, although he lacks the exquisite art of the American author--in
+fact, is a Poe bound up in much heavy German philosophy and turgid
+introspection. The _Kreisler_ of Hoffmann's book is an exuberant
+sentimentalist, and is said to have had his prototype in Kapellmeister
+Ludwig Böhner, who, after a brilliant early career, had become
+addicted to drink and was reduced to maudlin memories of his former
+triumphs. In Hoffmann's book there is a contrast drawn between this
+pathetic character, whose ideals have become shadows which he vainly
+chases, and the prosaic views of life as set forth by another
+character _Kater Murr_ (literally _Tomcat Purr_). But these
+"Kreisleriana," of which Bie says "the joys and sorrows expressed in
+these pieces were never put into form with more sovereign power,"
+should be entitled "Schumanniana," for although the title is derived
+from Hoffmann, the content is Schumann.
+
+
+Thoughts of His Clara.
+
+Concerning the work as a whole he wrote to Clara while in the throes
+of composition: "This music now in me, and always such beautiful
+melodies! Think of it, since my last letter to you I have another
+entire book of new things ready. I intend to call them 'Kreisleriana,'
+and in them you and a thought of you play the chief rôle, and I shall
+dedicate them to you. Yes, they belong to you as to no one else, and
+how sweetly you will smile when you find yourself in them! My music
+seems to me so wonderfully interwoven, in spite of all its simplicity,
+and speaking right from the heart. It has that effect upon all for
+whom I play these things, as I now do gladly and often." If Clara and
+a thought of Clara play the chief rôle, what becomes of _Kreisler_ and
+_Kater Murr_? Surely "Kreisleriana" are Schumanniana.
+
+Full of varied characteristics are the "Fantasie Pieces." Among these
+is the familiar "Warum," which one has but to hear to recognize at
+once that it is no ordinary Why, but a question upon the answer to
+which depends the happiness of a lifetime; "At Evening" (_Abends_),
+with its sense of perfect peace; the buoyant "Soaring" (_Aufschwung_);
+"Whims" (_Grillen_); "Night Scene," an echo of the legend of Hero and
+Leander; the fable, "Dream-Whirls" (_Traumeswirren_) and the "End of
+the Song," with its mingling of humor and sadness. These "Fantasie
+Pieces" and the aptly named "Novelettes" seem destined always to
+retain their popularity. And then there are the "Scenes from
+Childhood," to which belongs the "Träumerei"; the "Forest Scenes," the
+"Sonatas;" the heroic technical studies, based on the Paganini
+"Capriccios," and the "Études Symphoniques," and the "Fantasie," above
+the first movement of which he placed these lines from Schlegel:
+
+    "Through every tone there passes,
+    To him who deigns to list,
+    In varied earthly dreaming,
+      A tone of gentleness."
+
+Clara was the "tone," as he told her. It was largely through Madame
+Schumann's public playing of her husband's works that they won
+their way. Even so, owing to their lack of brilliancy and their
+introspection, they were long in coming to their own. But the best
+of them, including, of course, the admirable "A Minor Concerto," long
+will retain their hold on the modern pianist's repertoire. William
+Mason went to Leipzig in 1849. "Only a few years before I arrived at
+Leipzig," he says in his "Memories," "Schumann's genius was so little
+appreciated that when he entered the store of Breitkopf & Härtel
+with a new manuscript under his arm, the clerks would nudge one
+another and laugh. One of them told me that they regarded him as a
+crank and a failure because his pieces remained on the shelf and
+were in the way. * * * Shortly after my return from Germany (to New
+York) I went to Breusing's, then one of the principal music stores
+in the city,--the Schirmers are his successors,--and asking for
+certain compositions by Schumann, I was informed that they had his
+music in stock, but as there was no demand for it, it was packed away
+in a bundle, and kept in the basement." What a contrast now!
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+LISZT, THE GIANT AMONG VIRTUOSOS
+
+
+It is possible, but not likely, that some pianist willing, for the
+moment at least, to sacrifice outward success to inward satisfaction,
+will, after he has played the Schumann selections on his program,
+essay one of Brahms's shorter pianoforte compositions. These are even
+more introspective than Schumann's works and combine a wealth of
+learning with great depth of musical feeling. It is almost necessary,
+however, that one should know them thoroughly in order to appreciate
+them, and audiences have been so slow to welcome them that they appear
+but infrequently on recital programs. Those of my readers, however,
+who are pianists yet still unacquainted with these rare and beautiful
+compositions, will soon find themselves under the spell of their
+intimate personal expression if they will get them and start to learn
+them. The Brahms Variations on a theme by Händel make a stupendous
+work, and the rare occasions on which it is played by any one capable
+of mastering it should be regarded as "events."
+
+Grieg, with his clear, fascinating Norwegian clang-tints, which
+also play through his fascinating "Concerta" in A minor; Dvorak,
+the Bohemian; Tschaikowsky, whose first "Concerto" in B flat minor
+is among the finest modern works of its kind; or some of the
+neo-Russians, are composers who may figure on the program of a
+modern pianoforte recital. But it is more likely that the virtuoso
+will here elect to bring his recital to a close with some work by the
+grandest figure in the history of pianoforte playing and one of the
+greatest in the history of composition--Franz Liszt.
+
+
+Kissed by Beethoven.
+
+Liszt was born at Raiding, near Odenburg in Hungary, in October, 1811,
+and he died in Bayreuth in July, 1886. From early boyhood, when he was
+a pianoforte prodigy, almost until his death, he occupied a unique
+position in the musical world. He was the Paganini of the pianoforte,
+the greatest pianist that ever lived, and he was a great composer; and
+although, as a virtuoso, he retired from public performances long
+before he died, his fame as a player and his still greater fame as a
+composer have not diminished and his influence still is potent.
+
+His father was an amateur, and began giving him instruction when he
+was six years old. The boy's talent was so pronounced that even
+without professional instruction he was able, when he was nine years
+old, to appear in public and play a difficult concerto by Ries. So
+great was his success that his father arranged for other concerts at
+Pressburg. After the second of these, several Hungarian noblemen
+agreed to provide an annual stipend of 600 florins for six years for
+Franz's further musical education. The family then removed to Vienna,
+where, for about a year and a half, the boy took pianoforte lessons
+from Czerny and theory with Salieri. Beethoven heard of him, and asked
+to see him, and at their meeting, after Franz had played, without
+notes and without the other instruments, Beethoven's pianoforte trio,
+Op. 97 (the large one in B flat major), the great master embraced and
+kissed him. In 1823 he was taken to Paris with a view to being placed
+in the Conservatoire. But although he passed his examination without
+difficulty, Cherubini, at that time the director of the institution
+and prejudiced against infant phenomena, revived a rule excluding
+foreigners and admission was denied him.
+
+His success as a pianist, however, was enormous and there was the
+greatest demand in salons and musical circles for "le petit Litz." (As
+some writer, whose name I cannot recall, has said, "the nearest Paris
+came to appreciating Liszt was to call him 'Litz.'") He was the friend
+of Chopin, of other musicians, and of painters and literary men, and
+the doors of the most exclusive drawing-rooms of the French capital
+were open to him. Paganini played in Paris in 1831, and his wonderful
+feats of technique inspired Liszt to efforts to develop the technique
+of the pianoforte with as much daring as Paganini had shown in
+developing the capacity of the violin. This was the beginning of those
+wonderful feats of virtuosity as well as of the remarkable technical
+demands made in his compositions, both of which combined have done so
+much to make the pianoforte what it is, and to bring out its full
+potentiality as regards execution and expression.
+
+
+Episode with Countess D'Agoult.
+
+For a time Liszt left Paris with the Countess d'Agoult, who wrote
+under the nom-de-plume of Daniel Stern, and who was the mother of his
+three children, of whom Cosima became the wife, first of Von Bülow and
+then of Wagner. His four years with the Countess he passed in Geneva.
+Twice, however, he came forth from this retirement to cross the sword
+of virtuosity with and vanquish his only serious rival in pianoforte
+playing, Sigismund Thalberg, a brilliant player and a man, like Liszt
+himself, of fascinating personality, but lacking the Hungarian's
+intellectual capacity. In 1829, he and Countess d'Agoult having
+separated, he began his triumphal progress through Europe, and for the
+following ten years the world rang with his fame. He then settled down
+as Court Conductor at Weimar, which became the headquarters of the new
+romantic movement in Germany. Hardly a person of distinction in music
+or any of the other arts passed through the town without a visit to
+the Altenburg, to pay his respects to Liszt. At Weimar, "Lohengrin"
+had its first performance; here Berlioz's works found a hearing; here
+everything new in music that also was meritorious was made welcome.
+Liszt's activity at Weimar continued until 1859, when he left there on
+account of the hostility displayed to the production of Cornelius's
+opera, "The Barber of Bagdad," and its resultant failure. He remained
+away from Weimar for eleven years, living for the most part in Rome,
+until 1870, when he was invited to conduct the Beethoven festival and
+re-established cordial relations with the Court. Thereafter he
+divided his year between Rome, Buda-Pest, where he had been made
+President of the new Hungarian Academy of Music, and Weimar.
+
+"Liszt, the artist and the man," says Baker, in his "Biographical
+Dictionary of Musicians," "is one of the grand figures in the history
+of music. Generous, kindly and liberal-minded, whole-souled in his
+devotion to art, superbly equipped as an interpreter of classic and
+romantic works alike, a composer of original conceptions and daring
+execution, a conductor of marvellous insight, worshipped as teacher
+and friend by a host of disciples, reverenced and admired by his
+fellow-musicians, honored by institutions of learning and by
+potentates as no artist before or since, his influence, spread by
+those whom he personally taught and swayed, will probably increase
+rather than diminish as time goes on."
+
+It has been said that Liszt passed through six lives in the course of
+his existence--only three less than a cat. As "petit Litz" he was the
+precocious child adored of Paris; as a youth, he plunged into the
+early romanticism which united the devotees of various branches of art
+in the French capital: next came the episode with the Countess
+d'Agoult; then his triumphal tours through Europe; settling at Weimar,
+he became the centre of the modern musical movement in Europe;
+finally, he revolved in a cycle through Rome, Buda-Pest and Weimar,
+followed from place to place by a band of devotees.
+
+Liszt's compositions for the pianoforte may be classified as follows:
+"Fantasies Dramatiques"; "Années de Pèlerinage"; "Harmonies Poetiques
+et Religieuses"; the Sonata, Concertos, Études, and miscellaneous
+works; "Rhapsodies Hongroises"; arrangements and transcriptions from
+Berlioz, Beethoven, Weber, Paganini, Schubert and others.
+
+
+The Don Juan Fantasie.
+
+Among the "Fantasies Dramatiques," which are variations on themes from
+operas, not mere potpourris or transcriptions, but genuine fantasies,
+and usually based on one or two themes only, the best known is the
+"Don Juan Fantasie." It is founded upon the duet, "La ci darem la
+mano." Liszt utilizes a passage from the overture as an introduction,
+then gives the entire duet, varying it, however, not in set form, but
+with the effect of a brilliant fantasia, and then winds up the whole
+with a presto on the "Champagne Song." It is true it no longer is
+Mozart--but Mozart might be glad if it were. It is even possible that
+the time will come when "Don Giovanni" will have vanished from the
+operatic stage, yet be remembered by this brilliant fantasia of
+Liszt's. It is one of the great _tours de force_ of pianoforte music,
+and it is good music as well. Another of the better known "Fantasies
+Dramatiques" is the one Liszt made from "Norma," in which occurs a
+long sustained trill and a melody for the right hand, while the left
+plays another melody and the accompaniment to the whole. In other
+words, there is in this passage a trill sustained throughout, two
+melodies and the accompaniment, all going on at the same time, yet
+written with such perfect knowledge of pianoforte technique that any
+virtuoso worthy of the name as used in a modern sense, can compass
+it.
+
+A work called the "Hexameron" is included in catalogues of Liszt's
+compositions, although he only contributed part of it. It is the march
+from Bellini's "Puritani" with six variations, written by six pianists
+and originally played by them on six pianofortes, five of them full
+grands, while Chopin, whose variation was not of the bravura, kind,
+sat at a two-stringed semi-grand. Liszt contributed the introduction,
+the connecting links and the finale of the "Hexameron."
+
+The "Années de Pèlerinage" were published in three divisions,
+extending in point of time from 1835 to 1883. They are a series of
+musical impressions, as the titles indicate--"Au lac de Wallenstadt,
+Pastoral," "Au bord d'une source, Sposalizio" (after Raphael's
+picture in the Brera), "Il Penseroso" (after Michael Angelo). Many of
+these are adroit and elegant in the treatment of the pianoforte, and
+at the same time beautiful as music. The "Harmonies" are partly
+transcriptions of his own vocal pieces, partly musical illustrations
+to poems. Among them is the familiar "Cantique d'Amour," and the
+"Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude," of which he himself was very
+fond. William Mason says that at the Altenburg a copy of it always was
+lying on the pianoforte, "which Liszt had used so many times when
+playing for his guests that it became associated with memories of
+Berlioz, Rubinstein, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, Joachim." When Mr. Mason
+left Weimar he took this copy with him as a souvenir, still has it,
+and treasures it all the more for the marks of usage which it
+bears. The "Consolations," which, as Edward Dannreuther says, may be
+taken as corollaries to the "Harmonies," are tenderly expressive
+pianoforte pieces.
+
+
+Giant Strides in Virtuosity.
+
+The Études bear the dates 1827, 1839 and 1852, and as they are in the
+main progressive editions of the same pieces, they represent the
+history of pianoforte technique as it developed under Liszt's own
+fingers. In their earliest shape when issued in 1827, they were but
+little different from the classical Études of Czerny and Cramer. In
+their latest shape they form the extreme of virtuosity. Indeed, these
+three editions are three giant strides in the development of
+pianoforte technique. Von Bülow's coupling of the Étude called "Feux
+Follets" with the A flat study (No. 10) of Chopin already has been
+quoted under that composer. He considered it even more difficult.
+Schumann called the collection "Sturm und Graus Etuden" (Studies of
+Storm and Dread), and expressed the opinion that there were only ten
+or twelve pianists living who could play them. In the Étude called
+"Waldesrauschen" will be found some ingenious double counterpoint. The
+theme is divided into two portions, a descending and ascending one,
+which later on appear together, with first one and then the other
+uppermost. Other titles among the Études are "Paysage," "Mazeppa" (a
+tremendous test of endurance), "Vision," "Chasse-neige," "Harmonies de
+Soir" and "Gnomentanz." Through Liszt's transcriptions of some of the
+Paganini pieces in the form of Études, which include the famous "Bell
+Rondo" from one of the Paganini concertos, this piece, for example,
+now is far better known as a pianoforte composition than in its
+original form for violin.
+
+
+Sonata, Concertos and Rhapsodies.
+
+The "Sonata in B Minor" dedicated to Schumann is one of the few
+sonatas in which there is psychological unity throughout. This is
+due to the fact that it is one movement; although by employing
+various themes both in rapid and in slow time, Liszt has given it a
+certain aspect of division into movements. It might well serve as a
+model to younger composers who think they have to write sonatas.
+Dannreuther, it is true, says of it that it is "a curious compound
+of true genius and empty rhetoric," but admits that it contains
+enough of genuine impulse and originality in the themes of the
+opening section, and of suave calm in the melody of the section that
+stands for the slow movement, to secure the hearer's attention. Mr.
+Hanchett's characterization of it as one of the most masterly
+compositions ever put into this form--a gigantic, wholly admirable and
+original work--is more just.
+
+The two pianoforte concertos (in E flat and A major) are superb works.
+Not only are they written with all the skill which Liszt knew so well
+how to apply when composing for the instrument, but with this
+technical perfection they also unite thought and feeling. Like the
+sonata, they show throughout their development the psychological unity
+which is so essentially modern. What the pianoforte owes to Chopin and
+Liszt can be summed up by saying that they were poets and thinkers
+who took the trouble to thoroughly understand the instrument. Because
+their music sounds so well on it, at least one of them, Liszt,
+frequently is stigmatized as a trickster of virtuosity and a
+charlatan, as if there were some wonderful mark of genius in writing
+something for one instrument that sounds better on another or may not
+sound as well as it ought to on any. If Liszt's pianoforte music is
+grateful to the player and equally grateful to the listener, it is not
+only because he knew how to write for the pianoforte, but because,
+with deep thoughts and poetic feelings, he also understood how to
+express them clearly and pianistically.
+
+The "Rhapsodies Hongroises" are of such dazzling brilliancy and show
+off a pianist's technique to such good purpose and so brilliantly,
+that their real musical worth has been under-estimated. They are
+full of splendid fire, vitality and passion, and their rhythmic throb
+is simply irresistible. Like the Études, their history is curious.
+At first they were merely short transcriptions of Hungarian tunes.
+These were elaborated and republished and canceled, and then
+rewritten and published again. In all there are fifteen pieces in
+the set, ending with the "Rakoczy March." As "Ungarische Melodien"
+they began to appear in 1838; as "Melodies Hongroises" in 1846; as
+"Rhapsodies Hongroises" in 1854. Consider that they are over fifty
+years old, yet remain the greatest pieces for the display of brilliant
+technique and the most grateful works for which a pianist can ask,
+and that at the same time they are full of admirable musical
+content! Because they happen to be brilliant and effective they are
+called trashy, whereas they owe their brilliancy and effectiveness
+to Liszt's own transcendent virtuosity, to his knowledge of the
+pianoforte. In order to be great must music be "classic," heavy and
+dull, and badly written for the instrument on which it is to be
+played?
+
+
+How Liszt Played.
+
+In those charming reminiscences from which I already have had occasion
+to quote several times, William Mason's "Memories of a Musical Life,"
+Mr. Mason says that time and again at Weimar he heard Liszt play, and
+that there is absolutely no doubt in his mind that Liszt was the
+greatest pianist of the nineteenth century, what the Germans call an
+_Erscheinung_, an epoch-making genius. Tausig said of him: "Liszt
+dwells alone upon a solitary mountain-top and none of us can approach
+him." Rubinstein said to Mr. William Steinway, in the year 1873 (I
+quote from Mason): "Put all the rest of us together and we would not
+make one Liszt." While Mr. Mason willingly acknowledges that there
+have been other great pianists, some of them now living, he adds: "But
+I must dissent from those writers who affirm that any of these can be
+placed upon a level with Liszt. Those who make this assertion are too
+young to have heard Liszt other than in his declining years, and it is
+unjust to compare the playing of one who has long since passed his
+prime with that of one who is still in it."
+
+Edward Dannreuther, who heard Liszt play from 1863 onward, says that
+there was about his playing an air of improvisation and the expression
+of a grand and fine personality, perfect self-possession, grace,
+dignity and never-failing fire; that his tone was large and
+penetrating, but not hard, every effect being produced naturally and
+easily. Dannreuther adds that he has heard performances, it may be of
+the same pieces, by younger men, such as Rubinstein and Tausig, but
+that they left an impression as of Liszt at second-hand or of Liszt
+past his prime. "None of his contemporaries or pupils were so
+spontaneous, individual and convincing in their playing; and none
+except Tausig so infallible with their fingers and wrists."
+
+Liszt himself paid this superb tribute to the pianoforte as an
+instrument: "To me my pianoforte is what to the seaman is his boat, to
+the Arab his horse; nay, more, it has been till now my eye, my speech,
+my life. Its strings have vibrated under my passions and its yielding
+keys have obeyed my every caprice. It may be that the secret tie which
+binds me to it so closely is a delusion, but I hold the pianoforte
+very high. In my view, it takes the first place in the hierarchy of
+instruments. It is the oftenest used and the widest spread. In the
+circumference of its seven octaves it embraces the whole range of an
+orchestra, and a man's ten fingers are enough to render the harmonies
+which in an orchestra are brought out only by the combination of
+hundreds of musicians. The pianoforte has on the one side the capacity
+of assimilation, the capacity of taking unto itself the life of all
+instruments; on the other hand it has its own life, its own growth,
+its own individual development. My highest ambition is to leave to the
+piano players to come after me, some useful instructions, the
+footprints of advanced attainment, something which may some day
+provide a worthy witness of the labor and study of my youth."
+
+Bear in mind that Liszt played for Beethoven, that he was a
+contemporary of Chopin and Schumann, that he was one of the first to
+throw himself heart and soul into the Wagner movement, and that death
+came to him while he was attending the festival performances at
+Bayreuth; bear in mind, I repeat, that he played for Beethoven and
+died at "Parsifal"; strive to appreciate the extremes of musical
+history and development implied by this; then remember that he remains
+a potent force in music--and you may be able to form some idea of his
+greatness.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+WITH PADEREWSKI--A MODERN PIANIST ON TOUR
+
+
+Liszt never was in this country, but we can gain some idea of the
+success that would have been his from the triumphs of Ignace
+Paderewski. Other famous pianists have come to this country--Thalberg
+in 1856; Rubinstein in 1872; Von Bülow, Joseffy, who took up his
+residence here; Rosenthal, Josef Hofmann. But Paderewski's success has
+been greater than any of these. Americans are said to be fickle; but
+although Paderewski no longer is a novelty, his name still is the one
+with which to fill a concert hall from floor to roof.
+
+Why this is so is no secret. Hear him and you will understand the
+reason. To a technique which does not hesitate at anything and an
+industry that flinches at nothing--no one practices more assiduously
+than he--he adds the soul of a poet and the strength of an athlete. He
+looks slender and poetical enough as he sits at the piano on the
+concert stage; but if you watch him from near by you will be able to
+note the great physical power which he can bring into play when
+necessary--_and which he never brings into play unless it is
+necessary_. Therefore he combines poetry with force; and back of both
+is thought--intellectual capacity.
+
+In a frame on the wall of a New York trust company is a check for
+$171,981.89. It represents the net receipts of one virtuoso for one
+concert tour, and is believed to be the largest actual amount ever
+earned in this country by an artist, whether singer or player, in a
+single season. This check is drawn to the order of Ignace J.
+Paderewski.
+
+An opinion regarding the piano by a man who by playing it can earn so
+large a sum, and earn it because he is the greatest living exponent of
+pianoforte playing, would seem worth having. Paderewski believes that,
+save in one respect, the pianoforte has reached perfection and is
+incapable of further improvement. He does not think that anything more
+should be done to add to its volume of tone. If anything, he considers
+this too great and the instrument too loud already. Instead of more
+power, rather less would be satisfactory. Wherein, however, he
+considers the instrument still lacking, notwithstanding its wonderful
+development during the last century, is in its capacity for sustained
+tone--for holding a long-drawn-out tone with the facility of the
+violin, for example. He is convinced, however, that the means of
+imparting this capacity for sustaining tone to the pianoforte will be
+discovered in due time and that the invention probably will be made in
+this country. That increased tone-sustaining power for the instrument
+is a great desideratum doubtless is the opinion of many experts; but
+that the greatest master of the pianoforte considers it perfect in
+other respects is highly interesting and significant. After all, it
+remains the greatest of all solo instruments, because, within the
+smallest compass and with the simplest means of control, it has the
+range of an orchestra. For this reason it is the most popular of
+instruments and, in its manufacture, extends from the polished
+dry-goods box with internal organs of iron, wire and felt and with a
+glistening row of celluloid teeth ready to bite as soon as ever the
+lid is raised, to the highest-class concert grand.
+
+
+The "Piano Doctor."
+
+We who have our pianofortes in our own homes and are content with an
+occasional visit from the tuner, little dream of the care bestowed
+upon the instrument on which an artist like Paderewski plays.
+Instrument? I should have said instruments; for, when he is on tour,
+he has a whole suite of them, no less than four, and each is coddled
+as if it were a prima donna fresh from the hands of Madame Marchesi,
+instead of a thing of wood, metal and ivory. True, these pianos do not
+have their throats sprayed on the slightest possible occasion, but
+they are carefully protected against extremes of heat and cold, and,
+while the prima donna consults her physician only at intervals, a
+"piano doctor" is in constant attendance on these instruments.
+
+Paderewski's "piano doctor" has traveled with him for several seasons,
+occupying the same private car and practically living with him during
+the entire tour. He was with him on the tour, in fact at his table at
+breakfast with him, when his special train was run on to an open
+siding near East Syracuse and left the track, Paderewski being thrown
+forward on his hands against the table and straining the muscles of
+one arm so severely that he was obliged to cancel his remaining
+engagements. Up to that time, however, his net receipts from
+seventy-four concerts had been $137,012.50, while before this American
+tour began he gave thirty-six concerts in Australia with average
+receipts of $5,000. His record concert was at Dallas, Texas, some
+years ago, when the receipts were $9,000. It occurred during a
+Confederate reunion. While he was at the pianoforte, the various posts
+marched up to the hall with bands and fife-and-drum corps playing.
+Paderewski, however, kept right on through the blasts and shrilling.
+But when one of the posts let out the famous "rebel yell," the pianist
+leaped from his seat as if he expected a tiger to spring at his
+throat. Then he realized what had happened, smiled and continued amid
+laughter and applause. He had heard of the famous "rebel yell," but
+this was the first time he had heard it.
+
+
+Pianofortes on Their Travels.
+
+But to return to the pianofortes on tour. When Paderewski came to this
+country from Australia, his piano doctor met him at San Francisco with
+four instruments which had been selected with great care in New York
+and been shipped West in charge of the "doctor." One of these the
+virtuoso reserved for his private car, for he practices en route
+whenever there is a stop long enough to make it worth while. He rarely
+plays when the car is in motion. Of the other three instruments, the
+two he liked best were sent to his hotel, where during four days
+preceding his first concert, he practiced from seven to eight hours a
+day, notifying the "doctor" twenty-four hours in advance which
+pianoforte he would use. This instrument became, officially, No. 1;
+the others No. 2 and No. 3.
+
+The pianist's route took him from San Francisco to Oakland, San José,
+and Portland, Oregon. To make certain that he always will have a fine
+instrument to play on, a method of shipping ahead the instruments not
+in use is adopted. Thus, while he was playing on No. 1 in San
+Francisco and Oakland, No. 2 was sent on to San José and No. 3 to
+Portland. Of course, none but an expert could detect the slightest
+difference in these pianofortes, but a player like Paderewski is
+sensitive to the most delicately balanced distinctions or nuances in
+tone and action. One of his idiosyncrasies is that always before going
+on he asks the "doctor" which of the three instruments is on the
+stage, because, as he himself expresses it, "I don't want to meet a
+stranger." After each concert, at supper, this conversation invariably
+takes place:
+
+Paderewski: "Well, 'Doctor,' it sounded all right to-night, didn't
+it?"
+
+"Doctor": "Yes, sir."
+
+Paderewski: "Well, then, please pass me the bread."
+
+There never has been occasion to record what would happen if the
+"doctor" were to say, "No, sir." For he always has been able to answer
+in the affirmative, with the most scrupulous regard for veracity.
+
+Paderewski is as careful to play his best in the least important place
+in which he gives a concert as he is in New York. This high sense of
+duty toward his public accounts in part for his supremacy among
+pianists Paderewski is not a mere virtuoso. He is a man of fine
+intellectual gifts who plays the piano like a poet. Paul Potter, the
+playwright, who lives in Geneva, Switzerland, and occasionally has
+dined there with Paderewski, tells me that he has conversed with the
+pianist on almost every conceivable subject _except music_ and always
+found him remarkably well informed. His knowledge of the history of
+his native land, Poland, and of its literature is said to be quite
+wonderful. Chopin, also a Pole, he idolizes and regards as far and
+away the greatest composer for the piano. To the fund for the Chopin
+memorial at Warsaw he contributes by charging one dollar for his
+autograph, and two dollars for his signature and a few bars of music.
+From the money received as the proceeds of one season's autographs he
+was able to remit about $1,300 to the fund.
+
+When the amusing little dialogue at the supper table, which I have
+recorded, takes place, the pianoforte which the virtuoso has used at
+his concert already will be on the way to its next destination. For it
+is part of the "doctor's" duty to see it safely out of the hall and
+onto the train before rejoining the party on the private car. The
+instrument is not boxed. The legs are removed and then a carefully
+fitted canvas is drawn over the body and held in place by straps. The
+body is slid out of the hall and slowly let down onto a specially
+constructed eight-wheel skid, swung low, so as to be as nearly as
+possible on a level with the platform. This skid is part of the outfit
+of the tour. The record time for detaching the legs of the pianoforte,
+covering the body, removing the instrument from the stage and having
+it on the skid ready to start for the station, is seven minutes.
+
+
+"Thawing Out" a Pianoforte.
+
+The instruments never are set up except under the "doctor's" personal
+supervision. Before each concert the pianoforte on which Paderewski is
+to play is carefully gone over and put in perfect condition--tuned
+and, if necessary, regulated, and this no matter how recently he may
+have used it. Defects so trifling that neither an ordinary player nor
+the public would notice them, would jar on the sensitive ear and
+nerves of the virtuoso. Sometimes the instrument has been exposed to
+such a low temperature that frost is found to have formed not only on
+the lid, but even on the iron plate inside. In such cases the
+pianoforte is set up and, after the film of frost has been scraped
+off, is allowed to thaw out slowly and naturally before it is touched
+for tuning or regulating.
+
+There was an amusing incident in the handling of one of the Paderewski
+instruments at Columbus, Mississippi, where Paderewski played for
+seven hundred girls at the State College, although it was more
+exciting than diverting at the time it happened. The "doctor" relies
+on local help for getting the pianoforte from the skid to the stage
+and back again. Usually efficient helpers are obtainable, but at
+Columbus, where the college hall is upstairs and reached only by a
+narrow flight of steps, there was no aid to be had save from among the
+negroes lounging on the public square. The "doctor" went among them.
+
+"What are you doing?" he asked.
+
+"Nawthin'."
+
+"Want a job?"
+
+"Naw, too busy," was the usual reply.
+
+At last, however, a band of twenty "colored gentlemen" was secured in
+the hope that muscle and quantity would make up for lack of quality.
+But never before has a high-grade pianoforte been in such imminent
+peril. It was got upstairs well enough, in spite of the fact that the
+negroes walked all over each other. But the descent! The "doctor,"
+Emil C. Fischer, stood at the top of the stairs directing; J. E.
+Francke, the treasurer of the tour, below. Around the latter fell a
+shower of fragments from the wall, the rail, the posts; and at one
+time it seemed as if the whole banister would give way and the
+pianoforte crash in splinters on the floor. There were other moments
+of suspense, for the pianoforte as well as for the two watchers, who
+drew a long breath when the instrument safely was on the skid.
+
+Fortunately such untoward incidents are forgotten in the general
+atmosphere of good-humor which the pianist diffuses about him. He
+enjoys his little joke. During the last tour he handed a photograph of
+himself to Mr. Francke inscribed: "To the future Governor of Hoboken."
+At the Auditorium hotel, Chicago, Millward Adams' brother, about
+leaving on a trip, asked for an autograph. Paderewski, quick as a
+flash, wrote:
+
+"For the brother of Mr. _Adams_ on the _Eve_ of his departure from
+Chicago."
+
+Paderewski travels on a special train. With him usually are his wife,
+his manager, the treasurer of the tour, the piano "doctor," a
+secretary, valet and maid. His home is a villa on Lake Geneva, where
+he has a beautiful garden and vinery, his dogs, his room for
+billiards, a game of which he is very fond, and unlimited opportunity
+for swimming, his favorite exercise. Apparently slender and surely
+most poet-looking at the piano, he is a man of iron strength as well
+as of iron will.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORCHESTRA
+
+
+The appreciation and consequent enjoyment of an orchestral concert
+will be greatly enhanced if the listener is familiar with certain
+details regarding the orchestra itself and some of the compositions he
+is apt to hear. This I have borne in mind in the chapter divisions of
+this portion of my book, and, as a result, I have divided the subject
+into the general development of the orchestra, the specific
+consideration of the principal orchestral instruments, a cursory
+commentary on certain phases of orchestral music and a chapter on
+Richard Strauss who represents its most advanced aspects.
+
+The first music of which we moderns take account was unaccompanied (_à
+capella_) singing for church service. It was composed in the old
+ecclesiastical modes, which are quite different from our modern
+scales, and the name which comes most prominently to mind in
+connection with this beginning of our musical history is that of
+Palestrina. With the influence of this old church choral music so
+dominant, there is little wonder that the first efforts to write music
+for instruments were awkward. It may be said right here that this
+awkwardness, or rather this lack of knowledge and appreciation of the
+individual capacity of various instruments, is shown throughout the
+school of contrapuntal composition, even by Bach. When Bach wrote for
+orchestral instruments he did not consider their peculiar tone
+quality, or their capacity for individual expression, but simply their
+pitch--which instrument could take up this, that or the other theme in
+his contrapuntal score, when he had carried it as high or as low as he
+could on some other instrument. This also is true of Händel, although
+in less degree.
+
+But just as we have seen that Domenico Scarlatti worked along original
+lines for the pianoforte and created the germ of the sonata form,
+while Bach was weaving and plaiting the counterpoint of his suites,
+partitas and "Well-Tempered Clavichord," so in Italy, during a large
+part of this contrapuntal period, a distinct kind of orchestral music
+was springing up. Again, just as we have seen that in Italy the
+pianoforte shook off the trammels of counterpoint when it began to be
+used as an accompaniment for dramatic recitative in opera, so the
+instruments in the orchestra, when composers began to use them for
+operatic accompaniments, were employed more with reference to their
+individual tone qualities and power of expression.
+
+
+Primitive Orchestral Efforts.
+
+Although, strictly speaking, not the first composer to use orchestral
+instruments in opera, and to display skill in utilizing their
+individual characteristics, the most important of these early men was
+Claudio Monteverde (1568-1643). In his "Orpheo," which he produced in
+1608, he utilized, besides two harpsichords (and it may be of interest
+to note here that instruments of the pianoforte class were long used
+in orchestras as connecting links between all the other instruments),
+two bass viols, two tenor viols, one double harp, two little French
+violins, two large guitars, two wood organs, two viola di gambas, one
+regal, four trombones, two cornets, one octave flute, one clarion, and
+three trumpets with mutes--a fairly formidable array of instruments
+when the period is considered. Of especial interest are the "two
+little French violins," which probably were the same as our modern
+violins, now the prima donnas of the orchestra and far outnumbering
+any other instrument employed.
+
+It was Monteverde who in his "Tancredi e Clorinda" made use for the
+first time of a tremolo for stringed instruments, and it is said so to
+have astonished the performers that they at first refused to play it.
+Before Monteverde there were operatic composers like Jacopo Peri, and
+after him Cavalli and Alessandro Scarlatti, who did much for their day
+to develop the orchestra. This is a very brief summary of the early
+development of instrumental music, a story that easily could fill a
+volume--which, probably, however, very few people would take the
+trouble to read.
+
+
+Beethoven and the Modern Orchestra.
+
+The first really modern composer for the orchestra was Joseph Haydn
+(1732-1809), who also may be considered the father of the symphony.
+Born before Mozart, he also survived that composer. His music is gay
+and naive; while Mozart, although he had decidedly greater genius for
+the dramatic than Haydn, nevertheless is only a trifle more emotional
+in his symphonies. The three greatest of these which he composed
+during the summer of 1788, the E flat major, G minor and C major
+(known as the "Jupiter"), show a decided advance in the knowledge of
+orchestration, and the E flat major is notable because it is the first
+symphonic work in which clarinets were used. Haydn's and Mozart's
+symphonies--that is, the best of them--sound agreeable even to-day in
+a concert hall of moderate size. But because modern music with its
+sonorous orchestra requires large auditoriums, like Carnegie Hall in
+New York, these charming symphonic works of the earlier classical
+period are swallowed up in space and much of their naive and pretty
+effect is lost.
+
+Beethoven may be said to have established the modern orchestra. Very
+few instruments have been added to it since his time, and if an
+orchestra to-day sounds differently from what it did in his day, if
+the works of modern composers sound richer and more effective from a
+modern point of view than his orchestral compositions, it is not
+because we have added a lot of new instruments, but because our
+composers have acquired greater skill in bringing out their peculiar
+tone qualities and because the technique of orchestral players has
+greatly improved.
+
+It is for precisely the same reasons that Beethoven's symphonies show
+such a great advance upon those of his predecessors. The point is not
+that Beethoven added a few more instruments to the orchestra, but
+that, so far as his own purposes were concerned, he handled all the
+instruments which he included in his band with much greater skill than
+his predecessors had shown. Many writers affect to despise technique.
+But in point of fact the development of technique and the development
+of art go hand in hand. An artist, be he writer, painter or musician,
+cannot adequately express his ideas unless he has the means of doing
+so or the genius to create the means.
+
+
+How He Developed Orchestral Resources.
+
+In following Beethoven's symphonies from the First to the Ninth, we
+can see the modern orchestra developing under his hands from that
+handed over to him by Haydn and Mozart. In the First and Second
+Symphonies, Beethoven employs the usual strings, two flutes, two
+oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets and
+tympani. In the Third Symphony, the "Eroica," he adds a third horn
+part; in the Fifth a piccolo, trombones and contrabassoon. Although
+employed in the finale only, these instruments here make their first
+bow in the symphonic orchestra. In the Ninth Symphony Beethoven
+introduced two additional horns, the first use of four horns in a
+symphony. The scoring of these symphonies is given somewhat more in
+detail in the chapter "How the Orchestra Grew," in Mr. W. J.
+Henderson's "The Orchestra and Orchestral Music," a well conceived and
+logically developed book, in which the full story of the orchestra and
+its growth is clearly and interestingly told.
+
+Beethoven not only understood to a greater degree than his
+predecessors the peculiar characteristics of orchestral instruments,
+he also compelled orchestral players to acquire a better technique by
+giving them more difficult music to execute. In point of greater
+difficulty in performance, a Beethoven symphony holds about the same
+relation to the symphonies of Mozart and Haydn as the Beethoven
+pianoforte sonatas do to the sonatas of those composers.
+
+
+Beethoven and Wagner.
+
+Just as Beethoven added only a few instruments to the orchestra of his
+predecessors, but showed greater skill in handling those instruments,
+so the modern musician--a Wagner or a Richard Strauss--achieves his
+striking instrumental effects by a still greater knowledge of
+instrumental resources. The Beethoven orchestra practically is the
+orchestra of to-day. Few, very few, instruments have been added.
+Modern composers steadily have asked for more and more instruments in
+each group; but that is quite a different thing from adding new
+instruments. They have required more instruments of the same kind, but
+have asked for very few instruments of new kinds. Let me illustrate
+this by two modern examples.
+
+Firm, compact and eloquent as is Beethoven's orchestra in the Fifth
+Symphony, it cannot for a moment be compared in richness, sonority,
+tone color, searching power of expression and unflagging interest,
+with Wagner's orchestra in "Die Meistersinger." Yet Wagner has added
+only one trumpet, a harp and a tuba to the very orchestra which
+Beethoven employed when he scored for the Fifth Symphony; while for
+his "Symphonie Pathétique," one of the finest of modern orchestral
+works, Tschaikowsky adds only a bass tuba to the orchestra used by
+Beethoven. The simple fact is that modern composers have studied every
+possible phase of tone color and expression of which each instrument
+is capable. Furthermore, by skillfully dividing the orchestra into
+groups and using these groups like separate orchestras, yet uniting
+them into one great orchestra, they produce wonderfully rich
+contrapuntal effects, and thus make the modern orchestra sound, not
+seventy-five years, but five hundred years more advanced than that of
+Beethoven, however great we gladly acknowledge Beethoven to have
+been.
+
+
+Berlioz, an Orchestral Juggler.
+
+Following Beethoven, the next great development in the handling of
+orchestral resources is due to Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), and it is
+curious here how nearly one musical epoch overlaps another. Scarlatti
+was composing sonatas, and thus voicing the beginning of the classical
+era, while Bach was bringing the contrapuntal period to a close. It
+was only five years after the completion of the Ninth Symphony that
+Berlioz's "Francs Juges" overture was played. A year later his
+"Symphonie Fantastique, Episode de la Vie d'un Artiste," was brought
+out. Yet the Berlioz orchestra sounds so utterly different from the
+Beethoven orchestra that it almost might be a collection of different
+instruments. Even more than Beethoven, Berlioz understood the
+individuality, the potential characteristics of each instrument.
+
+Berlioz composed on a colossal scale, so colossal that his music
+has been called architectural. The "Dies Irae" in his "Requiem"
+calls for four brass bands, in four different corners of the
+hall, and for fourteen kettledrums tuned to different notes, in
+addition to the regular orchestra, chorus and soloists. This has
+been dubbed "three-story music"--the orchestra on the ground floor,
+the chorus on the _belle étage_, while the four extra brass
+bands are stationed _aux troisième_. Unfortunately for Berlioz, his
+ambition, in so far as it related to the art of orchestration
+and the skill he showed in accomplishing what he wanted to with
+his body of instrumentalists, was far in excess of his inspiration.
+His knowledge of the orchestra was sufficient to have afforded him
+every facility for the expression of great thoughts if he had
+them to express. But his power of thematic invention, his gift
+for melody, was not equal to his genius for instrumentation.
+Nevertheless, through this genius for instrumentation--for his
+technique was so extraordinary that it amounted to genius--and
+through his very striving after bizarre, unusual and gigantic
+effects, he contributed largely toward the development of the
+technical resources of instrumental music.
+
+
+Wagner, Greatest of Orchestral Composers.
+
+Berlioz wrote a book on instrumentation, which has lately been
+re-edited by Richard Strauss. In it Strauss, modestly ignoring
+himself, says that Wagner's scores mark the only advance in
+orchestration worth mentioning since Berlioz. It is true, the
+technical possibilities of the orchestra were greatly improved, so far
+as the woodwind was concerned, by the introduction of keyed
+instruments constructed on the system invented by Theobald Böhm; while
+the French instrument maker, Adolphe Sax, also made important
+improvements by perfecting the bass clarinet and the bass tuba. But
+whatever aid Wagner derived from these improvements merely was
+incidental to the principle which is illustrated by every one of his
+scores--that technique merely is a means to an end. Wagner is the
+greatest orchestral virtuoso who ever breathed. Never, however, does
+he employ technique for technique's sake, but always only to enable
+his orchestra to convey the exact meaning he has in his mind or
+express the emotion he has in his heart, and he spares no pains to hit
+upon the best method of conveying these ideas and expressing these
+emotions. That is one reason why, although no one with any knowledge
+of music could mistake a passage by Wagner for any one else's music,
+each of his works has its own peculiar orchestral style. For each of
+his works reproduces through the orchestra the "atmosphere" of its
+subject. The scores of "Tannhäuser," "Lohengrin," "The Ring of the
+Nibelung," "Tristan," "Meistersinger" and "Parsifal" never could be
+mistaken for any one but Wagner's music. Yet how different they are
+from each other! He makes each instrument speak its own language.
+When, for example, the English horn speaks through Wagner, it speaks
+English, not broken English, and so it is with all the other
+instruments of the orchestra--he makes them speak without a foreign
+accent.
+
+If Wagner employs a large orchestra, it is not for the sake of making
+a noise, but in order to gain variety in expression. "He is
+wonderfully reserved in the use of his forces," says Richard Strauss.
+"He employs them as a great general would his battalions, and does not
+send in an army corps to pick off a skirmisher." Strauss regards
+"Lohengrin" as a model score for a somewhat advanced student, before
+proceeding to the polyphony of "Tristan" and "Meistersinger" or "the
+fairy region of the 'Nibelungs.'" "The handling of the wind
+instruments," writes Strauss, "reaches a hitherto unknown esthetic
+height. The so-called third woodwinds, English horn and bass clarinet,
+added for the first time to the woodwinds, are already employed in a
+variety of tone color; the voices of the second, third and fourth
+horn, trumpets and trombones established in an independent polyphony,
+the doubling of melodic voices characteristic of Wagner, carried out
+with such assurance and freedom and knowledge of their characteristic
+timbres, and worked out with an understanding of tonal beauty, that to
+this day evokes unstinted admiration. At the close of the second act
+the organ tones that Wagner lures out of the orchestra triumph over
+the queen of instruments itself."
+
+
+How Wagner Produces His Effects.
+
+The effects produced by Wagner are not due to a large orchestra, but
+to his manner of using the instruments in it. Among some of his
+special effects are the employment of full harmony with what formerly
+would have been merely single passing notes, and above all, the
+exploitation of every resource of counterpoint in combination with the
+well developed system of harmony inherited from Beethoven, but largely
+added to by himself. In fact, Wagner's greatness is due to the
+combination of several great gifts--his melodic inventiveness, his
+rich harmony and his wonderful technical skill in weaving together his
+themes in a still richer counterpoint. This counterpoint is not,
+however, dry and formal, because his themes--his leading motives--are
+themselves full of emotional significance and not conceived, like
+those of the old contrapuntists, merely: for formal treatment.
+
+Richard Strauss is such a master of orchestration that I am inclined
+to quote his summary of the development of the art of orchestration,
+from his edition of the Berlioz book, which at this writing has not
+yet been translated. I should like to recall to the reader's mind,
+however, the fact that Strauss' father was a noted French-horn player;
+that Strauss himself has a great love for the instrument; and that
+when, in summing up the causes of Wagner's primacy among orchestral
+writers, he finds one of them in the greater technical facility of the
+valve horn, it is well to take this with a grain of salt and attribute
+it somewhat to his own affection for the instrument. The symphonies of
+Haydn and Mozart, according to Strauss, are enlarged string quartets
+with obbligato woodwind, brass and tympani, and the occasional use of
+other instruments of noise to strengthen the tuttis.
+
+"Even with Beethoven, the symphony is still simply enlarged chamber
+music, the orchestra being treated in a pianistic spirit which
+unfortunately shows itself even in the orchestral work of Schumann and
+Brahms. Wagner owes his polyphonic string quintet not to the Beethoven
+orchestra, but to the last quartets of Beethoven, in which each
+instrument is the peer of the others.
+
+"Meanwhile, another kind of orchestral work was developing, for, from
+the time of Gluck on, the opera orchestra was gaining in coloring and
+in individual characteristics. Berlioz was not dramatic enough for
+opera nor symphonic enough for the concert stage, yet his efforts to
+write programmatic symphonies resulted in his discovering new effects,
+new possibilities in tone tints and in orchestral technics. Berlioz
+misses the polyphony that enriches Wagner's orchestra, and makes
+instruments like the second violins, violas, etc., second horns, etc.,
+weave their threads or strands of melody into the woof. Wagner's
+primacy is due to his employment of the richest style of polyphony and
+counterpoint, the increased possibility of this through the invention
+of the valve horn, and his demand of solo virtuosity upon his
+orchestral players. His scores mark the only advance worth mentioning
+since Berlioz."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA
+
+
+An orchestra is an aggregation of many instruments which, under the
+baton of an able conductor, should play as one, so far as precision
+and expression are concerned. Separately, the instruments are like the
+paints on a palette, and the result of the composer's effort, like
+that of the painter's, depends upon what he has to express and his
+knowledge of how to use his materials in trying to express it.
+
+The orchestra has developed into several distinct groups, which are
+capable of playing independently, or in union with each other, and
+within these groups themselves there are various subdivisions. It is
+the purpose of every modern composer who amounts to anything, to get
+as many different quartets as possible out of his orchestra. By this
+is meant a grouping of instruments in such a way that as many groups
+as possible can play in independent harmony.
+
+It is through this system of orchestral groups that Wagner has been
+able to enrich orchestral tone coloring, and to say everything he
+wishes to say in exactly the way it should be said. We cannot, for
+example, imagine that the Love Motive in "Die Walküre" could be made
+to sound more beautiful on its first entrance in the score than it
+does. Nor could it. In that scene it is exactly suited to a solo
+violoncello, and to a solo violoncello Wagner gives it. In order,
+however, to produce a perfectly homogenous effect, in order that the
+violoncello quality of tone shall pervade not only the melody, but
+also the supporting harmony, he supports the melody with eight
+violoncellos, adding two double basses to give more sonorousness to
+the deepest note in the harmony. In other words he has made for the
+moment a complete orchestra out of nine violoncellos and two double
+basses, and produced a wondrously rich and thrilling effect--because,
+having a beautiful melody to score, he knew just the instruments for
+which to score it. This is an admirable example of what technique
+accomplishes in the hands of a genius. Another composer might have
+used an orchestra of a hundred instruments and not have produced the
+exquisite thrill that Wagner with his magical orchestral touch
+conjures out of this group of violoncellos, a group within a group, an
+orchestra of violoncellos within the string band.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+The woodwind instruments are capable of several similar subdivisions.
+Flutes, oboes and bassoons, for example, may form a group capable of
+producing independent harmony, so can the clarinets, and the same is
+the case with the brass instruments. One of Wagner's most beautiful
+leading motives, the Walhalla Motive in the "Ring of the Nibelung," is
+sounded on four trombones. In brief, then, the modern composer strives
+to constitute his orchestra in such a way that he secures as many
+independent groups, and as many little orchestras, as possible, not,
+however, for the purpose of using them independently all the time, but
+merely in order to do so occasionally for special effects or to
+combine them whenever he sees fit in order to enrich his tone coloring
+or weave his polyphony.
+
+The grand divisions of the orchestra are the strings--violins, violas,
+violoncellos and double basses; the woodwind, consisting, broadly
+speaking, of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; the brass--horns,
+trumpets and trombones; and the instruments of percussion, or the
+"battery"--drums, triangles, cymbals and instruments of that kind.
+
+
+The Prima Donna of the Orchestra.
+
+The leading instrument of the string group, and in fact the leading
+instrument of the orchestra, is the violin. The first violins are the
+prima donnas of the orchestra, and one might say that it is almost
+impossible to have too many of them. The first and second violins
+should form about one-third of an orchestra, and better still it would
+be for the number to exceed that proportion. The Boston Symphony
+Orchestra, which has about eighty-one players, has thirty violins.
+Theodore Thomas's New York Festival Orchestra in 1882, consisting of
+three hundred and fourteen instruments, had one hundred violins.
+
+Great is the capacity of the violin. Its notes may be crisp, sharp,
+decisive, brilliant, or long-drawn-out and full of emotion. It has
+greater precision of attack than any other instrument in the
+orchestra. And right here it is interesting to note that while the
+multiplication of instruments gives greater sonority, it also gives
+much finer effects in soft passages. The pianissimo of one hundred
+violins is a very much finer pianissimo and at the same time
+infinitely richer and further carrying than the pianissimo of a solo
+violin. It is the very acme of a musical stage whisper.
+
+In this very first and most important group of the orchestra we can
+find examples of utilizing subdivisions of groups. Although the violin
+cannot be played lower than its G string, which sounds the G below the
+treble clef, the violin group nevertheless has been employed entirely
+by itself, and even subdivided within itself. The most exquisite
+example of this, one cited in every work on the orchestra worth
+reading, is the "Lohengrin" prelude. To this the violins are divided
+into four groups and on the highest register, with an effect that is
+most ethereal.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+Modern orchestral virtuosity may be gauged by the statement that while
+Beethoven but once dared to score for his violins above the high F,
+Richard Strauss in the most casual manner carries them an octave
+higher.
+
+A little contrivance of wood or metal, with teeth, can be pressed down
+over the strings of the violin so as to deaden its vibrations. This is
+called the sordine, or mute. A famous example of the use of the
+violins _con sordini_ is the Queen Mab Scherzo in Berlioz's "Romeo et
+Juliette Symphonie." Another well-known use of the same effect is in
+Asa's Death, in Grieg's "Peer Gynt" Suite. Nothing can be more
+exquisite than the entrance of the muted violins after a long silence,
+in the last act of "Tristan und Isolde," just before _Isolde_ intones
+the Love Death.
+
+An unusual effect is produced by using the back of the bow instead of
+the horsehair. Liszt uses it in his symphonic poem, "Mazeppa," for
+imitating the snorting of the horse; Wagner in "Siegfried," for
+accompanying the mocking laugh of _Mime_; and Richard Strauss in
+"Feuersnot," to produce the effect of crackling flames. But, as
+Strauss remarks in his revision of Berlioz's work on instrumentation,
+it is effective only with a large orchestra. The plucking of the strings
+with the fingers--pizzicato--is a familiar device. Tschaikowski
+employed it almost throughout an entire movement, the "Pizzicato
+Ostinato" in his Fourth Symphony.
+
+
+Viola, Violoncello and Double Bass.
+
+The viola is a deeper violin, with a very beautiful and expressive
+tone. Méhul, the French composer, scored his one-act opera, "Uthal,"
+without violins, employing the viola as the highest string instrument
+in his score. This, however, was not a success, the brilliant tone of
+the violin being missed more and more as the performance of the work
+progressed, until Grétry is said to have risen in his seat and
+exclaimed: "A thousand francs for an E string!"
+
+Meyerbeer, who was among the first to appreciate the beauty of the
+viola as a solo instrument, used a single viola for the accompaniment
+to _Raoul's_ romance, "Plus blanche que la blanche hermine," in the
+first act of "Les Huguenots." Strictly speaking, he wrote it for the
+viola d'amour, which is somewhat larger than the ordinary viola; but
+it almost always is played on the latter. Berlioz made exquisite use
+of it in his "Harold Symphony," practically making a _dramatis
+persona_ of it, for in the score a solo viola represents the
+melancholy wanderer; and in his "Don Quixote," Richard Strauss assigns
+to the instrument an equally important rôle.
+
+The violoncello is one of the most tenderly expressive of all the
+instruments in the orchestra. Beethoven employs it for the theme of
+the slow movement in his Fifth Symphony, and although the viola joins
+with the violoncello in playing this melody, the passage owes its
+beauty chiefly to the latter. One of the most exquisite melodies in
+all symphonic music is the theme which Schubert has given to the
+violoncellos in the first movement of his "Unfinished Symphony." They
+also are used with wonderfully expressive effect in the "Tristan
+Vorspiel." Rossini gives a melodious passage, in the introduction to
+the overture to "William Tell," to five violoncellos. But the most
+striking employment of the violoncellos as an independent group is in
+the Love Motive in the first act of "Die Walküre."
+
+Double basses first were used to simply double the violoncello part in
+the harmony. But through Beethoven's employment of them in the Fifth
+and Ninth Symphonies, in the former for a remarkably effective passage
+in the Scherzo and in the latter for a highly dramatic recitative,
+their importance as independent instruments in the orchestra was
+established. Verdi has made very effective use of them in the scene in
+"Otello" as the _Moor_ approaches _Desdemona's_ bed. In the
+introduction to "Rheingold," Wagner has half his double basses tuned
+down to E flat, which is half a note deeper than the usual range of
+the instrument, and in the second act of "Tristan und Isolde" two
+basses are obliged to tune their E string down to C sharp.
+
+
+Dividing the String Band.
+
+I have pointed out several examples in which the groups of instruments
+in the string band are divided within themselves, as in the prelude to
+"Lohengrin" and in the first act of "Die Walküre." The entire string
+band can be divided and subdivided with telling effect, when done by a
+master. When in the second act of "Tristan" _Brangäne_ warns the
+lovers from her position on the watch-tower, the accompaniment stirs
+the soul to its depth, because it gives the listener such a weird
+thrill of impending danger that he almost longs to inform the lovers
+of their peril. In this passage Wagner divides the string band into no
+less than fifteen parts. In the thunder-storm in "Rheingold" the
+strings are divided into twenty-one parts. Richard Strauss points out
+how in the introduction to "Die Walküre" much of the stormy effect is
+produced by strings only--sixteen second violins, twelve violas,
+twelve violoncellos and four double basses--a storm for strings where
+another composer would have unleashed a whole orchestra, including
+cymbals and bass drum, and crashed and thrashed about without
+producing a tithe of Wagner's effect! He also cites the tremolo at the
+beginning of the second act of "Tristan" as a wonderful example of
+tone painting which produces the effect of whispering foliage and
+conveys to the audience a sense of mystery and danger.
+
+Theodore Thomas always was insistent that the various divisions of a
+string band should bow exactly alike. It is said that he once stopped
+an orchestra because he had detected something wrong with the tonal
+effect, and, after watching the players, had discovered that one
+violoncellist among sixteen was bowing differently from the others.
+Richard Strauss, on the other hand, never insists on the same bowing
+throughout each division of strings. He thinks it robs the melody of
+intensity and beauty if each individual is not allowed to play
+according to his own peculiar temperament.
+
+
+A Passage in "Die Walküre."
+
+In the Magic Fire Scene in the finale of "Die Walküre," Wagner wrote
+violin passages which not even the greatest soloist can play cleanly,
+yet which, when played by all the violins, simulate in _sound_ the
+_aspect_ of licking, circling flames. Indeed, the effects that Wagner
+understood how to draw from the orchestral instruments are little
+short of marvellous. In the "Lohengrin" prelude the tone quality of
+the violins is absolutely angelic in purity; while in the third act of
+"Siegfried," the upswinging violin passages as the young hero reaches
+the height where _Brünnhilde_ slumbers, depict the action with a
+thrilling realism.
+
+Besides the regular string band, Wagner made frequent use of the harp.
+It is related that at the Munich performance of "Rheingold," when the
+harpist Trombo protested to him that some of the passages were
+unplayable, the composer replied: "You don't expect me to play the
+harp, too, do you? You perceive the general effect I am aiming at;
+produce that and I shall be satisfied." Liszt, in his "Dante
+Symphony," uses the _glissando_ of the harp as a symbol for the rising
+shades of _Francesco da Rimini_ and her lover, and a very beautiful
+use of harmonics on the harp with their faint tinkle is to be found in
+the Waltz of the Sylphs in Berlioz's "Damnation de Faust."
+
+
+The Woodwind.
+
+Flutes, oboes and clarinets form the woodwind. One of the best known
+passages for flute is in the third "Leonora Overture" of Beethoven,
+where it is employed with conspicuous grace. Probably, however, more
+fun has been made of the flute than of any other orchestral
+instrument, and a standard musical joke runs as follows:
+
+"Are you musical?"
+
+"No, but I have a brother who plays the flute."
+
+It has also been insinuated that in Donizetti's "Lucia" the heroine
+goes mad, not because she has been separated from _Edgardo_, but
+because a flute obbligato accompanies her principal aria. The piccolo
+is a high flute used for shrill effects.
+
+The instruments of both the oboe and clarinet families are reed
+instruments, with this difference, however: the instruments of the
+oboe family have two vibrating reeds in the mouthpieces; those of the
+clarinet family, only one. The oboe family consists of the oboe
+proper, the English horn which is an alt oboe, and the bassoon which
+is the bass of this group of instruments. In Italian the bassoon is
+called a _fagotto_, a name derived from its supposed resemblance to a
+bundle of fagots. "Candor, artless grace, tender joy, or the grief of
+a fragile soul, are found in the oboe's accents," says Berlioz of this
+instrument, and those who remember the exquisite oboe melody, with
+which the slow movement of Schubert's C major symphony opens, will
+agree with the French composer. Richard Strauss, in his "Sinfonia
+Domestica," employs the almost obsolete oboes d'amore to represent an
+"innocent, dreamy, playful child."
+
+
+The English Horn in "Tristan."
+
+The most famous use of the English horn is found in the third act of
+"Tristan," where it plays the "sad lay" while _Tristan_ awaits news of
+the ship which is bearing _Isolde_ toward him, and changes to a joyous
+strain when the ship is sighted. The bassoon and contrabassoon,
+besides their value as the bass of the oboe family, have certain
+humorous qualities, which are admirably brought out in Beethoven's
+Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and in the march of the clownish artisans
+in Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream" music. In opera, Meyerbeer
+made the bassoon famous by his scoring of the dance of the _Spectre
+Nuns_ in "Robert le Diable" for it, and he also used it for the
+accompaniment to the female chorus in the second act of "Les
+Huguenots." The theme of the romanza, "Una fortiva lagrima," in
+Donizetti's "L'Elisir d'Amore," which Caruso sings so beautifully, is
+introduced by the bassoon, and with charming effect.
+
+The clarinets have a large compass. Usually three kinds of clarinets (in
+A, B flat and C because they are transposing instruments) are employed
+in the orchestra, besides the bass clarinet. The possibilities of the
+clarinet group have been enormously developed by Wagner. It is
+necessary only to recall the scene of _Elsa's_ bridal procession to the
+cathedral in the second act of "Lohengrin"; _Elisabeth's_ sad exit after
+her prayer in the third act of "Tannhäuser," in which the melody is
+played by the bass clarinet, while the accompaniment is given to
+three flutes and eight other clarinets; the change of scene in the first
+act of "Götterdämmerung," when clarinets give forth the Brünnhilde
+Motive; and passages in the second act of "Die Meistersinger," in the
+scene at nightfall; while for a generally skillful use of the woodwind
+the introduction to the third act of "Lohengrin" is a shining example.
+
+
+Brass Instruments.
+
+People usually associate the brass instruments with noise. But as a
+matter of fact, wonderfully rich and soft tone effects can be produced
+on the brass by a composer who knows how to score for it. Just as the
+pianissimo of many violins is a finer pianissimo than that of a solo
+violin, so a much more exquisitely soft effect can be produced on a
+large brass group than on a few brass instruments or a single one.
+When modern composers increase the number of instruments in the brass
+group, it is not for the sake of noise, but for richer effects.
+
+The trumpet is the soprano of the brass family. The fanfare in
+"Fidelio" when at the critical moment aid approaches; the Siegfried
+Motive and the Sword Motive, in the "Ring of the Nibelung," need only
+be cited to prove the effectiveness of the instrument in its proper
+place; and Richard Strauss instances the demoniacal and fateful effect
+of the deep trumpet tones in the introduction to the first act of
+Bizet's "Carmen."
+
+Although the notes of the trombone are produced by a slide, this
+instrument belongs to the trumpet family. For this reason, in the
+"Ring of the Nibelung," Wagner, in addition to the usual three tenor
+trombones, reintroduced the almost obsolete bass trombone. He wanted a
+trombone group complete in itself, and thus to be able to utilize the
+peculiar tone color of the instrument; as witness in the Walhalla
+Motive, where it is scored for the three tenor trombones and bass
+trombone, resulting in a wonderfully rich and velvety quality of tone.
+Excepting Wagner and Richard Strauss, there probably is not a
+composer who would not have used the bass tuba here instead of taking
+the trouble to revive the bass trombone. But Wagner wanted an
+unusually rich tone which should be solemn without a trace of
+sombreness, and his keen instrumental color sense informed him that he
+could secure it with the bass trombone, which, as it belongs to the
+trumpet family, has a touch of trumpet brilliancy, whereas the tone of
+the bass tuba is darker.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+Mozart employed the trombone with fine effect in _Sarastro's_ solo in
+the "Magic Flute"; Schubert showed his genius for instrumentation by
+the manner in which he used them in the introduction to his C major
+symphony, as well as in the first movement of that symphony, in which
+a theme is given out by three trombones in unison; and another
+familiar example of good scoring for trombones is in the introduction
+to the third act of "Lohengrin." In the Death Prophecy scene in the
+second act of "Die Walküre," a trumpet melody is supported by the four
+trombones, another instance of Wagner's sense of homogeneity in sound,
+since trumpets and trombones belong to the same family. In fact,
+throughout the "Ring," as Strauss points out, Wagner wrote for his
+trombones in four parts, adding the bass trombone in order to
+differentiate wholly between it and the tuba, which latter he used
+with the horns, with which it is properly grouped.
+
+Wagner has a tremendous tuba recitative in a "Faust Overture," and in
+the Funeral March in the "Götterdämmerung" he introduces tenor tubas
+in order, again, to differentiate between the tone color of tubas and
+trombones and not to be obliged to employ trombones in this particular
+scene, the general tone color of the tuba being far more sombre than
+that of the trombone.
+
+
+Richard Strauss's Tribute to the Horn.
+
+To mention tubas and trombones before the horns is very much like
+putting the cart before the horse, but I have reserved the horns for
+the last of the brass on account of the great tribute which Richard
+Strauss has paid them. In the early orchestras one rarely found more
+than two horns. Beethoven used four in the Ninth Symphony, and now it
+is not at all unusual to find eight.
+
+"Of all instruments," says Richard Strauss, "the horn is perhaps the
+one that best can be joined with other groups. To substantiate this in
+all its numerous phases, I should be obliged to quote the entire
+'Meistersinger' score. For I do not think I exaggerate when I maintain
+that the greatly developed technique of the valve horn has made it
+possible that a score which, with the addition of a third trumpet, a
+harp and a tuba, employs the same instruments as Beethoven used in his
+Fifth Symphony, has become with every bar something entirely
+different, something wholly new and unheard of.
+
+"Surely the two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets and two bassoons of
+Mozart have been exhausted by Wagner in every direction of their
+technical possibilities and plastically combined with an almost
+weird perception of all their tone secrets; the string quintet,
+through the most refined divisions into parts, and with added
+brilliance through the employment of the harp, produces innumerable
+new tone effects, and by superb polyphony is brought to a height
+and warmth of emotional expression such as never before was dreamed
+of; trumpet and trombones are made to express every phase of
+solemn or humorous characterization--but the main thing is the
+tireless participation of the horn, now for the melody, now for
+filling out, now as bass. The 'Meistersinger' score is the horn's
+hymn of praise. Through the introduction and perfection of the
+valve horn the greatest improvement in the technique of scoring,
+since Berlioz's day, has been made possible.
+
+"To illustrate exhaustively this Protean character of the horn, I
+should like (again!) to go through the scores of the great magician,
+bar by bar, beginning with 'Rheingold.'
+
+"Whether it rings through the primeval German forest with the sunny
+exuberance of _Siegfried's_ youthful heart and joy of living; whether
+in Liszt's 'Mazeppa' it dies out in the last hoarse gasp of the
+Cossack prince nigh unto death in the vast desert of the steppes;
+whether it conjures the childlike longing of _Siegfried_ for the
+mother he never has known; whether it hovers over the gently
+undulating sea which is to bring _Isolde's_ gladdening form to the
+dying _Tristan_, or nods _Hans Sachs'_ thanks to the faithful
+_'Prentice_; whether in _Erik's_ dream it causes in a few hollow
+accents the North Sea to break on the lonely coast; bestows upon the
+apples of Freia the gift of eternal youth; pokes fun at the
+curtain-heroes ('Meistersinger,' Act III); plies the cudgels on
+_Beckmesser_ with the jealous _David_ and his comrades, and is the
+real instigator of the riot; or sings in veiled notes of the wounds of
+_Tristan_--always the horn, in its place and to be relied on,
+responds, unique in its manifold meanings and its brilliant
+significance."
+
+Famous horn passages in the works of other composers are in the trio
+of the Scherzo in the "Eroica Symphony"; in the second movement of
+Schubert's C major symphony, the passage of which Schumann said that
+the notes of the horns just before the return of the principal
+subject were like the voice of an angel; in the opening of Weber's
+"Freischütz" overture; in the introduction to _Michaela's_ romance
+in "Carmen"; and in the opening theme of the slow movement of
+Tschaikowsky's Fifth Symphony, which is the perfection of a
+melodic phrase for solo horn.
+
+Instruments of Percussion.
+
+In the "battery" the instruments of prime importance are the tympani.
+Beethoven gave the cue to what could be accomplished with these in the
+scherzo of the Fifth Symphony and also in the octave thumps in the
+scherzo of the Ninth Symphony, while for a weirdly sombre effect there
+is nothing equal to the faint roll of the tympani at the beginning and
+end of the Funeral March in "Götterdämmerung." Cymbals are used in
+several ways. Besides the ordinary clash, Wagner has produced a sound
+somewhat like that of a gong, by the sharp stroke of a drum-stick on
+one cymbal, and also a roll by using a pair of drum-sticks on one
+cymbal.
+
+Among composers since Beethoven, Weber, Liszt, Saint-Saëns, Dvorak,
+Tschaikowsky, and, of course, Richard Strauss--it hardly is necessary
+to mention either Berlioz or Wagner again--have shown brilliant
+technique in orchestration. On the other hand, Schumann and Brahms do
+not appear to have understood or to have taken the trouble to
+understand the individual characteristics of orchestral instruments,
+and, as a result, their works for orchestra are not as effective as
+they should be. Their orchestration has been called "muddy."
+
+It is Richard Strauss's opinion that the next advancement in
+orchestration will be brought about by adding largely to certain
+groups of instruments which now have only comparatively few
+representatives in the orchestra. He instances that at the Brussels
+Conservatory one of the professors had Mozart's G minor symphony
+performed for him on twenty-two clarinets, of which four were basset
+horns (alto clarinets), two brass clarinets, and one contra-bass
+clarinet; and he suggests that it will be along such lines that the
+orchestra of the future will be enlarged. With an orchestra with all
+the family groups of instruments complete in the manner suggested by
+Strauss, and used by a musical genius, a genius who combines with
+melodic invention virtuosity of instrumentation, marvellous results
+are yet to be achieved.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+CONCERNING SYMPHONIES
+
+
+I have said that music, like all other arts, had a somewhat formless
+beginning, then gradually acquired form, then became too rigidly
+formal, and in modern times, while not discarding form, has become
+freer in its expression of emotion.
+
+Instrumental music, since the beginning of the classical period, has
+been governed largely by the symphony, which the reader should bear in
+mind is nothing more than a sonata for orchestra, the form having
+first developed on the pianoforte and having been handed over by it to
+the aggregation of instruments. Sir Hubert Parry, from whose book,
+"The Evolution of the Art of Music," I have had previous occasion to
+quote, has several apt paragraphs concerning the earlier development
+of the sonata, which of course apply with equal force to the symphony.
+After stating that the instinct of the composers who first sought the
+liberation of music from the all-predominating counterpoint, impelled
+them to develop movements of wider and freer range, which should admit
+of warm melodic expression, without degenerating into incoherent,
+rambling ecstasy, Sir Hubert continues: "They had the sense to see
+from the first that mere formal continuous melody is not the most
+suitable type for instrumental music. There is deep-rooted in the
+matter of all instrumental music the need of some rhythmic vitality.
+These composers then set themselves to devise a scheme in which, to
+begin with, the contour of connected melodic phrases, supported and
+defined by simple harmonic accompaniment, gave the impression of
+definite tonality--that is, of being decisively in some particular key
+and giving an unmistakable indication of it. They found out how to
+proceed by giving the impression of using that key and passing to
+another without departing from the characteristic spirit and mood of
+the music, as shown in the 'subjects' and figures; and how to give the
+impression of relative completeness, by closing in a key which is in
+strong contrast to the first, and so round off one-half of the
+design.
+
+"But this point being in apposition to the starting point, leaves the
+mind dissatisfied and in expectation of fresh disclosures; so they
+made the balance complete by resuming the subjects and melodic figures
+of the first part in extraneous keys, and working back to the starting
+point; and they made their final close with the same figures as were
+used to conclude the first half, but in the principal key instead of
+the key of contract." This is a somewhat more elaborate method of
+describing the sonata form than I have adopted in the division of this
+book relating to the pianoforte.
+
+
+Esthetic Purpose of the Symphony.
+
+Later on in his book, Sir Hubert, in discussing the type of sonata
+movement which was fairly established by the time of Haydn and Mozart,
+gives a simpler esthetic explanation, pointing out that the first
+part of the movement aims at definiteness of subject, definiteness of
+contrast of keys, definiteness of regular balancing groups of bars and
+rhythms, definiteness of progressions. By the time this first division
+is over the mind has had enough of such definiteness, and wants a
+change. The second division, therefore, represents the breaking up of
+the subjects into their constituent elements of figure and rhythm, the
+obliteration of the sense of regularity by grouping the bars
+irregularly; and aims, by moving constantly from key to key, to give
+the sense of artistic confusion; which, however, is always regulated
+by some inner but disguised principle of order. When the mind has gone
+through enough of the pleasing sense of bewilderment--the sense that
+has made riddles attractive to the human creature from time
+immemorial--the scheme is completed by resuming the orderly methods of
+the first division and firmly re-establishing the principal theme
+which has been carefully avoided since the commencement.
+
+The earlier symphonic writers usually wrote their symphonies in three
+movements: the first or sonata movement; a second slow movement in a
+simpler type of form, usually of the song, aria, or rondo type; and a
+final movement in lively time, also usually adapted to the rondo form.
+Concerning this three-movement symphony of the early writers, it was
+said by an old-time wit that they wrote the first movement to show
+what they could do, the second movement to show what they could feel,
+and the third movement to show how glad they were it was over--and
+this may be said to describe the view of the ultra-modern music-lover
+toward rigidity of form in general.
+
+Regarding form in music there is much prejudice one way or the other.
+The sonnet in poetry certainly is a rigid form; and yet those poets
+who have mastered it have produced extremely effective and highly
+artistic poems, and poems abounding in profound emotional expression.
+Walt Whitman, on the other hand, was quite formless, and yet he is
+sure to be ranked in time as one of the greatest poets of his age.
+Wagner's idea was that the symphonic form had reached its climax with
+Beethoven's Ninth Symphony; yet it is by no means incredible that if
+Wagner in his maturer years had undertaken to compose a symphony, the
+result would have disproved his own theory.
+
+
+Seems to Hamper Modern Composers.
+
+The symphonic form, however, or, to be more exact, the sonata form,
+seems to hamper every modern composer when he writes for the
+pianoforte, and the fact that most of Beethoven's pianoforte music was
+written in this form appears to be the reason for his works somewhat
+falling into disuse. On the other hand, the form is undoubtedly
+holding out better in the orchestral version of the sonata, the
+symphony, because the tone color of orchestral instruments gives it
+greater variety. Tschaikowsky, Dvorak and Brahms have worked
+successfully, and the two former even brilliantly, in this form; and
+if Brahms in his symphonies appears too continent, too classically
+reserved, it would seem to be not so much the form itself which is to
+blame, as his lack of skill in instrumentation.
+
+My own personal preference is for the freer form developed by Liszt in
+the symphonic poem, in which a leading motive, or possibly several
+motives skillfully varied dominate the whole composition and give it
+esthetic and psychological unity; and for the still freer development
+of instrumental music in the tone poem of Richard Strauss. But neither
+the symphonic poems of Liszt nor the tone poems of Strauss are
+formless music. That should be well understood, although it should be
+borne in mind with equal distinctness that these manifestations of the
+genius of two great composers show a complete liberation from the
+shackles of the classical symphony. In the end the test is found in
+the music itself. If the music of a symphonic poem which sets out to
+express a given title or a given motto, if the music of a tone poem
+which starts out to interpret a programmatic story or device, is
+worthy to be ranked with the great productions of the art, it not only
+is profoundly interesting as music, but gains immensely in interest
+through its incidental secondary meaning. It is the old story of art
+for art's sake--art for the purpose of merely gratifying the eye or
+the ear--or art for the purpose of conveying something besides itself
+to the beholder or the listener; and it seems to me that, in the
+history of the art, art for art's sake has always been the more
+primitive expression and eventually has been obliged to give way.
+
+
+The Naive Symphonists.
+
+At the risk of repeating what already has been said of the sonata, the
+symphony may be described as a work in four movements--the first
+movement, usually an Allegro, sometimes with a slow introduction, but
+more frequently without one; a second movement, ordinarily called the
+slow movement, and usually in Adagio or Andante; a third movement,
+either minuet or scherzo; and a final movement in fast time and
+usually in rondo form. It was Haydn who pretty definitely established
+these divisions of the symphony. He composed in all one hundred and
+twenty-five symphonies, of which only a few appear on modern concert
+programs, and even these but occasionally. Their music is marked by a
+simplicity bordering on naïveté, and the orchestration is a string
+quartet with a mere filling out by other instruments. Mozart was of a
+deeper and more dramatic nature than Haydn, and the expression of his
+thought was more intense. In the same way, there is a greater warmth
+and color in his orchestration. Nevertheless, the three finest of his
+forty-nine symphonies, the E flat, G minor and Jupiter, composed in
+1788, seem almost childlike in their artless grace and beauty to us
+moderns.
+
+Beethoven's first two symphonies were written under the influence of
+Haydn and Mozart, but with the third he becomes distinctly epic in his
+musical utterance; and this symphony, both in regard to variety and
+depth of expression and skillful use of orchestral instruments, is as
+great an advance upon the work of his predecessors as, let us say,
+Tschaikowsky is upon Mendelssohn.
+
+
+Beethoven to the Fore.
+
+There are apparent in the sequences of Beethoven's symphonies
+certain climaxes and certain rests. Thus the Third is the climax of
+the first three. The Fourth is far less profound; the master
+relaxes. But the Fifth, with its compact, vigorous theme, which
+Beethoven himself is said to have described as Fate knocking at
+the door, and his skillful introduction of this theme in varied form
+in each of the movements, is by many regarded as his masterpiece--even
+greater than the Ninth. After this he seems to have relaxed again
+in the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth, in order to prepare himself for the
+climax of his career in his final symphonic work, the Ninth. In the
+slow movement of the Sixth (the "Pastoral"), in which he imitates
+the call of birds, he gives the direction: "_mehr Empfindung als
+Malerei_" (more feeling than painting), a direction which often is
+quoted by opponents of modern program music; notwithstanding the fact
+that Beethoven, in spite of his own qualifying words, straightway
+indulged in "painting" of the most childish description. The Seventh
+Symphony is an extremely brilliant work and the Eighth an exceedingly
+joyous one, while with the Ninth, as though he himself felt that he
+was going beyond the limits of orchestral music, he introduced in
+the last movement solo singers and a chorus, but not with as much
+effect as the employment of this unusual scheme might lead one to
+anticipate, because, unfortunately, his writing for voices is
+extremely awkward.
+
+
+Schubert's Genius.
+
+Like Beethoven, Schubert wrote nine symphonies, but the "Unfinished,"
+which was his eighth, and the C major, his ninth, which was discovered
+by Schumann in the possession of Schubert's brother and sent to
+Mendelssohn for production at Leipzig, are the ones which seem
+destined to survive. They are among the most beautiful examples of
+orchestral music--the first movement of the "Unfinished Symphony" full
+of dramatic moments as well as of exquisite melody, the slow movement
+a veritable rose of orchestration; while as regards the C major
+symphony, Schumann's reference to its "heavenly length" sufficiently
+describes its inspiration.
+
+Mendelssohn's Italian and Scotch symphonies are his best known
+orchestral works. They are clear and serene, and for any one who
+thinks a symphony is something very abstruse and wants to be gradually
+familiarized with its mysteries, they form an easily taken and
+innocuous dose--the symphony made palatable. Of Schumann's four
+symphonies, the one in E flat, the "Rhenish," supposed to represent a
+series of impressions of the Rhine country, the fourth movement
+especially, to represent the exaltation which possessed his soul
+during a religious ceremony in the cathedral at Cologne; and the D
+minor, which latter really is a fantasia, deserve to rank highest. In
+the D minor the movements follow each other without pause; there is a
+certain thematic relationship between the first and the last
+movements, and this connection gives the work a freer and more modern
+effect. But Schumann was either indifferent to, or ignorant of, the
+advance in orchestration which had taken place since Beethoven.
+Practically the same thing applies to Brahms, who, however, deserves
+the credit for introducing into the symphony a new style of movement,
+the intermezzo, which takes the place of the scherzo or minuet.
+Rubinstein deserves "honorable mention"; but the most modern heroes of
+symphony are Dvorak, with his "New World," and Tschaikowsky, with his
+"Pathétique." Such works are life-preservers that may help keep a
+sinking art form afloat. But modern orchestral music is tending more
+and more toward the symphonic poem and the tone poem.
+
+Liszt has written two symphonies: the "Faust Symphony," consisting of
+three movements, which represent the three principal characters of
+Goethe's drama, _Faust_, _Gretchen_, and _Mephistopheles_; and a
+symphony to Dante's "Divina Commedia." In both these symphonies a
+chorus is introduced. Of his symphonic poems, the best known are
+"Les Préludes," and "Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo." In these symphonic
+poems Liszt has made use of the principle of the leitmotif in
+orchestral music. They are dramatic episodes for orchestra,
+superbly instrumentated, profoundly beautiful in thought and
+intention--great program music in fact, because conceived in
+accordance with the highest canons of the art, and infinitely more
+interesting than "pure" music because they mean something. By some
+people Liszt is regarded as a mere charlatan, by others as a great
+composer. Not only was he a great composer, but one of the very
+greatest.
+
+The Saint-Saëns symphonic poems, "Rouet d'Omphale," "Phaeton," "Danse
+Macabre," should be mentioned as successful works of this class, but
+considerably below Liszt's in genuine musical value. And then, there
+are the orchestral impressions of Charles Martin Loeffler, among which
+the symphonic poem, "La Mort de Tintagiles," is the most conspicuous.
+A separate chapter is devoted to Richard Strauss.
+
+Wagner is not supposed to have been a purely orchestral composer.
+Theoretically, he wrote for the theatre, and his orchestra was (again
+theoretically) only part of a triple scheme of voice, action and
+instrumental accompaniment. But put the instrumental part of any of
+his great music-drama episodes on a concert program, and with the
+first wave of the conductor's baton and the first chord, you forget
+everything else that has gone before!
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+RICHARD STRAUSS AND HIS MUSIC
+
+
+Richard Strauss--a new name to conjure with in music! His banner is
+borne by a band of enthusiasts like those who, many years ago, carried
+the flag of Wagner to the front. "Did not Wagner put a full stop after
+the word 'music'?" some will ask in surprise. "Did he not strike the
+final note? Are the 'Ring,' 'Tristan' and 'Parsifal' not to be
+succeeded by an eternal pause? Is there something still to be achieved
+in music as in other arts and sciences?"
+
+Something new certainly has been achieved by Richard Strauss. It forms
+neither a continuation of Wagner nor an opposition to Wagner. It has
+nothing to do with Wagner, beyond that Strauss appropriates whatever
+in the progression of art the latest master has a right to take from
+his predecessors. Strauss is, in fact, one of the most original and
+individual of composers.
+
+He has been a student, not a copyist, of Wagner. Thus, where others
+who have sat at the feet of the Bayreuth master have written poor
+imitations of Wagner, and have therefore failed even to continue the
+school, giving only feeble echoes of its great master, Strauss has
+struck out for himself. With a mastery of every technical resource,
+acquired by deep and patient study, he has given wholly new value and
+importance to a form of art entirely different from the music-drama.
+The music of the average modern Wagner disciple sounds not like
+Wagner, but like Wagner and water. Richard Strauss sounds like Richard
+Strauss.
+
+One reason for this is that his art work, like Wagner's, has an
+independent intellectual reason for being. Let me not for one moment
+be understood as belittling Wagner, in order to magnify Strauss.
+Wagner is the one creator of an art-form who also seems destined to
+remain its greatest exponent. Other creators of art-forms have been
+mere pioneers, leaving to those who have come after them the
+development and rounding out of what with them were experiments. The
+story of the sonata form may be said to have begun with Philipp
+Emanuel Bach and to have been "continued in our next" to Beethoven,
+with "supplements" ever since. The music-drama had its tentative
+beginnings in "The Flying Dutchman," its consummation in "Parsifal."
+The years from 1843 to 1882 lay between, but the music-drama was
+guided ever by the same hand, the master hand of Richard Wagner. No,
+it would be self-defeating folly to make Wagner appear less in order
+to have Strauss appear more.
+
+
+Originator of the Tone Poem.
+
+Nor does Richard Strauss require such tactics. He has made three
+excursions into music-drama and he may make others. But his fame, at
+present, rests mainly upon what he has accomplished as an instrumental
+composer, and in the self-created realm of the Tone Poem. Tone poem
+is a new term in music. It stands for something that outstrips the
+symphonic poem of Liszt, something larger both in its boundaries and
+in its intellectual and musical scope. Strauss does not limit himself
+by the word symphonic. He leaves himself free to give full range to
+his ideas. A composer of "program music," his works are so stupendous
+in scope that the word symphonic would have hampered him. His "Also
+Sprach Zarathustra" ("Thus Spake Zarathustra") and "Ein Heldenleben"
+("A Hero's Life") are not symphonic poems, but tone poems of enormous
+proportions. These, his last two instrumental productions, together
+with the growing familiarity of the musical public with his beautiful
+and eloquent songs, established his reputation in this country.
+To-day, a Strauss work on a program means as much to the musically
+elect as a Wagner work meant a quarter of a century ago. In fact, to
+advanced musicians, to those who are not content to rest upon what has
+been achieved, but are ready to welcome further serious effort,
+Strauss's works form the latest great utterance in music. Let me
+repeat verbatim a conversation that occurred on a recent rainy night,
+the date of an important concert.
+
+He: "Are you going to the concert to-night?"
+
+She: (_Looking out and seeing that it still is raining hard_) "Do they
+play anything by Richard Strauss?"
+
+He: "Not to-night."
+
+She: "Then I'm not going."
+
+This woman could meet the most enthusiastic admirer of Beethoven or
+Wagner on his own ground. But when she heard "Ein Heldenleben" under
+Emil Paur's baton at a concert of the New York Philharmonic Society,
+she heard what she had been waiting twenty years for--something new in
+music that also was something great; something that was not merely an
+imitation of what she had heard a hundred times before, but something
+which pointed the way to untraveled paths. It always is woman who
+throws the first rose at the feet of genius.
+
+
+Not a Juggler with the Orchestra.
+
+One first looks at Richard Strauss in mere amazement at the size of
+what he has produced. "Thus Spake Zarathustra" lasts thirty-three
+minutes, "A Hero's Life" forty-five--considerable lengths for
+orchestral works. This initial sense of "bigness," as such, having
+worn off, one becomes aware of marvellous tone combinations and
+orchestral effects. Listening again, one discovers that these daring
+instrumental combinations have not been entered into merely for the
+sake of juggling with the orchestra, but because the composer, being a
+modern of moderns, has the most modern message in music to deliver,
+and, in order to deliver it, has developed the modern orchestra to a
+state of efficiency and versatility of tonal expression beyond any of
+his predecessors. Richard Strauss scores, in the most casual manner,
+an octave higher than Beethoven dared go with the violins. Except in
+the "Egmont" overture, Beethoven did not carry the violins higher than
+F above the staff. What should have been higher he wrote an octave
+lower. All the strings in the Richard Strauss orchestra are scored
+correspondingly high. But this is not done as a mere fad. What
+Richard Strauss accomplishes with the strings is not merely queer or
+bizarre. What he seeks and obtains is genuine original musical
+effects. Often the highest register is used by him in a few of the
+strings only, because, for certain polyphonic effects--the weaving and
+interweaving of various themes--he divides and subdivides all the
+strings into numerous groups. For the same reason, he has regularly
+added four or five hitherto rarely used instruments to the woodwind
+and scores, regularly, for eight horns, besides employing from four to
+five trumpets.
+
+While he has increased the technical difficulties of every instrument,
+what he requires of them is not impossible. He does, indeed, call for
+first-rate artists in his orchestra; but so did Wagner as compared
+with Beethoven. He knows every instrument thoroughly, for he has taken
+lessons on all; and, therefore, when he is striving for new
+instrumental effects he is not putting problems which cannot be
+legitimately solved. His "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" makes,
+possibly, the greatest demand of all his works on an orchestra. But,
+if properly played, it is one of the most bizarre and amusing scherzos
+in the repertoire. In his "Don Quixote," he has gone outside the list
+of orchestral instruments; and in the scene where _Don Quixote_ has
+his tilt with the windmill, he has introduced a regular theatrical
+wind-machine. And why not? The effect to be produced justifies the
+means. There is an _à capella_ chorus by Strauss for sixteen voices.
+These are not divided into two double quartets, or into four quartets,
+but the composition actually is scored in sixteen parts. He shrinks
+from no musical problem.
+
+
+Not Mere Bulk and Noise.
+
+When "A Hero's Life" was produced in New York it was given at a public
+rehearsal and concert of the Philharmonic. It made such a profound
+impression--it was recognized as music, not as mere bulk and
+noise--that it had to be repeated at a following public rehearsal and
+concert, thus having the honor of four consecutive performances by the
+same society in one season. Previous performances of Strauss's works,
+mainly by the Chicago Orchestra, under Thomas, and the Boston Symphony
+Orchestra, had begun to direct public attention to this composer. But
+the "Heldenleben" performances by the Philharmonic created something
+of a sensation. They made the "hit" to which the public unconsciously
+had been working up for several seasons. Large as are the dimensions
+of "A Hero's Life," Richard Strauss had chosen a subject that made a
+very direct appeal. Despite its wealth of polyphony and theme
+combination, the score told, without a word of synopsis, a clear
+intelligible story of a hero's material victory, followed by a greater
+moral one. It placed the public on a human, familiar footing with a
+composer whom previously they had regarded with more awe than
+interest. Here was music interesting as mere music, but all the more
+interesting because it had an intellectual message to convey.
+
+
+Life and Truth.
+
+What is the difference between classical and modern music? Write a
+chapter or a book on it, and the difference still remains just this:
+Classical music is the expression of beauty; modern music the
+expression of life and truth. Modern music seems entering upon a new
+era with Strauss, which does not necessarily exclude beauty. It is
+beginning to illustrate itself, so to speak, like the author-artist
+who can both write and draw. To-day, music not only expresses truth,
+but represents it pictorially. How long will the time be in coming
+when a composer will wave his bâton, the orchestra strike a chord--and
+we be not only listeners but also beholders, hearing the chord, and
+seeing at the same time its image floating above the orchestra?
+
+In his "Melomaniacs," the most remarkable collection of musical
+stories I have read, Mr. Huneker has a tale called "A Piper of
+Dreams," the most advanced piece of musical fiction I know of. This
+piper of dreams produces music which is _seen_. "Do you know why you
+like it?" Mr. Huneker asked me, when I told him how intensely I
+admired the story. "Because," he continued, "the hero of the story is
+a Richard Strauss."
+
+Of course, this brilliantly written story was a daring incursion into
+a seemingly impossible future. Yet it points a tendency. When shall we
+have music that can be seen? Considering how closely related are the
+laws of acoustics and optics, is a "Piper of Dreams" so visionary? Who
+knows but that the music of the future may be visible sound--the work
+of a piper of dreams? Sometimes, when listening to Strauss, I think
+Mr. Huneker's _Piper_ is tuning up.
+
+Richard Strauss's tone poems are large in plan. In fact they are
+colossal. They show him to be a man of great intellectual activity, as
+well as an inspired composer. The latter, of course, is the test by
+which a musical work stands or falls. No matter how intellectually it
+is planned, if it is inadequate musically it fails. But if it is
+musically inspired, it gains vastly in effect when it rests on a brain
+basis.
+
+
+Literally Tone Dramas.
+
+That Richard Strauss is the most significant figure in the musical
+world to-day seems to me too patent to admit of discussion. The only
+question to be considered is, how has he become so? The question is
+best answered by showing what a Richard Strauss tone poem is. Take
+"Thus Spake Zarathustra" and "A Hero's Life." Without going into an
+elaborate discussion I must insist that, to consider Richard Strauss
+as in any way a development from Berlioz or Liszt, shows a deplorable
+unfamiliarity with his works. Berlioz wrote program music. Liszt wrote
+program music. Richard Strauss writes program music. But this point of
+resemblance is wholly superficial. Berlioz admittedly strove to adhere
+to the orthodox symphonic form. Liszt aptly named his own productions
+"symphonic poems." They are much freer in form than Berlioz's, and
+possibly pointed the way to the Richard Strauss tone poem. But when we
+examine the musical kernel, the difference at once is apparent.
+Polyphony, that is, the simultaneous interweaving of many themes, was
+foreign to Berlioz and Liszt. Their style is mainly homophonic.
+Richard Strauss is a polyphonic composer second not even to Wagner,
+whose system of leading motives in his music-dramas made his scores
+such marvellous polyphonic structures. Such, too, are the scores of
+Richard Strauss's tone poems. None but a master of polyphony could
+have attempted to express in music what Richard Strauss has expressed.
+For are not his tone poems literally tone dramas?
+
+It was like a man of great intellectual activity, such as Richard
+Strauss is, to select for musical illustration the Faust of modern
+literature--Nietzsche's "Zarathustra." The composer became interested
+in Nietzsche's works in 1892, when he was writing his music-drama,
+"Guntram." The full fruition of his study of this philosopher's works
+is "Thus Spake Zarathustra." But this is not an attempt to set
+Nietzsche to music, not an effort to express a system of philosophy
+through sound. It is rather the musical portrayal of a quest--a being
+longing to solve the problems of life, finding at the end of his
+varied pilgrimage that which he had left at the beginning, Nature deep
+and inscrutable.
+
+Musically, the great _fortissimo_ outburst in C major, which, at the
+beginning of the work, greets the seeker on the mountain-top with the
+glories of the sunrise, is the symbol of Nature. The seeker descends
+the mountain. He pursues the quest amid many surroundings, among all
+sorts and conditions of men. He experiences joy, passion, remorse. In
+wisdom, perchance, lies the final solution of the problem of life. But
+the emptiness of "wisdom" is depicted by the composer with the
+keenest satire in a learned, yet dry, five-part fugue. The seeker's
+varied experiences form as many divisions of the tone poem. There is
+even a waltz theme. Unending joy! Therein he may reach the end of his
+quest.
+
+But hark! a sombre strophe, followed twelve times by the even fainter
+stroke of a bell! Then a theme winging its flight on the highest
+register of modern instrumentation, until it seems to rise over the
+orchestra and vanish into thin air. It is the soul of the seeker, his
+earthly quest ended; while the theme which greeted him at sunrise on
+the mountain-top resounds in the orchestral depths, the symbol of
+Nature, still mysterious, still inscrutable.
+
+
+An Intellectual Force in Music.
+
+Even this brief synopsis suggests that "Zarathustra" is planned on a
+large scale. It presupposes an intellectual grasp of the subject on
+the composer's part. In its choice, in the selection and rejection of
+details and in outlining his scheme, Richard Strauss shows that he has
+thoroughly assimilated Nietzsche. But, at a certain point, the
+musician in Richard Strauss asserts himself above the litterateur.
+"Thus Spake Zarathustra" was not intended for a preachment, save
+indirectly. From what occurs during that vain quest, from the last
+deep mysterious chord of the Nature theme, let the listener draw his
+own conclusion. In the last analysis, "Thus Spake Zarathustra" is not
+a philosophical treatise, but a tone poem. In the last analysis,
+Richard Strauss is not a philosopher, but a musician.
+
+"A Hero's Life" is another work of large plan. Like "Zarathustra," it
+derives its importance as an art-work from its eloquence as a musical
+composition. With a musical work, no matter how intellectual or
+dramatic its foundation, its test ever will be its value as pure
+music. Richard Wagner's theories would have fallen like a house of
+cards, had not his music been eloquent and beautiful. But as his music
+gained wonderfully in added eloquence and beauty by induction from its
+intellectual content, so does Strauss's. The fact is, music is music,
+while philosophies come and go. Yesterday it was Schopenhauer; to-day
+it is Nietzsche; to-morrow it will be another. Doubtless, Wagner
+thought his "Ring" was Schopenhauer's "Negation of the Will to Live"
+set to music. Possibly, Richard Strauss thought Nietzsche looked out
+between the bars of "Thus Spake Zarathustra." In point of fact,
+neither Wagner nor Richard Strauss incorporated their favorite
+philosophers in their music. Wagner may have derived his inspiration
+from his reading of Schopenhauer, and Richard Strauss from Nietzsche,
+for one mind inspires another. But the real result, both in Wagner and
+Strauss, was great music.
+
+This is made clear by Strauss's "A Hero's Life." Like "Zarathustra,"
+it would be effective as music without a line of programmatic
+explanation. The latter simply adds to its effectiveness by giving it
+the further interest of "fiction" and ethical import. In "A Hero's
+Life" we hear (and _see_, if you like) the hero himself, his jealous
+adversaries, the woman whose love consoles him, the battle in which he
+wins his greatest worldly triumph, his mission of peace, the world's
+indifference and the final flight of his soul toward the empyrean. All
+this is depicted musically with the greatest eloquence. The
+battlefield scene is a stupendous massing of orchestral forces. On the
+other hand, the amorous episode, entitled "The Hero's Helpmate," is
+impassioned and charming.
+
+In the world's indifference to the hero's mission of peace, there is
+little doubt that Strauss was indulging in a retrospect of his own
+struggles for recognition. For here are heard numerous reminiscences
+of his earlier works--his tone poems, "Don Juan," "Death and
+Transfiguration," "Macbeth," "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks," "Thus
+Spake Zarathustra," "Don Quixote"; his music-drama, "Guntram"; and his
+song, "Dream During Twilight." These reminiscences give "A Hero's
+Life" the same autobiographical interest as attaches to Wagner's
+"Meistersinger."
+
+
+Tribute to Wagner.
+
+Strauss pays a tribute to Wagner in the one-act opera, "Feuersnot" ("Fire
+Famine"). According to the old legend on which this _Sing-gedicht_
+(song-poem) is founded, a young maiden has offended her lover. But the
+lover being a magician, casts a spell over the town, causing the
+extinction of all fire, bringing cold and darkness upon the entire
+place, until the maiden relents and smiles again upon him, when the
+spell is lifted and the fires once more burn brightly. The young
+lover, _Kunrad_, in rebuking the people of the city, says:
+
+    "In this house which to-day I destroy,
+    Once lodged Richard the Master.
+    Disgracefully did ye expel him
+    In envy and baseness," etc., etc.
+
+Accompanying these lines, Strauss introduces themes from Wagner's
+"Ring of the Nibelung." Undoubtedly "Richard the Master," in the above
+lines, is Richard Wagner.
+
+While Mr. Paur was not the first orchestral leader who has played
+Strauss's music in this country, he may justly be regarded as
+Strauss's prophet in New York at least. Not only do we owe to him the
+performances of "A Hero's Life," which definitely "created" Strauss
+here, but it was he who brought forward "Thus Spake Zarathustra," when
+he was conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As long ago as
+1889, when Mr. Paur was conductor at Mannheim, he invited Strauss to
+direct his symphony in F minor there. Strauss accepted and also
+brought with him his just completed "Macbeth," asking to be allowed to
+try it over with the orchestra, as he wanted to hear it--a request
+which was readily granted. Afterward, at Mr. Paur's house, Strauss's
+piano quartet was played, with the composer himself at the piano and
+Mr. Paur at the violin. It is not surprising that when Mr. Paur came
+over here as the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he
+championed Richard Strauss's work, continued to do so after he became
+conductor of the New York Philharmonic Society, and probably still
+does as conductor of the Pittsburg Orchestra.
+
+Strauss has become such an important figure in the world of music
+that it is interesting to note what has been done to bring his work
+before the American public. Theodore Thomas, with the artistic
+liberality which he has always displayed toward every serious effort
+in music, produced Strauss's symphony in F minor, which bears date
+1883, as early as December 13, 1884, with the New York Philharmonic
+Society. It was the first performance of this work anywhere.
+Strauss was not, however, heard again at the concerts of this
+organization until January, 1892, when Seidl brought out "Death
+and Transfiguration."
+
+After he became conductor of the Chicago Orchestra, Thomas gave many
+performances of Richard Strauss's works--in 1895, the prelude to
+"Guntram," "Death and Transfiguration" and "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry
+Pranks"; in 1897, "Don Juan" and "Thus Spake Zarathustra"; in 1899,
+"Don Quixote" and the symphonic fantasia, "Italy"; in 1900, "A Hero's
+Life" (the first performance in this country) and the "Serenade" for
+wind instruments; in 1902, "Macbeth" (first performance in this
+country) and the "Feuersnot" fragment. Several of these works, besides
+those noted, had their first performance in this country by the
+Chicago Orchestra, and several have had repeated performances.
+
+The Boston Symphony Orchestra also has a fine record as regards the
+performance of Richard Strauss's works. Nikisch, Paur, and Gericke are
+the conductors under whom these performances have been given. Several
+of the works have been played repeatedly not only in Boston, but in
+other cities where this famous orchestra gives concerts.
+
+
+Richard Straussiana.
+
+As data regarding Strauss's life, at the disposal of English readers,
+are both scant and scattered, it may not be amiss to tell here
+something of his career. He was born on June 11, 1864, in Munich,
+where his father, Franz Strauss, played the French-horn in the Royal
+Orchestra, and was noted for his remarkable proficiency on the
+instrument. The elder Strauss lived long enough to watch with pride
+his son's growing fame. Richard began to play the piano when he was
+four years old. At the age of six he heard some children singing
+around a Christmas tree. "I can compose something like that," he said,
+and he produced unaided a three-part song. When he went to school, his
+mother by chance put covers of music paper on his books. As a result,
+he occupied much of his time composing on this paper, and during a
+French lesson sketched out the scherzo of a string quartet which has
+been published as his Opus 2. While he was still at school, he
+composed a symphony in D minor. This was played by the Royal Orchestra
+under Levi. When, in response to calls for the composer, Richard came
+out, some one in the audience asked: "What has that boy to do with the
+symphony?" "Oh, he's only the composer," was the reply. The year
+before (1880), the Royal Opera prima donna, Meysenheim, had publicly
+sung three of his songs.
+
+During his advanced school years, his piano lessons continued, he
+received lessons in the violin, and went through a severe course in
+composition with the Royal Kapellmeister, Meyer. In 1882, he attended
+the University of Munich. His "Serenade" for wind instruments,
+composed at this time, attracted the attention of Hans von Bülow,
+under whom he studied for a while at Raff's conservatory in Frankfort.
+Bülow invited him to Meiningen as co-director of the orchestra, and
+when in November, 1885, Bülow resigned as conductor, Strauss became
+his successor, remaining there, however, only till April, 1886. His
+symphonic fantasia, "Italy," had its origin through a trip to Rome and
+Naples during this year. In August, 1886, he was appointed assistant
+conductor to Levi and Fischer at the Munich Opera, where he remained
+until July, 1889, when he became conductor at Weimar. In 1892, he
+almost died from an attack of pneumonia, and on his recovery took a
+long trip through Greece, Egypt and Sicily. It was on this tour that
+he wrote and composed "Guntram," which was brought out at Weimar in
+May, 1894. After the first performance, he announced his engagement to
+the singer of _Freihild_ in "Guntram," Pauline de Ahna, the daughter
+of a Bavarian general. The same year he returned to Munich as
+conductor, remaining there until 1899, when he became one of the
+conductors at the Berlin Opera, which position he still holds. He is
+one of the "star" conductors of Europe, receiving invitations to
+conduct concerts in many cities, including Brussels, Moscow,
+Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, London and Paris; and his American tour
+was a memorable one. He is a man of untiring industry. It is said that
+he worked no less than half a year on "Thus Spake Zarathustra," and
+that the writing of his scores is a model of beauty.
+
+Strauss occupies a commanding position in the world of music. He has
+achieved it through a remarkable combination of musical technique and
+inspiration coupled with rare industry. His ideals are of the highest.
+His intellectual activity is great. He seems a man of calm and noble
+poise, of broad horizon. It would be presumption to speak of
+"expectations" as to one who has accomplished so much. For the great
+achievements already to his credit, and among these "Salome" surely
+must be included, are the best promise for the future.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+A NOTE ON CHAMBER MUSIC
+
+
+Lovers of chamber music form an extremely refined and cultured
+class, and, like all highly refined and cultured people, are very
+conservative. They are the purists among music-lovers, the last
+people who would care to see the classical forms abandoned, and who
+would be disturbed, not to say shocked, by any great departure
+from the sonata form. For the string quartet is to chamber music what
+the symphony is to orchestra and the sonata to the pianoforte--is, in
+fact, a sonata for two violins, viola and violoncello, just as the
+symphony is a sonata for orchestra.
+
+Oddly enough, a pianoforte solo is more effective in a large hall than
+a string quartet, although the latter employs four times as many
+instruments; and the same is true of those pieces of chamber music in
+which the pianoforte is used, such as sonatas for pianoforte and
+violin or violoncello, pianoforte trios, quartets, quintets, and so
+on. A fine soloist on the pianoforte will be more at home in a large
+auditorium like Carnegie Hall or even the Metropolitan Opera House
+than would a string quartet or any other combination of chamber-music
+players. Paderewski plays in Carnegie Hall, and, I am sure, would be
+equally effective in the Opera House. But an organization of
+chamber-music players would be lost in either place. The Kneisel
+Quartet plays in New York in Mendelssohn Hall, a small auditorium
+which is just about correctly proportioned for music of this kind.
+
+Indeed, compared with the opera, the orchestra and even with the
+pianoforte, chamber music requires a setting like a jewel. For just as
+its devotees are the purists among music-lovers, so chamber music
+itself is something very "precious." It certainly is a most charming
+and intimate form of musical entertainment and the constituency of a
+well-established string quartet inevitably consists of the musical
+élite.
+
+The same opinions that have been expressed regarding the sonatas and
+the symphonies of the great composers apply in a general way to their
+chamber music. Haydn's is naive; Mozart's more emotional in
+expression; Beethoven's, among that of classical composers, the most
+dramatic. In fact, Beethoven's last quartets, in which the instruments
+are employed quite independently and in which rôles practically of
+equal importance are assigned to each, are regarded by Richard Strauss
+as having given the cue to Wagner for his polyphonic treatment of the
+orchestra, and Wagner himself spoke of them as works through which
+"Music first raised herself to an equal height with the poetry and
+painting of the greatest periods of the past." Nevertheless, there are
+many who hold that in his last quartets Beethoven sought to accomplish
+more than can be expressed with four stringed instruments, and prefer
+his earlier works of this class, like the three "Rasumovski" quartets,
+Opus 59, dedicated by the composer to Count Rasumovski, who
+maintained a private string quartet in which he played second violin,
+the others being professionals.
+
+Schubert's most famous quartet is the one in D minor with the lovely
+slow movement, a theme with variations, the theme being his own song,
+"Death and the Maiden." One of the greatest works in the whole range
+of chamber music is his string quintet with two violoncellos. His
+pianoforte trios also are noble contributions to this branch of
+musical art. "One glance at this trio," writes Schumann of the
+Schubert trio in B flat major, "and all the wretchedness of existence
+is put to flight and the world seems young again.... Many and
+beautiful as are the things Time brings forth, it will be long ere it
+produces another Schubert."
+
+Mendelssohn's chamber music is as polished, affable and gentlemanly as
+most of his other productions, and rapidly falling into the same
+state of unlamented desuetude. Schumann has given us his lovely
+pianoforte quintet in E flat. Brahms has contributed much that is
+noteworthy to chamber music, and, as a rule, it is less complex and
+more intelligently scored than his orchestral music. Dvorak in his E
+flat major quartet (Opus 51) introduces as the second movement a Dumka
+or Bohemian elegy, one of the most exquisite of his compositions.
+Fascinating in his national musical tints, he was genius enough for
+his music to be universal in its expression; and he who used the
+folksongs of his native Bohemia so skillfully was no less artistic
+in the results he accomplished when, during his residence in New
+York, he wrote his string quartet in F (Opus 96) on Negro themes.
+Tschaikowsky and neo-Russians like Arensky, and the Frenchmen,
+César Franck, Saint-Saëns, d'Indy and Debussy, are some of the modern
+names that figure on chamber-music programs.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+SONGS AND SONG COMPOSERS
+
+
+Songs either are strophic or "_durchcomponirt_" (composed through). In
+the strophic song the melody and accompaniment are repeated unchanged
+through each stanza or strophe of the poem; while, when a song is
+composed through, the music, although the principal melody may be
+repeated more than once, is subjected to changes in accordance with
+the moods of the poem.
+
+Schubert is the first song composer who requires serious consideration.
+While not strictly the originator of the _Lied_, he is universally
+acknowledged to be the first great song composer and to have lifted song
+to its proper place of importance in music. Gluck set Klopfstock's odes to
+music; Haydn as a song writer is remembered by "Liebes Mädchen hör' mir
+Zu"; Mozart by "Das Veilchen"; and Beethoven by "Adelaide" and one or
+two other songs. Before Schubert's day this form of composition was
+regarded as something rather trivial and beneath the dignity of genius.
+But Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven at least did one thing through which they
+may possibly have contributed to the development of song-writing. By their
+freer writing for the pianoforte they prepared the way for the Schubert
+accompaniments.
+
+Where Schubert got his musical genius from is a mystery. His father
+was a schoolmaster, whose first wife, Schubert's mother, was a cook.
+The couple had fourteen children and an income of $175. If this income
+is somewhat disproportionate to the size of the family, it yet is
+fortunate that they had fourteen children instead of only thirteen.
+Otherwise there would have been one great name less in musical
+history, for Schubert was the fourteenth.
+
+He was born in Vienna in January, 1797. His thirty-one years--for this
+genius who so enriched music lived to be only thirty-one--were passed
+in poverty. His father was wretchedly poor, and his own works, when
+they could be disposed of at all to publishers, were sold at beggarly
+prices. Now they are universally recognized as masterpieces and are
+worth many times their weight in gold.
+
+
+Too Poor to Buy Music Paper.
+
+Shortly before he was twelve years old, Schubert, who had been singing
+soprano solos and playing violin in the parish choir, was sent to the
+so-called Convict, the Imperial school for training boys for the Court
+chapel. During his five years there his progress was so rapid that
+even before he was fourteen years old he was occasionally asked to
+substitute for the conductor of the school orchestra. Life, however,
+was hard. He had no money with which to buy even a few luxuries in the
+way of food to eke out the wretched fare of the Convict, nor music
+paper. Had it not been for the kindness of a fellow pupil and friend,
+named Spaun, he would not have been able to write down and work out
+his ideas.
+
+When his voice changed, the straitened family circumstances obliged
+him to become an assistant in his father's school. He was able to bear
+poverty with patience, but not the drudgery of teaching, and he is
+said often to have lost his temper with the boys. Altogether, he
+taught for three years, 1815 to 1818; and while his work was most
+distasteful to him, his genius was so spontaneous that during his
+three years he composed many songs, among them his immortal "Erlking."
+Finally a university student, Franz von Schober, who, having heard
+some of Schubert's songs, had become an enthusiastic admirer of the
+composer, offered him one of his rooms as a lodging, whereupon
+Schubert, straightway accepting the offer, gave up teaching and from
+that time to the end of his brief life led a Bohemian existence with a
+clique of friends of varied accomplishments. In this circle he was
+known as "Canevas," because whenever some new person joined it, his
+first question regarding the newcomer was "_Kann er wass?_" (Can he do
+anything?)
+
+Outside a small circle of acquaintances, Schubert remained practically
+unknown until he made the acquaintance of Johann Michael Vogl, an
+opera singer, to whom his devoted friend, Von Schober, introduced him.
+Vogl was somewhat reserved in his opinion of the songs which he tried
+over with Schubert at their first meeting, but they made an
+impression. He followed up the acquaintance and became the first
+professional interpreter of Schubert's lyrics. "The manner in which
+Vogl sings and I accompany," wrote Schubert to his brother Ferdinand,
+"so that we appear like _one_ on such occasions, is something new and
+unheard of to our listeners." Publishers, however, held aloof. Five
+years after the "Erlking" was composed, several of them refused to
+print it, although Schubert offered to forego royalties on it.
+Finally, some of Schubert's friends had the song published at their
+own expense, and its success led to the issuing of eleven other songs,
+Schubert unwisely accepting eight hundred florins in lieu of royalty
+on these and the "Erlking." Yet from one of these songs alone, "The
+Wanderer," the publishers received twenty-seven thousand florins
+between the years 1822 and 1861.
+
+
+How the "Erlking" was Composed.
+
+Schubert being the greatest of song composers, and the "Erlking" his
+greatest song, the circumstances under which it was written are of
+especial interest. His friend Spaun, the same who provided him with
+music paper at the Convict, relates that one afternoon toward the
+close of the year 1815 he went with the poet Mayrhofer to visit
+Schubert. They found the composer all aglow, reading the "Erlking"
+aloud to himself. He walked up and down the room several times, book
+in hand, then suddenly sat down and as fast as his pen could travel
+put the music on paper. Having no piano, the three men hurried over to
+the Convict, where the "Erlking" was sung the same evening and
+received with enthusiasm. The old Court organist, Ruziczka, afterward
+played it over himself without the voice, and when some of those
+present objected to the dissonance which occurs three times in the
+course of the composition and depicts the child's terror of the
+_Erlking_, the old organist struck these chords and explained how
+perfectly they reflected the spirit of the poem and how felicitously
+they were worked out in their musical resolution.
+
+Schubert's song is almost Wagnerian in its descriptive and dramatic
+quality. The coaxing voice of the _Erlking_, the terror of the child,
+the efforts of the father to allay his boy's fears, each has its
+characteristic expression, which yet is different from the narrative
+portions of the poem, while in the accompaniment the horse gallops
+along. Schubert was but eighteen years old when he set this ballad of
+Goethe's to music; yet there is no more thrilling climax to be found
+in all song literature than those dissonances which I have mentioned
+and which with each repeat rise to a higher interval and become each
+time more shrill with terror. Whoever has heard Lilli Lehmann sing
+this song should be able to appreciate its real greatness, as Goethe,
+who had remained utterly indifferent to Schubert's music, did when the
+"Erlking" was sung to him by Frau Schroeder-Devrient, to whom he
+exclaimed: "Thank you a thousand times for this great artistic
+achievement. When I heard this song before I did not like it at all,
+but sung in your way it becomes a true picture."
+
+
+Finck on Schubert.
+
+More than six hundred songs by Schubert have been published, and when
+we remember that he wrote symphonies, sonatas, shorter pianoforte
+pieces, chamber music and operas, the fertility of his brief life is
+astounding. The rapidity with which he composed, however, was not due
+to carelessness, but to the spontaneity of his genius and the fact
+that he loved to compose. "He composed as a bird sings in the spring,
+or as a well gushes from a mountain-side, simply because he could not
+help it," says Mr. Finck, in his "Songs and Song Writers." We have it
+on the authority of Schubert's friend, Spaun, that when he went to bed
+he kept his spectacles on, so that when he woke up he could go right
+to the table and compose without wasting time looking for his glasses.
+In the two years 1815-16 he wrote no less than two hundred and
+fifty-four songs. Six of the songs in the "Winterreise" cycle were
+composed in one morning, and he had eight songs to his credit in a
+single day. The charming "Hark, Hark, the Lark" was written at a
+tavern where he chanced to see the poem in a book the leaves of which
+he was slowly turning over. "If I only had some music paper!" he
+exclaimed, whereupon one of his friends promptly ruled lines on the
+back of his _Speise Karte_, and Schubert, with the varied noises of
+the tavern going on about him, jotted down the song then and there.
+
+Of course, it is impossible to touch on all the aspects of such a
+genius as his. In his songs clear and beautiful melody is, as a rule,
+combined with a descriptive accompaniment. Sometimes the description
+is given by means of only a few chords, like the preluding ones in "Am
+Meer." At other times the description runs through the entire
+accompaniment, like the waves that flash and dance around the melody
+of "Auf dem Wasser zu Singen"; the galloping horse in the "Erlking";
+the veiled mist that seems to hang over the scenes in the wonderfully
+dramatic poem, "Die Stadt"; the flutter of the bird in "Hark, Hark,
+the Lark"; the brook that flows like a leitmotif through the "Maid of
+the Mill" cycle--these are a few of the examples that with Schubert
+could be cited by the dozen.
+
+And the range of his work--here again space forbids the multiplication
+of examples. It extends from the naive "Haiden Röslein" to the tragic
+"Doppelgänger"; from the whispering foliage of the "Linden Tree" to
+the pathetic drone of the "Hurdy-Gurdy Man"; from the "Serenade" to
+"Todt und das Mädchen." Schubert is the greatest genius among song
+composers. Compare the growing reputation of him who of all musicians
+was perhaps the most neglected during his life, with that of
+Mendelssohn, the most fêted of composers, but now rapidly dropping to
+the position of a minor tone poet, and who, although he wrote
+eighty-three songs, is as a song writer remembered outside of Germany
+by barely more than one _Lied_, the familiar "On the Wings of Song."
+
+
+Schumann's Individuality.
+
+In Schumann's songs the piano part is more closely knit and interwoven
+with the vocal melody than with Schubert's, and, as a result, the
+voice does not stand out so clearly. While his songs are not what they
+have been called by a German critic, "pianoforte pieces with
+accidental vocal accompaniments," at times, in his vocal compositions,
+the pianoforte gains too great an ascendancy over the voice. If asked
+to draw a distinction between Schubert and Schumann, I should say
+that there is a twofold interest in most of Schubert's songs. He
+reproduces the feeling of the poem in his vocal melody; then, if the
+poem contains a descriptive suggestion, he produces that phase of it
+in his accompaniment, without, however, allowing the pianoforte part
+to encroach on the vocal melody. The melody gives the feeling, the
+accompaniment the description or mood picture. Schumann, on the other
+hand, rarely is descriptive. Nearly always he produces a mood picture
+in tone, but requires both voice and pianoforte to effect his purpose.
+As this, however, is Schumann's method of composition, and as it is
+better that each composer should leave the seal of his individuality
+on everything he does, and not be an imitator, it is not cause for
+regret that while Schubert is Schubert, Schumann is Schumann.
+
+The proportion of fine songs among the two hundred and forty-five
+composed by Schumann is, however, much smaller than in the heritage
+left us by Schubert; and while Schubert, from the time he wrote his
+first great vocal compositions, added many equally great ones every
+year, Schumann's songs, on the whole, show a decided falling off after
+he had wooed and won Clara Wieck. It was during his courtship that he
+produced his best songs. Separated from her by the command of her
+stern father, he made love to her in music.
+
+"I am now writing nothing but songs, great and small," we find him
+saying in a letter to a friend in the summer of 1840. "Hardly can I
+tell you how delicious it is to write for voice instead of for
+instruments, and what a turmoil and tumult I feel within me when I
+sit down to it." While he was composing his song cycle, "Die
+Myrthen," he wrote to Clara: "Since yesterday morning I have
+written twenty-seven pages of music, all new, concerning which the
+best I can tell you is that I laughed and wept for joy while
+composing them." A month later he writes her, in sending her his
+first printed songs: "When I composed them my soul was within
+yours; without such a love, indeed, no one could write such
+music--and this I intend as a special compliment." ... "I could
+sing myself to death, like a nightingale," he writes to her again,
+on May 15th. Never was there such a musical wooing, and those who
+wish to participate in it can do so by singing or listening to such
+songs as "Dedication," "The Almond Tree," "The Lotos Flower," "In
+the Forest" (Waldesgespräch), "Spring Night," "He, the Noblest of
+the Noble," "Thou Ring upon My Finger," "'Twas in the Lovely Month of
+May," "Where'er My Tears Are Falling," "I'll Not Complain," and
+"Nightly in My Dreaming." Among his songs not inspired by love
+should be mentioned the "Two Grenadiers," which Plançon sings so
+inimitably.
+
+
+Phases of Franz's Genius.
+
+Robert Franz (1815-1892) had his life embittered by neglect and
+physical ills. His family name originally was Knauth, his father
+having been Christoph Knauth. But in order to distinguish him from his
+brother, who was engaged in the same business, he was addressed as
+Christoph Franz, a name which he subsequently had legalized. Yet
+critics insisted that Robert Franz was a pseudonym which the composer
+had adopted from vanity in order to indicate that he was as great as
+_Robert_ Schumann and _Franz_ Schubert put together.
+
+Franz was strongly influenced by Bach and Händel, many of whose scores
+he supplied with what are known as "additional accompaniments,"
+filling out gaps which these composers left in their scores according
+to the custom of their day. His songs show this influence in their
+polyphony, and the German critic, Ambros, said that Franz's song, "Der
+Schwere Abend," looked as if Bach had sat down and composed a Franz
+song out of thanks for all that Franz was to do for him through his
+additional accompaniments. Besides their polyphony derived from Bach,
+Franz's songs are interesting for their modulations, which are
+employed not simply for the sake of showing cleverness or originality,
+but for their appropriateness in expressing the mood of the poem. He
+also was extremely careful in regard to the choice of key and
+decidedly objected to transpositions of his songs, in order to make
+them singable for higher or lower voices than could use the original
+key. "When I am dead," he wrote to his publisher, "I cannot prevent
+these transpositions, but so long as I am alive I shall fight them."
+
+Franz did not endeavor to reproduce visible things in his pianoforte
+parts, and the voice in his songs often is declamatory, merging into
+melody only in the more deeply emotional passages. He is a reflective
+rather than a dramatic composer, disliked opera, and himself said that
+any one who had penetrated deeply into his songs well knew that the
+dramatic element was not to be found in them, nor was it intended to
+be. Composers, however, have many theories regarding their music
+which, in practice, come to naught; and whether Franz thought his
+songs dramatic or not, the fact remains that when Lilli Lehmann sang
+his "Im Herbst" it was as thrillingly dramatic as anything could be.
+
+
+Self-Critical.
+
+Franz was extremely self-critical. He kept his productions in his desk
+for years, working over them again and again, until in many cases the
+song in its final shape bore slight resemblance to what it had been at
+first. He declared his Opus 1 to be no worse than his latest work,
+because it had been composed with equal care and had had the benefit
+of his ripening judgment and experience. He admired Wagner and
+dedicated one of his song volumes to him; but when some critics
+fancied that they discovered Wagnerian traits in several songs in his
+last collection, Op. 51-52, he was able to prove that these very songs
+were among the first he had written, and were published so late in his
+career simply because he had kept them back for revision.
+
+His physical disabilities were pitiable. When he was about thirty-three
+years old and shortly after his marriage, he was standing in the Halle
+railway station when a locomotive close by sounded its shrill whistle.
+The effect upon him was like the piercing of his ears. For several
+days afterward he heard nothing but confused buzzing, and from that
+time on his hearing became worse and worse, until finally his ears
+pained him even when he composed. In 1876 he became totally deaf,
+and a few years later his right arm was paralyzed from shoulder to
+thumb. He was a poor man, and right at the worst time in his life,
+when he was totally deaf, a small pension which he had received from
+the Bach Society was taken away from him. But his admirers, many of
+them Americans, came to his rescue and raised a fund for his support.
+
+Among his finest songs are "Widmung," "Leise Zieht durch mein Gemuht,"
+"Bitte," "Die Lotos Blume," "Es Ragt der Alte Eborus," "Meerfahrt,"
+"Das is ein Brausen und Heulen," "Ich Hab' in Deinem Auge," "Ich Will
+meine seele Taugen," and "Es Hat' Die Rose sich Beklagt."
+
+
+Brahms a Thinker in Music.
+
+Brahms was a profound thinker in music--not a philosopher, but a
+reflective poet, whose musicianship, however, was so great that he
+cared too little for the practical side of his art as compared with
+the theoretical. If what he wrote looked all right on paper he was
+indifferent as to whether it sounded right or not; consequently, if he
+started out with a certain rhythmical figuration or a certain scheme
+of harmonic progression, he carried it through rigidly to its logical
+conclusion, utterly oblivious to, or at least utterly regardless of,
+any tonal blemishes that might result, although by slightly altering
+his scheme here and there he might have obviated these. This is the
+reason why some people find passages in his music which to them sound
+repellant. But those who have not allowed this aspect of Brahms's
+work to prejudice them and have familiarized themselves with his
+music, well know that he is one of the loftiest souls that ever put
+pen to staff. He never is drastic, never sensational, never
+superficial; and the climaxes of his songs, as in his other music, are
+produced not by great outbursts of sound, but by sudden modulations or
+change of rhythm, which give a wonderful "lift" to voice and
+accompaniment.
+
+Among his best known songs (and each of these is a masterpiece) are:
+"Wie Bist du meine Königin," "Ruhe, Süss Liebschen," "Von ewiger
+Liebe," "Wiegenlied," "Minnelied," "Feldeinsamkeit," "Wie Melodien
+zeiht es mir," "Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer," "Meine Lieder,"
+"Wir wandelten, wir Swei, zusammen."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+One of the most impassioned modern lyrical outbursts is Jensen's
+setting of Heine's "Lehn deine Wang' an Meine Wang'," and his
+"Frühlingsnacht" also is a very beautiful song, although the
+popularity of Schumann's setting of the same poem has cast it unduly
+into the shade. Rubinstein will be found considerably less prolix in
+his songs than in his music in other branches, and those which he
+wrote to the Persian poems of Von Bodenstedt ("Mirza Schaffy") are
+fascinating in their Oriental coloring. The "Asra," and "Yellow
+Rolls at my Feet," (Gold Rollt mir zu Füssen) are among the best
+known of these; while "Es blink't der Thau," "Du Bist wie eine
+Blume," and "Der Traum" are among Rubinstein's songs which are or
+should be in the repertoire of every singer. Tschaikowsky and
+Dvorak are not noteworthy as song writers, but the former's
+setting of "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt" and the latter's "Gypsy
+Songs" are highly successful.
+
+
+Grieg's Originality.
+
+One of the most fascinating among modern song writers is the
+Norwegian, Grieg. He has been unusually fortunate in having a fine
+singer as a wife. Mr. Finck relates that Ibsen, after hearing her sing
+his poems as set to music by Grieg, whispered as he shook the hands of
+this musical couple, the one word, "Understood."
+
+Grieg's originality has not been thoroughly appreciated, because much
+of the beauty of his music has been attributed to what is supposed to
+be its Norwegian origin. Grieg is national, it is true, but not in a
+cramped or narrow sense. His music is the product of his individual
+genius, and his genius has made him so popular that what is his has
+come to be wrongly considered Norwegian, whereas it is Norway
+interpreted through the genius of Grieg. His music is not a dialect,
+but music of universal significance, fortunately tinged with his
+individuality. "I Love You," Ibsen's "The Swan," "By the Riverside,"
+"Springtide," "Wounded Heart," "The Mother Sings" (a mother mourning
+her dead child), "At the Bier of a Young Woman," and "From Monte
+Pincio," are among his finest _Lieder_.
+
+Chopin is much too little known as a song writer. His genius as a
+composer for the pianoforte has overshadowed his songs, and the public
+is familiar with little else save "The Maiden's Wish," which is one
+of Madame Sembrich's favorite encores and to which she plays her own
+accompaniment so delightfully. But there is plenty of national color
+in the "Lithuanina" song, plenty of pathos in "Poland's Dirge," and
+plenty of lyrical passion in "My Delights." Finck says that in all
+music, lyric or dramatic, the thrill of a kiss has never been
+expressed so ecstatically as in the twelve bars of this song marked
+"_crescendo sempre piu accellerando_." Certainly _sempre_ (always) and
+_accellerando_ (faster) are capital words when applied to a kiss!
+
+Richard Wagner, when twenty-six years old, in Paris, tried to
+relieve his poverty by composing a few songs, among which is a very
+charming setting of Ronsard's "Dors mon enfant." He also set Heine's
+"The Two Grenadiers" to music, utilizing the "Marsellaise" in the
+accompaniment; but, as a whole, the Wagner version of this poem is
+not as effective as Schumann's. In 1862 he composed music to five
+poems written by Mathilde Wesendonck, among which is the famous
+"Träume," which utilizes the theme of the love duet that later on
+appeared in "Tristan."
+
+
+Liszt's Genius for Song.
+
+Liszt's songs are a complete musical exposition of the poems to which
+they are composed. Thus while, by way of comparison, Rubinstein's
+setting of "Du Bist wie eine Blume" gives through its simplicity a
+rare impression of purity, Liszt in his setting of the same poem adds
+to that purity the sense of sacredness with which the contemplation
+of a pure woman fills a man's heart and causes him to worship her. His
+"Lorelei" is a beautiful lyric scene. We view the flowing river, seem
+to hear the seductive voice of the temptress, and watch the
+treacherous and stormy current that hurries the ensnared boatman to
+his doom. And what song has more of that valuable quality we call
+"atmosphere" than Liszt's version of "Kennst du das Land?" As will be
+the case with Liszt in other branches of music, he will be recognized
+some day as one of the greatest of song composers.
+
+Richard Strauss's songs, from having been regarded as so bristling
+with difficulties as to be impossible, have become favorites in the
+song repertoire. When it is a genius who creates difficulties these
+are sure to be overcome by ambitious players and singers, and music
+advances technically by just so much. Strauss's "Ständchen," with its
+deliciously delicate accompaniment, so difficult to play with the
+requisite grace, was the first of Strauss's songs to become popular
+here, and it was the art of our great singer, Madame Nordica, that
+made it so. Now we hear "Die Nacht," "Traum durch die Dämmerung,"
+"Heimliche Aufforderung," "Allerseelem," "Breit über mein Haupt Dein
+schwarzes Haar," and many of his other songs with growing frequency.
+There are few song composers with whom the pianoforte accompaniment is
+so entirely distinct from the melody (or so difficult to play), as
+often is the case with Strauss. As with Schubert, every descriptive
+suggestion contained in the poem is carried into the accompaniment,
+but the vocal part is more declamatory and more varied. Even now it
+seems certain that Strauss's songs are permanent acquisitions to the
+repertoire. It still is too soon, however, to affirm the same thing of
+the unfortunate Hugo Wolf's songs, although I find myself strongly
+attracted by "Er ists," "Frühling übers Jahr," "Fussteise," "Der König
+bei der Kröning," "Gesang Weyla's," "Elfenlied" and "Der Tambour."
+
+Saint-Saëns, Delibes, Godard, Massenet, Chaminade and the late Augusta
+Holmès are among French song writers whose work is clever, but who
+seem to me more concerned with manner than with matter. Gounod's rank
+as a song composer is much below his reputation as the composer of
+"Faust" and "Romeo et Juliette." Oddly enough, however, the idea that
+came to him of placing a melody above a prelude from Bach's "Well
+Tempered Clavichord" did more than anything he had accomplished up to
+that time to make him famous. Originally he scored it for violin with
+a small female chorus off stage. Then he replaced the chorus with a
+harmonium. Finally he seems to have been struck with the fact that the
+melody fitted the words of the "Ave Maria," substituted a single voice
+for the violin, which, however, still can supplement the vocal melody
+with an obbligato, did away with the harmonium, and the result was the
+Gounod-Bach "Ave Maria." The Bach prelude, of course, sinks to the
+level of a mere accompaniment, for it has to be taken much slower than
+Bach intended.
+
+American composers who have produced noteworthy songs are Edward A.
+MacDowell, G. W. Chadwick, Arthur Foote, Clayton Johns, Homer N.
+Bartlett, Margaret Ruthven Lang, and the late Ethelbert Nevin.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+ORATORIO
+
+
+Oratorio had its origin in an attempt by a sixteenth century Italian
+monk to make divine service more interesting--to draw to church people
+who might not be attracted by the opportunity to hear a sermon, but
+could be persuaded to come if music a trifle more entertaining to the
+common mind than the unaccompanied (_à capella_) ecclesiastical
+compositions of Palestrina and other masters of the polyphonic school,
+were thrown in with them. Music still is regarded as a prime drawing
+card in churches, and when nowadays a fine basso rises after the
+sermon and sings "It is enough," we can paraphrase it as meaning, "It
+is enough so far as the sermon is concerned, and now to make up for it
+you are going to have a chance to listen to some music." When the
+announcement is made that such-and-such a well-known singer has been
+engaged for a church it means that the Reverend ---- is doing just
+what the monk, Neri, did, about four hundred years ago--fishing for a
+congregation with music.
+
+As it exists to-day, however, oratorio has little to do with religious
+worship, and usually is practiced amid secular surroundings, with a
+female chorus in variegated evening attire and a male chorus in
+claw-hammers, the singers hanging more or less anxiously on the baton
+of the conductor. This living picture which, so far as this country is
+concerned, I have, I believe, drawn in correct perspective, is so much
+out of keeping with the religious subjects which usually underlie the
+texts of oratorios that it may account for the comparative lack of
+interest shown by Americans for this form of musical entertainment.
+
+It also is true, however, that in this country oratorio never has had
+more than half a chance. This is due to the fact that the American man
+is not as sensitive to music nor musically as well educated as the
+American woman, the result being that the male contingent of the
+average American oratorio chorus is less competent than the women
+singers. Tenors are "rare birds" in any land, and rarer here
+apparently than elsewhere, so that in this division of our mixed
+choruses there is a lack of brilliancy in tone and of precision in
+attack. These several circumstances combine to prevent that
+well-balanced ensemble necessary to a satisfactory performance.
+
+
+An Incongruous Art-Form.
+
+Even at its best, however, oratorio is an incongruous art-form,
+neither an opera nor a church service, but rather an attempt to design
+something that shall not shock people who consider it "wicked" to go
+to the opera, nor afflict with _ennui_ those who would consider an
+invitation to listen to sacred music during the week an imposition. It
+seems peculiarly adapted to the idea of entertainment which prevails
+in England, where apparently any diversion in order to be considered
+legal must be more or less of a bore. Fortunately, however, there be
+many men of many minds; so that while, for example, one could not well
+draw a gloomier picture of the hereafter for a critic like Mr. Henry
+T. Finck than as a place where he would be obliged to hear, let me
+suggest, semi-weekly performances of "The Messiah," the annual
+Christmas auditions of that work have been the financial salvation of
+oratorio in America.
+
+San Filippo Neri, who was born in Florence in 1515, and was the
+founder of the Congregation of the Fathers of the Oratory, was the
+originator of oratorio. In order to attract people to church, he
+instituted before and after the sermon dramatic and musical renderings
+of scenes from Scripture. It is not unlikely that the suggestion for
+the underlying dramatic text came from the old Mystery and Miracle
+plays, which, to say the least, were naive. In one of these,
+representing Noah and his family about to embark in the ark, _Mrs.
+Noah_ declares that she prefers to stay behind with her worldly
+friends, and when at last her son _Shem_ seizes and forces her into
+the ark, she retaliates by giving the worthy _Noah_ a box on the ear.
+In another play of this kind which represented the Creation, a horse,
+pigs with rings in their noses, and a mastiff with a brass collar were
+brought up to _Adam_ to name. But in one performance the mastiff spied
+a cow's rib-bone which had been provided for the formation of _Eve_,
+grabbed it and carried it off, in spite of the efforts of the _Angel_
+to whistle him back, and _Eve_ had to be created without the aid of
+the rib.
+
+
+Primitive Efforts.
+
+It is not likely that any such contretemps accompanied the performances
+of San Filippo's primitive oratorios, and yet it is probable that they
+were not only sung, but also acted with some kind of scenic setting
+and costumes; for Emelio del Cavaliere, a Roman composer, whose
+oratorio, "La Rappresentazione dell' Anima e del Corpo" (The Soul and
+the Body), was performed in February, 1600, in the Church of Santa
+Maria della Vallicella, but who died before the production, left
+minute directions regarding the scenery and action. In this oratorio,
+as in some of the other early ones, there was a ballet, which,
+according to its composer's directions, was to enliven certain scenes
+"with capers" and to execute others "sedately and reverentially."
+
+It was the composer, Giovanni Carissimi, who first introduced the
+narrator in oratorio, this function being to continue the action
+with explanatory recitatives between the numbers. In his oratorio,
+"Jephtha," there is a solo for Jephtha's daughter, "Plorate
+colles, dolate montes" (Weep, ye hills; mourn, ye mountains), which
+has an echo for two sopranos at the end of each phrase of the
+melody. Alessandro Scarlatti, who developed the aria in opera, also
+gave more definite form to the solos in oratorio and a more dramatic
+accompaniment to the recitatives which related to action, leaving
+the narrative recitals unaccompanied.
+
+Up to this point, in fact, oratorio and opera may be said to have
+developed hand in hand, but now, through the influence of German
+composers and especially through their Passion Music, it assumed a
+more distinct form. "Die Auferstehung Christi" (The Resurrection), by
+Heinrich Schütz, produced in Dresden in 1623, and his "Sieben Worte
+Christi" (The Seven Words of Christ), subjects which have been
+reverentially set by many German composers, are regarded as pioneer
+works of their kind. In the development of Passion Music much use was
+made of church chorales, the grand sacred melodies of the German
+people, which have had incalculable influence in forming the stability
+of character that is a distinguishing mark of the race. They are
+conspicuous in the "Tod Jesu," a famous work by Karl Heinrich Graun, a
+contemporary of Bach, whose own "Passion According to St. Matthew" is
+regarded by advanced lovers of music as the greatest of all works in
+oratorio or quasi-oratorio style, although the English still cling to
+Händel.
+
+"However close the imitation or complicated the involutions of the
+several voices," says Rockstro, in writing of Händel, "we never meet
+with an inharmonious collision. He (Händel) seems always to have aimed
+at making his parts run on velvet; whereas Bach, writing on a totally
+different principle, evidently delighted in bringing harmony out of
+discord and made a point of introducing hard passing notes in order to
+avail himself of the pleasant effect of their ultimate resolution."
+The "inharmonious collisions," the "hard passing notes" are among the
+very things which make Bach so modern; since modern ears do not set
+much store by music that "runs on velvet."
+
+
+Bach's "Passion Music."
+
+It is interesting to note that this "Passion According to St. Matthew"
+is in two parts, and that, as was the case with the oratorios of San
+Filippo Neri, the sermon came between. The text was prepared by
+Christian Friedrichs Henrici, writing under the pseudonym of Picander,
+and is partly dramatic, partly epic in form, with an Evangelist to
+relate the various events in the story, but with the Lord, St. Peter
+and others using their own words according to the sacred text. A
+double chorus is employed, sometimes representing the Disciples,
+sometimes the infuriated populace; but always treated in dramatic
+fashion.
+
+At the time the "Passion" was written, the arias and certain of the
+choruses which contained meditations on the events narrated were
+called "Soliloquiæ"; and in singing the beautiful chorales, the
+congregation was expected to join. The recitatives assigned to the
+Saviour are accompanied by string orchestra only, and are, as Rockstro
+says, full of gentle dignity, while the choruses are marked by an
+amount of dramatic power which is remarkable when one considers that
+Bach never paid any attention to the most dramatic of all musical
+forms, the opera. The "Passion According to St. Matthew," by Johann
+Sebastian Bach, was his greatest work and one of the greatest works of
+all times. It was produced for the first time at the afternoon service
+in the Church of St. Thomas, Leipzig, where Bach was Cantor, on Good
+Friday, 1729, and it was one hundred years before it was heard again,
+when it was revived by Mendelssohn, in Berlin, on March 12th,
+1829--an epoch-making performance.
+
+Strictly speaking, Passion Music is not an oratorio, but a church
+service, and Bach actually designed his to serve as a counter-attraction
+to the Mass as performed in the Roman Church. What we understand under
+oratorio derived its vitality from George Frederick Händel, who was
+born at Halle in Lower Saxony, 1685, but whose most important work was
+accomplished in London, where he died in 1759 and was buried in
+Westminster Abbey. Before Händel wrote his two greatest oratorios, "Israel
+in Egypt" and "The Messiah," he had, through the composition of
+numerous operas, mastered the principles of dramatic writing, and in
+his oratorios he aims, whenever the text makes it permissible, at
+dramatic expression. It is only necessary to recall the "Plague Choruses"
+in "Israel in Egypt," especially the "Hail-Stone Chorus" and the
+chorus of rejoicing ("The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the
+sea"); or by way of contrast, the tenderly expressive melody of "As for
+His people, He led them forth like sheep," to realize what an adept Händel
+was in dramatic expression.
+
+
+Rockstro on Händel.
+
+Händel may in fact be called the founder of variety and freedom in
+writing for chorus. While I must confess that I do not share
+Rockstro's intense enthusiasm for Händel and for "The Messiah,"
+nevertheless he expresses so well the general feeling in England and
+the feeling on the part of those in this country who crowd the annual
+Christmas performances of "The Messiah," toward that work, that the
+best means of conveying an idea of what oratorio signifies to those
+who like it, is to quote him. Referring to Händel's free and varied
+treatment of chorus writing, he says:
+
+"He bids us 'Behold the Lamb of God' and we feel that he has helped us
+to do so. He tells us that 'With His stripes we are healed,' and we
+are sensible not of the healing only, but of the cruel price at which
+it was purchased. And we yield him equal obedience when he calls upon
+us to join in his hymns of praise. Who hearing the noble subject of 'I
+will sing unto the Lord,' led off by the tenors and altos, does not
+long to reinforce their voices with his own? Who does not feel a
+choking in his throat before the first bar of the 'Hallelujah Chorus'
+is completed, though he may be listening to it for the hundredth time?
+Hard indeed must his heart be who can refuse to hear when Händel
+preaches through the voice of his chorus." The "Messiah" also contains
+two of Händel's most famous solos, "He shall feed His flock" and "I
+know that my Redeemer liveth."
+
+This work was performed for the first time on April 13, 1742, at the
+Music Hall, Dublin, when Händel was on a visit to the Duke of
+Devonshire, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The rehearsals, at which
+many people were present by invitation, had aroused so much
+enthusiasm, that those who were interested in the charitable object
+for which it was given, requested "as a favor that the ladies who
+honor this performance with their presence would be pleased to come
+without hoops, as it would greatly increase the charity by making
+room for more company." Gentlemen also were requested to come without
+swords, for the same reason. It is said that at the first London
+performance, when the "Hallelujah Chorus" rang out, the King rose in
+his place and, followed by the entire audience, stood during the
+singing of the chorus, and that thus the custom, which still is
+observed, originated.
+
+Following Händel, Haydn in 1798, when nearly seventy years old, wrote
+"The Creation," founded on passages from Milton's "Paradise Lost," and
+after it "The Seasons," for which Thomson's familiar poem supplied the
+text. In both of these there is much purely descriptive music,
+especially in the earlier oratorio, when the creation of various
+animals is related. In "The Creation," too, after the passages for
+muted strings, is the famous outburst of orchestra and chorus, "And
+there was light." Haydn was a far greater master of orchestration than
+Händel. He also was one of the early composers of the homophonic
+school, and there is a freer, more spontaneous flow of melody in his
+oratorios. But they undoubtedly lack the grandeur of Händel's.
+
+
+Mendelssohn's Oratorios.
+
+Between Haydn and Mendelssohn, in the development of oratorio, nothing
+need be mentioned, excepting Beethoven's "Mount of Olives" and Spohr's
+"The Last Judgment" (Die Letzten Dinge). Mendelssohn, in his "St.
+Paul," followed the example of the old passionists, and introduced
+chorales, but in his greater oratorio, "Elijah," which is purely an
+Hebraic subject, he discarded these. The dramatic quality of "Elijah"
+is so apparent that it has been said more than once to be capable of
+stage representation with scenery, costumes and action. This is
+especially true of the prophet himself, whose personality is so
+definitely developed that he stands before us almost like a character
+behind the footlights. This dramatic value is felt at the very
+beginning, when, after four solemn chords on the brass, the work,
+instead of opening with an overture, is ushered in by _Elijah's_
+prophecy of the drought. Then comes the overture, which is descriptive
+of the effects of the prophecy.
+
+Next to "The Messiah," "Elijah" probably is the most popular of
+oratorios, and I think this is due to its dramatic value, and to the
+fact that its descriptive music, instead of being somewhat naive, not
+to say childish, as is the case with some passages in Haydn's
+"Creation," is extremely effective. It is necessary only to remind the
+reader of the descent of the fire and the destruction of the prophets
+of Baal; of the description of the gradual approach of the rain-storm,
+as _Elijah_, standing on Mount Carmel and watching for the coming of
+the rain, is informed of the little cloud, "out of the sea, like a
+man's hand"--a little cloud which we seem to see in the music, and
+which grows in size and blackness until it bursts like a deluge over
+the scene. Then there are the famous bass solo, "It is enough"; the
+unaccompanied "Trio of Angels"; the _Angel's_ song, "Oh, rest in the
+Lord"; and the tenderly expressive chorus, "He, watching over Israel."
+I once heard a performance of "Elijah" during which the _Angel_
+carried on such a lively flirtation with the _Prophet_ that she almost
+missed the cue for her most important solo; in fact would have missed
+it, had not the conductor sharply called her attention to the fact
+that it was time for her to begin.
+
+I think that oratorio reached its successive climaxes with "The
+Messiah" and "Elijah." Gounod's "Redemption" and "Mors et Vita," in
+spite of passages of undeniable beauty, seem to me, as a whole, rather
+spineless. Edward Elgar's "Dream of Gerontius" and "The Apostles" have
+created much excitement in England and considerable interest here, but
+while it is too soon to hazard a definite opinion of this composer, he
+appears to be lacking in individuality--to derive from Wagner whatever
+is interesting in his scores, while what is original with him is
+unimportant.
+
+There are certain sacred, semi-sacred and even secular works that are
+apt to figure on the programs of oratorio and allied societies. Mr.
+Frank Damrosch's Society of Musical Art sings very beautifully some of
+the unaccompanied choruses of the early Italian polyphonic school,
+such as Palestrina's "Papae Marcelli Mass," "Stabat Mater" and
+"Requiem"; the "Miserere" of Allegri (sought to be retained
+exclusively by the choir of the Sistine Chapel, but which Mozart wrote
+out from memory after hearing it twice); and the "Stabat Mater" of
+Pergolesi. There are also the Bach cantatas, Mozart's "Requiem," with
+its tragic associations; Beethoven's "Mass in D;" Schumann's "Paradise
+and the Peri" and his music to Byron's "Manfred" (with recitation);
+Liszt's "Graner Mass," "Legend of St. Elizabeth" and "Christus";
+Rubinstein's "Tower of Babel" and "Paradise Lost"; Brahms's "German
+Requiem," a noble but difficult work; Dvorak's "Stabat Mater";
+Rossini's "Moses in Egypt" and "Stabat Mater"; Berlioz's "Requiem" and
+"Damnation de Faust," the American production of which latter was one
+of the late Dr. Leopold Damrosch's finest achievements; and Verdi's
+"Manzoni Requiem."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+OPERA AND MUSIC-DRAMA
+
+
+Opera originated in Florence toward the close of the sixteenth
+century. A band of enthusiastic, intellectual composers aimed at
+reproducing the musical declamation which they believed to have been
+characteristic of the representation of Greek tragedy. The first
+attempt resulted in a cantata, "Il Conte Ugolino," for single voice
+with the accompaniment of a single instrument, and composed by
+Vincenzo Galileo, father of the famous astronomer. Another composer,
+Giulio Caccini, wrote several shorter pieces in similar style.
+
+These composers aimed at an exact oratorical rendering of the words.
+Consequently, their scores were neither fugal nor in any other sense
+polyphonic, but strictly monodic. They were not, however, melodious,
+but declamatory; and if Richard Wagner had wished, in the nineteenth
+century, to claim any historical foundation for the declamatory
+recitative which he introduced in his music-dramas, he might have
+fallen back upon these composers of the late sixteenth and early
+seventeenth centuries, and through them back to Greek tragedy with its
+bands of lyres and flutes.
+
+These Italian composers, then, were the creators of recitative, so
+different from the polyphonic church music of the school of
+Palestrina. What usually is classed as the first opera, Jacopo Peri's
+"Dafne," was privately performed at the Palazzo Corsi, Florence, in
+1597. So great was its success that Peri was commissioned, in 1600, to
+write a similar work for the festivities incidental to the marriage of
+Henry IV of France with Maria de Medici, and produced "Euridice," the
+first Italian opera ever performed in public.
+
+The new art-form received great stimulus from Claudio Monteverde, the
+Duke of Mantua's _maestro di capella_, who composed "Arianna" in honor
+of the marriage of Francesco Gonzaga with Margherita, Infanta of
+Savoy. The scene in which _Ariadne_ bewails her desertion by her lover
+was so dramatically written (from the standpoint of the day, of
+course) that it produced a sensation, and when Monteverde brought out
+with even greater success his opera "Orfeo," which showed a great
+advance in dramatic expression, as well as in the treatment of the
+instrumental score, the permanency of opera was assured.
+
+Monteverde's scores contained, besides recitative, suggestions of
+melody, but these suggestions occurred only in the instrumental
+ritornelles. The Venetian composer Cavalli, however, introduced melody
+into the vocal score in order to relieve the monotonous effect of
+continuous recitative, and in his airs for voice he foreshadowed the
+aria form which was destined to be freely developed by Alessandro
+Scarlatti, who is regarded as the founder of modern Italian opera in
+the form in which it flourished from his day to and including the
+earlier period of Verdi's activity.
+
+Melody, free and beautiful melody, soaring above a comparatively
+simple accompaniment, was the characteristic of Italian opera from
+Scarlatti's first opera, "L'Onesta nell' Amore," produced in Rome in
+1680, to Verdi's "Trovatore," produced in the same city in 1853. The
+names, besides Verdi's, associated with its most brilliant successes,
+are: Rossini ("Il Barbiere di Siviglia," "Guillaume Tell"), Bellini
+("Norma," "La Sonnambula," "I Puritani"), and Donizetti ("Lucia,"
+"L'Elisir d'Amore," "La Fille du Regiment"). These composers possessed
+dramatic verve to a great degree, aimed straight for the mark, and
+when at their best always hit the operatic target in the bull's-eye.
+
+
+Reforms by Gluck.
+
+The charge most frequently laid against Italian opera is that its
+composers have been too subservient to the singers, and have
+sacrificed dramatic truth and depth of expression, as well as the
+musicianship which is required of a well-written and well-balanced
+score, as between the vocal and instrumental portions, to the vanity
+of those upon the stage--in brief, that Italian opera consists too
+much of show-pieces for its interpreters. Among the first to protest
+practically against this abuse was Gluck, a German, who, from copying
+the Italian style of operatic composition early in his career, changed
+his entire method as late as 1762, when he was nearly fifty years old.
+"Orfeo et Euridice," the oldest opera that to-day still holds a place
+in the operatic repertoire, and containing the favorite air, "Che faro
+senza Euridice" (I have lost my Eurydice), was produced by Gluck, in
+Vienna, in the year mentioned. There Gluck followed it up with
+"Alceste," then went to Paris, and scored a triumph with "Iphigenie en
+Aulite." But on the arrival, in Paris, of the Italian composer,
+Piccini, the Italian party there seized upon him as a champion to pit
+against Gluck, and there then ensued in the French capital a rivalry
+so fierce that it became a veritable musical War of the Roses until
+Gluck completely triumphed over Piccini with "Iphigenie en Tauride."
+
+Gluck's reform of opera lay in his abandoning all effort at claptrap
+effect--effect merely for its own sake--and in making his choruses as
+well as his soloists participants, musically and actively, in the
+unfolding of the dramatic story. But while he avoided senseless vocal
+embellishments and ceased to make a display of singers' talents the
+end and purpose of opera, he never hesitated to introduce beautiful
+melody for the voice when the action justified it. In fact, what he
+aimed at was dramatic truth in his music, and with this end in view he
+also gave greater importance to the instrumental portion of his
+score.
+
+
+Comparative Popularity of Certain Operas.
+
+These characteristics remained for many years to come the distinguishing
+marks of German opera. They will be discovered in Mozart's "Nozze di
+Figaro," "Don Giovanni" and "Zauberflöte," which differ from Gluck's
+operas in not being based on heroic or classical subjects, and in
+exhibiting the general advance made in freer musical expression, as
+well as Mozart's greater spontaneity of melodic invention, his keen
+sense of the dramatic element and his superior skill in orchestration.
+They also will be discovered in Beethoven's "Fidelio," which again
+differs from Mozart's operas in the same degree in which the
+individuality of one great composer differs from that of another. With
+Weber's "Freischütz," "Euryanthe" and "Oberon," German opera enters
+upon the romantic period, from which it is but a step to the "Flying
+Dutchman," "Tannhäuser," "Lohengrin" and the music-dramas of Richard
+Wagner.
+
+Meanwhile, the French had developed a style of opera of their own,
+which is represented by Meyerbeer's "Les Huguenots," Gounod's "Faust,"
+apparently destined to live as long as any opera that now graces the
+stage, and by Bizet's absolutely unique "Carmen." In French opera the
+instrumental support of the voices is far richer and more delicately
+discriminating than in Italian opera, and the whole form is more
+serious. It is better thought out, shows greater intellectual effort
+and not such a complete abandon to absolute musical inspiration. It is
+true, there is much claptrap in Meyerbeer, but "Les Huguenots" still
+lives--and vitality is, after all, the final test of an art-work.
+
+Unquestionably, Italian operas like "Il Barbiere di Siviglia," "La
+Sonnambula," "Lucia," and "Trovatore" are more popular in this
+country than Mozart's or Weber's operatic works. In assigning
+reasons for this it seems generally to be forgotten that these Italian
+operas are far more modern. "Don Giovanni" was produced in 1787,
+whereas "Il Barbiere" was brought out in 1816, "La Sonnambula" in
+1831, "Lucia" in 1835, "Trovatore" in 1853 and Verdi's last work in
+operatic style, "Aida," in 1871. "Don Giovanni" still employs the
+dry recitative (recitatives accompanied by simple chords on the
+violoncello), which is exceedingly tedious and makes the work drag
+at many points. In "Il Barbiere," although the recitatives are
+musically as uninteresting, they are humorous, and, with Italian
+buffos, trip lightly and vivaciously from the tongue. As regards
+"Fidelio" and "Der Freischütz," the amount of spoken dialogue in
+them is enough to keep these works off the American stage, or at
+least to prevent them from becoming popular here.
+
+Wagner has had far-reaching effect upon music in general, and
+even Italian opera, which, of all art-forms, was least like his
+music-dramas, has felt his influence. Boito's "Mefistofele,"
+Ponchielli's "La Gioconda," Verdi's "Otello" and "Falstaff," are
+examples of the far-reaching results of Wagner's theories. Even
+in "Aida," Verdi's more discriminating treatment of the orchestral
+score and his successful effort to give genuine Oriental color to at
+least some portions of it, show that even then he was beginning
+to weary of the cheaper successes he had won with operas like
+"Il Trovatore," "La Traviata" and "Rigoletto," and, while by no
+means inclined to menace his own originality by copying Wagner
+or by adopting his system, was willing to profit by the more serious
+attitude of Wagner toward his art. Puccini, in "La Tosca," has
+written a first-act finale which is palpably constructed on
+Wagnerian lines. In his "La Bohême," in Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci"
+and in Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana," the distinct efforts
+made to have the score reflect the characteristics of the text
+show Wagner's influence potent in the most modern phases of
+Italian opera. Humperdinck's "Hänsel und Gretel" and Richard
+Strauss's "Feuersnot" and "Salome" represent the further working out
+of Wagner's art-form in Germany.
+
+
+Wagner's Music-Dramas.
+
+I doubt whether Wagner had either the Greek drama or the declamatory
+recitative of the early Italian opera composers in mind when he
+originated the music-drama. My opinion is that he thought it out free
+from any extraneous suggestion, but afterward, anticipating the
+attacks which in the then state of music in Germany would be made upon
+his theories, sought for prototypes and found them in ancient Greece
+and renascent Italy.
+
+His theory of dramatic music is that it should express with
+undeviating fidelity the words which underly it; not words in their
+mere outward aspect, but their deeper significance in their relation
+to the persons, controlling ideas, impulses and passions out of which
+grow the scenes, situations, climaxes and crises of the written play,
+the libretto, if so you choose to call it--so long as you don't say
+"book of the opera." For even from this brief characterization, it
+must be patent that a music-drama is not an opera, but what opera
+should be or would be had it not, through the Italian love of clearly
+defined melody and the Italian admiration for beautiful singing,
+become a string of solos, duets and other "numbers" written in set
+form to the detriment of the action.
+
+Opera is the glorification of the voice and the deification of the
+singer.--Do we not call the prima donna a _diva_? Music-drama, on the
+other hand, is the glorification of music in its broadest sense,
+instrumental and vocal combined, and the deification of dramatic truth
+on the musical stage. Opera, as handled by the Italian and the French,
+undoubtedly is a very attractive art-form, but music-drama is a higher
+art-form, because more serious and more searching and more elevated in
+its expression of emotion.
+
+Wagner was German to the core--as national as Luther, says Mr.
+Krehbiel most aptly, in his "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," which,
+like everything this critic writes, is the work of a thinker. For the
+dramas which Wagner created as the bases for his scores, he went back
+to legends which, if not always Teutonic in their origin, had become
+steeped in Germanism. The profound impression made by Wagner's art
+works may be indicated by saying that the whole folk-lore movement
+dates from his activity, and that so far as Germany itself is
+concerned, his argument for a national art work as well as his
+practical illustration of what he meant through his own music-dramas,
+gave immense impetus to the development of united Germany as
+manifested in the German empire. He as well as the men of blood and
+iron had a share in Sedan.
+
+Wagner's first successful work, "Rienzi," was an out-and-out opera in
+Meyerbeerian style. The "Flying Dutchman" already is legendary and
+more serious, while "Tannhäuser" and "Lohengrin" show immense
+technical progress, besides giving a clue to his system of leading
+motives, which is fully developed in the scores of the "Ring of the
+Nibelung," "Tristan und Isolde," "Die Meistersinger," and "Parsifal."
+That his theories met with a storm of opposition and that for many
+years the battle between Wagnerism and anti-Wagnerism raged with
+unabated vigor in the musical world, are matters of history. Whoever
+wishes to explore this phase of Wagner's career will find it set forth
+in the most interesting Wagner biography in any language, Mr. Finck's
+"Wagner and His Works."
+
+
+Wagner a Melodist.
+
+It sometimes is contended that Wagner adopted his system of leading
+motives because he was not a melodist. This is refuted by the melodies
+that abound in his earlier works; and, even as I write, I can hear the
+pupils in a nearby public school singing the melody of the "Pilgrim's
+Chorus" from "Tannhäuser." Moreover, his leading motives themselves
+are descriptively or soulfully melodious as the requirement may be.
+They are brief phrases, it is true, but none the less they are
+melodies. And, in certain episodes in his music-dramas, when he deemed
+it permissible, he introduced beautiful melodies that are complete in
+themselves: _Siegmund's_ "Love Song" and _Wotan's_ "Farewell," in "Die
+Walküre," the Love Duet at the end of "Siegfried," the love scene in
+"Tristan und Isolde," the Prize Song in "Die Meistersinger." The
+eloquence of the brief melodious phrases which we call leading
+motives, considered by themselves alone and without any reference to
+the dramatic situation, must be clear to any one who has heard the
+Funeral March in "Götterdämmerung," which consists entirely of a
+series of leading motives that have occurred earlier in the Cycle,
+yet give this passage an overpowering pathos without equal in absolute
+music and just as effective whether you know the story of the
+music-drama and the significance of the motives, or not. If you do
+know the story and the significance of these musical phrases, you will
+find that in this Funeral March the whole "Ring of the Nibelung" is
+being summed up for you, and coming as it does near the end of
+"Götterdämmerung," but one scene intervening between it and the final
+curtain, it gives a wonderful sense of unity to the whole work.
+
+Unity is, in fact, a distinguishing trait of music-drama; and the very
+term "unity" suggests that certain recurring salient points in the
+drama, whether they be personages, ideas or situations, should be
+treated musically with a certain similarity, and have certain
+recognizable characteristics. In fact, the adaptation of music to a
+drama would seem to suggest association of ideas through musical
+unity, and to presuppose the employment of something like leading
+motives. They had indeed been used tentatively by Berlioz in
+orchestral music, and by Weber in opera ("Euryanthe"), but it remained
+for Wagner to work up the suggestion into a complete and consistent
+system.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+To illustrate his method, take the Curse Motive, in the "Ring of
+the Nibelung," which is heard when _Alberich_ curses the Ring, and
+all into whose possession it shall come. When, near the end of
+"Rheingold," _Fafner_ kills his brother, _Fasolt_, in wresting
+the Ring from him, the motive recurs with a significance which is
+readily understood. _Fasolt_ is the first victim of the curse.
+Again, in "Götterdämmerung," when _Siegfried_ lands at the entrance
+to the castle of _Gibichungs_, and is greeted by _Hagen_, although the
+greeting seems hearty enough, the motive is heard and conveys its
+sinister lure.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+When, in "Die Walküre," _Brünnhilde_ predicts the birth of a son to
+_Sieglinde_, you hear the Siegfried Motive, signifying that the child
+will be none other than the young hero of the next drama. The motive
+is heard again when _Wotan_ promises _Brünnhilde_ to surround her with
+a circle of flames which none but a hero can penetrate, _Siegfried_
+being that hero; and also when _Siegfried_ himself, in the music-drama
+"Siegfried," tells of seeing his image in the brook.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+There are motives which are almost wholly rhythmical, like the
+"Nibelung" Smithy Motive, which depicts the slavery of the _Nibelungs_,
+eternally working in the mines of Nibelheim; and motives with strange,
+weird harmonies, like the motive of the Tarnhelm, which conveys a
+sense of mystery, the Tarnhelm giving its wearer the power to change his
+form.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+
+Leading Motives not Mere Labels.
+
+Leading motives are not mere labels. They concern themselves with more
+than the superficial aspect of things and persons. With persons they
+express character; with things they symbolize what these stand for.
+The Curse Motive is weird, sinister. You feel when listening to it
+that it bodes evil to all who come within its dark circle. The
+Siegfried Motive, on the other hand, is buoyant with youth, vigor,
+courage; vibrates with the love of achievement; and stirs the soul
+with its suggestion of heroism. But when you hear it in the Funeral
+March in "Götterdämmerung" and it recalls by association the
+gay-hearted, tender yet courageous boy, who slew the dragon, awakened
+_Brünnhilde_ with his kiss, only to be betrayed and murdered by
+_Hagen_, and now is being borne over the mountain to the funeral pyre,
+those heroic strains have a tragic significance that almost brings
+tears to your eyes.
+
+The Siegfried Motive is a good example of a musical phrase the contour
+of which practically remains unchanged through the music-drama. The
+varied emotions with which we listen to it are effected by association.
+But many of Wagner's leading motives are extremely plastic and undergo
+many changes in illustrating the development of character or the
+special bearing of certain dramatic situations upon those concerned
+in the action of the drama. As a gay-hearted youth, _Siegfried_
+winds his horn:
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+This horn call becomes, when, as _Brünnhilde's_ husband, he bids
+farewell to his bride and departs in quest of knightly adventure, the
+stately Motive of _Siegfried_, the Hero:
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+And when the dead _Siegfried_, stretched upon a rude bier, is borne
+from the scene, it voices the climax of the tragedy with overwhelming
+power:
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+Thus we have two derivatives from the "Siegfried" horn call, each with
+its own special significance, yet harking back to the original germ.
+
+Soon after the opening of "Tristan und Isolde" a sailor sings an
+unaccompanied song of farewell to his _Irish Maid_. The words, "The
+wind blows freshly toward our home," are sung to an undulating phrase
+which seems to represent the gentle heaving of the sea.
+
+[Music illustration: Frisch weht der Wind der Hei-mat zu: mein i-risch
+Kind, wo wei-lest du?]
+
+This same phrase gracefully undulates through _Brangäne's_ reply to
+_Isolde's_ question as to the vessel's course, changes entirely in
+character, and surges savagely around her wild outburst of anger when
+she is told that the vessel is nearing Cornwall's shore, and breaks
+itself in savage fury against her despairing wrath when she invokes
+the elements to destroy the ship and all upon it. Examples like these
+occur many times in the scores of Wagner's music-dramas.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+Often, when several characters are participating in a scene, or when
+the act or influence of one, or the principle for which he stands in
+the drama, is potent, though he himself is not present, Wagner with
+rare skill combines several motives, utilizing for this purpose all
+the resources of counterpoint. Elsewhere I already have described how
+he has done this in the Magic Fire Scene in "Die Walküre," and one
+could add page after page of examples of this kind. I have also spoken
+of his supreme mastership of instrumentation, through which he gives
+an endless variety of tone color to his score.
+
+Wagner was a great dramatist, but he was a far greater musician. There
+are many splendid scenes and climaxes in the dramas which he wrote for
+his music, and if he had not been a composer it is possible he would
+have achieved immortality as a writer of tragedy. On the other hand,
+however, there are in his dramas many long stretches in which the
+action is unconsciously delayed by talk. He believed that music and
+drama should go hand in hand and each be of equal interest; but his
+supreme musicianship has disproved his own theories, for his dramas
+derive the breath of life from his music. Theoretically, he is not
+supposed to have written absolute music--music for its own sake--but
+music that would be intelligible and interesting only in connection
+with the drama to which it was set. But the scores of the great scenes
+in his music-dramas, played simply as instrumental selections in
+concert and without the slightest clue to their meaning in their
+given place, constitute the greatest achievements in absolute music
+that history up to the present time can show.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Author's archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is mostly
+  preserved.
+
+  Author's punctuation style is preserved.
+
+  Illustrations have been moved closer to their relevant paragraphs,
+  but the original page numbers are preserved in the List of
+  Illustrations. Illustrations may be viewed full-size by clicking on
+  them.
+
+  Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.
+
+  Passages in bold indicated by =equal signs=.
+
+  Typographical problems have been changed, and are listed below.
+
+
+Transcriber's Changes:
+
+  Page 35: Was 'Wesendonk' (as if I had it by heart," he writes from
+           Venice to Mathilde =Wesendonck=, in relating to her the
+           genesis of the great love)
+
+  Page 139: Was 'Traümerei' (And then there are the "Scenes from
+            Childhood," to which belongs the ="Träumerei"=; the
+            "Forest Scenes," the "Sonatas;")
+
+  Page 172: Was 'Pathètique' (while for his "Symphonie =Pathétique=,"
+            one of the finest of modern orchestral works, Tschaikowsky
+            adds only a bass tuba)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How to Appreciate Music, by Gustav Kobbé
+
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+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of How to Appreciate Music, by Gustav Kobbé
+
+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 Appreciate Music
+
+Author: Gustav Kobbé
+
+Release Date: December 9, 2010 [EBook #34610]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO APPRECIATE MUSIC ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, monkeyclogs, Dan
+Horwood and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='center'>
+<h1>HOW TO APPRECIATE MUSIC</h1>
+
+<p style='font-size:1.2em; margin-top:3em;'>BY<br />
+<span style='font-size:1.2em;'>GUSTAV KOBBÉ</span></p>
+
+<p>Author of &ldquo;Wagner&rsquo;s Music-Dramas Analyzed,&rdquo; etc.</p>
+
+<p class='smcap' style='padding-top:5em;'>New York</p>
+<p>MOFFAT, YARD &amp; COMPANY</p>
+<p>1912</p>
+<hr class='minor' />
+<p style='font-size:0.9em; padding-top:5em;'>Copyright, 1906, by<br />
+MOFFAT, YARD &amp; COMPANY<br />
+<span class='smcap'>New York</span></p>
+<hr class='mini' />
+<p style='font-size:0.9em; font-style:italic; padding-top:1em; padding-bottom:0em;'>Published, October, 1906</p>
+<p style='font-size:0.9em; font-style:italic; padding-top:0em; padding-bottom:0em;'>Reprinted, February, 1908</p>
+<p style='font-size:0.9em; font-style:italic; padding-top:0em; padding-bottom:0em;'>Reprinted, September, 1908</p>
+<p style='font-size:0.9em; font-style:italic; padding-top:0em; padding-bottom:0em;'>Reprinted, May, 1912</p>
+
+<p style='font-size:0.8em; padding-top:5em;'>THE PREMIER PRESS<br />
+NEW YORK</p>
+<hr class='toprule' style='padding-top:4em;' />
+<p style='font-size:1.2em; padding-top:4em; padding-bottom:4em; line-height:1.5;'><i>To the Memory of My Brother<br />
+PHILIP FERDINAND KOBBÉ</i></p>
+</div>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7' name='page_7'></a>7</span>
+<a name='CONTENTS' id='CONTENTS'></a>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+<table id='toc' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents' style='margin:1em auto;'>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' colspan='3'><p class='contents_section_heading'>HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE RECITAL</p></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>I</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>The Pianoforte</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#I_THE_PIANOFORTE'>29</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>II</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Bach&rsquo;s Service to Music</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#II_BACHS_SERVICE_TO_MUSIC'>48</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>III</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>From Fugue to Sonata</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#III_FROM_FUGUE_TO_SONATA'>78</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>IV</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Dawn of the Romantic Period</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#IV_DAWN_OF_THE_ROMANTIC_PERIOD'>100</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>V</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Chopin, the Poet of the Pianoforte</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#V_CHOPIN_THE_POET_OF_THE_PIANOFORTE'>116</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>VI</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Schumann, the &ldquo;Intimate&rdquo;</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VI_SCHUMANN_THE_INTIMATE'>134</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>VII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Liszt, the Giant among Virtuosos</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VII_LISZT_THE_GIANT_AMONG_VIRTUOSOS'>142</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>VIII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>With Paderewski&mdash;A Modern Pianist on Tour</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VIII_WITH_PADEREWSKIA_MODERN_PIANIST_ON_TOUR'>155</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' colspan='3'><p class='contents_section_heading'>HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT</p></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>IX</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Development of the Orchestra</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#IX_DEVELOPMENT_OF_THE_ORCHESTRA'>167</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>X</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Instruments of the Orchestra</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#X_INSTRUMENTS_OF_THE_ORCHESTRA'>179</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XI</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Concerning Symphonies</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XI_CONCERNING_SYMPHONIES'>197</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Richard Strauss and His Music</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XII_RICHARD_STRAUSS_AND_HIS_MUSIC'>207</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XIII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>A Note on Chamber Music</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIII_A_NOTE_ON_CHAMBER_MUSIC'>224</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' colspan='3'><p class='contents_section_heading'>HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC</p></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XIV</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Songs and Song Composers</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIV_SONGS_AND_SONG_COMPOSERS'>231</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XV</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Oratorio</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XV_ORATORIO'>248</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XVI</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Opera and Music-Drama</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVI_OPERA_AND_MUSICDRAMA'>260</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_9' name='page_9'></a>9</span>
+<a name='TABLE_OF_CONTENTS' id='TABLE_OF_CONTENTS'></a>
+<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+<div style='margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%;'>
+<p class='TOC_section'>HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE
+RECITAL</p>
+<p>CHAPTER <span class='right'>PAGE</span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>I.&mdash;THE PIANOFORTE</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>Why the king of musical instruments&mdash;Music
+under one&rsquo;s fingers&mdash;Can render anything
+in music&mdash;Liszt played the whole orchestra
+on the pianoforte&mdash;Fingers of a great virtuoso
+the ambassadors of his soul&mdash;Melody and
+accompaniment on one instrument&mdash;No intermediaries
+to mar effect&mdash;Paderewski&rsquo;s
+playing of &ldquo;Hark, Hark, the Lark&rdquo;&mdash;Music&rsquo;s
+debt to the pianoforte&mdash;Developed sonata
+form and gave it to orchestra&mdash;Richard
+Strauss on Beethoven&rsquo;s pianistic orchestration&mdash;A
+boon to many famous composers, even to
+Wagner&mdash;Its lowly origin&mdash;Nine centuries
+to develop pianoforte from monochord&mdash;The
+monochord described&mdash;Joined to a keyboard&mdash;Poet&rsquo;s
+amusing advice to his musical
+daughter&mdash;Clavichord developed from monochord&mdash;Its
+lack of power&mdash;Bebung, or balancement&mdash;The
+harpsichord&mdash;Originated in
+the cembalo of the Hungarian gypsy orchestra&mdash;Spinet
+and virginal&mdash;Pianoforte invented
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10' name='page_10'></a>10</span>
+by Cristofori, 1711&mdash;Exploited by
+Silbermann&mdash;Strings of twenty tons&rsquo; tension&mdash;Dampers
+and pedals&mdash;Paderewski&rsquo;s use of
+both pedals&mdash;Mechanical pianofortes&mdash;Senseless decoration <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_29'>29</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>II.&mdash;BACH&rsquo;S SERVICE TO MUSIC</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>Pianoforte so universal in character can give,
+through it, a general survey of the art of music&mdash;Bach
+illustrates an epoch&mdash;A Bach fugue
+more elaborate than a music-drama or tone
+poem&mdash;Bach more modern than Haydn or
+Mozart&mdash;His influence on modern music&mdash;Wagner
+unites the harmony of Beethoven
+with the polyphony of Bach&mdash;Melody, harmony
+and counterpoint defined and differentiated&mdash;Illustrated
+from the &ldquo;Moonlight Sonata&rdquo;&mdash;What
+a fugue is&mdash;The fugue and the
+virtuoso&mdash;Not &ldquo;grateful&rdquo; music for public
+performance&mdash;Daniel Gregory Mason&rsquo;s tribute
+and reservation&mdash;What counterpoint
+lacks&mdash;Fails to give the player as much scope
+as modern music&mdash;Barrier to individuality of
+expression&mdash;The virtuoso&rsquo;s mission&mdash;Creative
+as well as interpretive&mdash;Mr. Hanchett&rsquo;s
+dictum&mdash;Music both a science and an art&mdash;Science
+versus feeling&mdash;Person may be very
+musical without being musical at all&mdash;The
+great composer bends science to art&mdash;That
+&ldquo;ear for music&rdquo;&mdash;Bach and the Weather Bureau&mdash;The
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11' name='page_11'></a>11</span>
+Bacon, not the Shakespeare, of
+music&mdash;What Wagner learned from Bach&mdash;Illustration
+from &ldquo;Die Walküre&rdquo;&mdash;W. J.
+Henderson&rsquo;s anecdote&mdash;Wagner&rsquo;s counterpoint
+emotional&mdash;Bach&rsquo;s the language of an
+epoch; Wagner&rsquo;s the language of liberated
+music&mdash;Bach in the recital hall&mdash;Rubinstein
+and Bach&rsquo;s &ldquo;Triple Concerto&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;The Well-Tempered
+Clavichord&rdquo;&mdash;Meaning of &ldquo;well-tempered&rdquo;&mdash;A
+king&rsquo;s tribute to Bach&mdash;Two
+hundred and forty-one years of Bachs <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_48'>48</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>III.&mdash;FROM FUGUE TO SONATA</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>Break in Bach&rsquo;s influence&mdash;Mr. Parry on
+this hiatus in the evolution of music&mdash;Three
+periods of musical development&mdash;Rise of the
+harmonic, or &ldquo;melodic,&rdquo; school&mdash;Began with
+Domenico Scarlatti&mdash;The founder of modern
+pianoforte technique&mdash;Beginnings of the sonata
+form&mdash;Philipp Emanuel Bach and the
+sonata&mdash;Rise of the amateur&mdash;&ldquo;The Contented
+Ear and Quickened Soul,&rdquo; and other
+quaint titles&mdash;Changes in musical taste&mdash;Pianoforte
+has outgrown the music of Haydn
+and Mozart&mdash;Bach, Beethoven and Wagner
+the three great epoch-making figures in music&mdash;Beethoven
+and the epoch of the sonata&mdash;His
+slow development&mdash;Union of mind and
+heart in his work&mdash;His sonatas, however, no
+longer all-dominant in pianoforte music&mdash;Von
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_12' name='page_12'></a>12</span>
+Bülow and D&rsquo;Albert as Beethoven players&mdash;Incident
+at a Von Bülow Beethoven recital&mdash;Changes
+of taste in thirty years&mdash;The
+Beethoven sonatas too orchestric&mdash;The passing
+of the sonata <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_78'>78</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>IV.&mdash;DAWN OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>What a sonata is&mdash;How Beethoven enlarged
+the form&mdash;Illustrated in his Opus 2, No. 3,
+and in the &ldquo;Moonlight Sonata&rdquo;&mdash;The three
+Beethoven periods&mdash;In his last sonatas seems
+chafing under restraint of form&mdash;The sonata
+form reached its climax with Beethoven&mdash;Hampers
+modern composers&mdash;Lawrence Gilman
+on MacDowell&rsquo;s &ldquo;Keltic Sonata&rdquo;&mdash;The
+first romantic composers&mdash;Weber&mdash;Schubert&rsquo;s
+inexhaustible genius&mdash;Mendelssohn
+smooth, polished and harmless <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_100'>100</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>V.&mdash;CHOPIN, THE POET OF THE PIANOFORTE</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>An incomparable composer&mdash;Liszt&rsquo;s definition
+of tempo rubato&mdash;The Wagner of the
+pianoforte&mdash;Clear melody and weird, entrancing
+harmonies&mdash;Racial traits&mdash;Friends
+in Paris&mdash;Liszt the first to recognize him&mdash;The
+Études&mdash;Vigor, passion, impetus&mdash;Von
+Bülow on the great C minor Étude&mdash;The Préludes&mdash;Schumann&rsquo;s
+opinion of them&mdash;Rubinstein&rsquo;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13' name='page_13'></a>13</span>
+playing of the Seventh Prélude&mdash;The
+Nocturnes&mdash;Chopin and Poe&mdash;The Waltzes&mdash;Liszt
+on the Mazurkas&mdash;The Polonaises&mdash;Chopin&rsquo;s
+battle hymns&mdash;Other works&mdash;&ldquo;A
+noble from head to foot&rdquo;&mdash;Huneker on
+Chopin <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_115'>115</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>VI.&mdash;SCHUMANN, THE &ldquo;INTIMATE&rdquo;</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>A composer with an academic education&mdash;Pupil
+in pianoforte of Frederick Wieck&mdash;Strains
+a finger and abandons career as a virtuoso&mdash;Marries
+Clara Wieck&mdash;Afflicted with
+insanity&mdash;Attempts suicide&mdash;Dies in asylum&mdash;His
+music introspective and brooding&mdash;Poet,
+bourgeois and philosopher&mdash;Contributions
+to program music&mdash;&ldquo;Carnaval&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;Kreisleriana&rdquo;&mdash;Latter title explained&mdash;Really
+Schumanniana&mdash;Thoughts of his Clara&mdash;&ldquo;Fantasie
+Pieces&rdquo;&mdash;His compositions at first
+neglected <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_134'>134</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>VII.&mdash;LISZT, THE GIANT AMONG VIRTUOSOS</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>A youthful phenomenon&mdash;Refused at the
+Paris Conservatory&mdash;&ldquo;Le petit Litz&rdquo;&mdash;Inspired
+by Paganini&mdash;Episode with Countess
+D&rsquo;Agoult&mdash;Court conductor at Weimar&mdash;Makes
+Weimar the musical Mecca of Germany&mdash;Produces
+&ldquo;Lohengrin&rdquo;&mdash;His &ldquo;six
+Lives&rdquo;&mdash;His pianoforte compositions&mdash;The
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14' name='page_14'></a>14</span>
+&ldquo;Don Juan Fantasie&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Hexameron&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Années
+de Pèlerinage&rdquo;&mdash;Progressive edition of
+the Études&mdash;Giant strides in virtuosity&mdash;History
+of the famous &ldquo;Rhapsodies Hongroises&rdquo;&mdash;Characterisation
+of his pianoforte
+music&mdash;A great composer, not a charlatan&mdash;Liszt
+as a virtuoso&mdash;His tribute to the pianoforte&mdash;A
+long and influential career&mdash;Played
+for Beethoven and died at &ldquo;Parsifal&rdquo; <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_142'>142</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>VIII.&mdash;WITH PADEREWSKI&mdash;A MODERN
+PIANIST ON TOUR</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>The most successful virtuoso ever heard here&mdash;$171,981.89
+for one season&mdash;His opinion
+of the pianoforte&mdash;Perfect save for greater
+sustaining power of tone&mdash;Has four pianofortes
+on his tours&mdash;Duties of the &ldquo;piano
+doctor&rdquo;&mdash;How the instruments are cared for&mdash;Thawing
+out a pianoforte&mdash;Paderewski&rsquo;s
+humor <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_155'>155</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_section'>HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL
+CONCERT</p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>IX.&mdash;DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORCHESTRA</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>Modern music at first vocal, and without instrumental
+accompaniment&mdash;Awkward instrumentation
+of the contrapuntists&mdash;Primitive
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15' name='page_15'></a>15</span>
+orchestration in Italy&mdash;The orchestra of
+Monteverde&mdash;Haydn the father of modern
+orchestral music&mdash;The Mozart symphonies&mdash;Beethoven
+establishes the modern orchestra&mdash;But
+few instruments added since&mdash;Greater
+richness due to subtler technique&mdash;Beethoven&rsquo;s
+development of the orchestra traced in
+his symphonies&mdash;Greater technical demands
+on the players&mdash;Beethoven and Wagner&mdash;&ldquo;Meistersinger&rdquo;
+score has only three more
+instruments than the Fifth Symphony&mdash;Berlioz
+an orchestral juggler&mdash;Architectural music&mdash;Wagner,
+greatest of orchestral composers&mdash;Employs
+large orchestra not for
+noise, but for variety of expression&mdash;Richard
+Strauss&rsquo;s tribute to Wagner&mdash;Wonderfully
+reserved in the use of his forces&mdash;Wagner&rsquo;s
+scores the only advance worth mentioning
+since Berlioz <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_167'>167</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>X.&mdash;INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>The orchestra an aggregation of instruments
+that should play as one&mdash;Wagner&rsquo;s employment
+of orchestral groups illustrated by the
+Love motive in &ldquo;Die Walküre&rdquo; and the Walhalla
+motive&mdash;Division of the orchestra&mdash;The
+violin&mdash;Its varied capacity&mdash;The musical
+stage whisper of a hundred violins&mdash;The
+violins in the &ldquo;Lohengrin&rdquo; prelude&mdash;Modern
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16' name='page_16'></a>16</span>
+orchestral virtuosity&mdash;The sordine and its
+use&mdash;A pizzicato movement by Tschaikowski&mdash;The
+viola, violoncello and double bass&mdash;Dividing
+the string band&mdash;Examples from
+the scores of Wagner&mdash;Anecdote regarding
+the harp in &ldquo;Rheingold&rdquo;&mdash;The woodwind&mdash;The
+flute&mdash;The oboe in Schubert&rsquo;s C major
+symphony&mdash;The English horn in &ldquo;Tristan&rdquo;&mdash;Beethoven&rsquo;s
+use of the bassoon in the Fifth
+and Ninth symphonies&mdash;The clarinets in
+&ldquo;Tannhäuser,&rdquo; &ldquo;Lohengrin,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Götterdämmerung&rdquo;&mdash;Brass
+instruments and various
+illustrations of their employment&mdash;The
+trumpet in &ldquo;Fidelio&rdquo; and &ldquo;Carmen&rdquo;&mdash;The
+trombone group in &ldquo;The Ring of the Nibelung&rdquo;&mdash;The
+trombones in &ldquo;The Magic
+Flute,&rdquo; in Schubert&rsquo;s C major symphony, and
+in the introduction to the third act of &ldquo;Lohengrin&rdquo;&mdash;The
+tubas in the Funeral March
+in &ldquo;Götterdämmerung&rdquo;&mdash;Richard Strauss&rsquo;s
+apotheosis of the horn, and its importance in
+the Wagner scores&mdash;Tympani and cymbals&mdash;Mozart&rsquo;s
+G minor symphony on twenty-two
+clarinets&mdash;Richard Strauss, on the future development
+of the orchestra <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_179'>179</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>XI.&mdash;CONCERNING SYMPHONIES</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>The classical period of music dominated by
+the symphony&mdash;Its esthetic purpose defined&mdash;A
+symphonic witticism&mdash;Some comment
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17' name='page_17'></a>17</span>
+on form in music&mdash;Divisions of the symphony
+established by Haydn&mdash;Artless grace
+and beauty of Mozart&rsquo;s symphonies&mdash;Beethoven
+to the fore&mdash;Climaxes and rests&mdash;The
+Ninth Symphony&mdash;Schubert&rsquo;s genius&mdash;Mendelssohn
+and Schumann&mdash;Liszt&rsquo;s symphonies
+and symphonic poems&mdash;Other symphonists&mdash;Wagner
+not supposed to have been a purely
+orchestral composer, yet the greatest of all <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_197'>197</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>XII.&mdash;RICHARD  STRAUSS AND HIS
+MUSIC</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>One of the most original and individual of
+composers&mdash;A student, not a copyist, of
+Wagner&mdash;Independent intellectual basis for
+his art&mdash;Originator of the tone poem&mdash;Unhampered
+by even the word &ldquo;symphonic&rdquo;&mdash;Means
+much to the musically elect&mdash;Not a
+juggler with the orchestra&mdash;A modern of
+moderns&mdash;Technical difficulties, but not impossibilities
+in his works&mdash;&ldquo;Thus Spake Zarathustra&rdquo;
+and other scores&mdash;Life and truth,
+not mere beauty, the burden of modern music&mdash;Huneker&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Piper of Dreams&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Zarathustra&rdquo;
+and &ldquo;A Hero&rsquo;s Life&rdquo; described&mdash;An
+intellectual force in music&mdash;&ldquo;A Hero&rsquo;s
+Life&rdquo; Strauss&rsquo;s &ldquo;Meistersinger&rdquo;&mdash;Tribute to
+Wagner in &ldquo;Feuersnot&rdquo;&mdash;Performances of
+Richard Strauss&rsquo;s scores in America&mdash;His
+symphony in F minor (1883) had its first
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18' name='page_18'></a>18</span>
+performance anywhere, under Theodore
+Thomas&mdash;Straussiana&mdash;Boyhood anecdotes&mdash;Scribbled
+scores on schoolbook covers&mdash;Still
+at school when first symphony was
+played in public&mdash;Studied with Von Bülow&mdash;Married
+his Freihild&mdash;Ideals of the
+highest <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_207'>207</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>XIII.&mdash;A NOTE ON CHAMBER MUSIC <span class='rightpn' style='right:0'><a href='#page_224'>224</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_section'>HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC</p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>XIV.&mdash;SONGS AND SONG COMPOSERS</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>Strophic and &ldquo;composed through&rdquo;&mdash;Schubert
+the first song composer to require consideration;
+also the greatest&mdash;Early struggles&mdash;Too
+poor to buy music paper&mdash;Becomes a
+school-teacher&mdash;Impatient under drudgery&mdash;Publishers
+hold aloof&mdash;Fortune for a song,
+but not for him&mdash;History of &ldquo;The Erlking&rdquo;&mdash;How
+it was composed&mdash;Written down as
+fast as pen could travel&mdash;Tried over the same
+evening&mdash;The famous dissonances&mdash;As sung
+by Lilli Lehmann&mdash;Schubert only eighteen
+years old when he composed &ldquo;The Erlking&rdquo;&mdash;His
+marvelous fecundity&mdash;Died at thirty-one,
+yet wrote six hundred songs and many
+other works&mdash;Schumann&rsquo;s individuality&mdash;Distinguished
+from Schubert&mdash;Not the same
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19' name='page_19'></a>19</span>
+proportion of great songs&mdash;The best composed
+during his wooing of Clara&mdash;Phases of
+Franz&rsquo;s genius&mdash;Traces of his knowledge and
+admiration of Bach&mdash;Choice of keys&mdash;Objected
+to transpositions&mdash;Pitiable physical
+disabilities&mdash;Brahms a profound thinker in
+music&mdash;Jensen, Rubinstein, Grieg, Chopin,
+Wagner&mdash;Liszt one of the greatest of song
+composers&mdash;Richard Strauss, Hugo Wolf
+and others <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_231'>231</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>XV.&mdash;ORATORIO</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>An incongruous art form&mdash;Originated in
+Italy with San Filippo Neri&mdash;Scenery, action
+and even ballet in the early oratorio&mdash;The influence
+of German composers&mdash;Bach&rsquo;s &ldquo;Passion&rdquo;
+music&mdash;Dramatic expression in Händel&mdash;Rockstro&rsquo;s
+characterisation of&mdash;First
+performance of &ldquo;The Messiah&rdquo;&mdash;Haydn&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Creation&rdquo; and &ldquo;Seasons&rdquo;&mdash;Mendelssohn&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Elijah&rdquo; next to &ldquo;The Messiah&rdquo; in popularity&mdash;Dramatic
+episodes in the work&mdash;Gounod,
+Elgar and others <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_248'>248</a></span></p>
+<p class='TOC_chapter'>XVI.&mdash;OPERA AND MUSIC-DRAMA</p>
+<p class='TOC_details'>Origin of opera&mdash;Peri and the Florentines&mdash;Monteverde&mdash;Cavalli
+introduces vocal melody
+to relieve the monotony of recitative&mdash;Aria
+developed by Alessandro Scarlatti&mdash;Characteristics
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20' name='page_20'></a>20</span>
+of Italian opera from Scarlatti
+to Verdi&mdash;Gluck&rsquo;s reforms&mdash;German and
+French opera&mdash;&ldquo;Les Huguenots,&rdquo; &ldquo;Faust,&rdquo;
+and &ldquo;Carmen&rdquo;&mdash;Comparative popularity of
+certain operas here&mdash;Far-reaching effects of
+Wagner&rsquo;s theories&mdash;Their influence on the
+later Verdi and contemporary Italian composers&mdash;Wagner&rsquo;s
+music-dramas&mdash;A music-drama
+not an opera&mdash;Form wholly original
+with Wagner&mdash;Gave impetus to folk-lore
+movement&mdash;Krehbiel&rsquo;s &ldquo;Studies in the Wagnerian
+Drama&rdquo;&mdash;Wagner and anti-Wagner&mdash;Finck&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Wagner and His Works&rdquo;&mdash;Wagner
+a melodist&mdash;Examples&mdash;Unity a distinguishing
+trait of the music-drama&mdash;Wagner&rsquo;s
+method illustrated by musical examples&mdash;The
+Curse Motive&mdash;The Siegfried, Nibelung,
+and Tarnhelm motives&mdash;Leading motives
+not mere labels&mdash;Their plasticity musically
+illustrated&mdash;The Siegfried horn call developed
+into the motive of Siegfried, the
+hero, and into the climax of the &ldquo;Götterdämmerung&rdquo;
+Funeral March&mdash;An illustration
+from &ldquo;Tristan&rdquo;&mdash;Wagner as a composer
+of absolute music&mdash;His scores the
+greatest achievement musical history, up to
+the present time, has to show <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_260'>260</a></span></p>
+</div>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21' name='page_21'></a>21</span>
+<a name='LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS' id='LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS'></a>
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+</div>
+<table id='loi' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Illustrations' style='margin:1em auto;'>
+<col style='width:75%;' />
+<col style='width:25%;' />
+<tr>
+  <td />
+  <td valign='top' align='right'>PAGES</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'><p style="text-align:left; margin:0px;"><i>Beethoven's &ldquo;Moonlight Sonata&rdquo;</i></p></td>
+  <td valign='top' align='right'><a href='#linki_1'>52, 53</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><i>&ldquo;Two-Part Invention,&rdquo; by Bach</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_3'>54</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Love Motive from &ldquo;Die Walküre&rdquo;</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_4'>180</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Opening of the &ldquo;Lohengrin&rdquo; Prelude</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_5'>183</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Walhalla Motive</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_6'>192</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Curse Motive</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_7'>269</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Siegfried Motive</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_8'>270</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Nibelung Smithy Motive</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_9'>270</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Tarnhelm Motive</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_10'>271</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Siegfried Horn Call</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_11'>272</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Develops into Motive of Siegfried, the Hero</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_12'>272</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><i>And into Climax of the &ldquo;Götterdämmerung&rdquo; Funeral March</i></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_13'>272</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'><p style='text-align:left; margin:0px;'><i>Examples from &ldquo;Tristan und Isolde&rdquo;</i></p></td>
+  <td valign='top' align='right'><a href='#linki_14'>273, 274</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23' name='page_23'></a>23</span>
+<a name='INTRODUCTION' id='INTRODUCTION'></a>
+<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+</div>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you musical?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No; I neither play nor sing.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Your answer shows a complete misunderstanding
+of the case. Because you neither play nor
+sing, it by no means follows that you are unmusical.
+If you love music and appreciate it, you may be more
+musical than many pianists or singers; and certainly
+you may become so.</p>
+<p>This book is planned for the lover of music, for
+those who throng the concert and recital halls and the
+opera&mdash;those who have not followed music as a profession,
+and yet love it as an art; who may not play
+or sing, and yet are musical. Among these is an ever-growing
+number that &ldquo;wants to know,&rdquo; that no longer
+is satisfied simply with allowing music to play upon
+the senses and the emotions, but wants to understand
+why it does so.</p>
+<p>To satisfy this natural desire which, with many,
+amounts to a craving or even a passion, and to do so
+in wholly untechnical language and in a manner that
+shall be intelligible to the average reader, is the purpose
+of this book. In carrying it out I have not neglected
+the personal side of music, but have endeavored
+to keep clearly before the eyes of the reader, and in
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24' name='page_24'></a>24</span>
+their proper sequence, the great names in musical history.</p>
+<p>I am somewhat of a radical in my musical opinions,
+one of those persons of advanced views who does not
+lift his eyes reverentially heavenward every time the
+words &ldquo;symphony&rdquo; and &ldquo;sonata&rdquo; are mentioned. In
+fact, I am most in sympathy with the liberating tendencies
+of modern music, which lays more stress upon
+the expression of life and truth than upon the exact
+form in which these are sought to be expressed. Nevertheless,
+I am quite aware that only through the
+gradual development and expansion of forms that now
+may be growing obsolete has music achieved its emancipation
+from the tyranny of form. Therefore, while
+I would rather listen to a Wagner music-drama than
+to a Mozart opera, or might go to more trouble to
+hear a Richard Strauss tone poem than a Beethoven
+symphony, I am not such an unconscionable heretic as
+to be unaware of the great, the very great part played
+by the Mozart opera and the Beethoven symphony in
+the evolution of music, or their importance in the orderly
+and systematic study of the art. Indeed, I was
+brought up on &ldquo;Don Giovanni,&rdquo; the Fifth Symphony
+and the Sonatas before I brought myself up on Chopin,
+Liszt (for whom I have far greater admiration than
+most critics), and Wagner. Therefore, an ample portion
+of this book will be found devoted to the classical
+epoch and its great masters, especially its greatest
+master, Beethoven, and to the forms in which they
+worked. Nor do I think that these pages will be found
+written unsympathetically. But something is due the
+great body of music-lovers who, being told that they
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25' name='page_25'></a>25</span>
+<em>must</em> admire this, that and the other classical composer,
+<em>because he is classical</em>, find themselves at a loss
+and think themselves to blame because modern music
+makes a more vivid and deeper impression upon them.
+If they only knew it&mdash;they are in the right! But they
+have needed some one to tell them so.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Advanced,&rdquo; this book is. But plenty will be found
+in it regarding the sonata and the symphony, and,
+through the latter, the development of the orchestra;
+and orchestral instruments, their tone quality, scope
+and purpose are described and explained.</p>
+<p>More, perhaps, than in any work with the same purpose,
+the great part played by the pianoforte in the
+evolution of music is here recognized, and I have
+availed myself of the opportunity to tell much of the
+story of that evolution in connection with this, the
+most popular of musical instruments, and its great
+masters. Why the greater freedom of technique and
+expression made possible by the modern instrument
+has caused the classical sonata to be superseded by the
+more romantic works of Chopin and others whose compositions
+are typically pianistic, and how these works
+differ in form and substance from those of the classicists,
+are among the many points made clear in these
+chapters.</p>
+<p>The same care has been bestowed upon that portion
+of the book relating to vocal music&mdash;to songs, opera,
+music-drama and oratorio. In fact, the aim has been
+to equip the lover of music&mdash;that is, of good music of
+all kinds&mdash;with the knowledge which will enable him
+to enjoy far more than before either an orchestral concert,
+a piano or song recital, an opera or a music-drama&mdash;anything,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26' name='page_26'></a>26</span>
+in fact, in music from Bach to Richard
+Strauss; to place everything before him from the
+standpoint of a writer who is himself a lover of music
+and who, although thoroughly in sympathy with the
+more advanced schools of the art, also appreciates the
+great masters of the past and is behind none in acknowledging
+what they contributed to make music
+what it is.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you musical?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No; I neither play nor sing.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But, if you can read and listen, there is no reason
+why you should not be more musical&mdash;a more genuine
+lover of music&mdash;than many of those whose musicianship
+lies merely in their fingers or vocal cords. Try!</p>
+<p><span class='smcap'>Gustav Kobbé.</span></p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27' name='page_27'></a>27</span>
+<a name='HOW_TO_APPRECIATE_A_PIANOFORTE_RECITAL' id='HOW_TO_APPRECIATE_A_PIANOFORTE_RECITAL'></a>
+<h2>HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE RECITAL</h2>
+</div>
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29' name='page_29'></a>29</span>
+<a name='I_THE_PIANOFORTE' id='I_THE_PIANOFORTE'></a>
+<h2>I</h2>
+<h3>THE PIANOFORTE</h3>
+</div>
+<p>There must be practically on the part of every
+one who attends a pianoforte recital some degree
+of curiosity regarding the instrument itself.
+Therefore, it seems to me pertinent to institute at
+the very outset an inquiry into what the pianoforte is
+and how it became what it is&mdash;the most practical, most
+expressive and most universal of musical instruments,
+the instrument of the concert hall and of the intimate
+home circle. Knowledge of such things surely will enhance
+the enjoyment of a pianoforte recital&mdash;should be,
+in fact, a prerequisite to it.</p>
+<p>The pianoforte is the most used and, for that very
+reason, perhaps, the most abused of musical instruments.
+Even its real name generally is denied it. Most
+people call it a piano, although <i>piano</i> is a musical term
+denoting a degree of sound, soft, gentle, low&mdash;the opposite
+of <i>forte</i>, which means strong and loud. The
+combination of the two terms in one word, pianoforte,
+signifies that the instrument is capable of being played
+both softly and loudly&mdash;both <i>piano</i> and <i>forte</i>. It was
+this capacity that distinguished it from its immediate
+precursors, the old-time harpsichords and clavichords.
+One of the first requirements in learning how to understand
+music is to learn to call things musical by their
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30' name='page_30'></a>30</span>
+right names. To speak of a pianoforte as a piano is
+one of our unjustifiable modern shortcuts of speech,
+a characteristic specimen of linguistic laziness and evidence
+of utter ignorance concerning the origin and
+character of the instrument.</p>
+<p>If I were asked to express in a single phrase the
+importance of this instrument in the musical life of
+to-day I would say that the pianoforte is the orchestra
+of the home. Indeed, the title of the familiar song
+&ldquo;What Is Home Without a Mother?&rdquo; might, without
+any undue stretch of imagination, be changed to &ldquo;What
+Is Home Without a Pianoforte?&rdquo;&mdash;although, if you are
+working hard at your music and practicing scales and
+finger exercises several hours a day, it might be wiser
+not to ask your neighbor&rsquo;s opinion on this point.</p>
+<h4>The King of Instruments.</h4>
+<p>&ldquo;In households where there is no pianoforte we seem
+to breathe a foreign atmosphere,&rdquo; says Oscar Bie, in
+his history of the instrument and its players; and he
+adds with perfect truth that it has become an essential
+part of our life, giving its form to our whole musical
+culture and stamping its characteristics upon our whole
+conception of music. Surely out of every ten musical
+persons, layman or professional, at least nine almost
+invariably have received their first introduction to
+music through the pianoforte and have derived the
+greater part of their musical knowledge from it. Even
+composers like Wagner and Meyerbeer, whose work
+is wholly associated with opera, had their first lessons
+in music on the pianoforte, and Meyerbeer achieved
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31' name='page_31'></a>31</span>
+brilliant triumphs as a concert pianist before he turned
+his attention to the operatic stage.</p>
+<p>Of all musical instruments the pianoforte is the most
+intimate and at the same time the most public&mdash;&ldquo;the
+favorite of the lonely mourner and of the solitary soul
+whose joy seeks expression&rdquo; and the tie that unites the
+circle of family and friends. Yet it also thrills the
+great audience of the concert hall and rouses it to the
+highest pitch of enthusiasm. It is the king of instruments,
+and the reason for its supremacy is not far to
+seek. Weitzmann, the author of the first comprehensive
+account of the pianoforte and its literature, speaks
+of its ability &ldquo;to lend living expression to all phases
+of emotion for which language lacks words&rdquo;; its full,
+resonant tone; its volume vying with that of the orchestra;
+its command of every shade of sound from the
+gentlest <i>pianissimo</i> to the most powerful <i>forte</i>; and its
+mechanism, which permits of the most rapid runs and
+passages, and at the same time of sustained singing
+notes and phrases.</p>
+<h4>Music Under One&rsquo;s Fingers.</h4>
+<p>But this is not all. There is an overture by Weber
+entitled &ldquo;The Ruler of the Spirits.&rdquo; Well, he who
+commands the row of white and black keys is ruler of
+the spirits of music. He has music, all that music can
+give, within the grasp of his two hands, under his ten
+fingers. The pianoforte can render anything in music.
+Besides music of its own, it can reproduce the orchestra
+or the voice with even greater fidelity than the
+finest engraving renders a painting; for only to the eyes
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32' name='page_32'></a>32</span>
+of one familiar with the painting does the engraving
+suggest the color scheme of the original, whereas,
+through certain nuances of technique that are more
+easily felt than described, the pianoforte virtuoso who
+is playing an arrangement of an orchestra composition
+can make his audience hear certain instruments of the
+orchestra&mdash;even such characteristic effects as the far-carrying
+pizzicato, or the rumbling of the double basses
+or their low growl; the hollow, reverberating percussions
+of the tympani; sustained notes on the horns; the
+majestic accents of trombones; the sharp shrill of piccolos;
+while some of the most effective pianoforte pieces
+are arrangements of songs.</p>
+<p>Moreover, there are pianoforte compositions like the
+Hungarian rhapsodies of Liszt which, while conceived
+and carried out in the true spirit of the instrument
+(&ldquo;pianistic,&rdquo; as they say), yet suggest the tone colors
+of the orchestra without permitting these to obtrude
+themselves too much. This is one of the many services
+of Liszt, the giant of virtuosos and a giant among composers,
+to his art. It has been said that Liszt played
+the whole orchestra on the pianoforte. He did even
+more. He developed the technique of the instrument
+to such a point that the suggestion of many of the
+clang tints of the orchestra has become part of its heritage.
+This dual capacity of the pianoforte, the fact
+that it has a tone quality wholly peculiar to itself, so
+that when, for example, we are playing Chopin we
+never think of the orchestra, while at the same time it
+can take up into itself and reproduce, or at least suggest,
+the tone colors of other instruments, is one of its most
+remarkable characteristics.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33' name='page_33'></a>33</span></div>
+<p>Quite as remarkable and as interesting and important
+is the circumstance that these tone tints are
+wholly dependent upon the player. There is nothing
+peculiar to the make of the strings, the sounding-board,
+the hammers, that tends to produce these
+effects. They are due wholly to the player&rsquo;s
+subtle manipulation of the keys, so that we get the
+added thrill of the virtuoso&rsquo;s personal magnetism. The
+pianoforte owes much of its popularity, much of its
+supremacy, to the fact that a player&rsquo;s interpretation of
+a composition cannot be marred by any one but himself.
+It rests in his hands alone, whereas the conductor
+of an orchestra is dependent upon a hundred players,
+some of whom may have no more soul than so many
+wooden Indians. Even supposing a conductor to be
+gifted with a highly poetic and musically sensitive nature,
+it is impossible that so many men of varying degrees
+of temperament as go to make up an orchestra,
+and none of them probably a virtuoso of the highest
+rank, will be as sympathetically responsive to his baton
+as a pianoforte is to the fingers of a musical poet like
+Paderewski; for the fingers of a great virtuoso are the
+ambassadors of his soul.</p>
+<h4>Melody and Accompaniment on One Instrument.</h4>
+<p>This personal, one-man control of the instrument has
+been of inestimable value to the pianoforte in establishing
+itself in its present unassailable position. Moreover,
+in controlling it the pianist commands all the resources
+of music. With his two thumbs alone he can
+accomplish what no player upon any other instrument
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34' name='page_34'></a>34</span>
+in common use is capable of doing with all ten fingers.
+He can sound together the lowest and the highest notes
+in music, for all the notes of music as we know it simply
+await the pressure of the fingers upon the keys of
+the pianoforte. It is the one instrument capable of
+power as well as of sweetness and grace which
+places the whole range of harmony and counterpoint
+at the disposal of one player. A vocalist can sing an
+air, but can you imagine a vocalist singing through an
+entire programme without accompaniment? After half
+a dozen unaccompanied songs the singing even of the
+greatest prima donna would become monotonous for
+lack of harmony. The violin and violoncello, next to
+the pianoforte the most frequently heard instruments
+in the concert hall, labor under the same disadvantage
+as the singer. They are dependent upon the accompaniment
+of others.</p>
+<p>The pianist, on the other hand, has the inestimable
+advantage of being able to play melody and accompaniment
+on one instrument at the same time&mdash;all in
+one. While singing with some of his fingers the tender
+melodic phrase of a Chopin nocturne, he completes with
+the others the exquisite weave of harmony, and reveals
+the musical fabric to us in all its beauty. Moreover, it
+is the pianist himself who does this, not some one else
+at his signal, which the intermediary possibly may not
+wholly understand. When Paderewski is at the pianoforte
+we hear Paderewski&mdash;not some one else of a less
+sensitive temperament whom he is directing with a
+baton. A poet is at the instrument and we hear the
+poet. A poet may be at the conductor&rsquo;s desk&mdash;but in
+the orchestra that is required for the interpretation
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35' name='page_35'></a>35</span>
+of his musical conceptions poets usually are conspicuous
+by their absence. Even great singers suffer because
+their accompaniments are apt not to be as sensitive of
+temperament as they are; and it is a fact that the grace
+and beauty of Schubert&rsquo;s &ldquo;Hark, Hark, the Lark&rdquo; never
+have been so fully revealed to me by a singer as by
+Paderewski&rsquo;s playing of Liszt&rsquo;s arrangement of the
+song, because the pianist is able to shade the accompaniment
+to the most delicate nuances of the melody.
+How delightful, too, it is to go through the pianoforte
+score of a Wagner music-drama and, as you play the
+wonderful music&mdash;all placed within the grasp of your
+ten fingers&mdash;watch the scenic pictures and the action
+pass in imagination before your eyes in your own music
+room without the defects inseparable from every public
+performance, because the success of a performance depends
+upon the co-operation of so many who do not
+co-operate. Yes, the pianoforte is the king of instruments
+because it is the most independent of instruments
+and because it makes him who plays upon it independent.</p>
+<h4>Music&rsquo;s Debt to the Pianoforte.</h4>
+<p>It would be difficult to overestimate the debt that
+music owes to the pianoforte. Including for the present
+under this one name the various keyboard instruments
+from which it was developed, the sonata form
+had its first tentative beginnings upon it and was
+wrought out to perfection through it by a process of
+gradual evolution extending from Domenico Scarlatti
+through Bach&rsquo;s son, Philipp Emanuel Bach, to Beethoven.
+As a symphony simply is a sonata for orchestra,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36' name='page_36'></a>36</span>
+it follows that through the sonata and thus through the
+pianoforte the form in which the classical composers
+cast their greatest works was established. Richard
+Strauss, in his revision of Berlioz&rsquo;s book on orchestration,
+even goes so far as to assert that Beethoven, and
+after him Schumann and Brahms, treated the orchestra
+pianistically; but the discussion of this point is better
+deferred until we take up the orchestra and orchestral
+music.</p>
+<p>Here, however, it may be observed that in addition
+to its constant use as an instrument for the concert hall
+and the home, and for the delight of great audiences
+and the joy of the amateur player and his familiar
+circle, many of the great composers, even when writing
+orchestral works, have used the pianoforte for their
+first sketches, testing their harmonies on it, and often,
+no doubt, while groping over the keys in search of the
+psychical note, hit upon accidental improvements
+and new harmonies. Even Wagner, who understood
+the orchestra as none other ever has, employed the
+pianoforte in sketching out his ideas. &ldquo;I went to my
+Erard and wrote out the passage as rapidly as if I had
+it by heart,&rdquo; he writes from Venice to Mathilde <a name='TC_1'></a><ins class="trchange" title="Was 'Wesendonk'">Wesendonck</ins>,
+in relating to her the genesis of the great love
+duet in &ldquo;Tristan und Isolde,&rdquo; and I could quote other
+passages from my &ldquo;Wagner and his Isolde,&rdquo; which is
+based on the romantic passages in the lives of the composer
+and the woman who inspired his great music-drama,
+to show the frequency with which he made similar
+use of the universal musical instrument.</p>
+<p>The pianoforte has in many other ways been a boon
+to some of the most famous composers. Many of them
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37' name='page_37'></a>37</span>
+were pianists, and by public performances of their own
+works materially accelerated the appreciation of their
+music. Mozart was a youthful prodigy, and later a
+virtuoso of the highest rank. Beethoven, before he
+was overtaken by deafness, introduced his own pianoforte
+compositions to the public and was the musical
+lion of the Viennese drawing-rooms. Mendelssohn was
+a pianist of the same smooth, affable, gentlemanly type
+as his music. Chopin was not a miscellaneous concert
+player&mdash;his nature was too shrinking; but at the
+Salon Pleyel in Paris he gave recitals to the musical
+élite, who in turn conveyed his ideas to the greater
+public. Schumann began his musical career as a virtuoso,
+but strained the fourth finger of his right hand
+in using a mechanical apparatus which he had devised
+for facilitating the practice of finger exercises. His
+wife, Clara Wieck, however, who was the most
+famous woman pianist of her time, substituted her
+fingers for his. Liszt literally hewed out the way for
+his works on the keyboard. Brahms was a pianist of
+solid, scholarly attainments. In fact, dig where you
+will in musical soil, you strike the roots of the pianoforte.</p>
+<h4>Its Lowly Origin.</h4>
+<p>It must not be supposed, however, that the instrument
+as we know it attained to its present supremacy
+except through a long process of evolution. One of
+the immediate precursors of the modern pianoforte was
+the harpsichord, a name suggesting that the instrument
+was a harp with a keyboard attachment, and such,
+in a general way, the pianoforte is. But the harp is
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38' name='page_38'></a>38</span>
+a very fully developed affair compared with the mean
+little apparatus in which lay and was discovered many
+centuries ago the first germ of the king among instruments.
+This was the monochord, and it has required
+about nine centuries for the evolution of an instrument
+consisting of a single string set in vibration by means
+of a keyboard attachment into the modern pianoforte.
+But do not be alarmed. I am not about to give a nine
+hundred years&rsquo; history of the pianoforte. Such detailed
+consideration would belong to a technical work
+on the manufacture of the instrument and would be out
+of place here. Something of its history should, however,
+be known to every one who wants to understand
+music, but I shall endeavor to be as brief and at the
+same time as clear as possible.</p>
+<p>The monochord originally was used much as we use
+a tuning fork, to determine true musical pitch. If you
+take a short piece of string, tie one end of it fast, draw
+it taut and pluck it, its vibrations will sound a note. If
+you grasp the string and draw it taut from nearer to
+the point where it is tied, you shorten what is called
+the &ldquo;node,&rdquo; increase the number of vibrations and produce
+a higher note. The monochord in its simplest
+form consisted of a string drawn taut over an oblong
+box and tuned to a given pitch by means of a peg.
+Under the string and in contact with it was a bridge
+or fret that could be moved by hand along a graduated
+scale marked on the bottom of the box. By moving the
+bridge the node of the string could be shortened and
+the notes marked at corresponding points on the graduated
+scale produced. After a while, and in order to
+facilitate the study of the harmonious relationship between
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39' name='page_39'></a>39</span>
+different notes, three strings were added, each
+with its bridge and graduated scale.</p>
+<p>It was more or less of a nuisance, however, to continually
+shift four bridges to as many different
+points under the four strings. As an improvement
+upon this awkward arrangement some
+clever person conceived about the beginning of
+the tenth century, the idea of borrowing the
+keyboard from the organ and attaching it to the
+monochord. To the rear end of each key was attached
+an upright piece called a tangent. When the finger
+pressed upon a key the tangent struck one of the strings,
+set it in vibration, and at the same time, by contact,
+created a node which lasted as long as the key was kept
+down and the tangent remained pressed against the
+string. To increase the utility of the instrument by
+adding more strings and more keys was the next obvious
+step, and gradually the monochord ceased to be
+a mere technical apparatus for the determining of pitch
+and became an instrument on which professionals and
+amateurs could play with pleasure to themselves and
+others.</p>
+<h4>A Poet&rsquo;s Advice to His Musical Daughter.</h4>
+<p>There has been preserved to us from about the year
+1529 a reply made by the poet Pietro Bembo to his
+daughter Elena, who had written to him from the convent
+where she was being educated asking if she could
+have lessons upon the monochord, which seems to have
+been as popular in its day as its fully developed successor,
+the modern pianoforte, is now.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40' name='page_40'></a>40</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Touching thy request for permission to play upon
+the monochord,&rdquo; begins Bembo&rsquo;s quaint answer, &ldquo;I reply
+that because of thy tender years thou canst not
+know that playing is an art for vain and frivolous
+women, whereas I would that thou shouldst be the most
+chaste and modest maiden alive. Besides, if thou wert
+to play badly it would cause thee little pleasure and no
+little shame. Yet in order to play well thou must needs
+give up from ten to twelve years to the exercise, without
+so much as thinking of aught else. How far this
+would benefit thee thou canst see for thyself without
+my telling thee. But thy schoolmates, if they desire
+thee to learn to play for their pleasure, tell them thou
+dost not care to have them laugh at thy mortification.
+Therefore, content thyself with the pursuit of the sciences
+and the practice of needlework.&rdquo; These words
+of the poet Bembo to his daughter Elena&mdash;are they
+so wholly lacking in application to our own day? And
+I wonder&mdash;did or did not Elena learn to play the monochord?
+If not, it was because she lived a few centuries
+too soon. She would have had her own way to-day!</p>
+<h4>The Clavichord.</h4>
+<p>Monochord means &ldquo;one string,&rdquo; and the application
+of the term to the instrument after other strings had
+been added was a misnomer. The monochord on which
+Elena, to the evident distress of her distinguished parent,
+desired to play, really was a clavichord, which was
+derived directly from the primitive monochord.</p>
+<p>If you will raise the lid of your pianoforte you will
+find that the strings become shorter from the bass up,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41' name='page_41'></a>41</span>
+the lowest note being sounded by the longest, the highest
+note by the shortest string; for the longer the
+string the slower the vibrations and the deeper the
+sounds produced, and <i>vice versa</i>. This principle is so
+obvious that it seems as if it must have been applied
+to the clavichord almost immediately and a separate
+string provided for each key. But for many years the
+strings of the clavichord continued all of equal length,
+and three or four neighboring keys struck the same
+string, so that the contact of the upright tangent with
+the string not only set the latter in vibration but also
+served to form the node which produced the desired
+note. Not until after the clavichord had been in
+use several centuries, were its strings made of
+varying length and a separate string assigned to each
+key. These new clavichords were called <i>bundfrei</i>
+(fret-free or tangent-free) because the node of each
+string was determined by that string&rsquo;s length and not
+by the contact of the tangent.</p>
+<p>The clavichord retained the box shape of its prototype,
+the monochord. Originally it was portable and
+was set upon a table; later, however, was made, so to
+speak, to stand upon its own legs. In appearance it
+resembled our square pianofortes. It gave forth a
+sweet, gentle and decidedly pretty musical sound. It
+had a further admirable quality in its capacity for sustaining
+a tone, since by keeping the tangent pressed
+against the string the player was able to sustain the
+tone so long as the string continued to vibrate. Moreover,
+by holding down the key and at the same time
+making a gentle rocking motion with the finger he was
+able to produce a tremolo effect which German musicians
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42' name='page_42'></a>42</span>
+called <i>Bebung</i> (trembling), and the French <i>balancement</i>.</p>
+<p>A defect of the clavichord was, however, its lack of
+power. This defect led to experiments which resulted
+in the construction of a keyboard instrument the strings
+of which, in response to the action of the keys, were
+set in vibration by jacks tipped with crow-quills or
+hard leather. The sound was much stronger than that
+of the clavichord. But the jacks twanged the strings
+with uniform power, &ldquo;permitting a sharp outline, but
+no shading of the tones.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>The Harpsichord.</h4>
+<p>If you chance to be listening to a Hungarian band
+at a restaurant you may notice that one of the players
+has lying on a table before him an instrument with
+many strings strung very much like those of the pianoforte.
+It is played with two little mallets in the player&rsquo;s
+hands, and produces the weird arpeggios and improvised
+runs characteristic of Hungarian gypsy music.
+It is a very old instrument called the cembalo. About
+the fifteenth century, it seems, some one devised a keyboard
+attachment with quills for this instrument, tipped
+the jacks with crow-quills, and called the result a clavicembalo
+(a cembalo with keys). This was the origin
+of the harpsichord, the name by which the clavicembalo
+soon became more generally known. Harpsichords
+were shaped somewhat like our grand pianofortes, but
+were much smaller. A spinet was a small harpsichord,
+and the virginal a still smaller one. Sometimes, indeed,
+virginals were made no larger than workboxes,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43' name='page_43'></a>43</span>
+the instrument being taken out of the box and placed
+on a table before the player.</p>
+<p>For the purposes of this book this very general survey
+of the precursors of the pianoforte seems sufficient.
+The clavichord and the instruments of the harpsichord
+(harpsichord, spinet, and virginal) class flourished
+alongside of each other, but the best musicians gave
+the preference to the clavichord because of its sweet
+tone and the delicately tremulous effect that could be
+produced upon it by the <i>balancement</i>. Experiments in
+pianoforte making were in progress already in Bach&rsquo;s
+day, but he clung to the clavichord, as did his son,
+Philipp Emanuel Bach. Mozart was the first of the
+great masters to realize the value of the pianoforte and
+to aid materially in making it popular by using it for
+his public performances. And yet even then the clavichord,
+&ldquo;that lonely, melancholy, unspeakably sweet instrument,&rdquo;
+was not abandoned without lingering regret
+by the older musicians, and it still was to be found in
+occasional use as late as the beginning of the last century.
+How thoroughly modern the pianoforte is will
+be appreciated when it is said that a celebrated firm
+of English makers founded in 1730 did not begin to
+manufacture pianofortes until 1780 and continued the
+production of clavichords until 1793.</p>
+<h4>Piano and Forte.</h4>
+<p>Neither on the clavichord nor on the harpsichord
+could the player vary the strength of the tone which he
+produced, by the degree of force with which he struck
+the keys. Swells and pedals worked by the knees and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44' name='page_44'></a>44</span>
+the feet were devised to overcome this difficulty, but
+&ldquo;touch&rdquo; as we understand it to-day was impossible
+with the instruments in which the degree of sound to
+be produced was not under the control of the player&rsquo;s
+fingers. The clavichord was <i>piano</i>, the harpsichord
+was <i>forte</i>. Not until the invention of the hammer action,
+the substitution of hammers for tangents and
+quill-jacks, was an instrument possible in which
+whether the tone should be <i>piano</i> or <i>forte</i> depended
+upon the degree of strength with which the player
+struck the keys. This instrument was the first pianoforte.
+It was invented and so named in 1711 by Bartolomeo
+Cristofori, of Florence, and, although nearly
+two centuries have elapsed since then, the action used
+by many pianoforte manufacturers of to-day is in its
+essentials the same as that devised by this clever Italian.
+The invention frequently is ascribed to Gottfried
+Silbermann, a German (1683-1753). But the real situation
+is that Cristofori was the inventor, while Silbermann
+was the first successful manufacturer of the new
+instruments, from a business point of view. Time and
+improvements were required before they made their
+way, and how slow many professional musicians were
+in giving up the beloved clavichord for the pianoforte
+already has been pointed out. But the latter was bound
+to triumph in the end.</p>
+<p>I shall not attempt to give a technical description of
+the mechanism of the pianoforte. But I should like
+to answer a few questions which may have suggested
+themselves to players who may not have cared to
+take their instruments apart and examine them, or have
+not been present when their tuners have taken off the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45' name='page_45'></a>45</span>
+lid and exposed the strings and mechanism to view.
+The strings of the pianoforte are of steel wire, and their
+tension varies from twelve tons to nearly twenty.
+Those of the deepest bass are covered with copper wire.
+Eight or ten tones of the bass are produced by the
+vibration of these copper-wound strings. Above these,
+for about an octave and a half, the strings are in pairs,
+so that, the hammer striking them, there are two unison
+strings to a tone, simultaneously, and producing
+approximately twice as powerful a tone as if only one
+string had been set in vibration. The five remaining
+octaves have three strings to a tone.</p>
+<h4>All Depends on the Player.</h4>
+<p>When the fingers strike the keys the hammers strike
+the strings, the force of the stroke depending upon
+the force exerted by the player, this being the distinguishing
+merit of the pianoforte as compared with its
+precursors. Under the strings are a row of dampers,
+and as soon as a finger releases a key the corresponding
+damper springs into place against the vibrating
+strings, stops the vibrations, and the tone ceases. Thus
+the tone can be dampened immediately by raising the
+finger or prolonged by keeping the finger pressed down
+on the key. This is the device which enables the pianist
+to play <i>staccato</i> or <i>legato</i>. The damper pedal, or
+loud pedal, checks the action of all the dampers and
+prolongs the tones even after the fingers have released
+the keys. The soft pedal brings the hammers nearer
+the strings, shortens the stroke and produces a softer
+tone. The simultaneous use of both pedals is a modern
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46' name='page_46'></a>46</span>
+virtuoso effect and a very charming one, for the damper
+pedal prolongs the gentle tones produced by the
+use of the soft pedal. I believe Paderewski was the
+first of the great pianists who have visited this country,
+to employ this effect systematically, and that he was
+among the first composers to formally indicate the
+simultaneous employment of both pedals in passages
+in his compositions. There is a third pedal called the
+sustaining pedal, but I do not think it has proved as
+valuable an invention as was anticipated.</p>
+<p>Within recent years there have been introduced mechanical
+pianofortes, which I may designate as pianolas,
+after the most popular instrument of their class. In
+my opinion, these instruments are destined to play an
+important part in the diffusion of musical knowledge,
+and it is senseless to underestimate this. There are
+thousands of people who have neither the time nor the
+dexterity to master the technique of the pianoforte,
+who nevertheless are people of genuine musical feeling,
+and who are enabled through the pianola to cultivate
+their taste for music. The device renders the
+music accurately; whether expressively or not depends,
+as with the pianoforte itself, upon the taste of the person
+who manipulates it.</p>
+<h4>Decorations That Do Not Beautify.</h4>
+<p>The pianoforte often is spoken of as an instrument
+of ugly appearance. This it emphatically is not. If the
+straight side of the grand is placed against the wall
+the side toward the room presents a graceful, sweeping
+curve, while the upright effectively breaks the straight
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47' name='page_47'></a>47</span>
+line of the wall against which it stands. If the pianoforte
+is ugly, it is due to the so-called &ldquo;ornaments&rdquo; that
+are placed upon it&mdash;the knicknacks, framed pictures
+and other senseless things. To my mind, there is but
+one thing which it is permissible to place upon a pianoforte,
+a slender vase with a single flower, preferably
+a rose&mdash;the living symbol of the soul that waits to be
+awakened within the instrument.</p>
+<p>Sheet music or bound books of music on top of a
+pianoforte are an abomination. If scattered about they
+look disorderly; if neatly arranged in portfolios, even
+worse, for they create the precise, orderly appearance
+of paths and mounds in a cemetery. Often, indeed, the
+pianoforte is a graveyard of musical hopes. Because
+of that, however, it need not be made to look like one.</p>
+<p>Equally objectionable is the elaborately decorated
+or &ldquo;period&rdquo; pianoforte designed for rooms decorated
+in the style of some historical art period. A pianoforte
+has no business in a &ldquo;period&rdquo; room. If the person is
+rich enough to afford &ldquo;period&rdquo; rooms, he also can afford
+a music room, and the simpler this is, within the
+bounds of good taste, and the less there is in it besides
+the instrument itself, the better. The more proficient
+the pianist the less he cares for decoration and the more
+satisfied he is with the pianoforte turned out in the
+ordinary course of business by the high-class manufacturer.
+No&mdash;decorated pianofortes are for those who
+are too rich to be musical.</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48' name='page_48'></a>48</span>
+<a name='II_BACHS_SERVICE_TO_MUSIC' id='II_BACHS_SERVICE_TO_MUSIC'></a>
+<h2>II</h2>
+<h3>BACH&rsquo;S SERVICE TO MUSIC</h3>
+</div>
+<p>So important has been the rôle played by the pianoforte
+in the evolution of music that it is possible
+in these chapters on a pianoforte recital to give
+a general survey of the art, and thus prepare the
+reader to enjoy not only what he will hear at such a
+recital, but enable him to approach it with a more comprehensive
+knowledge than that would imply. This is
+one reason why I elected to lead with the chapters on
+the pianoforte instead of with those on the orchestra,
+as usually is done, because the orchestra is something
+&ldquo;big.&rdquo; In point of fact, however, the pianoforte, so
+far as its influence is concerned, is quite as &ldquo;big,&rdquo; if
+not, indeed, bigger than the orchestra; for often, in
+the evolution of music (as I pointed out in the previous
+chapter), this instrument, which is so sufficient
+in itself, has led the orchestra. In reviewing a pianoforte
+recital it therefore is quite possible to review
+many phases of musical history.</p>
+<p>Take as an example a composition by Bach, one of
+the preludes and fugues from &ldquo;The Well-Tempered
+Clavichord,&rdquo; with which a pianoforte recital is quite
+apt to open. The selection illustrates a whole epoch
+in music which Bach rounded off and brought alike to
+its climax and its close. You will be apt to find this
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49' name='page_49'></a>49</span>
+fugue rather complicated and, I fear, somewhat unintelligible,
+and this makes it necessary for me to point
+out at once that in some respects music has had a
+curious development. A Wagner music-drama, a Richard
+Strauss tone poem, seem elaborate and complicated
+affairs compared with a Beethoven sonata or symphony.
+Yet even the most advanced work of
+a Wagner or Strauss is neither as complicated nor as
+elaborate as a fugue by that past master of his art,
+Johann Sebastian Bach, who, although he was born
+in 1685 and did not live beyond the middle of the following
+century, was so far ahead of his age that not
+even to this day has he fully come into his own. The
+result is that the early classicists, Haydn and Mozart,
+who belong in point of time to a later epoch, may more
+readily be reckoned as &ldquo;old-fashioned&rdquo; than Father
+Bach. When at a recital you listen to a fugue by Bach
+and find it hard and labored&mdash;many people regard it
+simply as a difficult species of finger exercises&mdash;you
+think that is because it is so very ancient, something
+in the same class with Greek or Sanscrit. In point of
+fact it is because in some respects it is so very modern.</p>
+<p>Were it not for the importance of preserving an
+orderly historical sequence in a book of this kind, and
+that Bach usually is found at the beginning of a recital
+program, it would be almost more practical, and certainly
+far easier, for the author to leave Bach until
+later. When you write of Mozart, or of Beethoven and
+the moderns, you can depend upon more or less familiarity
+with their works on the part of your readers,
+whereas, comparatively few laymen know much about
+Bach. They associate the name with all that is formal
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50' name='page_50'></a>50</span>
+and labored. Yet among my acquaintances is a young
+woman who was brought up in a very musical family,
+and who, having as a child heard her mother play the
+preludes and fugues of the &ldquo;Well-Tempered Clavichord,&rdquo;
+finds Bach as simple as the alphabet. But hers
+is a most exceptional case. The appreciation of Bach,
+as a rule, comes only with advanced age. My music
+teacher used to say to me: &ldquo;You rave over Schubert
+and Wagner now, but when you get to be as old as
+I am you will go back to Father Bach.&rdquo; While I cannot
+say that his prophecy has come true, while I still
+am ultra-modern in my musical predilections, my musical
+gods being Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt,
+Brahms, Richard Strauss and, above all, Wagner, I
+should consider myself unfit to write this book if I
+failed to realize the debt modern music owes to Bach,
+and that the more modern the music the greater the
+debt.</p>
+<h4>Bach in Modern Music.</h4>
+<p>One of the most remarkable phenomena in the history
+of the art&mdash;and a generalization like this is as
+much in place in discussing pianoforte music as elsewhere,
+because the instrument has had so much to do
+with the evolution of music&mdash;is the gap between Bach
+and modern music. While the following must not be
+taken too literally, it is true in general that Bach had
+little or no influence on the age that immediately came
+after him, the classical age of music, that age which we
+sum up in the names of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven,
+the age of the sonata and the symphony. The three masters
+mentioned probably would have developed and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51' name='page_51'></a>51</span>
+composed much as they did had Bach never lived. But
+when a more modern composer, a romanticist like
+Wagner, wanted to enrich the means of musical
+expression handed down to him from the classical
+period, he reached back to Bach and combined Bach&rsquo;s
+teeming counterpoint with the harmonic system which
+had been inherited from Beethoven. To understand
+just what this means, to appreciate the influence Bach
+has had upon modern music and why he had little or
+none on the classical composers, it is necessary for the
+reader to have at least a reasonably clear conception of
+what that counterpoint is and wherein it differs from
+harmony; for with Bach counterpoint reached its climax,
+and all the possibilities of the style having been
+exhausted by him, music of necessity took a turn in
+another direction under the classicists and developed
+harmonically instead of contrapuntally; so that it
+can be said that modern music derives its counterpoint
+from Bach, its harmony from Beethoven,
+and its combination of the two systems from
+Wagner.</p>
+<p>There is another reason why the meaning of counterpoint
+should be explained and the difference between
+counterpoint and harmony be made clear to the reader
+now. Nearly all the early music, the music that preceded
+Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and that sometimes
+is to be found on recital programs, is contrapuntal&mdash;written
+in counterpoint. As I have said before, it
+would be much easier to start with the sonata form,
+with harmony instead of counterpoint, for of the two
+harmony is the simpler. But we must &ldquo;face the music&rdquo;&mdash;the
+music of the old contrapuntal composers&mdash;and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52' name='page_52'></a>52</span>
+the best way to do this is to explain what harmony and
+counterpoint are and wherein they differ.</p>
+<h4>Harmony and Counterpoint.</h4>
+<p>A melody or theme is a rational progression of single
+tones. Here is the melody or theme with which Beethoven
+begins the familiar &ldquo;Moonlight Sonata&rdquo;:</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_1' id='linki_1'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-052a.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-052a.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='52' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+<i>Beethoven&rsquo;s &ldquo;Moonlight Sonata&rdquo;</i><br />[<a href="music/052a.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>It is a melody, but it does not constitute harmony, for
+harmony is the rational combination of several tones,
+as distinguished from the rational progression of single
+tones which constitute melody. But when Beethoven
+adds an accompaniment to his theme and it becomes:</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_2' id='linki_2'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-052b.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-052b.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='349' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+<i>Beethoven&rsquo;s &ldquo;Moonlight Sonata&rdquo;</i><br />[<a href="music/052b.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53' name='page_53'></a>53</span></div>
+<p>the passage also becomes harmony, since it is an example
+of the rational combination of several tones. As
+has often been pointed out in books on music, and probably
+often will have to be pointed out again, because
+as a mistake it is to be classed with the hardy perennials,
+melody is not harmony, but only a part of it.
+When, however, a composer conceives a theme or melody
+he usually does so with the purpose of combining
+it with an accompaniment that shall support it and
+throw it into bold and striking relief. Composers of
+the contrapuntal school, on the other hand, conceived
+a theme, not for the purpose of supporting it with an
+accompaniment, but in order to combine it with another
+or with several other equally important themes. That,
+in a general way, is the difference between harmony
+and counterpoint.</p>
+<p>In harmony, then, or, more strictly speaking, in
+music composed according to the harmonic system, of
+which the &ldquo;Moonlight Sonata&rdquo; is a good example, the
+theme, the melody, stands out from the accompaniment,
+which is subordinate. Counterpoint, on the other hand,
+rests on the combination of several themes, each of
+equal importance. This is the reason why, when there is
+a fugue or other complicated contrapuntal work on the
+program of a pianoforte recital, the average listener
+is apt to find it dry and uninteresting. His ear readily
+can distinguish the themes of a sonata, which usually
+are heard one at a time and stand out clearly from the
+accompaniment, but it has not been trained to unravel
+the themes of the fugue as they travel along together.
+Counterpoint, the term being derived from the Latin
+<i>contra punctum</i>, which means point against point or
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54' name='page_54'></a>54</span>
+note against note, when complicated, as in a fugue, is
+about the most elaborate kind of music there is, and
+a person who is unable to grasp a fugue may console
+himself with the thought that, excepting for the elect,
+it is a pretty stiff dose to swallow at the very beginning
+of a recital.</p>
+<p>There are, however, simpler pieces of counterpoint
+than a fugue. Sometimes, as in the charming little &ldquo;Gavotte&rdquo;
+by Padre Martini, which now and then figures
+among the lighter numbers on the programs of historical
+recitals, the contrapuntist combines a theme with
+itself, or, rather, &ldquo;imitates&rdquo; it, which is a simple form
+of the canon. Another form of canon is the round of
+which &ldquo;Three Blind Mice&rdquo; is a familiar example. How
+many people, when singing this, have realized that
+they were being initiated into that mysterious thing
+known as counterpoint? A comparatively simple form
+of counterpoint is well illustrated by a dapper little
+piece in Bach&rsquo;s &ldquo;Two-Part Inventions,&rdquo; in which the
+spirited theme given out by the right hand answers itself
+a bar later in the left, an &ldquo;imitation&rdquo; which crops out
+again and again in the piece and gives it somewhat the
+character of a canon.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_3' id='linki_3'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-054.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-054.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='155' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+[<a href="music/054.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>For any one who wishes to become acquainted with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55' name='page_55'></a>55</span>
+Bach there is nothing better than these &ldquo;Two-Part Inventions,&rdquo;
+especially the fascinating little piece from
+which I have just quoted, compact, buoyant and gay,
+even &ldquo;pert,&rdquo; as I once heard a young girl characterize
+it; a perfect example of old Father Bach in moments
+of relaxation when he has laid aside his periwig and
+is amusing himself at his clavichord.</p>
+<h4>What a Fugue Is.</h4>
+<p>Bach&rsquo;s fugues, and especially his &ldquo;Well-Tempered
+Clavichord,&rdquo; forty-eight preludes and fugues in all the
+keys, form the climax of contrapuntal music. Goethe
+once said that &ldquo;the history of the world is a mighty
+fugue in which the voice of nation after nation becomes
+audible.&rdquo; This is a freely poetic definition of
+that highly complicated musical form, the fugue. Let
+me attempt to illustrate it in a different way.</p>
+<p>Imagine that a composer who is an adept in
+counterpoint places four pianists at different pianofortes,
+and that he gives a different theme to each of
+them, or a theme to one and modified versions of it to
+the others. He starts the first pianist, after a few bars
+nods to the second to join in with his theme, and so
+on successively with the other two. It might be supposed
+that when the second player joins in, the two
+themes sounding together would make discord, which
+would be aggravated by the addition of the third and
+fourth. But, instead, they have been so conceived by
+the contrapuntist that they sound well together as they
+chase and answer each other, or run counter to and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56' name='page_56'></a>56</span>
+parallel and enter into many different combinations,
+sometimes flowing along smoothly, at other times surging
+and striving, yet always, in the case of a truly
+great fugue, borne along by a momentum as inexorable
+as the march of Fate. Of course, it must not be supposed,
+because I have called four pianists into action
+in order to emphasize how distinct are these themes,
+which yet, when united, are found to blend together,
+that several players are required for the performance
+of a complicated piece of counterpoint like a fugue.
+What is demanded of the player is entire independence
+of the fingers, so that he can clearly differentiate between
+the themes and enable the hearer to distinguish
+them apart, even in their most complicated combinations.
+An edition of Bach&rsquo;s &ldquo;Well-Tempered Clavichord&rdquo;
+by Bernardus Boekelman prints the themes in
+different colors, so that they are easy to trace through
+all their interweaving, and is interesting to study from.</p>
+<h4>The Fugue and the Virtuoso.</h4>
+<p>In his book, &ldquo;Beethoven and His Forerunners,&rdquo; Daniel
+Gregory Mason devotes a paragraph toward dispelling
+the mystery regarding the fugue that prevails
+with the public, and points out that &ldquo;the actual formal
+rules, despite the awe they have immemorially aroused
+in the popular mind, are few and simple. After the
+first announcement of the subject by a single voice, it
+is answered by a second voice, at an interval of a fifth
+above; then again stated by a third voice, and answered
+by a fourth. This process goes on until each voice has
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57' name='page_57'></a>57</span>
+had a chance to enunciate the motif, after which the
+conversation goes on more freely; the subject is announced
+in divers keys, by divers voices; episodes, in a
+congruous style, vary the monotony; at last the subject
+is emphatically asserted by the various voices in
+quick succession (<i>stretto</i>), and with some little display
+or grandiloquence the piece comes to an end.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Further along in the same book Mr. Mason has a
+page of apostrophe to the Bach fugues. When he characterizes
+them as &ldquo;the first great independent monuments
+of pure music,&rdquo; and refers to their &ldquo;consummate
+beauty of structure,&rdquo; he pays them an eminently just
+tribute. But when he speaks of the &ldquo;profundity,
+poignancy and variety of feeling they express,&rdquo; I am
+inclined to quote his own qualifying sentence from the
+next page of his book: &ldquo;It is true, nevertheless, not
+only that the fugue form makes the severest demands
+on the attention and intelligence of the listener, but
+also that, because of the ecclesiastical origin and polyphonic
+style, it is incapable of the kind of highly personal,
+secular expression that it was in the spirit of
+the seventeenth century to demand.&rdquo; The same is even
+more true of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth
+centuries. The progress of music toward individual
+freedom of expression on the part of the composer, and
+equally so on the part of the interpreter, has been
+steady, and when, through the very perfection which
+Bach imparted to counterpoint, it ceased to attract
+composers as a means of expression because he had
+accomplished so much there was nothing more left
+for them to do along the same lines, the progress I
+have indicated received a great lift and stimulus.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58' name='page_58'></a>58</span></div>
+<h4>What Counterpoint Lacks.</h4>
+<p>The lack of highly personal expression in contrapuntal
+compositions explains why most concert-goers
+find them less attractive than modern music. The
+&ldquo;D Minor Toccata and Fugue&rdquo; or the &ldquo;Chromatic Fantasie
+and Fugue&rdquo; by Bach, even in the arrangements of
+Tausig and Liszt, on the program of a pianoforte recital,
+are tolerated because of the modern pieces that
+come later. Nine out of ten persons in the house would
+rather omit them. Why deny so obvious a fact, especially
+when it is easy enough to explain? To follow
+a contrapuntal composition intelligently requires a
+highly trained ear. Moreover, in such a work as a
+Bach fugue the individuality of the player is of less
+importance than in modern music. Yet a virtuoso&rsquo;s
+individuality is the very thing that distinguishes him
+from other virtuosos and attracts the public to his concerts,
+while those of other players may be poorly attended.
+I firmly believe in personality of the virtuoso
+or singer or orchestral conductor, for in it lies the secret
+of individual interpretation, the reason why the performance
+of one person is fascinating or thrilling and
+that of another not. Modern music affords the player
+full scope to interpret it according to his own mood
+and fancy, to color it with his own personality, whereas
+contrapuntal music exists largely for itself alone. It
+is music for music&rsquo;s sake, not for the sake of interpreting
+some mood, some feeling, or of painting in tone
+colors something quite outside of music. The player
+of counterpoint is restricted in his power of expression
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59' name='page_59'></a>59</span>
+by the very formulas of the science or art of the contrapuntist.
+We may marvel that Bach was able to
+move so freely within its restricted forms. But I think
+it true that it is far more interesting for a person
+even of only moderate proficiency as a player to work
+out, however awkwardly, a Bach fugue for himself
+on the pianoforte than to hear it played by some one
+else, however great; for, cheap and easy as it is to protest
+in high-sounding phrases about the duty of the
+interpreter to subordinate himself to the composer, and
+against what I am about to say, I nevertheless make
+bold to affirm that it is the province of the virtuoso to
+express himself, his own personality, his moods, his
+temperament, his subjective or even his subconscious
+self, through music; and in music that is purely contrapuntal
+there is a barrier to this individual power of
+expression.</p>
+<h4>The Mission of the Player.</h4>
+<p>We often hear it said of the greatest contemporary
+pianist that he is a great Chopin player, but not a great
+Bach player. He could not be, and at the same time
+be the greatest living virtuoso. It is the worshiper
+of tradition, the reserved, continent, scholarly player,
+the player who converts a Chopin nocturne into an
+icicle and a Schubert impromptu into a snowball, who
+revels in counterpoint&mdash;the player who always is
+slavishly subordinating himself to what he is pleased
+to call the &ldquo;composer&rsquo;s intentions&rdquo; and forgets that the
+truly great virtuoso creates when he interprets. Some
+times the virtuoso may go too far and depart too much
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60' name='page_60'></a>60</span>
+from the character of the piece he is playing, subjecting
+it more than is permissible to his temporary mood;
+but it is better for art to err on the side of originality,
+provided it is not bizarre or freakish, than on the side
+of subserviency to tradition.</p>
+<p>While I have no desire, in writing as above, to exalt
+unduly the virtuoso, the interpreter of music, at the expense
+of the composer, I must insist that the great
+player also is creative, in the sense that every time he
+plays a work he creates it over again from his own
+point of view, and thus has at least a share in its parentage.
+Indeed, it seems more difficult to attain exalted
+rank as a virtuoso than to gain immortality as
+a composer. The world has produced two epoch-making
+virtuosos&mdash;Paganini on the violin, Liszt on the
+piano. Within about the same period covered by the
+careers of these two there have been half a dozen or
+even more composers, each of whom marks an epoch
+in some phase of the art. &ldquo;The interpretive artist,&rdquo;
+says Henry G. Hanchett in his &ldquo;Art of the Musician,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;deserves a place no whit beneath that of the composer.
+No two composers have influenced musical progress
+in America more strongly than have Anton Rubinstein
+by his <em>playing</em>, and Theodore Thomas, who was not a
+composer.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>Music as a Science.</h4>
+<p>But, to return to Bach and the other contrapuntists,
+music owes them an immense debt on the technical
+side. And right here, so universal are the deductions
+that can be drawn from the program of a pianoforte
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61' name='page_61'></a>61</span>
+recital, it should be pointed out that music differs from
+other arts in having for its basis a profound and complicated
+science, a science that concerns itself with the
+relations of the notes of the musical scale to each other.
+Upon this science are based alike the &ldquo;coon song&rdquo; and
+the Wagner music-drama. What is true of &ldquo;Tristan&rdquo; is
+true also of &ldquo;Bedelia.&rdquo; Each makes its draft upon the
+science of music; the music-drama, of course, in a far
+greater degree than the song. This science has its textbooks
+with their theorems and problems, like any
+other science, and theoretical musicians have produced
+learned and useful works on the subject which the
+great mass of laymen, many virtuosos, and indeed the
+average professional musician, may never have heard
+of, let alone have read. For a person not intuitively
+predisposed toward the subject would find the science
+of music as difficult to master as integral calculus; nor,
+in order to appreciate music, or even to interpret it,
+is it necessary to be versed in this science. A virtuoso
+can play a chord of the ninth, the listener can be thrilled
+by the virtuoso&rsquo;s playing of the chord of the ninth,
+without either of them knowing that there is such a
+thing as the chord of the ninth.</p>
+<h4>Science versus Feeling.</h4>
+<p>In fact, the person who is so well versed in the science
+of music that he can mentally analyze a composition
+while listening to it is apt to be so absorbed in the
+mere process of technical analysis that he misses its
+esthetic, its emotional significance. Thus a person may
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62' name='page_62'></a>62</span>
+be very musical without being musical at all. He may
+have profound knowledge of music as a science and
+remain untouched by music as an art, just as a physicist
+may be an authority on the laws of light and color,
+yet stand unmoved before a great painting. With
+some people music is all science, with others all art,
+and I think the latter have the better of it. A musical
+genius is equipped both ways. The great composer
+employs the science of music as an aid in giving expression
+to his creative impulse. He makes science
+of service to the cause of art. Otherwise, while he
+might produce something that was absolutely correct,
+it would make no artistic appeal whatsoever. Thousands
+of symphonies have been composed, performed
+and forgotten. They were &ldquo;well made,&rdquo; constructed
+with scientific accuracy from beginning to end, but
+had no value as art; and music is a profound science
+applied to the production of a great art.</p>
+<p>The composer, then, masters the science of music
+and bends it to his genius. If he is a great genius, he
+soon will discover that certain rules which his predecessors
+regarded as hard and fast, as inviolable, can
+be violated with impunity. He will discover new tone
+combinations, and thus enrich the science and make it
+serve the purposes of the art with greater efficiency
+than before he came upon the scene. And always the
+composers who have grown gray under the old system,
+the system upon which the new genius is grafting his
+new ideas, and the theorists and critics, who are slaves
+of tradition, will throw up their hands in horror and cry
+out that he is despoiling the art and robbing it of all that
+is sacred and beautiful, whereas he is adding to its scope
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63' name='page_63'></a>63</span>
+and potency. Did not even so broad-minded a composer
+as Schumann say, &ldquo;The trouble with Wagner
+is that he is not a musician&rdquo;? So far was Wagner
+ahead of his time! While the great composer nearly
+always begins where his predecessors left off, he is sure
+to outstrip them later on. Even so rugged a genius
+as Beethoven is somewhat under Mozart&rsquo;s influence in
+his first works, and Wagner&rsquo;s &ldquo;Rienzi&rdquo; is distinctly
+Meyerbeerian. But genius soon learns to soar with its
+own wings and to look down with indifference upon the
+little men who are discharging their shafts of envy,
+malice and ignorance.</p>
+<h4>That &ldquo;Ear for Music.&rdquo;</h4>
+<p>And while I am on the subject of the scientific musician
+<i>versus</i> the music lover, the pedant <i>versus</i> the innovator,
+I might as well refer to those people who have
+in a remarkable degree what is popularly known as &ldquo;an
+ear for music,&rdquo; and who are able to remember and to
+play &ldquo;by ear&rdquo; anything they hear played or sung, even
+if it is for the first time. This ear for music, again,
+is something quite different from scientific knowledge
+of music or from the emotional sensitiveness which
+makes the music-lover. It is a purely physical endowment,
+and may&mdash;in fact, usually does&mdash;exist without
+a corresponding degree of real feeling for music. It
+is, of course, a highly valuable adjunct to a genuine
+musical genius like a Mozart or a Schubert and to a
+genuine virtuoso. It is related of Von Bülow that his
+ear for music and his memory were so prodigious that
+once, while traveling in the cars, he read over the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64' name='page_64'></a>64</span>
+printed pages of a new composition, and on arriving at
+his destination, played it, from memory, at his concert.
+William Mason, who studied with Liszt, witnessed his
+master perform a similar feat. The average untrained
+person with a musical ear, however, instead of being
+a genius, is apt to become a nuisance, playing all kinds
+of cheap music in and out of season&mdash;a sort of peripatetic
+pianola, without the advantage of being under
+control. Such persons, moreover, usually are born
+without a soft pedal.</p>
+<h4>Bach and the Weather Bureau.</h4>
+<p>This digression, which I have made in order to discuss
+the difference between music as a science and music
+as an art, a distinction which, I have pointed out, often
+is so marked that a person may be thoroughly equipped
+on the scientific side of music without being sensitive
+to its beauty as an art, seemed to me necessary at this
+stage. I am reminded by it of the distinction which
+Edmund Clarence Stedman, in his &ldquo;Nature and Elements
+of Poetry,&rdquo; so wittily draws between the indications
+of a storm as described by a poet and by the
+official prognostications of the Weather Bureau. Mr.
+Stedman quotes two stanzas:</p>
+<table summary=''><tr><td>
+<p class='cg'>&ldquo;When descends on the Atlantic the gigantic<br />
+<span class='indent2'>&nbsp;</span>Storm-wind of the Equinox,<br />
+Landward in his wrath he scourges the toiling surges,<br />
+<span class='indent2'>&nbsp;</span>Laden with seaweed from the rocks.&rdquo;</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+<p>And this stanza by a later balladist:</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65' name='page_65'></a>65</span></div>
+<table summary=''><tr><td>
+<p class='cg'>&ldquo;The East Wind gathered, all unknown,<br />
+<span class='indent2'>&nbsp;</span>A thick sea-cloud his course before;<br />
+He left by night the frozen zone,<br />
+<span class='indent2'>&nbsp;</span>And smote the cliffs of Labrador;<br />
+He lashed the coasts on either hand,<br />
+And betwixt the Cape and Newfoundland,<br />
+<span class='indent2'>&nbsp;</span>Into the bay his armies pour.&rdquo;</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+<p>All this impersonation and fancy is translated by the
+Weather Bureau into something like the following:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;An area of extreme low pressure is rapidly moving
+up the Atlantic Coast, with wind and rain. Storm-center
+now off Charleston, S. C. Wind N. E.; velocity,
+54. Barometer, 29.6. The disturbance will reach New
+York on Wednesday, and proceed eastward to the
+Banks and Bay of St. Lawrence. Danger signals ordered
+for all North Atlantic ports.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Far be it from me to imply that contrapuntal music
+in general or Bach in particular represents the Weather
+Bureau. None the less is it true that Bach appeals
+more strongly to the scientific musician than to the
+music-lover who seeks in music a secondary meaning&mdash;love,
+passion, grief; the mood awakened by the contemplation
+of a forest landscape with its murmuring
+foliage, a boundless prairie, or the unquiet sea.</p>
+<p>The technical indebtedness of modern music to Bach
+is so immense, and the artistic probity of the man himself
+was so wonderful, for he worked calmly on, in
+spite of what was worse than opposition&mdash;neglect&mdash;that
+I think the tendency on the part of Bach enthusiasts,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66' name='page_66'></a>66</span>
+while not overrating the importance of the influence
+he has had during the past fifty years or more, is
+to underrate others as compared with him. When
+critics declare that one virtuoso or another is not a
+great Bach player, are they not ignoring what is a
+simple fact&mdash;that no player can make the same appeal
+through Bach that it is possible for him to make
+through modern music, and that, as a rule, when
+a virtuoso, however good a musician he may be,
+places Bach on his program, he does so not from predilection,
+but as a tribute to one of the greatest names
+in musical history? It seems to me that the extreme
+Bach enthusiasts can be divided into two classes&mdash;musicians
+who are able to appreciate what he did for
+music on its technical side, and people who want to
+create the impression that they know more than they
+really do.</p>
+<h4>The Bacon, Not the Shakespeare, of Music.</h4>
+<p>Bach&rsquo;s greatest importance to music lies in his having
+treated it in the abstract and for itself alone, so
+that when he penned a work he did this not to bring
+home to the listener the significance of a certain mood
+or situation, but from pure delight in following out a
+musical problem to its most extreme development. Algebra
+makes mighty interesting study, but furnishes
+rather a poor subject for dramatic reading. This simile
+must, of course, be taken with a grain of salt, and
+merely as illustrating in a general way my contention
+that Bach&rsquo;s great service to music was technical and
+intellectual. He was the Bacon, not the Shakespeare,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67' name='page_67'></a>67</span>
+of music, and the contrapuntal structure that he reared
+is to the art what the Baconian theorem is to logic.
+We can imagine the roamer in the field of higher mathematics
+suddenly becoming excited as he sees the end
+of the path leading to the solution of some complicated
+problem in full view. Thus there may be moments
+when even the cube root becomes emotional, the logarithmic
+theory a dissipation, and differential calculus an
+orgy. So, too, Bach put an enthusiasm into his work
+that often threatens to sweep the student off his intellectuals
+and make him regard a fugue as a scientifically
+constructed fairyland. Moreover, there are Bach pieces
+in which the counterpoint supports the purest kind of
+melody, like the air for the G string which Thomas
+arranged for his orchestra with all the strings, save the
+double basses, in unison, and played with an effect that
+never failed to secure a repeat and sometimes a double
+encore.</p>
+<h4>What Wagner Learned from Bach.</h4>
+<p>If we bear in mind that counterpoint is the artistic
+combination of several themes, each of equal or nearly
+equal importance, and that Bach was the greatest master
+of the contrapuntal school and forms its climax,
+we can, with a little thought, appreciate what his service
+has been to modern music. When Wagner devised
+his system of leading motives it was not for the
+purpose of employing them singly, like labels tacked
+onto each character, thing or symbol in the drama, but
+of combining them, welding them together, when occasion
+arose, in order to give musical significance and
+expression to each and every dramatic situation as the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68' name='page_68'></a>68</span>
+story unfolded itself. A shining example of this is
+found in that wonderful last scene of &ldquo;Die Walküre,&rdquo;
+the so-called Magic Fire Scene. <i>Wotan</i> has said farewell
+to <i>Brünnhilde</i>; has thrown her into a profound
+slumber upon the rock; has surrounded her with a circle
+of magic flame which none but a hero may penetrate
+to awaken and win her. How is this scene treated in
+the score? In the higher register of the orchestra
+crackles and sparkles the Magic Fire Motive, the Slumber
+Motive gently rising and falling with the flames;
+while the superb Siegfried Motive (signifying that the
+yet unborn <i>Siegfried</i> is the hero destined to break
+through the fiery circle) resounds in the brass, and
+there also is a suggestion of the tender strains with
+which <i>Wotan</i> bade <i>Brünnhilde</i> farewell. The welding
+together of these four motives into one glorious whole
+of the highest dramatic significance is Wagnerian counterpoint&mdash;science
+employed in the service of art and
+with thrilling effect. Another passage from Wagner,
+the closing episode in the &ldquo;Meistersinger&rdquo; Vorspiel,
+often is quoted to show Wagner&rsquo;s skill in the use of
+counterpoint, although he employs it so spontaneously
+that few people stop to consider how scientific his musical
+structure is. W. J. Henderson, in his capital book,
+&ldquo;The Orchestra and Orchestral Music,&rdquo; relates that on
+one occasion a professional musician was engaged in
+a discussion of Wagner in the corridor of the Metropolitan
+Opera House, while inside the orchestra was
+playing this &ldquo;Meistersinger&rdquo; Vorspiel.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is a pity,&rdquo; said this wise man, in a condescending
+manner, &ldquo;but Wagner knows absolutely nothing about
+counterpoint.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69' name='page_69'></a>69</span></div>
+<p>At that very instant the orchestra was singing five
+different melodies at once; and, as Anton Seidl was the
+conductor, they were all audible.</p>
+<p>Wagner scores, in fact, teem with counterpoint,
+but counterpoint that palpitates, that thrills with emotion.
+Note that Mr. Henderson speaks of melodies.
+Wagner&rsquo;s leading motives are melodies, sometimes very
+brief, but always expressive, and not, like the themes
+of the old contrapuntists, conceived mainly for the sake
+of being combined scientifically with other themes
+equally adaptable to that purpose. Counterpoint may
+be, and usually is, something very dry and formal. But
+from the crucible of the master magician, Richard
+Wagner, it flows a glowing, throbbing, pulsating
+stream of most precious metal.</p>
+<h4>The Language of an Epoch.</h4>
+<p>In the difference between the counterpoint of Bach
+and the counterpoint of Wagner lies the difference between
+two epochs separated by a long period of time.
+With Bach counterpoint was everything; with Wagner
+merely an incident. It will help us to a better
+understanding of music if we bear in mind
+that the two great composers of each epoch
+spoke in the music of that epoch. Thus Bach
+spoke in the language of counterpoint. His themes,
+however greatly they may vary among themselves,
+all bear the stamp of motives devised for the
+purpose of entering into formal combinations and of
+being developed according to the stringent rules of
+counterpoint. Beethoven&rsquo;s are more individual, more
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70' name='page_70'></a>70</span>
+expressive of moods and emotions. Yet about them,
+too, there is something formal. They, too, are devised
+to be treated according to certain rules&mdash;to be molded
+into sonatas. But with Wagner we feel that music has
+thrown off the shackles of arbitrary form, of dry rule
+and rote. His motives suggest absolute freedom of
+expression and development, through previously undreamed-of
+wealth of harmony and contrapuntal combinations
+which are mere incidents, not the chief purpose
+of their being. Each represents some person, impulse or
+symbol in a drama; represents them with such eloquence
+and power that, once we know for what they stand, we
+need but hear them again or recall them to memory
+to have the corresponding episode in the music-drama
+in which they occur brought vividly before our eyes.
+Bach&rsquo;s language was the language of the fugue; Beethoven&rsquo;s
+the language of the sonata. Fugue and sonata
+are musical forms. Wagner spoke the language of no
+form. His language is that of the free, plastic, unfettered
+leading motive&mdash;the language of liberated music,
+of which he himself was the liberator!</p>
+<p>Whether Wagner would have devised his system of
+leading motives without the wonderful structure of
+counterpoint left by Bach; whether Bach&rsquo;s counterpoint,
+his combination of themes, suggested the system
+of leading motives to the greatest master of them all,
+we probably never shall know. The system, in its completeness,
+doubtless is Wagner&rsquo;s own; but when he came
+to put it into practical effect he found the rich heritage
+left by Bach ready to hand. One of Wagner&rsquo;s instructors
+in musical theory, and the one from whose teaching
+he himself declares he learned most, was Theodor
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71' name='page_71'></a>71</span>
+Weinlig, one of Bach&rsquo;s successors as Cantor of the
+Thomasschule at Leipsic. Wagner quotes him as having
+said: &ldquo;You may never find it necessary to compose
+a fugue, but the ability to do it often may stand
+you in good stead.&rdquo; And the Cantor set him exercises
+in all varieties of counterpoint. There thus is presented
+the phenomenon of a composer who for nearly
+a century after his death had little or no influence on
+the course of music, suddenly becoming a potent force
+in its most modern development.</p>
+<h4>Bach in the Recital Hall.</h4>
+<p>Bach is so supreme in his own line that contrapuntal
+music, so far as the pianoforte is concerned, may be dismissed
+with him. Händel, too, it is true, was a master
+of the contrapuntal school, but he belongs to the chapter
+on oratorio. Bach&rsquo;s pianoforte works in smaller
+form are the &ldquo;Two-Part Inventions&rdquo; already mentioned;
+the &ldquo;Three-Part Inventions,&rdquo; which go a step
+farther in contrapuntal treatment, and the &ldquo;Partitas,&rdquo;
+the six &ldquo;French Suites&rdquo; and the six &ldquo;English Suites.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>These partitas and suites are the most graceful and
+charming efflorescence of the contrapuntal school, and
+much could be accomplished toward making Bach a
+popular composer if they figured more frequently on
+recital programs. They are made up of the dance forms
+of the day&mdash;allemandes, courants, bourrées, sarabandes,
+minuets, gavottes, gigues, with airs thrown in for good
+measure; the partitas and English suites furnished with
+more elaborate introductions, while the French suites
+begin with allemandes. Cheerful and even frisky as
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72' name='page_72'></a>72</span>
+some of the dance pieces in these compositions are, it
+must not be supposed that they were intended to be
+danced to when contrapuntally treated&mdash;no more than
+Chopin intended that people should glide through a
+ballroom to the music of his waltzes.</p>
+<p>Besides &ldquo;sonatas&rdquo; for pianoforte with one or more
+other instruments, among them the six &ldquo;Sonatas for
+Pianoforte and Violin&rdquo; (the term sonata as employed
+here must not be confused with the classical sonata
+form as developed by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven),
+Bach composed concertos for from one to four pianofortes.
+Of these latter the one best known in this country
+is the so-called &ldquo;Triple Concerto,&rdquo; for three pianofortes
+with accompaniment of string quartet, which
+can at will be increased to a string orchestra. In 1873,
+during Rubinstein&rsquo;s tour, I heard it played in New
+York, under Theodore Thomas&rsquo;s direction, by Rubinstein,
+William Mason and Sebastian Bach Mills, and
+three years later by Mme. Annette Essipoff, Mr.
+Mason and Mr. Boscovitz. Mason, when he was studying
+under Liszt in Weimar in 1854, had performed it
+with two fellow-pupils, and Liszt had been very particular
+in regard to the manner in which they played
+the many embellishments (<i>agréments</i>) which were
+used in Bach&rsquo;s time. Later, Mason found that whenever
+three pianists came together for the purpose of
+playing this concerto they were certain to disagree regarding
+&ldquo;the agreements,&rdquo; and usually wasted much
+time in discussing them, especially the mordent.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73' name='page_73'></a>73</span></div>
+<h4>Rubinstein and the &ldquo;Triple Concerto.&rdquo;</h4>
+<p>Accordingly, when Mason played the &ldquo;Triple Concerto&rdquo;
+with Rubinstein and Mills, he came to the rehearsal
+armed with a book by Friedrich Wilhelm Marburg,
+published in Berlin in 1765, and giving written
+examples of all the <i>agréments</i>. &ldquo;I told Rubinstein
+about my ancient authority,&rdquo; says Mr. Mason in his
+entertaining &ldquo;Memories of a Musical Life,&rdquo; &ldquo;adding
+that we should be spared the tediousness of a discussion
+as to the manner of playing.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Let me see the old book,&rsquo; said Rubinstein. Running
+over the leaves he came to the illustrations of the
+mordent. The moment his eyes fell upon them he exclaimed:
+&lsquo;All wrong; here is the way I play it!&rsquo;&rdquo; And
+that ended the usefulness of &ldquo;the old book&rdquo; for that
+particular occasion, the other two pianists adopting,
+without comment, Rubinstein&rsquo;s method, which Mr.
+Mason intimates was incorrect.</p>
+<p>When, at the rehearsal with Essipoff, the mordent
+came up for discussion she exclaimed: &ldquo;&lsquo;I cannot play
+these things; show me how they are done.&rsquo; After repeated
+trials, however,&rdquo; records Mr. Mason, &ldquo;she failed
+to get the knack of playing them, as indeed so many
+pianists do; so at the rehearsal she omitted them and
+left their performance to Boscovitz and me.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>&ldquo;The Well-Tempered Clavichord.&rdquo;</h4>
+<p>Bach&rsquo;s monumental work for pianoforte, however, is
+&ldquo;The Well-Tempered Clavichord,&rdquo; consisting of forty-eight
+preludes and fugues in all keys. I find much
+prevalent ignorance among amateurs regarding the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74' name='page_74'></a>74</span>
+meaning of &ldquo;well-tempered&rdquo; as used in this title. I
+have heard people explain it by saying that when a
+pianist had mastered the book he was &ldquo;tempered&rdquo; like
+steel and ready for any difficulties that other music
+might present! I even have heard a rotund and affable
+person say that &ldquo;The Well-Tempered Clavichord&rdquo; was
+so entitled because when you listened to its preludes
+and fugues it smoothed out your temper and made you
+feel good-natured! In point of fact, the word is difficult
+to explain in untechnical language. It relates, however,
+to Bach&rsquo;s method of tuning his clavichord&mdash;another
+boon which he conferred upon music. In general,
+the system may be explained by the statement that
+certain tone intervals, which theoretically are pure,
+practically result in harmonic discrepancies, which
+Bach&rsquo;s &ldquo;tempered&rdquo; system corrected. In other words,
+slight and practically imperceptible inaccuracies are introduced
+in the tuning in order to counterbalance the
+greater faults which result when tuning is absolutely
+correct from a theoretical point of view; just as,
+in navigating the high northern waters, you are
+obliged to make allowance for variations of the compass.
+The system was not actually the invention of
+Bach, but he did so much to promote its adoption that
+it is associated with his name. Before it was adopted it
+was impossible to employ all the major and minor keys
+on clavichords and harpsichords, and on the pianofortes,
+just beginning to come into use. It became
+possible under the tempered system of tuning, and was
+illustrated by Bach in &ldquo;The Well-Tempered Clavichord,&rdquo;
+each major and minor key being represented by
+a prelude and fugue.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75' name='page_75'></a>75</span></div>
+<p>Besides the system of tuning in &ldquo;equal temperament,&rdquo;
+Bach modernized the technique of fingering
+by introducing the freer and more frequent employment
+of the hitherto neglected thumb and little finger.
+The services of this great man to music, therefore, were
+threefold. He left us his teeming counterpoint, upon
+which modern music draws so freely; he promoted the
+system of tuning in equal temperament; and he laid
+the foundation of modern pianoforte technique, and
+so of modern virtuosity.</p>
+<h4>A King&rsquo;s Tribute to Bach.</h4>
+<p>Besides being a great composer, Bach&rsquo;s traits as a
+man were most admirable. He was uncompromising
+in his convictions, sturdy, honest and upright. His
+fixedness of purpose is shown by an anecdote of his
+boyhood. In his tenth year he lost his parents and
+went to live with an elder brother, who was so jealous
+of his superior talents that he refused him the loan of
+a manuscript volume of music by composers of the day.
+Obtaining possession of it without his brother&rsquo;s knowledge,
+Bach secretly copied it at night by moonlight, the
+task covering something like six months. His reward
+was to have it taken away by his brother, who accidentally
+discovered him playing from it. Fortunately,
+this brother died soon afterward, and Bach recovered
+his treasure.</p>
+<p>While it is true that Bach remained unappreciated
+by the great mass of his contemporaries, there were
+exceptions, a notable one being the music-loving king,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76' name='page_76'></a>76</span>
+Frederick the Great of Prussia, whose service the composer&rsquo;s
+second son, Philipp Emanuel Bach, entered in
+1746. At the king&rsquo;s earnest urging, Philipp Emanuel
+induced his father to visit Potsdam the following year.
+The king, who had arranged a concert at the palace,
+was about to begin playing on the flute, when an officer
+entered and handed him a list of the strangers who had
+arrived at Potsdam. Glancing over it, Frederick discovered
+Bach&rsquo;s name. &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; he exclaimed,
+&ldquo;old Bach is here!&rdquo; And nothing would do save that
+the master must be brought immediately into the royal
+presence, before he even had time to doff his traveling
+clothes.</p>
+<p>The king had purchased several of the pianofortes
+recently constructed by Gottfried Silbermann and had
+them distributed throughout the palace. Bach and the
+assemblage went from room to room, the composer
+playing and improvising on the different instruments.
+Finally he asked the king to set him a fugue theme,
+and on this he extemporized in such masterly fashion
+that all who heard him, the king included, broke out
+into rounds of applause. On his return to Leipsic,
+Bach dedicated to Frederick the Great a work which
+he entitled &ldquo;The Musical Sacrifice&rdquo; (or offering),
+which he based upon the fugue theme the king had
+given him.</p>
+<p>No other instance of musical heredity is comparable
+with that afforded by the Bach family. Dr. Theodore
+Baker, in his &ldquo;Biographical Dictionary of Musicians,&rdquo;
+gives a list of no less than twenty Bachs, all of the
+same line, whom he deems worthy of mention, and
+who covered a period ranging from 1604 to 1845,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77' name='page_77'></a>77</span>
+when the great Bach&rsquo;s grandson and last male descendant,
+Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach, died in Berlin.
+Thus for two hundred and forty-one years the Bach
+family was professionally active in music.</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78' name='page_78'></a>78</span>
+<a name='III_FROM_FUGUE_TO_SONATA' id='III_FROM_FUGUE_TO_SONATA'></a>
+<h2>III</h2>
+<h3>FROM FUGUE TO SONATA</h3>
+</div>
+<p>If a pianoforte recital which begins with a Bach
+fugue continues with a Beethoven sonata, it does
+not require a very discriminating ear to note the
+difference between the two. The Beethoven sonata is in
+a style so entirely distinct from that of the fugue, and
+sounds so wholly unlike it, that it seems as if Bach had
+exerted no influence whatsoever upon the greatest master
+of the period that followed his death. Although
+Haydn and Mozart were nearer Bach in point of time
+than Beethoven was, a sonata by either of them, if it
+chanced to be on the program, would show the same
+difference in style, the same radical departure from the
+works of the master of counterpoint, as the Beethoven
+sonata.</p>
+<p>The question naturally suggests itself, did Bach&rsquo;s
+influence cease with his death? And the fact that this
+question calls for an answer and that this answer leads
+to a general consideration of the interim between Bach
+and Beethoven, again shows how broad in its scope
+as an instrument is the pianoforte and how comprehensive
+in its application to music as a whole is the
+music of that instrument. Two works on a recital
+program furnish a legitimate basis for a discussion
+of two important periods in the development of music!
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79' name='page_79'></a>79</span>
+Who would have thought there was so much to a
+pianoforte recital?</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;It would have been an eminently pardonable mistake
+for any intelligent musician to have fallen into, in
+the third quarter of the eighteenth century, if he had
+concluded that Johann Sebastian Bach&rsquo;s career was a
+failure, and that his influence upon the progress of his
+art amounted to the minimum conceivable. Indeed, the
+whole course of musical history in every branch went
+straight out of the sphere of his activity for a long
+while; his work ceased to have any significance to the
+generation which succeeded him, and his eloquence fell
+upon deaf ears. A few of his pupils went on writing
+music of the same type as his in a half-hearted way,
+and his own most distinguished son, Philipp Emanuel,
+adopted at least the artistic manner of working up
+his details and making the internal organization of his
+works alive with figure and rhythm. But even he,
+the sincerest composer of the following generation, was
+infected by the complacent, polite superficiality of his
+time; and he was forced, in accepting the harmonic
+principle of working in its Italian phase, to take with
+it some of the empty formulas and conventional tricks
+of speech which had become part of its being, and
+which sometimes seem to belie the genuineness of his
+utterances and put him somewhat out of touch with
+his whole-hearted father.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>This passage from one of the most admirably
+thought-out books on music I know, Sir Hubert Parry&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Evolution of the Art of Music,&rdquo; is no exaggeration.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80' name='page_80'></a>80</span>
+For many years after Bach&rsquo;s death, for nearly a century
+in fact, his influence was but little felt. And yet
+so aptly does the development of art adjust itself to
+human needs and aspirations, the very neglect into
+which Bach fell turned music into certain channels
+from which it derived the greater freedom of expression
+essential to its progress and gave it the tinge of
+romanticism which is the essence of modern music.</p>
+<p>The greatness of Johann Sebastian Bach, on the technical
+side at least, now is so universally acknowledged,
+and professional musicians understand so well what
+their art owes to him, we are apt to think of him as
+the only musician of his day, whereas his significance
+was but little appreciated by his contemporaries.
+There were, in fact, other composers actively working
+on other lines and turning music in the direction it was
+destined to follow immediately after Bach&rsquo;s death&mdash;and
+for its own ultimate good, be it observed. The simple
+fact is, that pure counterpoint culminated in Bach.
+What he accomplished was so stupendous that his successors
+could not keep up with him. They became
+exhausted before they even were prepared to begin
+where he left off. And yet the reaction from Bach
+was, as I have indicated, absolutely necessary to the
+further progress of music.</p>
+<p>The scheme of musical development which the reader
+should bear in mind if he desires to understand music,
+and to arrive at that understanding with some kind
+of system in his progress, was briefly as follows:</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81' name='page_81'></a>81</span></div>
+<h4>Three Periods of Musical Development.</h4>
+<p>First we have counterpoint, the welding together
+of several themes each of equal importance. This style
+of composition culminated in Bach. Its most elaborate
+form of expression was the fugue; but it also employed
+the canon and impressed into its service certain minor
+forms like the allemande, courant, chaçonne, gavotte,
+saraband, gigue, and minuet.</p>
+<p>Next, after Bach music began to develop according
+to the harmonic system, or, if I may be permitted for
+the sake of clarity to use an expression which technically
+is incorrect, according to the melodic system.
+That is, instead of combining several themes, composers
+took one theme or melody and supported it
+with an accompaniment so that the melody stood out
+in clear relief. This first decided melodic development
+covers the classical period, the period after Bach to
+Beethoven, and its highest form of expression was the
+sonata, which in the orchestra became the symphony.</p>
+<p>The romantic period comes after Beethoven. This,
+to characterize it by the readiest means, by something
+external, something the eye can see, is the &ldquo;single
+piece&rdquo; period, the period in which the impromptu of
+Schubert, the song without words of Mendelssohn, the
+nocturne of Chopin, the novelette of Schumann, takes
+the place of the sonata, which consists of a group of
+pieces or movements. Composers begin to find a too
+exacting insistence upon correctness of form irritating.
+Expression becomes of more importance than form,
+which is promptly violated if it interferes with the
+composer&rsquo;s trend of thought or feeling. Pieces are
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82' name='page_82'></a>82</span>
+written in certain moods, and their melody is developed
+so as to follow and give full expression to the
+mood in which it is conceived. New harmonies are
+fearlessly invoked for the same purpose. Everything
+centres in the idea that music exists not as an accessory
+to form, but for the free expression of emotion.
+In his useful and handy &ldquo;Dictionary of Musical
+Terms,&rdquo; Theodore Baker defines a nocturne as a title
+for a piano piece &ldquo;of a dreamily romantic or sentimental
+character, but lacking a distinctive form.&rdquo; When we
+see the title &ldquo;Sonata&rdquo; over a composition we think of
+form. When we see the title &ldquo;Nocturne&rdquo; we think of
+mood, not manner. The title arouses within us, by anticipation,
+the very feeling, the very mood, the very
+emotional condition which the composer is seeking to
+express. The form in which he seeks to express it
+is wholly a secondary matter. A composition is a
+sonata because it follows a certain formal development.
+It is a nocturne because it is &ldquo;dreamily romantic
+or sentimental.&rdquo; In no better way, perhaps, could
+the difference between the classical period of music
+and the romantic period which set in after Beethoven
+be explained. The romanticist is no more hampered
+by form than the writer of poetry or fiction is by facts.
+Form dominates feeling in classical music, feeling dominates
+form in romantic music.</p>
+<p>We still are and, happily, ever shall remain in the
+romantic period. The greatest of all romanticists and,
+up to the present time, the greatest of all composers is
+Richard Wagner, whose genius will be appreciated
+more and more as years go by until, as may be the
+case, a still greater one will arise; although as dramatic
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83' name='page_83'></a>83</span>
+literature culminated in Shakespeare, so music may
+have found its greatest master for all time in Wagner.
+Wagner, of course, was not a composer for the pianoforte,
+but when he reached back and to the fuller harmony
+inherited from Beethoven added the counterpoint
+of Bach, thus combining the two great systems of composition,
+he indicated the only method of progress possible
+for music of all kinds.</p>
+<h4>Rise of the Melodic School.</h4>
+<p>It must not be supposed that the melodic school
+which came in after Bach and which, so far as the
+classical form of the sonata is concerned, culminated
+in Beethoven, was the mushroom growth of a night.
+So much has been said of Bach that a person unfamiliar
+with the history of music might draw the erroneous
+conclusion that Bach was the only composer worth
+mentioning before the classical period and Germany
+the only country in which music had flourished. On
+the contrary, Bach was the climax of a school to which
+several countries had each contributed its share, partly
+vocal, partly instrumental. Palestrina&rsquo;s name naturally
+comes to mind as representative of the early period
+of Italian church music; there also was the &ldquo;Belgian
+Orpheus,&rdquo; Orlandus Lassus (or Lasso), the greatest
+composer of the Flemish school; and England had its
+Gibbons and other madrigal composers. Their music
+was vocal and requires to be considered more thoroughly
+under the head of vocal music, but it also was
+contrapuntal and played its part in the general development
+of the art before Bach came upon the scene. Of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84' name='page_84'></a>84</span>
+course, there also was instrumental music in counterpoint
+before Bach&rsquo;s day. There is &ldquo;Queen Elizabeth&rsquo;s
+Virginal Book,&rdquo; a manuscript collection of music made
+either during her reign or shortly afterward and containing
+pieces for the virginal by Tallis, Bird, Giles,
+Dr. John Bull and others, including also the madrigalist,
+Gibbons. The Englishman, Henry Purcell
+(1658-1695); the Frenchman, François Couperin
+(1668-1733), who wrote a harpsichord method; the
+Germans, Hans Leo von Hasler (1564-1612) and Froberger;
+and the Italian, Frescobaldi&mdash;these were some
+among many composers of counterpoint more or less
+noted in their day.</p>
+<p>Bach, however, brought the art of counterpoint to
+perfection, so that, so far as it is concerned, he neither
+required nor even so much as left room for a successor.
+It may not be pertinent to the argument, yet it may
+well be questioned whether, had the classical trio,
+Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, endeavored to carry
+on the contrapuntal school, they would not, in spite of
+their genius, have relegated music to a more primitive
+state than it occupied when Bach died. It seems a
+fortunate circumstance to me that Bach&rsquo;s son appears
+to have realized his inferiority to his father and that, in
+consequence, he turned from counterpoint to the development
+of harmony&mdash;the working out of a clearly
+defined theme or melody supported by accompaniment.</p>
+<p>Counterpoint is said to be polyphonic, a term composed
+of two Greek words signifying many-voiced, the
+combination in music of several parts or themes. Opposed
+to it is homophonic, or single-voiced, music, in
+which one melody or part is supported by an accompaniment.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85' name='page_85'></a>85</span>
+Italy, with its genius for the sensuous and
+emotional in music, already had developed a school of
+melodic music, and to this Philipp Emanuel Bach turned
+for a model. In Italy the pianoforte, through its employment
+for the freer harmonic support of dramatic
+solo singing in opera, an art form that is indigenous
+to Italy, gradually had emancipated itself there from
+counterpoint and acquired a style of its own. Girolamo
+Frescobaldi (1583-1644), a famous Italian pianoforte
+and organ virtuoso, whose first organ recital in
+St. Peter&rsquo;s, Rome, is said to have attracted an audience
+of thirty thousand, and whose mantle fell upon his two
+most renowned pupils, the German, Johann Jacob Froberger,
+and the Italian, Bernardo Pasquini, not only experimented
+with our modern keys, seeking to replace
+with them the old ecclesiastical modes in which Palestrina
+wrote, but also simplified the method of notation.
+For even what seems to us so simple a matter as the
+five-line staff is the result of slow evolution.</p>
+<h4>Scarlatti&rsquo;s Importance as Composer and Virtuoso.</h4>
+<p>The Italian genius who gave the greatest impulse to
+the progress of pianoforte music and who, for his day,
+immensely improved the technique of pianoforte playing,
+was Domenico Scarlatti (1683-1757), the famous
+son of a famous father, Alessandro Scarlatti, the leading
+dramatic composer of his time. Domenico Scarlatti
+interests us especially because he is the only one
+of the early Italians whose work retains an appreciable
+foothold on modern recital programs. Von Bülow
+edited selections from his works, and I recall from personal
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86' name='page_86'></a>86</span>
+experience, because I was at the concert, the delight
+with which some of these were received the first
+time Von Bülow played them on his initial visit to this
+country during the season of 1875-76. Amateurs on
+the outlook for something new (even though it was
+very old) took up Scarlatti, and this early Italian&rsquo;s suddenly
+acquired popularity was comparable with the
+&ldquo;run&rdquo; on the Rachmaninoff &ldquo;Prelude&rdquo; when it was
+played here by Siloti many years later.</p>
+<p>Scarlatti has been called the founder of modern
+pianoforte technique. Although he composed for the
+harpsichord, he understood the instrument so thoroughly
+and what he wrote for it accords so well with
+its genius, that by unconscious anticipation it also was
+adapted to the genius of the modern pianoforte. It
+still is pianistic; more pianistic and more suitable to
+the modern repertoire than a good deal of music by
+greater men who lived considerably later. I should
+say, for example, that Scarlatti&rsquo;s name is found more
+frequently on pianoforte recital programs than Mozart&rsquo;s,
+although Mozart was incomparably the greater
+genius. But there is about Scarlatti&rsquo;s music such a
+quaint and primitive charm that one always listens to
+it with the zest of a discoverer, whereas Mozart&rsquo;s pianoforte
+music, although more modern, just misses being
+modern enough. This clever Italian gives us the early
+beginnings of the sonata form. He merely lisps in
+sonata accents, it is true, but his lisp is as fascinating
+as the ingenuous prattle of an attractive child. His best,
+known work, &ldquo;The Cat&rsquo;s Fugue,&rdquo; the subject of which
+is said to have been suggested to him by a cat gliding
+over the keyboard, is indeed contrapuntal. But even
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87' name='page_87'></a>87</span>
+this is a movement in a sonata, and the characteristic
+of his works as a whole is the fact that in most of them
+he developed and worked out a melody or theme, and
+that he established the fundamental outlines of the
+sonata form.</p>
+<p>Comparatively few laymen have more than a vague
+idea of what is meant by sonata form. To them a
+sonata simply is a composition consisting of several
+movements, usually four, three of them of considerable
+length, with a shorter one (a minuet or scherzo) between
+the first and second or the second and fourth.
+A sonata, however, must have one of its movements
+(and generally it will be found to be the first) written
+in a certain form. Regarding the Scarlatti sonatas,
+suffice it to say here that with him the form still is in
+its primitive simplicity. For example, the true sonata
+movement as we now understand it employs two
+themes, the second contrasting with the first. As a
+rule, Scarlatti is content with one theme. It is the
+peculiar merit of Philipp Emanuel Bach that he introduced
+a second theme into his sonatas, or suggested it
+by striking modulations when he employed only one
+theme, and thus paved the way for its further elaboration
+by Joseph Haydn. Mozart elaborated the form
+still further, and then came Beethoven, with whom the
+classical period reached its climax and whose sonatas
+for all practical purposes have completely superseded
+those of his forerunners.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88' name='page_88'></a>88</span></div>
+<h4>Rise of the Amateur.</h4>
+<p>Characteristic of the period of transition from Bach
+to Beethoven, from the fugue to the sonata, was the
+development of popular interest in music. Scarlatti
+begins a brief introduction to a collection of thirty of
+his pianoforte pieces which were published in 1746, by
+addressing the &ldquo;amateur or professor, whoever you be.&rdquo;
+Significant in this is the inclusion of, in fact the seeming
+preference given to the amateur. Music of the
+counterpoint variety had been music for the church,
+the court and the professional. Now, with the development
+of the freer harmonic or melodic system, it
+was growing more in touch with the people. During
+Philipp Emanuel Bach&rsquo;s life the increase of popular interest
+in music was remarkable. The titles that began
+to appear on compositions show that composers were
+reaching out for a larger public. Bie quotes some of
+them: &ldquo;Cecilia Playing on the Pianoforte and Satisfying
+the Hearing&rdquo;; &ldquo;The Busy Muse Clio&rdquo;; &ldquo;Pianoforte
+Practice for the Delight of Mind and Ear, in Six
+Easy <i>Galanterie Parties</i> Adapted to Modern Taste,
+Composed Chiefly for Young Ladies&rdquo;; &ldquo;The Contented
+Ear and the Quickened Soul&rdquo;; while Philipp Emanuel
+Bach inscribes some of his pieces as &ldquo;easy&rdquo; or &ldquo;for
+ladies.&rdquo; Evidently the &ldquo;young person&rdquo; figured as extensively
+in the calculations of musical composers then
+as she does now in those of the publishers of fiction.
+Musical periodicals sprang up like mushrooms&mdash;&ldquo;Musical
+Miscellany,&rdquo; &ldquo;Floral Garnerings for Pianoforte
+Amateurs,&rdquo; &ldquo;New Music Journal for Encouragement
+and Entertainment in Solitude at the Pianoforte for the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89' name='page_89'></a>89</span>
+Skilled and Unskilled,&rdquo; such were some of the titles.
+These periodicals often went the way of most periodical
+flesh and in the customary brief period, but they show a
+quickened public interest in music&mdash;the &ldquo;contented ear
+and the quickened soul,&rdquo; so to speak.</p>
+<h4>Changes in Musical Taste.</h4>
+<p>If I dismiss Philipp Emanuel Bach rather curtly and,
+in this portion of the book at least, do the same with
+Haydn and Mozart, this is not because I fail to appreciate
+their importance in musical history, but because
+they have failed to retain their hold on the modern
+pianoforte repertoire. The simple fact is that the pianoforte
+as an instrument has outgrown their music. We
+can get more out of it than they gave it. If we bear
+in mind that the pianoforte, as well as music itself, has
+developed, it will aid us in understanding why so much
+music, once considered far in advance of its time and
+even revolutionary, has so soon become antiquated.
+Why ignore facts? Some examples of primitive music
+still survive because they charm us with their quaintness.
+But the classical period is retiring more and
+more into the shadow of history. Whatever importance
+Haydn and Mozart may possess for the student,
+their pianoforte music, so far as practical program-making
+is concerned, is to-day a negligible quantity.
+I remember the time when, as a pupil, I pored with
+breathless interest over the pages of Mozart&rsquo;s &ldquo;Sonata
+in A Minor&rdquo; and his &ldquo;Fantasy and Sonata in C Minor.&rdquo;
+But to-day, when I read in a book published about
+twenty-five years ago that Mozart indulged in harmonies,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90' name='page_90'></a>90</span>
+chord progressions and modulations, &ldquo;sometimes
+considered of doubtful propriety even now&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;quite as harshly censured as are to-day the similar
+licenses of free-thinking composers&rdquo;&mdash;I wonder where
+they are. For his own day, nevertheless, Mozart was
+an innovator, as every genius is; for it is through those
+daring deviations of genius from established rule and
+tradition, which contemporaries regard as unjustifiable
+license, that art progresses. This should be borne in
+mind by those who were intolerant toward the opponents
+of Wagner, yet now are guilty of a similar
+solecism in proclaiming Richard Strauss a charlatan.</p>
+<p>Assuming that the modern pianoforte pupil is but
+indifferently nourished on the Mozart pabulum, let
+me add that this composer also was a virtuoso, and
+by his choice of the pianoforte over the clavichord did
+much toward making the modern instrument more
+popular. He also developed the sonata form so that
+Beethoven found it ready moulded for his genius. In
+fact the sonata form as we know it is so much a Mozart
+creation that Mr. Hanchett, in his &ldquo;Art of the Musician,&rdquo;
+suggests calling the sonata movement proper a
+mozarta&mdash;a suggestion which I presume will never be
+adopted.</p>
+<h4>Beethoven and the Epoch of the Sonata.</h4>
+<p>In the history of music there are three figures that
+easily tower above the rest. Each represents an era.
+They are Bach, who stands for counterpoint, the epoch
+of the fugue; Beethoven, who represents the epoch of
+the sonata; Wagner, who represents the epoch of the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91' name='page_91'></a>91</span>
+music-drama. The first two summed up in themselves
+certain art forms which others had originated. Bach&rsquo;s
+root goes back to Palestrina, Beethoven&rsquo;s to Scarlatti.
+Wagner presents the phenomenon of being both the
+germ and the full fruition of the art form for which
+he stands. It is conceivable that the work of these
+men will at some time fall into desuetude, for in art
+all things are possible, and the classical period seems
+to be losing its grip on music more and more every day
+and we ourselves may live to see the sonata movement
+become obsolete. It certainly is having less and less
+vogue, and a composer who now writes a sonata with
+undeviating allegiance to its classical outlines, deliberately
+invites neglect, because the listener no longer
+cares to have his faculties of appreciation restricted by
+too rigid insistence upon form, preferring that genius
+should have the utmost latitude and be absolutely untrammeled
+in giving expression to what it has to say.
+Nevertheless, music always will bear the impress of
+these three master minds, just as our language, although
+we do not speak in blank verse, always will bear
+the impress of Shakespeare. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think much of
+that play,&rdquo; exclaimed the countryman, after hearing
+&ldquo;Hamlet&rdquo; for the first time. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all made up of quotations!&rdquo;
+Equally familiar, not to say colloquial, are
+certain musical phrases, certain modulations, which
+have come down to us from the masters.</p>
+<p>Although Beethoven no longer is the all-dominant
+figure in the musical world that he was fifty years ago,
+and it requires a performance of the &ldquo;Ninth Symphony&rdquo;
+given under specially significant circumstances
+(such as the conducting of a Felix Weingartner) to attract
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92' name='page_92'></a>92</span>
+as many to a concert hall as would be drawn by an
+ordinary Wagner program, I trust I shall know how
+to appreciate his importance to the development of musical
+art and approach him with the reverence that is
+his due. Like all great men who sum up an epoch, he
+found certain things ready to hand. The Frenchman,
+Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), &ldquo;the creator of
+the modern system of harmony,&rdquo; had published his
+&ldquo;Nouveau Système de Musique Théorique&rdquo;; the sonata
+movement from its tentative beginnings under Scarlatti
+had been developed through Philipp Emanuel
+Bach, Haydn and Mozart into a definite art form
+awaiting the final test of a great genius&mdash;which Beethoven
+proved to be.</p>
+<h4>Beethoven&rsquo;s Slow Development.</h4>
+<p>I already have pointed out that while pianoforte and
+orchestra have developed side by side, the general belief
+that the pianoforte merely has been the handmaiden
+of the orchestra is a mistaken one. On the contrary,
+until the end of the classical period, at least, the pianoforte
+was the pioneer. It has blazed the way for the
+orchestra and led it, instead of bringing up the rear.
+Thus the sonata form was developed by the pianoforte
+and then was handed over by that instrument to the
+orchestra under the name of symphony, which, the
+reader should bear in mind, simply is a sonata written
+for orchestra instead of for the pianoforte. Even Beethoven,
+before he composed his first symphony, which
+is his Opus 21, tested his mastery of the form and his
+ideas regarding certain further developments in it, by
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93' name='page_93'></a>93</span>
+first composing thirteen pianoforte sonatas, including
+the familiar &ldquo;Pathétique,&rdquo; which used to be to concert
+programs what Liszt&rsquo;s &ldquo;Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2&rdquo;
+is now&mdash;the <i>cheval de battaille</i>, on which pianists
+pranced up and down before the ranks of their astonished
+audiences and unfortunate amateurs sought to
+retain their equilibrium.</p>
+<p>This experimentation, this comparatively slow development,
+was characteristic of Beethoven; is, in fact,
+characteristic of every genius who works from the soul
+outward. &ldquo;Like most artists whose spur is more in
+themselves than in natural artistic facilities, he was
+very slow to come to any artistic achievement,&rdquo; writes
+Sir Hubert Parry. &ldquo;It is almost a law of things
+that men whose artistic personality is very strong, and
+who touch the world by the greatness and the power of
+their expression, come to maturity comparatively late,
+and sometimes grow greater all through their lives&mdash;so
+it was with Bach, Gluck, Beethoven and Wagner&mdash;while
+men whose aims are more purely artistic and
+whose main spur is facility of diction, come to the
+point of production early and do not grow much afterward.
+Such composers as Mozart and Mendelssohn
+succeeded in expressing themselves brilliantly at a very
+early age; but their technical facility was out of proportion
+to their individuality and their force of human
+nature, and therefore there is no such surprising difference
+between the work of their later years and the
+work of their childhood as there is in the case of Beethoven
+and Wagner.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In writing sonatas Haydn and Mozart had been satisfied
+with grace of outward form and a smooth and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94' name='page_94'></a>94</span>
+pretty flow of melody within that form. Beethoven
+was a man of intellectual force as well as of musical
+genius. He applied his intellect to enlarging the sonata
+form, his musical genius to supplying it with contents
+worthy of the greater opportunities he himself had
+created for it. There is a wonderful union of mind
+and heart in Beethoven&rsquo;s work. The sonata form, as
+perfected by him, is a monument to his genius. It
+remains to this day the flower of the classical period.</p>
+<h4>The Passing of the Sonata.</h4>
+<p>Nevertheless, the Beethoven sonatas no longer retain
+the place of pre-eminence once accorded them on pianoforte
+recital programs. When Von Bülow was in this
+country during the season of 1875-76 he frequently
+gave concerts at which he played only Beethoven
+sonatas. I doubt if any of the great pianists of to-day
+could now awaken as much public interest by such programs
+as Von Bülow did. I remember the concert at
+which, among others of the Beethoven sonatas, this virtuoso
+played Opus 106 (&ldquo;Grosse Sonata für das Hammerklavier&rdquo;).
+After he had played through part of
+the first movement he became restless, and from time
+to time peered over the keyboard and into the instrument
+as if something were wrong with it. Finally he
+broke off in the middle of the movement, rose from his
+seat and walked off the stage. When he reappeared, he
+had with him an attendant from the firm of manufacturers
+whose pianofortes he used, and together they
+fussed over the instrument for a while, before the attendant
+made his exit and the irate little pianist began
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95' name='page_95'></a>95</span>
+the sonata all over again. We considered the mishap
+that gave us opportunity to hear him play so much of
+the work twice, a piece of great good luck for us.
+Would we so consider it now?</p>
+<p>Von Bülow has passed into musical history as a great
+Beethoven player, and such he undoubtedly was. I
+doubt, however, if he was a greater Beethoven player
+than several living pianists. Some seasons ago Eugène
+d&rsquo;Albert played a Beethoven program. His performance
+did not evoke the enthusiasm he anticipated. In
+fact there were intimations in the comments on his
+performance that he was not as great a Beethoven
+player as he thought he was. Personally, and having
+a very clear recollection of Von Bülow&rsquo;s Beethoven
+recitals, because I attended every one he gave in New
+York, and in my mind&rsquo;s eye can see him sitting at the
+pianoforte, bending away over, with his ear almost to
+the keyboard, I think d&rsquo;Albert played his Beethoven
+program quite as well. What had happened, however,
+was this: A little matter of thirty years had passed
+and with it the classical period and its efflorescence, the
+sonata form, had faded by just so much, and by just
+so much no longer was considered by the public the
+crucial test of a pianist&rsquo;s musicianship. Incidentally it
+is worth noting that the public usually is far ahead of
+the profession and of the majority of critics in appreciating
+new tendencies in music and in realizing what
+is passing away; and the same thing probably prevails
+in other arts.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96' name='page_96'></a>96</span></div>
+<h4>Orchestral Instead of Pianistic.</h4>
+<p>I am aware that Beethoven was a pianist of the first
+rank and that within the limitations of the sonata form
+he developed the capacity of the pianoforte. I also
+have read Richard Strauss&rsquo;s opinion, in his edition of
+Berlioz&rsquo;s work on instrumentation, that Beethoven
+treated the orchestra pianistically. Nevertheless, from
+the modern viewpoint the essential fault of the sonata,
+Beethoven&rsquo;s sonatas included, seems to me to be that
+it is too orchestral and not sufficiently <i>claviermässig</i>
+(pianistic) in character; not sufficiently adapted to the
+genius of the pianoforte as we know it to-day. It is
+possible that for the times in which they were composed,
+the sonatas of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven
+were most pianistic. But as music has become more
+and more an intimate phase of life, and as our most
+intimate instrument, the instrument of the household,
+is the pianoforte, we understand its capacity for the
+intimate expression of moods and fancies, the lights
+and shadows of life, as it never was understood before.
+The modern lover of music, if I may judge his standpoint
+from my own, feels that while the sonatas of
+the masters I have named were written for the pianoforte,
+they were thought out for orchestra, and that
+even a Beethoven sonata is an engraving for pianoforte
+of a symphony for orchestra. He composed nine symphonies
+and thirty-two sonatas. If he had written his
+nine symphonies for pianoforte, we would have had
+nine more sonatas. If he had composed his sonatas
+for orchestra, we would have had thirty-two more symphonies.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97' name='page_97'></a>97</span></div>
+<p>This orchestral (as opposed to pianistic) character
+of the Beethoven sonatas accounts for passages in
+them so awkwardly written for the instrument that
+they are difficult to master, and yet, when mastered, are
+not effective in proportion to their difficulty. Between
+enlarging the capacity of an instrument through the
+problems you give the player to solve and writing passages
+that are awkwardly conceived for it, and hence
+ineffectual after they have been mastered, there is a
+great difference. Chopin, Liszt and others pile Pelion
+on Ossa in their technical requirements of the pianist;
+but when he has surmounted them, he has climbed a
+mountain, and from its peak may watch the world at
+his feet. I think the orchestral character of much that
+Beethoven wrote for the pianoforte partly accounts for
+the fact that his sonatas no longer attract the great virtuosos
+as they formerly did and that the public no
+longer regards them as the final test of a pianist&rsquo;s rank.</p>
+<p>I speak so unreservedly because I have lived through
+the change of taste myself. By way of personal explanation
+I may be permitted to say, that while I am
+not a professional musician, music was so much a
+part of my life that I studied the pianoforte almost
+as assiduously as if I had intended becoming a
+public player, and that I was proficient enough to
+meet once a week with the first violinist and the first
+violoncellist of the New York Philharmonic Society
+for the practice of chamber music. If there is any one
+who should worship at the shrine of the sonata form,
+and especially at that of the Beethoven sonatas, it should
+be myself, for I was brought up on the form and those
+sonatas were my daily bread. When I went to the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98' name='page_98'></a>98</span>
+Von Bülow Beethoven recitals it was with book in hand,
+to follow what he played note for note for purposes of
+study and assimilation. Those were years when, in
+the hours during which one seeks communion with
+one&rsquo;s other self, the Beethoven sonatas were the medium
+of communication. But now&mdash;give me the men who
+emancipated themselves from a form that fettered the
+individuality of the pianoforte, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann,
+and the pianoforte scores of the Wagner music-dramas,
+which actually sound more pianistic than the
+sonatas of the classical period and in which it is a
+delight to plunge oneself and be borne along on a flood
+of free, exultant melody.</p>
+<p>Nevertheless, the sonata has had a great part to play
+in the history and development of music and has played
+it nobly, and we must no more forget this than we
+should allow present-day hero worship to supplant the
+memory of the heroes who went before. The sonata is
+the firm and solid bridge over which music passed from
+the contrapuntal period to the romantic, and doubtless
+there still are some who prefer to linger on the bridge
+rather than cross it to the promised land to which it
+leads. Always there are conservatives who stand still
+and look back; and that these still should let their eyes
+rest longingly on the great master of the classical
+epoch, Beethoven, is, to say the least, comprehensible.
+One would have to be unresponsive indeed not to be
+thrilled by the story of his life&mdash;his force of character,
+his rugged personality, his determination in spite of
+one of the greatest misfortunes that could befall a
+musician, deafness; and the intellectual power which
+he displayed in bending a seemingly rigid art form to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99' name='page_99'></a>99</span>
+his will and making it the receptacle of his inspiration.</p>
+<p>Well may these considerations be borne in mind
+whenever a Beethoven sonata is on a pianoforte recital
+program. If it does not move us as profoundly
+as music more modern does, that is not because its
+composer was less deeply concerned with the problems
+of life than those who have come after him. For his
+time he was wonderfully &ldquo;subjective,&rdquo; drawing his
+inspiration from the heart, yet always preserving a sane
+mental poise. If to-day the sonatas of this great genius
+and splendid man seem to us less dramatic and emotional
+than they once did to audiences, it is because
+of the progress of music toward greater plasticity of
+expression and our conviction that such should be its
+mission.</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100' name='page_100'></a>100</span>
+<a name='IV_DAWN_OF_THE_ROMANTIC_PERIOD' id='IV_DAWN_OF_THE_ROMANTIC_PERIOD'></a>
+<h2>IV</h2>
+<h3>DAWN OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD</h3>
+</div>
+<p>All art begins with a groping after form, then attains
+form, and then emancipates itself from too
+great insistence upon rigidity of form without,
+however, reverting to its early formless condition. It
+was absolutely necessary to the establishment of music
+as an art that at some period or periods in its development
+it should &ldquo;pull itself together&rdquo; and focus itself
+in certain forms, and adhere to them somewhat rigidly
+and somewhat tenaciously until they had been perfected.</p>
+<p>Without saying so in as many words, I have sought,
+in speaking of the sonata, to let the modern lover of
+music know that if he does not like sonatas he need
+not be ashamed of that fact. A few minutes ago and
+before writing this sentence, I left my desk and going
+to the pianoforte, played through Beethoven&rsquo;s &ldquo;Sonata
+Pathétique.&rdquo; It used to be a thrilling experience to play
+it or to hear it played. To-day the Grave which introduces
+the first movement still seemed portentous,
+the individual themes throughout the work had lost
+none of their beauty. And yet the effect produced in
+earlier years by this sonata as a whole was lacking. I
+shall not say that it sounded pedantic, for I dislike to
+apply that word to anything that sprang from the heart
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101' name='page_101'></a>101</span>
+and brain of a genius like Beethoven&rsquo;s, but there was
+a feeling of restraint about it&mdash;the restraint of set
+form, the restraint of pathos patterned to measure,
+which is incompatible with our modern notions of absolute
+freedom of expression in music. Moreover, there
+is ample evidence that Beethoven himself chafed under
+the restraint of the sonata form and constantly strove
+to make it more elastic and more yielding to his inspiration.</p>
+<h4>What a Sonata Is.</h4>
+<p>The sonata form (that is to say, the movement from
+which the sonata derives its name) consists of three
+main divisions and can easily be studied by securing the
+Bülow and Lebert edition of the Beethoven sonatas in
+Schirmer&rsquo;s library, in which the various divisions and
+subdivisions are indicated as they occur in the music.
+The first division (sometimes with a slow introduction
+like the Grave of the &ldquo;Sonata Pathétique&rdquo;) may be
+called the exposition. It consists of the main theme in
+the key of the piece, a connecting episode, a second
+theme in a related key and contrasting with the first,
+and a concluding passage. As a rule the exposition is
+repeated&mdash;an extremely artificial proceeding, since
+there is no esthetic or psychological reason for it.</p>
+<p>After the exposition comes the second division, the
+development or &ldquo;working out,&rdquo; a treatment of both
+themes with much figuration and imitation, generally
+called the &ldquo;free fantasia&rdquo; and consisting &ldquo;chiefly of a
+free development of motives taken from the first part&rdquo;
+(Baker). This leads into the third division, which is
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102' name='page_102'></a>102</span>
+a restatement of the first, excepting that the second
+theme, instead of being in a related key, is, like the
+main theme, in the tonic.</p>
+<h4>How Beethoven Enlarged the Form.</h4>
+<p>This is the form of the sonata movement which was
+handed down to Beethoven by Haydn and Mozart. It
+very soon became apparent that the greatest genius of
+the classical period found it too limited for his inspiration.
+In his third sonata (Opus 2, No. 3) he makes
+several innovations that, for their day, are most daring.
+Following the first episode after the main theme,
+he introduces a second episode with which he leads
+into the second theme. Then using a variant of the
+first episode as a connection he leads over to a third,
+a closing theme. In fact, the material of the second
+episode is so thematic that I see no reason why he
+should not be said to use four themes in the exposition
+instead of the customary two. In the free fantasia
+he insistently reiterates the main theme, practically ignoring
+the others, thus familiarizing the listener with
+it and making it as welcome as an old friend when the
+third division ushers it in again.</p>
+<p>Instead of closing the movement at the end of the
+usual third division, as his predecessors, Haydn and
+Mozart, did, Beethoven introduces what is one of the
+most important innovations grafted by him upon the
+sonata form&mdash;a coda with a cadenza. I can imagine
+that this movement made his contemporaries look
+dubious and shake their heads. It must have seemed
+to them originality strained to the point of eccentricity
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103' name='page_103'></a>103</span>
+and more bizarre than effective. As we look back upon
+it, after this long lapse of time, it must be reckoned
+a most brilliant achievement in the direction of freer
+form, and from this point of view&mdash;please bear in mind
+the reservation&mdash;its creator not only never surpassed
+it, but frequently fell behind it.</p>
+<p>One of the movements of this sonata is a scherzo.
+Beethoven is the creator of this style of movement.
+It is much less formal than the minuet which Haydn
+introduced into the sonata. This especial scherzo has
+a trio which in the broad sweep of its arpeggios is as
+modern sounding as anything Beethoven wrote for
+the pianoforte.</p>
+<h4>His &ldquo;Moonlight Sonata.&rdquo;</h4>
+<p>There are other sonatas by Beethoven that indicate
+efforts on his part to be less trammeled by considerations
+of form. Regard as an example the &ldquo;Sonata Quasi
+Una Fantasia,&rdquo; Opus 27, No. 2, generally, and by
+no means inaptly, called the &ldquo;Moonlight Sonata.&rdquo; This
+begins with the broad and beautiful slow movement,
+with its sustained melody, a poem of profound pathos
+in musical accents. It is followed by an Allegretto, &ldquo;<i>une
+fleur entre deux abîmes</i>&rdquo; (a flower &rsquo;twixt two abysses)
+Liszt called it; and then comes the concluding movement,
+a Presto agitato, which is one of Beethoven&rsquo;s
+most impassioned creations. There are only three movements,
+and the usual sequence is inverted, for the last
+of the three is the Sonata movement. At the end of
+the Adagio sostenuto and at the end of the Allegretto
+as well, is the direction &ldquo;<i>attacca subito il sequente</i>,&rdquo; indicating
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104' name='page_104'></a>104</span>
+that the following movement is to be attacked
+at once and denoting an inner relationship, a psychological
+connection between the three movements. Throughout
+the work the themes are of extraordinary beauty
+and expressiveness even for a Beethoven and the whole
+is a genuine drama of human life and experience. This
+impression is produced not only by the very evident
+psychological connection between the movements, but
+by the manner in which the composer holds on to his
+themes, developing them through bar after bar as if
+he himself appreciated their beauty and were reluctant
+to let go of them and introduce new material. The entire
+first movement, practically a song without words
+of the most exquisite poignancy, is built on a single
+motive with a brief episode which is more like an improvisation
+than a set part of a movement; while the
+last movement consists of four eloquent themes with
+only the merest suggestion of connecting episodes.
+The working out in the last movement is almost
+wholly a persistent iteration of the second theme.
+This persistent dwelling upon theme and the
+psychological relation between the different movements
+make this &ldquo;Moonlight Sonata&rdquo; to me the
+most modern sounding of Beethoven&rsquo;s pianoforte
+works, although when mere structural greatness is considered,
+most critics will incline to rank it lower than
+the &ldquo;Sonata Appassionata&rdquo; and the four last sonatas,
+Op. 106 and 109-11. Undoubtedly, however, it is the
+most &ldquo;temperamental&rdquo; of his sonatas&mdash;and herein
+again the most modern. My one quarrel with Von
+Bülow is that he made it so popular by his frequent
+playing of it and his exceptionally poetic interpretation
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105' name='page_105'></a>105</span>
+of it, that the great virtuosos shun it, very much
+as they shun the sixth Chopin waltz (Mme. Dudevant&rsquo;s
+dog chasing its own tail), because it is played by every
+pianoforte pupil of every girls&rsquo; boarding school everywhere.</p>
+<h4>Striving for Freedom.</h4>
+<p>In addition to what I have said of this sonata, it
+was an immense gain for greater freedom of form, and
+it is to be regretted that it is a more or less isolated
+instance and that Beethoven did not adopt it as a standard
+in shaping his remaining sonatas. Its most valuable
+attribute from the modern point of view is a characteristic
+to which I already have called attention several
+times&mdash;the fact that its several movements stand
+in psychological relation to one another; that there is
+such real soul or temperamental connection between
+them, that it would be doing actual violence to the work
+as a whole if any one movement were to be played without
+the others or if their sequence were to be inverted.</p>
+<p>But, you may ask, is there not in all sonatas this
+psychological inter-relationship of the several movements?
+Have we not been told again and again that
+there is?</p>
+<p>Undoubtedly you, and others who have been misinformed
+by enthusiasts who are unable to hear music
+in anything that has been composed since Beethoven,
+have been told so. But the sonata, with a few exceptions
+like the &ldquo;Moonlight,&rdquo; simply is a group usually of
+four movements, three long-ones with a shorter one
+between, and, save for their being in related keys, there
+is no temperamental relationship between the movements
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106' name='page_106'></a>106</span>
+whatsoever, and to talk of there being such a
+thing is nonsense. I believe the time will come when
+virtuosos will not hesitate to lift single movements out
+of the Beethoven sonatas and place them on their programs
+and that there will be a sigh of relief from the
+public because it can hear a movement that still sounds
+fresh and modern without being obliged to listen to
+two or three others that do not. Heresy? Maybe.
+Galileo was accounted a heretic&mdash;yet the world moves
+and the musical world with it.</p>
+<h4>The Beethoven Periods.</h4>
+<p>Beethoven was an intellectual as well as a musical
+giant. He thought before he wrought. The division
+of his activity into three periods, in each of which he
+is supposed to have progressed further along the road
+of originality and greatness, is generally accepted.
+Nevertheless, it is an arbitrary one, especially as
+regards the pianoforte sonatas, since it has been
+seen that the first movement of one of his
+earliest works, the third sonata (Opus 2, No.
+3), is one of his most original contributions
+to music, and one of the most strikingly developed
+movements in sonata form that he has given us. The
+period division which assigns this sonata as well as the
+&ldquo;Sonata Pathétique&rdquo; to the first period is absurd. The
+fact is, that the works of the so-called first and second
+periods overlap; but there is a decided change in his
+style when we come to his third period which, in the
+pianoforte sonatas, begins with Opus 109. (The beginning
+of this period usually is assigned to the sonata
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107' name='page_107'></a>107</span>
+Opus 101, which seems to me too early.) Because here
+a restless spirit seems to be brooding over his work, it
+is thought by some that his mind and heart were
+warped by his misfortunes&mdash;his deafness, the ingratitude
+of a worthless nephew to whom he had been as
+a father, and other family and material troubles. To
+me, however, Beethoven seems in these sonatas to be
+chafing more and more under the restraint of form and
+to be struggling to free himself from it, bending all
+his intellect to the task. Frankly, I do not think that
+in these last sonatas he achieved his purpose. He
+had outgrown the form he himself had perfected, and
+the thoughts which toward the last he endeavored to
+mould in it called for absolutely free and untrammeled
+development. He had become too great for it and, as
+a result, it cramped and hampered him in his latest
+utterances. It is my firm belief that had Beethoven
+come upon the scene fifty years later, he would not
+have composed a single sonata, but have revived the
+suite in modern style, as Schumann practically did in
+his &ldquo;Carnaval,&rdquo; &ldquo;Kreisleriana,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Faschingschwank
+aus Wien,&rdquo; or have created for the pianoforte something
+corresponding to the freely developed tone poems
+of Richard Strauss.</p>
+<p>Because, however, Beethoven wrote thirty-two pianoforte
+sonatas and because he was for many years the
+all-dominating figure in the musical world, every great
+composer who came after him and composed for the
+pianoforte experimented with the sonata form, and
+always, be it noted, with less success and less importance
+to the real progress of music toward freedom
+of expression than when he followed his own inner impulse
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108' name='page_108'></a>108</span>
+and wrote the mood pieces, the &ldquo;music of intention,&rdquo;
+the subjective expressions of indicated thoughts
+and feelings, that were more consonant with the tendencies
+of the romantic period which followed Beethoven
+and for which he may be said to have paved
+the way. For just as Bach brought the contrapuntal
+form to such perfection that those who came after
+him could not even begin where he left off, let alone
+surpass him, so Beethoven brought the sonata form to
+such perfection that no further advance in it was possible.
+No wonder therefore that the pianoforte sonatas
+of the romanticists are comparatively few in number
+and the least satisfactory of their works. These composers
+seem to have written sonatas simply to show
+that they could write them and under a mistaken idea
+that length is a measure of greatness and that shorter
+pieces are minor achievements, whereas as much genius
+can be displayed in a nocturne as in a sonata.</p>
+<h4>Sonatas Now Old-fashioned.</h4>
+<p>Lawrence Gilman, one of our younger American
+critics, in his &ldquo;Phases of Modern Music,&rdquo; a collection
+of essays, brief but containing a wealth of suggestion
+and breathing throughout the spirit of modernity,
+sums up the matter in speaking of Edward MacDowell&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Keltic Sonata&rdquo;: &ldquo;I cannot help wishing
+that he might contrive some expedient for doing away,
+so far as he himself is concerned, with the sonata form
+which he occasionally uses, rather inconsistently, as a
+vehicle for the expression of that vision and emotion
+that are in him; for, generally speaking, and in spite of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109' name='page_109'></a>109</span>
+the triumphant success of the &lsquo;Keltic,&rsquo; Mr. MacDowell
+is less fortunate in his sonatas than in those freer and
+more elastically wrought tone poems in which he voices
+a mood or an experience with epigrammatic concision
+and directness. The &lsquo;Keltic&rsquo; succeeds in spite of its
+form, ... though even here, and notwithstanding
+the freedom of manipulation, one feels that he
+would have worked to still finer ends in a more flexible
+and fluent form. He is never so compelling, so persuasively
+eloquent, as in those impressionistically conceived
+pieces in which he moulds his inspiration upon
+the events of an interior emotional program, rather
+than upon a musical formula necessarily arbitrary and
+anomalous.&rdquo; This applies to pianoforte music in general
+since Beethoven. Such I believe to be the consensus
+of opinion among the younger generation of
+critics, to whom, after all, the future belongs, as well
+as the opinion of those older critics who refuse to allow
+themselves to be pitchforked by their years into the
+ranks of the old fogies and who still hold themselves
+ever receptive to every new manifestation in music that
+is based on a union of mind and heart.</p>
+<p>Unless otherwise specifically mentioned I have, in
+speaking of the sonata form, referred to it in connection
+with the pianoforte. But it also is the form employed
+for the symphony (which simply is a sonata
+for orchestra); for pianoforte trios, quartets and quintets;
+for string quartets and other branches of
+chamber music (which are sonatas written for the combination
+of instruments mentioned and such others
+as are employed in chamber music), and for concertos
+(which are sonatas for the combination of a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110' name='page_110'></a>110</span>
+solo instrument like the pianoforte, violin or violoncello,
+with orchestra). In these branches the sonata
+form has held its own more successfully than on the
+pianoforte, and for several extraneous reasons. In the
+symphony it is due largely to the greater variety that
+can be achieved through orchestral coloring; in chamber
+music largely to the somewhat super-refined and
+timorous taste of its devotees which would regard any
+startling innovation as highly indecorous; and in the
+concerto to the fact that a soloist who appears at an
+orchestral concert is supposed to play a concerto simply
+because the orchestra is there to play it with him, although
+he, as well as the audience, probably would find
+a group of solos far more effective. In fact I think
+that much of the applause which usually follows a great
+pianist&rsquo;s playing of a concerto is due not so much to
+the audience&rsquo;s enthusiasm over it as to the hope that
+he may be induced to come out and play something
+alone. So far as the symphony is concerned, it is liberating
+itself more and more from the sonata form and
+taking the direction indicated by Liszt in his symphonic
+poems and by Richard Strauss in his tone poems,
+the freest form of orchestral composition yet conceived.</p>
+<h4>The First Romantic Composers.</h4>
+<p>In music, as in other arts, periods overlap. We have
+seen that during Bach&rsquo;s life Scarlatti in Italy was laying
+the foundations of the harmonic system and shaping
+the outlines of the sonata form which was to develop
+through Philipp Emanuel Bach, Haydn and Mozart
+and find its greatest master in Beethoven. Likewise,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111' name='page_111'></a>111</span>
+even while Beethoven was creating those works which
+are the glory of the classical period, two of his contemporaries,
+Carl Maria von Weber, who died one year
+before him, and Franz Schubert, who survived him
+by only a year, were writing music which was destined
+to turn the art into new channels. Weber (1786-1826)
+is indeed regarded as the founder of the romantic
+school through his opera &ldquo;Der Freischütz.&rdquo; It seems to
+me, however, that Schubert (1797-1828) contributed
+quite as much to the new movement through his songs,
+while the contributions of both to the pianoforte are
+important. Weber was a finished pianist, had an enormous
+reach (he could stretch a twelfth), and besides
+utilizing the facility thus afforded him to add to the
+brilliancy of pianoforte technique (as in his well-known
+&ldquo;Concert Piece for Piano and Orchestra&rdquo;), he deliberately,
+in some of his compositions, ignored the sonata
+form and wrote a &ldquo;Momento Capriccioso,&rdquo; a &ldquo;Polonaise,&rdquo;
+a &ldquo;Rondo Brilliant,&rdquo; a &ldquo;Polacca Brilliant&rdquo; and
+the fascinating &ldquo;Invitation to the Dance.&rdquo; The last,
+even in its original form and without the elaborations
+in Tausig&rsquo;s version of it, and the &ldquo;Concert Piece&rdquo; still
+are brilliant and effective numbers in the modern pianoforte
+repertoire. Considering the age in which they
+were composed, their freedom from pedantry is little
+short of marvelous.</p>
+<h4>Schubert&rsquo;s Pianoforte Music.</h4>
+<p>Schubert was not a virtuoso and passed his life almost
+in obscurity, but we now recognize that, although
+he lived but thirty-one years, few composers wrought
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112' name='page_112'></a>112</span>
+more lastingly than he. Of course, the proper place for
+an estimate of his genius is in the chapter on song, but
+as a pianoforte composer he is, even to this day, making
+his influence more and more felt. Living in Vienna,
+Beethoven&rsquo;s city, and a fervent admirer of that genius,
+it was natural that he should have composed sonatas,
+and there is a whole volume of them among his pianoforte
+works. Nevertheless, so original was his genius
+and so fertile, that, in addition to his numerous other
+works, he composed eight impromptus, among them
+the highly poetic one in G flat major (Opus 42, No. 2),
+usually called &ldquo;The Elegy&rdquo;; another in B flat major
+(Opus 142, No. 3), which is a theme with variations,
+some of them brilliant, others profoundly expressive;
+and the beautifully melodious one in A flat major; six
+dainty &ldquo;Moments Musicals&rdquo;; the exquisite little waltz
+melodies from which Liszt fashioned the &ldquo;Soirées de
+Vienne&rdquo;; the &ldquo;Fantasia in G,&rdquo; from which the popular
+minuet is taken; and the broadly dramatic &ldquo;Fantasia&rdquo;
+on a theme from his song, &ldquo;The Wanderer,&rdquo; for which
+Liszt wrote an orchestral obbligato, thus converting it
+into a highly effective and thoroughly modern fantasy
+for pianoforte and orchestra. These detached compositions
+are as eloquent in their appeal to-day as if they
+had been written during the last ten years instead of
+during the first quarter of the last century. They are
+melodious with the sustained melody that delights the
+modern ear. There is not, as in the sonata form or,
+for that matter, in all the classical music that Schubert
+heard around him, the brief giving out of a theme, then
+an episode, then another brief theme and so on, all
+couched in the formulas in which the classicists delighted,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113' name='page_113'></a>113</span>
+but instead of these postulates of formality,
+melody fully developed and wrought out by one who
+reveled in it and was willing that his hearers should
+revel in it as well. To distinguish between the classicists
+and this early romantic composer, whose work survives
+in all its freshness and beauty to this day, it may be
+said that their music was thematic&mdash;based on the kind
+of themes that lent themselves to formal working out
+as prescribed by the sonata formula; whereas these detached
+pieces of Schubert are based on melodies&mdash;long-drawn-out
+melodies, if you wish, and be grateful that
+they are&mdash;that conjure up mood pictures and through
+their exquisite harmonization exhale the very fragrance
+of romanticism.</p>
+<p>Naturally, the sonatas from his pen are more set.
+Nevertheless, so long as it seems that we must have
+sonatas on our recital programs, the neglect of those
+by Schubert is shameful. I am willing to stake his
+sonata No. 5, in A minor, against any sonata ever written,
+and from several of the sonatas single movements
+can be detached which I should think any pianist would
+be glad to add to his repertoire. Among these is the
+lithesome scherzo from the sonata No. 10, in B flat
+major, and the beautiful slow movement (Andante sostenuto)
+from the same work.</p>
+<p>Schubert also wrote many valuable pianoforte duets,
+among them several sets of marches and polonaises and
+an elaborate and stirring &ldquo;Divertissement à l&rsquo;Hongroise,&rdquo;
+which last seems to foreshadow the
+&ldquo;Hungarian Rhapsodies&rdquo; of Liszt. In these and
+the detached pianoforte solo pieces a special value
+lies in that they do not appear to have been
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114' name='page_114'></a>114</span>
+composed as a protest against the sonata form, but
+spontaneously and without a thought on Schubert&rsquo;s
+part that he was doing anything in any way
+remarkable. They are expressions of musical feeling
+in the manner that appealed to him as most natural.
+The &ldquo;Moments Musicals&rdquo; especially are little mood
+pieces and impressionistic sketches with here and there
+a bit of realism. Who, for example, is apt to forget
+Essipoff&rsquo;s playing of the third &ldquo;Moment&rdquo; in Hungarian
+style, with a long crescendo and diminuendo (the same
+effect used by Rubinstein, when he played his arrangement
+of the &ldquo;Turkish March&rdquo; from Beethoven&rsquo;s &ldquo;Ruins
+of Athens&rdquo;), so that it seemed as if a band of gypsies
+approached from afar, danced by, and vanished in the
+distance? Thoroughly modern is Schubert, a most
+modern of the moderns, whether we listen to his original
+pianoforte compositions, or to the Schubert-Liszt
+waltzes, or &ldquo;Hark, Hark, the Lark,&rdquo; &ldquo;To Be Sung on
+the Water&rdquo; (barcarolle) and other songs of his which
+have been arranged for the pianoforte by Liszt.</p>
+<h4>Mendelssohn&rsquo;s &ldquo;Songs Without Words.&rdquo;</h4>
+<p>Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, the musical idol of his
+day and now correspondingly neglected, contributed to
+the romantic movement his &ldquo;Songs Without Words,&rdquo;
+short pieces for the pianoforte and aptly named because
+their sustained melody clearly defined against a purposely
+subordinated accompaniment gives them the
+character of songs, in the popular meaning of the word.
+Mendelssohn was a fluent, gentlemanly composer,
+whose music was readily understood and therefore attained
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115' name='page_115'></a>115</span>
+immediate popularity. But the very qualities
+that made it popular&mdash;its smoothness and polish and
+its rather commonplace harmlessness&mdash;have caused it
+to lose caste. The &ldquo;Songs Without Words,&rdquo; however,
+still occupy a place in the music master&rsquo;s curriculum,
+forming a graceful and easily crossed bridge from classical
+to romantic music. I can remember still, when,
+as a lad, I received from my music teacher my first
+Mendelssohn &ldquo;Song Without Words,&rdquo; the G minor barcarolle,
+how it seemed to open up a new world of music
+to me. Many of these compositions, which are unique
+in their way, still will be found to possess much merit.
+That they are polished little pieces and poetic in feeling
+almost goes without saying. The &ldquo;Spring Song&rdquo;
+may be one of the most hackneyed of pianoforte pieces
+and the same may be true of the &ldquo;Spinning Song,&rdquo; but
+it is equally true that the former is as graceful and
+charming as the latter is brilliant and showy. A tender
+and expressive little lyric is the one in F major (No.
+22), which Joseffy frequently used as an encore and
+played with exquisite effect. A group of Mendelssohn&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Songs Without Words&rdquo; is never out of place on
+a pianist&rsquo;s program. At least half a dozen of them, I
+think, are apt to survive the vicissitudes of many years
+to come. Mendelssohn wrote three sonatas, a &ldquo;Sonata
+Ecossaies&rdquo; (Scotch), several capriccios and other pieces
+for the pianoforte, besides two pianoforte concertos, of
+which the one in G minor is the stock selection of conservatory
+pupils at their graduation exercises and later
+at their début. With it they shoot the musical
+chutes.</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116' name='page_116'></a>116</span>
+<a name='V_CHOPIN_THE_POET_OF_THE_PIANOFORTE' id='V_CHOPIN_THE_POET_OF_THE_PIANOFORTE'></a>
+<h2>V</h2>
+<h3>CHOPIN, THE POET OF THE PIANOFORTE</h3>
+</div>
+<p>I must ask the reader still to imagine that he is
+at a pianoforte recital, although I frankly admit
+that I have been guilty of many digressions, so
+that it must appear to him as if he had been whisked
+from Mendelssohn Hall up to Carnegie Hall, then
+down to the Metropolitan Opera House and back to
+Mendelssohn Hall again. This, however, as I have
+sought to make clear before, is due to the universality
+of the pianoforte as an instrument and to the comprehensiveness
+of pianoforte music, which in itself illustrates
+in great part the development of the art.</p>
+<p>At this point, then, of our imaginary pianoforte recital
+there is likely to be a group of compositions by
+Chopin; and the larger the group, or the more groups
+by this composer on the program, the better satisfied
+the audience is apt to be. Baker calls Frédéric Chopin
+(1810-1849) the &ldquo;incomparable composer for the pianoforte.&rdquo;
+But he was more. He was an incomparable
+composer from every point of view, great, unique, a
+tone poet, as well as the first composer who searched
+the very soul of the instrument for which he specialized.
+Extraordinary as is his significance for that instrument,
+his influence extends through it into other
+realms of music, and his art is making itself felt to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117' name='page_117'></a>117</span>
+this day in orchestra, opera and music-drama as well
+as in pianoforte music. For he was an innovator in
+form, an intrepid adventurer in harmony and a sublime
+singer of melody.</p>
+<h4>Tempo Rubato.</h4>
+<p>Before the pianist whose recital we are supposed to
+be attending will have played many bars of the first
+piece in the Chopin group, the individuality of this
+composer will become apparent. Melody will pervade
+the recital hall like the fragrance of flowers. At the
+same time there will be an iridescence not noticeable
+in any of the music that preceded Chopin, and produced
+as if by cascades of jewels&mdash;those remarkable ornamental
+notes which yet are not ornamental, but, in
+spite of all their light and shade, and their play of
+changeable colors, part of the great undercurrent
+of melody itself. Here we have then, nearly at the
+very outset of the first Chopin piece, the famous <i>tempo
+rubato</i>, so-called, which has been explained in various
+ways, but which with Chopin really means that while
+the rhythm goes calmly on with one hand, the other
+weaves a veil of iridescent notes around the melodic
+idea. Liszt expressed it exactly when he said: &ldquo;You
+see that tree? Its leaves move to and fro in the wind
+and follow the gentle motion of the air; but its trunk
+stands there immovable in its form.&rdquo; Or the <i>tempo
+rubato</i> is like a shower of petals from a tree in full
+bloom; the firm outline of the tree, its foliage are there,
+while we see the delicately tinted blossoms falling from
+the branches and filling the air with color and fragrance;
+or like the myriad shafts from the facets of a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118' name='page_118'></a>118</span>
+jewel, piercing in all directions while the jewel itself
+remains immovable, the centre of its own rays; or like
+the crisp ripple on a river, while the stream itself flows
+on in majesty; or, in one or two passages when Chopin
+becomes a cynic, like the twaddle of critics while the
+person they criticise calmly goes about his mission.</p>
+<h4>The Soul of the Pianoforte.</h4>
+<p>What you will notice about these compositions of
+Chopin&mdash;and I say &ldquo;these compositions&rdquo; deliberately,
+although I have not named any (for it makes no difference
+what pieces of his are on the program, the effect
+will be the same)&mdash;is the fact that in none of them is
+there the slightest suggestion of anything but pianoforte
+music. Chopin&rsquo;s great achievement so far as the
+pianoforte is concerned is the fact that he liberated it
+completely from orchestral and choral influences, and
+made it an instrument sufficient unto itself, brought it
+into its own in all its beauty of tone and expression
+and enlarged its capacity; sought out its soul and reproduced
+it in tone, as no other composer had done before
+him or has done since. The recognition of the true
+piano tone seems to have been instinctive with him.
+It appears in his earliest works. Nothing he ever
+wrote suggests orchestra or voice. For the beautiful
+singing quality he brings out in much of his music is
+a singing quality which belongs to the noble instrument
+to which he devoted himself. Not once while listening
+to a Chopin composition do you think to yourself, as
+you do so often with classical works, like the Beethoven
+sonatas, &ldquo;How well this would sound on the orchestra!&rdquo;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119' name='page_119'></a>119</span>
+Yet Chopin is as sonorous, as passionate, as
+pleading, as melancholy and as rich in effect, although
+he is played only on the black and white keys of the
+pianoforte, as if he were given forth by a hundred
+instrumentalists, so thoroughly did he understand the
+instrument for which he wrote. He was the Wagner
+of the pianoforte.</p>
+<h4>A Clear Melodic Line.</h4>
+<p>What you will notice, too, about his music is the general
+distinctness of his melody. There may be times,
+as in some of his arabesque compositions, like the &ldquo;F
+Minor Étude,&rdquo; when the effect is slightly blurred. But
+this is done purposely, and as a rule there will be found
+a clear melodic line running through everything he
+wrote. Combined with this melody are weird, exquisite,
+entrancing harmonies, and those showers of
+<i>tempo rubato</i> notes which glitter like a veil of mist in
+the sunlight and yet, although a veil, allow you to see
+what is beneath it, like a delicate fabric which seems
+rather to emphasize and reveal the very things it is
+intended to conceal.</p>
+<p>Chopin was a Pole. He had the melancholy of his
+race, but also its <i>verve</i>. Profoundly affected by his
+country&rsquo;s sorrow, he also had its haughty spirit. In
+Paris, where he spent the most significant years of his
+life, he was surrounded by the aristocracy of his own
+country who were in exile, and by the aristocracy of
+the arts. Liszt speaks of an evening at his salon where
+he met, besides some of the Polish aristocrats, people
+like Heinrich Heine, Meyerbeer, Delacroix, Nourrit,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120' name='page_120'></a>120</span>
+the tenor, and Bellini. Chopin admired Bellini&rsquo;s music,
+its clear and beautiful melodiousness, and I myself
+think that Chopin&rsquo;s melody often has Italian characteristics,
+although it is combined with harmony that
+is German in its seriousness, but wholly Chopinesque
+in all its essentials. In those numerous groups of
+ornamental, or rather semi-ornamental, notes, so many
+of them chromatic, and all of them usually designated
+by the technical term &ldquo;passing notes,&rdquo; signifying that
+they are merely incidental to the melody and to the
+harmonic structure, there are nevertheless many that
+have far greater importance than if they were merely
+&ldquo;passing.&rdquo; It is in bringing out this significance by
+slight accelerations and retards, by allowing a few of
+them to flash out here while the others remain slightly
+veiled, that the inspired Chopin player shows his true
+conception of what the composer meant by <i>tempo
+rubato</i>.</p>
+<p>It was Liszt, afterward the first to recognize Wagner,
+who was the first to recognize Chopin. It was
+Liszt also who introduced him to George Sand (Mme.
+Dudevant), the great passion of his life. Chopin was
+the friend of many women. They adored his poetic
+nature, and there is much in his music that is effeminate,
+delicate and sensitive; but altogether too much
+has been made of this side of his art, and of certain
+morbid pieces like some of the Nocturnes. The affair
+with George Sand was not only a passion, but was a
+tragedy, and like all such tragedies it left on his music
+the imprint of something deeper and greater than mere
+delicacy and morbidity. Then, too, we have to count
+with his patriotism and his sympathy with his struggling
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121' name='page_121'></a>121</span>
+country, and there is much more of the virile
+and heroic in his music than either the average virtuoso
+or the average listener allows for.</p>
+<h4>The Études.</h4>
+<p>These contrasts in his music can readily be recognized
+when a great pianist makes up the Chopin group
+on his program from the Études, which are among
+the greatest compositions of all times, whether we consider
+them as pianoforte music or as music in general.
+They touch the soul in many places, and in many and
+varied ways, and they reflect the alternate delicacy and
+daintiness of his genius as well as its vigor and nobility.
+Suppose, for the sake of a brilliant beginning, the
+virtuoso chooses to start off with the fifth, the so-called
+&ldquo;Étude on Black Keys,&rdquo; and flashes it in our
+eyes, making the pianoforte play the part of a mirror
+held in the sunlight. This gives us one side of Chopin&rsquo;s
+music, its brilliancy; and it is noticeable that while
+the tempo of the piece is given as <i>vivace</i>, the style in
+which it is to be played is indicated by the direction
+<i>brillante</i>.</p>
+<p>If the pianist continues with the third Étude, we
+shall hear one of the most tender and beautiful melodies
+that Chopin ever composed. Let him follow this with
+number thirteen, the one in A flat major, and we are
+reminded of what Schumann said, in his review of
+this book of Études, in which he speaks of the A flat
+major as &ldquo;an &aelig;olian harp, possessed of all the musical
+scales, the hand of the artist causing them all to intermingle
+in many varieties of fantastic embellishment,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122' name='page_122'></a>122</span>
+yet in such a way as to leave everywhere audible a deep
+fundamental tone and a soft continuously singing
+upper voice.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Schumann heard Chopin himself play this Étude, and
+he says that whoever will play it in the way described
+will get the correct idea of Chopin&rsquo;s performance. &ldquo;But
+it would be an error to think that Chopin permitted
+every one of the small notes to be distinctly heard. It
+was rather an undulation of the A flat major chord
+here and there thrown aloft anew by the pedal.
+Throughout all the harmonies one always heard in
+great tones a wondrous melody, while once only in the
+middle of the piece, besides that chief song, a tenor
+voice became prominent in the midst of the chords.
+After the Étude, a feeling came over one as of having
+seen in a dream a beatific picture which, when half
+awake, one would gladly recall.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>Vigor, Passion, and Impetus.</h4>
+<p>If now the pianist wishes to show by contrast Chopin
+in his full vigor, passionate and impetuous, let him
+take the great C Minor Étude, the twelfth, <i>Allegro
+con fuoco</i>. &ldquo;Great in outline, pride, force and velocity,
+it never relaxes its grim grip from the first shrill dissonance
+to the overwhelming chordal close,&rdquo; says
+Huneker, adding that &ldquo;this end rings out like the crack
+of creation.&rdquo; It is supposed to be an expression of the
+alternating wrath and despair with which Chopin received
+the tidings of the taking of Warsaw by the
+Russians in September, 1831, for it was shortly after
+this that the Étude was composed. No wonder, to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123' name='page_123'></a>123</span>
+quote again from Huneker, that &ldquo;all sweeps along in
+tornadic passion.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>A pianist hardly can go amiss in making his selection
+from the twenty-seven Études, for the contrasts
+which he can effect are obvious, and there is among
+these compositions not one which has not its special
+merits. There is the tenth, of which Von Bülow said
+whoever could play it in a really finished manner might
+congratulate himself on having climbed to the highest
+point of the pianist&rsquo;s Parnassus, and that the whole
+repertory of music for the pianoforte does not contain
+a study of perpetual motion so full of genius and fancy
+as this especial one is universally acknowledged to be,
+excepting, possibly, Liszt&rsquo;s &ldquo;Feux Follets.&rdquo; Then there
+is number nineteen in C sharp minor, like a nocturne
+with the melody in the left hand, with the right hand
+answering as a flute would a &rsquo;cello. For contrast take
+number twenty-one, the so-called &ldquo;Butterfly Étude&rdquo;&mdash;a
+wretched misnomer, because a pianist gifted with
+true musical clairvoyance can work up such a gust
+of passion in this Étude that any butterfly would be
+swept away as if by a hurricane. Nor, in order to
+accomplish this, is it necessary to make such a bravura
+piece of the Étude as so many pianists ignorantly do.
+We have, too, the &ldquo;Winter Wind Étude,&rdquo; in A minor,
+Opus 25, number eleven&mdash;the twenty-third in the
+collection as usually published&mdash;planned on a grand
+scale and carried out in a manner equal to the
+plan.</p>
+<p>Von Bülow calls attention to the fact that, with all
+its sonorousness, &ldquo;the greatest fullness of sound imaginable,&rdquo;
+it nowhere trespasses upon the domain of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124' name='page_124'></a>124</span>
+the orchestra, but remains pianoforte music in the strictest
+sense of the word. &ldquo;To Chopin,&rdquo; says Von
+Bülow, in referring to this Étude, &ldquo;is due the honor
+and credit of having set fast the boundary between
+piano and orchestral music which, through other
+composers of the romantic school, especially Robert
+Schumann, has been defaced and blotted out, to
+the prejudice and damage of both species.&rdquo; While
+agreeing with Von Bülow that Chopin was the great
+liberator of the pianoforte, I cannot agree with the
+exception he takes to the music of Robert Schumann.
+If he had referred back to the unpianistic classical
+sonata form, he would have been more accurate.</p>
+<h4>The Préludes.</h4>
+<p>I have gone into some detail regarding these Études
+because I regard them, as a whole, among the greatest
+of Chopin&rsquo;s works. But I once heard Rubinstein play
+the entire set of twenty-four Préludes, and I sometimes
+wonder, as one often does with the compositions of a
+great genius, whether these Préludes, in spite of their
+comparative brevity, should not be ranked as high as
+anything Chopin ever wrote. According to tradition,
+they were composed during the winter of 1838, which
+Chopin spent with George Sand at Majorca in the
+Balearic Islands. But there is authority for saying
+that they received only the finishing touches there, and
+are in fact the gleanings of his portfolios.</p>
+<p>It seems as if in these twenty-four pieces every phase
+of human emotion were brought out. If my memory
+is correct, Rubinstein played them as a solo group at
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125' name='page_125'></a>125</span>
+a Philharmonic concert, or he may have given them
+about the same time at one of his recitals. It was in
+1872; and while after this long lapse of time it is
+impossible to remember every detail of his performance,
+I shall never forget the exquisite tenderness with
+which he played the very brief Prélude in A major,
+the seventh. He simply caressed the keyboard, touched
+it as if his fingers were tipped with velvet; and though
+into the other compositions of the series he put, according
+as their character varied, an immense amount
+of passion, or more subdued emotion, I can still hear
+this seventh Prélude sounding in my memory, note
+for note and bar for bar, as he rendered it&mdash;a prolonged,
+tremulous whisper. Schumann regarded the
+Préludes as most remarkable, saying that &ldquo;in every
+piece we find in his own hand &lsquo;Frédéric Chopin wrote
+it.&rsquo; One recognizes him in his pauses, in his quick-coming
+breath. He is the boldest, the proudest poet-soul
+of his time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Each number in the series is complete in itself, a
+mood picture; but the series as a whole, in its collection
+of moods, its panorama of emotions, represents
+the entire range of Chopin&rsquo;s art. The fourth in E
+minor, covering only a page, is one of the most pathetic
+plaints ever penned. The fifteenth in D flat major, with
+its continual reiteration of the dominant, like the incessant
+drip of rain on a roof, is a nocturne&mdash;Chopin
+in one of his morbid moments; while the eighteenth
+in F minor is as bold a piece of dramatic recitative as
+though it had been lifted bodily out of a music-drama.
+And so we might run the whole range of the collection,
+finding each admirable in itself, yet different from
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126' name='page_126'></a>126</span>
+all the others. What a group for a recital these
+twenty-four Préludes make!</p>
+<h4>Nocturnes.</h4>
+<p>If Chopin had not written the Nocturnes I doubt if
+those who play and those who comment on him would
+err so often in attributing such an excess of morbidness
+to him as they do, or lay the charge of effeminacy
+against him. Morbid these Nocturnes undoubtedly
+are in many parts, and yet they often rise to the
+dignity of elegy, and sometimes even of tragedy. Exquisitely
+melodious they are, too, and full of the
+haunting mystery of night. The one in C sharp minor,
+Opus 27, No. 1, is perhaps the most dramatic of the
+series, and Henry T. Finck, in his Chopin essay, is
+entirely within bounds when he says that it embodies
+a greater variety of emotion and more genuine dramatic
+spirit on four pages than many operas on four
+hundred. There are greater nocturnes than the one
+in G, Opus 37, No. 2, but I must nevertheless regard
+it as the most beautiful of all. It may bewitch and
+unman the player, as Niecks has said, but, on the
+other hand, I think its second melody, like a Venetian
+barcarolle breathed through the moonlight, is the
+most exquisite thing Chopin ever composed; and note
+how, without any undulating accompaniment, its
+rhythm nevertheless produces a gentle wavy effect.</p>
+<p>Probably the most familiar of all the Nocturnes is
+the one in E flat, the second in the first set, Opus 9.
+It has been played so much that unless it is interpreted
+in a perfect manner it comes perilously near to being
+hackneyed; but under the hands of a great pianist, who
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127' name='page_127'></a>127</span>
+unites with absolute independence of all his ten fingers,
+the soul of a poet, it becomes an iridescent play of
+color, with a sombre picture of melancholy seen through
+the iridescence. Remenyi played a violin arrangement
+of it with such delicacy and so much poetry of
+feeling that he actually reconciled one to its transfer
+from the pianoforte to the soprano instrument of four
+strings.</p>
+<h4>Chopin and Poe.</h4>
+<p>John Field, an Irish composer (1782-1837), was
+the first to compose nocturnes, and it is not unlikely
+that Chopin got the pattern from him. Occasionally
+at historical recitals one hears a nocturne by John
+Field; but I think that if even those who love to question
+the originality of great men were familiar with
+the nocturnes of Field, they would realize how far
+Chopin went beyond him, making out of a small type
+an art form of such poetic content that, in spite of
+Field having been first in the lists, Chopin may be
+said to have originated the form. Naturally, Field did
+not relish seeing himself supplanted by this greater
+genius, and he said of Chopin that he composed music
+for a sick-room, and had &ldquo;a talent of the hospital.&rdquo;
+On recital programs Chopin&rsquo;s nocturnes often appear,
+and, when played by a master like Paderewski, who
+is sensitive to every shade of Chopin&rsquo;s genius, they
+are heard with an exquisite feeling of sorrow. In
+these Nocturnes, Chopin always seems to me like Edgar
+Allan Poe in &ldquo;Ullalume&rdquo; or in &ldquo;Annabel Lee&rdquo;&mdash;and
+was not Poe one of the only two American poets of
+real genius?</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128' name='page_128'></a>128</span></div>
+<h4>Waltzes and Mazurkas.</h4>
+<p>A Chopin waltz will admirably afford contrast in a
+group of Chopin pieces on a recital program. Possibly
+the waltzes are the most frequently played by
+amateurs of all Chopin&rsquo;s compositions. But, to perpetrate
+an Irish bull, even those that have been played
+to death still are very much alive. It was Schumann
+who said that if these waltzes were to be played for
+dancing more than half the dancers should be Countesses,
+the music is so aristocratic. Indeed, to listen
+to these waltzes is like looking at a dance through a
+fairy lens. They seem to be improvisations of the
+pianist during a dance, and to reflect the thoughts that
+arise in the player&rsquo;s mind as he looks on, giving out
+the rhythm with the left hand, while the melody and
+the ornamental note-groups indicate his fancies&mdash;love,
+a jealous plaint, joy, ecstasy, and the tender whispering
+of enamored couples as they glide past. The
+slow A minor &ldquo;Waltz,&rdquo; with its viola-like left-hand
+melody, was Chopin&rsquo;s favorite, and he was so pleased
+when Stephen Heller told him that it was his favorite
+one, too, that he invited him to luncheon. (Strange
+that we always should regard food as the most appropriate
+reward of artistic sympathy!) Each waltz, with
+the exception of some of the posthumous ones, has its
+individual charm, but to me the most beautiful is the
+one in C sharp minor, with its infinite expression of
+longing in its leading theme and its remarkable chromatic
+descent before the brilliant right-hand passage
+that follows in the second episode. These chromatics
+should be emphasized, as they are a feature of the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129' name='page_129'></a>129</span>
+passage and form gems of harmonization. But few
+pianists seem to appreciate their significance and pay
+sole attention to bringing out the upper voice.</p>
+<p>Thoroughly characteristic of Chopin, thoroughly in
+keeping with his Polish nationality and its traditions,
+are the Mazurkas&mdash;jewels of music, full of the finest
+feeling, the most delicate harmonization, and with a
+dash and spirit entirely their own. Weitzmann truly
+says that they are the most faithful and animated pictures
+of his nation which Chopin has left us, and that
+they are masterpieces of their class: &ldquo;Here he stands
+forth in his full originality as the head of the romantic
+school of music; in them his novel and alluring melodic
+and harmonic progressions are even more surprising
+than in his larger compositions.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>Liszt on the Mazurkas.</h4>
+<p>Liszt, too, pauses to pay his tribute to them: &ldquo;Some
+portray foolhardy gaiety in the sultry and oppressive
+air of a ball, and on the eve of a battle; one hears the
+low sighs of parting, whose sobs are stifled by sharp
+rhythms of the dance. Others portray the grief of the
+sorely anxious soul amid festivities, whose tumult is
+unable to drown the profound woe of the heart. Others,
+again, show the tears, premonitions and struggles of
+a broken heart, devoured by jealousy, sorrowing over
+its loss, but repressing the curse. Now we are surrounded
+by a swirling frenzy, pierced by an ever-recurring
+palpitating melody like the anxious beating of
+a loving but rejected heart; and anon distant trumpet
+calls resound like dim memories of bygone fame.&rdquo;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130' name='page_130'></a>130</span>
+All this is very fine, although a trifle over-sentimental.
+The fact is that the Chopin Mazurkas are archly coquettish,
+passionately pleading, full of delicate banter,
+love, despair and conquest&mdash;and always thoroughly
+original and thoroughly interesting. In fact Chopin
+never is commonplace. A Mazurka or two will add
+zest to any group of his works on a recital program.</p>
+<p>The Polonaises are Chopin&rsquo;s battle-hymns. The
+roll of drums, the booming of cannon, the rattle of
+musketry and the plaint for the dead&mdash;all these things
+one may hear in some of these compositions. The
+mourning notes, however, are missing from the &ldquo;A
+Major Polonaise,&rdquo; Opus 40, and usually called &ldquo;Le
+Militaire.&rdquo; It is not a large canvas, but it is heroic
+and one of the most virile of all his works. It was of
+this polonaise Chopin said that if he could play it as
+it should be played, he would break all the strings of
+the pianoforte before he had finished.</p>
+<h4>Other Works.</h4>
+<p>And then the Ballades and the Scherzos. These are
+perhaps Chopin&rsquo;s greatest contributions to the music
+of the pianoforte. They are wonderfully original,
+wonderfully emotional, yet never to the point of morbidness,
+full of his original harmonies, fascinating
+rhythms and glow. In the Scherzos he is not gaily
+abandoned, as the title would suggest, but often grim
+and mocking&mdash;tragedy mocking itself.</p>
+<p>Chopin also wrote Sonatas&mdash;felt himself obliged to,
+perhaps, because he was writing for the pianoforte, because
+pianoforte music still was in the grip of the thirty-two
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131' name='page_131'></a>131</span>
+Beethoven pianoforte sonatas. By no means did
+he adhere to the classical form; yet these three sonatas
+are not to be counted among his most successful compositions.
+One of them, the B flat minor, contains the
+familiar funeral march which has been said to &ldquo;give
+forth the pain and grief of an entire nation&rdquo;&mdash;Chopin&rsquo;s
+nation, sorrowing Poland; and, indeed, the middle episode,
+the trio of the march, is pathetic to the verge of
+tears, while in the other portions the march progresses
+to the grave amid the tolling of bells and the heavy
+tramp of soldiery. It is played and played, possibly
+played too much; and yet, when well played, never
+misses leaving a deep impression. Because people will
+persist in &ldquo;playing&rdquo; certain popular pieces, there is no
+reason these should not be enjoyed when interpreted
+by a master. There is a vast difference between interpretation
+and mere &ldquo;playing.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This funeral march is followed in the sonata by
+a finale which aptly enough has been described as
+night winds sweeping over graves. The funeral march
+often is played at recitals as a detached piece. I cannot
+see why pianists do not add this finale, which has real
+psychological connection with it. The &ldquo;Berceuse,&rdquo; a
+&ldquo;Barcarolle,&rdquo; two &ldquo;Concertos for Piano and Orchestra,&rdquo;
+which often are slightingly spoken of, and most
+unjustly, since they are full of beautiful melody and
+most grateful to play&mdash;beyond these it does not seem
+necessary to go here, unless, perhaps, to mention the
+Impromptus, which are full of the most delightful
+<i>chiaroscuro</i>, and the great F minor &ldquo;Fantaisie.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132' name='page_132'></a>132</span></div>
+<h4>A Noble from Head to Foot.</h4>
+<p>Because Chopin wrote only for the pianoforte, because
+as a rule his pieces are not long, his greatness
+was not at first recognized. The conservatives seemed
+to think no man could be great unless he wrote sonatas
+in four movements for the piano and symphonies for the
+orchestra, unless he composed for fifty or sixty instruments
+instead of for only one. But although Jumbo
+was large, he was not accounted beautiful, and worship
+of the big is a mistaken kind of reverence. Chopin&rsquo;s
+briefest mazurka is worth infinitely more than many
+sonatas that cover many pages. This composer was
+a tone poet of the highest order. While to-day we
+regard him mainly as the interpreter of beauty, in his
+own day he was an innovator, a reformer and, like his
+own Poles, a revolutionist. The pianoforte&mdash;the pianoforte
+as a solo instrument&mdash;sufficed for his most beautiful
+dreams, for his most passionate longings. Bie,
+in his &ldquo;History of the Pianoforte and Pianoforte Players,&rdquo;
+tells us that Chopin smiled when he heard that
+Czerny had composed another overture for eight pianos
+and sixteen persons, and was very happy over it.
+&ldquo;Chopin,&rdquo; adds Bie, &ldquo;opened to the two hands a wider
+world than Czerny could give to thirty-two.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Rubinstein, as quoted by Huneker, apostrophizes him
+as &ldquo;the piano bard, the piano rhapsodist, the piano
+mind, the piano soul.... Tragic, romantic,
+virile, heroic, dramatic, fantastic, soulful, sweet,
+dreamy, brilliant, grand, simple&mdash;all possible expressions
+are found in his compositions and all are
+sung by him upon his instrument.&rdquo; Huneker himself
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133' name='page_133'></a>133</span>
+says: &ldquo;In Chopin&rsquo;s music there are many pianists,
+many styles, and all are correct if they are poetically
+musical, logical and individually sincere.&rdquo; Best of all,
+he enlarged the scope for individual expression in
+music. Once for all, he got pianoforte music away
+from the set form of the classical sonata. &ldquo;He was
+sincere, and his survival when nearly all of Mendelssohn,
+much of Schumann, and half of Berlioz have
+suffered an eclipse, is proof positive of his vitality.&rdquo;&mdash;Thus
+again Huneker. Bie says, in summing up his
+position, that his greatness is his aristocracy; that &ldquo;he
+stands among musicians, in his faultless vesture, a
+noble from head to foot.&rdquo; But, above all, he is a searcher
+of the human soul, and, because he searched it out on
+the pianoforte, is he therefore less great than if he had
+drawn it out on the strings, piped it on the reeds, blown
+it through the tubes and battered it on the drumheads
+of the orchestra?</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134' name='page_134'></a>134</span>
+<a name='VI_SCHUMANN_THE_INTIMATE' id='VI_SCHUMANN_THE_INTIMATE'></a>
+<h2>VI</h2>
+<h3>SCHUMANN, THE &ldquo;INTIMATE&rdquo;</h3>
+</div>
+<p>Having finished with his Chopin group, the
+pianist is apt to follow it with his Schumann
+selections, and we meet with another original
+musical genius. Robert Schumann was born at
+Zwickau in June, 1810. His father was a book publisher
+and was in hopes that the son would show literary
+aptitude. In fact, the elder Schumann discouraged
+Robert&rsquo;s musical aspirations; and as a result, instead
+of receiving early in life a systematic musical
+training, his education was along other lines. He
+studied law at Leipzig in 1828 and in Heidelberg in
+1829, and was thus what is rare among musicians&mdash;a
+composer with an academic education.</p>
+<p>His meeting with the celebrated pianoforte teacher,
+Frederick Wieck, the Leschetitzki of his day, determined
+Schumann to enter upon a musical career. Wieck took
+him into his home in Leipzig and he studied the pianoforte
+with a view of becoming a virtuoso. In order
+to gain greater freedom in fingering, he devised a
+mechanical apparatus by which one finger was suspended
+in a sling while the others played upon the keyboard.
+Unfortunately, through the use of this contrivance
+he strained the tendons of one hand and his
+dream of a virtuoso&rsquo;s career vanished. Meanwhile he
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135' name='page_135'></a>135</span>
+had fallen in love with his teacher&rsquo;s daughter, Clara
+Wieck, and finally, after determined opposition on the
+part of her father, married her in 1840. Later in life
+a brain trouble from which he had suffered intermittently
+became more severe, and in February, 1854, he
+became possessed of the idea that Schubert&rsquo;s spirit had
+appeared to him and given him a theme to work out.
+He abruptly left the room in which he was sitting with
+some friends in his house at Düsseldorf and threw himself
+into the Rhine. Some boatmen rescued him from
+drowning, but he had to be taken to an asylum near
+Bonn, where he died in July, 1856.</p>
+<p>These circumstances in his life are mentioned here
+not only because of their interest, but because they
+explain some aspects of his music. Schumann was
+of a brooding disposition, intensely introspective. Compared
+with Chopin, his music lacks iridescence and
+shows a want of brilliancy. This will be immediately
+apparent if at a recital a pianist places the Schumann
+pieces after a Chopin group, as he is apt to do for the
+sake of the very contrast which they afford. But if
+Schumann&rsquo;s compositions are wanting in superficially
+attractive brightness, they more than make up for it in
+their profounder characteristics. All through them
+one seems to hear a deep-sounding tone. One might
+say that his works for the keyboard instrument are
+pianoforte music for the viola, and for that reason they
+appear to me so expressive and so appealing. The
+harmonies are wonderfully compact. One feels after
+striking a Schumann chord like stiffening the fingers
+in order to hold it down more firmly, keep a grip on
+it, and let it sound to its last echo.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136' name='page_136'></a>136</span></div>
+<h4>Poet, Bourgeois, and Philosopher.</h4>
+<p>In Schumann&rsquo;s music the sensitive listener will find
+a curious blending of poet, bourgeois, and philosopher.
+He had the higher fancy, the warmth of the poet, a
+bourgeois love of what was intimate and homely, and
+the introspection of the philosopher. Sometimes he is
+so introspective that he appears to me actually to be
+burrowing in harmony like a mole. The melodies are
+interwoven; sometimes the upper voice flutters lightly
+down upon &ldquo;contrapuntal collisions in the bass&rdquo;; frequently
+his rhythms are syncopated; melodies are
+superimposed upon each other; he uses &ldquo;imitations,&rdquo;
+canonic figuration, and often by introducing a single
+note foreign to the scale, suddenly lowers or lifts an
+entire passage. There are interior voices in his music,
+half suppressed, yet making themselves heard now and
+then above the principal melody. He loves &ldquo;anticipations&rdquo;&mdash;advancing
+a single note or a few notes of the
+harmony and then filling in the sustained tone or tones
+with what was at first lacking. These characteristics
+are so marked that it is as easy to recognize Schumann
+as it is to distinguish Chopin in the first few bars of a
+work by either. Each is <i>sui generis</i>, each has his own
+hallmark, and it is a great thing in music, as in other
+arts, to have one&rsquo;s product so personal that there can
+be no mistaking whose it is.</p>
+<p>Schumann made valuable contributions to so-called
+program music. His pieces, besides intrinsic musical
+worth, have a distinct meaning, usually indicated by the
+titles he gives them. And these titles themselves often
+are suggested by the works of authors whom he admired,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137' name='page_137'></a>137</span>
+or hark back to certain fanciful figures like
+harlequins and columbines. His second work for the
+pianoforte, &ldquo;The Papillons,&rdquo; derived its inspiration
+from the poet, Jean Paul, who was at that time an
+object of his intense worship. But whoever expects
+to find butterflies fluttering through these Schumann
+pieces will be mistaken. They are rather symbols of
+thoughts still in the chrysalis state and waiting, like
+butterflies, to cast off the shell and gain air and freedom.
+This symbolism must be borne in mind in listening
+to &ldquo;The Papillons.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Schumann himself said, in a general way, regarding
+his programmatic intentions in this and other works,
+that the titles given to his music should be taken very
+much like the titles of poems, and that, as in the case
+of poems, the music in itself should be beautiful, irrespective
+of title or printed explanation. This is true of
+all program music that has survived. It will be found
+beautiful in itself; but it also is easy to discover that the
+titles and explanations which are calculated to place
+the hearer in certain receptive moods vastly add to his
+enjoyment.</p>
+<h4>&ldquo;Carnaval&rdquo; and &ldquo;Kreisleriana.&rdquo;</h4>
+<p>I am always glad when a pianist elects to place the
+Schumann &ldquo;Carnaval&rdquo; on his program, because it is so
+characteristic of the composer&rsquo;s method of work and of
+his writing short pieces <i>en suite</i>, giving a separate name
+to each of his diversions yet uniting them into one
+composition by means of a comprehensive title. The
+complete title to this work is &ldquo;Carnaval Scènes
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138' name='page_138'></a>138</span>
+Mignonnes sur Quatre Notes pour Piano, Op. 9.&rdquo; The
+four notes are A S C H, and in explanation it should
+be said that in German S (es) is E flat, and H the
+B of our musical scale. Asch was the birthplace of
+Ernestine von Fricken, one of Schumann&rsquo;s early loves.
+Three of the divisions of the &ldquo;Carnaval&rdquo; are entitled
+Florestan, Eusebius, and March of the Davidsbündler.
+Schumann had founded the &ldquo;Neue Zeitschrift für
+Musik,&rdquo; and he contributed to it under the noms-de-plume
+of Florestan, Eusebius and Raro; while his
+associates were denominated the Davidsbündler, it being
+their mission to combat and put to flight the old
+fogies of music, as David had the Philistines. Schumann
+himself is the looker-on at this carnival, a
+thinker wandering through the gay whirl, drawing his
+own conclusions, and noting down in music the varied
+figures as they pass, and his reflections on them. We
+meet Chopin and Paganini, each neatly characterized;
+Chiarina (the Italian diminutive of Clara) and Estrella
+(none other than Ernestine herself); also Harlequin,
+Pantalon, and Columbine. The Davidsbündler
+march in to the strains of the German folk-song,</p>
+<table summary=''><tr><td>
+<p class='cg'>&ldquo;Grandfather wedded my grandmother dear,<br />
+So grandfather then was a bridegroom, I fear,&rdquo;</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+<p>and the whole ends in a merry uproar. He wrote another
+carnival suite, Opus 26, the &ldquo;Faschingschwank
+aus Wien,&rdquo; in which he introduced a suggestion of
+the &ldquo;Marseillaise,&rdquo; which was at that time forbidden
+to be played in Vienna.</p>
+<p>The title of another work which ranks among his
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139' name='page_139'></a>139</span>
+finest productions, the &ldquo;Kreisleriana,&rdquo; also requires explanation.
+This he derived from a book by E. T. A.
+Hoffmann, who sometimes is spoken of as the German
+Poe, although he lacks the exquisite art of the American
+author&mdash;in fact, is a Poe bound up in much heavy
+German philosophy and turgid introspection. The
+<i>Kreisler</i> of Hoffmann&rsquo;s book is an exuberant sentimentalist,
+and is said to have had his prototype in Kapellmeister
+Ludwig Böhner, who, after a brilliant early
+career, had become addicted to drink and was reduced
+to maudlin memories of his former triumphs. In
+Hoffmann&rsquo;s book there is a contrast drawn between
+this pathetic character, whose ideals have become
+shadows which he vainly chases, and the prosaic views
+of life as set forth by another character <i>Kater Murr</i>
+(literally <i>Tomcat Purr</i>). But these &ldquo;Kreisleriana,&rdquo; of
+which Bie says &ldquo;the joys and sorrows expressed in
+these pieces were never put into form with more sovereign
+power,&rdquo; should be entitled &ldquo;Schumanniana,&rdquo; for
+although the title is derived from Hoffmann, the content
+is Schumann.</p>
+<h4>Thoughts of His Clara.</h4>
+<p>Concerning the work as a whole he wrote to Clara
+while in the throes of composition: &ldquo;This music now
+in me, and always such beautiful melodies! Think of
+it, since my last letter to you I have another entire book
+of new things ready. I intend to call them &lsquo;Kreisleriana,&rsquo;
+and in them you and a thought of you play
+the chief rôle, and I shall dedicate them to you. Yes,
+they belong to you as to no one else, and how sweetly
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140' name='page_140'></a>140</span>
+you will smile when you find yourself in them! My music
+seems to me so wonderfully interwoven, in spite of
+all its simplicity, and speaking right from the heart. It
+has that effect upon all for whom I play these things,
+as I now do gladly and often.&rdquo; If Clara and a thought
+of Clara play the chief rôle, what becomes of <i>Kreisler</i>
+and <i>Kater Murr</i>? Surely &ldquo;Kreisleriana&rdquo; are Schumanniana.</p>
+<p>Full of varied characteristics are the &ldquo;Fantasie
+Pieces.&rdquo; Among these is the familiar &ldquo;Warum,&rdquo; which
+one has but to hear to recognize at once that it is no
+ordinary Why, but a question upon the answer to which
+depends the happiness of a lifetime; &ldquo;At Evening&rdquo;
+(<i>Abends</i>), with its sense of perfect peace; the buoyant
+&ldquo;Soaring&rdquo; (<i>Aufschwung</i>); &ldquo;Whims&rdquo; (<i>Grillen</i>);
+&ldquo;Night Scene,&rdquo; an echo of the legend of Hero and
+Leander; the fable, &ldquo;Dream-Whirls&rdquo; (<i>Traumeswirren</i>)
+and the &ldquo;End of the Song,&rdquo; with its mingling of
+humor and sadness. These &ldquo;Fantasie Pieces&rdquo; and the
+aptly named &ldquo;Novelettes&rdquo; seem destined always to retain
+their popularity. And then there are the &ldquo;Scenes
+from Childhood,&rdquo; to which belongs the <a name='TC_2'></a><ins class="trchange" title="Was 'Traümerei'">&ldquo;Träumerei&rdquo;</ins>;
+the &ldquo;Forest Scenes,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Sonatas;&rdquo; the heroic technical
+studies, based on the Paganini &ldquo;Capriccios,&rdquo; and
+the &ldquo;Études Symphoniques,&rdquo; and the &ldquo;Fantasie,&rdquo; above
+the first movement of which he placed these lines from
+Schlegel:</p>
+<table summary=''><tr><td>
+<p class='cg'>&ldquo;Through every tone there passes,<br />
+To him who deigns to list,<br />
+In varied earthly dreaming,<br />
+<span class='indent2'>&nbsp;</span>A tone of gentleness.&rdquo;</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141' name='page_141'></a>141</span></div>
+<p>Clara was the &ldquo;tone,&rdquo; as he told her. It was largely
+through Madame Schumann&rsquo;s public playing of her
+husband&rsquo;s works that they won their way. Even so,
+owing to their lack of brilliancy and their introspection,
+they were long in coming to their own. But the best
+of them, including, of course, the admirable &ldquo;A Minor
+Concerto,&rdquo; long will retain their hold on the modern
+pianist&rsquo;s repertoire. William Mason went to Leipzig
+in 1849. &ldquo;Only a few years before I arrived at Leipzig,&rdquo;
+he says in his &ldquo;Memories,&rdquo; &ldquo;Schumann&rsquo;s genius
+was so little appreciated that when he entered the store
+of Breitkopf &amp; Härtel with a new manuscript under
+his arm, the clerks would nudge one another and laugh.
+One of them told me that they regarded him as a
+crank and a failure because his pieces remained on
+the shelf and were in the way. * * * Shortly
+after my return from Germany (to New York) I went
+to Breusing&rsquo;s, then one of the principal music stores
+in the city,&mdash;the Schirmers are his successors,&mdash;and
+asking for certain compositions by Schumann, I was
+informed that they had his music in stock, but as
+there was no demand for it, it was packed away in a
+bundle, and kept in the basement.&rdquo; What a contrast
+now!</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142' name='page_142'></a>142</span>
+<a name='VII_LISZT_THE_GIANT_AMONG_VIRTUOSOS' id='VII_LISZT_THE_GIANT_AMONG_VIRTUOSOS'></a>
+<h2>VII</h2>
+<h3>LISZT, THE GIANT AMONG VIRTUOSOS</h3>
+</div>
+<p>It is possible, but not likely, that some pianist willing,
+for the moment at least, to sacrifice outward
+success to inward satisfaction, will, after he has
+played the Schumann selections on his program, essay
+one of Brahms&rsquo;s shorter pianoforte compositions.
+These are even more introspective than Schumann&rsquo;s
+works and combine a wealth of learning with great
+depth of musical feeling. It is almost necessary, however,
+that one should know them thoroughly in order
+to appreciate them, and audiences have been so slow
+to welcome them that they appear but infrequently on
+recital programs. Those of my readers, however, who
+are pianists yet still unacquainted with these rare and
+beautiful compositions, will soon find themselves under
+the spell of their intimate personal expression if they
+will get them and start to learn them. The Brahms
+Variations on a theme by Händel make a stupendous
+work, and the rare occasions on which it is played by
+any one capable of mastering it should be regarded as
+&ldquo;events.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Grieg, with his clear, fascinating Norwegian
+clang-tints, which also play through his fascinating
+&ldquo;Concerta&rdquo; in A minor; Dvorak, the Bohemian;
+Tschaikowsky, whose first &ldquo;Concerto&rdquo; in B flat minor
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143' name='page_143'></a>143</span>
+is among the finest modern works of its kind; or some
+of the neo-Russians, are composers who may figure
+on the program of a modern pianoforte recital. But it
+is more likely that the virtuoso will here elect to bring
+his recital to a close with some work by the grandest
+figure in the history of pianoforte playing and one of
+the greatest in the history of composition&mdash;Franz
+Liszt.</p>
+<h4>Kissed by Beethoven.</h4>
+<p>Liszt was born at Raiding, near Odenburg in Hungary,
+in October, 1811, and he died in Bayreuth in
+July, 1886. From early boyhood, when he was a
+pianoforte prodigy, almost until his death, he occupied
+a unique position in the musical world. He was the
+Paganini of the pianoforte, the greatest pianist that
+ever lived, and he was a great composer; and although,
+as a virtuoso, he retired from public performances long
+before he died, his fame as a player and his still greater
+fame as a composer have not diminished and his influence
+still is potent.</p>
+<p>His father was an amateur, and began giving him
+instruction when he was six years old. The boy&rsquo;s talent
+was so pronounced that even without professional instruction
+he was able, when he was nine years old, to
+appear in public and play a difficult concerto by Ries.
+So great was his success that his father arranged for
+other concerts at Pressburg. After the second of these,
+several Hungarian noblemen agreed to provide an annual
+stipend of 600 florins for six years for Franz&rsquo;s
+further musical education. The family then removed
+to Vienna, where, for about a year and a half, the boy
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144' name='page_144'></a>144</span>
+took pianoforte lessons from Czerny and theory with
+Salieri. Beethoven heard of him, and asked to see
+him, and at their meeting, after Franz had played, without
+notes and without the other instruments, Beethoven&rsquo;s
+pianoforte trio, Op. 97 (the large one in B
+flat major), the great master embraced and kissed him.
+In 1823 he was taken to Paris with a view to being
+placed in the Conservatoire. But although he passed
+his examination without difficulty, Cherubini, at that
+time the director of the institution and prejudiced
+against infant phenomena, revived a rule excluding foreigners
+and admission was denied him.</p>
+<p>His success as a pianist, however, was enormous and
+there was the greatest demand in salons and musical
+circles for &ldquo;le petit Litz.&rdquo; (As some writer, whose
+name I cannot recall, has said, &ldquo;the nearest Paris came
+to appreciating Liszt was to call him &lsquo;Litz.&rsquo;&rdquo;) He was
+the friend of Chopin, of other musicians, and of painters
+and literary men, and the doors of the most exclusive
+drawing-rooms of the French capital were open
+to him. Paganini played in Paris in 1831, and his
+wonderful feats of technique inspired Liszt to efforts
+to develop the technique of the pianoforte with as much
+daring as Paganini had shown in developing the
+capacity of the violin. This was the beginning of those
+wonderful feats of virtuosity as well as of the remarkable
+technical demands made in his compositions, both
+of which combined have done so much to make the
+pianoforte what it is, and to bring out its full potentiality
+as regards execution and expression.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145' name='page_145'></a>145</span></div>
+<h4>Episode with Countess D&rsquo;Agoult.</h4>
+<p>For a time Liszt left Paris with the Countess
+d&rsquo;Agoult, who wrote under the nom-de-plume of
+Daniel Stern, and who was the mother of his three
+children, of whom Cosima became the wife, first of
+Von Bülow and then of Wagner. His four years with
+the Countess he passed in Geneva. Twice, however, he
+came forth from this retirement to cross the sword of
+virtuosity with and vanquish his only serious rival in
+pianoforte playing, Sigismund Thalberg, a brilliant
+player and a man, like Liszt himself, of fascinating personality,
+but lacking the Hungarian&rsquo;s intellectual capacity.
+In 1829, he and Countess d&rsquo;Agoult having separated,
+he began his triumphal progress through Europe,
+and for the following ten years the world rang with his
+fame. He then settled down as Court Conductor at
+Weimar, which became the headquarters of the new
+romantic movement in Germany. Hardly a person
+of distinction in music or any of the other arts passed
+through the town without a visit to the Altenburg, to
+pay his respects to Liszt. At Weimar, &ldquo;Lohengrin&rdquo; had
+its first performance; here Berlioz&rsquo;s works found a hearing;
+here everything new in music that also was meritorious
+was made welcome. Liszt&rsquo;s activity at Weimar
+continued until 1859, when he left there on account of
+the hostility displayed to the production of Cornelius&rsquo;s
+opera, &ldquo;The Barber of Bagdad,&rdquo; and its resultant failure.
+He remained away from Weimar for eleven
+years, living for the most part in Rome, until 1870,
+when he was invited to conduct the Beethoven festival
+and re-established cordial relations with the Court.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146' name='page_146'></a>146</span>
+Thereafter he divided his year between Rome, Buda-Pest,
+where he had been made President of the new
+Hungarian Academy of Music, and Weimar.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Liszt, the artist and the man,&rdquo; says Baker, in his
+&ldquo;Biographical Dictionary of Musicians,&rdquo; &ldquo;is one of
+the grand figures in the history of music. Generous,
+kindly and liberal-minded, whole-souled in his devotion
+to art, superbly equipped as an interpreter of classic
+and romantic works alike, a composer of original conceptions
+and daring execution, a conductor of marvellous
+insight, worshipped as teacher and friend by a
+host of disciples, reverenced and admired by his fellow-musicians,
+honored by institutions of learning and
+by potentates as no artist before or since, his influence,
+spread by those whom he personally taught and swayed,
+will probably increase rather than diminish as time goes
+on.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It has been said that Liszt passed through six lives
+in the course of his existence&mdash;only three less than a
+cat. As &ldquo;petit Litz&rdquo; he was the precocious child adored
+of Paris; as a youth, he plunged into the early romanticism
+which united the devotees of various branches
+of art in the French capital: next came the episode
+with the Countess d&rsquo;Agoult; then his triumphal tours
+through Europe; settling at Weimar, he became the
+centre of the modern musical movement in Europe;
+finally, he revolved in a cycle through Rome, Buda-Pest
+and Weimar, followed from place to place by a band
+of devotees.</p>
+<p>Liszt&rsquo;s compositions for the pianoforte may be classified
+as follows: &ldquo;Fantasies Dramatiques&rdquo;; &ldquo;Années de
+Pèlerinage&rdquo;; &ldquo;Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses&rdquo;;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147' name='page_147'></a>147</span>
+the Sonata, Concertos, Études, and miscellaneous
+works; &ldquo;Rhapsodies Hongroises&rdquo;; arrangements and
+transcriptions from Berlioz, Beethoven, Weber, Paganini,
+Schubert and others.</p>
+<h4>The Don Juan Fantasie.</h4>
+<p>Among the &ldquo;Fantasies Dramatiques,&rdquo; which are
+variations on themes from operas, not mere potpourris
+or transcriptions, but genuine fantasies, and usually
+based on one or two themes only, the best known is
+the &ldquo;Don Juan Fantasie.&rdquo; It is founded upon the duet,
+&ldquo;La ci darem la mano.&rdquo; Liszt utilizes a passage from
+the overture as an introduction, then gives the entire
+duet, varying it, however, not in set form, but with the
+effect of a brilliant fantasia, and then winds up the
+whole with a presto on the &ldquo;Champagne Song.&rdquo; It
+is true it no longer is Mozart&mdash;but Mozart might be
+glad if it were. It is even possible that the time will
+come when &ldquo;Don Giovanni&rdquo; will have vanished from
+the operatic stage, yet be remembered by this brilliant
+fantasia of Liszt&rsquo;s. It is one of the great <i>tours de
+force</i> of pianoforte music, and it is good music as well.
+Another of the better known &ldquo;Fantasies Dramatiques&rdquo;
+is the one Liszt made from &ldquo;Norma,&rdquo; in which occurs
+a long sustained trill and a melody for the right hand,
+while the left plays another melody and the accompaniment
+to the whole. In other words, there is in this
+passage a trill sustained throughout, two melodies and
+the accompaniment, all going on at the same time, yet
+written with such perfect knowledge of pianoforte technique
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148' name='page_148'></a>148</span>
+that any virtuoso worthy of the name as used in
+a modern sense, can compass it.</p>
+<p>A work called the &ldquo;Hexameron&rdquo; is included in catalogues
+of Liszt&rsquo;s compositions, although he only contributed
+part of it. It is the march from Bellini&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Puritani&rdquo; with six variations, written by six pianists
+and originally played by them on six pianofortes, five
+of them full grands, while Chopin, whose variation
+was not of the bravura, kind, sat at a two-stringed semi-grand.
+Liszt contributed the introduction, the connecting
+links and the finale of the &ldquo;Hexameron.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The &ldquo;Années de Pèlerinage&rdquo; were published in three
+divisions, extending in point of time from 1835 to
+1883. They are a series of musical impressions, as the
+titles indicate&mdash;&ldquo;Au lac de Wallenstadt, Pastoral,&rdquo; &ldquo;Au
+bord d&rsquo;une source, Sposalizio&rdquo; (after Raphael&rsquo;s picture
+in the Brera), &ldquo;Il Penseroso&rdquo; (after Michael Angelo).
+Many of these are adroit and elegant in the treatment
+of the pianoforte, and at the same time beautiful as
+music. The &ldquo;Harmonies&rdquo; are partly transcriptions of
+his own vocal pieces, partly musical illustrations to
+poems. Among them is the familiar &ldquo;Cantique
+d&rsquo;Amour,&rdquo; and the &ldquo;Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude,&rdquo;
+of which he himself was very fond. William
+Mason says that at the Altenburg a copy of it always
+was lying on the pianoforte, &ldquo;which Liszt had used
+so many times when playing for his guests that it became
+associated with memories of Berlioz, Rubinstein,
+Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, Joachim.&rdquo; When Mr. Mason
+left Weimar he took this copy with him as a
+souvenir, still has it, and treasures it all the more
+for the marks of usage which it bears. The &ldquo;Consolations,&rdquo;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149' name='page_149'></a>149</span>
+which, as Edward Dannreuther says, may be
+taken as corollaries to the &ldquo;Harmonies,&rdquo; are tenderly
+expressive pianoforte pieces.</p>
+<h4>Giant Strides in Virtuosity.</h4>
+<p>The Études bear the dates 1827, 1839 and 1852, and
+as they are in the main progressive editions of the
+same pieces, they represent the history of pianoforte
+technique as it developed under Liszt&rsquo;s own fingers.
+In their earliest shape when issued in 1827, they were
+but little different from the classical Études of Czerny
+and Cramer. In their latest shape they form the extreme
+of virtuosity. Indeed, these three editions are
+three giant strides in the development of pianoforte
+technique. Von Bülow&rsquo;s coupling of the Étude called
+&ldquo;Feux Follets&rdquo; with the A flat study (No. 10) of
+Chopin already has been quoted under that composer.
+He considered it even more difficult. Schumann called
+the collection &ldquo;Sturm und Graus Etuden&rdquo; (Studies of
+Storm and Dread), and expressed the opinion that there
+were only ten or twelve pianists living who could play
+them. In the Étude called &ldquo;Waldesrauschen&rdquo; will be
+found some ingenious double counterpoint. The theme
+is divided into two portions, a descending and ascending
+one, which later on appear together, with first one
+and then the other uppermost. Other titles among the
+Études are &ldquo;Paysage,&rdquo; &ldquo;Mazeppa&rdquo; (a tremendous test
+of endurance), &ldquo;Vision,&rdquo; &ldquo;Chasse-neige,&rdquo; &ldquo;Harmonies
+de Soir&rdquo; and &ldquo;Gnomentanz.&rdquo; Through Liszt&rsquo;s transcriptions
+of some of the Paganini pieces in the form of
+Études, which include the famous &ldquo;Bell Rondo&rdquo; from
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150' name='page_150'></a>150</span>
+one of the Paganini concertos, this piece, for example,
+now is far better known as a pianoforte composition
+than in its original form for violin.</p>
+<h4>Sonata, Concertos and Rhapsodies.</h4>
+<p>The &ldquo;Sonata in B Minor&rdquo; dedicated to Schumann is
+one of the few sonatas in which there is psychological
+unity throughout. This is due to the fact that it is
+one movement; although by employing various themes
+both in rapid and in slow time, Liszt has given it a certain
+aspect of division into movements. It might well
+serve as a model to younger composers who think they
+have to write sonatas. Dannreuther, it is true, says
+of it that it is &ldquo;a curious compound of true genius and
+empty rhetoric,&rdquo; but admits that it contains enough of
+genuine impulse and originality in the themes of the
+opening section, and of suave calm in the melody of
+the section that stands for the slow movement, to secure
+the hearer&rsquo;s attention. Mr. Hanchett&rsquo;s characterization
+of it as one of the most masterly compositions
+ever put into this form&mdash;a gigantic, wholly admirable
+and original work&mdash;is more just.</p>
+<p>The two pianoforte concertos (in E flat and A
+major) are superb works. Not only are they written
+with all the skill which Liszt knew so well how to
+apply when composing for the instrument, but with this
+technical perfection they also unite thought and feeling.
+Like the sonata, they show throughout their development
+the psychological unity which is so essentially
+modern. What the pianoforte owes to Chopin
+and Liszt can be summed up by saying that they were
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151' name='page_151'></a>151</span>
+poets and thinkers who took the trouble to thoroughly
+understand the instrument. Because their music sounds
+so well on it, at least one of them, Liszt, frequently is
+stigmatized as a trickster of virtuosity and a charlatan,
+as if there were some wonderful mark of genius in
+writing something for one instrument that sounds better
+on another or may not sound as well as it ought
+to on any. If Liszt&rsquo;s pianoforte music is grateful to
+the player and equally grateful to the listener, it is
+not only because he knew how to write for the pianoforte,
+but because, with deep thoughts and poetic feelings,
+he also understood how to express them clearly
+and pianistically.</p>
+<p>The &ldquo;Rhapsodies Hongroises&rdquo; are of such dazzling
+brilliancy and show off a pianist&rsquo;s technique to such
+good purpose and so brilliantly, that their real musical
+worth has been under-estimated. They are full of
+splendid fire, vitality and passion, and their rhythmic
+throb is simply irresistible. Like the Études, their
+history is curious. At first they were merely short
+transcriptions of Hungarian tunes. These were elaborated
+and republished and canceled, and then rewritten
+and published again. In all there are fifteen pieces in
+the set, ending with the &ldquo;Rakoczy March.&rdquo; As &ldquo;Ungarische
+Melodien&rdquo; they began to appear in 1838; as
+&ldquo;Melodies Hongroises&rdquo; in 1846; as &ldquo;Rhapsodies Hongroises&rdquo;
+in 1854. Consider that they are over fifty
+years old, yet remain the greatest pieces for the display
+of brilliant technique and the most grateful works for
+which a pianist can ask, and that at the same time
+they are full of admirable musical content! Because
+they happen to be brilliant and effective they are called
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152' name='page_152'></a>152</span>
+trashy, whereas they owe their brilliancy and effectiveness
+to Liszt&rsquo;s own transcendent virtuosity, to his
+knowledge of the pianoforte. In order to be great
+must music be &ldquo;classic,&rdquo; heavy and dull, and badly written
+for the instrument on which it is to be played?</p>
+<h4>How Liszt Played.</h4>
+<p>In those charming reminiscences from which I already
+have had occasion to quote several times, William
+Mason&rsquo;s &ldquo;Memories of a Musical Life,&rdquo; Mr. Mason
+says that time and again at Weimar he heard Liszt
+play, and that there is absolutely no doubt in his mind
+that Liszt was the greatest pianist of the nineteenth
+century, what the Germans call an <i>Erscheinung</i>, an
+epoch-making genius. Tausig said of him: &ldquo;Liszt
+dwells alone upon a solitary mountain-top and none of
+us can approach him.&rdquo; Rubinstein said to Mr. William
+Steinway, in the year 1873 (I quote from Mason):
+&ldquo;Put all the rest of us together and we would not make
+one Liszt.&rdquo; While Mr. Mason willingly acknowledges
+that there have been other great pianists, some of them
+now living, he adds: &ldquo;But I must dissent from those
+writers who affirm that any of these can be placed upon
+a level with Liszt. Those who make this assertion are
+too young to have heard Liszt other than in his declining
+years, and it is unjust to compare the playing
+of one who has long since passed his prime with that
+of one who is still in it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Edward Dannreuther, who heard Liszt play from
+1863 onward, says that there was about his playing an
+air of improvisation and the expression of a grand and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153' name='page_153'></a>153</span>
+fine personality, perfect self-possession, grace, dignity
+and never-failing fire; that his tone was large and penetrating,
+but not hard, every effect being produced naturally
+and easily. Dannreuther adds that he has heard
+performances, it may be of the same pieces, by younger
+men, such as Rubinstein and Tausig, but that they left
+an impression as of Liszt at second-hand or of Liszt
+past his prime. &ldquo;None of his contemporaries or pupils
+were so spontaneous, individual and convincing in their
+playing; and none except Tausig so infallible with their
+fingers and wrists.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Liszt himself paid this superb tribute to the pianoforte
+as an instrument: &ldquo;To me my pianoforte is what
+to the seaman is his boat, to the Arab his horse; nay,
+more, it has been till now my eye, my speech, my life.
+Its strings have vibrated under my passions and its
+yielding keys have obeyed my every caprice. It may
+be that the secret tie which binds me to it so closely
+is a delusion, but I hold the pianoforte very high. In
+my view, it takes the first place in the hierarchy of
+instruments. It is the oftenest used and the widest
+spread. In the circumference of its seven octaves it
+embraces the whole range of an orchestra, and a man&rsquo;s
+ten fingers are enough to render the harmonies which
+in an orchestra are brought out only by the combination
+of hundreds of musicians. The pianoforte has on
+the one side the capacity of assimilation, the capacity
+of taking unto itself the life of all instruments; on
+the other hand it has its own life, its own growth, its
+own individual development. My highest ambition is
+to leave to the piano players to come after me, some
+useful instructions, the footprints of advanced attainment,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154' name='page_154'></a>154</span>
+something which may some day provide a worthy
+witness of the labor and study of my youth.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Bear in mind that Liszt played for Beethoven, that
+he was a contemporary of Chopin and Schumann, that
+he was one of the first to throw himself heart and soul
+into the Wagner movement, and that death came to
+him while he was attending the festival performances
+at Bayreuth; bear in mind, I repeat, that he played for
+Beethoven and died at &ldquo;Parsifal&rdquo;; strive to appreciate
+the extremes of musical history and development implied
+by this; then remember that he remains a potent
+force in music&mdash;and you may be able to form some idea
+of his greatness.</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155' name='page_155'></a>155</span>
+<a name='VIII_WITH_PADEREWSKIA_MODERN_PIANIST_ON_TOUR' id='VIII_WITH_PADEREWSKIA_MODERN_PIANIST_ON_TOUR'></a>
+<h2>VIII</h2>
+<h3>WITH PADEREWSKI&mdash;A MODERN PIANIST ON TOUR</h3>
+</div>
+<p>Liszt never was in this country, but we can gain
+some idea of the success that would have been
+his from the triumphs of Ignace Paderewski.
+Other famous pianists have come to this country&mdash;Thalberg
+in 1856; Rubinstein in 1872; Von Bülow,
+Joseffy, who took up his residence here; Rosenthal,
+Josef Hofmann. But Paderewski&rsquo;s success has been
+greater than any of these. Americans are said to be
+fickle; but although Paderewski no longer is a novelty,
+his name still is the one with which to fill a concert
+hall from floor to roof.</p>
+<p>Why this is so is no secret. Hear him and you will
+understand the reason. To a technique which does not
+hesitate at anything and an industry that flinches at
+nothing&mdash;no one practices more assiduously than he&mdash;he
+adds the soul of a poet and the strength of an athlete.
+He looks slender and poetical enough as he sits
+at the piano on the concert stage; but if you watch
+him from near by you will be able to note the great
+physical power which he can bring into play when necessary&mdash;<em>and
+which he never brings into play unless it
+is necessary</em>. Therefore he combines poetry with force;
+and back of both is thought&mdash;intellectual capacity.</p>
+<p>In a frame on the wall of a New York trust company
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156' name='page_156'></a>156</span>
+is a check for $171,981.89. It represents the net receipts
+of one virtuoso for one concert tour, and is believed
+to be the largest actual amount ever earned in
+this country by an artist, whether singer or player, in
+a single season. This check is drawn to the order of
+Ignace J. Paderewski.</p>
+<p>An opinion regarding the piano by a man who by
+playing it can earn so large a sum, and earn it because
+he is the greatest living exponent of pianoforte playing,
+would seem worth having. Paderewski believes
+that, save in one respect, the pianoforte has reached
+perfection and is incapable of further improvement. He
+does not think that anything more should be done
+to add to its volume of tone. If anything, he considers
+this too great and the instrument too loud already. Instead
+of more power, rather less would be satisfactory.
+Wherein, however, he considers the instrument still
+lacking, notwithstanding its wonderful development
+during the last century, is in its capacity for sustained
+tone&mdash;for holding a long-drawn-out tone with the facility
+of the violin, for example. He is convinced, however,
+that the means of imparting this capacity for sustaining
+tone to the pianoforte will be discovered in due
+time and that the invention probably will be made in
+this country. That increased tone-sustaining power
+for the instrument is a great desideratum doubtless is
+the opinion of many experts; but that the greatest master
+of the pianoforte considers it perfect in other respects
+is highly interesting and significant. After all,
+it remains the greatest of all solo instruments, because,
+within the smallest compass and with the simplest
+means of control, it has the range of an orchestra. For
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157' name='page_157'></a>157</span>
+this reason it is the most popular of instruments and,
+in its manufacture, extends from the polished dry-goods
+box with internal organs of iron, wire and felt
+and with a glistening row of celluloid teeth ready to
+bite as soon as ever the lid is raised, to the highest-class
+concert grand.</p>
+<h4>The &ldquo;Piano Doctor.&rdquo;</h4>
+<p>We who have our pianofortes in our own homes and
+are content with an occasional visit from the tuner, little
+dream of the care bestowed upon the instrument on
+which an artist like Paderewski plays. Instrument? I
+should have said instruments; for, when he is on tour,
+he has a whole suite of them, no less than four, and
+each is coddled as if it were a prima donna fresh from
+the hands of Madame Marchesi, instead of a thing of
+wood, metal and ivory. True, these pianos do not
+have their throats sprayed on the slightest possible occasion,
+but they are carefully protected against extremes
+of heat and cold, and, while the prima donna consults
+her physician only at intervals, a &ldquo;piano doctor&rdquo; is in
+constant attendance on these instruments.</p>
+<p>Paderewski&rsquo;s &ldquo;piano doctor&rdquo; has traveled with him
+for several seasons, occupying the same private car and
+practically living with him during the entire tour.
+He was with him on the tour, in fact at his table at
+breakfast with him, when his special train was run
+on to an open siding near East Syracuse and left the
+track, Paderewski being thrown forward on his hands
+against the table and straining the muscles of one arm
+so severely that he was obliged to cancel his remaining
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158' name='page_158'></a>158</span>
+engagements. Up to that time, however, his net
+receipts from seventy-four concerts had been
+$137,012.50, while before this American tour began
+he gave thirty-six concerts in Australia with average
+receipts of $5,000. His record concert was at Dallas,
+Texas, some years ago, when the receipts were $9,000.
+It occurred during a Confederate reunion. While he
+was at the pianoforte, the various posts marched up to
+the hall with bands and fife-and-drum corps playing.
+Paderewski, however, kept right on through the blasts
+and shrilling. But when one of the posts let out the
+famous &ldquo;rebel yell,&rdquo; the pianist leaped from his seat
+as if he expected a tiger to spring at his throat. Then
+he realized what had happened, smiled and continued
+amid laughter and applause. He had heard of the
+famous &ldquo;rebel yell,&rdquo; but this was the first time he had
+heard it.</p>
+<h4>Pianofortes on Their Travels.</h4>
+<p>But to return to the pianofortes on tour. When
+Paderewski came to this country from Australia, his
+piano doctor met him at San Francisco with four instruments
+which had been selected with great care in
+New York and been shipped West in charge of the
+&ldquo;doctor.&rdquo; One of these the virtuoso reserved for his
+private car, for he practices en route whenever there is
+a stop long enough to make it worth while. He rarely
+plays when the car is in motion. Of the other three
+instruments, the two he liked best were sent to his
+hotel, where during four days preceding his first concert,
+he practiced from seven to eight hours a day,
+notifying the &ldquo;doctor&rdquo; twenty-four hours in advance
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159' name='page_159'></a>159</span>
+which pianoforte he would use. This instrument became,
+officially, No. 1; the others No. 2 and No. 3.</p>
+<p>The pianist&rsquo;s route took him from San Francisco to
+Oakland, San José, and Portland, Oregon. To make
+certain that he always will have a fine instrument to
+play on, a method of shipping ahead the instruments
+not in use is adopted. Thus, while he was playing on
+No. 1 in San Francisco and Oakland, No. 2 was sent
+on to San José and No. 3 to Portland. Of course,
+none but an expert could detect the slightest difference
+in these pianofortes, but a player like Paderewski is
+sensitive to the most delicately balanced distinctions or
+nuances in tone and action. One of his idiosyncrasies
+is that always before going on he asks the &ldquo;doctor&rdquo;
+which of the three instruments is on the stage, because,
+as he himself expresses it, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to meet a
+stranger.&rdquo; After each concert, at supper, this conversation
+invariably takes place:</p>
+<p>Paderewski: &ldquo;Well, &lsquo;Doctor,&rsquo; it sounded all right
+to-night, didn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Doctor&rdquo;: &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Paderewski: &ldquo;Well, then, please pass me the bread.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There never has been occasion to record what would
+happen if the &ldquo;doctor&rdquo; were to say, &ldquo;No, sir.&rdquo; For
+he always has been able to answer in the affirmative,
+with the most scrupulous regard for veracity.</p>
+<p>Paderewski is as careful to play his best in the least
+important place in which he gives a concert as he is in
+New York. This high sense of duty toward his public
+accounts in part for his supremacy among pianists
+Paderewski is not a mere virtuoso. He is a man of fine
+intellectual gifts who plays the piano like a poet. Paul
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160' name='page_160'></a>160</span>
+Potter, the playwright, who lives in Geneva, Switzerland,
+and occasionally has dined there with Paderewski,
+tells me that he has conversed with the pianist
+on almost every conceivable subject <em>except music</em>
+and always found him remarkably well informed.
+His knowledge of the history of his native land, Poland,
+and of its literature is said to be quite wonderful.
+Chopin, also a Pole, he idolizes and regards
+as far and away the greatest composer for the piano.
+To the fund for the Chopin memorial at Warsaw he
+contributes by charging one dollar for his autograph,
+and two dollars for his signature and a few bars of
+music. From the money received as the proceeds of
+one season&rsquo;s autographs he was able to remit about
+$1,300 to the fund.</p>
+<p>When the amusing little dialogue at the supper table,
+which I have recorded, takes place, the pianoforte
+which the virtuoso has used at his concert already will
+be on the way to its next destination. For it is part of
+the &ldquo;doctor&rsquo;s&rdquo; duty to see it safely out of the hall and
+onto the train before rejoining the party on the private
+car. The instrument is not boxed. The legs are removed
+and then a carefully fitted canvas is drawn over
+the body and held in place by straps. The body is slid
+out of the hall and slowly let down onto a specially constructed
+eight-wheel skid, swung low, so as to be as
+nearly as possible on a level with the platform. This
+skid is part of the outfit of the tour. The record time
+for detaching the legs of the pianoforte, covering the
+body, removing the instrument from the stage and
+having it on the skid ready to start for the station, is
+seven minutes.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161' name='page_161'></a>161</span></div>
+<h4>&ldquo;Thawing Out&rdquo; a Pianoforte.</h4>
+<p>The instruments never are set up except under the
+&ldquo;doctor&rsquo;s&rdquo; personal supervision. Before each concert
+the pianoforte on which Paderewski is to play is carefully
+gone over and put in perfect condition&mdash;tuned
+and, if necessary, regulated, and this no matter how
+recently he may have used it. Defects so trifling that
+neither an ordinary player nor the public would notice
+them, would jar on the sensitive ear and nerves of the
+virtuoso. Sometimes the instrument has been exposed
+to such a low temperature that frost is found to have
+formed not only on the lid, but even on the iron plate
+inside. In such cases the pianoforte is set up and, after
+the film of frost has been scraped off, is allowed to thaw
+out slowly and naturally before it is touched for tuning
+or regulating.</p>
+<p>There was an amusing incident in the handling of
+one of the Paderewski instruments at Columbus,
+Mississippi, where Paderewski played for seven hundred
+girls at the State College, although it was more
+exciting than diverting at the time it happened. The
+&ldquo;doctor&rdquo; relies on local help for getting the pianoforte
+from the skid to the stage and back again. Usually
+efficient helpers are obtainable, but at Columbus, where
+the college hall is upstairs and reached only by a narrow
+flight of steps, there was no aid to be had save
+from among the negroes lounging on the public square.
+The &ldquo;doctor&rdquo; went among them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are you doing?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nawthin&rsquo;.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Want a job?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162' name='page_162'></a>162</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Naw, too busy,&rdquo; was the usual reply.</p>
+<p>At last, however, a band of twenty &ldquo;colored gentlemen&rdquo;
+was secured in the hope that muscle and quantity
+would make up for lack of quality. But never before
+has a high-grade pianoforte been in such imminent
+peril. It was got upstairs well enough, in spite
+of the fact that the negroes walked all over each other.
+But the descent! The &ldquo;doctor,&rdquo; Emil C. Fischer, stood
+at the top of the stairs directing; J. E. Francke, the
+treasurer of the tour, below. Around the latter fell a
+shower of fragments from the wall, the rail, the posts;
+and at one time it seemed as if the whole banister would
+give way and the pianoforte crash in splinters on the
+floor. There were other moments of suspense, for the
+pianoforte as well as for the two watchers, who drew a
+long breath when the instrument safely was on the
+skid.</p>
+<p>Fortunately such untoward incidents are forgotten
+in the general atmosphere of good-humor which the
+pianist diffuses about him. He enjoys his little joke.
+During the last tour he handed a photograph of himself
+to Mr. Francke inscribed: &ldquo;To the future Governor
+of Hoboken.&rdquo; At the Auditorium hotel, Chicago,
+Millward Adams&rsquo; brother, about leaving on a
+trip, asked for an autograph. Paderewski, quick as a
+flash, wrote:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For the brother of Mr. <i>Adams</i> on the <i>Eve</i> of his departure
+from Chicago.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Paderewski travels on a special train. With him
+usually are his wife, his manager, the treasurer of the
+tour, the piano &ldquo;doctor,&rdquo; a secretary, valet and maid.
+His home is a villa on Lake Geneva, where he has a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163' name='page_163'></a>163</span>
+beautiful garden and vinery, his dogs, his room for
+billiards, a game of which he is very fond, and unlimited
+opportunity for swimming, his favorite exercise.
+Apparently slender and surely most poet-looking
+at the piano, he is a man of iron strength as well as
+of iron will.</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165' name='page_165'></a>165</span>
+<a name='HOW_TO_APPRECIATE_AN_ORCHESTRAL_CONCERT' id='HOW_TO_APPRECIATE_AN_ORCHESTRAL_CONCERT'></a>
+<h2>HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT</h2>
+</div>
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167' name='page_167'></a>167</span>
+<a name='IX_DEVELOPMENT_OF_THE_ORCHESTRA' id='IX_DEVELOPMENT_OF_THE_ORCHESTRA'></a>
+<h2>IX</h2>
+<h3>DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORCHESTRA</h3>
+</div>
+<p>The appreciation and consequent enjoyment of
+an orchestral concert will be greatly enhanced
+if the listener is familiar with certain details
+regarding the orchestra itself and some of the compositions
+he is apt to hear. This I have borne in mind
+in the chapter divisions of this portion of my book, and,
+as a result, I have divided the subject into the general
+development of the orchestra, the specific consideration
+of the principal orchestral instruments, a cursory commentary
+on certain phases of orchestral music and a
+chapter on Richard Strauss who represents its most
+advanced aspects.</p>
+<p>The first music of which we moderns take account
+was unaccompanied (<i>à capella</i>) singing for
+church service. It was composed in the old ecclesiastical
+modes, which are quite different from
+our modern scales, and the name which comes most
+prominently to mind in connection with this beginning
+of our musical history is that of Palestrina. With the
+influence of this old church choral music so dominant,
+there is little wonder that the first efforts to write
+music for instruments were awkward. It may be said
+right here that this awkwardness, or rather this lack
+of knowledge and appreciation of the individual capacity
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168' name='page_168'></a>168</span>
+of various instruments, is shown throughout the
+school of contrapuntal composition, even by Bach.
+When Bach wrote for orchestral instruments he did
+not consider their peculiar tone quality, or their capacity
+for individual expression, but simply their pitch&mdash;which
+instrument could take up this, that or the other
+theme in his contrapuntal score, when he had carried
+it as high or as low as he could on some other instrument.
+This also is true of Händel, although in less
+degree.</p>
+<p>But just as we have seen that Domenico Scarlatti
+worked along original lines for the pianoforte and created
+the germ of the sonata form, while Bach was weaving
+and plaiting the counterpoint of his suites, partitas
+and &ldquo;Well-Tempered Clavichord,&rdquo; so in Italy, during a
+large part of this contrapuntal period, a distinct kind of
+orchestral music was springing up. Again, just as we
+have seen that in Italy the pianoforte shook off the
+trammels of counterpoint when it began to be used as
+an accompaniment for dramatic recitative in opera, so
+the instruments in the orchestra, when composers began
+to use them for operatic accompaniments, were employed
+more with reference to their individual tone
+qualities and power of expression.</p>
+<h4>Primitive Orchestral Efforts.</h4>
+<p>Although, strictly speaking, not the first composer
+to use orchestral instruments in opera, and to display
+skill in utilizing their individual characteristics, the
+most important of these early men was Claudio Monteverde
+(1568-1643). In his &ldquo;Orpheo,&rdquo; which he produced
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169' name='page_169'></a>169</span>
+in 1608, he utilized, besides two harpsichords
+(and it may be of interest to note here that instruments
+of the pianoforte class were long used in orchestras as
+connecting links between all the other instruments),
+two bass viols, two tenor viols, one double harp, two
+little French violins, two large guitars, two wood organs,
+two viola di gambas, one regal, four trombones,
+two cornets, one octave flute, one clarion, and three
+trumpets with mutes&mdash;a fairly formidable array of instruments
+when the period is considered. Of especial
+interest are the &ldquo;two little French violins,&rdquo; which probably
+were the same as our modern violins, now the
+prima donnas of the orchestra and far outnumbering
+any other instrument employed.</p>
+<p>It was Monteverde who in his &ldquo;Tancredi e Clorinda&rdquo;
+made use for the first time of a tremolo for stringed
+instruments, and it is said so to have astonished the
+performers that they at first refused to play it. Before
+Monteverde there were operatic composers like Jacopo
+Peri, and after him Cavalli and Alessandro Scarlatti,
+who did much for their day to develop the orchestra.
+This is a very brief summary of the early development
+of instrumental music, a story that easily could fill a
+volume&mdash;which, probably, however, very few people
+would take the trouble to read.</p>
+<h4>Beethoven and the Modern Orchestra.</h4>
+<p>The first really modern composer for the orchestra
+was Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), who also may be considered
+the father of the symphony. Born before Mozart,
+he also survived that composer. His music is gay and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170' name='page_170'></a>170</span>
+naive; while Mozart, although he had decidedly greater
+genius for the dramatic than Haydn, nevertheless is
+only a trifle more emotional in his symphonies. The
+three greatest of these which he composed during the
+summer of 1788, the E flat major, G minor and
+C major (known as the &ldquo;Jupiter&rdquo;), show a decided
+advance in the knowledge of orchestration, and the
+E flat major is notable because it is the first symphonic
+work in which clarinets were used. Haydn&rsquo;s
+and Mozart&rsquo;s symphonies&mdash;that is, the best of them&mdash;sound
+agreeable even to-day in a concert hall of moderate
+size. But because modern music with its sonorous
+orchestra requires large auditoriums, like Carnegie
+Hall in New York, these charming symphonic works
+of the earlier classical period are swallowed up in
+space and much of their naive and pretty effect is lost.</p>
+<p>Beethoven may be said to have established the modern
+orchestra. Very few instruments have been added
+to it since his time, and if an orchestra to-day sounds
+differently from what it did in his day, if the works
+of modern composers sound richer and more effective
+from a modern point of view than his orchestral compositions,
+it is not because we have added a lot of new
+instruments, but because our composers have acquired
+greater skill in bringing out their peculiar tone qualities
+and because the technique of orchestral players has
+greatly improved.</p>
+<p>It is for precisely the same reasons that Beethoven&rsquo;s
+symphonies show such a great advance upon those of
+his predecessors. The point is not that Beethoven
+added a few more instruments to the orchestra, but
+that, so far as his own purposes were concerned, he
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171' name='page_171'></a>171</span>
+handled all the instruments which he included in his
+band with much greater skill than his predecessors had
+shown. Many writers affect to despise technique.
+But in point of fact the development of technique and
+the development of art go hand in hand. An artist,
+be he writer, painter or musician, cannot adequately
+express his ideas unless he has the means of doing so
+or the genius to create the means.</p>
+<h4>How He Developed Orchestral Resources.</h4>
+<p>In following Beethoven&rsquo;s symphonies from the First
+to the Ninth, we can see the modern orchestra developing
+under his hands from that handed over to him by
+Haydn and Mozart. In the First and Second Symphonies,
+Beethoven employs the usual strings, two
+flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two
+horns, two trumpets and tympani. In the Third Symphony,
+the &ldquo;Eroica,&rdquo; he adds a third horn part; in the
+Fifth a piccolo, trombones and contrabassoon. Although
+employed in the finale only, these instruments
+here make their first bow in the symphonic orchestra.
+In the Ninth Symphony Beethoven introduced two additional
+horns, the first use of four horns in a symphony.
+The scoring of these symphonies is given
+somewhat more in detail in the chapter &ldquo;How the Orchestra
+Grew,&rdquo; in Mr. W. J. Henderson&rsquo;s &ldquo;The Orchestra
+and Orchestral Music,&rdquo; a well conceived and logically
+developed book, in which the full story of the
+orchestra and its growth is clearly and interestingly
+told.</p>
+<p>Beethoven not only understood to a greater degree
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172' name='page_172'></a>172</span>
+than his predecessors the peculiar characteristics of orchestral
+instruments, he also compelled orchestral players
+to acquire a better technique by giving them more
+difficult music to execute. In point of greater difficulty
+in performance, a Beethoven symphony holds
+about the same relation to the symphonies of Mozart
+and Haydn as the Beethoven pianoforte sonatas do to
+the sonatas of those composers.</p>
+<h4>Beethoven and Wagner.</h4>
+<p>Just as Beethoven added only a few instruments to
+the orchestra of his predecessors, but showed greater
+skill in handling those instruments, so the modern
+musician&mdash;a Wagner or a Richard Strauss&mdash;achieves
+his striking instrumental effects by a still greater knowledge
+of instrumental resources. The Beethoven orchestra
+practically is the orchestra of to-day. Few,
+very few, instruments have been added. Modern composers
+steadily have asked for more and more instruments
+in each group; but that is quite a different thing
+from adding new instruments. They have required
+more instruments of the same kind, but have asked for
+very few instruments of new kinds. Let me illustrate
+this by two modern examples.</p>
+<p>Firm, compact and eloquent as is Beethoven&rsquo;s orchestra
+in the Fifth Symphony, it cannot for a moment
+be compared in richness, sonority, tone color, searching
+power of expression and unflagging interest, with
+Wagner&rsquo;s orchestra in &ldquo;Die Meistersinger.&rdquo; Yet Wagner
+has added only one trumpet, a harp and a tuba
+to the very orchestra which Beethoven employed when
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173' name='page_173'></a>173</span>
+he scored for the Fifth Symphony; while for his
+&ldquo;Symphonie <a name='TC_3'></a><ins class="trchange" title="Was 'Pathètique'">Pathétique</ins>,&rdquo; one of the finest of modern
+orchestral works, Tschaikowsky adds only a bass tuba
+to the orchestra used by Beethoven. The simple fact
+is that modern composers have studied every possible
+phase of tone color and expression of which each instrument
+is capable. Furthermore, by skillfully dividing
+the orchestra into groups and using these groups
+like separate orchestras, yet uniting them into one great
+orchestra, they produce wonderfully rich contrapuntal
+effects, and thus make the modern orchestra sound, not
+seventy-five years, but five hundred years more advanced
+than that of Beethoven, however great we
+gladly acknowledge Beethoven to have been.</p>
+<h4>Berlioz, an Orchestral Juggler.</h4>
+<p>Following Beethoven, the next great development in
+the handling of orchestral resources is due to Hector
+Berlioz (1803-1869), and it is curious here how nearly
+one musical epoch overlaps another. Scarlatti was
+composing sonatas, and thus voicing the beginning of
+the classical era, while Bach was bringing the contrapuntal
+period to a close. It was only five years after
+the completion of the Ninth Symphony that Berlioz&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Francs Juges&rdquo; overture was played. A year later his
+&ldquo;Symphonie Fantastique, Episode de la Vie d&rsquo;un Artiste,&rdquo;
+was brought out. Yet the Berlioz orchestra
+sounds so utterly different from the Beethoven orchestra
+that it almost might be a collection of different instruments.
+Even more than Beethoven, Berlioz understood
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174' name='page_174'></a>174</span>
+the individuality, the potential characteristics
+of each instrument.</p>
+<p>Berlioz composed on a colossal scale, so colossal that
+his music has been called architectural. The &ldquo;Dies Irae&rdquo;
+in his &ldquo;Requiem&rdquo; calls for four brass bands, in four different
+corners of the hall, and for fourteen kettledrums
+tuned to different notes, in addition to the regular orchestra,
+chorus and soloists. This has been dubbed
+&ldquo;three-story music&rdquo;&mdash;the orchestra on the ground floor,
+the chorus on the <i>belle étage</i>, while the four extra brass
+bands are stationed <i>aux troisième</i>. Unfortunately for
+Berlioz, his ambition, in so far as it related to the art
+of orchestration and the skill he showed in accomplishing
+what he wanted to with his body of instrumentalists,
+was far in excess of his inspiration. His knowledge
+of the orchestra was sufficient to have afforded
+him every facility for the expression of great
+thoughts if he had them to express. But his
+power of thematic invention, his gift for melody, was
+not equal to his genius for instrumentation. Nevertheless,
+through this genius for instrumentation&mdash;for his
+technique was so extraordinary that it amounted to
+genius&mdash;and through his very striving after bizarre,
+unusual and gigantic effects, he contributed largely toward
+the development of the technical resources of instrumental
+music.</p>
+<h4>Wagner, Greatest of Orchestral Composers.</h4>
+<p>Berlioz wrote a book on instrumentation, which has
+lately been re-edited by Richard Strauss. In it Strauss,
+modestly ignoring himself, says that Wagner&rsquo;s scores
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175' name='page_175'></a>175</span>
+mark the only advance in orchestration worth mentioning
+since Berlioz. It is true, the technical possibilities
+of the orchestra were greatly improved, so far
+as the woodwind was concerned, by the introduction
+of keyed instruments constructed on the system invented
+by Theobald Böhm; while the French instrument
+maker, Adolphe Sax, also made important improvements
+by perfecting the bass clarinet and the bass
+tuba. But whatever aid Wagner derived from these
+improvements merely was incidental to the principle
+which is illustrated by every one of his scores&mdash;that
+technique merely is a means to an end. Wagner is the
+greatest orchestral virtuoso who ever breathed. Never,
+however, does he employ technique for technique&rsquo;s
+sake, but always only to enable his orchestra to convey
+the exact meaning he has in his mind or express the
+emotion he has in his heart, and he spares no pains to
+hit upon the best method of conveying these ideas and
+expressing these emotions. That is one reason why,
+although no one with any knowledge of music could
+mistake a passage by Wagner for any one else&rsquo;s music,
+each of his works has its own peculiar orchestral style.
+For each of his works reproduces through the orchestra
+the &ldquo;atmosphere&rdquo; of its subject. The scores of
+&ldquo;Tannhäuser,&rdquo; &ldquo;Lohengrin,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Ring of the Nibelung,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Tristan,&rdquo; &ldquo;Meistersinger&rdquo; and &ldquo;Parsifal&rdquo; never
+could be mistaken for any one but Wagner&rsquo;s music.
+Yet how different they are from each other! He
+makes each instrument speak its own language.
+When, for example, the English horn speaks through
+Wagner, it speaks English, not broken English,
+and so it is with all the other instruments of the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176' name='page_176'></a>176</span>
+orchestra&mdash;he makes them speak without a foreign
+accent.</p>
+<p>If Wagner employs a large orchestra, it is not for
+the sake of making a noise, but in order to gain variety
+in expression. &ldquo;He is wonderfully reserved in the
+use of his forces,&rdquo; says Richard Strauss. &ldquo;He employs
+them as a great general would his battalions, and does
+not send in an army corps to pick off a skirmisher.&rdquo;
+Strauss regards &ldquo;Lohengrin&rdquo; as a model score for a
+somewhat advanced student, before proceeding to the
+polyphony of &ldquo;Tristan&rdquo; and &ldquo;Meistersinger&rdquo; or &ldquo;the
+fairy region of the &lsquo;Nibelungs.&rsquo;&rdquo; &ldquo;The handling of the
+wind instruments,&rdquo; writes Strauss, &ldquo;reaches a hitherto
+unknown esthetic height. The so-called third woodwinds,
+English horn and bass clarinet, added for the
+first time to the woodwinds, are already employed in
+a variety of tone color; the voices of the second, third
+and fourth horn, trumpets and trombones established
+in an independent polyphony, the doubling of melodic
+voices characteristic of Wagner, carried out with such
+assurance and freedom and knowledge of their characteristic
+timbres, and worked out with an understanding
+of tonal beauty, that to this day evokes unstinted
+admiration. At the close of the second act the organ
+tones that Wagner lures out of the orchestra triumph
+over the queen of instruments itself.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>How Wagner Produces His Effects.</h4>
+<p>The effects produced by Wagner are not due to a
+large orchestra, but to his manner of using the instruments
+in it. Among some of his special effects are
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177' name='page_177'></a>177</span>
+the employment of full harmony with what formerly
+would have been merely single passing notes, and above
+all, the exploitation of every resource of counterpoint
+in combination with the well developed system of harmony
+inherited from Beethoven, but largely added to
+by himself. In fact, Wagner&rsquo;s greatness is due to the
+combination of several great gifts&mdash;his melodic inventiveness,
+his rich harmony and his wonderful technical
+skill in weaving together his themes in a still richer
+counterpoint. This counterpoint is not, however, dry
+and formal, because his themes&mdash;his leading motives&mdash;are
+themselves full of emotional significance and not
+conceived, like those of the old contrapuntists, merely:
+for formal treatment.</p>
+<p>Richard Strauss is such a master of orchestration
+that I am inclined to quote his summary of the development
+of the art of orchestration, from his edition of
+the Berlioz book, which at this writing has not yet
+been translated. I should like to recall to the reader&rsquo;s
+mind, however, the fact that Strauss&rsquo; father was a
+noted French-horn player; that Strauss himself has a
+great love for the instrument; and that when, in summing
+up the causes of Wagner&rsquo;s primacy among orchestral
+writers, he finds one of them in the greater
+technical facility of the valve horn, it is well to take
+this with a grain of salt and attribute it somewhat
+to his own affection for the instrument. The symphonies
+of Haydn and Mozart, according to Strauss,
+are enlarged string quartets with obbligato woodwind,
+brass and tympani, and the occasional use of
+other instruments of noise to strengthen the tuttis.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Even with Beethoven, the symphony is still simply
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178' name='page_178'></a>178</span>
+enlarged chamber music, the orchestra being treated in
+a pianistic spirit which unfortunately shows itself even
+in the orchestral work of Schumann and Brahms.
+Wagner owes his polyphonic string quintet not to the
+Beethoven orchestra, but to the last quartets of Beethoven,
+in which each instrument is the peer of the
+others.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Meanwhile, another kind of orchestral work was
+developing, for, from the time of Gluck on, the opera
+orchestra was gaining in coloring and in individual
+characteristics. Berlioz was not dramatic enough for
+opera nor symphonic enough for the concert stage, yet
+his efforts to write programmatic symphonies resulted
+in his discovering new effects, new possibilities in tone
+tints and in orchestral technics. Berlioz misses the
+polyphony that enriches Wagner&rsquo;s orchestra, and
+makes instruments like the second violins, violas, etc.,
+second horns, etc., weave their threads or strands of
+melody into the woof. Wagner&rsquo;s primacy is due to his
+employment of the richest style of polyphony and counterpoint,
+the increased possibility of this through the
+invention of the valve horn, and his demand of solo
+virtuosity upon his orchestral players. His scores mark
+the only advance worth mentioning since Berlioz.&rdquo;</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179' name='page_179'></a>179</span>
+<a name='X_INSTRUMENTS_OF_THE_ORCHESTRA' id='X_INSTRUMENTS_OF_THE_ORCHESTRA'></a>
+<h2>X</h2>
+<h3>INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA</h3>
+</div>
+<p>An orchestra is an aggregation of many instruments
+which, under the baton of an able conductor,
+should play as one, so far as precision
+and expression are concerned. Separately, the instruments
+are like the paints on a palette, and the result
+of the composer&rsquo;s effort, like that of the painter&rsquo;s, depends
+upon what he has to express and his knowledge
+of how to use his materials in trying to express it.</p>
+<p>The orchestra has developed into several distinct
+groups, which are capable of playing independently, or
+in union with each other, and within these groups themselves
+there are various subdivisions. It is the purpose
+of every modern composer who amounts to anything,
+to get as many different quartets as possible out of his
+orchestra. By this is meant a grouping of instruments
+in such a way that as many groups as possible can play
+in independent harmony.</p>
+<p>It is through this system of orchestral groups that
+Wagner has been able to enrich orchestral tone coloring,
+and to say everything he wishes to say in exactly
+the way it should be said. We cannot, for example,
+imagine that the Love Motive in &ldquo;Die Walküre&rdquo; could
+be made to sound more beautiful on its first entrance in
+the score than it does. Nor could it. In that scene
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180' name='page_180'></a>180</span>
+it is exactly suited to a solo violoncello, and to a solo
+violoncello Wagner gives it. In order, however, to
+produce a perfectly homogenous effect, in order that
+the violoncello quality of tone shall pervade not only
+the melody, but also the supporting harmony, he supports
+the melody with eight violoncellos, adding two
+double basses to give more sonorousness to the deepest
+note in the harmony. In other words he has made for
+the moment a complete orchestra out of nine violoncellos
+and two double basses, and produced a wondrously
+rich and thrilling effect&mdash;because, having a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181' name='page_181'></a>181</span>
+beautiful melody to score, he knew just the instruments
+for which to score it. This is an admirable example
+of what technique accomplishes in the hands
+of a genius. Another composer might have used an
+orchestra of a hundred instruments and not have produced
+the exquisite thrill that Wagner with his magical
+orchestral touch conjures out of this group of violoncellos,
+a group within a group, an orchestra of violoncellos
+within the string band.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_4' id='linki_4'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-180.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-180.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='499' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+[<a href="music/180.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>The woodwind instruments are capable of several
+similar subdivisions. Flutes, oboes and bassoons, for
+example, may form a group capable of producing independent
+harmony, so can the clarinets, and the same
+is the case with the brass instruments. One of Wagner&rsquo;s
+most beautiful leading motives, the Walhalla Motive
+in the &ldquo;Ring of the Nibelung,&rdquo; is sounded on
+four trombones. In brief, then, the modern composer
+strives to constitute his orchestra in such a way that
+he secures as many independent groups, and as many
+little orchestras, as possible, not, however, for the purpose
+of using them independently all the time, but
+merely in order to do so occasionally for special effects
+or to combine them whenever he sees fit in
+order to enrich his tone coloring or weave his
+polyphony.</p>
+<p>The grand divisions of the orchestra are the strings&mdash;violins,
+violas, violoncellos and double basses; the
+woodwind, consisting, broadly speaking, of flutes,
+oboes, clarinets and bassoons; the brass&mdash;horns, trumpets
+and trombones; and the instruments of percussion,
+or the &ldquo;battery&rdquo;&mdash;drums, triangles, cymbals and instruments
+of that kind.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182' name='page_182'></a>182</span></div>
+<h4>The Prima Donna of the Orchestra.</h4>
+<p>The leading instrument of the string group, and in
+fact the leading instrument of the orchestra, is the
+violin. The first violins are the prima donnas of
+the orchestra, and one might say that it is almost
+impossible to have too many of them. The first and
+second violins should form about one-third of an orchestra,
+and better still it would be for the number to
+exceed that proportion. The Boston Symphony Orchestra,
+which has about eighty-one players, has thirty
+violins. Theodore Thomas&rsquo;s New York Festival Orchestra
+in 1882, consisting of three hundred and fourteen
+instruments, had one hundred violins.</p>
+<p>Great is the capacity of the violin. Its notes may be
+crisp, sharp, decisive, brilliant, or long-drawn-out and
+full of emotion. It has greater precision of attack than
+any other instrument in the orchestra. And right here
+it is interesting to note that while the multiplication of
+instruments gives greater sonority, it also gives much
+finer effects in soft passages. The pianissimo of one
+hundred violins is a very much finer pianissimo and at
+the same time infinitely richer and further carrying
+than the pianissimo of a solo violin. It is the very
+acme of a musical stage whisper.</p>
+<p>In this very first and most important group of the
+orchestra we can find examples of utilizing subdivisions
+of groups. Although the violin cannot be played lower
+than its G string, which sounds the G below the treble
+clef, the violin group nevertheless has been employed
+entirely by itself, and even subdivided within itself.
+The most exquisite example of this, one cited in every
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183' name='page_183'></a>183</span>
+work on the orchestra worth reading, is the &ldquo;Lohengrin&rdquo;
+prelude. To this the violins are divided into
+four groups and on the highest register, with an effect
+that is most ethereal.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_5' id='linki_5'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-183.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-183.png' alt='' title='' width='444' height='500' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+[<a href="music/183.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>Modern orchestral virtuosity may be gauged by the
+statement that while Beethoven but once dared to score
+for his violins above the high F, Richard Strauss in
+the most casual manner carries them an octave higher.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184' name='page_184'></a>184</span></div>
+<p>A little contrivance of wood or metal, with teeth,
+can be pressed down over the strings of the violin so
+as to deaden its vibrations. This is called the sordine,
+or mute. A famous example of the use of the violins
+<i>con sordini</i> is the Queen Mab Scherzo in Berlioz&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Romeo et Juliette Symphonie.&rdquo; Another well-known
+use of the same effect is in Asa&rsquo;s Death, in Grieg&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Peer Gynt&rdquo; Suite. Nothing can be more exquisite
+than the entrance of the muted violins after a long
+silence, in the last act of &ldquo;Tristan und Isolde,&rdquo; just
+before <i>Isolde</i> intones the Love Death.</p>
+<p>An unusual effect is produced by using the back of
+the bow instead of the horsehair. Liszt uses it
+in his symphonic poem, &ldquo;Mazeppa,&rdquo; for imitating the
+snorting of the horse; Wagner in &ldquo;Siegfried,&rdquo; for accompanying
+the mocking laugh of <i>Mime</i>; and Richard
+Strauss in &ldquo;Feuersnot,&rdquo; to produce the effect of crackling
+flames. But, as Strauss remarks in his revision
+of Berlioz&rsquo;s work on instrumentation, it is effective
+only with a large orchestra. The plucking of the
+strings with the fingers&mdash;pizzicato&mdash;is a familiar device.
+Tschaikowski employed it almost throughout an
+entire movement, the &ldquo;Pizzicato Ostinato&rdquo; in his
+Fourth Symphony.</p>
+<h4>Viola, Violoncello and Double Bass.</h4>
+<p>The viola is a deeper violin, with a very beautiful
+and expressive tone. Méhul, the French composer,
+scored his one-act opera, &ldquo;Uthal,&rdquo; without violins, employing
+the viola as the highest string instrument in his
+score. This, however, was not a success, the brilliant
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185' name='page_185'></a>185</span>
+tone of the violin being missed more and more as the
+performance of the work progressed, until Grétry is
+said to have risen in his seat and exclaimed: &ldquo;A thousand
+francs for an E string!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Meyerbeer, who was among the first to appreciate
+the beauty of the viola as a solo instrument, used a
+single viola for the accompaniment to <i>Raoul&rsquo;s</i> romance,
+&ldquo;Plus blanche que la blanche hermine,&rdquo; in the first act
+of &ldquo;Les Huguenots.&rdquo; Strictly speaking, he wrote it
+for the viola d&rsquo;amour, which is somewhat larger than
+the ordinary viola; but it almost always is played on
+the latter. Berlioz made exquisite use of it in his
+&ldquo;Harold Symphony,&rdquo; practically making a <i>dramatis
+persona</i> of it, for in the score a solo viola represents
+the melancholy wanderer; and in his &ldquo;Don Quixote,&rdquo;
+Richard Strauss assigns to the instrument an equally
+important rôle.</p>
+<p>The violoncello is one of the most tenderly expressive
+of all the instruments in the orchestra. Beethoven
+employs it for the theme of the slow movement in his
+Fifth Symphony, and although the viola joins with the
+violoncello in playing this melody, the passage owes its
+beauty chiefly to the latter. One of the most exquisite
+melodies in all symphonic music is the theme which
+Schubert has given to the violoncellos in the first movement
+of his &ldquo;Unfinished Symphony.&rdquo; They also are
+used with wonderfully expressive effect in the &ldquo;Tristan
+Vorspiel.&rdquo; Rossini gives a melodious passage, in the
+introduction to the overture to &ldquo;William Tell,&rdquo; to five
+violoncellos. But the most striking employment of the
+violoncellos as an independent group is in the Love
+Motive in the first act of &ldquo;Die Walküre.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186' name='page_186'></a>186</span></div>
+<p>Double basses first were used to simply double the
+violoncello part in the harmony. But through Beethoven&rsquo;s
+employment of them in the Fifth and Ninth
+Symphonies, in the former for a remarkably effective
+passage in the Scherzo and in the latter for a highly
+dramatic recitative, their importance as independent instruments
+in the orchestra was established. Verdi has
+made very effective use of them in the scene in &ldquo;Otello&rdquo;
+as the <i>Moor</i> approaches <i>Desdemona&rsquo;s</i> bed. In the introduction
+to &ldquo;Rheingold,&rdquo; Wagner has half his double
+basses tuned down to E flat, which is half a note deeper
+than the usual range of the instrument, and in the second
+act of &ldquo;Tristan und Isolde&rdquo; two basses are obliged
+to tune their E string down to C sharp.</p>
+<h4>Dividing the String Band.</h4>
+<p>I have pointed out several examples in which the
+groups of instruments in the string band are divided
+within themselves, as in the prelude to &ldquo;Lohengrin&rdquo;
+and in the first act of &ldquo;Die Walküre.&rdquo; The entire
+string band can be divided and subdivided with telling
+effect, when done by a master. When in the second
+act of &ldquo;Tristan&rdquo; <i>Brangäne</i> warns the lovers from her
+position on the watch-tower, the accompaniment stirs
+the soul to its depth, because it gives the listener such
+a weird thrill of impending danger that he almost longs
+to inform the lovers of their peril. In this passage
+Wagner divides the string band into no less than
+fifteen parts. In the thunder-storm in &ldquo;Rheingold&rdquo;
+the strings are divided into twenty-one parts. Richard
+Strauss points out how in the introduction to &ldquo;Die
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187' name='page_187'></a>187</span>
+Walküre&rdquo; much of the stormy effect is produced by
+strings only&mdash;sixteen second violins, twelve violas,
+twelve violoncellos and four double basses&mdash;a storm
+for strings where another composer would have unleashed
+a whole orchestra, including cymbals and bass
+drum, and crashed and thrashed about without producing
+a tithe of Wagner&rsquo;s effect! He also cites the
+tremolo at the beginning of the second act of &ldquo;Tristan&rdquo;
+as a wonderful example of tone painting which produces
+the effect of whispering foliage and conveys to
+the audience a sense of mystery and danger.</p>
+<p>Theodore Thomas always was insistent that the
+various divisions of a string band should bow exactly
+alike. It is said that he once stopped an orchestra
+because he had detected something wrong with the
+tonal effect, and, after watching the players, had discovered
+that one violoncellist among sixteen was bowing
+differently from the others. Richard Strauss, on
+the other hand, never insists on the same bowing
+throughout each division of strings. He thinks it robs
+the melody of intensity and beauty if each individual
+is not allowed to play according to his own peculiar
+temperament.</p>
+<h4>A Passage in &ldquo;Die Walküre.&rdquo;</h4>
+<p>In the Magic Fire Scene in the finale of &ldquo;Die
+Walküre,&rdquo; Wagner wrote violin passages which not
+even the greatest soloist can play cleanly, yet which,
+when played by all the violins, simulate in <em>sound</em> the
+<em>aspect</em> of licking, circling flames. Indeed, the effects
+that Wagner understood how to draw from the orchestral
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188' name='page_188'></a>188</span>
+instruments are little short of marvellous.
+In the &ldquo;Lohengrin&rdquo; prelude the tone quality of the
+violins is absolutely angelic in purity; while in the third
+act of &ldquo;Siegfried,&rdquo; the upswinging violin passages as
+the young hero reaches the height where <i>Brünnhilde</i>
+slumbers, depict the action with a thrilling realism.</p>
+<p>Besides the regular string band, Wagner made frequent
+use of the harp. It is related that at the Munich
+performance of &ldquo;Rheingold,&rdquo; when the harpist Trombo
+protested to him that some of the passages were
+unplayable, the composer replied: &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t expect
+me to play the harp, too, do you? You perceive the
+general effect I am aiming at; produce that and I shall
+be satisfied.&rdquo; Liszt, in his &ldquo;Dante Symphony,&rdquo; uses
+the <i>glissando</i> of the harp as a symbol for the rising
+shades of <i>Francesco da Rimini</i> and her lover, and a very
+beautiful use of harmonics on the harp with their faint
+tinkle is to be found in the Waltz of the Sylphs in
+Berlioz&rsquo;s &ldquo;Damnation de Faust.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>The Woodwind.</h4>
+<p>Flutes, oboes and clarinets form the woodwind. One
+of the best known passages for flute is in the third
+&ldquo;Leonora Overture&rdquo; of Beethoven, where it is employed
+with conspicuous grace. Probably, however,
+more fun has been made of the flute than of any other
+orchestral instrument, and a standard musical joke runs
+as follows:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you musical?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, but I have a brother who plays the flute.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It has also been insinuated that in Donizetti&rsquo;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189' name='page_189'></a>189</span>
+&ldquo;Lucia&rdquo; the heroine goes mad, not because she has
+been separated from <i>Edgardo</i>, but because a flute obbligato
+accompanies her principal aria. The piccolo is
+a high flute used for shrill effects.</p>
+<p>The instruments of both the oboe and clarinet families
+are reed instruments, with this difference, however:
+the instruments of the oboe family have two
+vibrating reeds in the mouthpieces; those of the clarinet
+family, only one. The oboe family consists of the oboe
+proper, the English horn which is an alt oboe, and the
+bassoon which is the bass of this group of instruments.
+In Italian the bassoon is called a <i>fagotto</i>, a name derived
+from its supposed resemblance to a bundle of
+fagots. &ldquo;Candor, artless grace, tender joy, or the
+grief of a fragile soul, are found in the oboe&rsquo;s accents,&rdquo;
+says Berlioz of this instrument, and those who remember
+the exquisite oboe melody, with which the slow
+movement of Schubert&rsquo;s C major symphony opens,
+will agree with the French composer. Richard
+Strauss, in his &ldquo;Sinfonia Domestica,&rdquo; employs the almost
+obsolete oboes d&rsquo;amore to represent an &ldquo;innocent,
+dreamy, playful child.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>The English Horn in &ldquo;Tristan.&rdquo;</h4>
+<p>The most famous use of the English horn is found
+in the third act of &ldquo;Tristan,&rdquo; where it plays the &ldquo;sad
+lay&rdquo; while <i>Tristan</i> awaits news of the ship which is
+bearing <i>Isolde</i> toward him, and changes to a joyous
+strain when the ship is sighted. The bassoon and contrabassoon,
+besides their value as the bass of the oboe
+family, have certain humorous qualities, which are admirably
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190' name='page_190'></a>190</span>
+brought out in Beethoven&rsquo;s Fifth and Ninth
+Symphonies and in the march of the clownish artisans
+in Mendelssohn&rsquo;s &ldquo;Midsummer Night&rsquo;s Dream&rdquo; music.
+In opera, Meyerbeer made the bassoon famous by his
+scoring of the dance of the <i>Spectre Nuns</i> in &ldquo;Robert le
+Diable&rdquo; for it, and he also used it for the accompaniment
+to the female chorus in the second act of &ldquo;Les Huguenots.&rdquo;
+The theme of the romanza, &ldquo;Una fortiva lagrima,&rdquo;
+in Donizetti&rsquo;s &ldquo;L&rsquo;Elisir d&rsquo;Amore,&rdquo; which Caruso
+sings so beautifully, is introduced by the bassoon,
+and with charming effect.</p>
+<p>The clarinets have a large compass. Usually three
+kinds of clarinets (in A, B flat and C because they
+are transposing instruments) are employed in the orchestra,
+besides the bass clarinet. The possibilities of
+the clarinet group have been enormously developed by
+Wagner. It is necessary only to recall the scene of
+<i>Elsa&rsquo;s</i> bridal procession to the cathedral in the second
+act of &ldquo;Lohengrin&rdquo;; <i>Elisabeth&rsquo;s</i> sad exit after her
+prayer in the third act of &ldquo;Tannhäuser,&rdquo; in which the
+melody is played by the bass clarinet, while the accompaniment
+is given to three flutes and eight other clarinets;
+the change of scene in the first act of &ldquo;Götterdämmerung,&rdquo;
+when clarinets give forth the Brünnhilde
+Motive; and passages in the second act of &ldquo;Die Meistersinger,&rdquo;
+in the scene at nightfall; while for a generally
+skillful use of the woodwind the introduction to
+the third act of &ldquo;Lohengrin&rdquo; is a shining example.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191' name='page_191'></a>191</span></div>
+<h4>Brass Instruments.</h4>
+<p>People usually associate the brass instruments with
+noise. But as a matter of fact, wonderfully rich and
+soft tone effects can be produced on the brass by a
+composer who knows how to score for it. Just as the
+pianissimo of many violins is a finer pianissimo than
+that of a solo violin, so a much more exquisitely soft
+effect can be produced on a large brass group than on
+a few brass instruments or a single one. When modern
+composers increase the number of instruments in
+the brass group, it is not for the sake of noise, but for
+richer effects.</p>
+<p>The trumpet is the soprano of the brass family.
+The fanfare in &ldquo;Fidelio&rdquo; when at the critical moment
+aid approaches; the Siegfried Motive and the Sword
+Motive, in the &ldquo;Ring of the Nibelung,&rdquo; need only be
+cited to prove the effectiveness of the instrument in
+its proper place; and Richard Strauss instances the demoniacal
+and fateful effect of the deep trumpet tones
+in the introduction to the first act of Bizet&rsquo;s &ldquo;Carmen.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Although the notes of the trombone are produced
+by a slide, this instrument belongs to the trumpet family.
+For this reason, in the &ldquo;Ring of the Nibelung,&rdquo;
+Wagner, in addition to the usual three tenor trombones,
+reintroduced the almost obsolete bass trombone. He
+wanted a trombone group complete in itself, and thus
+to be able to utilize the peculiar tone color of the instrument;
+as witness in the Walhalla Motive, where it is
+scored for the three tenor trombones and bass trombone,
+resulting in a wonderfully rich and velvety quality
+of tone. Excepting Wagner and Richard Strauss,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192' name='page_192'></a>192</span>
+there probably is not a composer who would not have
+used the bass tuba here instead of taking the trouble to
+revive the bass trombone. But Wagner wanted an
+unusually rich tone which should be solemn without a
+trace of sombreness, and his keen instrumental color
+sense informed him that he could secure it with the
+bass trombone, which, as it belongs to the trumpet family,
+has a touch of trumpet brilliancy, whereas the
+tone of the bass tuba is darker.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_6' id='linki_6'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-192.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-192.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='145' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+[<a href="music/192.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>Mozart employed the trombone with fine effect in
+<i>Sarastro&rsquo;s</i> solo in the &ldquo;Magic Flute&rdquo;; Schubert showed
+his genius for instrumentation by the manner in which
+he used them in the introduction to his C major symphony,
+as well as in the first movement of that symphony,
+in which a theme is given out by three trombones
+in unison; and another familiar example of good
+scoring for trombones is in the introduction to the third
+act of &ldquo;Lohengrin.&rdquo; In the Death Prophecy scene in
+the second act of &ldquo;Die Walküre,&rdquo; a trumpet melody is
+supported by the four trombones, another instance
+of Wagner&rsquo;s sense of homogeneity in sound, since
+trumpets and trombones belong to the same family. In
+fact, throughout the &ldquo;Ring,&rdquo; as Strauss points out,
+Wagner wrote for his trombones in four parts, adding
+the bass trombone in order to differentiate wholly between
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193' name='page_193'></a>193</span>
+it and the tuba, which latter he used with the
+horns, with which it is properly grouped.</p>
+<p>Wagner has a tremendous tuba recitative in a &ldquo;Faust
+Overture,&rdquo; and in the Funeral March in the &ldquo;Götterdämmerung&rdquo;
+he introduces tenor tubas in order, again,
+to differentiate between the tone color of tubas and
+trombones and not to be obliged to employ trombones
+in this particular scene, the general tone color of the
+tuba being far more sombre than that of the trombone.</p>
+<h4>Richard Strauss&rsquo;s Tribute to the Horn.</h4>
+<p>To mention tubas and trombones before the horns
+is very much like putting the cart before the horse, but
+I have reserved the horns for the last of the brass on
+account of the great tribute which Richard Strauss has
+paid them. In the early orchestras one rarely found
+more than two horns. Beethoven used four in the
+Ninth Symphony, and now it is not at all unusual to
+find eight.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of all instruments,&rdquo; says Richard Strauss, &ldquo;the horn
+is perhaps the one that best can be joined with other
+groups. To substantiate this in all its numerous phases,
+I should be obliged to quote the entire &lsquo;Meistersinger&rsquo;
+score. For I do not think I exaggerate when I maintain
+that the greatly developed technique of the valve
+horn has made it possible that a score which, with the
+addition of a third trumpet, a harp and a tuba, employs
+the same instruments as Beethoven used in his
+Fifth Symphony, has become with every bar something
+entirely different, something wholly new and
+unheard of.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194' name='page_194'></a>194</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Surely the two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets and
+two bassoons of Mozart have been exhausted by Wagner
+in every direction of their technical possibilities and
+plastically combined with an almost weird perception
+of all their tone secrets; the string quintet, through the
+most refined divisions into parts, and with added
+brilliance through the employment of the harp, produces
+innumerable new tone effects, and by superb polyphony
+is brought to a height and warmth of emotional
+expression such as never before was dreamed
+of; trumpet and trombones are made to express every
+phase of solemn or humorous characterization&mdash;but the
+main thing is the tireless participation of the horn, now
+for the melody, now for filling out, now as bass. The
+&lsquo;Meistersinger&rsquo; score is the horn&rsquo;s hymn of praise.
+Through the introduction and perfection of the valve
+horn the greatest improvement in the technique of scoring,
+since Berlioz&rsquo;s day, has been made possible.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To illustrate exhaustively this Protean character
+of the horn, I should like (again!) to go through the
+scores of the great magician, bar by bar, beginning with
+&lsquo;Rheingold.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Whether it rings through the primeval German forest
+with the sunny exuberance of <i>Siegfried&rsquo;s</i> youthful
+heart and joy of living; whether in Liszt&rsquo;s &lsquo;Mazeppa&rsquo;
+it dies out in the last hoarse gasp of the Cossack prince
+nigh unto death in the vast desert of the steppes;
+whether it conjures the childlike longing of <i>Siegfried</i>
+for the mother he never has known; whether it hovers
+over the gently undulating sea which is to bring <i>Isolde&rsquo;s</i>
+gladdening form to the dying <i>Tristan</i>, or nods <i>Hans
+Sachs&rsquo;</i> thanks to the faithful <i>&rsquo;Prentice</i>; whether in
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195' name='page_195'></a>195</span>
+<i>Erik&rsquo;s</i> dream it causes in a few hollow accents the
+North Sea to break on the lonely coast; bestows upon
+the apples of Freia the gift of eternal youth; pokes
+fun at the curtain-heroes (&lsquo;Meistersinger,&rsquo; Act III);
+plies the cudgels on <i>Beckmesser</i> with the jealous <i>David</i>
+and his comrades, and is the real instigator of the riot;
+or sings in veiled notes of the wounds of <i>Tristan</i>&mdash;always
+the horn, in its place and to be relied on, responds,
+unique in its manifold meanings and its brilliant
+significance.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Famous horn passages in the works of other composers
+are in the trio of the Scherzo in the &ldquo;Eroica
+Symphony&rdquo;; in the second movement of Schubert&rsquo;s C
+major symphony, the passage of which Schumann
+said that the notes of the horns just before the return
+of the principal subject were like the voice of an
+angel; in the opening of Weber&rsquo;s &ldquo;Freischütz&rdquo; overture;
+in the introduction to <i>Michaela&rsquo;s</i> romance in
+&ldquo;Carmen&rdquo;; and in the opening theme of the slow movement
+of Tschaikowsky&rsquo;s Fifth Symphony, which is the
+perfection of a melodic phrase for solo horn.</p>
+<p>Instruments of Percussion.</p>
+<p>In the &ldquo;battery&rdquo; the instruments of prime importance
+are the tympani. Beethoven gave the cue to
+what could be accomplished with these in the scherzo
+of the Fifth Symphony and also in the octave thumps
+in the scherzo of the Ninth Symphony, while for a
+weirdly sombre effect there is nothing equal to the faint
+roll of the tympani at the beginning and end of the
+Funeral March in &ldquo;Götterdämmerung.&rdquo; Cymbals are
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196' name='page_196'></a>196</span>
+used in several ways. Besides the ordinary clash,
+Wagner has produced a sound somewhat like that of a
+gong, by the sharp stroke of a drum-stick on one cymbal,
+and also a roll by using a pair of drum-sticks on
+one cymbal.</p>
+<p>Among composers since Beethoven, Weber, Liszt,
+Saint-Saëns, Dvorak, Tschaikowsky, and, of course,
+Richard Strauss&mdash;it hardly is necessary to mention
+either Berlioz or Wagner again&mdash;have shown brilliant
+technique in orchestration. On the other hand, Schumann
+and Brahms do not appear to have understood or
+to have taken the trouble to understand the individual
+characteristics of orchestral instruments, and, as a result,
+their works for orchestra are not as effective as
+they should be. Their orchestration has been called
+&ldquo;muddy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It is Richard Strauss&rsquo;s opinion that the next advancement
+in orchestration will be brought about by
+adding largely to certain groups of instruments which
+now have only comparatively few representatives in the
+orchestra. He instances that at the Brussels Conservatory
+one of the professors had Mozart&rsquo;s G minor
+symphony performed for him on twenty-two clarinets,
+of which four were basset horns (alto clarinets),
+two brass clarinets, and one contra-bass clarinet; and
+he suggests that it will be along such lines that the
+orchestra of the future will be enlarged. With an orchestra
+with all the family groups of instruments complete
+in the manner suggested by Strauss, and used by
+a musical genius, a genius who combines with melodic
+invention virtuosity of instrumentation, marvellous results
+are yet to be achieved.</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197' name='page_197'></a>197</span>
+<a name='XI_CONCERNING_SYMPHONIES' id='XI_CONCERNING_SYMPHONIES'></a>
+<h2>XI</h2>
+<h3>CONCERNING SYMPHONIES</h3>
+</div>
+<p>I have said that music, like all other arts, had a
+somewhat formless beginning, then gradually acquired
+form, then became too rigidly formal, and
+in modern times, while not discarding form, has become
+freer in its expression of emotion.</p>
+<p>Instrumental music, since the beginning of the classical
+period, has been governed largely by the symphony,
+which the reader should bear in mind is nothing more
+than a sonata for orchestra, the form having first developed
+on the pianoforte and having been handed over
+by it to the aggregation of instruments. Sir Hubert
+Parry, from whose book, &ldquo;The Evolution of the Art of
+Music,&rdquo; I have had previous occasion to quote, has
+several apt paragraphs concerning the earlier development
+of the sonata, which of course apply with equal
+force to the symphony. After stating that the instinct
+of the composers who first sought the liberation of
+music from the all-predominating counterpoint, impelled
+them to develop movements of wider and freer
+range, which should admit of warm melodic expression,
+without degenerating into incoherent, rambling ecstasy,
+Sir Hubert continues: &ldquo;They had the sense to see
+from the first that mere formal continuous melody is
+not the most suitable type for instrumental music.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198' name='page_198'></a>198</span>
+There is deep-rooted in the matter of all instrumental
+music the need of some rhythmic vitality. These composers
+then set themselves to devise a scheme in which,
+to begin with, the contour of connected melodic phrases,
+supported and defined by simple harmonic accompaniment,
+gave the impression of definite tonality&mdash;that is,
+of being decisively in some particular key and giving
+an unmistakable indication of it. They found out how
+to proceed by giving the impression of using that key
+and passing to another without departing from the
+characteristic spirit and mood of the music, as shown
+in the &lsquo;subjects&rsquo; and figures; and how to give the impression
+of relative completeness, by closing in a key
+which is in strong contrast to the first, and so round
+off one-half of the design.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But this point being in apposition to the starting
+point, leaves the mind dissatisfied and in expectation
+of fresh disclosures; so they made the balance complete
+by resuming the subjects and melodic figures of
+the first part in extraneous keys, and working back
+to the starting point; and they made their final close
+with the same figures as were used to conclude the first
+half, but in the principal key instead of the key of
+contract.&rdquo; This is a somewhat more elaborate method
+of describing the sonata form than I have adopted
+in the division of this book relating to the pianoforte.</p>
+<h4>Esthetic Purpose of the Symphony.</h4>
+<p>Later on in his book, Sir Hubert, in discussing the
+type of sonata movement which was fairly established
+by the time of Haydn and Mozart, gives a simpler
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199' name='page_199'></a>199</span>
+esthetic explanation, pointing out that the first part
+of the movement aims at definiteness of subject, definiteness
+of contrast of keys, definiteness of regular balancing
+groups of bars and rhythms, definiteness of progressions.
+By the time this first division is over the
+mind has had enough of such definiteness, and wants
+a change. The second division, therefore, represents
+the breaking up of the subjects into their constituent
+elements of figure and rhythm, the obliteration of the
+sense of regularity by grouping the bars irregularly;
+and aims, by moving constantly from key to key, to
+give the sense of artistic confusion; which, however, is
+always regulated by some inner but disguised principle
+of order. When the mind has gone through enough
+of the pleasing sense of bewilderment&mdash;the sense
+that has made riddles attractive to the human creature
+from time immemorial&mdash;the scheme is completed
+by resuming the orderly methods of the first division
+and firmly re-establishing the principal theme
+which has been carefully avoided since the commencement.</p>
+<p>The earlier symphonic writers usually wrote their
+symphonies in three movements: the first or sonata
+movement; a second slow movement in a simpler type
+of form, usually of the song, aria, or rondo type; and
+a final movement in lively time, also usually adapted
+to the rondo form. Concerning this three-movement
+symphony of the early writers, it was said by an old-time
+wit that they wrote the first movement to show
+what they could do, the second movement to show
+what they could feel, and the third movement to show
+how glad they were it was over&mdash;and this may be said
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200' name='page_200'></a>200</span>
+to describe the view of the ultra-modern music-lover
+toward rigidity of form in general.</p>
+<p>Regarding form in music there is much prejudice one
+way or the other. The sonnet in poetry certainly is a
+rigid form; and yet those poets who have mastered it
+have produced extremely effective and highly artistic
+poems, and poems abounding in profound emotional
+expression. Walt Whitman, on the other hand, was
+quite formless, and yet he is sure to be ranked in time
+as one of the greatest poets of his age. Wagner&rsquo;s
+idea was that the symphonic form had reached its
+climax with Beethoven&rsquo;s Ninth Symphony; yet it is
+by no means incredible that if Wagner in his maturer
+years had undertaken to compose a symphony, the result
+would have disproved his own theory.</p>
+<h4>Seems to Hamper Modern Composers.</h4>
+<p>The symphonic form, however, or, to be more exact,
+the sonata form, seems to hamper every modern composer
+when he writes for the pianoforte, and the fact
+that most of Beethoven&rsquo;s pianoforte music was written
+in this form appears to be the reason for his works
+somewhat falling into disuse. On the other hand, the
+form is undoubtedly holding out better in the orchestral
+version of the sonata, the symphony, because the tone
+color of orchestral instruments gives it greater variety.
+Tschaikowsky, Dvorak and Brahms have worked successfully,
+and the two former even brilliantly, in this
+form; and if Brahms in his symphonies appears too
+continent, too classically reserved, it would seem to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201' name='page_201'></a>201</span>
+be not so much the form itself which is to blame, as
+his lack of skill in instrumentation.</p>
+<p>My own personal preference is for the freer form
+developed by Liszt in the symphonic poem, in which
+a leading motive, or possibly several motives skillfully
+varied dominate the whole composition and give it
+esthetic and psychological unity; and for the still freer
+development of instrumental music in the tone poem
+of Richard Strauss. But neither the symphonic poems
+of Liszt nor the tone poems of Strauss are formless
+music. That should be well understood, although it
+should be borne in mind with equal distinctness that
+these manifestations of the genius of two great composers
+show a complete liberation from the shackles of
+the classical symphony. In the end the test is found
+in the music itself. If the music of a symphonic poem
+which sets out to express a given title or a given
+motto, if the music of a tone poem which starts out
+to interpret a programmatic story or device, is worthy
+to be ranked with the great productions of the art, it
+not only is profoundly interesting as music, but gains
+immensely in interest through its incidental secondary
+meaning. It is the old story of art for art&rsquo;s sake&mdash;art
+for the purpose of merely gratifying the eye or
+the ear&mdash;or art for the purpose of conveying something
+besides itself to the beholder or the listener; and it
+seems to me that, in the history of the art, art for art&rsquo;s
+sake has always been the more primitive expression
+and eventually has been obliged to give way.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202' name='page_202'></a>202</span></div>
+<h4>The Naive Symphonists.</h4>
+<p>At the risk of repeating what already has been said
+of the sonata, the symphony may be described as a work
+in four movements&mdash;the first movement, usually an
+Allegro, sometimes with a slow introduction, but more
+frequently without one; a second movement, ordinarily
+called the slow movement, and usually in Adagio or
+Andante; a third movement, either minuet or scherzo;
+and a final movement in fast time and usually in
+rondo form. It was Haydn who pretty definitely established
+these divisions of the symphony. He composed
+in all one hundred and twenty-five symphonies,
+of which only a few appear on modern concert programs,
+and even these but occasionally. Their music
+is marked by a simplicity bordering on naïveté, and
+the orchestration is a string quartet with a mere filling
+out by other instruments. Mozart was of a deeper
+and more dramatic nature than Haydn, and the expression
+of his thought was more intense. In the same
+way, there is a greater warmth and color in his orchestration.
+Nevertheless, the three finest of his forty-nine
+symphonies, the E flat, G minor and Jupiter,
+composed in 1788, seem almost childlike in their artless
+grace and beauty to us moderns.</p>
+<p>Beethoven&rsquo;s first two symphonies were written under
+the influence of Haydn and Mozart, but with the third
+he becomes distinctly epic in his musical utterance; and
+this symphony, both in regard to variety and depth of
+expression and skillful use of orchestral instruments,
+is as great an advance upon the work of his predecessors
+as, let us say, Tschaikowsky is upon Mendelssohn.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203' name='page_203'></a>203</span></div>
+<h4>Beethoven to the Fore.</h4>
+<p>There are apparent in the sequences of Beethoven&rsquo;s
+symphonies certain climaxes and certain rests. Thus
+the Third is the climax of the first three. The Fourth
+is far less profound; the master relaxes. But the
+Fifth, with its compact, vigorous theme, which Beethoven
+himself is said to have described as Fate knocking
+at the door, and his skillful introduction of this
+theme in varied form in each of the movements, is by
+many regarded as his masterpiece&mdash;even greater than
+the Ninth. After this he seems to have relaxed again
+in the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth, in order to prepare
+himself for the climax of his career in his final symphonic
+work, the Ninth. In the slow movement of
+the Sixth (the &ldquo;Pastoral&rdquo;), in which he imitates the
+call of birds, he gives the direction: &ldquo;<i>mehr Empfindung
+als Malerei</i>&rdquo; (more feeling than painting), a direction
+which often is quoted by opponents of modern program
+music; notwithstanding the fact that Beethoven,
+in spite of his own qualifying words, straightway indulged
+in &ldquo;painting&rdquo; of the most childish description.
+The Seventh Symphony is an extremely brilliant work
+and the Eighth an exceedingly joyous one, while with
+the Ninth, as though he himself felt that he was going
+beyond the limits of orchestral music, he introduced in
+the last movement solo singers and a chorus, but not
+with as much effect as the employment of this unusual
+scheme might lead one to anticipate, because, unfortunately,
+his writing for voices is extremely awkward.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204' name='page_204'></a>204</span></div>
+<h4>Schubert&rsquo;s Genius.</h4>
+<p>Like Beethoven, Schubert wrote nine symphonies,
+but the &ldquo;Unfinished,&rdquo; which was his eighth, and the
+C major, his ninth, which was discovered by Schumann
+in the possession of Schubert&rsquo;s brother and sent
+to Mendelssohn for production at Leipzig, are the ones
+which seem destined to survive. They are among the
+most beautiful examples of orchestral music&mdash;the first
+movement of the &ldquo;Unfinished Symphony&rdquo; full of dramatic
+moments as well as of exquisite melody, the slow
+movement a veritable rose of orchestration; while as
+regards the C major symphony, Schumann&rsquo;s reference
+to its &ldquo;heavenly length&rdquo; sufficiently describes its
+inspiration.</p>
+<p>Mendelssohn&rsquo;s Italian and Scotch symphonies are his
+best known orchestral works. They are clear and serene,
+and for any one who thinks a symphony is something
+very abstruse and wants to be gradually familiarized
+with its mysteries, they form an easily taken
+and innocuous dose&mdash;the symphony made palatable.
+Of Schumann&rsquo;s four symphonies, the one in E flat, the
+&ldquo;Rhenish,&rdquo; supposed to represent a series of impressions
+of the Rhine country, the fourth movement especially,
+to represent the exaltation which possessed his
+soul during a religious ceremony in the cathedral at
+Cologne; and the D minor, which latter really is a
+fantasia, deserve to rank highest. In the D minor
+the movements follow each other without pause; there
+is a certain thematic relationship between the first and
+the last movements, and this connection gives the work
+a freer and more modern effect. But Schumann was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205' name='page_205'></a>205</span>
+either indifferent to, or ignorant of, the advance in
+orchestration which had taken place since Beethoven.
+Practically the same thing applies to Brahms, who,
+however, deserves the credit for introducing into the
+symphony a new style of movement, the intermezzo,
+which takes the place of the scherzo or minuet. Rubinstein
+deserves &ldquo;honorable mention&rdquo;; but the most modern
+heroes of symphony are Dvorak, with his &ldquo;New
+World,&rdquo; and Tschaikowsky, with his &ldquo;Pathétique.&rdquo;
+Such works are life-preservers that may help keep a
+sinking art form afloat. But modern orchestral music
+is tending more and more toward the symphonic poem
+and the tone poem.</p>
+<p>Liszt has written two symphonies: the &ldquo;Faust Symphony,&rdquo;
+consisting of three movements, which represent
+the three principal characters of Goethe&rsquo;s drama,
+<i>Faust</i>, <i>Gretchen</i>, and <i>Mephistopheles</i>; and a symphony
+to Dante&rsquo;s &ldquo;Divina Commedia.&rdquo; In both these symphonies
+a chorus is introduced. Of his symphonic
+poems, the best known are &ldquo;Les Préludes,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Tasso,
+Lamento e Trionfo.&rdquo; In these symphonic poems Liszt
+has made use of the principle of the leitmotif in orchestral
+music. They are dramatic episodes for orchestra,
+superbly instrumentated, profoundly beautiful
+in thought and intention&mdash;great program music in fact,
+because conceived in accordance with the highest canons
+of the art, and infinitely more interesting than
+&ldquo;pure&rdquo; music because they mean something. By some
+people Liszt is regarded as a mere charlatan, by others
+as a great composer. Not only was he a great composer,
+but one of the very greatest.</p>
+<p>The Saint-Saëns symphonic poems, &ldquo;Rouet d&rsquo;Omphale,&rdquo;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206' name='page_206'></a>206</span>
+&ldquo;Phaeton,&rdquo; &ldquo;Danse Macabre,&rdquo; should be mentioned
+as successful works of this class, but considerably
+below Liszt&rsquo;s in genuine musical value. And
+then, there are the orchestral impressions of Charles
+Martin Loeffler, among which the symphonic poem,
+&ldquo;La Mort de Tintagiles,&rdquo; is the most conspicuous. A
+separate chapter is devoted to Richard Strauss.</p>
+<p>Wagner is not supposed to have been a purely orchestral
+composer. Theoretically, he wrote for the
+theatre, and his orchestra was (again theoretically)
+only part of a triple scheme of voice, action and instrumental
+accompaniment. But put the instrumental
+part of any of his great music-drama episodes on a concert
+program, and with the first wave of the conductor&rsquo;s
+baton and the first chord, you forget everything
+else that has gone before!</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207' name='page_207'></a>207</span>
+<a name='XII_RICHARD_STRAUSS_AND_HIS_MUSIC' id='XII_RICHARD_STRAUSS_AND_HIS_MUSIC'></a>
+<h2>XII</h2>
+<h3>RICHARD STRAUSS AND HIS MUSIC</h3>
+</div>
+<p>Richard Strauss&mdash;a new name to conjure
+with in music! His banner is borne by a
+band of enthusiasts like those who, many years
+ago, carried the flag of Wagner to the front. &ldquo;Did not
+Wagner put a full stop after the word &lsquo;music&rsquo;?&rdquo; some
+will ask in surprise. &ldquo;Did he not strike the final note?
+Are the &lsquo;Ring,&rsquo; &lsquo;Tristan&rsquo; and &lsquo;Parsifal&rsquo; not to be succeeded
+by an eternal pause? Is there something still
+to be achieved in music as in other arts and sciences?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Something new certainly has been achieved by Richard
+Strauss. It forms neither a continuation of Wagner
+nor an opposition to Wagner. It has nothing to
+do with Wagner, beyond that Strauss appropriates
+whatever in the progression of art the latest master
+has a right to take from his predecessors. Strauss
+is, in fact, one of the most original and individual of
+composers.</p>
+<p>He has been a student, not a copyist, of Wagner.
+Thus, where others who have sat at the feet of the
+Bayreuth master have written poor imitations of Wagner,
+and have therefore failed even to continue the
+school, giving only feeble echoes of its great master,
+Strauss has struck out for himself. With a mastery of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208' name='page_208'></a>208</span>
+every technical resource, acquired by deep and patient
+study, he has given wholly new value and importance
+to a form of art entirely different from the music-drama.
+The music of the average modern Wagner
+disciple sounds not like Wagner, but like Wagner and
+water. Richard Strauss sounds like Richard Strauss.</p>
+<p>One reason for this is that his art work, like Wagner&rsquo;s,
+has an independent intellectual reason for being.
+Let me not for one moment be understood as belittling
+Wagner, in order to magnify Strauss. Wagner is the
+one creator of an art-form who also seems destined
+to remain its greatest exponent. Other creators of art-forms
+have been mere pioneers, leaving to those who
+have come after them the development and rounding
+out of what with them were experiments. The story
+of the sonata form may be said to have begun with
+Philipp Emanuel Bach and to have been &ldquo;continued in
+our next&rdquo; to Beethoven, with &ldquo;supplements&rdquo; ever since.
+The music-drama had its tentative beginnings in &ldquo;The
+Flying Dutchman,&rdquo; its consummation in &ldquo;Parsifal.&rdquo;
+The years from 1843 to 1882 lay between, but the
+music-drama was guided ever by the same hand, the
+master hand of Richard Wagner. No, it would be
+self-defeating folly to make Wagner appear less in
+order to have Strauss appear more.</p>
+<h4>Originator of the Tone Poem.</h4>
+<p>Nor does Richard Strauss require such tactics. He has
+made three excursions into music-drama and he may
+make others. But his fame, at present, rests mainly upon
+what he has accomplished as an instrumental composer,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209' name='page_209'></a>209</span>
+and in the self-created realm of the Tone Poem. Tone
+poem is a new term in music. It stands for something
+that outstrips the symphonic poem of Liszt, something
+larger both in its boundaries and in its intellectual and
+musical scope. Strauss does not limit himself by the
+word symphonic. He leaves himself free to give full
+range to his ideas. A composer of &ldquo;program music,&rdquo;
+his works are so stupendous in scope that the word
+symphonic would have hampered him. His &ldquo;Also
+Sprach Zarathustra&rdquo; (&ldquo;Thus Spake Zarathustra&rdquo;) and
+&ldquo;Ein Heldenleben&rdquo; (&ldquo;A Hero&rsquo;s Life&rdquo;) are not symphonic
+poems, but tone poems of enormous proportions.
+These, his last two instrumental productions, together
+with the growing familiarity of the musical public with
+his beautiful and eloquent songs, established his reputation
+in this country. To-day, a Strauss work on a
+program means as much to the musically elect as a
+Wagner work meant a quarter of a century ago. In
+fact, to advanced musicians, to those who are not content
+to rest upon what has been achieved, but are ready
+to welcome further serious effort, Strauss&rsquo;s works form
+the latest great utterance in music. Let me repeat verbatim
+a conversation that occurred on a recent rainy
+night, the date of an important concert.</p>
+<p>He: &ldquo;Are you going to the concert to-night?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She: (<i>Looking out and seeing that it still is raining
+hard</i>) &ldquo;Do they play anything by Richard Strauss?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He: &ldquo;Not to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She: &ldquo;Then I&rsquo;m not going.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This woman could meet the most enthusiastic admirer
+of Beethoven or Wagner on his own ground.
+But when she heard &ldquo;Ein Heldenleben&rdquo; under Emil
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210' name='page_210'></a>210</span>
+Paur&rsquo;s baton at a concert of the New York Philharmonic
+Society, she heard what she had been waiting
+twenty years for&mdash;something new in music that also
+was something great; something that was not merely
+an imitation of what she had heard a hundred times
+before, but something which pointed the way to untraveled
+paths. It always is woman who throws the first
+rose at the feet of genius.</p>
+<h4>Not a Juggler with the Orchestra.</h4>
+<p>One first looks at Richard Strauss in mere amazement
+at the size of what he has produced. &ldquo;Thus
+Spake Zarathustra&rdquo; lasts thirty-three minutes, &ldquo;A
+Hero&rsquo;s Life&rdquo; forty-five&mdash;considerable lengths for orchestral
+works. This initial sense of &ldquo;bigness,&rdquo; as
+such, having worn off, one becomes aware of marvellous
+tone combinations and orchestral effects. Listening
+again, one discovers that these daring instrumental
+combinations have not been entered into merely for the
+sake of juggling with the orchestra, but because the
+composer, being a modern of moderns, has the most
+modern message in music to deliver, and, in order to
+deliver it, has developed the modern orchestra to a state
+of efficiency and versatility of tonal expression beyond
+any of his predecessors. Richard Strauss scores, in
+the most casual manner, an octave higher than Beethoven
+dared go with the violins. Except in the
+&ldquo;Egmont&rdquo; overture, Beethoven did not carry the violins
+higher than F above the staff. What should have
+been higher he wrote an octave lower. All the strings
+in the Richard Strauss orchestra are scored correspondingly
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211' name='page_211'></a>211</span>
+high. But this is not done as a mere fad.
+What Richard Strauss accomplishes with the strings
+is not merely queer or bizarre. What he seeks and
+obtains is genuine original musical effects. Often
+the highest register is used by him in a few of the
+strings only, because, for certain polyphonic effects&mdash;the
+weaving and interweaving of various themes&mdash;he
+divides and subdivides all the strings into numerous
+groups. For the same reason, he has regularly added
+four or five hitherto rarely used instruments to the
+woodwind and scores, regularly, for eight horns, besides
+employing from four to five trumpets.</p>
+<p>While he has increased the technical difficulties of
+every instrument, what he requires of them is not impossible.
+He does, indeed, call for first-rate artists in
+his orchestra; but so did Wagner as compared with
+Beethoven. He knows every instrument thoroughly,
+for he has taken lessons on all; and, therefore, when
+he is striving for new instrumental effects he is not
+putting problems which cannot be legitimately solved.
+His &ldquo;Till Eulenspiegel&rsquo;s Merry Pranks&rdquo; makes, possibly,
+the greatest demand of all his works on an
+orchestra. But, if properly played, it is one of the
+most bizarre and amusing scherzos in the repertoire.
+In his &ldquo;Don Quixote,&rdquo; he has gone outside the list of
+orchestral instruments; and in the scene where <i>Don
+Quixote</i> has his tilt with the windmill, he has introduced
+a regular theatrical wind-machine. And why
+not? The effect to be produced justifies the means.
+There is an <i>à capella</i> chorus by Strauss for sixteen
+voices. These are not divided into two double quartets,
+or into four quartets, but the composition actually
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212' name='page_212'></a>212</span>
+is scored in sixteen parts. He shrinks from no
+musical problem.</p>
+<h4>Not Mere Bulk and Noise.</h4>
+<p>When &ldquo;A Hero&rsquo;s Life&rdquo; was produced in New York
+it was given at a public rehearsal and concert of the
+Philharmonic. It made such a profound impression&mdash;it
+was recognized as music, not as mere bulk and noise&mdash;that
+it had to be repeated at a following public rehearsal
+and concert, thus having the honor of four consecutive
+performances by the same society in one season.
+Previous performances of Strauss&rsquo;s works,
+mainly by the Chicago Orchestra, under Thomas, and
+the Boston Symphony Orchestra, had begun to direct
+public attention to this composer. But the &ldquo;Heldenleben&rdquo;
+performances by the Philharmonic created something
+of a sensation. They made the &ldquo;hit&rdquo; to which the
+public unconsciously had been working up for several
+seasons. Large as are the dimensions of &ldquo;A Hero&rsquo;s
+Life,&rdquo; Richard Strauss had chosen a subject that made
+a very direct appeal. Despite its wealth of polyphony
+and theme combination, the score told, without a word
+of synopsis, a clear intelligible story of a hero&rsquo;s material
+victory, followed by a greater moral one. It
+placed the public on a human, familiar footing with
+a composer whom previously they had regarded with
+more awe than interest. Here was music interesting
+as mere music, but all the more interesting because it
+had an intellectual message to convey.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213' name='page_213'></a>213</span></div>
+<h4>Life and Truth.</h4>
+<p>What is the difference between classical and modern
+music? Write a chapter or a book on it, and the difference
+still remains just this: Classical music is the
+expression of beauty; modern music the expression of
+life and truth. Modern music seems entering upon a
+new era with Strauss, which does not necessarily exclude
+beauty. It is beginning to illustrate itself, so to
+speak, like the author-artist who can both write and
+draw. To-day, music not only expresses truth, but
+represents it pictorially. How long will the time be
+in coming when a composer will wave his bâton, the
+orchestra strike a chord&mdash;and we be not only listeners
+but also beholders, hearing the chord, and seeing at
+the same time its image floating above the orchestra?</p>
+<p>In his &ldquo;Melomaniacs,&rdquo; the most remarkable collection
+of musical stories I have read, Mr. Huneker has
+a tale called &ldquo;A Piper of Dreams,&rdquo; the most advanced
+piece of musical fiction I know of. This piper of
+dreams produces music which is <em>seen</em>. &ldquo;Do you know
+why you like it?&rdquo; Mr. Huneker asked me, when I told
+him how intensely I admired the story. &ldquo;Because,&rdquo;
+he continued, &ldquo;the hero of the story is a Richard
+Strauss.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Of course, this brilliantly written story was a daring
+incursion into a seemingly impossible future. Yet it
+points a tendency. When shall we have music that
+can be seen? Considering how closely related are the
+laws of acoustics and optics, is a &ldquo;Piper of Dreams&rdquo;
+so visionary? Who knows but that the music of the
+future may be visible sound&mdash;the work of a piper of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214' name='page_214'></a>214</span>
+dreams? Sometimes, when listening to Strauss, I think
+Mr. Huneker&rsquo;s <i>Piper</i> is tuning up.</p>
+<p>Richard Strauss&rsquo;s tone poems are large in plan. In
+fact they are colossal. They show him to be a man
+of great intellectual activity, as well as an inspired
+composer. The latter, of course, is the test by which
+a musical work stands or falls. No matter how intellectually
+it is planned, if it is inadequate musically
+it fails. But if it is musically inspired, it gains vastly
+in effect when it rests on a brain basis.</p>
+<h4>Literally Tone Dramas.</h4>
+<p>That Richard Strauss is the most significant figure
+in the musical world to-day seems to me too patent to
+admit of discussion. The only question to be considered
+is, how has he become so? The question is best
+answered by showing what a Richard Strauss tone
+poem is. Take &ldquo;Thus Spake Zarathustra&rdquo; and &ldquo;A
+Hero&rsquo;s Life.&rdquo; Without going into an elaborate discussion
+I must insist that, to consider Richard Strauss
+as in any way a development from Berlioz or Liszt,
+shows a deplorable unfamiliarity with his works. Berlioz
+wrote program music. Liszt wrote program
+music. Richard Strauss writes program music. But
+this point of resemblance is wholly superficial. Berlioz
+admittedly strove to adhere to the orthodox symphonic
+form. Liszt aptly named his own productions &ldquo;symphonic
+poems.&rdquo; They are much freer in form than
+Berlioz&rsquo;s, and possibly pointed the way to the Richard
+Strauss tone poem. But when we examine the musical
+kernel, the difference at once is apparent. Polyphony,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_215' name='page_215'></a>215</span>
+that is, the simultaneous interweaving of many
+themes, was foreign to Berlioz and Liszt. Their style
+is mainly homophonic. Richard Strauss is a polyphonic
+composer second not even to Wagner, whose
+system of leading motives in his music-dramas made
+his scores such marvellous polyphonic structures. Such,
+too, are the scores of Richard Strauss&rsquo;s tone poems.
+None but a master of polyphony could have attempted
+to express in music what Richard Strauss has expressed.
+For are not his tone poems literally tone
+dramas?</p>
+<p>It was like a man of great intellectual activity, such
+as Richard Strauss is, to select for musical illustration
+the Faust of modern literature&mdash;Nietzsche&rsquo;s &ldquo;Zarathustra.&rdquo;
+The composer became interested in Nietzsche&rsquo;s
+works in 1892, when he was writing his music-drama,
+&ldquo;Guntram.&rdquo; The full fruition of his study of this
+philosopher&rsquo;s works is &ldquo;Thus Spake Zarathustra.&rdquo; But
+this is not an attempt to set Nietzsche to music, not
+an effort to express a system of philosophy through
+sound. It is rather the musical portrayal of a quest&mdash;a
+being longing to solve the problems of life, finding
+at the end of his varied pilgrimage that which he
+had left at the beginning, Nature deep and inscrutable.</p>
+<p>Musically, the great <i>fortissimo</i> outburst in C major,
+which, at the beginning of the work, greets the seeker
+on the mountain-top with the glories of the sunrise, is
+the symbol of Nature. The seeker descends the mountain.
+He pursues the quest amid many surroundings,
+among all sorts and conditions of men. He experiences
+joy, passion, remorse. In wisdom, perchance,
+lies the final solution of the problem of life. But the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216' name='page_216'></a>216</span>
+emptiness of &ldquo;wisdom&rdquo; is depicted by the composer
+with the keenest satire in a learned, yet dry, five-part
+fugue. The seeker&rsquo;s varied experiences form as many
+divisions of the tone poem. There is even a waltz
+theme. Unending joy! Therein he may reach the
+end of his quest.</p>
+<p>But hark! a sombre strophe, followed twelve times
+by the even fainter stroke of a bell! Then a theme
+winging its flight on the highest register of modern
+instrumentation, until it seems to rise over the orchestra
+and vanish into thin air. It is the soul of the
+seeker, his earthly quest ended; while the theme which
+greeted him at sunrise on the mountain-top resounds
+in the orchestral depths, the symbol of Nature, still
+mysterious, still inscrutable.</p>
+<h4>An Intellectual Force in Music.</h4>
+<p>Even this brief synopsis suggests that &ldquo;Zarathustra&rdquo;
+is planned on a large scale. It presupposes an intellectual
+grasp of the subject on the composer&rsquo;s part. In
+its choice, in the selection and rejection of details and
+in outlining his scheme, Richard Strauss shows that
+he has thoroughly assimilated Nietzsche. But, at a certain
+point, the musician in Richard Strauss asserts
+himself above the litterateur. &ldquo;Thus Spake Zarathustra&rdquo;
+was not intended for a preachment, save indirectly.
+From what occurs during that vain quest, from
+the last deep mysterious chord of the Nature theme,
+let the listener draw his own conclusion. In the last
+analysis, &ldquo;Thus Spake Zarathustra&rdquo; is not a philosophical
+treatise, but a tone poem. In the last analysis,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217' name='page_217'></a>217</span>
+Richard Strauss is not a philosopher, but a musician.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A Hero&rsquo;s Life&rdquo; is another work of large plan.
+Like &ldquo;Zarathustra,&rdquo; it derives its importance as an
+art-work from its eloquence as a musical composition.
+With a musical work, no matter how intellectual
+or dramatic its foundation, its test ever will
+be its value as pure music. Richard Wagner&rsquo;s theories
+would have fallen like a house of cards, had not his
+music been eloquent and beautiful. But as his music
+gained wonderfully in added eloquence and beauty by
+induction from its intellectual content, so does
+Strauss&rsquo;s. The fact is, music is music, while philosophies
+come and go. Yesterday it was Schopenhauer;
+to-day it is Nietzsche; to-morrow it will be another.
+Doubtless, Wagner thought his &ldquo;Ring&rdquo; was Schopenhauer&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Negation of the Will to Live&rdquo; set to music.
+Possibly, Richard Strauss thought Nietzsche looked out
+between the bars of &ldquo;Thus Spake Zarathustra.&rdquo; In
+point of fact, neither Wagner nor Richard Strauss incorporated
+their favorite philosophers in their music.
+Wagner may have derived his inspiration from his
+reading of Schopenhauer, and Richard Strauss from
+Nietzsche, for one mind inspires another. But the
+real result, both in Wagner and Strauss, was great
+music.</p>
+<p>This is made clear by Strauss&rsquo;s &ldquo;A Hero&rsquo;s Life.&rdquo;
+Like &ldquo;Zarathustra,&rdquo; it would be effective as music without
+a line of programmatic explanation. The latter
+simply adds to its effectiveness by giving it the further
+interest of &ldquo;fiction&rdquo; and ethical import. In &ldquo;A Hero&rsquo;s
+Life&rdquo; we hear (and <em>see</em>, if you like) the hero himself,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218' name='page_218'></a>218</span>
+his jealous adversaries, the woman whose love
+consoles him, the battle in which he wins his greatest
+worldly triumph, his mission of peace, the world&rsquo;s
+indifference and the final flight of his soul toward the
+empyrean. All this is depicted musically with the
+greatest eloquence. The battlefield scene is a stupendous
+massing of orchestral forces. On the other hand,
+the amorous episode, entitled &ldquo;The Hero&rsquo;s Helpmate,&rdquo;
+is impassioned and charming.</p>
+<p>In the world&rsquo;s indifference to the hero&rsquo;s mission of
+peace, there is little doubt that Strauss was indulging
+in a retrospect of his own struggles for recognition.
+For here are heard numerous reminiscences of his earlier
+works&mdash;his tone poems, &ldquo;Don Juan,&rdquo; &ldquo;Death and
+Transfiguration,&rdquo; &ldquo;Macbeth,&rdquo; &ldquo;Till Eulenspiegel&rsquo;s
+Merry Pranks,&rdquo; &ldquo;Thus Spake Zarathustra,&rdquo; &ldquo;Don
+Quixote&rdquo;; his music-drama, &ldquo;Guntram&rdquo;; and his song,
+&ldquo;Dream During Twilight.&rdquo; These reminiscences give
+&ldquo;A Hero&rsquo;s Life&rdquo; the same autobiographical interest
+as attaches to Wagner&rsquo;s &ldquo;Meistersinger.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>Tribute to Wagner.</h4>
+<p>Strauss pays a tribute to Wagner in the one-act
+opera, &ldquo;Feuersnot&rdquo; (&ldquo;Fire Famine&rdquo;). According to
+the old legend on which this <i>Sing-gedicht</i> (song-poem)
+is founded, a young maiden has offended her lover.
+But the lover being a magician, casts a spell over the
+town, causing the extinction of all fire, bringing cold
+and darkness upon the entire place, until the maiden
+relents and smiles again upon him, when the spell is
+lifted and the fires once more burn brightly. The
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219' name='page_219'></a>219</span>
+young lover, <i>Kunrad</i>, in rebuking the people of the
+city, says:</p>
+<table summary=''><tr><td>
+<p class='cg'>&ldquo;In this house which to-day I destroy,<br />
+Once lodged Richard the Master.<br />
+Disgracefully did ye expel him<br />
+In envy and baseness,&rdquo; etc., etc.</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+<p>Accompanying these lines, Strauss introduces themes
+from Wagner&rsquo;s &ldquo;Ring of the Nibelung.&rdquo; Undoubtedly
+&ldquo;Richard the Master,&rdquo; in the above lines, is Richard
+Wagner.</p>
+<p>While Mr. Paur was not the first orchestral leader
+who has played Strauss&rsquo;s music in this country, he may
+justly be regarded as Strauss&rsquo;s prophet in New York
+at least. Not only do we owe to him the performances
+of &ldquo;A Hero&rsquo;s Life,&rdquo; which definitely &ldquo;created&rdquo; Strauss
+here, but it was he who brought forward &ldquo;Thus Spake
+Zarathustra,&rdquo; when he was conductor of the Boston
+Symphony Orchestra. As long ago as 1889, when
+Mr. Paur was conductor at Mannheim, he invited
+Strauss to direct his symphony in F minor there.
+Strauss accepted and also brought with him his just
+completed &ldquo;Macbeth,&rdquo; asking to be allowed to try it
+over with the orchestra, as he wanted to hear it&mdash;a
+request which was readily granted. Afterward, at
+Mr. Paur&rsquo;s house, Strauss&rsquo;s piano quartet was played,
+with the composer himself at the piano and Mr. Paur
+at the violin. It is not surprising that when Mr. Paur
+came over here as the conductor of the Boston Symphony
+Orchestra, he championed Richard Strauss&rsquo;s
+work, continued to do so after he became conductor
+of the New York Philharmonic Society, and probably
+still does as conductor of the Pittsburg Orchestra.</p>
+<p>Strauss has become such an important figure in the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220' name='page_220'></a>220</span>
+world of music that it is interesting to note what has
+been done to bring his work before the American public.
+Theodore Thomas, with the artistic liberality
+which he has always displayed toward every serious
+effort in music, produced Strauss&rsquo;s symphony in F
+minor, which bears date 1883, as early as December
+13, 1884, with the New York Philharmonic Society.
+It was the first performance of this work anywhere.
+Strauss was not, however, heard again at the concerts
+of this organization until January, 1892, when Seidl
+brought out &ldquo;Death and Transfiguration.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>After he became conductor of the Chicago Orchestra,
+Thomas gave many performances of Richard Strauss&rsquo;s
+works&mdash;in 1895, the prelude to &ldquo;Guntram,&rdquo; &ldquo;Death
+and Transfiguration&rdquo; and &ldquo;Till Eulenspiegel&rsquo;s Merry
+Pranks&rdquo;; in 1897, &ldquo;Don Juan&rdquo; and &ldquo;Thus Spake Zarathustra&rdquo;;
+in 1899, &ldquo;Don Quixote&rdquo; and the symphonic
+fantasia, &ldquo;Italy&rdquo;; in 1900, &ldquo;A Hero&rsquo;s Life&rdquo; (the first
+performance in this country) and the &ldquo;Serenade&rdquo; for
+wind instruments; in 1902, &ldquo;Macbeth&rdquo; (first performance
+in this country) and the &ldquo;Feuersnot&rdquo; fragment.
+Several of these works, besides those noted, had their
+first performance in this country by the Chicago Orchestra,
+and several have had repeated performances.</p>
+<p>The Boston Symphony Orchestra also has a fine
+record as regards the performance of Richard Strauss&rsquo;s
+works. Nikisch, Paur, and Gericke are the conductors
+under whom these performances have been given.
+Several of the works have been played repeatedly not
+only in Boston, but in other cities where this famous
+orchestra gives concerts.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221' name='page_221'></a>221</span></div>
+<h4>Richard Straussiana.</h4>
+<p>As data regarding Strauss&rsquo;s life, at the disposal of
+English readers, are both scant and scattered, it may
+not be amiss to tell here something of his career. He
+was born on June 11, 1864, in Munich, where his
+father, Franz Strauss, played the French-horn in the
+Royal Orchestra, and was noted for his remarkable
+proficiency on the instrument. The elder Strauss lived
+long enough to watch with pride his son&rsquo;s growing
+fame. Richard began to play the piano when he was
+four years old. At the age of six he heard some children
+singing around a Christmas tree. &ldquo;I can compose
+something like that,&rdquo; he said, and he produced
+unaided a three-part song. When he went to school,
+his mother by chance put covers of music paper on
+his books. As a result, he occupied much of his time
+composing on this paper, and during a French lesson
+sketched out the scherzo of a string quartet which
+has been published as his Opus 2. While he was still
+at school, he composed a symphony in D minor. This
+was played by the Royal Orchestra under Levi. When,
+in response to calls for the composer, Richard came
+out, some one in the audience asked: &ldquo;What has that
+boy to do with the symphony?&rdquo; &ldquo;Oh, he&rsquo;s only the
+composer,&rdquo; was the reply. The year before (1880),
+the Royal Opera prima donna, Meysenheim, had publicly
+sung three of his songs.</p>
+<p>During his advanced school years, his piano lessons
+continued, he received lessons in the violin, and went
+through a severe course in composition with the Royal
+Kapellmeister, Meyer. In 1882, he attended the University
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_222' name='page_222'></a>222</span>
+of Munich. His &ldquo;Serenade&rdquo; for wind instruments,
+composed at this time, attracted the attention
+of Hans von Bülow, under whom he studied for a while
+at Raff&rsquo;s conservatory in Frankfort. Bülow invited
+him to Meiningen as co-director of the orchestra, and
+when in November, 1885, Bülow resigned as conductor,
+Strauss became his successor, remaining there, however,
+only till April, 1886. His symphonic fantasia,
+&ldquo;Italy,&rdquo; had its origin through a trip to Rome and
+Naples during this year. In August, 1886, he was
+appointed assistant conductor to Levi and Fischer at
+the Munich Opera, where he remained until July, 1889,
+when he became conductor at Weimar. In 1892, he
+almost died from an attack of pneumonia, and on his
+recovery took a long trip through Greece, Egypt and
+Sicily. It was on this tour that he wrote and composed
+&ldquo;Guntram,&rdquo; which was brought out at Weimar
+in May, 1894. After the first performance, he announced
+his engagement to the singer of <i>Freihild</i> in
+&ldquo;Guntram,&rdquo; Pauline de Ahna, the daughter of a Bavarian
+general. The same year he returned to Munich
+as conductor, remaining there until 1899, when he became
+one of the conductors at the Berlin Opera, which
+position he still holds. He is one of the &ldquo;star&rdquo; conductors
+of Europe, receiving invitations to conduct
+concerts in many cities, including Brussels, Moscow,
+Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, London and Paris;
+and his American tour was a memorable one. He is
+a man of untiring industry. It is said that he worked
+no less than half a year on &ldquo;Thus Spake Zarathustra,&rdquo;
+and that the writing of his scores is a model of beauty.</p>
+<p>Strauss occupies a commanding position in the world
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223' name='page_223'></a>223</span>
+of music. He has achieved it through a remarkable
+combination of musical technique and inspiration
+coupled with rare industry. His ideals are of the highest.
+His intellectual activity is great. He seems a
+man of calm and noble poise, of broad horizon. It
+would be presumption to speak of &ldquo;expectations&rdquo; as to
+one who has accomplished so much. For the great
+achievements already to his credit, and among these
+&ldquo;Salome&rdquo; surely must be included, are the best promise
+for the future.</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_224' name='page_224'></a>224</span>
+<a name='XIII_A_NOTE_ON_CHAMBER_MUSIC' id='XIII_A_NOTE_ON_CHAMBER_MUSIC'></a>
+<h2>XIII</h2>
+<h3>A NOTE ON CHAMBER MUSIC</h3>
+</div>
+<p>Lovers of chamber music form an extremely
+refined and cultured class, and, like all highly
+refined and cultured people, are very conservative.
+They are the purists among music-lovers, the
+last people who would care to see the classical forms
+abandoned, and who would be disturbed, not to say
+shocked, by any great departure from the sonata form.
+For the string quartet is to chamber music what the
+symphony is to orchestra and the sonata to the pianoforte&mdash;is,
+in fact, a sonata for two violins, viola and
+violoncello, just as the symphony is a sonata for orchestra.</p>
+<p>Oddly enough, a pianoforte solo is more effective in
+a large hall than a string quartet, although the latter
+employs four times as many instruments; and the same
+is true of those pieces of chamber music in which
+the pianoforte is used, such as sonatas for pianoforte
+and violin or violoncello, pianoforte trios, quartets,
+quintets, and so on. A fine soloist on the pianoforte
+will be more at home in a large auditorium like Carnegie
+Hall or even the Metropolitan Opera House than
+would a string quartet or any other combination of
+chamber-music players. Paderewski plays in Carnegie
+Hall, and, I am sure, would be equally effective in the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_225' name='page_225'></a>225</span>
+Opera House. But an organization of chamber-music
+players would be lost in either place. The Kneisel
+Quartet plays in New York in Mendelssohn Hall, a
+small auditorium which is just about correctly proportioned
+for music of this kind.</p>
+<p>Indeed, compared with the opera, the orchestra and
+even with the pianoforte, chamber music requires a
+setting like a jewel. For just as its devotees are the
+purists among music-lovers, so chamber music itself
+is something very &ldquo;precious.&rdquo; It certainly is a most
+charming and intimate form of musical entertainment
+and the constituency of a well-established string quartet
+inevitably consists of the musical élite.</p>
+<p>The same opinions that have been expressed regarding
+the sonatas and the symphonies of the great composers
+apply in a general way to their chamber music.
+Haydn&rsquo;s is naive; Mozart&rsquo;s more emotional in expression;
+Beethoven&rsquo;s, among that of classical composers,
+the most dramatic. In fact, Beethoven&rsquo;s last quartets,
+in which the instruments are employed quite independently
+and in which rôles practically of equal importance
+are assigned to each, are regarded by Richard
+Strauss as having given the cue to Wagner for his
+polyphonic treatment of the orchestra, and Wagner
+himself spoke of them as works through which &ldquo;Music
+first raised herself to an equal height with the poetry
+and painting of the greatest periods of the past.&rdquo;
+Nevertheless, there are many who hold that in his
+last quartets Beethoven sought to accomplish more than
+can be expressed with four stringed instruments, and
+prefer his earlier works of this class, like the three
+&ldquo;Rasumovski&rdquo; quartets, Opus 59, dedicated by the composer
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_226' name='page_226'></a>226</span>
+to Count Rasumovski, who maintained a private
+string quartet in which he played second violin, the
+others being professionals.</p>
+<p>Schubert&rsquo;s most famous quartet is the one in D minor
+with the lovely slow movement, a theme with
+variations, the theme being his own song, &ldquo;Death and
+the Maiden.&rdquo; One of the greatest works in the whole
+range of chamber music is his string quintet with two
+violoncellos. His pianoforte trios also are noble contributions
+to this branch of musical art. &ldquo;One glance
+at this trio,&rdquo; writes Schumann of the Schubert trio
+in B flat major, &ldquo;and all the wretchedness of existence
+is put to flight and the world seems young
+again.... Many and beautiful as are the
+things Time brings forth, it will be long ere it produces
+another Schubert.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Mendelssohn&rsquo;s chamber music is as polished, affable
+and gentlemanly as most of his other productions, and
+rapidly falling into the same state of unlamented desuetude.
+Schumann has given us his lovely pianoforte
+quintet in E flat. Brahms has contributed much
+that is noteworthy to chamber music, and, as a rule,
+it is less complex and more intelligently scored than
+his orchestral music. Dvorak in his E flat major quartet
+(Opus 51) introduces as the second movement a
+Dumka or Bohemian elegy, one of the most exquisite
+of his compositions. Fascinating in his national musical
+tints, he was genius enough for his music to be
+universal in its expression; and he who used the folksongs
+of his native Bohemia so skillfully was no less
+artistic in the results he accomplished when, during
+his residence in New York, he wrote his string quartet
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227' name='page_227'></a>227</span>
+in F (Opus 96) on Negro themes. Tschaikowsky and
+neo-Russians like Arensky, and the Frenchmen, César
+Franck, Saint-Saëns, d&rsquo;Indy and Debussy, are some
+of the modern names that figure on chamber-music
+programs.</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229' name='page_229'></a>229</span>
+<a name='HOW_TO_APPRECIATE_VOCAL_MUSIC' id='HOW_TO_APPRECIATE_VOCAL_MUSIC'></a>
+<h2>HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC</h2>
+</div>
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_231' name='page_231'></a>231</span>
+<a name='XIV_SONGS_AND_SONG_COMPOSERS' id='XIV_SONGS_AND_SONG_COMPOSERS'></a>
+<h2>XIV</h2>
+<h3>SONGS AND SONG COMPOSERS</h3>
+</div>
+<p>Songs either are strophic or &ldquo;<i>durchcomponirt</i>&rdquo;
+(composed through). In the strophic song the
+melody and accompaniment are repeated unchanged
+through each stanza or strophe of the poem;
+while, when a song is composed through, the music,
+although the principal melody may be repeated more
+than once, is subjected to changes in accordance with
+the moods of the poem.</p>
+<p>Schubert is the first song composer who requires serious
+consideration. While not strictly the originator
+of the <i>Lied</i>, he is universally acknowledged to be the
+first great song composer and to have lifted song to
+its proper place of importance in music. Gluck set
+Klopfstock&rsquo;s odes to music; Haydn as a song writer is
+remembered by &ldquo;Liebes Mädchen hör&rsquo; mir Zu&rdquo;; Mozart
+by &ldquo;Das Veilchen&rdquo;; and Beethoven by &ldquo;Adelaide&rdquo;
+and one or two other songs. Before Schubert&rsquo;s day this
+form of composition was regarded as something rather
+trivial and beneath the dignity of genius. But Haydn,
+Mozart and Beethoven at least did one thing through
+which they may possibly have contributed to the development
+of song-writing. By their freer writing for
+the pianoforte they prepared the way for the Schubert
+accompaniments.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232' name='page_232'></a>232</span></div>
+<p>Where Schubert got his musical genius from is a
+mystery. His father was a schoolmaster, whose first
+wife, Schubert&rsquo;s mother, was a cook. The couple had
+fourteen children and an income of $175. If this income
+is somewhat disproportionate to the size of the
+family, it yet is fortunate that they had fourteen children
+instead of only thirteen. Otherwise there would
+have been one great name less in musical history, for
+Schubert was the fourteenth.</p>
+<p>He was born in Vienna in January, 1797. His
+thirty-one years&mdash;for this genius who so enriched
+music lived to be only thirty-one&mdash;were passed in poverty.
+His father was wretchedly poor, and his own
+works, when they could be disposed of at all to publishers,
+were sold at beggarly prices. Now they are
+universally recognized as masterpieces and are worth
+many times their weight in gold.</p>
+<h4>Too Poor to Buy Music Paper.</h4>
+<p>Shortly before he was twelve years old, Schubert,
+who had been singing soprano solos and playing violin
+in the parish choir, was sent to the so-called Convict,
+the Imperial school for training boys for the Court
+chapel. During his five years there his progress was
+so rapid that even before he was fourteen years old he
+was occasionally asked to substitute for the conductor
+of the school orchestra. Life, however, was hard. He
+had no money with which to buy even a few luxuries
+in the way of food to eke out the wretched fare of
+the Convict, nor music paper. Had it not been for the
+kindness of a fellow pupil and friend, named Spaun, he
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233' name='page_233'></a>233</span>
+would not have been able to write down and work out
+his ideas.</p>
+<p>When his voice changed, the straitened family circumstances
+obliged him to become an assistant in his
+father&rsquo;s school. He was able to bear poverty with
+patience, but not the drudgery of teaching, and he is
+said often to have lost his temper with the boys. Altogether,
+he taught for three years, 1815 to 1818; and
+while his work was most distasteful to him, his genius
+was so spontaneous that during his three years he composed
+many songs, among them his immortal &ldquo;Erlking.&rdquo;
+Finally a university student, Franz von Schober,
+who, having heard some of Schubert&rsquo;s songs, had
+become an enthusiastic admirer of the composer, offered
+him one of his rooms as a lodging, whereupon Schubert,
+straightway accepting the offer, gave up teaching
+and from that time to the end of his brief life led a
+Bohemian existence with a clique of friends of varied
+accomplishments. In this circle he was known as
+&ldquo;Canevas,&rdquo; because whenever some new person joined
+it, his first question regarding the newcomer was
+&ldquo;<i>Kann er wass?</i>&rdquo; (Can he do anything?)</p>
+<p>Outside a small circle of acquaintances, Schubert remained
+practically unknown until he made the acquaintance
+of Johann Michael Vogl, an opera singer,
+to whom his devoted friend, Von Schober, introduced
+him. Vogl was somewhat reserved in his opinion of
+the songs which he tried over with Schubert at their
+first meeting, but they made an impression. He followed
+up the acquaintance and became the first professional
+interpreter of Schubert&rsquo;s lyrics. &ldquo;The manner
+in which Vogl sings and I accompany,&rdquo; wrote Schubert
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234' name='page_234'></a>234</span>
+to his brother Ferdinand, &ldquo;so that we appear like
+<em>one</em> on such occasions, is something new and unheard
+of to our listeners.&rdquo; Publishers, however, held aloof.
+Five years after the &ldquo;Erlking&rdquo; was composed, several
+of them refused to print it, although Schubert offered
+to forego royalties on it. Finally, some of Schubert&rsquo;s
+friends had the song published at their own expense,
+and its success led to the issuing of eleven other songs,
+Schubert unwisely accepting eight hundred florins in
+lieu of royalty on these and the &ldquo;Erlking.&rdquo; Yet from
+one of these songs alone, &ldquo;The Wanderer,&rdquo; the publishers
+received twenty-seven thousand florins between
+the years 1822 and 1861.</p>
+<h4>How the &ldquo;Erlking&rdquo; was Composed.</h4>
+<p>Schubert being the greatest of song composers, and
+the &ldquo;Erlking&rdquo; his greatest song, the circumstances under
+which it was written are of especial interest. His
+friend Spaun, the same who provided him with music
+paper at the Convict, relates that one afternoon toward
+the close of the year 1815 he went with the poet Mayrhofer
+to visit Schubert. They found the composer all
+aglow, reading the &ldquo;Erlking&rdquo; aloud to himself. He
+walked up and down the room several times, book in
+hand, then suddenly sat down and as fast as his pen
+could travel put the music on paper. Having no piano,
+the three men hurried over to the Convict, where the
+&ldquo;Erlking&rdquo; was sung the same evening and received
+with enthusiasm. The old Court organist, Ruziczka,
+afterward played it over himself without the voice,
+and when some of those present objected to the dissonance
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_235' name='page_235'></a>235</span>
+which occurs three times in the course of the
+composition and depicts the child&rsquo;s terror of the <i>Erlking</i>,
+the old organist struck these chords and explained
+how perfectly they reflected the spirit of the
+poem and how felicitously they were worked out in
+their musical resolution.</p>
+<p>Schubert&rsquo;s song is almost Wagnerian in its descriptive
+and dramatic quality. The coaxing voice of the
+<i>Erlking</i>, the terror of the child, the efforts of the father
+to allay his boy&rsquo;s fears, each has its characteristic expression,
+which yet is different from the narrative portions
+of the poem, while in the accompaniment the horse
+gallops along. Schubert was but eighteen years old
+when he set this ballad of Goethe&rsquo;s to music; yet there
+is no more thrilling climax to be found in all song
+literature than those dissonances which I have mentioned
+and which with each repeat rise to a higher
+interval and become each time more shrill with terror.
+Whoever has heard Lilli Lehmann sing this song
+should be able to appreciate its real greatness, as
+Goethe, who had remained utterly indifferent to Schubert&rsquo;s
+music, did when the &ldquo;Erlking&rdquo; was sung to him
+by Frau Schroeder-Devrient, to whom he exclaimed:
+&ldquo;Thank you a thousand times for this great artistic
+achievement. When I heard this song before I did not
+like it at all, but sung in your way it becomes a true
+picture.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>Finck on Schubert.</h4>
+<p>More than six hundred songs by Schubert have been
+published, and when we remember that he wrote symphonies,
+sonatas, shorter pianoforte pieces, chamber
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236' name='page_236'></a>236</span>
+music and operas, the fertility of his brief life is astounding.
+The rapidity with which he composed, however,
+was not due to carelessness, but to the spontaneity
+of his genius and the fact that he loved to compose.
+&ldquo;He composed as a bird sings in the spring, or as a
+well gushes from a mountain-side, simply because he
+could not help it,&rdquo; says Mr. Finck, in his &ldquo;Songs and
+Song Writers.&rdquo; We have it on the authority of Schubert&rsquo;s
+friend, Spaun, that when he went to bed he kept
+his spectacles on, so that when he woke up he could
+go right to the table and compose without wasting time
+looking for his glasses. In the two years 1815-16 he
+wrote no less than two hundred and fifty-four songs.
+Six of the songs in the &ldquo;Winterreise&rdquo; cycle were composed
+in one morning, and he had eight songs to his
+credit in a single day. The charming &ldquo;Hark, Hark,
+the Lark&rdquo; was written at a tavern where he chanced
+to see the poem in a book the leaves of which he was
+slowly turning over. &ldquo;If I only had some music
+paper!&rdquo; he exclaimed, whereupon one of his friends
+promptly ruled lines on the back of his <i>Speise Karte</i>,
+and Schubert, with the varied noises of the tavern going
+on about him, jotted down the song then and there.</p>
+<p>Of course, it is impossible to touch on all the aspects
+of such a genius as his. In his songs clear and beautiful
+melody is, as a rule, combined with a descriptive
+accompaniment. Sometimes the description is given
+by means of only a few chords, like the preluding ones
+in &ldquo;Am Meer.&rdquo; At other times the description runs
+through the entire accompaniment, like the waves that
+flash and dance around the melody of &ldquo;Auf dem Wasser
+zu Singen&rdquo;; the galloping horse in the &ldquo;Erlking&rdquo;;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237' name='page_237'></a>237</span>
+the veiled mist that seems to hang over the scenes in the
+wonderfully dramatic poem, &ldquo;Die Stadt&rdquo;; the flutter
+of the bird in &ldquo;Hark, Hark, the Lark&rdquo;; the brook that
+flows like a leitmotif through the &ldquo;Maid of the Mill&rdquo;
+cycle&mdash;these are a few of the examples that with Schubert
+could be cited by the dozen.</p>
+<p>And the range of his work&mdash;here again space forbids
+the multiplication of examples. It extends from
+the naive &ldquo;Haiden Röslein&rdquo; to the tragic &ldquo;Doppelgänger&rdquo;;
+from the whispering foliage of the &ldquo;Linden
+Tree&rdquo; to the pathetic drone of the &ldquo;Hurdy-Gurdy
+Man&rdquo;; from the &ldquo;Serenade&rdquo; to &ldquo;Todt und das Mädchen.&rdquo;
+Schubert is the greatest genius among song
+composers. Compare the growing reputation of him
+who of all musicians was perhaps the most neglected
+during his life, with that of Mendelssohn, the most
+fêted of composers, but now rapidly dropping to the
+position of a minor tone poet, and who, although he
+wrote eighty-three songs, is as a song writer remembered
+outside of Germany by barely more than one
+<i>Lied</i>, the familiar &ldquo;On the Wings of Song.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>Schumann&rsquo;s Individuality.</h4>
+<p>In Schumann&rsquo;s songs the piano part is more closely
+knit and interwoven with the vocal melody than with
+Schubert&rsquo;s, and, as a result, the voice does not stand out
+so clearly. While his songs are not what they have been
+called by a German critic, &ldquo;pianoforte pieces with accidental
+vocal accompaniments,&rdquo; at times, in his vocal compositions,
+the pianoforte gains too great an ascendancy
+over the voice. If asked to draw a distinction between
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_238' name='page_238'></a>238</span>
+Schubert and Schumann, I should say that there is a
+twofold interest in most of Schubert&rsquo;s songs. He reproduces
+the feeling of the poem in his vocal melody;
+then, if the poem contains a descriptive suggestion, he
+produces that phase of it in his accompaniment, without,
+however, allowing the pianoforte part to encroach
+on the vocal melody. The melody gives the feeling,
+the accompaniment the description or mood picture.
+Schumann, on the other hand, rarely is descriptive.
+Nearly always he produces a mood picture in tone,
+but requires both voice and pianoforte to effect his purpose.
+As this, however, is Schumann&rsquo;s method of composition,
+and as it is better that each composer should
+leave the seal of his individuality on everything he
+does, and not be an imitator, it is not cause for regret
+that while Schubert is Schubert, Schumann is Schumann.</p>
+<p>The proportion of fine songs among the two hundred
+and forty-five composed by Schumann is, however,
+much smaller than in the heritage left us by Schubert;
+and while Schubert, from the time he wrote his first
+great vocal compositions, added many equally great
+ones every year, Schumann&rsquo;s songs, on the whole, show
+a decided falling off after he had wooed and won Clara
+Wieck. It was during his courtship that he produced
+his best songs. Separated from her by the command
+of her stern father, he made love to her in music.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am now writing nothing but songs, great and
+small,&rdquo; we find him saying in a letter to a friend in
+the summer of 1840. &ldquo;Hardly can I tell you how delicious
+it is to write for voice instead of for instruments,
+and what a turmoil and tumult I feel within
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_239' name='page_239'></a>239</span>
+me when I sit down to it.&rdquo; While he was composing
+his song cycle, &ldquo;Die Myrthen,&rdquo; he wrote to Clara:
+&ldquo;Since yesterday morning I have written twenty-seven
+pages of music, all new, concerning which the best I
+can tell you is that I laughed and wept for joy while
+composing them.&rdquo; A month later he writes her, in
+sending her his first printed songs: &ldquo;When I composed
+them my soul was within yours; without such
+a love, indeed, no one could write such music&mdash;and this
+I intend as a special compliment.&rdquo; ... &ldquo;I could
+sing myself to death, like a nightingale,&rdquo; he writes to
+her again, on May 15th. Never was there such a
+musical wooing, and those who wish to participate in
+it can do so by singing or listening to such songs as
+&ldquo;Dedication,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Almond Tree,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Lotos Flower,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;In the Forest&rdquo; (Waldesgespräch), &ldquo;Spring
+Night,&rdquo; &ldquo;He, the Noblest of the Noble,&rdquo; &ldquo;Thou Ring
+upon My Finger,&rdquo; &ldquo;&rsquo;Twas in the Lovely Month of
+May,&rdquo; &ldquo;Where&rsquo;er My Tears Are Falling,&rdquo; &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll Not
+Complain,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Nightly in My Dreaming.&rdquo; Among
+his songs not inspired by love should be mentioned the
+&ldquo;Two Grenadiers,&rdquo; which Plançon sings so inimitably.</p>
+<h4>Phases of Franz&rsquo;s Genius.</h4>
+<p>Robert Franz (1815-1892) had his life embittered
+by neglect and physical ills. His family name originally
+was Knauth, his father having been Christoph
+Knauth. But in order to distinguish him from his
+brother, who was engaged in the same business, he
+was addressed as Christoph Franz, a name which he
+subsequently had legalized. Yet critics insisted that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240' name='page_240'></a>240</span>
+Robert Franz was a pseudonym which the composer
+had adopted from vanity in order to indicate that he
+was as great as <em>Robert</em> Schumann and <em>Franz</em> Schubert
+put together.</p>
+<p>Franz was strongly influenced by Bach and Händel,
+many of whose scores he supplied with what are known
+as &ldquo;additional accompaniments,&rdquo; filling out gaps which
+these composers left in their scores according to the
+custom of their day. His songs show this influence in
+their polyphony, and the German critic, Ambros, said
+that Franz&rsquo;s song, &ldquo;Der Schwere Abend,&rdquo; looked as if
+Bach had sat down and composed a Franz song out
+of thanks for all that Franz was to do for him through
+his additional accompaniments. Besides their polyphony
+derived from Bach, Franz&rsquo;s songs are interesting
+for their modulations, which are employed not simply
+for the sake of showing cleverness or originality, but
+for their appropriateness in expressing the mood of the
+poem. He also was extremely careful in regard to
+the choice of key and decidedly objected to transpositions
+of his songs, in order to make them singable for
+higher or lower voices than could use the original key.
+&ldquo;When I am dead,&rdquo; he wrote to his publisher, &ldquo;I cannot
+prevent these transpositions, but so long as I am
+alive I shall fight them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Franz did not endeavor to reproduce visible things
+in his pianoforte parts, and the voice in his songs often
+is declamatory, merging into melody only in the more
+deeply emotional passages. He is a reflective rather
+than a dramatic composer, disliked opera, and himself
+said that any one who had penetrated deeply into his
+songs well knew that the dramatic element was not to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241' name='page_241'></a>241</span>
+be found in them, nor was it intended to be. Composers,
+however, have many theories regarding their
+music which, in practice, come to naught; and whether
+Franz thought his songs dramatic or not, the fact remains
+that when Lilli Lehmann sang his &ldquo;Im Herbst&rdquo;
+it was as thrillingly dramatic as anything could be.</p>
+<h4>Self-Critical.</h4>
+<p>Franz was extremely self-critical. He kept his productions
+in his desk for years, working over them again
+and again, until in many cases the song in its final
+shape bore slight resemblance to what it had been at
+first. He declared his Opus 1 to be no worse than his
+latest work, because it had been composed with equal
+care and had had the benefit of his ripening judgment
+and experience. He admired Wagner and dedicated
+one of his song volumes to him; but when some critics
+fancied that they discovered Wagnerian traits in several
+songs in his last collection, Op. 51-52, he was
+able to prove that these very songs were among the
+first he had written, and were published so late in
+his career simply because he had kept them back for
+revision.</p>
+<p>His physical disabilities were pitiable. When he was
+about thirty-three years old and shortly after his marriage,
+he was standing in the Halle railway station
+when a locomotive close by sounded its shrill whistle.
+The effect upon him was like the piercing of his ears.
+For several days afterward he heard nothing but confused
+buzzing, and from that time on his hearing became
+worse and worse, until finally his ears pained
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242' name='page_242'></a>242</span>
+him even when he composed. In 1876 he became
+totally deaf, and a few years later his right arm was
+paralyzed from shoulder to thumb. He was a poor
+man, and right at the worst time in his life, when he
+was totally deaf, a small pension which he had received
+from the Bach Society was taken away from him. But
+his admirers, many of them Americans, came to his
+rescue and raised a fund for his support.</p>
+<p>Among his finest songs are &ldquo;Widmung,&rdquo; &ldquo;Leise
+Zieht durch mein Gemuht,&rdquo; &ldquo;Bitte,&rdquo; &ldquo;Die Lotos
+Blume,&rdquo; &ldquo;Es Ragt der Alte Eborus,&rdquo; &ldquo;Meerfahrt,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Das is ein Brausen und Heulen,&rdquo; &ldquo;Ich Hab&rsquo; in Deinem
+Auge,&rdquo; &ldquo;Ich Will meine seele Taugen,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Es Hat&rsquo;
+Die Rose sich Beklagt.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>Brahms a Thinker in Music.</h4>
+<p>Brahms was a profound thinker in music&mdash;not a philosopher,
+but a reflective poet, whose musicianship,
+however, was so great that he cared too little for the
+practical side of his art as compared with the theoretical.
+If what he wrote looked all right on paper he
+was indifferent as to whether it sounded right or not;
+consequently, if he started out with a certain rhythmical
+figuration or a certain scheme of harmonic progression,
+he carried it through rigidly to its logical conclusion,
+utterly oblivious to, or at least utterly regardless
+of, any tonal blemishes that might result, although
+by slightly altering his scheme here and there
+he might have obviated these. This is the reason why
+some people find passages in his music which to them
+sound repellant. But those who have not allowed this
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_243' name='page_243'></a>243</span>
+aspect of Brahms&rsquo;s work to prejudice them and have
+familiarized themselves with his music, well know that
+he is one of the loftiest souls that ever put pen to
+staff. He never is drastic, never sensational, never
+superficial; and the climaxes of his songs, as in his
+other music, are produced not by great outbursts of
+sound, but by sudden modulations or change of rhythm,
+which give a wonderful &ldquo;lift&rdquo; to voice and accompaniment.</p>
+<p>Among his best known songs (and each of these is
+a masterpiece) are: &ldquo;Wie Bist du meine Königin,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Ruhe, Süss Liebschen,&rdquo; &ldquo;Von ewiger Liebe,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Wiegenlied,&rdquo; &ldquo;Minnelied,&rdquo; &ldquo;Feldeinsamkeit,&rdquo; &ldquo;Wie
+Melodien zeiht es mir,&rdquo; &ldquo;Immer leiser wird mein
+Schlummer,&rdquo; &ldquo;Meine Lieder,&rdquo; &ldquo;Wir wandelten, wir
+Swei, zusammen.&rdquo;</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>One of the most impassioned modern lyrical outbursts
+is Jensen&rsquo;s setting of Heine&rsquo;s &ldquo;Lehn deine Wang&rsquo;
+an Meine Wang&rsquo;,&rdquo; and his &ldquo;Frühlingsnacht&rdquo; also is a
+very beautiful song, although the popularity of Schumann&rsquo;s
+setting of the same poem has cast it unduly into
+the shade. Rubinstein will be found considerably less
+prolix in his songs than in his music in other branches,
+and those which he wrote to the Persian poems of
+Von Bodenstedt (&ldquo;Mirza Schaffy&rdquo;) are fascinating
+in their Oriental coloring. The &ldquo;Asra,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Yellow
+Rolls at my Feet,&rdquo; (Gold Rollt mir zu Füssen) are
+among the best known of these; while &ldquo;Es blink&rsquo;t der
+Thau,&rdquo; &ldquo;Du Bist wie eine Blume,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Der Traum&rdquo;
+are among Rubinstein&rsquo;s songs which are or should be
+in the repertoire of every singer. Tschaikowsky and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244' name='page_244'></a>244</span>
+Dvorak are not noteworthy as song writers, but the
+former&rsquo;s setting of &ldquo;Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt&rdquo;
+and the latter&rsquo;s &ldquo;Gypsy Songs&rdquo; are highly successful.</p>
+<h4>Grieg&rsquo;s Originality.</h4>
+<p>One of the most fascinating among modern song
+writers is the Norwegian, Grieg. He has been unusually
+fortunate in having a fine singer as a wife.
+Mr. Finck relates that Ibsen, after hearing her sing
+his poems as set to music by Grieg, whispered as he
+shook the hands of this musical couple, the one word,
+&ldquo;Understood.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Grieg&rsquo;s originality has not been thoroughly appreciated,
+because much of the beauty of his music has
+been attributed to what is supposed to be its Norwegian
+origin. Grieg is national, it is true, but not in a
+cramped or narrow sense. His music is the product
+of his individual genius, and his genius has made him
+so popular that what is his has come to be wrongly
+considered Norwegian, whereas it is Norway interpreted
+through the genius of Grieg. His music is not
+a dialect, but music of universal significance, fortunately
+tinged with his individuality. &ldquo;I Love You,&rdquo;
+Ibsen&rsquo;s &ldquo;The Swan,&rdquo; &ldquo;By the Riverside,&rdquo; &ldquo;Springtide,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Wounded Heart,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Mother Sings&rdquo; (a
+mother mourning her dead child), &ldquo;At the Bier of a
+Young Woman,&rdquo; and &ldquo;From Monte Pincio,&rdquo; are
+among his finest <i>Lieder</i>.</p>
+<p>Chopin is much too little known as a song writer.
+His genius as a composer for the pianoforte has overshadowed
+his songs, and the public is familiar with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_245' name='page_245'></a>245</span>
+little else save &ldquo;The Maiden&rsquo;s Wish,&rdquo; which is one
+of Madame Sembrich&rsquo;s favorite encores and to which
+she plays her own accompaniment so delightfully. But
+there is plenty of national color in the &ldquo;Lithuanina&rdquo;
+song, plenty of pathos in &ldquo;Poland&rsquo;s Dirge,&rdquo; and plenty
+of lyrical passion in &ldquo;My Delights.&rdquo; Finck says that
+in all music, lyric or dramatic, the thrill of a kiss has
+never been expressed so ecstatically as in the twelve
+bars of this song marked &ldquo;<i>crescendo sempre piu accellerando</i>.&rdquo;
+Certainly <i>sempre</i> (always) and <i>accellerando</i>
+(faster) are capital words when applied to a
+kiss!</p>
+<p>Richard Wagner, when twenty-six years old, in
+Paris, tried to relieve his poverty by composing a few
+songs, among which is a very charming setting of
+Ronsard&rsquo;s &ldquo;Dors mon enfant.&rdquo; He also set Heine&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;The Two Grenadiers&rdquo; to music, utilizing the &ldquo;Marsellaise&rdquo;
+in the accompaniment; but, as a whole, the Wagner
+version of this poem is not as effective as Schumann&rsquo;s.
+In 1862 he composed music to five poems
+written by Mathilde Wesendonck, among which is the
+famous &ldquo;Träume,&rdquo; which utilizes the theme of the love
+duet that later on appeared in &ldquo;Tristan.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>Liszt&rsquo;s Genius for Song.</h4>
+<p>Liszt&rsquo;s songs are a complete musical exposition of
+the poems to which they are composed. Thus while,
+by way of comparison, Rubinstein&rsquo;s setting of &ldquo;Du
+Bist wie eine Blume&rdquo; gives through its simplicity a
+rare impression of purity, Liszt in his setting of the
+same poem adds to that purity the sense of sacredness
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_246' name='page_246'></a>246</span>
+with which the contemplation of a pure woman fills a
+man&rsquo;s heart and causes him to worship her. His &ldquo;Lorelei&rdquo;
+is a beautiful lyric scene. We view the flowing
+river, seem to hear the seductive voice of the temptress,
+and watch the treacherous and stormy current that
+hurries the ensnared boatman to his doom. And what
+song has more of that valuable quality we call &ldquo;atmosphere&rdquo;
+than Liszt&rsquo;s version of &ldquo;Kennst du das Land?&rdquo;
+As will be the case with Liszt in other branches of
+music, he will be recognized some day as one of the
+greatest of song composers.</p>
+<p>Richard Strauss&rsquo;s songs, from having been regarded
+as so bristling with difficulties as to be impossible, have
+become favorites in the song repertoire. When it is
+a genius who creates difficulties these are sure to be
+overcome by ambitious players and singers, and music
+advances technically by just so much. Strauss&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Ständchen,&rdquo; with its deliciously delicate accompaniment,
+so difficult to play with the requisite grace, was
+the first of Strauss&rsquo;s songs to become popular here, and
+it was the art of our great singer, Madame Nordica,
+that made it so. Now we hear &ldquo;Die Nacht,&rdquo; &ldquo;Traum
+durch die Dämmerung,&rdquo; &ldquo;Heimliche Aufforderung,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Allerseelem,&rdquo; &ldquo;Breit über mein Haupt Dein schwarzes
+Haar,&rdquo; and many of his other songs with growing frequency.
+There are few song composers with whom
+the pianoforte accompaniment is so entirely distinct
+from the melody (or so difficult to play), as often is
+the case with Strauss. As with Schubert, every descriptive
+suggestion contained in the poem is carried
+into the accompaniment, but the vocal part is more
+declamatory and more varied. Even now it seems certain
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247' name='page_247'></a>247</span>
+that Strauss&rsquo;s songs are permanent acquisitions
+to the repertoire. It still is too soon, however, to affirm
+the same thing of the unfortunate Hugo Wolf&rsquo;s songs,
+although I find myself strongly attracted by &ldquo;Er ists,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Frühling übers Jahr,&rdquo; &ldquo;Fussteise,&rdquo; &ldquo;Der König bei
+der Kröning,&rdquo; &ldquo;Gesang Weyla&rsquo;s,&rdquo; &ldquo;Elfenlied&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;Der Tambour.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Saint-Saëns, Delibes, Godard, Massenet, Chaminade
+and the late Augusta Holmès are among French song
+writers whose work is clever, but who seem to me
+more concerned with manner than with matter. Gounod&rsquo;s
+rank as a song composer is much below his reputation
+as the composer of &ldquo;Faust&rdquo; and &ldquo;Romeo et
+Juliette.&rdquo; Oddly enough, however, the idea that came
+to him of placing a melody above a prelude from Bach&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Well Tempered Clavichord&rdquo; did more than anything
+he had accomplished up to that time to make him
+famous. Originally he scored it for violin with a small
+female chorus off stage. Then he replaced the chorus
+with a harmonium. Finally he seems to have been
+struck with the fact that the melody fitted the words
+of the &ldquo;Ave Maria,&rdquo; substituted a single voice for the
+violin, which, however, still can supplement the vocal
+melody with an obbligato, did away with the harmonium,
+and the result was the Gounod-Bach &ldquo;Ave
+Maria.&rdquo; The Bach prelude, of course, sinks to the
+level of a mere accompaniment, for it has to be taken
+much slower than Bach intended.</p>
+<p>American composers who have produced noteworthy
+songs are Edward A. MacDowell, G. W. Chadwick,
+Arthur Foote, Clayton Johns, Homer N. Bartlett, Margaret
+Ruthven Lang, and the late Ethelbert Nevin.</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_248' name='page_248'></a>248</span>
+<a name='XV_ORATORIO' id='XV_ORATORIO'></a>
+<h2>XV</h2>
+<h3>ORATORIO</h3>
+</div>
+<p>Oratorio had its origin in an attempt by a
+sixteenth century Italian monk to make divine
+service more interesting&mdash;to draw to
+church people who might not be attracted by the opportunity
+to hear a sermon, but could be persuaded
+to come if music a trifle more entertaining to the common
+mind than the unaccompanied (<i>à capella</i>) ecclesiastical
+compositions of Palestrina and other masters of
+the polyphonic school, were thrown in with them.
+Music still is regarded as a prime drawing card in
+churches, and when nowadays a fine basso rises after
+the sermon and sings &ldquo;It is enough,&rdquo; we can paraphrase
+it as meaning, &ldquo;It is enough so far as the sermon
+is concerned, and now to make up for it you are going
+to have a chance to listen to some music.&rdquo; When the
+announcement is made that such-and-such a well-known
+singer has been engaged for a church it means
+that the Reverend &mdash;&mdash; is doing just what the monk,
+Neri, did, about four hundred years ago&mdash;fishing for a
+congregation with music.</p>
+<p>As it exists to-day, however, oratorio has little to do
+with religious worship, and usually is practiced amid
+secular surroundings, with a female chorus in variegated
+evening attire and a male chorus in claw-hammers,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249' name='page_249'></a>249</span>
+the singers hanging more or less anxiously on
+the baton of the conductor. This living picture which,
+so far as this country is concerned, I have, I believe,
+drawn in correct perspective, is so much out of keeping
+with the religious subjects which usually underlie the
+texts of oratorios that it may account for the comparative
+lack of interest shown by Americans for this form
+of musical entertainment.</p>
+<p>It also is true, however, that in this country oratorio
+never has had more than half a chance. This is
+due to the fact that the American man is not as sensitive
+to music nor musically as well educated as the
+American woman, the result being that the male contingent
+of the average American oratorio chorus is less
+competent than the women singers. Tenors are &ldquo;rare
+birds&rdquo; in any land, and rarer here apparently than elsewhere,
+so that in this division of our mixed choruses
+there is a lack of brilliancy in tone and of precision in
+attack. These several circumstances combine to prevent
+that well-balanced ensemble necessary to a satisfactory
+performance.</p>
+<h4>An Incongruous Art-Form.</h4>
+<p>Even at its best, however, oratorio is an incongruous
+art-form, neither an opera nor a church service, but
+rather an attempt to design something that shall not
+shock people who consider it &ldquo;wicked&rdquo; to go to the
+opera, nor afflict with <i>ennui</i> those who would consider
+an invitation to listen to sacred music during the week
+an imposition. It seems peculiarly adapted to the idea
+of entertainment which prevails in England, where apparently
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_250' name='page_250'></a>250</span>
+any diversion in order to be considered legal
+must be more or less of a bore. Fortunately, however,
+there be many men of many minds; so that while, for
+example, one could not well draw a gloomier picture
+of the hereafter for a critic like Mr. Henry T. Finck
+than as a place where he would be obliged to hear,
+let me suggest, semi-weekly performances of &ldquo;The
+Messiah,&rdquo; the annual Christmas auditions of that work
+have been the financial salvation of oratorio in America.</p>
+<p>San Filippo Neri, who was born in Florence in 1515,
+and was the founder of the Congregation of the Fathers
+of the Oratory, was the originator of oratorio. In order
+to attract people to church, he instituted before and
+after the sermon dramatic and musical renderings of
+scenes from Scripture. It is not unlikely that the suggestion
+for the underlying dramatic text came from
+the old Mystery and Miracle plays, which, to say the
+least, were naive. In one of these, representing Noah
+and his family about to embark in the ark, <i>Mrs. Noah</i>
+declares that she prefers to stay behind with her
+worldly friends, and when at last her son <i>Shem</i> seizes
+and forces her into the ark, she retaliates by giving the
+worthy <i>Noah</i> a box on the ear. In another play of
+this kind which represented the Creation, a horse, pigs
+with rings in their noses, and a mastiff with a brass
+collar were brought up to <i>Adam</i> to name. But in one
+performance the mastiff spied a cow&rsquo;s rib-bone which
+had been provided for the formation of <i>Eve</i>, grabbed
+it and carried it off, in spite of the efforts of the <i>Angel</i>
+to whistle him back, and <i>Eve</i> had to be created without
+the aid of the rib.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_251' name='page_251'></a>251</span></div>
+<h4>Primitive Efforts.</h4>
+<p>It is not likely that any such contretemps accompanied
+the performances of San Filippo&rsquo;s primitive oratorios,
+and yet it is probable that they were not only
+sung, but also acted with some kind of scenic setting
+and costumes; for Emelio del Cavaliere, a
+Roman composer, whose oratorio, &ldquo;La Rappresentazione
+dell&rsquo; Anima e del Corpo&rdquo; (The Soul and the
+Body), was performed in February, 1600, in the
+Church of Santa Maria della Vallicella, but who died
+before the production, left minute directions regarding
+the scenery and action. In this oratorio, as in some
+of the other early ones, there was a ballet, which, according
+to its composer&rsquo;s directions, was to enliven certain
+scenes &ldquo;with capers&rdquo; and to execute others &ldquo;sedately
+and reverentially.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It was the composer, Giovanni Carissimi, who first
+introduced the narrator in oratorio, this function being
+to continue the action with explanatory recitatives between
+the numbers. In his oratorio, &ldquo;Jephtha,&rdquo; there
+is a solo for Jephtha&rsquo;s daughter, &ldquo;Plorate colles, dolate
+montes&rdquo; (Weep, ye hills; mourn, ye mountains), which
+has an echo for two sopranos at the end of each phrase
+of the melody. Alessandro Scarlatti, who developed
+the aria in opera, also gave more definite form to the
+solos in oratorio and a more dramatic accompaniment
+to the recitatives which related to action, leaving the
+narrative recitals unaccompanied.</p>
+<p>Up to this point, in fact, oratorio and opera may
+be said to have developed hand in hand, but now,
+through the influence of German composers and especially
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_252' name='page_252'></a>252</span>
+through their Passion Music, it assumed a more
+distinct form. &ldquo;Die Auferstehung Christi&rdquo; (The Resurrection),
+by Heinrich Schütz, produced in Dresden
+in 1623, and his &ldquo;Sieben Worte Christi&rdquo; (The Seven
+Words of Christ), subjects which have been reverentially
+set by many German composers, are regarded
+as pioneer works of their kind. In the development
+of Passion Music much use was made of church
+chorales, the grand sacred melodies of the German
+people, which have had incalculable influence in forming
+the stability of character that is a distinguishing
+mark of the race. They are conspicuous in the &ldquo;Tod
+Jesu,&rdquo; a famous work by Karl Heinrich Graun, a contemporary
+of Bach, whose own &ldquo;Passion According
+to St. Matthew&rdquo; is regarded by advanced lovers of
+music as the greatest of all works in oratorio or quasi-oratorio
+style, although the English still cling to
+Händel.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;However close the imitation or complicated the involutions
+of the several voices,&rdquo; says Rockstro, in writing
+of Händel, &ldquo;we never meet with an inharmonious
+collision. He (Händel) seems always to have aimed
+at making his parts run on velvet; whereas Bach, writing
+on a totally different principle, evidently delighted
+in bringing harmony out of discord and made a point
+of introducing hard passing notes in order to avail
+himself of the pleasant effect of their ultimate resolution.&rdquo;
+The &ldquo;inharmonious collisions,&rdquo; the &ldquo;hard
+passing notes&rdquo; are among the very things which make
+Bach so modern; since modern ears do not set much
+store by music that &ldquo;runs on velvet.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253' name='page_253'></a>253</span></div>
+<h4>Bach&rsquo;s &ldquo;Passion Music.&rdquo;</h4>
+<p>It is interesting to note that this &ldquo;Passion According
+to St. Matthew&rdquo; is in two parts, and that, as was the
+case with the oratorios of San Filippo Neri, the sermon
+came between. The text was prepared by Christian
+Friedrichs Henrici, writing under the pseudonym of
+Picander, and is partly dramatic, partly epic in form,
+with an Evangelist to relate the various events in
+the story, but with the Lord, St. Peter and others
+using their own words according to the sacred
+text. A double chorus is employed, sometimes
+representing the Disciples, sometimes the infuriated
+populace; but always treated in dramatic
+fashion.</p>
+<p>At the time the &ldquo;Passion&rdquo; was written, the arias and
+certain of the choruses which contained meditations on
+the events narrated were called &ldquo;Soliloqui&aelig;&rdquo;; and in
+singing the beautiful chorales, the congregation was
+expected to join. The recitatives assigned to the Saviour
+are accompanied by string orchestra only, and are,
+as Rockstro says, full of gentle dignity, while the choruses
+are marked by an amount of dramatic power which
+is remarkable when one considers that Bach never paid
+any attention to the most dramatic of all musical forms,
+the opera. The &ldquo;Passion According to St. Matthew,&rdquo;
+by Johann Sebastian Bach, was his greatest work and
+one of the greatest works of all times. It was produced
+for the first time at the afternoon service in the Church
+of St. Thomas, Leipzig, where Bach was Cantor, on
+Good Friday, 1729, and it was one hundred years before
+it was heard again, when it was revived by Mendelssohn,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_254' name='page_254'></a>254</span>
+in Berlin, on March 12th, 1829&mdash;an epoch-making
+performance.</p>
+<p>Strictly speaking, Passion Music is not an oratorio,
+but a church service, and Bach actually designed his
+to serve as a counter-attraction to the Mass as performed
+in the Roman Church. What we understand
+under oratorio derived its vitality from George Frederick
+Händel, who was born at Halle in Lower Saxony,
+1685, but whose most important work was accomplished
+in London, where he died in 1759 and was
+buried in Westminster Abbey. Before Händel wrote
+his two greatest oratorios, &ldquo;Israel in Egypt&rdquo; and &ldquo;The
+Messiah,&rdquo; he had, through the composition of numerous
+operas, mastered the principles of dramatic writing,
+and in his oratorios he aims, whenever the text makes
+it permissible, at dramatic expression. It is only necessary
+to recall the &ldquo;Plague Choruses&rdquo; in &ldquo;Israel in
+Egypt,&rdquo; especially the &ldquo;Hail-Stone Chorus&rdquo; and the
+chorus of rejoicing (&ldquo;The horse and his rider hath He
+thrown into the sea&rdquo;); or by way of contrast, the tenderly
+expressive melody of &ldquo;As for His people, He led
+them forth like sheep,&rdquo; to realize what an adept Händel
+was in dramatic expression.</p>
+<h4>Rockstro on Händel.</h4>
+<p>Händel may in fact be called the founder of variety
+and freedom in writing for chorus. While I must confess
+that I do not share Rockstro&rsquo;s intense enthusiasm
+for Händel and for &ldquo;The Messiah,&rdquo; nevertheless he expresses
+so well the general feeling in England and the
+feeling on the part of those in this country who crowd
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255' name='page_255'></a>255</span>
+the annual Christmas performances of &ldquo;The Messiah,&rdquo;
+toward that work, that the best means of conveying an
+idea of what oratorio signifies to those who like it, is
+to quote him. Referring to Händel&rsquo;s free and varied
+treatment of chorus writing, he says:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He bids us &lsquo;Behold the Lamb of God&rsquo; and we feel
+that he has helped us to do so. He tells us that &lsquo;With
+His stripes we are healed,&rsquo; and we are sensible not
+of the healing only, but of the cruel price at which it
+was purchased. And we yield him equal obedience
+when he calls upon us to join in his hymns of praise.
+Who hearing the noble subject of &lsquo;I will sing unto the
+Lord,&rsquo; led off by the tenors and altos, does not long
+to reinforce their voices with his own? Who does not
+feel a choking in his throat before the first bar of the
+&lsquo;Hallelujah Chorus&rsquo; is completed, though he may be
+listening to it for the hundredth time? Hard indeed
+must his heart be who can refuse to hear when Händel
+preaches through the voice of his chorus.&rdquo; The &ldquo;Messiah&rdquo;
+also contains two of Händel&rsquo;s most famous solos,
+&ldquo;He shall feed His flock&rdquo; and &ldquo;I know that my Redeemer
+liveth.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This work was performed for the first time on April
+13, 1742, at the Music Hall, Dublin, when Händel was
+on a visit to the Duke of Devonshire, then Lord Lieutenant
+of Ireland. The rehearsals, at which many
+people were present by invitation, had aroused so much
+enthusiasm, that those who were interested in the charitable
+object for which it was given, requested &ldquo;as a
+favor that the ladies who honor this performance with
+their presence would be pleased to come without hoops,
+as it would greatly increase the charity by making room
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256' name='page_256'></a>256</span>
+for more company.&rdquo; Gentlemen also were requested
+to come without swords, for the same reason. It is
+said that at the first London performance, when the
+&ldquo;Hallelujah Chorus&rdquo; rang out, the King rose in his
+place and, followed by the entire audience, stood during
+the singing of the chorus, and that thus the custom,
+which still is observed, originated.</p>
+<p>Following Händel, Haydn in 1798, when nearly seventy
+years old, wrote &ldquo;The Creation,&rdquo; founded on
+passages from Milton&rsquo;s &ldquo;Paradise Lost,&rdquo; and after it
+&ldquo;The Seasons,&rdquo; for which Thomson&rsquo;s familiar poem
+supplied the text. In both of these there is much
+purely descriptive music, especially in the earlier oratorio,
+when the creation of various animals is related.
+In &ldquo;The Creation,&rdquo; too, after the passages for muted
+strings, is the famous outburst of orchestra and chorus,
+&ldquo;And there was light.&rdquo; Haydn was a far greater master
+of orchestration than Händel. He also was one of the
+early composers of the homophonic school, and there is a
+freer, more spontaneous flow of melody in his oratorios.
+But they undoubtedly lack the grandeur of Händel&rsquo;s.</p>
+<h4>Mendelssohn&rsquo;s Oratorios.</h4>
+<p>Between Haydn and Mendelssohn, in the development
+of oratorio, nothing need be mentioned, excepting
+Beethoven&rsquo;s &ldquo;Mount of Olives&rdquo; and Spohr&rsquo;s &ldquo;The Last
+Judgment&rdquo; (Die Letzten Dinge). Mendelssohn, in
+his &ldquo;St. Paul,&rdquo; followed the example of the old passionists,
+and introduced chorales, but in his greater
+oratorio, &ldquo;Elijah,&rdquo; which is purely an Hebraic subject,
+he discarded these. The dramatic quality of &ldquo;Elijah&rdquo;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_257' name='page_257'></a>257</span>
+is so apparent that it has been said more than once to
+be capable of stage representation with scenery, costumes
+and action. This is especially true of the prophet
+himself, whose personality is so definitely developed
+that he stands before us almost like a character behind
+the footlights. This dramatic value is felt at the very
+beginning, when, after four solemn chords on the brass,
+the work, instead of opening with an overture, is ushered
+in by <i>Elijah&rsquo;s</i> prophecy of the drought. Then
+comes the overture, which is descriptive of the effects
+of the prophecy.</p>
+<p>Next to &ldquo;The Messiah,&rdquo; &ldquo;Elijah&rdquo; probably is the
+most popular of oratorios, and I think this is due to
+its dramatic value, and to the fact that its descriptive
+music, instead of being somewhat naive, not to say
+childish, as is the case with some passages in Haydn&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Creation,&rdquo; is extremely effective. It is necessary only
+to remind the reader of the descent of the fire and
+the destruction of the prophets of Baal; of the description
+of the gradual approach of the rain-storm, as
+<i>Elijah</i>, standing on Mount Carmel and watching for
+the coming of the rain, is informed of the little cloud,
+&ldquo;out of the sea, like a man&rsquo;s hand&rdquo;&mdash;a little cloud which
+we seem to see in the music, and which grows in size
+and blackness until it bursts like a deluge over the
+scene. Then there are the famous bass solo, &ldquo;It is
+enough&rdquo;; the unaccompanied &ldquo;Trio of Angels&rdquo;; the
+<i>Angel&rsquo;s</i> song, &ldquo;Oh, rest in the Lord&rdquo;; and the tenderly
+expressive chorus, &ldquo;He, watching over Israel.&rdquo; I once
+heard a performance of &ldquo;Elijah&rdquo; during which the
+<i>Angel</i> carried on such a lively flirtation with the
+<i>Prophet</i> that she almost missed the cue for her most
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_258' name='page_258'></a>258</span>
+important solo; in fact would have missed it, had not
+the conductor sharply called her attention to the fact
+that it was time for her to begin.</p>
+<p>I think that oratorio reached its successive climaxes
+with &ldquo;The Messiah&rdquo; and &ldquo;Elijah.&rdquo; Gounod&rsquo;s &ldquo;Redemption&rdquo;
+and &ldquo;Mors et Vita,&rdquo; in spite of passages of
+undeniable beauty, seem to me, as a whole, rather spineless.
+Edward Elgar&rsquo;s &ldquo;Dream of Gerontius&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;The Apostles&rdquo; have created much excitement in England
+and considerable interest here, but while it is too
+soon to hazard a definite opinion of this composer, he
+appears to be lacking in individuality&mdash;to derive from
+Wagner whatever is interesting in his scores, while
+what is original with him is unimportant.</p>
+<p>There are certain sacred, semi-sacred and even secular
+works that are apt to figure on the programs of
+oratorio and allied societies. Mr. Frank Damrosch&rsquo;s
+Society of Musical Art sings very beautifully some of
+the unaccompanied choruses of the early Italian polyphonic
+school, such as Palestrina&rsquo;s &ldquo;Papae Marcelli
+Mass,&rdquo; &ldquo;Stabat Mater&rdquo; and &ldquo;Requiem&rdquo;; the &ldquo;Miserere&rdquo;
+of Allegri (sought to be retained exclusively by
+the choir of the Sistine Chapel, but which Mozart wrote
+out from memory after hearing it twice); and the
+&ldquo;Stabat Mater&rdquo; of Pergolesi. There are also the Bach
+cantatas, Mozart&rsquo;s &ldquo;Requiem,&rdquo; with its tragic associations;
+Beethoven&rsquo;s &ldquo;Mass in D;&rdquo; Schumann&rsquo;s &ldquo;Paradise
+and the Peri&rdquo; and his music to Byron&rsquo;s &ldquo;Manfred&rdquo;
+(with recitation); Liszt&rsquo;s &ldquo;Graner Mass,&rdquo; &ldquo;Legend of
+St. Elizabeth&rdquo; and &ldquo;Christus&rdquo;; Rubinstein&rsquo;s &ldquo;Tower of
+Babel&rdquo; and &ldquo;Paradise Lost&rdquo;; Brahms&rsquo;s &ldquo;German Requiem,&rdquo;
+a noble but difficult work; Dvorak&rsquo;s &ldquo;Stabat
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_259' name='page_259'></a>259</span>
+Mater&rdquo;; Rossini&rsquo;s &ldquo;Moses in Egypt&rdquo; and &ldquo;Stabat
+Mater&rdquo;; Berlioz&rsquo;s &ldquo;Requiem&rdquo; and &ldquo;Damnation de
+Faust,&rdquo; the American production of which latter was
+one of the late Dr. Leopold Damrosch&rsquo;s finest achievements;
+and Verdi&rsquo;s &ldquo;Manzoni Requiem.&rdquo;</p>
+<hr class='toprule' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_260' name='page_260'></a>260</span>
+<a name='XVI_OPERA_AND_MUSICDRAMA' id='XVI_OPERA_AND_MUSICDRAMA'></a>
+<h2>XVI</h2>
+<h3>OPERA AND MUSIC-DRAMA</h3>
+</div>
+<p>Opera originated in Florence toward the close
+of the sixteenth century. A band of enthusiastic,
+intellectual composers aimed at reproducing the
+musical declamation which they believed to
+have been characteristic of the representation of Greek
+tragedy. The first attempt resulted in a cantata, &ldquo;Il
+Conte Ugolino,&rdquo; for single voice with the accompaniment
+of a single instrument, and composed by Vincenzo
+Galileo, father of the famous astronomer. Another
+composer, Giulio Caccini, wrote several shorter
+pieces in similar style.</p>
+<p>These composers aimed at an exact oratorical rendering
+of the words. Consequently, their scores were
+neither fugal nor in any other sense polyphonic, but
+strictly monodic. They were not, however, melodious,
+but declamatory; and if Richard Wagner had wished,
+in the nineteenth century, to claim any historical foundation
+for the declamatory recitative which he introduced
+in his music-dramas, he might have fallen back
+upon these composers of the late sixteenth and early
+seventeenth centuries, and through them back to Greek
+tragedy with its bands of lyres and flutes.</p>
+<p>These Italian composers, then, were the creators of
+recitative, so different from the polyphonic church
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_261' name='page_261'></a>261</span>
+music of the school of Palestrina. What usually is
+classed as the first opera, Jacopo Peri&rsquo;s &ldquo;Dafne,&rdquo; was
+privately performed at the Palazzo Corsi, Florence, in
+1597. So great was its success that Peri was commissioned,
+in 1600, to write a similar work for the festivities
+incidental to the marriage of Henry IV of France
+with Maria de Medici, and produced &ldquo;Euridice,&rdquo; the
+first Italian opera ever performed in public.</p>
+<p>The new art-form received great stimulus from
+Claudio Monteverde, the Duke of Mantua&rsquo;s <i>maestro di
+capella</i>, who composed &ldquo;Arianna&rdquo; in honor of the marriage
+of Francesco Gonzaga with Margherita, Infanta
+of Savoy. The scene in which <i>Ariadne</i> bewails her
+desertion by her lover was so dramatically written
+(from the standpoint of the day, of course) that it produced
+a sensation, and when Monteverde brought out
+with even greater success his opera &ldquo;Orfeo,&rdquo; which
+showed a great advance in dramatic expression, as well
+as in the treatment of the instrumental score, the permanency
+of opera was assured.</p>
+<p>Monteverde&rsquo;s scores contained, besides recitative,
+suggestions of melody, but these suggestions occurred
+only in the instrumental ritornelles. The Venetian
+composer Cavalli, however, introduced melody into the
+vocal score in order to relieve the monotonous effect of
+continuous recitative, and in his airs for voice he foreshadowed
+the aria form which was destined to be freely
+developed by Alessandro Scarlatti, who is regarded as
+the founder of modern Italian opera in the form in
+which it flourished from his day to and including the
+earlier period of Verdi&rsquo;s activity.</p>
+<p>Melody, free and beautiful melody, soaring above a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_262' name='page_262'></a>262</span>
+comparatively simple accompaniment, was the characteristic
+of Italian opera from Scarlatti&rsquo;s first opera,
+&ldquo;L&rsquo;Onesta nell&rsquo; Amore,&rdquo; produced in Rome in 1680, to
+Verdi&rsquo;s &ldquo;Trovatore,&rdquo; produced in the same city in 1853.
+The names, besides Verdi&rsquo;s, associated with its most
+brilliant successes, are: Rossini (&ldquo;Il Barbiere di Siviglia,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Guillaume Tell&rdquo;), Bellini (&ldquo;Norma,&rdquo; &ldquo;La
+Sonnambula,&rdquo; &ldquo;I Puritani&rdquo;), and Donizetti (&ldquo;Lucia,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;L&rsquo;Elisir d&rsquo;Amore,&rdquo; &ldquo;La Fille du Regiment&rdquo;). These
+composers possessed dramatic verve to a great degree,
+aimed straight for the mark, and when at their best
+always hit the operatic target in the bull&rsquo;s-eye.</p>
+<h4>Reforms by Gluck.</h4>
+<p>The charge most frequently laid against Italian
+opera is that its composers have been too subservient
+to the singers, and have sacrificed dramatic truth and
+depth of expression, as well as the musicianship which
+is required of a well-written and well-balanced score,
+as between the vocal and instrumental portions, to the
+vanity of those upon the stage&mdash;in brief, that Italian
+opera consists too much of show-pieces for its interpreters.
+Among the first to protest practically against
+this abuse was Gluck, a German, who, from copying
+the Italian style of operatic composition early in his
+career, changed his entire method as late as 1762, when
+he was nearly fifty years old. &ldquo;Orfeo et Euridice,&rdquo; the
+oldest opera that to-day still holds a place in the operatic
+repertoire, and containing the favorite air, &ldquo;Che
+faro senza Euridice&rdquo; (I have lost my Eurydice), was
+produced by Gluck, in Vienna, in the year mentioned.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_263' name='page_263'></a>263</span>
+There Gluck followed it up with &ldquo;Alceste,&rdquo; then went
+to Paris, and scored a triumph with &ldquo;Iphigenie en Aulite.&rdquo;
+But on the arrival, in Paris, of the Italian
+composer, Piccini, the Italian party there seized upon
+him as a champion to pit against Gluck, and there then
+ensued in the French capital a rivalry so fierce that
+it became a veritable musical War of the Roses until
+Gluck completely triumphed over Piccini with &ldquo;Iphigenie
+en Tauride.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Gluck&rsquo;s reform of opera lay in his abandoning all
+effort at claptrap effect&mdash;effect merely for its own sake&mdash;and
+in making his choruses as well as his soloists participants,
+musically and actively, in the unfolding of the
+dramatic story. But while he avoided senseless vocal
+embellishments and ceased to make a display of singers&rsquo;
+talents the end and purpose of opera, he never hesitated
+to introduce beautiful melody for the voice when the action
+justified it. In fact, what he aimed at was dramatic
+truth in his music, and with this end in view he
+also gave greater importance to the instrumental portion
+of his score.</p>
+<h4>Comparative Popularity of Certain Operas.</h4>
+<p>These characteristics remained for many years to
+come the distinguishing marks of German opera. They
+will be discovered in Mozart&rsquo;s &ldquo;Nozze di Figaro,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Don Giovanni&rdquo; and &ldquo;Zauberflöte,&rdquo; which differ from
+Gluck&rsquo;s operas in not being based on heroic or classical
+subjects, and in exhibiting the general advance made
+in freer musical expression, as well as Mozart&rsquo;s greater
+spontaneity of melodic invention, his keen sense of the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_264' name='page_264'></a>264</span>
+dramatic element and his superior skill in orchestration.
+They also will be discovered in Beethoven&rsquo;s &ldquo;Fidelio,&rdquo;
+which again differs from Mozart&rsquo;s operas in the same
+degree in which the individuality of one great composer
+differs from that of another. With Weber&rsquo;s &ldquo;Freischütz,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Euryanthe&rdquo; and &ldquo;Oberon,&rdquo; German opera enters
+upon the romantic period, from which it is but a
+step to the &ldquo;Flying Dutchman,&rdquo; &ldquo;Tannhäuser,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Lohengrin&rdquo; and the music-dramas of Richard
+Wagner.</p>
+<p>Meanwhile, the French had developed a style of
+opera of their own, which is represented by Meyerbeer&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Les Huguenots,&rdquo; Gounod&rsquo;s &ldquo;Faust,&rdquo; apparently destined
+to live as long as any opera that now graces the
+stage, and by Bizet&rsquo;s absolutely unique &ldquo;Carmen.&rdquo; In
+French opera the instrumental support of the voices is
+far richer and more delicately discriminating than in
+Italian opera, and the whole form is more serious. It
+is better thought out, shows greater intellectual effort
+and not such a complete abandon to absolute musical
+inspiration. It is true, there is much claptrap in Meyerbeer,
+but &ldquo;Les Huguenots&rdquo; still lives&mdash;and vitality
+is, after all, the final test of an art-work.</p>
+<p>Unquestionably, Italian operas like &ldquo;Il Barbiere di
+Siviglia,&rdquo; &ldquo;La Sonnambula,&rdquo; &ldquo;Lucia,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Trovatore&rdquo;
+are more popular in this country than Mozart&rsquo;s
+or Weber&rsquo;s operatic works. In assigning reasons for
+this it seems generally to be forgotten that these Italian
+operas are far more modern. &ldquo;Don Giovanni&rdquo; was
+produced in 1787, whereas &ldquo;Il Barbiere&rdquo; was brought
+out in 1816, &ldquo;La Sonnambula&rdquo; in 1831, &ldquo;Lucia&rdquo; in
+1835, &ldquo;Trovatore&rdquo; in 1853 and Verdi&rsquo;s last work in
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_265' name='page_265'></a>265</span>
+operatic style, &ldquo;Aida,&rdquo; in 1871. &ldquo;Don Giovanni&rdquo; still
+employs the dry recitative (recitatives accompanied by
+simple chords on the violoncello), which is exceedingly
+tedious and makes the work drag at many points. In
+&ldquo;Il Barbiere,&rdquo; although the recitatives are musically as
+uninteresting, they are humorous, and, with Italian
+buffos, trip lightly and vivaciously from the tongue.
+As regards &ldquo;Fidelio&rdquo; and &ldquo;Der Freischütz,&rdquo; the
+amount of spoken dialogue in them is enough to keep
+these works off the American stage, or at least to prevent
+them from becoming popular here.</p>
+<p>Wagner has had far-reaching effect upon music in
+general, and even Italian opera, which, of all art-forms,
+was least like his music-dramas, has felt his influence.
+Boito&rsquo;s &ldquo;Mefistofele,&rdquo; Ponchielli&rsquo;s &ldquo;La Gioconda,&rdquo;
+Verdi&rsquo;s &ldquo;Otello&rdquo; and &ldquo;Falstaff,&rdquo; are examples
+of the far-reaching results of Wagner&rsquo;s theories. Even
+in &ldquo;Aida,&rdquo; Verdi&rsquo;s more discriminating treatment of
+the orchestral score and his successful effort to give
+genuine Oriental color to at least some portions of it,
+show that even then he was beginning to weary of
+the cheaper successes he had won with operas like &ldquo;Il
+Trovatore,&rdquo; &ldquo;La Traviata&rdquo; and &ldquo;Rigoletto,&rdquo; and, while
+by no means inclined to menace his own originality by
+copying Wagner or by adopting his system, was willing
+to profit by the more serious attitude of Wagner toward
+his art. Puccini, in &ldquo;La Tosca,&rdquo; has written a first-act
+finale which is palpably constructed on Wagnerian
+lines. In his &ldquo;La Bohême,&rdquo; in Leoncavallo&rsquo;s &ldquo;I Pagliacci&rdquo;
+and in Mascagni&rsquo;s &ldquo;Cavalleria Rusticana,&rdquo; the
+distinct efforts made to have the score reflect the characteristics
+of the text show Wagner&rsquo;s influence potent
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_266' name='page_266'></a>266</span>
+in the most modern phases of Italian opera. Humperdinck&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Hänsel und Gretel&rdquo; and Richard Strauss&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Feuersnot&rdquo; and &ldquo;Salome&rdquo; represent the further working
+out of Wagner&rsquo;s art-form in Germany.</p>
+<h4>Wagner&rsquo;s Music-Dramas.</h4>
+<p>I doubt whether Wagner had either the Greek
+drama or the declamatory recitative of the early
+Italian opera composers in mind when he originated
+the music-drama. My opinion is that he thought
+it out free from any extraneous suggestion, but afterward,
+anticipating the attacks which in the then state
+of music in Germany would be made upon his theories,
+sought for prototypes and found them in ancient Greece
+and renascent Italy.</p>
+<p>His theory of dramatic music is that it should express
+with undeviating fidelity the words which underly
+it; not words in their mere outward aspect, but
+their deeper significance in their relation to the persons,
+controlling ideas, impulses and passions out of which
+grow the scenes, situations, climaxes and crises of the
+written play, the libretto, if so you choose to call it&mdash;so
+long as you don&rsquo;t say &ldquo;book of the opera.&rdquo; For
+even from this brief characterization, it must be patent
+that a music-drama is not an opera, but what opera
+should be or would be had it not, through the Italian
+love of clearly defined melody and the Italian admiration
+for beautiful singing, become a string of solos,
+duets and other &ldquo;numbers&rdquo; written in set form to the
+detriment of the action.</p>
+<p>Opera is the glorification of the voice and the deification
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_267' name='page_267'></a>267</span>
+of the singer.&mdash;Do we not call the prima donna a
+<i>diva</i>? Music-drama, on the other hand, is the glorification
+of music in its broadest sense, instrumental and
+vocal combined, and the deification of dramatic truth
+on the musical stage. Opera, as handled by the Italian
+and the French, undoubtedly is a very attractive art-form,
+but music-drama is a higher art-form, because
+more serious and more searching and more elevated in
+its expression of emotion.</p>
+<p>Wagner was German to the core&mdash;as national as
+Luther, says Mr. Krehbiel most aptly, in his &ldquo;Studies
+in the Wagnerian Drama,&rdquo; which, like everything this
+critic writes, is the work of a thinker. For the dramas
+which Wagner created as the bases for his scores, he
+went back to legends which, if not always Teutonic in
+their origin, had become steeped in Germanism. The
+profound impression made by Wagner&rsquo;s art works may
+be indicated by saying that the whole folk-lore movement
+dates from his activity, and that so far as Germany
+itself is concerned, his argument for a national
+art work as well as his practical illustration of what
+he meant through his own music-dramas, gave immense
+impetus to the development of united Germany as manifested
+in the German empire. He as well as the men
+of blood and iron had a share in Sedan.</p>
+<p>Wagner&rsquo;s first successful work, &ldquo;Rienzi,&rdquo; was an
+out-and-out opera in Meyerbeerian style. The &ldquo;Flying
+Dutchman&rdquo; already is legendary and more serious,
+while &ldquo;Tannhäuser&rdquo; and &ldquo;Lohengrin&rdquo; show immense
+technical progress, besides giving a clue to his system
+of leading motives, which is fully developed in the
+scores of the &ldquo;Ring of the Nibelung,&rdquo; &ldquo;Tristan und
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_268' name='page_268'></a>268</span>
+Isolde,&rdquo; &ldquo;Die Meistersinger,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Parsifal.&rdquo; That
+his theories met with a storm of opposition and that
+for many years the battle between Wagnerism and anti-Wagnerism
+raged with unabated vigor in the musical
+world, are matters of history. Whoever wishes to explore
+this phase of Wagner&rsquo;s career will find it set forth
+in the most interesting Wagner biography in any language,
+Mr. Finck&rsquo;s &ldquo;Wagner and His Works.&rdquo;</p>
+<h4>Wagner a Melodist.</h4>
+<p>It sometimes is contended that Wagner adopted his
+system of leading motives because he was not a melodist.
+This is refuted by the melodies that abound in his
+earlier works; and, even as I write, I can hear the pupils
+in a nearby public school singing the melody of the
+&ldquo;Pilgrim&rsquo;s Chorus&rdquo; from &ldquo;Tannhäuser.&rdquo; Moreover, his
+leading motives themselves are descriptively or soulfully
+melodious as the requirement may be. They are
+brief phrases, it is true, but none the less they are melodies.
+And, in certain episodes in his music-dramas,
+when he deemed it permissible, he introduced beautiful
+melodies that are complete in themselves: <i>Siegmund&rsquo;s</i>
+&ldquo;Love Song&rdquo; and <i>Wotan&rsquo;s</i> &ldquo;Farewell,&rdquo; in &ldquo;Die
+Walküre,&rdquo; the Love Duet at the end of &ldquo;Siegfried,&rdquo;
+the love scene in &ldquo;Tristan und Isolde,&rdquo; the Prize Song
+in &ldquo;Die Meistersinger.&rdquo; The eloquence of the brief
+melodious phrases which we call leading motives, considered
+by themselves alone and without any reference
+to the dramatic situation, must be clear to any one who
+has heard the Funeral March in &ldquo;Götterdämmerung,&rdquo;
+which consists entirely of a series of leading motives
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_269' name='page_269'></a>269</span>
+that have occurred earlier in the Cycle, yet give this
+passage an overpowering pathos without equal in absolute
+music and just as effective whether you know the
+story of the music-drama and the significance of the
+motives, or not. If you do know the story and the significance
+of these musical phrases, you will find that in
+this Funeral March the whole &ldquo;Ring of the Nibelung&rdquo;
+is being summed up for you, and coming as it does
+near the end of &ldquo;Götterdämmerung,&rdquo; but one scene intervening
+between it and the final curtain, it gives a
+wonderful sense of unity to the whole work.</p>
+<p>Unity is, in fact, a distinguishing trait of music-drama;
+and the very term &ldquo;unity&rdquo; suggests that certain
+recurring salient points in the drama, whether they
+be personages, ideas or situations, should be treated
+musically with a certain similarity, and have certain
+recognizable characteristics. In fact, the adaptation of
+music to a drama would seem to suggest association of
+ideas through musical unity, and to presuppose the employment
+of something like leading motives. They
+had indeed been used tentatively by Berlioz in orchestral
+music, and by Weber in opera (&ldquo;Euryanthe&rdquo;), but
+it remained for Wagner to work up the suggestion into
+a complete and consistent system.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_7' id='linki_7'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-269.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-269.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='80' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+[<a href="music/269.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>To illustrate his method, take the Curse Motive, in
+the &ldquo;Ring of the Nibelung,&rdquo; which is heard when <i>Alberich</i>
+curses the Ring, and all into whose possession it
+shall come. When, near the end of &ldquo;Rheingold,&rdquo;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270' name='page_270'></a>270</span>
+<i>Fafner</i> kills his brother, <i>Fasolt</i>, in wresting the Ring
+from him, the motive recurs with a significance which
+is readily understood. <i>Fasolt</i> is the first victim of the
+curse. Again, in &ldquo;Götterdämmerung,&rdquo; when <i>Siegfried</i>
+lands at the entrance to the castle of <i>Gibichungs</i>,
+and is greeted by <i>Hagen</i>, although the greeting seems
+hearty enough, the motive is heard and conveys its
+sinister lure.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_8' id='linki_8'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-270a.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-270a.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='141' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+[<a href="music/270a.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>When, in &ldquo;Die Walküre,&rdquo; <i>Brünnhilde</i> predicts the
+birth of a son to <i>Sieglinde</i>, you hear the Siegfried Motive,
+signifying that the child will be none other than
+the young hero of the next drama. The motive is
+heard again when <i>Wotan</i> promises <i>Brünnhilde</i> to surround
+her with a circle of flames which none but a hero
+can penetrate, <i>Siegfried</i> being that hero; and also when
+<i>Siegfried</i> himself, in the music-drama &ldquo;Siegfried,&rdquo; tells
+of seeing his image in the brook.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_9' id='linki_9'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-270b.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-270b.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='64' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+[<a href="music/270b.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>There are motives which are almost wholly rhythmical,
+like the &ldquo;Nibelung&rdquo; Smithy Motive, which depicts
+the slavery of the <i>Nibelungs</i>, eternally working in the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_271' name='page_271'></a>271</span>
+mines of Nibelheim; and motives with strange, weird
+harmonies, like the motive of the Tarnhelm, which conveys
+a sense of mystery, the Tarnhelm giving its
+wearer the power to change his form.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_10' id='linki_10'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-271.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-271.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='82' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+[<a href="music/271.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<h4>Leading Motives not Mere Labels.</h4>
+<p>Leading motives are not mere labels. They concern
+themselves with more than the superficial aspect of
+things and persons. With persons they express character;
+with things they symbolize what these stand for.
+The Curse Motive is weird, sinister. You feel when
+listening to it that it bodes evil to all who come within
+its dark circle. The Siegfried Motive, on the other
+hand, is buoyant with youth, vigor, courage; vibrates
+with the love of achievement; and stirs the soul with
+its suggestion of heroism. But when you hear it in
+the Funeral March in &ldquo;Götterdämmerung&rdquo; and it recalls
+by association the gay-hearted, tender yet courageous
+boy, who slew the dragon, awakened <i>Brünnhilde</i>
+with his kiss, only to be betrayed and murdered by
+<i>Hagen</i>, and now is being borne over the mountain to
+the funeral pyre, those heroic strains have a tragic
+significance that almost brings tears to your eyes.</p>
+<p>The Siegfried Motive is a good example of a musical
+phrase the contour of which practically remains unchanged
+through the music-drama. The varied emotions
+with which we listen to it are effected by association.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_272' name='page_272'></a>272</span>
+But many of Wagner&rsquo;s leading motives are extremely
+plastic and undergo many changes in illustrating
+the development of character or the special bearing
+of certain dramatic situations upon those concerned in
+the action of the drama. As a gay-hearted youth,
+<i>Siegfried</i> winds his horn:</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_11' id='linki_11'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-272a.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-272a.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='85' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+[<a href="music/272a.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>This horn call becomes, when, as <i>Brünnhilde&rsquo;s</i> husband,
+he bids farewell to his bride and departs in quest of
+knightly adventure, the stately Motive of <i>Siegfried</i>, the
+Hero:</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_12' id='linki_12'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-272b.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-272b.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='74' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+[<a href="music/272b.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>And when the dead <i>Siegfried</i>, stretched upon a
+rude bier, is borne from the scene, it voices the climax
+of the tragedy with overwhelming power:</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_13' id='linki_13'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-272c.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-272c.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='148' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+[<a href="music/272c.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>Thus we have two derivatives from the &ldquo;Siegfried&rdquo;
+horn call, each with its own special significance, yet
+harking back to the original germ.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_273' name='page_273'></a>273</span></div>
+<p>Soon after the opening of &ldquo;Tristan und Isolde&rdquo; a
+sailor sings an unaccompanied song of farewell to his
+<i>Irish Maid</i>. The words, &ldquo;The wind blows freshly
+toward our home,&rdquo; are sung to an undulating phrase
+which seems to represent the gentle heaving of the sea.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_14' id='linki_14'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-273a.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-273a.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='160' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+Frisch weht der Wind der Hei-mat zu: mein i-risch Kind, wo wei-lest du?<br />
+[<a href="music/273a.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>This same phrase gracefully undulates through <i>Brangäne&rsquo;s</i>
+reply to <i>Isolde&rsquo;s</i> question as to the vessel&rsquo;s
+course, changes entirely in character, and surges savagely
+around her wild outburst of anger when she is
+told that the vessel is nearing Cornwall&rsquo;s shore, and
+breaks itself in savage fury against her despairing
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_274' name='page_274'></a>274</span>
+wrath when she invokes the elements to destroy the
+ship and all upon it. Examples like these occur many
+times in the scores of Wagner&rsquo;s music-dramas.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_15' id='linki_15'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-273b.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-273b.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='155' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+[<a href="music/273b.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a name='linki_16' id='linki_16'></a>
+</div>
+<a href='images/big_illus-273c.png'>
+<img src='images/illus-273c.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='142' /><br />
+</a>
+<p class='caption'>
+[<a href="music/273c.mid">Listen</a>]<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>Often, when several characters are participating in a
+scene, or when the act or influence of one, or the principle
+for which he stands in the drama, is potent, though
+he himself is not present, Wagner with rare skill combines
+several motives, utilizing for this purpose all the
+resources of counterpoint. Elsewhere I already have
+described how he has done this in the Magic Fire
+Scene in &ldquo;Die Walküre,&rdquo; and one could add page after
+page of examples of this kind. I have also spoken of
+his supreme mastership of instrumentation, through
+which he gives an endless variety of tone color to his
+score.</p>
+<p>Wagner was a great dramatist, but he was a far
+greater musician. There are many splendid scenes and
+climaxes in the dramas which he wrote for his music,
+and if he had not been a composer it is possible he would
+have achieved immortality as a writer of tragedy. On
+the other hand, however, there are in his dramas many
+long stretches in which the action is unconsciously delayed
+by talk. He believed that music and drama
+should go hand in hand and each be of equal interest;
+but his supreme musicianship has disproved his own
+theories, for his dramas derive the breath of life from
+his music. Theoretically, he is not supposed to have
+written absolute music&mdash;music for its own sake&mdash;but
+music that would be intelligible and interesting only in
+connection with the drama to which it was set. But
+the scores of the great scenes in his music-dramas,
+played simply as instrumental selections in concert and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_275' name='page_275'></a>275</span>
+without the slightest clue to their meaning in their
+given place, constitute the greatest achievements in
+absolute music that history up to the present time can
+show.</p>
+<p class='center' style='font-weight:bold; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:2em;'>THE END</p>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class="trnote">
+<p>Transcriber&rsquo;s Note:</p>
+<p style='margin-left:1.0em'>Author&rsquo;s archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is mostly preserved.</p>
+<p style='margin-left:1.0em'>Author&rsquo;s punctuation style is preserved.</p>
+<p style='margin-left:1.0em'>Illustrations have been moved closer to their relevant paragraphs, but the original
+page numbers are preserved in the List of Illustrations. Illustrations may be viewed
+full-size by clicking on them.</p>
+<p style='margin-left:1.0em'>Any missing page numbers in this HTML version refer to blank or un-numbered pages in the original.</p>
+<p style='margin-left:1.0em'>Typographical problems have been changed, and these are
+<ins class="trchange" title="Was 'hgihligthed'">highlighted</ins>.</p>
+<p style='margin-left:1.0em'>All musical excerpts are scans from the original book except for that on page 269, which has
+been reproduced due to damage in the original book. Below each musical excerpt is a link to a midi file [Listen].</p>
+<p>Transcriber&rsquo;s Changes:</p>
+<p style='margin-left:1.0em'><a href='#TC_1'>Page 35</a>: Was &lsquo;Wesendonk&rsquo; (as if I had it by heart,&rdquo; he writes from Venice to Mathilde <b>Wesendonck</b>, in relating to her the genesis of the great love)</p>
+<p style='margin-left:1.0em'><a href='#TC_2'>Page 139</a>: Was &lsquo;Traümerei&rsquo; (And then there are the &ldquo;Scenes from Childhood,&rdquo; to which belongs the <b>&ldquo;Träumerei&rdquo;</b>; the &ldquo;Forest Scenes,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Sonatas;&rdquo;)</p>
+<p style='margin-left:1.0em'><a href='#TC_3'>Page 172</a>: Was &lsquo;Pathètique&rsquo; (while for his &ldquo;Symphonie <b>Pathétique</b>,&rdquo; one of the finest of modern orchestral works, Tschaikowsky adds only a bass tuba)</p>
+</div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+
+<!-- generated by ppg.rb version: 3.21k3 -->
+<!-- timestamp: Thu Dec 09 21:54:51 +0700 2010 -->
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How to Appreciate Music, by Gustav Kobbé
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of How to Appreciate Music, by Gustav Kobbe
+
+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 Appreciate Music
+
+Author: Gustav Kobbe
+
+Release Date: December 9, 2010 [EBook #34610]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO APPRECIATE MUSIC ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, monkeyclogs, Dan
+Horwood and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  HOW TO APPRECIATE MUSIC
+
+
+  by
+  GUSTAV KOBBE
+
+  Author of "Wagner's Music-Dramas Analyzed," etc.
+
+
+  New York
+  Moffat, Yard & Company
+  1912
+
+
+  Copyright, 1906, by
+  Moffat, Yard & Company
+  New York
+
+  Published, October, 1906
+  Reprinted, February, 1908
+  Reprinted, September, 1908
+  Reprinted, May, 1912
+
+
+  The Premier Press
+  New York
+
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+To the Memory of My Brother
+
+PHILIP FERDINAND KOBBE
+
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  _HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE RECITAL_
+
+  CHAPTER                                                         PAGE
+        I The Pianoforte                                            29
+       II Bach's Service to Music                                   48
+      III From Fugue to Sonata                                      78
+       IV Dawn of the Romantic Period                              100
+        V Chopin, the Poet of the Pianoforte                       116
+       VI Schumann, the "Intimate"                                 134
+      VII Liszt, the Giant among Virtuosos                         142
+     VIII With Paderewski--A Modern Pianist on Tour                155
+
+  _HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT_
+
+       IX Development of the Orchestra                             167
+        X Instruments of the Orchestra                             179
+       XI Concerning Symphonies                                    197
+      XII Richard Strauss and His Music                            207
+     XIII A Note on Chamber Music                                  224
+
+  _HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC_
+
+      XIV Songs and Song Composers                                 231
+       XV Oratorio                                                 248
+      XVI Opera and Music-Drama                                    260
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+
+_HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE RECITAL_
+
+CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+I.--THE PIANOFORTE
+
+  Why the king of musical instruments--Music under one's
+  fingers--Can render anything in music--Liszt played the whole
+  orchestra on the pianoforte--Fingers of a great virtuoso the
+  ambassadors of his soul--Melody and accompaniment on one
+  instrument--No intermediaries to mar effect--Paderewski's
+  playing of "Hark, Hark, the Lark"--Music's debt to the
+  pianoforte--Developed sonata form and gave it to
+  orchestra--Richard Strauss on Beethoven's pianistic
+  orchestration--A boon to many famous composers, even to
+  Wagner--Its lowly origin--Nine centuries to develop pianoforte
+  from monochord--The monochord described--Joined to a
+  keyboard--Poet's amusing advice to his musical
+  daughter--Clavichord developed from monochord--Its lack of
+  power--Bebung, or balancement--The harpsichord--Originated in
+  the cembalo of the Hungarian gypsy orchestra--Spinet and
+  virginal--Pianoforte invented by Cristofori, 1711--Exploited by
+  Silbermann--Strings of twenty tons' tension--Dampers and
+  pedals--Paderewski's use of both pedals--Mechanical
+  pianofortes--Senseless decoration                                 29
+
+II.--BACH'S SERVICE TO MUSIC
+
+  Pianoforte so universal in character can give, through it, a
+  general survey of the art of music--Bach illustrates an
+  epoch--A Bach fugue more elaborate than a music-drama or tone
+  poem--Bach more modern than Haydn or Mozart--His influence on
+  modern music--Wagner unites the harmony of Beethoven with the
+  polyphony of Bach--Melody, harmony and counterpoint defined and
+  differentiated--Illustrated from the "Moonlight Sonata"--What
+  a fugue is--The fugue and the virtuoso--Not "grateful" music
+  for public performance--Daniel Gregory Mason's tribute and
+  reservation--What counterpoint lacks--Fails to give the player
+  as much scope as modern music--Barrier to individuality of
+  expression--The virtuoso's mission--Creative as well as
+  interpretive--Mr. Hanchett's dictum--Music both a science and
+  an art--Science versus feeling--Person may be very musical
+  without being musical at all--The great composer bends science
+  to art--That "ear for music"--Bach and the Weather
+  Bureau--The Bacon, not the Shakespeare, of music--What Wagner
+  learned from Bach--Illustration from "Die Walkuere"--W. J.
+  Henderson's anecdote--Wagner's counterpoint emotional--Bach's
+  the language of an epoch; Wagner's the language of liberated
+  music--Bach in the recital hall--Rubinstein and Bach's "Triple
+  Concerto"--"The Well-Tempered Clavichord"--Meaning of
+  "well-tempered"--A king's tribute to Bach--Two hundred and
+  forty-one years of Bachs                                          48
+
+III.--FROM FUGUE TO SONATA
+
+  Break in Bach's influence--Mr. Parry on this hiatus in the
+  evolution of music--Three periods of musical development--Rise
+  of the harmonic, or "melodic," school--Began with Domenico
+  Scarlatti--The founder of modern pianoforte
+  technique--Beginnings of the sonata form--Philipp Emanuel Bach
+  and the sonata--Rise of the amateur--"The Contented Ear and
+  Quickened Soul," and other quaint titles--Changes in musical
+  taste--Pianoforte has outgrown the music of Haydn and
+  Mozart--Bach, Beethoven and Wagner the three great epoch-making
+  figures in music--Beethoven and the epoch of the sonata--His
+  slow development--Union of mind and heart in his work--His
+  sonatas, however, no longer all-dominant in pianoforte
+  music--Von Buelow and D'Albert as Beethoven players--Incident
+  at a Von Buelow Beethoven recital--Changes of taste in thirty
+  years--The Beethoven sonatas too orchestric--The passing of the
+  sonata                                                            78
+
+IV.--DAWN OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
+
+  What a sonata is--How Beethoven enlarged the form--Illustrated
+  in his Opus 2, No. 3, and in the "Moonlight Sonata"--The
+  three Beethoven periods--In his last sonatas seems chafing
+  under restraint of form--The sonata form reached its climax
+  with Beethoven--Hampers modern composers--Lawrence Gilman on
+  MacDowell's "Keltic Sonata"--The first romantic
+  composers--Weber--Schubert's inexhaustible genius--Mendelssohn
+  smooth, polished and harmless                                    100
+
+V.--CHOPIN, THE POET OF THE PIANOFORTE
+
+  An incomparable composer--Liszt's definition of tempo
+  rubato--The Wagner of the pianoforte--Clear melody and weird,
+  entrancing harmonies--Racial traits--Friends in Paris--Liszt
+  the first to recognize him--The Etudes--Vigor, passion,
+  impetus--Von Buelow on the great C minor Etude--The
+  Preludes--Schumann's opinion of them--Rubinstein's playing of
+  the Seventh Prelude--The Nocturnes--Chopin and Poe--The
+  Waltzes--Liszt on the Mazurkas--The Polonaises--Chopin's battle
+  hymns--Other works--"A noble from head to foot"--Huneker on
+  Chopin                                                           115
+
+VI.--SCHUMANN, THE "INTIMATE"
+
+  A composer with an academic education--Pupil in pianoforte of
+  Frederick Wieck--Strains a finger and abandons career as a
+  virtuoso--Marries Clara Wieck--Afflicted with
+  insanity--Attempts suicide--Dies in asylum--His music
+  introspective and brooding--Poet, bourgeois and
+  philosopher--Contributions to program music--"Carnaval" and
+  "Kreisleriana"--Latter title explained--Really
+  Schumanniana--Thoughts of his Clara--"Fantasie Pieces"--His
+  compositions at first neglected                                  134
+
+VII.--LISZT, THE GIANT AMONG VIRTUOSOS
+
+  A youthful phenomenon--Refused at the Paris Conservatory--"Le
+  petit Litz"--Inspired by Paganini--Episode with Countess
+  D'Agoult--Court conductor at Weimar--Makes Weimar the musical
+  Mecca of Germany--Produces "Lohengrin"--His "six
+  Lives"--His pianoforte compositions--The "Don Juan
+  Fantasie"--"Hexameron"--"Annees de
+  Pelerinage"--Progressive edition of the Etudes--Giant strides
+  in virtuosity--History of the famous "Rhapsodies
+  Hongroises"--Characterisation of his pianoforte music--A great
+  composer, not a charlatan--Liszt as a virtuoso--His tribute to
+  the pianoforte--A long and influential career--Played for
+  Beethoven and died at "Parsifal"                                 142
+
+VIII.--WITH PADEREWSKI--A MODERN PIANIST ON TOUR
+
+  The most successful virtuoso ever heard here--$171,981.89 for
+  one season--His opinion of the pianoforte--Perfect save for
+  greater sustaining power of tone--Has four pianofortes on his
+  tours--Duties of the "piano doctor"--How the instruments are
+  cared for--Thawing out a pianoforte--Paderewski's humor          155
+
+
+_HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT_
+
+IX.--DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORCHESTRA
+
+  Modern music at first vocal, and without instrumental
+  accompaniment--Awkward instrumentation of the
+  contrapuntists--Primitive orchestration in Italy--The orchestra
+  of Monteverde--Haydn the father of modern orchestral music--The
+  Mozart symphonies--Beethoven establishes the modern
+  orchestra--But few instruments added since--Greater richness
+  due to subtler technique--Beethoven's development of the
+  orchestra traced in his symphonies--Greater technical demands
+  on the players--Beethoven and Wagner--"Meistersinger" score
+  has only three more instruments than the Fifth
+  Symphony--Berlioz an orchestral juggler--Architectural
+  music--Wagner, greatest of orchestral composers--Employs large
+  orchestra not for noise, but for variety of expression--Richard
+  Strauss's tribute to Wagner--Wonderfully reserved in the use of
+  his forces--Wagner's scores the only advance worth mentioning
+  since Berlioz                                                    167
+
+X.--INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA
+
+  The orchestra an aggregation of instruments that should play as
+  one--Wagner's employment of orchestral groups illustrated by
+  the Love motive in "Die Walkuere" and the Walhalla
+  motive--Division of the orchestra--The violin--Its varied
+  capacity--The musical stage whisper of a hundred violins--The
+  violins in the "Lohengrin" prelude--Modern orchestral
+  virtuosity--The sordine and its use--A pizzicato movement by
+  Tschaikowski--The viola, violoncello and double bass--Dividing
+  the string band--Examples from the scores of Wagner--Anecdote
+  regarding the harp in "Rheingold"--The woodwind--The
+  flute--The oboe in Schubert's C major symphony--The English
+  horn in "Tristan"--Beethoven's use of the bassoon in the
+  Fifth and Ninth symphonies--The clarinets in "Tannhaeuser,"
+  "Lohengrin," and "Goetterdaemmerung"--Brass instruments and
+  various illustrations of their employment--The trumpet in
+  "Fidelio" and "Carmen"--The trombone group in "The Ring of
+  the Nibelung"--The trombones in "The Magic Flute," in
+  Schubert's C major symphony, and in the introduction to the
+  third act of "Lohengrin"--The tubas in the Funeral March in
+  "Goetterdaemmerung"--Richard Strauss's apotheosis of the horn,
+  and its importance in the Wagner scores--Tympani and
+  cymbals--Mozart's G minor symphony on twenty-two
+  clarinets--Richard Strauss, on the future development of the
+  orchestra                                                        179
+
+XI.--CONCERNING SYMPHONIES
+
+  The classical period of music dominated by the symphony--Its
+  esthetic purpose defined--A symphonic witticism--Some comment
+  on form in music--Divisions of the symphony established by
+  Haydn--Artless grace and beauty of Mozart's
+  symphonies--Beethoven to the fore--Climaxes and rests--The
+  Ninth Symphony--Schubert's genius--Mendelssohn and
+  Schumann--Liszt's symphonies and symphonic poems--Other
+  symphonists--Wagner not supposed to have been a purely
+  orchestral composer, yet the greatest of all                     197
+
+XII.--RICHARD STRAUSS AND HIS MUSIC
+
+  One of the most original and individual of composers--A
+  student, not a copyist, of Wagner--Independent intellectual
+  basis for his art--Originator of the tone poem--Unhampered by
+  even the word "symphonic"--Means much to the musically
+  elect--Not a juggler with the orchestra--A modern of
+  moderns--Technical difficulties, but not impossibilities in his
+  works--"Thus Spake Zarathustra" and other scores--Life and
+  truth, not mere beauty, the burden of modern music--Huneker's
+  "Piper of Dreams"--"Zarathustra" and "A Hero's Life"
+  described--An intellectual force in music--"A Hero's Life"
+  Strauss's "Meistersinger"--Tribute to Wagner in
+  "Feuersnot"--Performances of Richard Strauss's scores in
+  America--His symphony in F minor (1883) had its first
+  performance anywhere, under Theodore
+  Thomas--Straussiana--Boyhood anecdotes--Scribbled scores on
+  schoolbook covers--Still at school when first symphony was
+  played in public--Studied with Von Buelow--Married his
+  Freihild--Ideals of the highest                                  207
+
+XIII.--A NOTE ON CHAMBER MUSIC                                     224
+
+
+_HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC_
+
+XIV.--SONGS AND SONG COMPOSERS
+
+  Strophic and "composed through"--Schubert the first song
+  composer to require consideration; also the greatest--Early
+  struggles--Too poor to buy music paper--Becomes a
+  school-teacher--Impatient under drudgery--Publishers hold
+  aloof--Fortune for a song, but not for him--History of "The
+  Erlking"--How it was composed--Written down as fast as pen
+  could travel--Tried over the same evening--The famous
+  dissonances--As sung by Lilli Lehmann--Schubert only eighteen
+  years old when he composed "The Erlking"--His marvelous
+  fecundity--Died at thirty-one, yet wrote six hundred songs and
+  many other works--Schumann's individuality--Distinguished from
+  Schubert--Not the same proportion of great songs--The best
+  composed during his wooing of Clara--Phases of Franz's
+  genius--Traces of his knowledge and admiration of Bach--Choice
+  of keys--Objected to transpositions--Pitiable physical
+  disabilities--Brahms a profound thinker in music--Jensen,
+  Rubinstein, Grieg, Chopin, Wagner--Liszt one of the greatest of
+  song composers--Richard Strauss, Hugo Wolf and others            231
+
+XV.--ORATORIO
+
+  An incongruous art form--Originated in Italy with San Filippo
+  Neri--Scenery, action and even ballet in the early
+  oratorio--The influence of German composers--Bach's "Passion"
+  music--Dramatic expression in Haendel--Rockstro's
+  characterisation of--First performance of "The
+  Messiah"--Haydn's "Creation" and "Seasons"--Mendelssohn's
+  "Elijah" next to "The Messiah" in popularity--Dramatic
+  episodes in the work--Gounod, Elgar and others                   248
+
+XVI.--OPERA AND MUSIC-DRAMA
+
+  Origin of opera--Peri and the Florentines--Monteverde--Cavalli
+  introduces vocal melody to relieve the monotony of
+  recitative--Aria developed by Alessandro
+  Scarlatti--Characteristics of Italian opera from Scarlatti to
+  Verdi--Gluck's reforms--German and French opera--"Les
+  Huguenots," "Faust," and "Carmen"--Comparative popularity
+  of certain operas here--Far-reaching effects of Wagner's
+  theories--Their influence on the later Verdi and contemporary
+  Italian composers--Wagner's music-dramas--A music-drama not an
+  opera--Form wholly original with Wagner--Gave impetus to
+  folk-lore movement--Krehbiel's "Studies in the Wagnerian
+  Drama"--Wagner and anti-Wagner--Finck's "Wagner and His
+  Works"--Wagner a melodist--Examples--Unity a distinguishing
+  trait of the music-drama--Wagner's method illustrated by
+  musical examples--The Curse Motive--The Siegfried, Nibelung,
+  and Tarnhelm motives--Leading motives not mere labels--Their
+  plasticity musically illustrated--The Siegfried horn call
+  developed into the motive of Siegfried, the hero, and into the
+  climax of the "Goetterdaemmerung" Funeral March--An
+  illustration from "Tristan"--Wagner as a composer of absolute
+  music--His scores the greatest achievement musical history, up
+  to the present time, has to show                                 260
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                                 PAGES
+  Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata"                                52, 53
+  "Two-Part Invention," by Bach                                     54
+  Love Motive from "Die Walkuere"                                   181
+  Opening of the "Lohengrin" Prelude                               183
+  Walhalla Motive                                                  192
+  Curse Motive                                                     269
+  Siegfried Motive                                                 270
+  Nibelung Smithy Motive                                           270
+  Tarnhelm Motive                                                  271
+  Siegfried Horn Call                                              272
+  Develops into Motive of Siegfried, the Hero                      272
+  And into Climax of the "Goetterdaemmerung" Funeral March           272
+  Examples from "Tristan und Isolde"                          273, 274
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+"Are you musical?"
+
+"No; I neither play nor sing."
+
+Your answer shows a complete misunderstanding of the case. Because you
+neither play nor sing, it by no means follows that you are unmusical.
+If you love music and appreciate it, you may be more musical than many
+pianists or singers; and certainly you may become so.
+
+This book is planned for the lover of music, for those who throng the
+concert and recital halls and the opera--those who have not followed
+music as a profession, and yet love it as an art; who may not play or
+sing, and yet are musical. Among these is an ever-growing number that
+"wants to know," that no longer is satisfied simply with allowing
+music to play upon the senses and the emotions, but wants to
+understand why it does so.
+
+To satisfy this natural desire which, with many, amounts to a craving
+or even a passion, and to do so in wholly untechnical language and in
+a manner that shall be intelligible to the average reader, is the
+purpose of this book. In carrying it out I have not neglected the
+personal side of music, but have endeavored to keep clearly before the
+eyes of the reader, and in their proper sequence, the great names in
+musical history.
+
+I am somewhat of a radical in my musical opinions, one of those
+persons of advanced views who does not lift his eyes reverentially
+heavenward every time the words "symphony" and "sonata" are mentioned.
+In fact, I am most in sympathy with the liberating tendencies of
+modern music, which lays more stress upon the expression of life and
+truth than upon the exact form in which these are sought to be
+expressed. Nevertheless, I am quite aware that only through the
+gradual development and expansion of forms that now may be growing
+obsolete has music achieved its emancipation from the tyranny of form.
+Therefore, while I would rather listen to a Wagner music-drama than to
+a Mozart opera, or might go to more trouble to hear a Richard Strauss
+tone poem than a Beethoven symphony, I am not such an unconscionable
+heretic as to be unaware of the great, the very great part played by
+the Mozart opera and the Beethoven symphony in the evolution of music,
+or their importance in the orderly and systematic study of the art.
+Indeed, I was brought up on "Don Giovanni," the Fifth Symphony and the
+Sonatas before I brought myself up on Chopin, Liszt (for whom I have
+far greater admiration than most critics), and Wagner. Therefore, an
+ample portion of this book will be found devoted to the classical
+epoch and its great masters, especially its greatest master,
+Beethoven, and to the forms in which they worked. Nor do I think that
+these pages will be found written unsympathetically. But something is
+due the great body of music-lovers who, being told that they _must_
+admire this, that and the other classical composer, _because he is
+classical_, find themselves at a loss and think themselves to blame
+because modern music makes a more vivid and deeper impression upon
+them. If they only knew it--they are in the right! But they have
+needed some one to tell them so.
+
+"Advanced," this book is. But plenty will be found in it regarding the
+sonata and the symphony, and, through the latter, the development of
+the orchestra; and orchestral instruments, their tone quality, scope
+and purpose are described and explained.
+
+More, perhaps, than in any work with the same purpose, the great part
+played by the pianoforte in the evolution of music is here recognized,
+and I have availed myself of the opportunity to tell much of the story
+of that evolution in connection with this, the most popular of musical
+instruments, and its great masters. Why the greater freedom of
+technique and expression made possible by the modern instrument has
+caused the classical sonata to be superseded by the more romantic
+works of Chopin and others whose compositions are typically pianistic,
+and how these works differ in form and substance from those of the
+classicists, are among the many points made clear in these chapters.
+
+The same care has been bestowed upon that portion of the book relating
+to vocal music--to songs, opera, music-drama and oratorio. In fact,
+the aim has been to equip the lover of music--that is, of good music
+of all kinds--with the knowledge which will enable him to enjoy far
+more than before either an orchestral concert, a piano or song
+recital, an opera or a music-drama--anything, in fact, in music from
+Bach to Richard Strauss; to place everything before him from the
+standpoint of a writer who is himself a lover of music and who,
+although thoroughly in sympathy with the more advanced schools of the
+art, also appreciates the great masters of the past and is behind none
+in acknowledging what they contributed to make music what it is.
+
+"Are you musical?"
+
+"No; I neither play nor sing."
+
+But, if you can read and listen, there is no reason why you should not
+be more musical--a more genuine lover of music--than many of those
+whose musicianship lies merely in their fingers or vocal cords. Try!
+
+GUSTAV KOBBE.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE RECITAL
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE PIANOFORTE
+
+
+There must be practically on the part of every one who attends a
+pianoforte recital some degree of curiosity regarding the instrument
+itself. Therefore, it seems to me pertinent to institute at the very
+outset an inquiry into what the pianoforte is and how it became what
+it is--the most practical, most expressive and most universal of
+musical instruments, the instrument of the concert hall and of the
+intimate home circle. Knowledge of such things surely will enhance the
+enjoyment of a pianoforte recital--should be, in fact, a prerequisite
+to it.
+
+The pianoforte is the most used and, for that very reason, perhaps,
+the most abused of musical instruments. Even its real name generally
+is denied it. Most people call it a piano, although _piano_ is a
+musical term denoting a degree of sound, soft, gentle, low--the
+opposite of _forte_, which means strong and loud. The combination of
+the two terms in one word, pianoforte, signifies that the instrument
+is capable of being played both softly and loudly--both _piano_ and
+_forte_. It was this capacity that distinguished it from its immediate
+precursors, the old-time harpsichords and clavichords. One of the
+first requirements in learning how to understand music is to learn to
+call things musical by their right names. To speak of a pianoforte as
+a piano is one of our unjustifiable modern shortcuts of speech, a
+characteristic specimen of linguistic laziness and evidence of utter
+ignorance concerning the origin and character of the instrument.
+
+If I were asked to express in a single phrase the importance of this
+instrument in the musical life of to-day I would say that the
+pianoforte is the orchestra of the home. Indeed, the title of the
+familiar song "What Is Home Without a Mother?" might, without any
+undue stretch of imagination, be changed to "What Is Home Without a
+Pianoforte?"--although, if you are working hard at your music and
+practicing scales and finger exercises several hours a day, it might
+be wiser not to ask your neighbor's opinion on this point.
+
+
+The King of Instruments.
+
+"In households where there is no pianoforte we seem to breathe a
+foreign atmosphere," says Oscar Bie, in his history of the instrument
+and its players; and he adds with perfect truth that it has become
+an essential part of our life, giving its form to our whole
+musical culture and stamping its characteristics upon our whole
+conception of music. Surely out of every ten musical persons,
+layman or professional, at least nine almost invariably have
+received their first introduction to music through the pianoforte
+and have derived the greater part of their musical knowledge from it.
+Even composers like Wagner and Meyerbeer, whose work is wholly
+associated with opera, had their first lessons in music on the
+pianoforte, and Meyerbeer achieved brilliant triumphs as a concert
+pianist before he turned his attention to the operatic stage.
+
+Of all musical instruments the pianoforte is the most intimate and at
+the same time the most public--"the favorite of the lonely mourner and
+of the solitary soul whose joy seeks expression" and the tie that
+unites the circle of family and friends. Yet it also thrills the great
+audience of the concert hall and rouses it to the highest pitch of
+enthusiasm. It is the king of instruments, and the reason for its
+supremacy is not far to seek. Weitzmann, the author of the first
+comprehensive account of the pianoforte and its literature, speaks of
+its ability "to lend living expression to all phases of emotion for
+which language lacks words"; its full, resonant tone; its volume vying
+with that of the orchestra; its command of every shade of sound from
+the gentlest _pianissimo_ to the most powerful _forte_; and its
+mechanism, which permits of the most rapid runs and passages, and at
+the same time of sustained singing notes and phrases.
+
+
+Music Under One's Fingers.
+
+But this is not all. There is an overture by Weber entitled "The Ruler
+of the Spirits." Well, he who commands the row of white and black keys
+is ruler of the spirits of music. He has music, all that music can
+give, within the grasp of his two hands, under his ten fingers. The
+pianoforte can render anything in music. Besides music of its own, it
+can reproduce the orchestra or the voice with even greater fidelity
+than the finest engraving renders a painting; for only to the eyes of
+one familiar with the painting does the engraving suggest the color
+scheme of the original, whereas, through certain nuances of technique
+that are more easily felt than described, the pianoforte virtuoso who
+is playing an arrangement of an orchestra composition can make his
+audience hear certain instruments of the orchestra--even such
+characteristic effects as the far-carrying pizzicato, or the rumbling
+of the double basses or their low growl; the hollow, reverberating
+percussions of the tympani; sustained notes on the horns; the majestic
+accents of trombones; the sharp shrill of piccolos; while some of the
+most effective pianoforte pieces are arrangements of songs.
+
+Moreover, there are pianoforte compositions like the Hungarian
+rhapsodies of Liszt which, while conceived and carried out in the true
+spirit of the instrument ("pianistic," as they say), yet suggest the
+tone colors of the orchestra without permitting these to obtrude
+themselves too much. This is one of the many services of Liszt, the
+giant of virtuosos and a giant among composers, to his art. It has
+been said that Liszt played the whole orchestra on the pianoforte. He
+did even more. He developed the technique of the instrument to such a
+point that the suggestion of many of the clang tints of the orchestra
+has become part of its heritage. This dual capacity of the pianoforte,
+the fact that it has a tone quality wholly peculiar to itself, so that
+when, for example, we are playing Chopin we never think of the
+orchestra, while at the same time it can take up into itself and
+reproduce, or at least suggest, the tone colors of other instruments,
+is one of its most remarkable characteristics.
+
+Quite as remarkable and as interesting and important is the
+circumstance that these tone tints are wholly dependent upon the
+player. There is nothing peculiar to the make of the strings, the
+sounding-board, the hammers, that tends to produce these effects. They
+are due wholly to the player's subtle manipulation of the keys, so
+that we get the added thrill of the virtuoso's personal magnetism. The
+pianoforte owes much of its popularity, much of its supremacy, to the
+fact that a player's interpretation of a composition cannot be marred
+by any one but himself. It rests in his hands alone, whereas the
+conductor of an orchestra is dependent upon a hundred players, some of
+whom may have no more soul than so many wooden Indians. Even supposing
+a conductor to be gifted with a highly poetic and musically sensitive
+nature, it is impossible that so many men of varying degrees of
+temperament as go to make up an orchestra, and none of them probably a
+virtuoso of the highest rank, will be as sympathetically responsive to
+his baton as a pianoforte is to the fingers of a musical poet like
+Paderewski; for the fingers of a great virtuoso are the ambassadors of
+his soul.
+
+
+Melody and Accompaniment on One Instrument.
+
+This personal, one-man control of the instrument has been of
+inestimable value to the pianoforte in establishing itself in its
+present unassailable position. Moreover, in controlling it the pianist
+commands all the resources of music. With his two thumbs alone he can
+accomplish what no player upon any other instrument in common use is
+capable of doing with all ten fingers. He can sound together the
+lowest and the highest notes in music, for all the notes of music as
+we know it simply await the pressure of the fingers upon the keys of
+the pianoforte. It is the one instrument capable of power as well as
+of sweetness and grace which places the whole range of harmony and
+counterpoint at the disposal of one player. A vocalist can sing an
+air, but can you imagine a vocalist singing through an entire
+programme without accompaniment? After half a dozen unaccompanied
+songs the singing even of the greatest prima donna would become
+monotonous for lack of harmony. The violin and violoncello, next to
+the pianoforte the most frequently heard instruments in the concert
+hall, labor under the same disadvantage as the singer. They are
+dependent upon the accompaniment of others.
+
+The pianist, on the other hand, has the inestimable advantage of being
+able to play melody and accompaniment on one instrument at the same
+time--all in one. While singing with some of his fingers the tender
+melodic phrase of a Chopin nocturne, he completes with the others the
+exquisite weave of harmony, and reveals the musical fabric to us in
+all its beauty. Moreover, it is the pianist himself who does this, not
+some one else at his signal, which the intermediary possibly may not
+wholly understand. When Paderewski is at the pianoforte we hear
+Paderewski--not some one else of a less sensitive temperament whom he
+is directing with a baton. A poet is at the instrument and we hear the
+poet. A poet may be at the conductor's desk--but in the orchestra that
+is required for the interpretation of his musical conceptions poets
+usually are conspicuous by their absence. Even great singers suffer
+because their accompaniments are apt not to be as sensitive of
+temperament as they are; and it is a fact that the grace and beauty of
+Schubert's "Hark, Hark, the Lark" never have been so fully revealed to
+me by a singer as by Paderewski's playing of Liszt's arrangement of
+the song, because the pianist is able to shade the accompaniment to
+the most delicate nuances of the melody. How delightful, too, it is to
+go through the pianoforte score of a Wagner music-drama and, as you
+play the wonderful music--all placed within the grasp of your ten
+fingers--watch the scenic pictures and the action pass in imagination
+before your eyes in your own music room without the defects
+inseparable from every public performance, because the success of a
+performance depends upon the co-operation of so many who do not
+co-operate. Yes, the pianoforte is the king of instruments because it
+is the most independent of instruments and because it makes him who
+plays upon it independent.
+
+
+Music's Debt to the Pianoforte.
+
+It would be difficult to overestimate the debt that music owes to the
+pianoforte. Including for the present under this one name the various
+keyboard instruments from which it was developed, the sonata form had
+its first tentative beginnings upon it and was wrought out to
+perfection through it by a process of gradual evolution extending from
+Domenico Scarlatti through Bach's son, Philipp Emanuel Bach, to
+Beethoven. As a symphony simply is a sonata for orchestra, it follows
+that through the sonata and thus through the pianoforte the form in
+which the classical composers cast their greatest works was
+established. Richard Strauss, in his revision of Berlioz's book on
+orchestration, even goes so far as to assert that Beethoven, and after
+him Schumann and Brahms, treated the orchestra pianistically; but the
+discussion of this point is better deferred until we take up the
+orchestra and orchestral music.
+
+Here, however, it may be observed that in addition to its constant use
+as an instrument for the concert hall and the home, and for the
+delight of great audiences and the joy of the amateur player and his
+familiar circle, many of the great composers, even when writing
+orchestral works, have used the pianoforte for their first sketches,
+testing their harmonies on it, and often, no doubt, while groping over
+the keys in search of the psychical note, hit upon accidental
+improvements and new harmonies. Even Wagner, who understood the
+orchestra as none other ever has, employed the pianoforte in sketching
+out his ideas. "I went to my Erard and wrote out the passage as
+rapidly as if I had it by heart," he writes from Venice to Mathilde
+Wesendonck, in relating to her the genesis of the great love duet in
+"Tristan und Isolde," and I could quote other passages from my "Wagner
+and his Isolde," which is based on the romantic passages in the lives
+of the composer and the woman who inspired his great music-drama, to
+show the frequency with which he made similar use of the universal
+musical instrument.
+
+The pianoforte has in many other ways been a boon to some of the most
+famous composers. Many of them were pianists, and by public
+performances of their own works materially accelerated the appreciation
+of their music. Mozart was a youthful prodigy, and later a virtuoso
+of the highest rank. Beethoven, before he was overtaken by deafness,
+introduced his own pianoforte compositions to the public and was the
+musical lion of the Viennese drawing-rooms. Mendelssohn was a pianist
+of the same smooth, affable, gentlemanly type as his music. Chopin
+was not a miscellaneous concert player--his nature was too shrinking;
+but at the Salon Pleyel in Paris he gave recitals to the musical elite,
+who in turn conveyed his ideas to the greater public. Schumann began
+his musical career as a virtuoso, but strained the fourth finger of his
+right hand in using a mechanical apparatus which he had devised for
+facilitating the practice of finger exercises. His wife, Clara Wieck,
+however, who was the most famous woman pianist of her time,
+substituted her fingers for his. Liszt literally hewed out the way
+for his works on the keyboard. Brahms was a pianist of solid,
+scholarly attainments. In fact, dig where you will in musical soil,
+you strike the roots of the pianoforte.
+
+
+Its Lowly Origin.
+
+It must not be supposed, however, that the instrument as we know it
+attained to its present supremacy except through a long process of
+evolution. One of the immediate precursors of the modern pianoforte
+was the harpsichord, a name suggesting that the instrument was a harp
+with a keyboard attachment, and such, in a general way, the pianoforte
+is. But the harp is a very fully developed affair compared with the
+mean little apparatus in which lay and was discovered many centuries
+ago the first germ of the king among instruments. This was the
+monochord, and it has required about nine centuries for the evolution
+of an instrument consisting of a single string set in vibration by
+means of a keyboard attachment into the modern pianoforte. But do not
+be alarmed. I am not about to give a nine hundred years' history of
+the pianoforte. Such detailed consideration would belong to a
+technical work on the manufacture of the instrument and would be out
+of place here. Something of its history should, however, be known to
+every one who wants to understand music, but I shall endeavor to be as
+brief and at the same time as clear as possible.
+
+The monochord originally was used much as we use a tuning fork, to
+determine true musical pitch. If you take a short piece of string, tie
+one end of it fast, draw it taut and pluck it, its vibrations will
+sound a note. If you grasp the string and draw it taut from nearer to
+the point where it is tied, you shorten what is called the "node,"
+increase the number of vibrations and produce a higher note. The
+monochord in its simplest form consisted of a string drawn taut over
+an oblong box and tuned to a given pitch by means of a peg. Under the
+string and in contact with it was a bridge or fret that could be moved
+by hand along a graduated scale marked on the bottom of the box. By
+moving the bridge the node of the string could be shortened and the
+notes marked at corresponding points on the graduated scale produced.
+After a while, and in order to facilitate the study of the harmonious
+relationship between different notes, three strings were added, each
+with its bridge and graduated scale.
+
+It was more or less of a nuisance, however, to continually shift
+four bridges to as many different points under the four strings. As
+an improvement upon this awkward arrangement some clever person
+conceived about the beginning of the tenth century, the idea of
+borrowing the keyboard from the organ and attaching it to the
+monochord. To the rear end of each key was attached an upright piece
+called a tangent. When the finger pressed upon a key the tangent
+struck one of the strings, set it in vibration, and at the same time,
+by contact, created a node which lasted as long as the key was kept
+down and the tangent remained pressed against the string. To
+increase the utility of the instrument by adding more strings and
+more keys was the next obvious step, and gradually the monochord
+ceased to be a mere technical apparatus for the determining of pitch
+and became an instrument on which professionals and amateurs could
+play with pleasure to themselves and others.
+
+
+A Poet's Advice to His Musical Daughter.
+
+There has been preserved to us from about the year 1529 a reply made
+by the poet Pietro Bembo to his daughter Elena, who had written to him
+from the convent where she was being educated asking if she could have
+lessons upon the monochord, which seems to have been as popular in its
+day as its fully developed successor, the modern pianoforte, is now.
+
+"Touching thy request for permission to play upon the monochord,"
+begins Bembo's quaint answer, "I reply that because of thy tender
+years thou canst not know that playing is an art for vain and
+frivolous women, whereas I would that thou shouldst be the most chaste
+and modest maiden alive. Besides, if thou wert to play badly it would
+cause thee little pleasure and no little shame. Yet in order to play
+well thou must needs give up from ten to twelve years to the exercise,
+without so much as thinking of aught else. How far this would benefit
+thee thou canst see for thyself without my telling thee. But thy
+schoolmates, if they desire thee to learn to play for their pleasure,
+tell them thou dost not care to have them laugh at thy mortification.
+Therefore, content thyself with the pursuit of the sciences and the
+practice of needlework." These words of the poet Bembo to his daughter
+Elena--are they so wholly lacking in application to our own day? And I
+wonder--did or did not Elena learn to play the monochord? If not, it
+was because she lived a few centuries too soon. She would have had her
+own way to-day!
+
+
+The Clavichord.
+
+Monochord means "one string," and the application of the term to the
+instrument after other strings had been added was a misnomer. The
+monochord on which Elena, to the evident distress of her distinguished
+parent, desired to play, really was a clavichord, which was derived
+directly from the primitive monochord.
+
+If you will raise the lid of your pianoforte you will find that the
+strings become shorter from the bass up, the lowest note being
+sounded by the longest, the highest note by the shortest string; for
+the longer the string the slower the vibrations and the deeper the
+sounds produced, and _vice versa_. This principle is so obvious that
+it seems as if it must have been applied to the clavichord almost
+immediately and a separate string provided for each key. But for many
+years the strings of the clavichord continued all of equal length, and
+three or four neighboring keys struck the same string, so that the
+contact of the upright tangent with the string not only set the latter
+in vibration but also served to form the node which produced the
+desired note. Not until after the clavichord had been in use several
+centuries, were its strings made of varying length and a separate
+string assigned to each key. These new clavichords were called
+_bundfrei_ (fret-free or tangent-free) because the node of each string
+was determined by that string's length and not by the contact of the
+tangent.
+
+The clavichord retained the box shape of its prototype, the monochord.
+Originally it was portable and was set upon a table; later, however,
+was made, so to speak, to stand upon its own legs. In appearance it
+resembled our square pianofortes. It gave forth a sweet, gentle and
+decidedly pretty musical sound. It had a further admirable quality in
+its capacity for sustaining a tone, since by keeping the tangent
+pressed against the string the player was able to sustain the tone so
+long as the string continued to vibrate. Moreover, by holding down the
+key and at the same time making a gentle rocking motion with the
+finger he was able to produce a tremolo effect which German musicians
+called _Bebung_ (trembling), and the French _balancement_.
+
+A defect of the clavichord was, however, its lack of power. This
+defect led to experiments which resulted in the construction of a
+keyboard instrument the strings of which, in response to the action of
+the keys, were set in vibration by jacks tipped with crow-quills or
+hard leather. The sound was much stronger than that of the clavichord.
+But the jacks twanged the strings with uniform power, "permitting a
+sharp outline, but no shading of the tones."
+
+
+The Harpsichord.
+
+If you chance to be listening to a Hungarian band at a restaurant you
+may notice that one of the players has lying on a table before him an
+instrument with many strings strung very much like those of the
+pianoforte. It is played with two little mallets in the player's
+hands, and produces the weird arpeggios and improvised runs
+characteristic of Hungarian gypsy music. It is a very old instrument
+called the cembalo. About the fifteenth century, it seems, some one
+devised a keyboard attachment with quills for this instrument, tipped
+the jacks with crow-quills, and called the result a clavicembalo (a
+cembalo with keys). This was the origin of the harpsichord, the name
+by which the clavicembalo soon became more generally known.
+Harpsichords were shaped somewhat like our grand pianofortes, but were
+much smaller. A spinet was a small harpsichord, and the virginal a
+still smaller one. Sometimes, indeed, virginals were made no larger
+than workboxes, the instrument being taken out of the box and placed
+on a table before the player.
+
+For the purposes of this book this very general survey of the
+precursors of the pianoforte seems sufficient. The clavichord and the
+instruments of the harpsichord (harpsichord, spinet, and virginal)
+class flourished alongside of each other, but the best musicians gave
+the preference to the clavichord because of its sweet tone and the
+delicately tremulous effect that could be produced upon it by the
+_balancement_. Experiments in pianoforte making were in progress
+already in Bach's day, but he clung to the clavichord, as did his son,
+Philipp Emanuel Bach. Mozart was the first of the great masters to
+realize the value of the pianoforte and to aid materially in making it
+popular by using it for his public performances. And yet even then the
+clavichord, "that lonely, melancholy, unspeakably sweet instrument,"
+was not abandoned without lingering regret by the older musicians, and
+it still was to be found in occasional use as late as the beginning of
+the last century. How thoroughly modern the pianoforte is will be
+appreciated when it is said that a celebrated firm of English makers
+founded in 1730 did not begin to manufacture pianofortes until 1780
+and continued the production of clavichords until 1793.
+
+
+Piano and Forte.
+
+Neither on the clavichord nor on the harpsichord could the player vary
+the strength of the tone which he produced, by the degree of force
+with which he struck the keys. Swells and pedals worked by the knees
+and the feet were devised to overcome this difficulty, but "touch"
+as we understand it to-day was impossible with the instruments in
+which the degree of sound to be produced was not under the control of
+the player's fingers. The clavichord was _piano_, the harpsichord
+was _forte_. Not until the invention of the hammer action, the
+substitution of hammers for tangents and quill-jacks, was an
+instrument possible in which whether the tone should be _piano_ or
+_forte_ depended upon the degree of strength with which the player
+struck the keys. This instrument was the first pianoforte. It was
+invented and so named in 1711 by Bartolomeo Cristofori, of Florence,
+and, although nearly two centuries have elapsed since then, the
+action used by many pianoforte manufacturers of to-day is in its
+essentials the same as that devised by this clever Italian. The
+invention frequently is ascribed to Gottfried Silbermann, a German
+(1683-1753). But the real situation is that Cristofori was the
+inventor, while Silbermann was the first successful manufacturer of
+the new instruments, from a business point of view. Time and
+improvements were required before they made their way, and how slow
+many professional musicians were in giving up the beloved clavichord
+for the pianoforte already has been pointed out. But the latter was
+bound to triumph in the end.
+
+I shall not attempt to give a technical description of the mechanism
+of the pianoforte. But I should like to answer a few questions which
+may have suggested themselves to players who may not have cared to
+take their instruments apart and examine them, or have not been
+present when their tuners have taken off the lid and exposed the
+strings and mechanism to view. The strings of the pianoforte are of
+steel wire, and their tension varies from twelve tons to nearly
+twenty. Those of the deepest bass are covered with copper wire. Eight
+or ten tones of the bass are produced by the vibration of these
+copper-wound strings. Above these, for about an octave and a half, the
+strings are in pairs, so that, the hammer striking them, there are two
+unison strings to a tone, simultaneously, and producing approximately
+twice as powerful a tone as if only one string had been set in
+vibration. The five remaining octaves have three strings to a tone.
+
+
+All Depends on the Player.
+
+When the fingers strike the keys the hammers strike the strings, the
+force of the stroke depending upon the force exerted by the player,
+this being the distinguishing merit of the pianoforte as compared with
+its precursors. Under the strings are a row of dampers, and as soon as
+a finger releases a key the corresponding damper springs into place
+against the vibrating strings, stops the vibrations, and the tone
+ceases. Thus the tone can be dampened immediately by raising the
+finger or prolonged by keeping the finger pressed down on the key.
+This is the device which enables the pianist to play _staccato_ or
+_legato_. The damper pedal, or loud pedal, checks the action of all
+the dampers and prolongs the tones even after the fingers have
+released the keys. The soft pedal brings the hammers nearer the
+strings, shortens the stroke and produces a softer tone. The
+simultaneous use of both pedals is a modern virtuoso effect and a
+very charming one, for the damper pedal prolongs the gentle tones
+produced by the use of the soft pedal. I believe Paderewski was the
+first of the great pianists who have visited this country, to employ
+this effect systematically, and that he was among the first composers
+to formally indicate the simultaneous employment of both pedals in
+passages in his compositions. There is a third pedal called the
+sustaining pedal, but I do not think it has proved as valuable an
+invention as was anticipated.
+
+Within recent years there have been introduced mechanical pianofortes,
+which I may designate as pianolas, after the most popular instrument
+of their class. In my opinion, these instruments are destined to play
+an important part in the diffusion of musical knowledge, and it is
+senseless to underestimate this. There are thousands of people who
+have neither the time nor the dexterity to master the technique of the
+pianoforte, who nevertheless are people of genuine musical feeling,
+and who are enabled through the pianola to cultivate their taste for
+music. The device renders the music accurately; whether expressively
+or not depends, as with the pianoforte itself, upon the taste of the
+person who manipulates it.
+
+
+Decorations That Do Not Beautify.
+
+The pianoforte often is spoken of as an instrument of ugly appearance.
+This it emphatically is not. If the straight side of the grand is
+placed against the wall the side toward the room presents a graceful,
+sweeping curve, while the upright effectively breaks the straight
+line of the wall against which it stands. If the pianoforte is ugly,
+it is due to the so-called "ornaments" that are placed upon it--the
+knicknacks, framed pictures and other senseless things. To my mind,
+there is but one thing which it is permissible to place upon a
+pianoforte, a slender vase with a single flower, preferably a
+rose--the living symbol of the soul that waits to be awakened within
+the instrument.
+
+Sheet music or bound books of music on top of a pianoforte are an
+abomination. If scattered about they look disorderly; if neatly
+arranged in portfolios, even worse, for they create the precise,
+orderly appearance of paths and mounds in a cemetery. Often, indeed,
+the pianoforte is a graveyard of musical hopes. Because of that,
+however, it need not be made to look like one.
+
+Equally objectionable is the elaborately decorated or "period"
+pianoforte designed for rooms decorated in the style of some
+historical art period. A pianoforte has no business in a "period"
+room. If the person is rich enough to afford "period" rooms, he also
+can afford a music room, and the simpler this is, within the bounds of
+good taste, and the less there is in it besides the instrument itself,
+the better. The more proficient the pianist the less he cares for
+decoration and the more satisfied he is with the pianoforte turned out
+in the ordinary course of business by the high-class manufacturer.
+No--decorated pianofortes are for those who are too rich to be
+musical.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+BACH'S SERVICE TO MUSIC
+
+
+So important has been the role played by the pianoforte in the
+evolution of music that it is possible in these chapters on a
+pianoforte recital to give a general survey of the art, and thus
+prepare the reader to enjoy not only what he will hear at such a
+recital, but enable him to approach it with a more comprehensive
+knowledge than that would imply. This is one reason why I elected to
+lead with the chapters on the pianoforte instead of with those on the
+orchestra, as usually is done, because the orchestra is something
+"big." In point of fact, however, the pianoforte, so far as its
+influence is concerned, is quite as "big," if not, indeed, bigger than
+the orchestra; for often, in the evolution of music (as I pointed out
+in the previous chapter), this instrument, which is so sufficient in
+itself, has led the orchestra. In reviewing a pianoforte recital it
+therefore is quite possible to review many phases of musical history.
+
+Take as an example a composition by Bach, one of the preludes and
+fugues from "The Well-Tempered Clavichord," with which a pianoforte
+recital is quite apt to open. The selection illustrates a whole epoch
+in music which Bach rounded off and brought alike to its climax and
+its close. You will be apt to find this fugue rather complicated and,
+I fear, somewhat unintelligible, and this makes it necessary for me to
+point out at once that in some respects music has had a curious
+development. A Wagner music-drama, a Richard Strauss tone poem, seem
+elaborate and complicated affairs compared with a Beethoven sonata or
+symphony. Yet even the most advanced work of a Wagner or Strauss is
+neither as complicated nor as elaborate as a fugue by that past master
+of his art, Johann Sebastian Bach, who, although he was born in 1685
+and did not live beyond the middle of the following century, was so
+far ahead of his age that not even to this day has he fully come into
+his own. The result is that the early classicists, Haydn and Mozart,
+who belong in point of time to a later epoch, may more readily be
+reckoned as "old-fashioned" than Father Bach. When at a recital you
+listen to a fugue by Bach and find it hard and labored--many people
+regard it simply as a difficult species of finger exercises--you think
+that is because it is so very ancient, something in the same class
+with Greek or Sanscrit. In point of fact it is because in some
+respects it is so very modern.
+
+Were it not for the importance of preserving an orderly historical
+sequence in a book of this kind, and that Bach usually is found at the
+beginning of a recital program, it would be almost more practical, and
+certainly far easier, for the author to leave Bach until later. When
+you write of Mozart, or of Beethoven and the moderns, you can depend
+upon more or less familiarity with their works on the part of your
+readers, whereas, comparatively few laymen know much about Bach. They
+associate the name with all that is formal and labored. Yet among my
+acquaintances is a young woman who was brought up in a very musical
+family, and who, having as a child heard her mother play the preludes
+and fugues of the "Well-Tempered Clavichord," finds Bach as simple as
+the alphabet. But hers is a most exceptional case. The appreciation of
+Bach, as a rule, comes only with advanced age. My music teacher used
+to say to me: "You rave over Schubert and Wagner now, but when you get
+to be as old as I am you will go back to Father Bach." While I cannot
+say that his prophecy has come true, while I still am ultra-modern in
+my musical predilections, my musical gods being Schubert, Chopin,
+Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Richard Strauss and, above all, Wagner, I
+should consider myself unfit to write this book if I failed to realize
+the debt modern music owes to Bach, and that the more modern the music
+the greater the debt.
+
+
+Bach in Modern Music.
+
+One of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of the art--and a
+generalization like this is as much in place in discussing pianoforte
+music as elsewhere, because the instrument has had so much to do with
+the evolution of music--is the gap between Bach and modern music.
+While the following must not be taken too literally, it is true in
+general that Bach had little or no influence on the age that
+immediately came after him, the classical age of music, that age which
+we sum up in the names of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, the age of the
+sonata and the symphony. The three masters mentioned probably would
+have developed and composed much as they did had Bach never lived.
+But when a more modern composer, a romanticist like Wagner, wanted to
+enrich the means of musical expression handed down to him from the
+classical period, he reached back to Bach and combined Bach's teeming
+counterpoint with the harmonic system which had been inherited from
+Beethoven. To understand just what this means, to appreciate the
+influence Bach has had upon modern music and why he had little or none
+on the classical composers, it is necessary for the reader to have at
+least a reasonably clear conception of what that counterpoint is and
+wherein it differs from harmony; for with Bach counterpoint reached
+its climax, and all the possibilities of the style having been
+exhausted by him, music of necessity took a turn in another direction
+under the classicists and developed harmonically instead of
+contrapuntally; so that it can be said that modern music derives its
+counterpoint from Bach, its harmony from Beethoven, and its
+combination of the two systems from Wagner.
+
+There is another reason why the meaning of counterpoint should be
+explained and the difference between counterpoint and harmony be made
+clear to the reader now. Nearly all the early music, the music that
+preceded Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and that sometimes is to be
+found on recital programs, is contrapuntal--written in counterpoint.
+As I have said before, it would be much easier to start with the
+sonata form, with harmony instead of counterpoint, for of the two
+harmony is the simpler. But we must "face the music"--the music of the
+old contrapuntal composers--and the best way to do this is to explain
+what harmony and counterpoint are and wherein they differ.
+
+
+Harmony and Counterpoint.
+
+A melody or theme is a rational progression of single tones. Here is
+the melody or theme with which Beethoven begins the familiar
+"Moonlight Sonata":
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+It is a melody, but it does not constitute harmony, for harmony is the
+rational combination of several tones, as distinguished from the
+rational progression of single tones which constitute melody. But when
+Beethoven adds an accompaniment to his theme and it becomes:
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+the passage also becomes harmony, since it is an example of the
+rational combination of several tones. As has often been pointed out
+in books on music, and probably often will have to be pointed out
+again, because as a mistake it is to be classed with the hardy
+perennials, melody is not harmony, but only a part of it. When,
+however, a composer conceives a theme or melody he usually does so
+with the purpose of combining it with an accompaniment that shall
+support it and throw it into bold and striking relief. Composers of
+the contrapuntal school, on the other hand, conceived a theme, not for
+the purpose of supporting it with an accompaniment, but in order to
+combine it with another or with several other equally important
+themes. That, in a general way, is the difference between harmony and
+counterpoint.
+
+In harmony, then, or, more strictly speaking, in music composed
+according to the harmonic system, of which the "Moonlight Sonata"
+is a good example, the theme, the melody, stands out from the
+accompaniment, which is subordinate. Counterpoint, on the other hand,
+rests on the combination of several themes, each of equal importance.
+This is the reason why, when there is a fugue or other complicated
+contrapuntal work on the program of a pianoforte recital, the
+average listener is apt to find it dry and uninteresting. His ear
+readily can distinguish the themes of a sonata, which usually are
+heard one at a time and stand out clearly from the accompaniment,
+but it has not been trained to unravel the themes of the fugue as
+they travel along together. Counterpoint, the term being derived
+from the Latin _contra punctum_, which means point against point
+or note against note, when complicated, as in a fugue, is about the
+most elaborate kind of music there is, and a person who is unable to
+grasp a fugue may console himself with the thought that, excepting
+for the elect, it is a pretty stiff dose to swallow at the very
+beginning of a recital.
+
+There are, however, simpler pieces of counterpoint than a fugue.
+Sometimes, as in the charming little "Gavotte" by Padre Martini, which
+now and then figures among the lighter numbers on the programs of
+historical recitals, the contrapuntist combines a theme with itself,
+or, rather, "imitates" it, which is a simple form of the canon.
+Another form of canon is the round of which "Three Blind Mice" is a
+familiar example. How many people, when singing this, have realized
+that they were being initiated into that mysterious thing known as
+counterpoint? A comparatively simple form of counterpoint is well
+illustrated by a dapper little piece in Bach's "Two-Part Inventions,"
+in which the spirited theme given out by the right hand answers itself
+a bar later in the left, an "imitation" which crops out again and
+again in the piece and gives it somewhat the character of a canon.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+For any one who wishes to become acquainted with Bach there is
+nothing better than these "Two-Part Inventions," especially the
+fascinating little piece from which I have just quoted, compact,
+buoyant and gay, even "pert," as I once heard a young girl characterize
+it; a perfect example of old Father Bach in moments of relaxation when
+he has laid aside his periwig and is amusing himself at his clavichord.
+
+
+What a Fugue Is.
+
+Bach's fugues, and especially his "Well-Tempered Clavichord,"
+forty-eight preludes and fugues in all the keys, form the climax of
+contrapuntal music. Goethe once said that "the history of the world is
+a mighty fugue in which the voice of nation after nation becomes
+audible." This is a freely poetic definition of that highly
+complicated musical form, the fugue. Let me attempt to illustrate it
+in a different way.
+
+Imagine that a composer who is an adept in counterpoint places four
+pianists at different pianofortes, and that he gives a different theme
+to each of them, or a theme to one and modified versions of it to the
+others. He starts the first pianist, after a few bars nods to the
+second to join in with his theme, and so on successively with the
+other two. It might be supposed that when the second player joins in,
+the two themes sounding together would make discord, which would be
+aggravated by the addition of the third and fourth. But, instead, they
+have been so conceived by the contrapuntist that they sound well
+together as they chase and answer each other, or run counter to and
+parallel and enter into many different combinations, sometimes flowing
+along smoothly, at other times surging and striving, yet always, in
+the case of a truly great fugue, borne along by a momentum as
+inexorable as the march of Fate. Of course, it must not be supposed,
+because I have called four pianists into action in order to emphasize
+how distinct are these themes, which yet, when united, are found to
+blend together, that several players are required for the performance
+of a complicated piece of counterpoint like a fugue. What is demanded
+of the player is entire independence of the fingers, so that he can
+clearly differentiate between the themes and enable the hearer to
+distinguish them apart, even in their most complicated combinations.
+An edition of Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavichord" by Bernardus Boekelman
+prints the themes in different colors, so that they are easy to trace
+through all their interweaving, and is interesting to study from.
+
+
+The Fugue and the Virtuoso.
+
+In his book, "Beethoven and His Forerunners," Daniel Gregory Mason
+devotes a paragraph toward dispelling the mystery regarding the fugue
+that prevails with the public, and points out that "the actual formal
+rules, despite the awe they have immemorially aroused in the popular
+mind, are few and simple. After the first announcement of the subject
+by a single voice, it is answered by a second voice, at an interval of
+a fifth above; then again stated by a third voice, and answered by a
+fourth. This process goes on until each voice has had a chance to
+enunciate the motif, after which the conversation goes on more freely;
+the subject is announced in divers keys, by divers voices; episodes,
+in a congruous style, vary the monotony; at last the subject is
+emphatically asserted by the various voices in quick succession
+(_stretto_), and with some little display or grandiloquence the piece
+comes to an end."
+
+Further along in the same book Mr. Mason has a page of apostrophe to
+the Bach fugues. When he characterizes them as "the first great
+independent monuments of pure music," and refers to their "consummate
+beauty of structure," he pays them an eminently just tribute. But
+when he speaks of the "profundity, poignancy and variety of feeling
+they express," I am inclined to quote his own qualifying sentence
+from the next page of his book: "It is true, nevertheless, not only
+that the fugue form makes the severest demands on the attention and
+intelligence of the listener, but also that, because of the
+ecclesiastical origin and polyphonic style, it is incapable of the
+kind of highly personal, secular expression that it was in the spirit
+of the seventeenth century to demand." The same is even more true
+of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The progress
+of music toward individual freedom of expression on the part of the
+composer, and equally so on the part of the interpreter, has been
+steady, and when, through the very perfection which Bach imparted
+to counterpoint, it ceased to attract composers as a means of
+expression because he had accomplished so much there was nothing
+more left for them to do along the same lines, the progress I have
+indicated received a great lift and stimulus.
+
+
+What Counterpoint Lacks.
+
+The lack of highly personal expression in contrapuntal compositions
+explains why most concert-goers find them less attractive than modern
+music. The "D Minor Toccata and Fugue" or the "Chromatic Fantasie and
+Fugue" by Bach, even in the arrangements of Tausig and Liszt, on the
+program of a pianoforte recital, are tolerated because of the modern
+pieces that come later. Nine out of ten persons in the house would
+rather omit them. Why deny so obvious a fact, especially when it is
+easy enough to explain? To follow a contrapuntal composition
+intelligently requires a highly trained ear. Moreover, in such a work
+as a Bach fugue the individuality of the player is of less importance
+than in modern music. Yet a virtuoso's individuality is the very thing
+that distinguishes him from other virtuosos and attracts the public to
+his concerts, while those of other players may be poorly attended. I
+firmly believe in personality of the virtuoso or singer or orchestral
+conductor, for in it lies the secret of individual interpretation, the
+reason why the performance of one person is fascinating or thrilling
+and that of another not. Modern music affords the player full scope to
+interpret it according to his own mood and fancy, to color it with his
+own personality, whereas contrapuntal music exists largely for itself
+alone. It is music for music's sake, not for the sake of interpreting
+some mood, some feeling, or of painting in tone colors something quite
+outside of music. The player of counterpoint is restricted in his
+power of expression by the very formulas of the science or art of the
+contrapuntist. We may marvel that Bach was able to move so freely
+within its restricted forms. But I think it true that it is far more
+interesting for a person even of only moderate proficiency as a player
+to work out, however awkwardly, a Bach fugue for himself on the
+pianoforte than to hear it played by some one else, however great;
+for, cheap and easy as it is to protest in high-sounding phrases about
+the duty of the interpreter to subordinate himself to the composer,
+and against what I am about to say, I nevertheless make bold to affirm
+that it is the province of the virtuoso to express himself, his own
+personality, his moods, his temperament, his subjective or even his
+subconscious self, through music; and in music that is purely
+contrapuntal there is a barrier to this individual power of
+expression.
+
+
+The Mission of the Player.
+
+We often hear it said of the greatest contemporary pianist that he is
+a great Chopin player, but not a great Bach player. He could not be,
+and at the same time be the greatest living virtuoso. It is the
+worshiper of tradition, the reserved, continent, scholarly player, the
+player who converts a Chopin nocturne into an icicle and a Schubert
+impromptu into a snowball, who revels in counterpoint--the player who
+always is slavishly subordinating himself to what he is pleased to
+call the "composer's intentions" and forgets that the truly great
+virtuoso creates when he interprets. Some times the virtuoso may go
+too far and depart too much from the character of the piece he is
+playing, subjecting it more than is permissible to his temporary mood;
+but it is better for art to err on the side of originality, provided
+it is not bizarre or freakish, than on the side of subserviency to
+tradition.
+
+While I have no desire, in writing as above, to exalt unduly the
+virtuoso, the interpreter of music, at the expense of the composer, I
+must insist that the great player also is creative, in the sense that
+every time he plays a work he creates it over again from his own point
+of view, and thus has at least a share in its parentage. Indeed, it
+seems more difficult to attain exalted rank as a virtuoso than to gain
+immortality as a composer. The world has produced two epoch-making
+virtuosos--Paganini on the violin, Liszt on the piano. Within about
+the same period covered by the careers of these two there have been
+half a dozen or even more composers, each of whom marks an epoch in
+some phase of the art. "The interpretive artist," says Henry G.
+Hanchett in his "Art of the Musician," "deserves a place no whit
+beneath that of the composer. No two composers have influenced musical
+progress in America more strongly than have Anton Rubinstein by his
+_playing_, and Theodore Thomas, who was not a composer."
+
+
+Music as a Science.
+
+But, to return to Bach and the other contrapuntists, music owes them
+an immense debt on the technical side. And right here, so universal
+are the deductions that can be drawn from the program of a pianoforte
+recital, it should be pointed out that music differs from other arts
+in having for its basis a profound and complicated science, a science
+that concerns itself with the relations of the notes of the musical
+scale to each other. Upon this science are based alike the "coon song"
+and the Wagner music-drama. What is true of "Tristan" is true also of
+"Bedelia." Each makes its draft upon the science of music; the
+music-drama, of course, in a far greater degree than the song. This
+science has its textbooks with their theorems and problems, like any
+other science, and theoretical musicians have produced learned and
+useful works on the subject which the great mass of laymen, many
+virtuosos, and indeed the average professional musician, may never
+have heard of, let alone have read. For a person not intuitively
+predisposed toward the subject would find the science of music as
+difficult to master as integral calculus; nor, in order to appreciate
+music, or even to interpret it, is it necessary to be versed in this
+science. A virtuoso can play a chord of the ninth, the listener can be
+thrilled by the virtuoso's playing of the chord of the ninth, without
+either of them knowing that there is such a thing as the chord of the
+ninth.
+
+
+Science versus Feeling.
+
+In fact, the person who is so well versed in the science of music that
+he can mentally analyze a composition while listening to it is apt to
+be so absorbed in the mere process of technical analysis that he
+misses its esthetic, its emotional significance. Thus a person may be
+very musical without being musical at all. He may have profound
+knowledge of music as a science and remain untouched by music as an
+art, just as a physicist may be an authority on the laws of light and
+color, yet stand unmoved before a great painting. With some people
+music is all science, with others all art, and I think the latter have
+the better of it. A musical genius is equipped both ways. The great
+composer employs the science of music as an aid in giving expression
+to his creative impulse. He makes science of service to the cause of
+art. Otherwise, while he might produce something that was absolutely
+correct, it would make no artistic appeal whatsoever. Thousands of
+symphonies have been composed, performed and forgotten. They were
+"well made," constructed with scientific accuracy from beginning to
+end, but had no value as art; and music is a profound science applied
+to the production of a great art.
+
+The composer, then, masters the science of music and bends it to his
+genius. If he is a great genius, he soon will discover that certain
+rules which his predecessors regarded as hard and fast, as inviolable,
+can be violated with impunity. He will discover new tone combinations,
+and thus enrich the science and make it serve the purposes of the art
+with greater efficiency than before he came upon the scene. And always
+the composers who have grown gray under the old system, the system
+upon which the new genius is grafting his new ideas, and the theorists
+and critics, who are slaves of tradition, will throw up their hands in
+horror and cry out that he is despoiling the art and robbing it of all
+that is sacred and beautiful, whereas he is adding to its scope and
+potency. Did not even so broad-minded a composer as Schumann say, "The
+trouble with Wagner is that he is not a musician"? So far was Wagner
+ahead of his time! While the great composer nearly always begins where
+his predecessors left off, he is sure to outstrip them later on. Even
+so rugged a genius as Beethoven is somewhat under Mozart's influence
+in his first works, and Wagner's "Rienzi" is distinctly Meyerbeerian.
+But genius soon learns to soar with its own wings and to look down
+with indifference upon the little men who are discharging their shafts
+of envy, malice and ignorance.
+
+
+That "Ear for Music."
+
+And while I am on the subject of the scientific musician _versus_ the
+music lover, the pedant _versus_ the innovator, I might as well refer
+to those people who have in a remarkable degree what is popularly
+known as "an ear for music," and who are able to remember and to play
+"by ear" anything they hear played or sung, even if it is for the
+first time. This ear for music, again, is something quite different
+from scientific knowledge of music or from the emotional sensitiveness
+which makes the music-lover. It is a purely physical endowment, and
+may--in fact, usually does--exist without a corresponding degree of
+real feeling for music. It is, of course, a highly valuable adjunct to
+a genuine musical genius like a Mozart or a Schubert and to a genuine
+virtuoso. It is related of Von Buelow that his ear for music and his
+memory were so prodigious that once, while traveling in the cars, he
+read over the printed pages of a new composition, and on arriving at
+his destination, played it, from memory, at his concert. William
+Mason, who studied with Liszt, witnessed his master perform a similar
+feat. The average untrained person with a musical ear, however,
+instead of being a genius, is apt to become a nuisance, playing all
+kinds of cheap music in and out of season--a sort of peripatetic
+pianola, without the advantage of being under control. Such persons,
+moreover, usually are born without a soft pedal.
+
+
+Bach and the Weather Bureau.
+
+This digression, which I have made in order to discuss the difference
+between music as a science and music as an art, a distinction which, I
+have pointed out, often is so marked that a person may be thoroughly
+equipped on the scientific side of music without being sensitive to
+its beauty as an art, seemed to me necessary at this stage. I am
+reminded by it of the distinction which Edmund Clarence Stedman, in
+his "Nature and Elements of Poetry," so wittily draws between the
+indications of a storm as described by a poet and by the official
+prognostications of the Weather Bureau. Mr. Stedman quotes two
+stanzas:
+
+    "When descends on the Atlantic the gigantic
+      Storm-wind of the Equinox,
+    Landward in his wrath he scourges the toiling surges,
+      Laden with seaweed from the rocks."
+
+And this stanza by a later balladist:
+
+    "The East Wind gathered, all unknown,
+      A thick sea-cloud his course before;
+    He left by night the frozen zone,
+      And smote the cliffs of Labrador;
+    He lashed the coasts on either hand,
+    And betwixt the Cape and Newfoundland,
+      Into the bay his armies pour."
+
+All this impersonation and fancy is translated by the Weather Bureau
+into something like the following:
+
+  "An area of extreme low pressure is rapidly moving up the Atlantic
+  Coast, with wind and rain. Storm-center now off Charleston, S. C.
+  Wind N. E.; velocity, 54. Barometer, 29.6. The disturbance will
+  reach New York on Wednesday, and proceed eastward to the Banks and
+  Bay of St. Lawrence. Danger signals ordered for all North Atlantic
+  ports."
+
+Far be it from me to imply that contrapuntal music in general or Bach
+in particular represents the Weather Bureau. None the less is it true
+that Bach appeals more strongly to the scientific musician than to the
+music-lover who seeks in music a secondary meaning--love, passion,
+grief; the mood awakened by the contemplation of a forest landscape
+with its murmuring foliage, a boundless prairie, or the unquiet sea.
+
+The technical indebtedness of modern music to Bach is so immense, and
+the artistic probity of the man himself was so wonderful, for he worked
+calmly on, in spite of what was worse than opposition--neglect--that
+I think the tendency on the part of Bach enthusiasts, while not
+overrating the importance of the influence he has had during the
+past fifty years or more, is to underrate others as compared with
+him. When critics declare that one virtuoso or another is not a great
+Bach player, are they not ignoring what is a simple fact--that no
+player can make the same appeal through Bach that it is possible for
+him to make through modern music, and that, as a rule, when a virtuoso,
+however good a musician he may be, places Bach on his program, he does
+so not from predilection, but as a tribute to one of the greatest
+names in musical history? It seems to me that the extreme Bach
+enthusiasts can be divided into two classes--musicians who are able
+to appreciate what he did for music on its technical side, and people
+who want to create the impression that they know more than they really
+do.
+
+
+The Bacon, Not the Shakespeare, of Music.
+
+Bach's greatest importance to music lies in his having treated it in
+the abstract and for itself alone, so that when he penned a work he
+did this not to bring home to the listener the significance of a
+certain mood or situation, but from pure delight in following out a
+musical problem to its most extreme development. Algebra makes mighty
+interesting study, but furnishes rather a poor subject for dramatic
+reading. This simile must, of course, be taken with a grain of salt,
+and merely as illustrating in a general way my contention that Bach's
+great service to music was technical and intellectual. He was the
+Bacon, not the Shakespeare, of music, and the contrapuntal structure
+that he reared is to the art what the Baconian theorem is to logic. We
+can imagine the roamer in the field of higher mathematics suddenly
+becoming excited as he sees the end of the path leading to the
+solution of some complicated problem in full view. Thus there may be
+moments when even the cube root becomes emotional, the logarithmic
+theory a dissipation, and differential calculus an orgy. So, too, Bach
+put an enthusiasm into his work that often threatens to sweep the
+student off his intellectuals and make him regard a fugue as a
+scientifically constructed fairyland. Moreover, there are Bach pieces
+in which the counterpoint supports the purest kind of melody, like the
+air for the G string which Thomas arranged for his orchestra with all
+the strings, save the double basses, in unison, and played with an
+effect that never failed to secure a repeat and sometimes a double
+encore.
+
+
+What Wagner Learned from Bach.
+
+If we bear in mind that counterpoint is the artistic combination of
+several themes, each of equal or nearly equal importance, and that
+Bach was the greatest master of the contrapuntal school and forms its
+climax, we can, with a little thought, appreciate what his service has
+been to modern music. When Wagner devised his system of leading
+motives it was not for the purpose of employing them singly, like
+labels tacked onto each character, thing or symbol in the drama, but
+of combining them, welding them together, when occasion arose, in
+order to give musical significance and expression to each and every
+dramatic situation as the story unfolded itself. A shining example of
+this is found in that wonderful last scene of "Die Walkuere," the
+so-called Magic Fire Scene. _Wotan_ has said farewell to _Bruennhilde_;
+has thrown her into a profound slumber upon the rock; has surrounded
+her with a circle of magic flame which none but a hero may penetrate
+to awaken and win her. How is this scene treated in the score? In the
+higher register of the orchestra crackles and sparkles the Magic Fire
+Motive, the Slumber Motive gently rising and falling with the flames;
+while the superb Siegfried Motive (signifying that the yet unborn
+_Siegfried_ is the hero destined to break through the fiery circle)
+resounds in the brass, and there also is a suggestion of the tender
+strains with which _Wotan_ bade _Bruennhilde_ farewell. The welding
+together of these four motives into one glorious whole of the highest
+dramatic significance is Wagnerian counterpoint--science employed in
+the service of art and with thrilling effect. Another passage from
+Wagner, the closing episode in the "Meistersinger" Vorspiel, often is
+quoted to show Wagner's skill in the use of counterpoint, although he
+employs it so spontaneously that few people stop to consider how
+scientific his musical structure is. W. J. Henderson, in his capital
+book, "The Orchestra and Orchestral Music," relates that on one
+occasion a professional musician was engaged in a discussion of Wagner
+in the corridor of the Metropolitan Opera House, while inside the
+orchestra was playing this "Meistersinger" Vorspiel.
+
+"It is a pity," said this wise man, in a condescending manner, "but
+Wagner knows absolutely nothing about counterpoint."
+
+At that very instant the orchestra was singing five different melodies
+at once; and, as Anton Seidl was the conductor, they were all
+audible.
+
+Wagner scores, in fact, teem with counterpoint, but counterpoint that
+palpitates, that thrills with emotion. Note that Mr. Henderson speaks
+of melodies. Wagner's leading motives are melodies, sometimes very
+brief, but always expressive, and not, like the themes of the old
+contrapuntists, conceived mainly for the sake of being combined
+scientifically with other themes equally adaptable to that purpose.
+Counterpoint may be, and usually is, something very dry and formal.
+But from the crucible of the master magician, Richard Wagner, it flows
+a glowing, throbbing, pulsating stream of most precious metal.
+
+
+The Language of an Epoch.
+
+In the difference between the counterpoint of Bach and the counterpoint
+of Wagner lies the difference between two epochs separated by a long
+period of time. With Bach counterpoint was everything; with Wagner
+merely an incident. It will help us to a better understanding of
+music if we bear in mind that the two great composers of each epoch
+spoke in the music of that epoch. Thus Bach spoke in the language of
+counterpoint. His themes, however greatly they may vary among
+themselves, all bear the stamp of motives devised for the purpose of
+entering into formal combinations and of being developed according to
+the stringent rules of counterpoint. Beethoven's are more individual,
+more expressive of moods and emotions. Yet about them, too, there is
+something formal. They, too, are devised to be treated according to
+certain rules--to be molded into sonatas. But with Wagner we feel that
+music has thrown off the shackles of arbitrary form, of dry rule and
+rote. His motives suggest absolute freedom of expression and
+development, through previously undreamed-of wealth of harmony and
+contrapuntal combinations which are mere incidents, not the chief
+purpose of their being. Each represents some person, impulse or symbol
+in a drama; represents them with such eloquence and power that, once
+we know for what they stand, we need but hear them again or recall them
+to memory to have the corresponding episode in the music-drama in which
+they occur brought vividly before our eyes. Bach's language was the
+language of the fugue; Beethoven's the language of the sonata. Fugue and
+sonata are musical forms. Wagner spoke the language of no form. His
+language is that of the free, plastic, unfettered leading motive--the
+language of liberated music, of which he himself was the liberator!
+
+Whether Wagner would have devised his system of leading motives
+without the wonderful structure of counterpoint left by Bach; whether
+Bach's counterpoint, his combination of themes, suggested the system
+of leading motives to the greatest master of them all, we probably
+never shall know. The system, in its completeness, doubtless is
+Wagner's own; but when he came to put it into practical effect he
+found the rich heritage left by Bach ready to hand. One of Wagner's
+instructors in musical theory, and the one from whose teaching he
+himself declares he learned most, was Theodor Weinlig, one of Bach's
+successors as Cantor of the Thomasschule at Leipsic. Wagner quotes him
+as having said: "You may never find it necessary to compose a fugue,
+but the ability to do it often may stand you in good stead." And the
+Cantor set him exercises in all varieties of counterpoint. There thus
+is presented the phenomenon of a composer who for nearly a century
+after his death had little or no influence on the course of music,
+suddenly becoming a potent force in its most modern development.
+
+
+Bach in the Recital Hall.
+
+Bach is so supreme in his own line that contrapuntal music, so far as
+the pianoforte is concerned, may be dismissed with him. Haendel, too,
+it is true, was a master of the contrapuntal school, but he belongs to
+the chapter on oratorio. Bach's pianoforte works in smaller form are
+the "Two-Part Inventions" already mentioned; the "Three-Part
+Inventions," which go a step farther in contrapuntal treatment, and
+the "Partitas," the six "French Suites" and the six "English Suites."
+
+These partitas and suites are the most graceful and charming
+efflorescence of the contrapuntal school, and much could be
+accomplished toward making Bach a popular composer if they figured
+more frequently on recital programs. They are made up of the dance
+forms of the day--allemandes, courants, bourrees, sarabandes, minuets,
+gavottes, gigues, with airs thrown in for good measure; the partitas
+and English suites furnished with more elaborate introductions, while
+the French suites begin with allemandes. Cheerful and even frisky as
+some of the dance pieces in these compositions are, it must not be
+supposed that they were intended to be danced to when contrapuntally
+treated--no more than Chopin intended that people should glide through
+a ballroom to the music of his waltzes.
+
+Besides "sonatas" for pianoforte with one or more other instruments,
+among them the six "Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violin" (the term
+sonata as employed here must not be confused with the classical sonata
+form as developed by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven), Bach composed
+concertos for from one to four pianofortes. Of these latter the one
+best known in this country is the so-called "Triple Concerto," for
+three pianofortes with accompaniment of string quartet, which can at
+will be increased to a string orchestra. In 1873, during Rubinstein's
+tour, I heard it played in New York, under Theodore Thomas's
+direction, by Rubinstein, William Mason and Sebastian Bach Mills, and
+three years later by Mme. Annette Essipoff, Mr. Mason and Mr.
+Boscovitz. Mason, when he was studying under Liszt in Weimar in 1854,
+had performed it with two fellow-pupils, and Liszt had been very
+particular in regard to the manner in which they played the many
+embellishments (_agrements_) which were used in Bach's time. Later,
+Mason found that whenever three pianists came together for the purpose
+of playing this concerto they were certain to disagree regarding "the
+agreements," and usually wasted much time in discussing them,
+especially the mordent.
+
+
+Rubinstein and the "Triple Concerto."
+
+Accordingly, when Mason played the "Triple Concerto" with Rubinstein
+and Mills, he came to the rehearsal armed with a book by Friedrich
+Wilhelm Marburg, published in Berlin in 1765, and giving written
+examples of all the _agrements_. "I told Rubinstein about my ancient
+authority," says Mr. Mason in his entertaining "Memories of a Musical
+Life," "adding that we should be spared the tediousness of a
+discussion as to the manner of playing.
+
+"'Let me see the old book,' said Rubinstein. Running over the leaves
+he came to the illustrations of the mordent. The moment his eyes fell
+upon them he exclaimed: 'All wrong; here is the way I play it!'" And
+that ended the usefulness of "the old book" for that particular
+occasion, the other two pianists adopting, without comment,
+Rubinstein's method, which Mr. Mason intimates was incorrect.
+
+When, at the rehearsal with Essipoff, the mordent came up for
+discussion she exclaimed: "'I cannot play these things; show me how
+they are done.' After repeated trials, however," records Mr. Mason,
+"she failed to get the knack of playing them, as indeed so many
+pianists do; so at the rehearsal she omitted them and left their
+performance to Boscovitz and me."
+
+
+"The Well-Tempered Clavichord."
+
+Bach's monumental work for pianoforte, however, is "The Well-Tempered
+Clavichord," consisting of forty-eight preludes and fugues in all
+keys. I find much prevalent ignorance among amateurs regarding the
+meaning of "well-tempered" as used in this title. I have heard people
+explain it by saying that when a pianist had mastered the book he was
+"tempered" like steel and ready for any difficulties that other music
+might present! I even have heard a rotund and affable person say that
+"The Well-Tempered Clavichord" was so entitled because when you
+listened to its preludes and fugues it smoothed out your temper and
+made you feel good-natured! In point of fact, the word is difficult to
+explain in untechnical language. It relates, however, to Bach's method
+of tuning his clavichord--another boon which he conferred upon music.
+In general, the system may be explained by the statement that certain
+tone intervals, which theoretically are pure, practically result in
+harmonic discrepancies, which Bach's "tempered" system corrected. In
+other words, slight and practically imperceptible inaccuracies are
+introduced in the tuning in order to counterbalance the greater faults
+which result when tuning is absolutely correct from a theoretical
+point of view; just as, in navigating the high northern waters, you
+are obliged to make allowance for variations of the compass. The
+system was not actually the invention of Bach, but he did so much to
+promote its adoption that it is associated with his name. Before it
+was adopted it was impossible to employ all the major and minor keys
+on clavichords and harpsichords, and on the pianofortes, just
+beginning to come into use. It became possible under the tempered
+system of tuning, and was illustrated by Bach in "The Well-Tempered
+Clavichord," each major and minor key being represented by a prelude
+and fugue.
+
+Besides the system of tuning in "equal temperament," Bach modernized
+the technique of fingering by introducing the freer and more frequent
+employment of the hitherto neglected thumb and little finger. The
+services of this great man to music, therefore, were threefold. He
+left us his teeming counterpoint, upon which modern music draws so
+freely; he promoted the system of tuning in equal temperament; and he
+laid the foundation of modern pianoforte technique, and so of modern
+virtuosity.
+
+
+A King's Tribute to Bach.
+
+Besides being a great composer, Bach's traits as a man were most
+admirable. He was uncompromising in his convictions, sturdy, honest
+and upright. His fixedness of purpose is shown by an anecdote of his
+boyhood. In his tenth year he lost his parents and went to live with
+an elder brother, who was so jealous of his superior talents that he
+refused him the loan of a manuscript volume of music by composers of
+the day. Obtaining possession of it without his brother's knowledge,
+Bach secretly copied it at night by moonlight, the task covering
+something like six months. His reward was to have it taken away by his
+brother, who accidentally discovered him playing from it. Fortunately,
+this brother died soon afterward, and Bach recovered his treasure.
+
+While it is true that Bach remained unappreciated by the great mass of
+his contemporaries, there were exceptions, a notable one being the
+music-loving king, Frederick the Great of Prussia, whose service the
+composer's second son, Philipp Emanuel Bach, entered in 1746. At the
+king's earnest urging, Philipp Emanuel induced his father to visit
+Potsdam the following year. The king, who had arranged a concert at
+the palace, was about to begin playing on the flute, when an officer
+entered and handed him a list of the strangers who had arrived at
+Potsdam. Glancing over it, Frederick discovered Bach's name.
+"Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "old Bach is here!" And nothing would do
+save that the master must be brought immediately into the royal
+presence, before he even had time to doff his traveling clothes.
+
+The king had purchased several of the pianofortes recently constructed
+by Gottfried Silbermann and had them distributed throughout the
+palace. Bach and the assemblage went from room to room, the composer
+playing and improvising on the different instruments. Finally he asked
+the king to set him a fugue theme, and on this he extemporized in such
+masterly fashion that all who heard him, the king included, broke out
+into rounds of applause. On his return to Leipsic, Bach dedicated to
+Frederick the Great a work which he entitled "The Musical Sacrifice"
+(or offering), which he based upon the fugue theme the king had given
+him.
+
+No other instance of musical heredity is comparable with that afforded
+by the Bach family. Dr. Theodore Baker, in his "Biographical
+Dictionary of Musicians," gives a list of no less than twenty Bachs,
+all of the same line, whom he deems worthy of mention, and who covered
+a period ranging from 1604 to 1845, when the great Bach's grandson
+and last male descendant, Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach, died in
+Berlin. Thus for two hundred and forty-one years the Bach family was
+professionally active in music.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+FROM FUGUE TO SONATA
+
+
+If a pianoforte recital which begins with a Bach fugue continues with
+a Beethoven sonata, it does not require a very discriminating ear to
+note the difference between the two. The Beethoven sonata is in a
+style so entirely distinct from that of the fugue, and sounds so
+wholly unlike it, that it seems as if Bach had exerted no influence
+whatsoever upon the greatest master of the period that followed his
+death. Although Haydn and Mozart were nearer Bach in point of time
+than Beethoven was, a sonata by either of them, if it chanced to be on
+the program, would show the same difference in style, the same radical
+departure from the works of the master of counterpoint, as the
+Beethoven sonata.
+
+The question naturally suggests itself, did Bach's influence cease
+with his death? And the fact that this question calls for an answer
+and that this answer leads to a general consideration of the interim
+between Bach and Beethoven, again shows how broad in its scope as an
+instrument is the pianoforte and how comprehensive in its application
+to music as a whole is the music of that instrument. Two works on a
+recital program furnish a legitimate basis for a discussion of two
+important periods in the development of music! Who would have thought
+there was so much to a pianoforte recital?
+
+  "It would have been an eminently pardonable mistake for any
+  intelligent musician to have fallen into, in the third quarter of
+  the eighteenth century, if he had concluded that Johann Sebastian
+  Bach's career was a failure, and that his influence upon the
+  progress of his art amounted to the minimum conceivable. Indeed,
+  the whole course of musical history in every branch went straight
+  out of the sphere of his activity for a long while; his work
+  ceased to have any significance to the generation which succeeded
+  him, and his eloquence fell upon deaf ears. A few of his pupils
+  went on writing music of the same type as his in a half-hearted
+  way, and his own most distinguished son, Philipp Emanuel, adopted
+  at least the artistic manner of working up his details and making
+  the internal organization of his works alive with figure and
+  rhythm. But even he, the sincerest composer of the following
+  generation, was infected by the complacent, polite superficiality
+  of his time; and he was forced, in accepting the harmonic
+  principle of working in its Italian phase, to take with it some of
+  the empty formulas and conventional tricks of speech which had
+  become part of its being, and which sometimes seem to belie the
+  genuineness of his utterances and put him somewhat out of touch
+  with his whole-hearted father."
+
+This passage from one of the most admirably thought-out books on music
+I know, Sir Hubert Parry's "Evolution of the Art of Music," is no
+exaggeration. For many years after Bach's death, for nearly a century
+in fact, his influence was but little felt. And yet so aptly does the
+development of art adjust itself to human needs and aspirations, the
+very neglect into which Bach fell turned music into certain channels
+from which it derived the greater freedom of expression essential to
+its progress and gave it the tinge of romanticism which is the essence
+of modern music.
+
+The greatness of Johann Sebastian Bach, on the technical side at
+least, now is so universally acknowledged, and professional musicians
+understand so well what their art owes to him, we are apt to think of
+him as the only musician of his day, whereas his significance was but
+little appreciated by his contemporaries. There were, in fact, other
+composers actively working on other lines and turning music in the
+direction it was destined to follow immediately after Bach's
+death--and for its own ultimate good, be it observed. The simple fact
+is, that pure counterpoint culminated in Bach. What he accomplished
+was so stupendous that his successors could not keep up with him. They
+became exhausted before they even were prepared to begin where he left
+off. And yet the reaction from Bach was, as I have indicated,
+absolutely necessary to the further progress of music.
+
+The scheme of musical development which the reader should bear in mind
+if he desires to understand music, and to arrive at that understanding
+with some kind of system in his progress, was briefly as follows:
+
+
+Three Periods of Musical Development.
+
+First we have counterpoint, the welding together of several themes
+each of equal importance. This style of composition culminated in
+Bach. Its most elaborate form of expression was the fugue; but it also
+employed the canon and impressed into its service certain minor forms
+like the allemande, courant, chaconne, gavotte, saraband, gigue, and
+minuet.
+
+Next, after Bach music began to develop according to the harmonic
+system, or, if I may be permitted for the sake of clarity to use an
+expression which technically is incorrect, according to the melodic
+system. That is, instead of combining several themes, composers took
+one theme or melody and supported it with an accompaniment so that the
+melody stood out in clear relief. This first decided melodic
+development covers the classical period, the period after Bach to
+Beethoven, and its highest form of expression was the sonata, which in
+the orchestra became the symphony.
+
+The romantic period comes after Beethoven. This, to characterize it by
+the readiest means, by something external, something the eye can see,
+is the "single piece" period, the period in which the impromptu of
+Schubert, the song without words of Mendelssohn, the nocturne of
+Chopin, the novelette of Schumann, takes the place of the sonata,
+which consists of a group of pieces or movements. Composers begin to
+find a too exacting insistence upon correctness of form irritating.
+Expression becomes of more importance than form, which is promptly
+violated if it interferes with the composer's trend of thought or
+feeling. Pieces are written in certain moods, and their melody is
+developed so as to follow and give full expression to the mood in
+which it is conceived. New harmonies are fearlessly invoked for the
+same purpose. Everything centres in the idea that music exists not as
+an accessory to form, but for the free expression of emotion. In his
+useful and handy "Dictionary of Musical Terms," Theodore Baker defines
+a nocturne as a title for a piano piece "of a dreamily romantic or
+sentimental character, but lacking a distinctive form." When we see
+the title "Sonata" over a composition we think of form. When we see
+the title "Nocturne" we think of mood, not manner. The title arouses
+within us, by anticipation, the very feeling, the very mood, the very
+emotional condition which the composer is seeking to express. The form
+in which he seeks to express it is wholly a secondary matter. A
+composition is a sonata because it follows a certain formal
+development. It is a nocturne because it is "dreamily romantic or
+sentimental." In no better way, perhaps, could the difference between
+the classical period of music and the romantic period which set in
+after Beethoven be explained. The romanticist is no more hampered by
+form than the writer of poetry or fiction is by facts. Form dominates
+feeling in classical music, feeling dominates form in romantic music.
+
+We still are and, happily, ever shall remain in the romantic period.
+The greatest of all romanticists and, up to the present time, the
+greatest of all composers is Richard Wagner, whose genius will be
+appreciated more and more as years go by until, as may be the case, a
+still greater one will arise; although as dramatic literature
+culminated in Shakespeare, so music may have found its greatest master
+for all time in Wagner. Wagner, of course, was not a composer for the
+pianoforte, but when he reached back and to the fuller harmony
+inherited from Beethoven added the counterpoint of Bach, thus
+combining the two great systems of composition, he indicated the only
+method of progress possible for music of all kinds.
+
+
+Rise of the Melodic School.
+
+It must not be supposed that the melodic school which came in after
+Bach and which, so far as the classical form of the sonata is
+concerned, culminated in Beethoven, was the mushroom growth of a
+night. So much has been said of Bach that a person unfamiliar with the
+history of music might draw the erroneous conclusion that Bach was the
+only composer worth mentioning before the classical period and Germany
+the only country in which music had flourished. On the contrary, Bach
+was the climax of a school to which several countries had each
+contributed its share, partly vocal, partly instrumental. Palestrina's
+name naturally comes to mind as representative of the early period of
+Italian church music; there also was the "Belgian Orpheus," Orlandus
+Lassus (or Lasso), the greatest composer of the Flemish school; and
+England had its Gibbons and other madrigal composers. Their music was
+vocal and requires to be considered more thoroughly under the head of
+vocal music, but it also was contrapuntal and played its part in the
+general development of the art before Bach came upon the scene. Of
+course, there also was instrumental music in counterpoint before
+Bach's day. There is "Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book," a manuscript
+collection of music made either during her reign or shortly afterward
+and containing pieces for the virginal by Tallis, Bird, Giles, Dr.
+John Bull and others, including also the madrigalist, Gibbons. The
+Englishman, Henry Purcell (1658-1695); the Frenchman, Francois
+Couperin (1668-1733), who wrote a harpsichord method; the Germans,
+Hans Leo von Hasler (1564-1612) and Froberger; and the Italian,
+Frescobaldi--these were some among many composers of counterpoint more
+or less noted in their day.
+
+Bach, however, brought the art of counterpoint to perfection, so that,
+so far as it is concerned, he neither required nor even so much as
+left room for a successor. It may not be pertinent to the argument,
+yet it may well be questioned whether, had the classical trio, Haydn,
+Mozart, and Beethoven, endeavored to carry on the contrapuntal school,
+they would not, in spite of their genius, have relegated music to a
+more primitive state than it occupied when Bach died. It seems a
+fortunate circumstance to me that Bach's son appears to have realized
+his inferiority to his father and that, in consequence, he turned from
+counterpoint to the development of harmony--the working out of a
+clearly defined theme or melody supported by accompaniment.
+
+Counterpoint is said to be polyphonic, a term composed of two Greek
+words signifying many-voiced, the combination in music of several
+parts or themes. Opposed to it is homophonic, or single-voiced, music,
+in which one melody or part is supported by an accompaniment. Italy,
+with its genius for the sensuous and emotional in music, already had
+developed a school of melodic music, and to this Philipp Emanuel Bach
+turned for a model. In Italy the pianoforte, through its employment
+for the freer harmonic support of dramatic solo singing in opera, an
+art form that is indigenous to Italy, gradually had emancipated itself
+there from counterpoint and acquired a style of its own. Girolamo
+Frescobaldi (1583-1644), a famous Italian pianoforte and organ
+virtuoso, whose first organ recital in St. Peter's, Rome, is said to
+have attracted an audience of thirty thousand, and whose mantle fell
+upon his two most renowned pupils, the German, Johann Jacob Froberger,
+and the Italian, Bernardo Pasquini, not only experimented with our
+modern keys, seeking to replace with them the old ecclesiastical modes
+in which Palestrina wrote, but also simplified the method of notation.
+For even what seems to us so simple a matter as the five-line staff is
+the result of slow evolution.
+
+
+Scarlatti's Importance as Composer and Virtuoso.
+
+The Italian genius who gave the greatest impulse to the progress of
+pianoforte music and who, for his day, immensely improved the
+technique of pianoforte playing, was Domenico Scarlatti (1683-1757),
+the famous son of a famous father, Alessandro Scarlatti, the leading
+dramatic composer of his time. Domenico Scarlatti interests us
+especially because he is the only one of the early Italians whose work
+retains an appreciable foothold on modern recital programs. Von Buelow
+edited selections from his works, and I recall from personal
+experience, because I was at the concert, the delight with which some
+of these were received the first time Von Buelow played them on his
+initial visit to this country during the season of 1875-76. Amateurs
+on the outlook for something new (even though it was very old) took up
+Scarlatti, and this early Italian's suddenly acquired popularity was
+comparable with the "run" on the Rachmaninoff "Prelude" when it was
+played here by Siloti many years later.
+
+Scarlatti has been called the founder of modern pianoforte technique.
+Although he composed for the harpsichord, he understood the instrument
+so thoroughly and what he wrote for it accords so well with its
+genius, that by unconscious anticipation it also was adapted to the
+genius of the modern pianoforte. It still is pianistic; more pianistic
+and more suitable to the modern repertoire than a good deal of music
+by greater men who lived considerably later. I should say, for
+example, that Scarlatti's name is found more frequently on pianoforte
+recital programs than Mozart's, although Mozart was incomparably the
+greater genius. But there is about Scarlatti's music such a quaint and
+primitive charm that one always listens to it with the zest of a
+discoverer, whereas Mozart's pianoforte music, although more modern,
+just misses being modern enough. This clever Italian gives us the
+early beginnings of the sonata form. He merely lisps in sonata
+accents, it is true, but his lisp is as fascinating as the ingenuous
+prattle of an attractive child. His best, known work, "The Cat's
+Fugue," the subject of which is said to have been suggested to him by
+a cat gliding over the keyboard, is indeed contrapuntal. But even
+this is a movement in a sonata, and the characteristic of his works as
+a whole is the fact that in most of them he developed and worked out a
+melody or theme, and that he established the fundamental outlines of
+the sonata form.
+
+Comparatively few laymen have more than a vague idea of what is
+meant by sonata form. To them a sonata simply is a composition
+consisting of several movements, usually four, three of them of
+considerable length, with a shorter one (a minuet or scherzo)
+between the first and second or the second and fourth. A sonata,
+however, must have one of its movements (and generally it will be
+found to be the first) written in a certain form. Regarding the
+Scarlatti sonatas, suffice it to say here that with him the form
+still is in its primitive simplicity. For example, the true sonata
+movement as we now understand it employs two themes, the second
+contrasting with the first. As a rule, Scarlatti is content with
+one theme. It is the peculiar merit of Philipp Emanuel Bach that he
+introduced a second theme into his sonatas, or suggested it by
+striking modulations when he employed only one theme, and thus
+paved the way for its further elaboration by Joseph Haydn. Mozart
+elaborated the form still further, and then came Beethoven, with
+whom the classical period reached its climax and whose sonatas for
+all practical purposes have completely superseded those of his
+forerunners.
+
+
+Rise of the Amateur.
+
+Characteristic of the period of transition from Bach to Beethoven,
+from the fugue to the sonata, was the development of popular interest
+in music. Scarlatti begins a brief introduction to a collection of
+thirty of his pianoforte pieces which were published in 1746, by
+addressing the "amateur or professor, whoever you be." Significant
+in this is the inclusion of, in fact the seeming preference given to
+the amateur. Music of the counterpoint variety had been music for
+the church, the court and the professional. Now, with the development
+of the freer harmonic or melodic system, it was growing more in
+touch with the people. During Philipp Emanuel Bach's life the increase
+of popular interest in music was remarkable. The titles that began
+to appear on compositions show that composers were reaching out for a
+larger public. Bie quotes some of them: "Cecilia Playing on the
+Pianoforte and Satisfying the Hearing"; "The Busy Muse Clio";
+"Pianoforte Practice for the Delight of Mind and Ear, in Six Easy
+_Galanterie Parties_ Adapted to Modern Taste, Composed Chiefly for
+Young Ladies"; "The Contented Ear and the Quickened Soul"; while
+Philipp Emanuel Bach inscribes some of his pieces as "easy" or "for
+ladies." Evidently the "young person" figured as extensively in the
+calculations of musical composers then as she does now in those of
+the publishers of fiction. Musical periodicals sprang up like
+mushrooms--"Musical Miscellany," "Floral Garnerings for Pianoforte
+Amateurs," "New Music Journal for Encouragement and Entertainment
+in Solitude at the Pianoforte for the Skilled and Unskilled," such
+were some of the titles. These periodicals often went the way of most
+periodical flesh and in the customary brief period, but they show a
+quickened public interest in music--the "contented ear and the
+quickened soul," so to speak.
+
+
+Changes in Musical Taste.
+
+If I dismiss Philipp Emanuel Bach rather curtly and, in this portion
+of the book at least, do the same with Haydn and Mozart, this is not
+because I fail to appreciate their importance in musical history, but
+because they have failed to retain their hold on the modern pianoforte
+repertoire. The simple fact is that the pianoforte as an instrument
+has outgrown their music. We can get more out of it than they gave it.
+If we bear in mind that the pianoforte, as well as music itself, has
+developed, it will aid us in understanding why so much music, once
+considered far in advance of its time and even revolutionary, has so
+soon become antiquated. Why ignore facts? Some examples of primitive
+music still survive because they charm us with their quaintness. But
+the classical period is retiring more and more into the shadow of
+history. Whatever importance Haydn and Mozart may possess for the
+student, their pianoforte music, so far as practical program-making is
+concerned, is to-day a negligible quantity. I remember the time when,
+as a pupil, I pored with breathless interest over the pages of
+Mozart's "Sonata in A Minor" and his "Fantasy and Sonata in C Minor."
+But to-day, when I read in a book published about twenty-five years
+ago that Mozart indulged in harmonies, chord progressions and
+modulations, "sometimes considered of doubtful propriety even now" and
+"quite as harshly censured as are to-day the similar licenses of
+free-thinking composers"--I wonder where they are. For his own day,
+nevertheless, Mozart was an innovator, as every genius is; for it is
+through those daring deviations of genius from established rule and
+tradition, which contemporaries regard as unjustifiable license, that
+art progresses. This should be borne in mind by those who were
+intolerant toward the opponents of Wagner, yet now are guilty of a
+similar solecism in proclaiming Richard Strauss a charlatan.
+
+Assuming that the modern pianoforte pupil is but indifferently
+nourished on the Mozart pabulum, let me add that this composer also
+was a virtuoso, and by his choice of the pianoforte over the
+clavichord did much toward making the modern instrument more popular.
+He also developed the sonata form so that Beethoven found it ready
+moulded for his genius. In fact the sonata form as we know it is so
+much a Mozart creation that Mr. Hanchett, in his "Art of the
+Musician," suggests calling the sonata movement proper a mozarta--a
+suggestion which I presume will never be adopted.
+
+
+Beethoven and the Epoch of the Sonata.
+
+In the history of music there are three figures that easily tower
+above the rest. Each represents an era. They are Bach, who stands for
+counterpoint, the epoch of the fugue; Beethoven, who represents the
+epoch of the sonata; Wagner, who represents the epoch of the
+music-drama. The first two summed up in themselves certain art forms
+which others had originated. Bach's root goes back to Palestrina,
+Beethoven's to Scarlatti. Wagner presents the phenomenon of being both
+the germ and the full fruition of the art form for which he stands. It
+is conceivable that the work of these men will at some time fall into
+desuetude, for in art all things are possible, and the classical
+period seems to be losing its grip on music more and more every day
+and we ourselves may live to see the sonata movement become obsolete.
+It certainly is having less and less vogue, and a composer who now
+writes a sonata with undeviating allegiance to its classical outlines,
+deliberately invites neglect, because the listener no longer cares to
+have his faculties of appreciation restricted by too rigid insistence
+upon form, preferring that genius should have the utmost latitude and
+be absolutely untrammeled in giving expression to what it has to say.
+Nevertheless, music always will bear the impress of these three master
+minds, just as our language, although we do not speak in blank verse,
+always will bear the impress of Shakespeare. "I don't think much of
+that play," exclaimed the countryman, after hearing "Hamlet" for the
+first time. "It's all made up of quotations!" Equally familiar, not to
+say colloquial, are certain musical phrases, certain modulations,
+which have come down to us from the masters.
+
+Although Beethoven no longer is the all-dominant figure in the musical
+world that he was fifty years ago, and it requires a performance of
+the "Ninth Symphony" given under specially significant circumstances
+(such as the conducting of a Felix Weingartner) to attract as many to
+a concert hall as would be drawn by an ordinary Wagner program, I
+trust I shall know how to appreciate his importance to the development
+of musical art and approach him with the reverence that is his due.
+Like all great men who sum up an epoch, he found certain things ready
+to hand. The Frenchman, Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), "the creator
+of the modern system of harmony," had published his "Nouveau Systeme
+de Musique Theorique"; the sonata movement from its tentative
+beginnings under Scarlatti had been developed through Philipp Emanuel
+Bach, Haydn and Mozart into a definite art form awaiting the final
+test of a great genius--which Beethoven proved to be.
+
+
+Beethoven's Slow Development.
+
+I already have pointed out that while pianoforte and orchestra have
+developed side by side, the general belief that the pianoforte merely
+has been the handmaiden of the orchestra is a mistaken one. On the
+contrary, until the end of the classical period, at least, the
+pianoforte was the pioneer. It has blazed the way for the orchestra
+and led it, instead of bringing up the rear. Thus the sonata form
+was developed by the pianoforte and then was handed over by that
+instrument to the orchestra under the name of symphony, which, the
+reader should bear in mind, simply is a sonata written for orchestra
+instead of for the pianoforte. Even Beethoven, before he composed
+his first symphony, which is his Opus 21, tested his mastery of the
+form and his ideas regarding certain further developments in it, by
+first composing thirteen pianoforte sonatas, including the familiar
+"Pathetique," which used to be to concert programs what Liszt's
+"Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" is now--the _cheval de battaille_, on
+which pianists pranced up and down before the ranks of their
+astonished audiences and unfortunate amateurs sought to retain
+their equilibrium.
+
+This experimentation, this comparatively slow development, was
+characteristic of Beethoven; is, in fact, characteristic of every
+genius who works from the soul outward. "Like most artists whose spur
+is more in themselves than in natural artistic facilities, he was very
+slow to come to any artistic achievement," writes Sir Hubert Parry.
+"It is almost a law of things that men whose artistic personality is
+very strong, and who touch the world by the greatness and the power of
+their expression, come to maturity comparatively late, and sometimes
+grow greater all through their lives--so it was with Bach, Gluck,
+Beethoven and Wagner--while men whose aims are more purely artistic
+and whose main spur is facility of diction, come to the point of
+production early and do not grow much afterward. Such composers as
+Mozart and Mendelssohn succeeded in expressing themselves brilliantly
+at a very early age; but their technical facility was out of
+proportion to their individuality and their force of human nature, and
+therefore there is no such surprising difference between the work of
+their later years and the work of their childhood as there is in the
+case of Beethoven and Wagner."
+
+In writing sonatas Haydn and Mozart had been satisfied with grace of
+outward form and a smooth and pretty flow of melody within that form.
+Beethoven was a man of intellectual force as well as of musical
+genius. He applied his intellect to enlarging the sonata form, his
+musical genius to supplying it with contents worthy of the greater
+opportunities he himself had created for it. There is a wonderful
+union of mind and heart in Beethoven's work. The sonata form, as
+perfected by him, is a monument to his genius. It remains to this day
+the flower of the classical period.
+
+
+The Passing of the Sonata.
+
+Nevertheless, the Beethoven sonatas no longer retain the place of
+pre-eminence once accorded them on pianoforte recital programs. When
+Von Buelow was in this country during the season of 1875-76 he
+frequently gave concerts at which he played only Beethoven sonatas.
+I doubt if any of the great pianists of to-day could now awaken as
+much public interest by such programs as Von Buelow did. I remember
+the concert at which, among others of the Beethoven sonatas, this
+virtuoso played Opus 106 ("Grosse Sonata fuer das Hammerklavier").
+After he had played through part of the first movement he became
+restless, and from time to time peered over the keyboard and into
+the instrument as if something were wrong with it. Finally he broke
+off in the middle of the movement, rose from his seat and walked
+off the stage. When he reappeared, he had with him an attendant from
+the firm of manufacturers whose pianofortes he used, and together
+they fussed over the instrument for a while, before the attendant
+made his exit and the irate little pianist began the sonata all over
+again. We considered the mishap that gave us opportunity to hear him
+play so much of the work twice, a piece of great good luck for us.
+Would we so consider it now?
+
+Von Buelow has passed into musical history as a great Beethoven
+player, and such he undoubtedly was. I doubt, however, if he was a
+greater Beethoven player than several living pianists. Some seasons
+ago Eugene d'Albert played a Beethoven program. His performance did
+not evoke the enthusiasm he anticipated. In fact there were
+intimations in the comments on his performance that he was not as
+great a Beethoven player as he thought he was. Personally, and having
+a very clear recollection of Von Buelow's Beethoven recitals,
+because I attended every one he gave in New York, and in my mind's
+eye can see him sitting at the pianoforte, bending away over, with
+his ear almost to the keyboard, I think d'Albert played his
+Beethoven program quite as well. What had happened, however, was
+this: A little matter of thirty years had passed and with it the
+classical period and its efflorescence, the sonata form, had faded
+by just so much, and by just so much no longer was considered by the
+public the crucial test of a pianist's musicianship. Incidentally it
+is worth noting that the public usually is far ahead of the
+profession and of the majority of critics in appreciating new
+tendencies in music and in realizing what is passing away; and the
+same thing probably prevails in other arts.
+
+
+Orchestral Instead of Pianistic.
+
+I am aware that Beethoven was a pianist of the first rank and that
+within the limitations of the sonata form he developed the capacity
+of the pianoforte. I also have read Richard Strauss's opinion, in his
+edition of Berlioz's work on instrumentation, that Beethoven treated
+the orchestra pianistically. Nevertheless, from the modern viewpoint
+the essential fault of the sonata, Beethoven's sonatas included,
+seems to me to be that it is too orchestral and not sufficiently
+_claviermaessig_ (pianistic) in character; not sufficiently adapted to
+the genius of the pianoforte as we know it to-day. It is possible
+that for the times in which they were composed, the sonatas of Haydn,
+Mozart and Beethoven were most pianistic. But as music has become
+more and more an intimate phase of life, and as our most intimate
+instrument, the instrument of the household, is the pianoforte, we
+understand its capacity for the intimate expression of moods and
+fancies, the lights and shadows of life, as it never was understood
+before. The modern lover of music, if I may judge his standpoint
+from my own, feels that while the sonatas of the masters I have
+named were written for the pianoforte, they were thought out for
+orchestra, and that even a Beethoven sonata is an engraving for
+pianoforte of a symphony for orchestra. He composed nine symphonies
+and thirty-two sonatas. If he had written his nine symphonies for
+pianoforte, we would have had nine more sonatas. If he had composed
+his sonatas for orchestra, we would have had thirty-two more
+symphonies.
+
+This orchestral (as opposed to pianistic) character of the Beethoven
+sonatas accounts for passages in them so awkwardly written for the
+instrument that they are difficult to master, and yet, when mastered,
+are not effective in proportion to their difficulty. Between enlarging
+the capacity of an instrument through the problems you give the player
+to solve and writing passages that are awkwardly conceived for it, and
+hence ineffectual after they have been mastered, there is a great
+difference. Chopin, Liszt and others pile Pelion on Ossa in their
+technical requirements of the pianist; but when he has surmounted
+them, he has climbed a mountain, and from its peak may watch the world
+at his feet. I think the orchestral character of much that Beethoven
+wrote for the pianoforte partly accounts for the fact that his sonatas
+no longer attract the great virtuosos as they formerly did and that
+the public no longer regards them as the final test of a pianist's
+rank.
+
+I speak so unreservedly because I have lived through the change of
+taste myself. By way of personal explanation I may be permitted to
+say, that while I am not a professional musician, music was so much a
+part of my life that I studied the pianoforte almost as assiduously as
+if I had intended becoming a public player, and that I was proficient
+enough to meet once a week with the first violinist and the first
+violoncellist of the New York Philharmonic Society for the practice of
+chamber music. If there is any one who should worship at the shrine of
+the sonata form, and especially at that of the Beethoven sonatas, it
+should be myself, for I was brought up on the form and those sonatas
+were my daily bread. When I went to the Von Buelow Beethoven recitals
+it was with book in hand, to follow what he played note for note for
+purposes of study and assimilation. Those were years when, in the
+hours during which one seeks communion with one's other self, the
+Beethoven sonatas were the medium of communication. But now--give me
+the men who emancipated themselves from a form that fettered the
+individuality of the pianoforte, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, and the
+pianoforte scores of the Wagner music-dramas, which actually sound
+more pianistic than the sonatas of the classical period and in which
+it is a delight to plunge oneself and be borne along on a flood of
+free, exultant melody.
+
+Nevertheless, the sonata has had a great part to play in the history
+and development of music and has played it nobly, and we must no more
+forget this than we should allow present-day hero worship to supplant
+the memory of the heroes who went before. The sonata is the firm and
+solid bridge over which music passed from the contrapuntal period to
+the romantic, and doubtless there still are some who prefer to linger
+on the bridge rather than cross it to the promised land to which it
+leads. Always there are conservatives who stand still and look back;
+and that these still should let their eyes rest longingly on the great
+master of the classical epoch, Beethoven, is, to say the least,
+comprehensible. One would have to be unresponsive indeed not to be
+thrilled by the story of his life--his force of character, his rugged
+personality, his determination in spite of one of the greatest
+misfortunes that could befall a musician, deafness; and the
+intellectual power which he displayed in bending a seemingly rigid art
+form to his will and making it the receptacle of his inspiration.
+
+Well may these considerations be borne in mind whenever a Beethoven
+sonata is on a pianoforte recital program. If it does not move us as
+profoundly as music more modern does, that is not because its composer
+was less deeply concerned with the problems of life than those who
+have come after him. For his time he was wonderfully "subjective,"
+drawing his inspiration from the heart, yet always preserving a sane
+mental poise. If to-day the sonatas of this great genius and splendid
+man seem to us less dramatic and emotional than they once did to
+audiences, it is because of the progress of music toward greater
+plasticity of expression and our conviction that such should be its
+mission.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+DAWN OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
+
+
+All art begins with a groping after form, then attains form, and then
+emancipates itself from too great insistence upon rigidity of form
+without, however, reverting to its early formless condition. It was
+absolutely necessary to the establishment of music as an art that at
+some period or periods in its development it should "pull itself
+together" and focus itself in certain forms, and adhere to them
+somewhat rigidly and somewhat tenaciously until they had been
+perfected.
+
+Without saying so in as many words, I have sought, in speaking of the
+sonata, to let the modern lover of music know that if he does not like
+sonatas he need not be ashamed of that fact. A few minutes ago and
+before writing this sentence, I left my desk and going to the
+pianoforte, played through Beethoven's "Sonata Pathetique." It used to
+be a thrilling experience to play it or to hear it played. To-day the
+Grave which introduces the first movement still seemed portentous, the
+individual themes throughout the work had lost none of their beauty.
+And yet the effect produced in earlier years by this sonata as a whole
+was lacking. I shall not say that it sounded pedantic, for I dislike
+to apply that word to anything that sprang from the heart and brain
+of a genius like Beethoven's, but there was a feeling of restraint
+about it--the restraint of set form, the restraint of pathos patterned
+to measure, which is incompatible with our modern notions of absolute
+freedom of expression in music. Moreover, there is ample evidence that
+Beethoven himself chafed under the restraint of the sonata form and
+constantly strove to make it more elastic and more yielding to his
+inspiration.
+
+
+What a Sonata Is.
+
+The sonata form (that is to say, the movement from which the sonata
+derives its name) consists of three main divisions and can easily be
+studied by securing the Buelow and Lebert edition of the Beethoven
+sonatas in Schirmer's library, in which the various divisions and
+subdivisions are indicated as they occur in the music. The first
+division (sometimes with a slow introduction like the Grave of the
+"Sonata Pathetique") may be called the exposition. It consists of the
+main theme in the key of the piece, a connecting episode, a second
+theme in a related key and contrasting with the first, and a
+concluding passage. As a rule the exposition is repeated--an extremely
+artificial proceeding, since there is no esthetic or psychological
+reason for it.
+
+After the exposition comes the second division, the development or
+"working out," a treatment of both themes with much figuration and
+imitation, generally called the "free fantasia" and consisting
+"chiefly of a free development of motives taken from the first part"
+(Baker). This leads into the third division, which is a restatement
+of the first, excepting that the second theme, instead of being in a
+related key, is, like the main theme, in the tonic.
+
+
+How Beethoven Enlarged the Form.
+
+This is the form of the sonata movement which was handed down to
+Beethoven by Haydn and Mozart. It very soon became apparent that the
+greatest genius of the classical period found it too limited for his
+inspiration. In his third sonata (Opus 2, No. 3) he makes several
+innovations that, for their day, are most daring. Following the first
+episode after the main theme, he introduces a second episode with
+which he leads into the second theme. Then using a variant of the
+first episode as a connection he leads over to a third, a closing
+theme. In fact, the material of the second episode is so thematic that
+I see no reason why he should not be said to use four themes in the
+exposition instead of the customary two. In the free fantasia he
+insistently reiterates the main theme, practically ignoring the
+others, thus familiarizing the listener with it and making it as
+welcome as an old friend when the third division ushers it in again.
+
+Instead of closing the movement at the end of the usual third
+division, as his predecessors, Haydn and Mozart, did, Beethoven
+introduces what is one of the most important innovations grafted by
+him upon the sonata form--a coda with a cadenza. I can imagine that
+this movement made his contemporaries look dubious and shake their
+heads. It must have seemed to them originality strained to the point
+of eccentricity and more bizarre than effective. As we look back upon
+it, after this long lapse of time, it must be reckoned a most
+brilliant achievement in the direction of freer form, and from this
+point of view--please bear in mind the reservation--its creator not
+only never surpassed it, but frequently fell behind it.
+
+One of the movements of this sonata is a scherzo. Beethoven is the
+creator of this style of movement. It is much less formal than the
+minuet which Haydn introduced into the sonata. This especial scherzo
+has a trio which in the broad sweep of its arpeggios is as modern
+sounding as anything Beethoven wrote for the pianoforte.
+
+
+His "Moonlight Sonata."
+
+There are other sonatas by Beethoven that indicate efforts on his part
+to be less trammeled by considerations of form. Regard as an example
+the "Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia," Opus 27, No. 2, generally, and by no
+means inaptly, called the "Moonlight Sonata." This begins with the
+broad and beautiful slow movement, with its sustained melody, a poem
+of profound pathos in musical accents. It is followed by an
+Allegretto, "_une fleur entre deux abimes_" (a flower 'twixt two
+abysses) Liszt called it; and then comes the concluding movement, a
+Presto agitato, which is one of Beethoven's most impassioned
+creations. There are only three movements, and the usual sequence is
+inverted, for the last of the three is the Sonata movement. At the end
+of the Adagio sostenuto and at the end of the Allegretto as well, is
+the direction "_attacca subito il sequente_," indicating that the
+following movement is to be attacked at once and denoting an inner
+relationship, a psychological connection between the three movements.
+Throughout the work the themes are of extraordinary beauty and
+expressiveness even for a Beethoven and the whole is a genuine drama
+of human life and experience. This impression is produced not only by
+the very evident psychological connection between the movements, but
+by the manner in which the composer holds on to his themes, developing
+them through bar after bar as if he himself appreciated their beauty
+and were reluctant to let go of them and introduce new material. The
+entire first movement, practically a song without words of the most
+exquisite poignancy, is built on a single motive with a brief episode
+which is more like an improvisation than a set part of a movement;
+while the last movement consists of four eloquent themes with only the
+merest suggestion of connecting episodes. The working out in the last
+movement is almost wholly a persistent iteration of the second theme.
+This persistent dwelling upon theme and the psychological relation
+between the different movements make this "Moonlight Sonata" to me the
+most modern sounding of Beethoven's pianoforte works, although when
+mere structural greatness is considered, most critics will incline to
+rank it lower than the "Sonata Appassionata" and the four last
+sonatas, Op. 106 and 109-11. Undoubtedly, however, it is the most
+"temperamental" of his sonatas--and herein again the most modern. My
+one quarrel with Von Buelow is that he made it so popular by his
+frequent playing of it and his exceptionally poetic interpretation of
+it, that the great virtuosos shun it, very much as they shun the sixth
+Chopin waltz (Mme. Dudevant's dog chasing its own tail), because it is
+played by every pianoforte pupil of every girls' boarding school
+everywhere.
+
+
+Striving for Freedom.
+
+In addition to what I have said of this sonata, it was an immense gain
+for greater freedom of form, and it is to be regretted that it is a
+more or less isolated instance and that Beethoven did not adopt it as
+a standard in shaping his remaining sonatas. Its most valuable
+attribute from the modern point of view is a characteristic to which I
+already have called attention several times--the fact that its several
+movements stand in psychological relation to one another; that there
+is such real soul or temperamental connection between them, that it
+would be doing actual violence to the work as a whole if any one
+movement were to be played without the others or if their sequence
+were to be inverted.
+
+But, you may ask, is there not in all sonatas this psychological
+inter-relationship of the several movements? Have we not been told
+again and again that there is?
+
+Undoubtedly you, and others who have been misinformed by enthusiasts
+who are unable to hear music in anything that has been composed since
+Beethoven, have been told so. But the sonata, with a few exceptions
+like the "Moonlight," simply is a group usually of four movements,
+three long-ones with a shorter one between, and, save for their being
+in related keys, there is no temperamental relationship between the
+movements whatsoever, and to talk of there being such a thing is
+nonsense. I believe the time will come when virtuosos will not
+hesitate to lift single movements out of the Beethoven sonatas and
+place them on their programs and that there will be a sigh of relief
+from the public because it can hear a movement that still sounds fresh
+and modern without being obliged to listen to two or three others that
+do not. Heresy? Maybe. Galileo was accounted a heretic--yet the world
+moves and the musical world with it.
+
+
+The Beethoven Periods.
+
+Beethoven was an intellectual as well as a musical giant. He thought
+before he wrought. The division of his activity into three periods, in
+each of which he is supposed to have progressed further along the road
+of originality and greatness, is generally accepted. Nevertheless, it
+is an arbitrary one, especially as regards the pianoforte sonatas,
+since it has been seen that the first movement of one of his earliest
+works, the third sonata (Opus 2, No. 3), is one of his most original
+contributions to music, and one of the most strikingly developed
+movements in sonata form that he has given us. The period division
+which assigns this sonata as well as the "Sonata Pathetique" to the
+first period is absurd. The fact is, that the works of the so-called
+first and second periods overlap; but there is a decided change in his
+style when we come to his third period which, in the pianoforte
+sonatas, begins with Opus 109. (The beginning of this period usually
+is assigned to the sonata Opus 101, which seems to me too early.)
+Because here a restless spirit seems to be brooding over his work, it
+is thought by some that his mind and heart were warped by his
+misfortunes--his deafness, the ingratitude of a worthless nephew to
+whom he had been as a father, and other family and material troubles.
+To me, however, Beethoven seems in these sonatas to be chafing more
+and more under the restraint of form and to be struggling to free
+himself from it, bending all his intellect to the task. Frankly, I do
+not think that in these last sonatas he achieved his purpose. He had
+outgrown the form he himself had perfected, and the thoughts which
+toward the last he endeavored to mould in it called for absolutely
+free and untrammeled development. He had become too great for it and,
+as a result, it cramped and hampered him in his latest utterances. It
+is my firm belief that had Beethoven come upon the scene fifty years
+later, he would not have composed a single sonata, but have revived
+the suite in modern style, as Schumann practically did in his
+"Carnaval," "Kreisleriana," and "Faschingschwank aus Wien," or have
+created for the pianoforte something corresponding to the freely
+developed tone poems of Richard Strauss.
+
+Because, however, Beethoven wrote thirty-two pianoforte sonatas and
+because he was for many years the all-dominating figure in the musical
+world, every great composer who came after him and composed for the
+pianoforte experimented with the sonata form, and always, be it noted,
+with less success and less importance to the real progress of music
+toward freedom of expression than when he followed his own inner
+impulse and wrote the mood pieces, the "music of intention," the
+subjective expressions of indicated thoughts and feelings, that were
+more consonant with the tendencies of the romantic period which
+followed Beethoven and for which he may be said to have paved the way.
+For just as Bach brought the contrapuntal form to such perfection that
+those who came after him could not even begin where he left off, let
+alone surpass him, so Beethoven brought the sonata form to such
+perfection that no further advance in it was possible. No wonder
+therefore that the pianoforte sonatas of the romanticists are
+comparatively few in number and the least satisfactory of their works.
+These composers seem to have written sonatas simply to show that they
+could write them and under a mistaken idea that length is a measure of
+greatness and that shorter pieces are minor achievements, whereas as
+much genius can be displayed in a nocturne as in a sonata.
+
+
+Sonatas Now Old-fashioned.
+
+Lawrence Gilman, one of our younger American critics, in his "Phases
+of Modern Music," a collection of essays, brief but containing a
+wealth of suggestion and breathing throughout the spirit of
+modernity, sums up the matter in speaking of Edward MacDowell's
+"Keltic Sonata": "I cannot help wishing that he might contrive some
+expedient for doing away, so far as he himself is concerned, with the
+sonata form which he occasionally uses, rather inconsistently, as a
+vehicle for the expression of that vision and emotion that are in
+him; for, generally speaking, and in spite of the triumphant success
+of the 'Keltic,' Mr. MacDowell is less fortunate in his sonatas than
+in those freer and more elastically wrought tone poems in which he
+voices a mood or an experience with epigrammatic concision and
+directness. The 'Keltic' succeeds in spite of its form, ... though
+even here, and notwithstanding the freedom of manipulation, one
+feels that he would have worked to still finer ends in a more
+flexible and fluent form. He is never so compelling, so persuasively
+eloquent, as in those impressionistically conceived pieces in which he
+moulds his inspiration upon the events of an interior emotional
+program, rather than upon a musical formula necessarily arbitrary
+and anomalous." This applies to pianoforte music in general since
+Beethoven. Such I believe to be the consensus of opinion among the
+younger generation of critics, to whom, after all, the future
+belongs, as well as the opinion of those older critics who refuse to
+allow themselves to be pitchforked by their years into the ranks of
+the old fogies and who still hold themselves ever receptive to
+every new manifestation in music that is based on a union of mind and
+heart.
+
+Unless otherwise specifically mentioned I have, in speaking of the
+sonata form, referred to it in connection with the pianoforte. But it
+also is the form employed for the symphony (which simply is a sonata
+for orchestra); for pianoforte trios, quartets and quintets; for
+string quartets and other branches of chamber music (which are sonatas
+written for the combination of instruments mentioned and such others
+as are employed in chamber music), and for concertos (which are
+sonatas for the combination of a solo instrument like the pianoforte,
+violin or violoncello, with orchestra). In these branches the sonata
+form has held its own more successfully than on the pianoforte, and
+for several extraneous reasons. In the symphony it is due largely to
+the greater variety that can be achieved through orchestral coloring;
+in chamber music largely to the somewhat super-refined and timorous
+taste of its devotees which would regard any startling innovation as
+highly indecorous; and in the concerto to the fact that a soloist who
+appears at an orchestral concert is supposed to play a concerto simply
+because the orchestra is there to play it with him, although he, as
+well as the audience, probably would find a group of solos far more
+effective. In fact I think that much of the applause which usually
+follows a great pianist's playing of a concerto is due not so much to
+the audience's enthusiasm over it as to the hope that he may be
+induced to come out and play something alone. So far as the symphony
+is concerned, it is liberating itself more and more from the sonata
+form and taking the direction indicated by Liszt in his symphonic
+poems and by Richard Strauss in his tone poems, the freest form of
+orchestral composition yet conceived.
+
+
+The First Romantic Composers.
+
+In music, as in other arts, periods overlap. We have seen that during
+Bach's life Scarlatti in Italy was laying the foundations of the
+harmonic system and shaping the outlines of the sonata form which was
+to develop through Philipp Emanuel Bach, Haydn and Mozart and find its
+greatest master in Beethoven. Likewise, even while Beethoven was
+creating those works which are the glory of the classical period, two
+of his contemporaries, Carl Maria von Weber, who died one year before
+him, and Franz Schubert, who survived him by only a year, were writing
+music which was destined to turn the art into new channels. Weber
+(1786-1826) is indeed regarded as the founder of the romantic school
+through his opera "Der Freischuetz." It seems to me, however, that
+Schubert (1797-1828) contributed quite as much to the new movement
+through his songs, while the contributions of both to the pianoforte
+are important. Weber was a finished pianist, had an enormous reach (he
+could stretch a twelfth), and besides utilizing the facility thus
+afforded him to add to the brilliancy of pianoforte technique (as in
+his well-known "Concert Piece for Piano and Orchestra"), he
+deliberately, in some of his compositions, ignored the sonata form and
+wrote a "Momento Capriccioso," a "Polonaise," a "Rondo Brilliant," a
+"Polacca Brilliant" and the fascinating "Invitation to the Dance." The
+last, even in its original form and without the elaborations in
+Tausig's version of it, and the "Concert Piece" still are brilliant
+and effective numbers in the modern pianoforte repertoire. Considering
+the age in which they were composed, their freedom from pedantry is
+little short of marvelous.
+
+
+Schubert's Pianoforte Music.
+
+Schubert was not a virtuoso and passed his life almost in obscurity,
+but we now recognize that, although he lived but thirty-one years, few
+composers wrought more lastingly than he. Of course, the proper place
+for an estimate of his genius is in the chapter on song, but as a
+pianoforte composer he is, even to this day, making his influence more
+and more felt. Living in Vienna, Beethoven's city, and a fervent
+admirer of that genius, it was natural that he should have composed
+sonatas, and there is a whole volume of them among his pianoforte
+works. Nevertheless, so original was his genius and so fertile, that,
+in addition to his numerous other works, he composed eight impromptus,
+among them the highly poetic one in G flat major (Opus 42, No. 2),
+usually called "The Elegy"; another in B flat major (Opus 142, No. 3),
+which is a theme with variations, some of them brilliant, others
+profoundly expressive; and the beautifully melodious one in A flat
+major; six dainty "Moments Musicals"; the exquisite little waltz
+melodies from which Liszt fashioned the "Soirees de Vienne"; the
+"Fantasia in G," from which the popular minuet is taken; and the
+broadly dramatic "Fantasia" on a theme from his song, "The Wanderer,"
+for which Liszt wrote an orchestral obbligato, thus converting it into
+a highly effective and thoroughly modern fantasy for pianoforte and
+orchestra. These detached compositions are as eloquent in their appeal
+to-day as if they had been written during the last ten years instead
+of during the first quarter of the last century. They are melodious
+with the sustained melody that delights the modern ear. There is not,
+as in the sonata form or, for that matter, in all the classical music
+that Schubert heard around him, the brief giving out of a theme, then
+an episode, then another brief theme and so on, all couched in the
+formulas in which the classicists delighted, but instead of these
+postulates of formality, melody fully developed and wrought out by one
+who reveled in it and was willing that his hearers should revel in it
+as well. To distinguish between the classicists and this early
+romantic composer, whose work survives in all its freshness and beauty
+to this day, it may be said that their music was thematic--based on
+the kind of themes that lent themselves to formal working out as
+prescribed by the sonata formula; whereas these detached pieces of
+Schubert are based on melodies--long-drawn-out melodies, if you wish,
+and be grateful that they are--that conjure up mood pictures and
+through their exquisite harmonization exhale the very fragrance of
+romanticism.
+
+Naturally, the sonatas from his pen are more set. Nevertheless, so
+long as it seems that we must have sonatas on our recital programs,
+the neglect of those by Schubert is shameful. I am willing to stake
+his sonata No. 5, in A minor, against any sonata ever written, and
+from several of the sonatas single movements can be detached which I
+should think any pianist would be glad to add to his repertoire. Among
+these is the lithesome scherzo from the sonata No. 10, in B flat
+major, and the beautiful slow movement (Andante sostenuto) from the
+same work.
+
+Schubert also wrote many valuable pianoforte duets, among them several
+sets of marches and polonaises and an elaborate and stirring
+"Divertissement a l'Hongroise," which last seems to foreshadow the
+"Hungarian Rhapsodies" of Liszt. In these and the detached pianoforte
+solo pieces a special value lies in that they do not appear to have
+been composed as a protest against the sonata form, but spontaneously
+and without a thought on Schubert's part that he was doing anything in
+any way remarkable. They are expressions of musical feeling in the
+manner that appealed to him as most natural. The "Moments Musicals"
+especially are little mood pieces and impressionistic sketches with
+here and there a bit of realism. Who, for example, is apt to forget
+Essipoff's playing of the third "Moment" in Hungarian style, with a
+long crescendo and diminuendo (the same effect used by Rubinstein,
+when he played his arrangement of the "Turkish March" from Beethoven's
+"Ruins of Athens"), so that it seemed as if a band of gypsies
+approached from afar, danced by, and vanished in the distance?
+Thoroughly modern is Schubert, a most modern of the moderns, whether
+we listen to his original pianoforte compositions, or to the
+Schubert-Liszt waltzes, or "Hark, Hark, the Lark," "To Be Sung on the
+Water" (barcarolle) and other songs of his which have been arranged
+for the pianoforte by Liszt.
+
+
+Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words."
+
+Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, the musical idol of his day and now
+correspondingly neglected, contributed to the romantic movement his
+"Songs Without Words," short pieces for the pianoforte and aptly named
+because their sustained melody clearly defined against a purposely
+subordinated accompaniment gives them the character of songs, in the
+popular meaning of the word. Mendelssohn was a fluent, gentlemanly
+composer, whose music was readily understood and therefore attained
+immediate popularity. But the very qualities that made it popular--its
+smoothness and polish and its rather commonplace harmlessness--have
+caused it to lose caste. The "Songs Without Words," however, still
+occupy a place in the music master's curriculum, forming a graceful
+and easily crossed bridge from classical to romantic music. I can
+remember still, when, as a lad, I received from my music teacher my
+first Mendelssohn "Song Without Words," the G minor barcarolle, how it
+seemed to open up a new world of music to me. Many of these
+compositions, which are unique in their way, still will be found to
+possess much merit. That they are polished little pieces and poetic in
+feeling almost goes without saying. The "Spring Song" may be one of
+the most hackneyed of pianoforte pieces and the same may be true of
+the "Spinning Song," but it is equally true that the former is as
+graceful and charming as the latter is brilliant and showy. A tender
+and expressive little lyric is the one in F major (No. 22), which
+Joseffy frequently used as an encore and played with exquisite effect.
+A group of Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words" is never out of place
+on a pianist's program. At least half a dozen of them, I think, are
+apt to survive the vicissitudes of many years to come. Mendelssohn
+wrote three sonatas, a "Sonata Ecossaies" (Scotch), several capriccios
+and other pieces for the pianoforte, besides two pianoforte concertos,
+of which the one in G minor is the stock selection of conservatory
+pupils at their graduation exercises and later at their debut. With it
+they shoot the musical chutes.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+CHOPIN, THE POET OF THE PIANOFORTE
+
+
+I must ask the reader still to imagine that he is at a pianoforte
+recital, although I frankly admit that I have been guilty of many
+digressions, so that it must appear to him as if he had been
+whisked from Mendelssohn Hall up to Carnegie Hall, then down to
+the Metropolitan Opera House and back to Mendelssohn Hall again.
+This, however, as I have sought to make clear before, is due to
+the universality of the pianoforte as an instrument and to the
+comprehensiveness of pianoforte music, which in itself illustrates
+in great part the development of the art.
+
+At this point, then, of our imaginary pianoforte recital there is
+likely to be a group of compositions by Chopin; and the larger the
+group, or the more groups by this composer on the program, the better
+satisfied the audience is apt to be. Baker calls Frederic Chopin
+(1810-1849) the "incomparable composer for the pianoforte." But he was
+more. He was an incomparable composer from every point of view, great,
+unique, a tone poet, as well as the first composer who searched the
+very soul of the instrument for which he specialized. Extraordinary as
+is his significance for that instrument, his influence extends through
+it into other realms of music, and his art is making itself felt to
+this day in orchestra, opera and music-drama as well as in pianoforte
+music. For he was an innovator in form, an intrepid adventurer in
+harmony and a sublime singer of melody.
+
+
+Tempo Rubato.
+
+Before the pianist whose recital we are supposed to be attending will
+have played many bars of the first piece in the Chopin group, the
+individuality of this composer will become apparent. Melody will
+pervade the recital hall like the fragrance of flowers. At the same
+time there will be an iridescence not noticeable in any of the music
+that preceded Chopin, and produced as if by cascades of jewels--those
+remarkable ornamental notes which yet are not ornamental, but, in
+spite of all their light and shade, and their play of changeable
+colors, part of the great undercurrent of melody itself. Here we have
+then, nearly at the very outset of the first Chopin piece, the famous
+_tempo rubato_, so-called, which has been explained in various ways,
+but which with Chopin really means that while the rhythm goes calmly
+on with one hand, the other weaves a veil of iridescent notes around
+the melodic idea. Liszt expressed it exactly when he said: "You see
+that tree? Its leaves move to and fro in the wind and follow the
+gentle motion of the air; but its trunk stands there immovable in its
+form." Or the _tempo rubato_ is like a shower of petals from a tree in
+full bloom; the firm outline of the tree, its foliage are there, while
+we see the delicately tinted blossoms falling from the branches and
+filling the air with color and fragrance; or like the myriad shafts
+from the facets of a jewel, piercing in all directions while the
+jewel itself remains immovable, the centre of its own rays; or like
+the crisp ripple on a river, while the stream itself flows on in
+majesty; or, in one or two passages when Chopin becomes a cynic, like
+the twaddle of critics while the person they criticise calmly goes
+about his mission.
+
+
+The Soul of the Pianoforte.
+
+What you will notice about these compositions of Chopin--and I say
+"these compositions" deliberately, although I have not named any (for
+it makes no difference what pieces of his are on the program, the
+effect will be the same)--is the fact that in none of them is there
+the slightest suggestion of anything but pianoforte music. Chopin's
+great achievement so far as the pianoforte is concerned is the fact
+that he liberated it completely from orchestral and choral influences,
+and made it an instrument sufficient unto itself, brought it into its
+own in all its beauty of tone and expression and enlarged its
+capacity; sought out its soul and reproduced it in tone, as no other
+composer had done before him or has done since. The recognition of the
+true piano tone seems to have been instinctive with him. It appears in
+his earliest works. Nothing he ever wrote suggests orchestra or voice.
+For the beautiful singing quality he brings out in much of his music
+is a singing quality which belongs to the noble instrument to which he
+devoted himself. Not once while listening to a Chopin composition do
+you think to yourself, as you do so often with classical works, like
+the Beethoven sonatas, "How well this would sound on the orchestra!"
+Yet Chopin is as sonorous, as passionate, as pleading, as melancholy
+and as rich in effect, although he is played only on the black and
+white keys of the pianoforte, as if he were given forth by a hundred
+instrumentalists, so thoroughly did he understand the instrument for
+which he wrote. He was the Wagner of the pianoforte.
+
+
+A Clear Melodic Line.
+
+What you will notice, too, about his music is the general distinctness
+of his melody. There may be times, as in some of his arabesque
+compositions, like the "F Minor Etude," when the effect is slightly
+blurred. But this is done purposely, and as a rule there will be found
+a clear melodic line running through everything he wrote. Combined
+with this melody are weird, exquisite, entrancing harmonies, and those
+showers of _tempo rubato_ notes which glitter like a veil of mist in
+the sunlight and yet, although a veil, allow you to see what is
+beneath it, like a delicate fabric which seems rather to emphasize and
+reveal the very things it is intended to conceal.
+
+Chopin was a Pole. He had the melancholy of his race, but also its
+_verve_. Profoundly affected by his country's sorrow, he also had its
+haughty spirit. In Paris, where he spent the most significant years of
+his life, he was surrounded by the aristocracy of his own country who
+were in exile, and by the aristocracy of the arts. Liszt speaks of an
+evening at his salon where he met, besides some of the Polish
+aristocrats, people like Heinrich Heine, Meyerbeer, Delacroix,
+Nourrit, the tenor, and Bellini. Chopin admired Bellini's music, its
+clear and beautiful melodiousness, and I myself think that Chopin's
+melody often has Italian characteristics, although it is combined with
+harmony that is German in its seriousness, but wholly Chopinesque in
+all its essentials. In those numerous groups of ornamental, or rather
+semi-ornamental, notes, so many of them chromatic, and all of them
+usually designated by the technical term "passing notes," signifying
+that they are merely incidental to the melody and to the harmonic
+structure, there are nevertheless many that have far greater
+importance than if they were merely "passing." It is in bringing out
+this significance by slight accelerations and retards, by allowing a
+few of them to flash out here while the others remain slightly veiled,
+that the inspired Chopin player shows his true conception of what the
+composer meant by _tempo rubato_.
+
+It was Liszt, afterward the first to recognize Wagner, who was the
+first to recognize Chopin. It was Liszt also who introduced him to
+George Sand (Mme. Dudevant), the great passion of his life. Chopin was
+the friend of many women. They adored his poetic nature, and there is
+much in his music that is effeminate, delicate and sensitive; but
+altogether too much has been made of this side of his art, and of
+certain morbid pieces like some of the Nocturnes. The affair with
+George Sand was not only a passion, but was a tragedy, and like all
+such tragedies it left on his music the imprint of something deeper
+and greater than mere delicacy and morbidity. Then, too, we have to
+count with his patriotism and his sympathy with his struggling
+country, and there is much more of the virile and heroic in his music
+than either the average virtuoso or the average listener allows for.
+
+
+The Etudes.
+
+These contrasts in his music can readily be recognized when a great
+pianist makes up the Chopin group on his program from the Etudes,
+which are among the greatest compositions of all times, whether we
+consider them as pianoforte music or as music in general. They touch
+the soul in many places, and in many and varied ways, and they reflect
+the alternate delicacy and daintiness of his genius as well as its
+vigor and nobility. Suppose, for the sake of a brilliant beginning,
+the virtuoso chooses to start off with the fifth, the so-called "Etude
+on Black Keys," and flashes it in our eyes, making the pianoforte play
+the part of a mirror held in the sunlight. This gives us one side of
+Chopin's music, its brilliancy; and it is noticeable that while the
+tempo of the piece is given as _vivace_, the style in which it is to
+be played is indicated by the direction _brillante_.
+
+If the pianist continues with the third Etude, we shall hear one of
+the most tender and beautiful melodies that Chopin ever composed. Let
+him follow this with number thirteen, the one in A flat major, and we
+are reminded of what Schumann said, in his review of this book of
+Etudes, in which he speaks of the A flat major as "an aeolian harp,
+possessed of all the musical scales, the hand of the artist causing
+them all to intermingle in many varieties of fantastic embellishment,
+yet in such a way as to leave everywhere audible a deep fundamental
+tone and a soft continuously singing upper voice."
+
+Schumann heard Chopin himself play this Etude, and he says that
+whoever will play it in the way described will get the correct idea of
+Chopin's performance. "But it would be an error to think that Chopin
+permitted every one of the small notes to be distinctly heard. It was
+rather an undulation of the A flat major chord here and there thrown
+aloft anew by the pedal. Throughout all the harmonies one always heard
+in great tones a wondrous melody, while once only in the middle of the
+piece, besides that chief song, a tenor voice became prominent in the
+midst of the chords. After the Etude, a feeling came over one as of
+having seen in a dream a beatific picture which, when half awake, one
+would gladly recall."
+
+
+Vigor, Passion, and Impetus.
+
+If now the pianist wishes to show by contrast Chopin in his full
+vigor, passionate and impetuous, let him take the great C Minor Etude,
+the twelfth, _Allegro con fuoco_. "Great in outline, pride, force and
+velocity, it never relaxes its grim grip from the first shrill
+dissonance to the overwhelming chordal close," says Huneker, adding
+that "this end rings out like the crack of creation." It is supposed
+to be an expression of the alternating wrath and despair with which
+Chopin received the tidings of the taking of Warsaw by the Russians in
+September, 1831, for it was shortly after this that the Etude was
+composed. No wonder, to quote again from Huneker, that "all sweeps
+along in tornadic passion."
+
+A pianist hardly can go amiss in making his selection from the
+twenty-seven Etudes, for the contrasts which he can effect are
+obvious, and there is among these compositions not one which has not
+its special merits. There is the tenth, of which Von Buelow said
+whoever could play it in a really finished manner might congratulate
+himself on having climbed to the highest point of the pianist's
+Parnassus, and that the whole repertory of music for the pianoforte
+does not contain a study of perpetual motion so full of genius and
+fancy as this especial one is universally acknowledged to be,
+excepting, possibly, Liszt's "Feux Follets." Then there is number
+nineteen in C sharp minor, like a nocturne with the melody in the left
+hand, with the right hand answering as a flute would a 'cello. For
+contrast take number twenty-one, the so-called "Butterfly Etude"--a
+wretched misnomer, because a pianist gifted with true musical
+clairvoyance can work up such a gust of passion in this Etude that any
+butterfly would be swept away as if by a hurricane. Nor, in order to
+accomplish this, is it necessary to make such a bravura piece of the
+Etude as so many pianists ignorantly do. We have, too, the "Winter
+Wind Etude," in A minor, Opus 25, number eleven--the twenty-third in
+the collection as usually published--planned on a grand scale and
+carried out in a manner equal to the plan.
+
+Von Buelow calls attention to the fact that, with all its sonorousness,
+"the greatest fullness of sound imaginable," it nowhere trespasses
+upon the domain of the orchestra, but remains pianoforte music in the
+strictest sense of the word. "To Chopin," says Von Buelow, in referring
+to this Etude, "is due the honor and credit of having set fast the
+boundary between piano and orchestral music which, through other
+composers of the romantic school, especially Robert Schumann, has been
+defaced and blotted out, to the prejudice and damage of both species."
+While agreeing with Von Buelow that Chopin was the great liberator of
+the pianoforte, I cannot agree with the exception he takes to the
+music of Robert Schumann. If he had referred back to the unpianistic
+classical sonata form, he would have been more accurate.
+
+
+The Preludes.
+
+I have gone into some detail regarding these Etudes because I regard
+them, as a whole, among the greatest of Chopin's works. But I once
+heard Rubinstein play the entire set of twenty-four Preludes, and I
+sometimes wonder, as one often does with the compositions of a great
+genius, whether these Preludes, in spite of their comparative brevity,
+should not be ranked as high as anything Chopin ever wrote. According
+to tradition, they were composed during the winter of 1838, which
+Chopin spent with George Sand at Majorca in the Balearic Islands. But
+there is authority for saying that they received only the finishing
+touches there, and are in fact the gleanings of his portfolios.
+
+It seems as if in these twenty-four pieces every phase of human
+emotion were brought out. If my memory is correct, Rubinstein played
+them as a solo group at a Philharmonic concert, or he may have given
+them about the same time at one of his recitals. It was in 1872; and
+while after this long lapse of time it is impossible to remember every
+detail of his performance, I shall never forget the exquisite
+tenderness with which he played the very brief Prelude in A major, the
+seventh. He simply caressed the keyboard, touched it as if his fingers
+were tipped with velvet; and though into the other compositions of the
+series he put, according as their character varied, an immense amount
+of passion, or more subdued emotion, I can still hear this seventh
+Prelude sounding in my memory, note for note and bar for bar, as he
+rendered it--a prolonged, tremulous whisper. Schumann regarded the
+Preludes as most remarkable, saying that "in every piece we find in
+his own hand 'Frederic Chopin wrote it.' One recognizes him in his
+pauses, in his quick-coming breath. He is the boldest, the proudest
+poet-soul of his time."
+
+Each number in the series is complete in itself, a mood picture; but
+the series as a whole, in its collection of moods, its panorama of
+emotions, represents the entire range of Chopin's art. The fourth in E
+minor, covering only a page, is one of the most pathetic plaints ever
+penned. The fifteenth in D flat major, with its continual reiteration
+of the dominant, like the incessant drip of rain on a roof, is a
+nocturne--Chopin in one of his morbid moments; while the eighteenth in
+F minor is as bold a piece of dramatic recitative as though it had
+been lifted bodily out of a music-drama. And so we might run the whole
+range of the collection, finding each admirable in itself, yet
+different from all the others. What a group for a recital these
+twenty-four Preludes make!
+
+
+Nocturnes.
+
+If Chopin had not written the Nocturnes I doubt if those who play and
+those who comment on him would err so often in attributing such an
+excess of morbidness to him as they do, or lay the charge of
+effeminacy against him. Morbid these Nocturnes undoubtedly are in many
+parts, and yet they often rise to the dignity of elegy, and sometimes
+even of tragedy. Exquisitely melodious they are, too, and full of the
+haunting mystery of night. The one in C sharp minor, Opus 27, No. 1,
+is perhaps the most dramatic of the series, and Henry T. Finck, in his
+Chopin essay, is entirely within bounds when he says that it embodies
+a greater variety of emotion and more genuine dramatic spirit on four
+pages than many operas on four hundred. There are greater nocturnes
+than the one in G, Opus 37, No. 2, but I must nevertheless regard it
+as the most beautiful of all. It may bewitch and unman the player, as
+Niecks has said, but, on the other hand, I think its second melody,
+like a Venetian barcarolle breathed through the moonlight, is the most
+exquisite thing Chopin ever composed; and note how, without any
+undulating accompaniment, its rhythm nevertheless produces a gentle
+wavy effect.
+
+Probably the most familiar of all the Nocturnes is the one in E flat,
+the second in the first set, Opus 9. It has been played so much that
+unless it is interpreted in a perfect manner it comes perilously near
+to being hackneyed; but under the hands of a great pianist, who
+unites with absolute independence of all his ten fingers, the soul of
+a poet, it becomes an iridescent play of color, with a sombre picture
+of melancholy seen through the iridescence. Remenyi played a violin
+arrangement of it with such delicacy and so much poetry of feeling
+that he actually reconciled one to its transfer from the pianoforte to
+the soprano instrument of four strings.
+
+
+Chopin and Poe.
+
+John Field, an Irish composer (1782-1837), was the first to compose
+nocturnes, and it is not unlikely that Chopin got the pattern from
+him. Occasionally at historical recitals one hears a nocturne by John
+Field; but I think that if even those who love to question the
+originality of great men were familiar with the nocturnes of Field,
+they would realize how far Chopin went beyond him, making out of a
+small type an art form of such poetic content that, in spite of Field
+having been first in the lists, Chopin may be said to have originated
+the form. Naturally, Field did not relish seeing himself supplanted by
+this greater genius, and he said of Chopin that he composed music for
+a sick-room, and had "a talent of the hospital." On recital programs
+Chopin's nocturnes often appear, and, when played by a master like
+Paderewski, who is sensitive to every shade of Chopin's genius, they
+are heard with an exquisite feeling of sorrow. In these Nocturnes,
+Chopin always seems to me like Edgar Allan Poe in "Ullalume" or in
+"Annabel Lee"--and was not Poe one of the only two American poets of
+real genius?
+
+
+Waltzes and Mazurkas.
+
+A Chopin waltz will admirably afford contrast in a group of Chopin
+pieces on a recital program. Possibly the waltzes are the most
+frequently played by amateurs of all Chopin's compositions. But, to
+perpetrate an Irish bull, even those that have been played to death
+still are very much alive. It was Schumann who said that if these
+waltzes were to be played for dancing more than half the dancers
+should be Countesses, the music is so aristocratic. Indeed, to listen
+to these waltzes is like looking at a dance through a fairy lens. They
+seem to be improvisations of the pianist during a dance, and to
+reflect the thoughts that arise in the player's mind as he looks on,
+giving out the rhythm with the left hand, while the melody and the
+ornamental note-groups indicate his fancies--love, a jealous plaint,
+joy, ecstasy, and the tender whispering of enamored couples as they
+glide past. The slow A minor "Waltz," with its viola-like left-hand
+melody, was Chopin's favorite, and he was so pleased when Stephen
+Heller told him that it was his favorite one, too, that he invited him
+to luncheon. (Strange that we always should regard food as the most
+appropriate reward of artistic sympathy!) Each waltz, with the
+exception of some of the posthumous ones, has its individual charm,
+but to me the most beautiful is the one in C sharp minor, with its
+infinite expression of longing in its leading theme and its remarkable
+chromatic descent before the brilliant right-hand passage that follows
+in the second episode. These chromatics should be emphasized, as they
+are a feature of the passage and form gems of harmonization. But few
+pianists seem to appreciate their significance and pay sole attention
+to bringing out the upper voice.
+
+Thoroughly characteristic of Chopin, thoroughly in keeping with his
+Polish nationality and its traditions, are the Mazurkas--jewels of
+music, full of the finest feeling, the most delicate harmonization,
+and with a dash and spirit entirely their own. Weitzmann truly says
+that they are the most faithful and animated pictures of his nation
+which Chopin has left us, and that they are masterpieces of their
+class: "Here he stands forth in his full originality as the head of
+the romantic school of music; in them his novel and alluring melodic
+and harmonic progressions are even more surprising than in his larger
+compositions."
+
+
+Liszt on the Mazurkas.
+
+Liszt, too, pauses to pay his tribute to them: "Some portray foolhardy
+gaiety in the sultry and oppressive air of a ball, and on the eve of a
+battle; one hears the low sighs of parting, whose sobs are stifled by
+sharp rhythms of the dance. Others portray the grief of the sorely
+anxious soul amid festivities, whose tumult is unable to drown the
+profound woe of the heart. Others, again, show the tears, premonitions
+and struggles of a broken heart, devoured by jealousy, sorrowing over
+its loss, but repressing the curse. Now we are surrounded by a
+swirling frenzy, pierced by an ever-recurring palpitating melody like
+the anxious beating of a loving but rejected heart; and anon distant
+trumpet calls resound like dim memories of bygone fame." All this is
+very fine, although a trifle over-sentimental. The fact is that the
+Chopin Mazurkas are archly coquettish, passionately pleading, full of
+delicate banter, love, despair and conquest--and always thoroughly
+original and thoroughly interesting. In fact Chopin never is
+commonplace. A Mazurka or two will add zest to any group of his works
+on a recital program.
+
+The Polonaises are Chopin's battle-hymns. The roll of drums, the
+booming of cannon, the rattle of musketry and the plaint for the
+dead--all these things one may hear in some of these compositions. The
+mourning notes, however, are missing from the "A Major Polonaise,"
+Opus 40, and usually called "Le Militaire." It is not a large canvas,
+but it is heroic and one of the most virile of all his works. It was
+of this polonaise Chopin said that if he could play it as it should be
+played, he would break all the strings of the pianoforte before he had
+finished.
+
+
+Other Works.
+
+And then the Ballades and the Scherzos. These are perhaps Chopin's
+greatest contributions to the music of the pianoforte. They are
+wonderfully original, wonderfully emotional, yet never to the point of
+morbidness, full of his original harmonies, fascinating rhythms and
+glow. In the Scherzos he is not gaily abandoned, as the title would
+suggest, but often grim and mocking--tragedy mocking itself.
+
+Chopin also wrote Sonatas--felt himself obliged to, perhaps, because
+he was writing for the pianoforte, because pianoforte music still was
+in the grip of the thirty-two Beethoven pianoforte sonatas. By no
+means did he adhere to the classical form; yet these three sonatas are
+not to be counted among his most successful compositions. One of them,
+the B flat minor, contains the familiar funeral march which has been
+said to "give forth the pain and grief of an entire nation"--Chopin's
+nation, sorrowing Poland; and, indeed, the middle episode, the trio of
+the march, is pathetic to the verge of tears, while in the other
+portions the march progresses to the grave amid the tolling of bells
+and the heavy tramp of soldiery. It is played and played, possibly
+played too much; and yet, when well played, never misses leaving a
+deep impression. Because people will persist in "playing" certain
+popular pieces, there is no reason these should not be enjoyed when
+interpreted by a master. There is a vast difference between
+interpretation and mere "playing."
+
+This funeral march is followed in the sonata by a finale which aptly
+enough has been described as night winds sweeping over graves. The
+funeral march often is played at recitals as a detached piece. I
+cannot see why pianists do not add this finale, which has real
+psychological connection with it. The "Berceuse," a "Barcarolle," two
+"Concertos for Piano and Orchestra," which often are slightingly
+spoken of, and most unjustly, since they are full of beautiful melody
+and most grateful to play--beyond these it does not seem necessary to
+go here, unless, perhaps, to mention the Impromptus, which are full of
+the most delightful _chiaroscuro_, and the great F minor "Fantaisie."
+
+
+A Noble from Head to Foot.
+
+Because Chopin wrote only for the pianoforte, because as a rule his
+pieces are not long, his greatness was not at first recognized. The
+conservatives seemed to think no man could be great unless he wrote
+sonatas in four movements for the piano and symphonies for the
+orchestra, unless he composed for fifty or sixty instruments instead
+of for only one. But although Jumbo was large, he was not accounted
+beautiful, and worship of the big is a mistaken kind of reverence.
+Chopin's briefest mazurka is worth infinitely more than many sonatas
+that cover many pages. This composer was a tone poet of the highest
+order. While to-day we regard him mainly as the interpreter of beauty,
+in his own day he was an innovator, a reformer and, like his own
+Poles, a revolutionist. The pianoforte--the pianoforte as a solo
+instrument--sufficed for his most beautiful dreams, for his most
+passionate longings. Bie, in his "History of the Pianoforte and
+Pianoforte Players," tells us that Chopin smiled when he heard that
+Czerny had composed another overture for eight pianos and sixteen
+persons, and was very happy over it. "Chopin," adds Bie, "opened to
+the two hands a wider world than Czerny could give to thirty-two."
+
+Rubinstein, as quoted by Huneker, apostrophizes him as "the piano
+bard, the piano rhapsodist, the piano mind, the piano soul.... Tragic,
+romantic, virile, heroic, dramatic, fantastic, soulful, sweet, dreamy,
+brilliant, grand, simple--all possible expressions are found in his
+compositions and all are sung by him upon his instrument." Huneker
+himself says: "In Chopin's music there are many pianists, many
+styles, and all are correct if they are poetically musical, logical
+and individually sincere." Best of all, he enlarged the scope for
+individual expression in music. Once for all, he got pianoforte music
+away from the set form of the classical sonata. "He was sincere, and
+his survival when nearly all of Mendelssohn, much of Schumann, and
+half of Berlioz have suffered an eclipse, is proof positive of his
+vitality."--Thus again Huneker. Bie says, in summing up his position,
+that his greatness is his aristocracy; that "he stands among
+musicians, in his faultless vesture, a noble from head to foot." But,
+above all, he is a searcher of the human soul, and, because he
+searched it out on the pianoforte, is he therefore less great than if
+he had drawn it out on the strings, piped it on the reeds, blown it
+through the tubes and battered it on the drumheads of the orchestra?
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+SCHUMANN, THE "INTIMATE"
+
+
+Having finished with his Chopin group, the pianist is apt to follow it
+with his Schumann selections, and we meet with another original
+musical genius. Robert Schumann was born at Zwickau in June, 1810. His
+father was a book publisher and was in hopes that the son would show
+literary aptitude. In fact, the elder Schumann discouraged Robert's
+musical aspirations; and as a result, instead of receiving early in
+life a systematic musical training, his education was along other
+lines. He studied law at Leipzig in 1828 and in Heidelberg in 1829,
+and was thus what is rare among musicians--a composer with an academic
+education.
+
+His meeting with the celebrated pianoforte teacher, Frederick Wieck,
+the Leschetitzki of his day, determined Schumann to enter upon a
+musical career. Wieck took him into his home in Leipzig and he studied
+the pianoforte with a view of becoming a virtuoso. In order to gain
+greater freedom in fingering, he devised a mechanical apparatus by
+which one finger was suspended in a sling while the others played upon
+the keyboard. Unfortunately, through the use of this contrivance he
+strained the tendons of one hand and his dream of a virtuoso's career
+vanished. Meanwhile he had fallen in love with his teacher's
+daughter, Clara Wieck, and finally, after determined opposition on the
+part of her father, married her in 1840. Later in life a brain trouble
+from which he had suffered intermittently became more severe, and in
+February, 1854, he became possessed of the idea that Schubert's spirit
+had appeared to him and given him a theme to work out. He abruptly
+left the room in which he was sitting with some friends in his house
+at Duesseldorf and threw himself into the Rhine. Some boatmen rescued
+him from drowning, but he had to be taken to an asylum near Bonn,
+where he died in July, 1856.
+
+These circumstances in his life are mentioned here not only because of
+their interest, but because they explain some aspects of his music.
+Schumann was of a brooding disposition, intensely introspective.
+Compared with Chopin, his music lacks iridescence and shows a want of
+brilliancy. This will be immediately apparent if at a recital a
+pianist places the Schumann pieces after a Chopin group, as he is apt
+to do for the sake of the very contrast which they afford. But if
+Schumann's compositions are wanting in superficially attractive
+brightness, they more than make up for it in their profounder
+characteristics. All through them one seems to hear a deep-sounding
+tone. One might say that his works for the keyboard instrument are
+pianoforte music for the viola, and for that reason they appear to me
+so expressive and so appealing. The harmonies are wonderfully compact.
+One feels after striking a Schumann chord like stiffening the fingers
+in order to hold it down more firmly, keep a grip on it, and let it
+sound to its last echo.
+
+
+Poet, Bourgeois, and Philosopher.
+
+In Schumann's music the sensitive listener will find a curious
+blending of poet, bourgeois, and philosopher. He had the higher
+fancy, the warmth of the poet, a bourgeois love of what was
+intimate and homely, and the introspection of the philosopher.
+Sometimes he is so introspective that he appears to me actually to be
+burrowing in harmony like a mole. The melodies are interwoven;
+sometimes the upper voice flutters lightly down upon "contrapuntal
+collisions in the bass"; frequently his rhythms are syncopated;
+melodies are superimposed upon each other; he uses "imitations,"
+canonic figuration, and often by introducing a single note foreign
+to the scale, suddenly lowers or lifts an entire passage. There
+are interior voices in his music, half suppressed, yet making
+themselves heard now and then above the principal melody. He loves
+"anticipations"--advancing a single note or a few notes of the
+harmony and then filling in the sustained tone or tones with what
+was at first lacking. These characteristics are so marked that it is
+as easy to recognize Schumann as it is to distinguish Chopin in the
+first few bars of a work by either. Each is _sui generis_, each
+has his own hallmark, and it is a great thing in music, as in other
+arts, to have one's product so personal that there can be no
+mistaking whose it is.
+
+Schumann made valuable contributions to so-called program music. His
+pieces, besides intrinsic musical worth, have a distinct meaning,
+usually indicated by the titles he gives them. And these titles
+themselves often are suggested by the works of authors whom he
+admired, or hark back to certain fanciful figures like harlequins and
+columbines. His second work for the pianoforte, "The Papillons,"
+derived its inspiration from the poet, Jean Paul, who was at that time
+an object of his intense worship. But whoever expects to find
+butterflies fluttering through these Schumann pieces will be mistaken.
+They are rather symbols of thoughts still in the chrysalis state and
+waiting, like butterflies, to cast off the shell and gain air and
+freedom. This symbolism must be borne in mind in listening to "The
+Papillons."
+
+Schumann himself said, in a general way, regarding his programmatic
+intentions in this and other works, that the titles given to his music
+should be taken very much like the titles of poems, and that, as in
+the case of poems, the music in itself should be beautiful,
+irrespective of title or printed explanation. This is true of all
+program music that has survived. It will be found beautiful in itself;
+but it also is easy to discover that the titles and explanations which
+are calculated to place the hearer in certain receptive moods vastly
+add to his enjoyment.
+
+
+"Carnaval" and "Kreisleriana."
+
+I am always glad when a pianist elects to place the Schumann
+"Carnaval" on his program, because it is so characteristic of the
+composer's method of work and of his writing short pieces _en suite_,
+giving a separate name to each of his diversions yet uniting them into
+one composition by means of a comprehensive title. The complete title
+to this work is "Carnaval Scenes Mignonnes sur Quatre Notes pour
+Piano, Op. 9." The four notes are A S C H, and in explanation it
+should be said that in German S (es) is E flat, and H the B of our
+musical scale. Asch was the birthplace of Ernestine von Fricken, one
+of Schumann's early loves. Three of the divisions of the "Carnaval"
+are entitled Florestan, Eusebius, and March of the Davidsbuendler.
+Schumann had founded the "Neue Zeitschrift fuer Musik," and he
+contributed to it under the noms-de-plume of Florestan, Eusebius and
+Raro; while his associates were denominated the Davidsbuendler, it
+being their mission to combat and put to flight the old fogies of
+music, as David had the Philistines. Schumann himself is the looker-on
+at this carnival, a thinker wandering through the gay whirl, drawing
+his own conclusions, and noting down in music the varied figures as
+they pass, and his reflections on them. We meet Chopin and Paganini,
+each neatly characterized; Chiarina (the Italian diminutive of Clara)
+and Estrella (none other than Ernestine herself); also Harlequin,
+Pantalon, and Columbine. The Davidsbuendler march in to the strains of
+the German folk-song,
+
+    "Grandfather wedded my grandmother dear,
+    So grandfather then was a bridegroom, I fear,"
+
+and the whole ends in a merry uproar. He wrote another carnival suite,
+Opus 26, the "Faschingschwank aus Wien," in which he introduced a
+suggestion of the "Marseillaise," which was at that time forbidden to
+be played in Vienna.
+
+The title of another work which ranks among his finest productions,
+the "Kreisleriana," also requires explanation. This he derived from a
+book by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who sometimes is spoken of as the German
+Poe, although he lacks the exquisite art of the American author--in
+fact, is a Poe bound up in much heavy German philosophy and turgid
+introspection. The _Kreisler_ of Hoffmann's book is an exuberant
+sentimentalist, and is said to have had his prototype in Kapellmeister
+Ludwig Boehner, who, after a brilliant early career, had become
+addicted to drink and was reduced to maudlin memories of his former
+triumphs. In Hoffmann's book there is a contrast drawn between this
+pathetic character, whose ideals have become shadows which he vainly
+chases, and the prosaic views of life as set forth by another
+character _Kater Murr_ (literally _Tomcat Purr_). But these
+"Kreisleriana," of which Bie says "the joys and sorrows expressed in
+these pieces were never put into form with more sovereign power,"
+should be entitled "Schumanniana," for although the title is derived
+from Hoffmann, the content is Schumann.
+
+
+Thoughts of His Clara.
+
+Concerning the work as a whole he wrote to Clara while in the throes
+of composition: "This music now in me, and always such beautiful
+melodies! Think of it, since my last letter to you I have another
+entire book of new things ready. I intend to call them 'Kreisleriana,'
+and in them you and a thought of you play the chief role, and I shall
+dedicate them to you. Yes, they belong to you as to no one else, and
+how sweetly you will smile when you find yourself in them! My music
+seems to me so wonderfully interwoven, in spite of all its simplicity,
+and speaking right from the heart. It has that effect upon all for
+whom I play these things, as I now do gladly and often." If Clara and
+a thought of Clara play the chief role, what becomes of _Kreisler_ and
+_Kater Murr_? Surely "Kreisleriana" are Schumanniana.
+
+Full of varied characteristics are the "Fantasie Pieces." Among these
+is the familiar "Warum," which one has but to hear to recognize at
+once that it is no ordinary Why, but a question upon the answer to
+which depends the happiness of a lifetime; "At Evening" (_Abends_),
+with its sense of perfect peace; the buoyant "Soaring" (_Aufschwung_);
+"Whims" (_Grillen_); "Night Scene," an echo of the legend of Hero and
+Leander; the fable, "Dream-Whirls" (_Traumeswirren_) and the "End of
+the Song," with its mingling of humor and sadness. These "Fantasie
+Pieces" and the aptly named "Novelettes" seem destined always to
+retain their popularity. And then there are the "Scenes from
+Childhood," to which belongs the "Traeumerei"; the "Forest Scenes," the
+"Sonatas;" the heroic technical studies, based on the Paganini
+"Capriccios," and the "Etudes Symphoniques," and the "Fantasie," above
+the first movement of which he placed these lines from Schlegel:
+
+    "Through every tone there passes,
+    To him who deigns to list,
+    In varied earthly dreaming,
+      A tone of gentleness."
+
+Clara was the "tone," as he told her. It was largely through Madame
+Schumann's public playing of her husband's works that they won
+their way. Even so, owing to their lack of brilliancy and their
+introspection, they were long in coming to their own. But the best
+of them, including, of course, the admirable "A Minor Concerto," long
+will retain their hold on the modern pianist's repertoire. William
+Mason went to Leipzig in 1849. "Only a few years before I arrived at
+Leipzig," he says in his "Memories," "Schumann's genius was so little
+appreciated that when he entered the store of Breitkopf & Haertel
+with a new manuscript under his arm, the clerks would nudge one
+another and laugh. One of them told me that they regarded him as a
+crank and a failure because his pieces remained on the shelf and
+were in the way. * * * Shortly after my return from Germany (to New
+York) I went to Breusing's, then one of the principal music stores
+in the city,--the Schirmers are his successors,--and asking for
+certain compositions by Schumann, I was informed that they had his
+music in stock, but as there was no demand for it, it was packed away
+in a bundle, and kept in the basement." What a contrast now!
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+LISZT, THE GIANT AMONG VIRTUOSOS
+
+
+It is possible, but not likely, that some pianist willing, for the
+moment at least, to sacrifice outward success to inward satisfaction,
+will, after he has played the Schumann selections on his program,
+essay one of Brahms's shorter pianoforte compositions. These are even
+more introspective than Schumann's works and combine a wealth of
+learning with great depth of musical feeling. It is almost necessary,
+however, that one should know them thoroughly in order to appreciate
+them, and audiences have been so slow to welcome them that they appear
+but infrequently on recital programs. Those of my readers, however,
+who are pianists yet still unacquainted with these rare and beautiful
+compositions, will soon find themselves under the spell of their
+intimate personal expression if they will get them and start to learn
+them. The Brahms Variations on a theme by Haendel make a stupendous
+work, and the rare occasions on which it is played by any one capable
+of mastering it should be regarded as "events."
+
+Grieg, with his clear, fascinating Norwegian clang-tints, which
+also play through his fascinating "Concerta" in A minor; Dvorak,
+the Bohemian; Tschaikowsky, whose first "Concerto" in B flat minor
+is among the finest modern works of its kind; or some of the
+neo-Russians, are composers who may figure on the program of a
+modern pianoforte recital. But it is more likely that the virtuoso
+will here elect to bring his recital to a close with some work by the
+grandest figure in the history of pianoforte playing and one of the
+greatest in the history of composition--Franz Liszt.
+
+
+Kissed by Beethoven.
+
+Liszt was born at Raiding, near Odenburg in Hungary, in October, 1811,
+and he died in Bayreuth in July, 1886. From early boyhood, when he was
+a pianoforte prodigy, almost until his death, he occupied a unique
+position in the musical world. He was the Paganini of the pianoforte,
+the greatest pianist that ever lived, and he was a great composer; and
+although, as a virtuoso, he retired from public performances long
+before he died, his fame as a player and his still greater fame as a
+composer have not diminished and his influence still is potent.
+
+His father was an amateur, and began giving him instruction when he
+was six years old. The boy's talent was so pronounced that even
+without professional instruction he was able, when he was nine years
+old, to appear in public and play a difficult concerto by Ries. So
+great was his success that his father arranged for other concerts at
+Pressburg. After the second of these, several Hungarian noblemen
+agreed to provide an annual stipend of 600 florins for six years for
+Franz's further musical education. The family then removed to Vienna,
+where, for about a year and a half, the boy took pianoforte lessons
+from Czerny and theory with Salieri. Beethoven heard of him, and asked
+to see him, and at their meeting, after Franz had played, without
+notes and without the other instruments, Beethoven's pianoforte trio,
+Op. 97 (the large one in B flat major), the great master embraced and
+kissed him. In 1823 he was taken to Paris with a view to being placed
+in the Conservatoire. But although he passed his examination without
+difficulty, Cherubini, at that time the director of the institution
+and prejudiced against infant phenomena, revived a rule excluding
+foreigners and admission was denied him.
+
+His success as a pianist, however, was enormous and there was the
+greatest demand in salons and musical circles for "le petit Litz." (As
+some writer, whose name I cannot recall, has said, "the nearest Paris
+came to appreciating Liszt was to call him 'Litz.'") He was the friend
+of Chopin, of other musicians, and of painters and literary men, and
+the doors of the most exclusive drawing-rooms of the French capital
+were open to him. Paganini played in Paris in 1831, and his wonderful
+feats of technique inspired Liszt to efforts to develop the technique
+of the pianoforte with as much daring as Paganini had shown in
+developing the capacity of the violin. This was the beginning of those
+wonderful feats of virtuosity as well as of the remarkable technical
+demands made in his compositions, both of which combined have done so
+much to make the pianoforte what it is, and to bring out its full
+potentiality as regards execution and expression.
+
+
+Episode with Countess D'Agoult.
+
+For a time Liszt left Paris with the Countess d'Agoult, who wrote
+under the nom-de-plume of Daniel Stern, and who was the mother of his
+three children, of whom Cosima became the wife, first of Von Buelow and
+then of Wagner. His four years with the Countess he passed in Geneva.
+Twice, however, he came forth from this retirement to cross the sword
+of virtuosity with and vanquish his only serious rival in pianoforte
+playing, Sigismund Thalberg, a brilliant player and a man, like Liszt
+himself, of fascinating personality, but lacking the Hungarian's
+intellectual capacity. In 1829, he and Countess d'Agoult having
+separated, he began his triumphal progress through Europe, and for the
+following ten years the world rang with his fame. He then settled down
+as Court Conductor at Weimar, which became the headquarters of the new
+romantic movement in Germany. Hardly a person of distinction in music
+or any of the other arts passed through the town without a visit to
+the Altenburg, to pay his respects to Liszt. At Weimar, "Lohengrin"
+had its first performance; here Berlioz's works found a hearing; here
+everything new in music that also was meritorious was made welcome.
+Liszt's activity at Weimar continued until 1859, when he left there on
+account of the hostility displayed to the production of Cornelius's
+opera, "The Barber of Bagdad," and its resultant failure. He remained
+away from Weimar for eleven years, living for the most part in Rome,
+until 1870, when he was invited to conduct the Beethoven festival and
+re-established cordial relations with the Court. Thereafter he
+divided his year between Rome, Buda-Pest, where he had been made
+President of the new Hungarian Academy of Music, and Weimar.
+
+"Liszt, the artist and the man," says Baker, in his "Biographical
+Dictionary of Musicians," "is one of the grand figures in the history
+of music. Generous, kindly and liberal-minded, whole-souled in his
+devotion to art, superbly equipped as an interpreter of classic and
+romantic works alike, a composer of original conceptions and daring
+execution, a conductor of marvellous insight, worshipped as teacher
+and friend by a host of disciples, reverenced and admired by his
+fellow-musicians, honored by institutions of learning and by
+potentates as no artist before or since, his influence, spread by
+those whom he personally taught and swayed, will probably increase
+rather than diminish as time goes on."
+
+It has been said that Liszt passed through six lives in the course of
+his existence--only three less than a cat. As "petit Litz" he was the
+precocious child adored of Paris; as a youth, he plunged into the
+early romanticism which united the devotees of various branches of art
+in the French capital: next came the episode with the Countess
+d'Agoult; then his triumphal tours through Europe; settling at Weimar,
+he became the centre of the modern musical movement in Europe;
+finally, he revolved in a cycle through Rome, Buda-Pest and Weimar,
+followed from place to place by a band of devotees.
+
+Liszt's compositions for the pianoforte may be classified as follows:
+"Fantasies Dramatiques"; "Annees de Pelerinage"; "Harmonies Poetiques
+et Religieuses"; the Sonata, Concertos, Etudes, and miscellaneous
+works; "Rhapsodies Hongroises"; arrangements and transcriptions from
+Berlioz, Beethoven, Weber, Paganini, Schubert and others.
+
+
+The Don Juan Fantasie.
+
+Among the "Fantasies Dramatiques," which are variations on themes from
+operas, not mere potpourris or transcriptions, but genuine fantasies,
+and usually based on one or two themes only, the best known is the
+"Don Juan Fantasie." It is founded upon the duet, "La ci darem la
+mano." Liszt utilizes a passage from the overture as an introduction,
+then gives the entire duet, varying it, however, not in set form, but
+with the effect of a brilliant fantasia, and then winds up the whole
+with a presto on the "Champagne Song." It is true it no longer is
+Mozart--but Mozart might be glad if it were. It is even possible that
+the time will come when "Don Giovanni" will have vanished from the
+operatic stage, yet be remembered by this brilliant fantasia of
+Liszt's. It is one of the great _tours de force_ of pianoforte music,
+and it is good music as well. Another of the better known "Fantasies
+Dramatiques" is the one Liszt made from "Norma," in which occurs a
+long sustained trill and a melody for the right hand, while the left
+plays another melody and the accompaniment to the whole. In other
+words, there is in this passage a trill sustained throughout, two
+melodies and the accompaniment, all going on at the same time, yet
+written with such perfect knowledge of pianoforte technique that any
+virtuoso worthy of the name as used in a modern sense, can compass
+it.
+
+A work called the "Hexameron" is included in catalogues of Liszt's
+compositions, although he only contributed part of it. It is the march
+from Bellini's "Puritani" with six variations, written by six pianists
+and originally played by them on six pianofortes, five of them full
+grands, while Chopin, whose variation was not of the bravura, kind,
+sat at a two-stringed semi-grand. Liszt contributed the introduction,
+the connecting links and the finale of the "Hexameron."
+
+The "Annees de Pelerinage" were published in three divisions,
+extending in point of time from 1835 to 1883. They are a series of
+musical impressions, as the titles indicate--"Au lac de Wallenstadt,
+Pastoral," "Au bord d'une source, Sposalizio" (after Raphael's
+picture in the Brera), "Il Penseroso" (after Michael Angelo). Many of
+these are adroit and elegant in the treatment of the pianoforte, and
+at the same time beautiful as music. The "Harmonies" are partly
+transcriptions of his own vocal pieces, partly musical illustrations
+to poems. Among them is the familiar "Cantique d'Amour," and the
+"Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude," of which he himself was very
+fond. William Mason says that at the Altenburg a copy of it always was
+lying on the pianoforte, "which Liszt had used so many times when
+playing for his guests that it became associated with memories of
+Berlioz, Rubinstein, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, Joachim." When Mr. Mason
+left Weimar he took this copy with him as a souvenir, still has it,
+and treasures it all the more for the marks of usage which it
+bears. The "Consolations," which, as Edward Dannreuther says, may be
+taken as corollaries to the "Harmonies," are tenderly expressive
+pianoforte pieces.
+
+
+Giant Strides in Virtuosity.
+
+The Etudes bear the dates 1827, 1839 and 1852, and as they are in the
+main progressive editions of the same pieces, they represent the
+history of pianoforte technique as it developed under Liszt's own
+fingers. In their earliest shape when issued in 1827, they were but
+little different from the classical Etudes of Czerny and Cramer. In
+their latest shape they form the extreme of virtuosity. Indeed, these
+three editions are three giant strides in the development of
+pianoforte technique. Von Buelow's coupling of the Etude called "Feux
+Follets" with the A flat study (No. 10) of Chopin already has been
+quoted under that composer. He considered it even more difficult.
+Schumann called the collection "Sturm und Graus Etuden" (Studies of
+Storm and Dread), and expressed the opinion that there were only ten
+or twelve pianists living who could play them. In the Etude called
+"Waldesrauschen" will be found some ingenious double counterpoint. The
+theme is divided into two portions, a descending and ascending one,
+which later on appear together, with first one and then the other
+uppermost. Other titles among the Etudes are "Paysage," "Mazeppa" (a
+tremendous test of endurance), "Vision," "Chasse-neige," "Harmonies de
+Soir" and "Gnomentanz." Through Liszt's transcriptions of some of the
+Paganini pieces in the form of Etudes, which include the famous "Bell
+Rondo" from one of the Paganini concertos, this piece, for example,
+now is far better known as a pianoforte composition than in its
+original form for violin.
+
+
+Sonata, Concertos and Rhapsodies.
+
+The "Sonata in B Minor" dedicated to Schumann is one of the few
+sonatas in which there is psychological unity throughout. This is
+due to the fact that it is one movement; although by employing
+various themes both in rapid and in slow time, Liszt has given it a
+certain aspect of division into movements. It might well serve as a
+model to younger composers who think they have to write sonatas.
+Dannreuther, it is true, says of it that it is "a curious compound
+of true genius and empty rhetoric," but admits that it contains
+enough of genuine impulse and originality in the themes of the
+opening section, and of suave calm in the melody of the section that
+stands for the slow movement, to secure the hearer's attention. Mr.
+Hanchett's characterization of it as one of the most masterly
+compositions ever put into this form--a gigantic, wholly admirable and
+original work--is more just.
+
+The two pianoforte concertos (in E flat and A major) are superb works.
+Not only are they written with all the skill which Liszt knew so well
+how to apply when composing for the instrument, but with this
+technical perfection they also unite thought and feeling. Like the
+sonata, they show throughout their development the psychological unity
+which is so essentially modern. What the pianoforte owes to Chopin and
+Liszt can be summed up by saying that they were poets and thinkers
+who took the trouble to thoroughly understand the instrument. Because
+their music sounds so well on it, at least one of them, Liszt,
+frequently is stigmatized as a trickster of virtuosity and a
+charlatan, as if there were some wonderful mark of genius in writing
+something for one instrument that sounds better on another or may not
+sound as well as it ought to on any. If Liszt's pianoforte music is
+grateful to the player and equally grateful to the listener, it is not
+only because he knew how to write for the pianoforte, but because,
+with deep thoughts and poetic feelings, he also understood how to
+express them clearly and pianistically.
+
+The "Rhapsodies Hongroises" are of such dazzling brilliancy and show
+off a pianist's technique to such good purpose and so brilliantly,
+that their real musical worth has been under-estimated. They are
+full of splendid fire, vitality and passion, and their rhythmic throb
+is simply irresistible. Like the Etudes, their history is curious.
+At first they were merely short transcriptions of Hungarian tunes.
+These were elaborated and republished and canceled, and then
+rewritten and published again. In all there are fifteen pieces in
+the set, ending with the "Rakoczy March." As "Ungarische Melodien"
+they began to appear in 1838; as "Melodies Hongroises" in 1846; as
+"Rhapsodies Hongroises" in 1854. Consider that they are over fifty
+years old, yet remain the greatest pieces for the display of brilliant
+technique and the most grateful works for which a pianist can ask,
+and that at the same time they are full of admirable musical
+content! Because they happen to be brilliant and effective they are
+called trashy, whereas they owe their brilliancy and effectiveness
+to Liszt's own transcendent virtuosity, to his knowledge of the
+pianoforte. In order to be great must music be "classic," heavy and
+dull, and badly written for the instrument on which it is to be
+played?
+
+
+How Liszt Played.
+
+In those charming reminiscences from which I already have had occasion
+to quote several times, William Mason's "Memories of a Musical Life,"
+Mr. Mason says that time and again at Weimar he heard Liszt play, and
+that there is absolutely no doubt in his mind that Liszt was the
+greatest pianist of the nineteenth century, what the Germans call an
+_Erscheinung_, an epoch-making genius. Tausig said of him: "Liszt
+dwells alone upon a solitary mountain-top and none of us can approach
+him." Rubinstein said to Mr. William Steinway, in the year 1873 (I
+quote from Mason): "Put all the rest of us together and we would not
+make one Liszt." While Mr. Mason willingly acknowledges that there
+have been other great pianists, some of them now living, he adds: "But
+I must dissent from those writers who affirm that any of these can be
+placed upon a level with Liszt. Those who make this assertion are too
+young to have heard Liszt other than in his declining years, and it is
+unjust to compare the playing of one who has long since passed his
+prime with that of one who is still in it."
+
+Edward Dannreuther, who heard Liszt play from 1863 onward, says that
+there was about his playing an air of improvisation and the expression
+of a grand and fine personality, perfect self-possession, grace,
+dignity and never-failing fire; that his tone was large and
+penetrating, but not hard, every effect being produced naturally and
+easily. Dannreuther adds that he has heard performances, it may be of
+the same pieces, by younger men, such as Rubinstein and Tausig, but
+that they left an impression as of Liszt at second-hand or of Liszt
+past his prime. "None of his contemporaries or pupils were so
+spontaneous, individual and convincing in their playing; and none
+except Tausig so infallible with their fingers and wrists."
+
+Liszt himself paid this superb tribute to the pianoforte as an
+instrument: "To me my pianoforte is what to the seaman is his boat, to
+the Arab his horse; nay, more, it has been till now my eye, my speech,
+my life. Its strings have vibrated under my passions and its yielding
+keys have obeyed my every caprice. It may be that the secret tie which
+binds me to it so closely is a delusion, but I hold the pianoforte
+very high. In my view, it takes the first place in the hierarchy of
+instruments. It is the oftenest used and the widest spread. In the
+circumference of its seven octaves it embraces the whole range of an
+orchestra, and a man's ten fingers are enough to render the harmonies
+which in an orchestra are brought out only by the combination of
+hundreds of musicians. The pianoforte has on the one side the capacity
+of assimilation, the capacity of taking unto itself the life of all
+instruments; on the other hand it has its own life, its own growth,
+its own individual development. My highest ambition is to leave to the
+piano players to come after me, some useful instructions, the
+footprints of advanced attainment, something which may some day
+provide a worthy witness of the labor and study of my youth."
+
+Bear in mind that Liszt played for Beethoven, that he was a
+contemporary of Chopin and Schumann, that he was one of the first to
+throw himself heart and soul into the Wagner movement, and that death
+came to him while he was attending the festival performances at
+Bayreuth; bear in mind, I repeat, that he played for Beethoven and
+died at "Parsifal"; strive to appreciate the extremes of musical
+history and development implied by this; then remember that he remains
+a potent force in music--and you may be able to form some idea of his
+greatness.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+WITH PADEREWSKI--A MODERN PIANIST ON TOUR
+
+
+Liszt never was in this country, but we can gain some idea of the
+success that would have been his from the triumphs of Ignace
+Paderewski. Other famous pianists have come to this country--Thalberg
+in 1856; Rubinstein in 1872; Von Buelow, Joseffy, who took up his
+residence here; Rosenthal, Josef Hofmann. But Paderewski's success has
+been greater than any of these. Americans are said to be fickle; but
+although Paderewski no longer is a novelty, his name still is the one
+with which to fill a concert hall from floor to roof.
+
+Why this is so is no secret. Hear him and you will understand the
+reason. To a technique which does not hesitate at anything and an
+industry that flinches at nothing--no one practices more assiduously
+than he--he adds the soul of a poet and the strength of an athlete. He
+looks slender and poetical enough as he sits at the piano on the
+concert stage; but if you watch him from near by you will be able to
+note the great physical power which he can bring into play when
+necessary--_and which he never brings into play unless it is
+necessary_. Therefore he combines poetry with force; and back of both
+is thought--intellectual capacity.
+
+In a frame on the wall of a New York trust company is a check for
+$171,981.89. It represents the net receipts of one virtuoso for one
+concert tour, and is believed to be the largest actual amount ever
+earned in this country by an artist, whether singer or player, in a
+single season. This check is drawn to the order of Ignace J.
+Paderewski.
+
+An opinion regarding the piano by a man who by playing it can earn so
+large a sum, and earn it because he is the greatest living exponent of
+pianoforte playing, would seem worth having. Paderewski believes that,
+save in one respect, the pianoforte has reached perfection and is
+incapable of further improvement. He does not think that anything more
+should be done to add to its volume of tone. If anything, he considers
+this too great and the instrument too loud already. Instead of more
+power, rather less would be satisfactory. Wherein, however, he
+considers the instrument still lacking, notwithstanding its wonderful
+development during the last century, is in its capacity for sustained
+tone--for holding a long-drawn-out tone with the facility of the
+violin, for example. He is convinced, however, that the means of
+imparting this capacity for sustaining tone to the pianoforte will be
+discovered in due time and that the invention probably will be made in
+this country. That increased tone-sustaining power for the instrument
+is a great desideratum doubtless is the opinion of many experts; but
+that the greatest master of the pianoforte considers it perfect in
+other respects is highly interesting and significant. After all, it
+remains the greatest of all solo instruments, because, within the
+smallest compass and with the simplest means of control, it has the
+range of an orchestra. For this reason it is the most popular of
+instruments and, in its manufacture, extends from the polished
+dry-goods box with internal organs of iron, wire and felt and with a
+glistening row of celluloid teeth ready to bite as soon as ever the
+lid is raised, to the highest-class concert grand.
+
+
+The "Piano Doctor."
+
+We who have our pianofortes in our own homes and are content with an
+occasional visit from the tuner, little dream of the care bestowed
+upon the instrument on which an artist like Paderewski plays.
+Instrument? I should have said instruments; for, when he is on tour,
+he has a whole suite of them, no less than four, and each is coddled
+as if it were a prima donna fresh from the hands of Madame Marchesi,
+instead of a thing of wood, metal and ivory. True, these pianos do not
+have their throats sprayed on the slightest possible occasion, but
+they are carefully protected against extremes of heat and cold, and,
+while the prima donna consults her physician only at intervals, a
+"piano doctor" is in constant attendance on these instruments.
+
+Paderewski's "piano doctor" has traveled with him for several seasons,
+occupying the same private car and practically living with him during
+the entire tour. He was with him on the tour, in fact at his table at
+breakfast with him, when his special train was run on to an open
+siding near East Syracuse and left the track, Paderewski being thrown
+forward on his hands against the table and straining the muscles of
+one arm so severely that he was obliged to cancel his remaining
+engagements. Up to that time, however, his net receipts from
+seventy-four concerts had been $137,012.50, while before this American
+tour began he gave thirty-six concerts in Australia with average
+receipts of $5,000. His record concert was at Dallas, Texas, some
+years ago, when the receipts were $9,000. It occurred during a
+Confederate reunion. While he was at the pianoforte, the various posts
+marched up to the hall with bands and fife-and-drum corps playing.
+Paderewski, however, kept right on through the blasts and shrilling.
+But when one of the posts let out the famous "rebel yell," the pianist
+leaped from his seat as if he expected a tiger to spring at his
+throat. Then he realized what had happened, smiled and continued amid
+laughter and applause. He had heard of the famous "rebel yell," but
+this was the first time he had heard it.
+
+
+Pianofortes on Their Travels.
+
+But to return to the pianofortes on tour. When Paderewski came to this
+country from Australia, his piano doctor met him at San Francisco with
+four instruments which had been selected with great care in New York
+and been shipped West in charge of the "doctor." One of these the
+virtuoso reserved for his private car, for he practices en route
+whenever there is a stop long enough to make it worth while. He rarely
+plays when the car is in motion. Of the other three instruments, the
+two he liked best were sent to his hotel, where during four days
+preceding his first concert, he practiced from seven to eight hours a
+day, notifying the "doctor" twenty-four hours in advance which
+pianoforte he would use. This instrument became, officially, No. 1;
+the others No. 2 and No. 3.
+
+The pianist's route took him from San Francisco to Oakland, San Jose,
+and Portland, Oregon. To make certain that he always will have a fine
+instrument to play on, a method of shipping ahead the instruments not
+in use is adopted. Thus, while he was playing on No. 1 in San
+Francisco and Oakland, No. 2 was sent on to San Jose and No. 3 to
+Portland. Of course, none but an expert could detect the slightest
+difference in these pianofortes, but a player like Paderewski is
+sensitive to the most delicately balanced distinctions or nuances in
+tone and action. One of his idiosyncrasies is that always before going
+on he asks the "doctor" which of the three instruments is on the
+stage, because, as he himself expresses it, "I don't want to meet a
+stranger." After each concert, at supper, this conversation invariably
+takes place:
+
+Paderewski: "Well, 'Doctor,' it sounded all right to-night, didn't
+it?"
+
+"Doctor": "Yes, sir."
+
+Paderewski: "Well, then, please pass me the bread."
+
+There never has been occasion to record what would happen if the
+"doctor" were to say, "No, sir." For he always has been able to answer
+in the affirmative, with the most scrupulous regard for veracity.
+
+Paderewski is as careful to play his best in the least important place
+in which he gives a concert as he is in New York. This high sense of
+duty toward his public accounts in part for his supremacy among
+pianists Paderewski is not a mere virtuoso. He is a man of fine
+intellectual gifts who plays the piano like a poet. Paul Potter, the
+playwright, who lives in Geneva, Switzerland, and occasionally has
+dined there with Paderewski, tells me that he has conversed with the
+pianist on almost every conceivable subject _except music_ and always
+found him remarkably well informed. His knowledge of the history of
+his native land, Poland, and of its literature is said to be quite
+wonderful. Chopin, also a Pole, he idolizes and regards as far and
+away the greatest composer for the piano. To the fund for the Chopin
+memorial at Warsaw he contributes by charging one dollar for his
+autograph, and two dollars for his signature and a few bars of music.
+From the money received as the proceeds of one season's autographs he
+was able to remit about $1,300 to the fund.
+
+When the amusing little dialogue at the supper table, which I have
+recorded, takes place, the pianoforte which the virtuoso has used at
+his concert already will be on the way to its next destination. For it
+is part of the "doctor's" duty to see it safely out of the hall and
+onto the train before rejoining the party on the private car. The
+instrument is not boxed. The legs are removed and then a carefully
+fitted canvas is drawn over the body and held in place by straps. The
+body is slid out of the hall and slowly let down onto a specially
+constructed eight-wheel skid, swung low, so as to be as nearly as
+possible on a level with the platform. This skid is part of the outfit
+of the tour. The record time for detaching the legs of the pianoforte,
+covering the body, removing the instrument from the stage and having
+it on the skid ready to start for the station, is seven minutes.
+
+
+"Thawing Out" a Pianoforte.
+
+The instruments never are set up except under the "doctor's" personal
+supervision. Before each concert the pianoforte on which Paderewski is
+to play is carefully gone over and put in perfect condition--tuned
+and, if necessary, regulated, and this no matter how recently he may
+have used it. Defects so trifling that neither an ordinary player nor
+the public would notice them, would jar on the sensitive ear and
+nerves of the virtuoso. Sometimes the instrument has been exposed to
+such a low temperature that frost is found to have formed not only on
+the lid, but even on the iron plate inside. In such cases the
+pianoforte is set up and, after the film of frost has been scraped
+off, is allowed to thaw out slowly and naturally before it is touched
+for tuning or regulating.
+
+There was an amusing incident in the handling of one of the Paderewski
+instruments at Columbus, Mississippi, where Paderewski played for
+seven hundred girls at the State College, although it was more
+exciting than diverting at the time it happened. The "doctor" relies
+on local help for getting the pianoforte from the skid to the stage
+and back again. Usually efficient helpers are obtainable, but at
+Columbus, where the college hall is upstairs and reached only by a
+narrow flight of steps, there was no aid to be had save from among the
+negroes lounging on the public square. The "doctor" went among them.
+
+"What are you doing?" he asked.
+
+"Nawthin'."
+
+"Want a job?"
+
+"Naw, too busy," was the usual reply.
+
+At last, however, a band of twenty "colored gentlemen" was secured in
+the hope that muscle and quantity would make up for lack of quality.
+But never before has a high-grade pianoforte been in such imminent
+peril. It was got upstairs well enough, in spite of the fact that the
+negroes walked all over each other. But the descent! The "doctor,"
+Emil C. Fischer, stood at the top of the stairs directing; J. E.
+Francke, the treasurer of the tour, below. Around the latter fell a
+shower of fragments from the wall, the rail, the posts; and at one
+time it seemed as if the whole banister would give way and the
+pianoforte crash in splinters on the floor. There were other moments
+of suspense, for the pianoforte as well as for the two watchers, who
+drew a long breath when the instrument safely was on the skid.
+
+Fortunately such untoward incidents are forgotten in the general
+atmosphere of good-humor which the pianist diffuses about him. He
+enjoys his little joke. During the last tour he handed a photograph of
+himself to Mr. Francke inscribed: "To the future Governor of Hoboken."
+At the Auditorium hotel, Chicago, Millward Adams' brother, about
+leaving on a trip, asked for an autograph. Paderewski, quick as a
+flash, wrote:
+
+"For the brother of Mr. _Adams_ on the _Eve_ of his departure from
+Chicago."
+
+Paderewski travels on a special train. With him usually are his wife,
+his manager, the treasurer of the tour, the piano "doctor," a
+secretary, valet and maid. His home is a villa on Lake Geneva, where
+he has a beautiful garden and vinery, his dogs, his room for
+billiards, a game of which he is very fond, and unlimited opportunity
+for swimming, his favorite exercise. Apparently slender and surely
+most poet-looking at the piano, he is a man of iron strength as well
+as of iron will.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORCHESTRA
+
+
+The appreciation and consequent enjoyment of an orchestral concert
+will be greatly enhanced if the listener is familiar with certain
+details regarding the orchestra itself and some of the compositions he
+is apt to hear. This I have borne in mind in the chapter divisions of
+this portion of my book, and, as a result, I have divided the subject
+into the general development of the orchestra, the specific
+consideration of the principal orchestral instruments, a cursory
+commentary on certain phases of orchestral music and a chapter on
+Richard Strauss who represents its most advanced aspects.
+
+The first music of which we moderns take account was unaccompanied (_a
+capella_) singing for church service. It was composed in the old
+ecclesiastical modes, which are quite different from our modern
+scales, and the name which comes most prominently to mind in
+connection with this beginning of our musical history is that of
+Palestrina. With the influence of this old church choral music so
+dominant, there is little wonder that the first efforts to write music
+for instruments were awkward. It may be said right here that this
+awkwardness, or rather this lack of knowledge and appreciation of the
+individual capacity of various instruments, is shown throughout the
+school of contrapuntal composition, even by Bach. When Bach wrote for
+orchestral instruments he did not consider their peculiar tone
+quality, or their capacity for individual expression, but simply their
+pitch--which instrument could take up this, that or the other theme in
+his contrapuntal score, when he had carried it as high or as low as he
+could on some other instrument. This also is true of Haendel, although
+in less degree.
+
+But just as we have seen that Domenico Scarlatti worked along original
+lines for the pianoforte and created the germ of the sonata form,
+while Bach was weaving and plaiting the counterpoint of his suites,
+partitas and "Well-Tempered Clavichord," so in Italy, during a large
+part of this contrapuntal period, a distinct kind of orchestral music
+was springing up. Again, just as we have seen that in Italy the
+pianoforte shook off the trammels of counterpoint when it began to be
+used as an accompaniment for dramatic recitative in opera, so the
+instruments in the orchestra, when composers began to use them for
+operatic accompaniments, were employed more with reference to their
+individual tone qualities and power of expression.
+
+
+Primitive Orchestral Efforts.
+
+Although, strictly speaking, not the first composer to use orchestral
+instruments in opera, and to display skill in utilizing their
+individual characteristics, the most important of these early men was
+Claudio Monteverde (1568-1643). In his "Orpheo," which he produced in
+1608, he utilized, besides two harpsichords (and it may be of interest
+to note here that instruments of the pianoforte class were long used
+in orchestras as connecting links between all the other instruments),
+two bass viols, two tenor viols, one double harp, two little French
+violins, two large guitars, two wood organs, two viola di gambas, one
+regal, four trombones, two cornets, one octave flute, one clarion, and
+three trumpets with mutes--a fairly formidable array of instruments
+when the period is considered. Of especial interest are the "two
+little French violins," which probably were the same as our modern
+violins, now the prima donnas of the orchestra and far outnumbering
+any other instrument employed.
+
+It was Monteverde who in his "Tancredi e Clorinda" made use for the
+first time of a tremolo for stringed instruments, and it is said so to
+have astonished the performers that they at first refused to play it.
+Before Monteverde there were operatic composers like Jacopo Peri, and
+after him Cavalli and Alessandro Scarlatti, who did much for their day
+to develop the orchestra. This is a very brief summary of the early
+development of instrumental music, a story that easily could fill a
+volume--which, probably, however, very few people would take the
+trouble to read.
+
+
+Beethoven and the Modern Orchestra.
+
+The first really modern composer for the orchestra was Joseph Haydn
+(1732-1809), who also may be considered the father of the symphony.
+Born before Mozart, he also survived that composer. His music is gay
+and naive; while Mozart, although he had decidedly greater genius for
+the dramatic than Haydn, nevertheless is only a trifle more emotional
+in his symphonies. The three greatest of these which he composed
+during the summer of 1788, the E flat major, G minor and C major
+(known as the "Jupiter"), show a decided advance in the knowledge of
+orchestration, and the E flat major is notable because it is the first
+symphonic work in which clarinets were used. Haydn's and Mozart's
+symphonies--that is, the best of them--sound agreeable even to-day in
+a concert hall of moderate size. But because modern music with its
+sonorous orchestra requires large auditoriums, like Carnegie Hall in
+New York, these charming symphonic works of the earlier classical
+period are swallowed up in space and much of their naive and pretty
+effect is lost.
+
+Beethoven may be said to have established the modern orchestra. Very
+few instruments have been added to it since his time, and if an
+orchestra to-day sounds differently from what it did in his day, if
+the works of modern composers sound richer and more effective from a
+modern point of view than his orchestral compositions, it is not
+because we have added a lot of new instruments, but because our
+composers have acquired greater skill in bringing out their peculiar
+tone qualities and because the technique of orchestral players has
+greatly improved.
+
+It is for precisely the same reasons that Beethoven's symphonies show
+such a great advance upon those of his predecessors. The point is not
+that Beethoven added a few more instruments to the orchestra, but
+that, so far as his own purposes were concerned, he handled all the
+instruments which he included in his band with much greater skill than
+his predecessors had shown. Many writers affect to despise technique.
+But in point of fact the development of technique and the development
+of art go hand in hand. An artist, be he writer, painter or musician,
+cannot adequately express his ideas unless he has the means of doing
+so or the genius to create the means.
+
+
+How He Developed Orchestral Resources.
+
+In following Beethoven's symphonies from the First to the Ninth, we
+can see the modern orchestra developing under his hands from that
+handed over to him by Haydn and Mozart. In the First and Second
+Symphonies, Beethoven employs the usual strings, two flutes, two
+oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets and
+tympani. In the Third Symphony, the "Eroica," he adds a third horn
+part; in the Fifth a piccolo, trombones and contrabassoon. Although
+employed in the finale only, these instruments here make their first
+bow in the symphonic orchestra. In the Ninth Symphony Beethoven
+introduced two additional horns, the first use of four horns in a
+symphony. The scoring of these symphonies is given somewhat more in
+detail in the chapter "How the Orchestra Grew," in Mr. W. J.
+Henderson's "The Orchestra and Orchestral Music," a well conceived and
+logically developed book, in which the full story of the orchestra and
+its growth is clearly and interestingly told.
+
+Beethoven not only understood to a greater degree than his
+predecessors the peculiar characteristics of orchestral instruments,
+he also compelled orchestral players to acquire a better technique by
+giving them more difficult music to execute. In point of greater
+difficulty in performance, a Beethoven symphony holds about the same
+relation to the symphonies of Mozart and Haydn as the Beethoven
+pianoforte sonatas do to the sonatas of those composers.
+
+
+Beethoven and Wagner.
+
+Just as Beethoven added only a few instruments to the orchestra of his
+predecessors, but showed greater skill in handling those instruments,
+so the modern musician--a Wagner or a Richard Strauss--achieves his
+striking instrumental effects by a still greater knowledge of
+instrumental resources. The Beethoven orchestra practically is the
+orchestra of to-day. Few, very few, instruments have been added.
+Modern composers steadily have asked for more and more instruments in
+each group; but that is quite a different thing from adding new
+instruments. They have required more instruments of the same kind, but
+have asked for very few instruments of new kinds. Let me illustrate
+this by two modern examples.
+
+Firm, compact and eloquent as is Beethoven's orchestra in the Fifth
+Symphony, it cannot for a moment be compared in richness, sonority,
+tone color, searching power of expression and unflagging interest,
+with Wagner's orchestra in "Die Meistersinger." Yet Wagner has added
+only one trumpet, a harp and a tuba to the very orchestra which
+Beethoven employed when he scored for the Fifth Symphony; while for
+his "Symphonie Pathetique," one of the finest of modern orchestral
+works, Tschaikowsky adds only a bass tuba to the orchestra used by
+Beethoven. The simple fact is that modern composers have studied every
+possible phase of tone color and expression of which each instrument
+is capable. Furthermore, by skillfully dividing the orchestra into
+groups and using these groups like separate orchestras, yet uniting
+them into one great orchestra, they produce wonderfully rich
+contrapuntal effects, and thus make the modern orchestra sound, not
+seventy-five years, but five hundred years more advanced than that of
+Beethoven, however great we gladly acknowledge Beethoven to have
+been.
+
+
+Berlioz, an Orchestral Juggler.
+
+Following Beethoven, the next great development in the handling of
+orchestral resources is due to Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), and it is
+curious here how nearly one musical epoch overlaps another. Scarlatti
+was composing sonatas, and thus voicing the beginning of the classical
+era, while Bach was bringing the contrapuntal period to a close. It
+was only five years after the completion of the Ninth Symphony that
+Berlioz's "Francs Juges" overture was played. A year later his
+"Symphonie Fantastique, Episode de la Vie d'un Artiste," was brought
+out. Yet the Berlioz orchestra sounds so utterly different from the
+Beethoven orchestra that it almost might be a collection of different
+instruments. Even more than Beethoven, Berlioz understood the
+individuality, the potential characteristics of each instrument.
+
+Berlioz composed on a colossal scale, so colossal that his music
+has been called architectural. The "Dies Irae" in his "Requiem"
+calls for four brass bands, in four different corners of the
+hall, and for fourteen kettledrums tuned to different notes, in
+addition to the regular orchestra, chorus and soloists. This has
+been dubbed "three-story music"--the orchestra on the ground floor,
+the chorus on the _belle etage_, while the four extra brass
+bands are stationed _aux troisieme_. Unfortunately for Berlioz, his
+ambition, in so far as it related to the art of orchestration
+and the skill he showed in accomplishing what he wanted to with
+his body of instrumentalists, was far in excess of his inspiration.
+His knowledge of the orchestra was sufficient to have afforded him
+every facility for the expression of great thoughts if he had
+them to express. But his power of thematic invention, his gift
+for melody, was not equal to his genius for instrumentation.
+Nevertheless, through this genius for instrumentation--for his
+technique was so extraordinary that it amounted to genius--and
+through his very striving after bizarre, unusual and gigantic
+effects, he contributed largely toward the development of the
+technical resources of instrumental music.
+
+
+Wagner, Greatest of Orchestral Composers.
+
+Berlioz wrote a book on instrumentation, which has lately been
+re-edited by Richard Strauss. In it Strauss, modestly ignoring
+himself, says that Wagner's scores mark the only advance in
+orchestration worth mentioning since Berlioz. It is true, the
+technical possibilities of the orchestra were greatly improved, so far
+as the woodwind was concerned, by the introduction of keyed
+instruments constructed on the system invented by Theobald Boehm; while
+the French instrument maker, Adolphe Sax, also made important
+improvements by perfecting the bass clarinet and the bass tuba. But
+whatever aid Wagner derived from these improvements merely was
+incidental to the principle which is illustrated by every one of his
+scores--that technique merely is a means to an end. Wagner is the
+greatest orchestral virtuoso who ever breathed. Never, however, does
+he employ technique for technique's sake, but always only to enable
+his orchestra to convey the exact meaning he has in his mind or
+express the emotion he has in his heart, and he spares no pains to hit
+upon the best method of conveying these ideas and expressing these
+emotions. That is one reason why, although no one with any knowledge
+of music could mistake a passage by Wagner for any one else's music,
+each of his works has its own peculiar orchestral style. For each of
+his works reproduces through the orchestra the "atmosphere" of its
+subject. The scores of "Tannhaeuser," "Lohengrin," "The Ring of the
+Nibelung," "Tristan," "Meistersinger" and "Parsifal" never could be
+mistaken for any one but Wagner's music. Yet how different they are
+from each other! He makes each instrument speak its own language.
+When, for example, the English horn speaks through Wagner, it speaks
+English, not broken English, and so it is with all the other
+instruments of the orchestra--he makes them speak without a foreign
+accent.
+
+If Wagner employs a large orchestra, it is not for the sake of making
+a noise, but in order to gain variety in expression. "He is
+wonderfully reserved in the use of his forces," says Richard Strauss.
+"He employs them as a great general would his battalions, and does not
+send in an army corps to pick off a skirmisher." Strauss regards
+"Lohengrin" as a model score for a somewhat advanced student, before
+proceeding to the polyphony of "Tristan" and "Meistersinger" or "the
+fairy region of the 'Nibelungs.'" "The handling of the wind
+instruments," writes Strauss, "reaches a hitherto unknown esthetic
+height. The so-called third woodwinds, English horn and bass clarinet,
+added for the first time to the woodwinds, are already employed in a
+variety of tone color; the voices of the second, third and fourth
+horn, trumpets and trombones established in an independent polyphony,
+the doubling of melodic voices characteristic of Wagner, carried out
+with such assurance and freedom and knowledge of their characteristic
+timbres, and worked out with an understanding of tonal beauty, that to
+this day evokes unstinted admiration. At the close of the second act
+the organ tones that Wagner lures out of the orchestra triumph over
+the queen of instruments itself."
+
+
+How Wagner Produces His Effects.
+
+The effects produced by Wagner are not due to a large orchestra, but
+to his manner of using the instruments in it. Among some of his
+special effects are the employment of full harmony with what formerly
+would have been merely single passing notes, and above all, the
+exploitation of every resource of counterpoint in combination with the
+well developed system of harmony inherited from Beethoven, but largely
+added to by himself. In fact, Wagner's greatness is due to the
+combination of several great gifts--his melodic inventiveness, his
+rich harmony and his wonderful technical skill in weaving together his
+themes in a still richer counterpoint. This counterpoint is not,
+however, dry and formal, because his themes--his leading motives--are
+themselves full of emotional significance and not conceived, like
+those of the old contrapuntists, merely: for formal treatment.
+
+Richard Strauss is such a master of orchestration that I am inclined
+to quote his summary of the development of the art of orchestration,
+from his edition of the Berlioz book, which at this writing has not
+yet been translated. I should like to recall to the reader's mind,
+however, the fact that Strauss' father was a noted French-horn player;
+that Strauss himself has a great love for the instrument; and that
+when, in summing up the causes of Wagner's primacy among orchestral
+writers, he finds one of them in the greater technical facility of the
+valve horn, it is well to take this with a grain of salt and attribute
+it somewhat to his own affection for the instrument. The symphonies of
+Haydn and Mozart, according to Strauss, are enlarged string quartets
+with obbligato woodwind, brass and tympani, and the occasional use of
+other instruments of noise to strengthen the tuttis.
+
+"Even with Beethoven, the symphony is still simply enlarged chamber
+music, the orchestra being treated in a pianistic spirit which
+unfortunately shows itself even in the orchestral work of Schumann and
+Brahms. Wagner owes his polyphonic string quintet not to the Beethoven
+orchestra, but to the last quartets of Beethoven, in which each
+instrument is the peer of the others.
+
+"Meanwhile, another kind of orchestral work was developing, for, from
+the time of Gluck on, the opera orchestra was gaining in coloring and
+in individual characteristics. Berlioz was not dramatic enough for
+opera nor symphonic enough for the concert stage, yet his efforts to
+write programmatic symphonies resulted in his discovering new effects,
+new possibilities in tone tints and in orchestral technics. Berlioz
+misses the polyphony that enriches Wagner's orchestra, and makes
+instruments like the second violins, violas, etc., second horns, etc.,
+weave their threads or strands of melody into the woof. Wagner's
+primacy is due to his employment of the richest style of polyphony and
+counterpoint, the increased possibility of this through the invention
+of the valve horn, and his demand of solo virtuosity upon his
+orchestral players. His scores mark the only advance worth mentioning
+since Berlioz."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA
+
+
+An orchestra is an aggregation of many instruments which, under the
+baton of an able conductor, should play as one, so far as precision
+and expression are concerned. Separately, the instruments are like the
+paints on a palette, and the result of the composer's effort, like
+that of the painter's, depends upon what he has to express and his
+knowledge of how to use his materials in trying to express it.
+
+The orchestra has developed into several distinct groups, which are
+capable of playing independently, or in union with each other, and
+within these groups themselves there are various subdivisions. It is
+the purpose of every modern composer who amounts to anything, to get
+as many different quartets as possible out of his orchestra. By this
+is meant a grouping of instruments in such a way that as many groups
+as possible can play in independent harmony.
+
+It is through this system of orchestral groups that Wagner has been
+able to enrich orchestral tone coloring, and to say everything he
+wishes to say in exactly the way it should be said. We cannot, for
+example, imagine that the Love Motive in "Die Walkuere" could be made
+to sound more beautiful on its first entrance in the score than it
+does. Nor could it. In that scene it is exactly suited to a solo
+violoncello, and to a solo violoncello Wagner gives it. In order,
+however, to produce a perfectly homogenous effect, in order that the
+violoncello quality of tone shall pervade not only the melody, but
+also the supporting harmony, he supports the melody with eight
+violoncellos, adding two double basses to give more sonorousness to
+the deepest note in the harmony. In other words he has made for the
+moment a complete orchestra out of nine violoncellos and two double
+basses, and produced a wondrously rich and thrilling effect--because,
+having a beautiful melody to score, he knew just the instruments for
+which to score it. This is an admirable example of what technique
+accomplishes in the hands of a genius. Another composer might have
+used an orchestra of a hundred instruments and not have produced the
+exquisite thrill that Wagner with his magical orchestral touch
+conjures out of this group of violoncellos, a group within a group, an
+orchestra of violoncellos within the string band.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+The woodwind instruments are capable of several similar subdivisions.
+Flutes, oboes and bassoons, for example, may form a group capable of
+producing independent harmony, so can the clarinets, and the same is
+the case with the brass instruments. One of Wagner's most beautiful
+leading motives, the Walhalla Motive in the "Ring of the Nibelung," is
+sounded on four trombones. In brief, then, the modern composer strives
+to constitute his orchestra in such a way that he secures as many
+independent groups, and as many little orchestras, as possible, not,
+however, for the purpose of using them independently all the time, but
+merely in order to do so occasionally for special effects or to
+combine them whenever he sees fit in order to enrich his tone coloring
+or weave his polyphony.
+
+The grand divisions of the orchestra are the strings--violins, violas,
+violoncellos and double basses; the woodwind, consisting, broadly
+speaking, of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; the brass--horns,
+trumpets and trombones; and the instruments of percussion, or the
+"battery"--drums, triangles, cymbals and instruments of that kind.
+
+
+The Prima Donna of the Orchestra.
+
+The leading instrument of the string group, and in fact the leading
+instrument of the orchestra, is the violin. The first violins are the
+prima donnas of the orchestra, and one might say that it is almost
+impossible to have too many of them. The first and second violins
+should form about one-third of an orchestra, and better still it would
+be for the number to exceed that proportion. The Boston Symphony
+Orchestra, which has about eighty-one players, has thirty violins.
+Theodore Thomas's New York Festival Orchestra in 1882, consisting of
+three hundred and fourteen instruments, had one hundred violins.
+
+Great is the capacity of the violin. Its notes may be crisp, sharp,
+decisive, brilliant, or long-drawn-out and full of emotion. It has
+greater precision of attack than any other instrument in the
+orchestra. And right here it is interesting to note that while the
+multiplication of instruments gives greater sonority, it also gives
+much finer effects in soft passages. The pianissimo of one hundred
+violins is a very much finer pianissimo and at the same time
+infinitely richer and further carrying than the pianissimo of a solo
+violin. It is the very acme of a musical stage whisper.
+
+In this very first and most important group of the orchestra we can
+find examples of utilizing subdivisions of groups. Although the violin
+cannot be played lower than its G string, which sounds the G below the
+treble clef, the violin group nevertheless has been employed entirely
+by itself, and even subdivided within itself. The most exquisite
+example of this, one cited in every work on the orchestra worth
+reading, is the "Lohengrin" prelude. To this the violins are divided
+into four groups and on the highest register, with an effect that is
+most ethereal.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+Modern orchestral virtuosity may be gauged by the statement that while
+Beethoven but once dared to score for his violins above the high F,
+Richard Strauss in the most casual manner carries them an octave
+higher.
+
+A little contrivance of wood or metal, with teeth, can be pressed down
+over the strings of the violin so as to deaden its vibrations. This is
+called the sordine, or mute. A famous example of the use of the
+violins _con sordini_ is the Queen Mab Scherzo in Berlioz's "Romeo et
+Juliette Symphonie." Another well-known use of the same effect is in
+Asa's Death, in Grieg's "Peer Gynt" Suite. Nothing can be more
+exquisite than the entrance of the muted violins after a long silence,
+in the last act of "Tristan und Isolde," just before _Isolde_ intones
+the Love Death.
+
+An unusual effect is produced by using the back of the bow instead of
+the horsehair. Liszt uses it in his symphonic poem, "Mazeppa," for
+imitating the snorting of the horse; Wagner in "Siegfried," for
+accompanying the mocking laugh of _Mime_; and Richard Strauss in
+"Feuersnot," to produce the effect of crackling flames. But, as
+Strauss remarks in his revision of Berlioz's work on instrumentation,
+it is effective only with a large orchestra. The plucking of the strings
+with the fingers--pizzicato--is a familiar device. Tschaikowski
+employed it almost throughout an entire movement, the "Pizzicato
+Ostinato" in his Fourth Symphony.
+
+
+Viola, Violoncello and Double Bass.
+
+The viola is a deeper violin, with a very beautiful and expressive
+tone. Mehul, the French composer, scored his one-act opera, "Uthal,"
+without violins, employing the viola as the highest string instrument
+in his score. This, however, was not a success, the brilliant tone of
+the violin being missed more and more as the performance of the work
+progressed, until Gretry is said to have risen in his seat and
+exclaimed: "A thousand francs for an E string!"
+
+Meyerbeer, who was among the first to appreciate the beauty of the
+viola as a solo instrument, used a single viola for the accompaniment
+to _Raoul's_ romance, "Plus blanche que la blanche hermine," in the
+first act of "Les Huguenots." Strictly speaking, he wrote it for the
+viola d'amour, which is somewhat larger than the ordinary viola; but
+it almost always is played on the latter. Berlioz made exquisite use
+of it in his "Harold Symphony," practically making a _dramatis
+persona_ of it, for in the score a solo viola represents the
+melancholy wanderer; and in his "Don Quixote," Richard Strauss assigns
+to the instrument an equally important role.
+
+The violoncello is one of the most tenderly expressive of all the
+instruments in the orchestra. Beethoven employs it for the theme of
+the slow movement in his Fifth Symphony, and although the viola joins
+with the violoncello in playing this melody, the passage owes its
+beauty chiefly to the latter. One of the most exquisite melodies in
+all symphonic music is the theme which Schubert has given to the
+violoncellos in the first movement of his "Unfinished Symphony." They
+also are used with wonderfully expressive effect in the "Tristan
+Vorspiel." Rossini gives a melodious passage, in the introduction to
+the overture to "William Tell," to five violoncellos. But the most
+striking employment of the violoncellos as an independent group is in
+the Love Motive in the first act of "Die Walkuere."
+
+Double basses first were used to simply double the violoncello part in
+the harmony. But through Beethoven's employment of them in the Fifth
+and Ninth Symphonies, in the former for a remarkably effective passage
+in the Scherzo and in the latter for a highly dramatic recitative,
+their importance as independent instruments in the orchestra was
+established. Verdi has made very effective use of them in the scene in
+"Otello" as the _Moor_ approaches _Desdemona's_ bed. In the
+introduction to "Rheingold," Wagner has half his double basses tuned
+down to E flat, which is half a note deeper than the usual range of
+the instrument, and in the second act of "Tristan und Isolde" two
+basses are obliged to tune their E string down to C sharp.
+
+
+Dividing the String Band.
+
+I have pointed out several examples in which the groups of instruments
+in the string band are divided within themselves, as in the prelude to
+"Lohengrin" and in the first act of "Die Walkuere." The entire string
+band can be divided and subdivided with telling effect, when done by a
+master. When in the second act of "Tristan" _Brangaene_ warns the
+lovers from her position on the watch-tower, the accompaniment stirs
+the soul to its depth, because it gives the listener such a weird
+thrill of impending danger that he almost longs to inform the lovers
+of their peril. In this passage Wagner divides the string band into no
+less than fifteen parts. In the thunder-storm in "Rheingold" the
+strings are divided into twenty-one parts. Richard Strauss points out
+how in the introduction to "Die Walkuere" much of the stormy effect is
+produced by strings only--sixteen second violins, twelve violas,
+twelve violoncellos and four double basses--a storm for strings where
+another composer would have unleashed a whole orchestra, including
+cymbals and bass drum, and crashed and thrashed about without
+producing a tithe of Wagner's effect! He also cites the tremolo at the
+beginning of the second act of "Tristan" as a wonderful example of
+tone painting which produces the effect of whispering foliage and
+conveys to the audience a sense of mystery and danger.
+
+Theodore Thomas always was insistent that the various divisions of a
+string band should bow exactly alike. It is said that he once stopped
+an orchestra because he had detected something wrong with the tonal
+effect, and, after watching the players, had discovered that one
+violoncellist among sixteen was bowing differently from the others.
+Richard Strauss, on the other hand, never insists on the same bowing
+throughout each division of strings. He thinks it robs the melody of
+intensity and beauty if each individual is not allowed to play
+according to his own peculiar temperament.
+
+
+A Passage in "Die Walkuere."
+
+In the Magic Fire Scene in the finale of "Die Walkuere," Wagner wrote
+violin passages which not even the greatest soloist can play cleanly,
+yet which, when played by all the violins, simulate in _sound_ the
+_aspect_ of licking, circling flames. Indeed, the effects that Wagner
+understood how to draw from the orchestral instruments are little
+short of marvellous. In the "Lohengrin" prelude the tone quality of
+the violins is absolutely angelic in purity; while in the third act of
+"Siegfried," the upswinging violin passages as the young hero reaches
+the height where _Bruennhilde_ slumbers, depict the action with a
+thrilling realism.
+
+Besides the regular string band, Wagner made frequent use of the harp.
+It is related that at the Munich performance of "Rheingold," when the
+harpist Trombo protested to him that some of the passages were
+unplayable, the composer replied: "You don't expect me to play the
+harp, too, do you? You perceive the general effect I am aiming at;
+produce that and I shall be satisfied." Liszt, in his "Dante
+Symphony," uses the _glissando_ of the harp as a symbol for the rising
+shades of _Francesco da Rimini_ and her lover, and a very beautiful
+use of harmonics on the harp with their faint tinkle is to be found in
+the Waltz of the Sylphs in Berlioz's "Damnation de Faust."
+
+
+The Woodwind.
+
+Flutes, oboes and clarinets form the woodwind. One of the best known
+passages for flute is in the third "Leonora Overture" of Beethoven,
+where it is employed with conspicuous grace. Probably, however, more
+fun has been made of the flute than of any other orchestral
+instrument, and a standard musical joke runs as follows:
+
+"Are you musical?"
+
+"No, but I have a brother who plays the flute."
+
+It has also been insinuated that in Donizetti's "Lucia" the heroine
+goes mad, not because she has been separated from _Edgardo_, but
+because a flute obbligato accompanies her principal aria. The piccolo
+is a high flute used for shrill effects.
+
+The instruments of both the oboe and clarinet families are reed
+instruments, with this difference, however: the instruments of the
+oboe family have two vibrating reeds in the mouthpieces; those of the
+clarinet family, only one. The oboe family consists of the oboe
+proper, the English horn which is an alt oboe, and the bassoon which
+is the bass of this group of instruments. In Italian the bassoon is
+called a _fagotto_, a name derived from its supposed resemblance to a
+bundle of fagots. "Candor, artless grace, tender joy, or the grief of
+a fragile soul, are found in the oboe's accents," says Berlioz of this
+instrument, and those who remember the exquisite oboe melody, with
+which the slow movement of Schubert's C major symphony opens, will
+agree with the French composer. Richard Strauss, in his "Sinfonia
+Domestica," employs the almost obsolete oboes d'amore to represent an
+"innocent, dreamy, playful child."
+
+
+The English Horn in "Tristan."
+
+The most famous use of the English horn is found in the third act of
+"Tristan," where it plays the "sad lay" while _Tristan_ awaits news of
+the ship which is bearing _Isolde_ toward him, and changes to a joyous
+strain when the ship is sighted. The bassoon and contrabassoon,
+besides their value as the bass of the oboe family, have certain
+humorous qualities, which are admirably brought out in Beethoven's
+Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and in the march of the clownish artisans
+in Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream" music. In opera, Meyerbeer
+made the bassoon famous by his scoring of the dance of the _Spectre
+Nuns_ in "Robert le Diable" for it, and he also used it for the
+accompaniment to the female chorus in the second act of "Les
+Huguenots." The theme of the romanza, "Una fortiva lagrima," in
+Donizetti's "L'Elisir d'Amore," which Caruso sings so beautifully, is
+introduced by the bassoon, and with charming effect.
+
+The clarinets have a large compass. Usually three kinds of clarinets (in
+A, B flat and C because they are transposing instruments) are employed
+in the orchestra, besides the bass clarinet. The possibilities of the
+clarinet group have been enormously developed by Wagner. It is
+necessary only to recall the scene of _Elsa's_ bridal procession to the
+cathedral in the second act of "Lohengrin"; _Elisabeth's_ sad exit after
+her prayer in the third act of "Tannhaeuser," in which the melody is
+played by the bass clarinet, while the accompaniment is given to
+three flutes and eight other clarinets; the change of scene in the first
+act of "Goetterdaemmerung," when clarinets give forth the Bruennhilde
+Motive; and passages in the second act of "Die Meistersinger," in the
+scene at nightfall; while for a generally skillful use of the woodwind
+the introduction to the third act of "Lohengrin" is a shining example.
+
+
+Brass Instruments.
+
+People usually associate the brass instruments with noise. But as a
+matter of fact, wonderfully rich and soft tone effects can be produced
+on the brass by a composer who knows how to score for it. Just as the
+pianissimo of many violins is a finer pianissimo than that of a solo
+violin, so a much more exquisitely soft effect can be produced on a
+large brass group than on a few brass instruments or a single one.
+When modern composers increase the number of instruments in the brass
+group, it is not for the sake of noise, but for richer effects.
+
+The trumpet is the soprano of the brass family. The fanfare in
+"Fidelio" when at the critical moment aid approaches; the Siegfried
+Motive and the Sword Motive, in the "Ring of the Nibelung," need only
+be cited to prove the effectiveness of the instrument in its proper
+place; and Richard Strauss instances the demoniacal and fateful effect
+of the deep trumpet tones in the introduction to the first act of
+Bizet's "Carmen."
+
+Although the notes of the trombone are produced by a slide, this
+instrument belongs to the trumpet family. For this reason, in the
+"Ring of the Nibelung," Wagner, in addition to the usual three tenor
+trombones, reintroduced the almost obsolete bass trombone. He wanted a
+trombone group complete in itself, and thus to be able to utilize the
+peculiar tone color of the instrument; as witness in the Walhalla
+Motive, where it is scored for the three tenor trombones and bass
+trombone, resulting in a wonderfully rich and velvety quality of tone.
+Excepting Wagner and Richard Strauss, there probably is not a
+composer who would not have used the bass tuba here instead of taking
+the trouble to revive the bass trombone. But Wagner wanted an
+unusually rich tone which should be solemn without a trace of
+sombreness, and his keen instrumental color sense informed him that he
+could secure it with the bass trombone, which, as it belongs to the
+trumpet family, has a touch of trumpet brilliancy, whereas the tone of
+the bass tuba is darker.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+Mozart employed the trombone with fine effect in _Sarastro's_ solo in
+the "Magic Flute"; Schubert showed his genius for instrumentation by
+the manner in which he used them in the introduction to his C major
+symphony, as well as in the first movement of that symphony, in which
+a theme is given out by three trombones in unison; and another
+familiar example of good scoring for trombones is in the introduction
+to the third act of "Lohengrin." In the Death Prophecy scene in the
+second act of "Die Walkuere," a trumpet melody is supported by the four
+trombones, another instance of Wagner's sense of homogeneity in sound,
+since trumpets and trombones belong to the same family. In fact,
+throughout the "Ring," as Strauss points out, Wagner wrote for his
+trombones in four parts, adding the bass trombone in order to
+differentiate wholly between it and the tuba, which latter he used
+with the horns, with which it is properly grouped.
+
+Wagner has a tremendous tuba recitative in a "Faust Overture," and in
+the Funeral March in the "Goetterdaemmerung" he introduces tenor tubas
+in order, again, to differentiate between the tone color of tubas and
+trombones and not to be obliged to employ trombones in this particular
+scene, the general tone color of the tuba being far more sombre than
+that of the trombone.
+
+
+Richard Strauss's Tribute to the Horn.
+
+To mention tubas and trombones before the horns is very much like
+putting the cart before the horse, but I have reserved the horns for
+the last of the brass on account of the great tribute which Richard
+Strauss has paid them. In the early orchestras one rarely found more
+than two horns. Beethoven used four in the Ninth Symphony, and now it
+is not at all unusual to find eight.
+
+"Of all instruments," says Richard Strauss, "the horn is perhaps the
+one that best can be joined with other groups. To substantiate this in
+all its numerous phases, I should be obliged to quote the entire
+'Meistersinger' score. For I do not think I exaggerate when I maintain
+that the greatly developed technique of the valve horn has made it
+possible that a score which, with the addition of a third trumpet, a
+harp and a tuba, employs the same instruments as Beethoven used in his
+Fifth Symphony, has become with every bar something entirely
+different, something wholly new and unheard of.
+
+"Surely the two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets and two bassoons of
+Mozart have been exhausted by Wagner in every direction of their
+technical possibilities and plastically combined with an almost
+weird perception of all their tone secrets; the string quintet,
+through the most refined divisions into parts, and with added
+brilliance through the employment of the harp, produces innumerable
+new tone effects, and by superb polyphony is brought to a height
+and warmth of emotional expression such as never before was dreamed
+of; trumpet and trombones are made to express every phase of
+solemn or humorous characterization--but the main thing is the
+tireless participation of the horn, now for the melody, now for
+filling out, now as bass. The 'Meistersinger' score is the horn's
+hymn of praise. Through the introduction and perfection of the
+valve horn the greatest improvement in the technique of scoring,
+since Berlioz's day, has been made possible.
+
+"To illustrate exhaustively this Protean character of the horn, I
+should like (again!) to go through the scores of the great magician,
+bar by bar, beginning with 'Rheingold.'
+
+"Whether it rings through the primeval German forest with the sunny
+exuberance of _Siegfried's_ youthful heart and joy of living; whether
+in Liszt's 'Mazeppa' it dies out in the last hoarse gasp of the
+Cossack prince nigh unto death in the vast desert of the steppes;
+whether it conjures the childlike longing of _Siegfried_ for the
+mother he never has known; whether it hovers over the gently
+undulating sea which is to bring _Isolde's_ gladdening form to the
+dying _Tristan_, or nods _Hans Sachs'_ thanks to the faithful
+_'Prentice_; whether in _Erik's_ dream it causes in a few hollow
+accents the North Sea to break on the lonely coast; bestows upon the
+apples of Freia the gift of eternal youth; pokes fun at the
+curtain-heroes ('Meistersinger,' Act III); plies the cudgels on
+_Beckmesser_ with the jealous _David_ and his comrades, and is the
+real instigator of the riot; or sings in veiled notes of the wounds of
+_Tristan_--always the horn, in its place and to be relied on,
+responds, unique in its manifold meanings and its brilliant
+significance."
+
+Famous horn passages in the works of other composers are in the trio
+of the Scherzo in the "Eroica Symphony"; in the second movement of
+Schubert's C major symphony, the passage of which Schumann said that
+the notes of the horns just before the return of the principal
+subject were like the voice of an angel; in the opening of Weber's
+"Freischuetz" overture; in the introduction to _Michaela's_ romance
+in "Carmen"; and in the opening theme of the slow movement of
+Tschaikowsky's Fifth Symphony, which is the perfection of a
+melodic phrase for solo horn.
+
+Instruments of Percussion.
+
+In the "battery" the instruments of prime importance are the tympani.
+Beethoven gave the cue to what could be accomplished with these in the
+scherzo of the Fifth Symphony and also in the octave thumps in the
+scherzo of the Ninth Symphony, while for a weirdly sombre effect there
+is nothing equal to the faint roll of the tympani at the beginning and
+end of the Funeral March in "Goetterdaemmerung." Cymbals are used in
+several ways. Besides the ordinary clash, Wagner has produced a sound
+somewhat like that of a gong, by the sharp stroke of a drum-stick on
+one cymbal, and also a roll by using a pair of drum-sticks on one
+cymbal.
+
+Among composers since Beethoven, Weber, Liszt, Saint-Saens, Dvorak,
+Tschaikowsky, and, of course, Richard Strauss--it hardly is necessary
+to mention either Berlioz or Wagner again--have shown brilliant
+technique in orchestration. On the other hand, Schumann and Brahms do
+not appear to have understood or to have taken the trouble to
+understand the individual characteristics of orchestral instruments,
+and, as a result, their works for orchestra are not as effective as
+they should be. Their orchestration has been called "muddy."
+
+It is Richard Strauss's opinion that the next advancement in
+orchestration will be brought about by adding largely to certain
+groups of instruments which now have only comparatively few
+representatives in the orchestra. He instances that at the Brussels
+Conservatory one of the professors had Mozart's G minor symphony
+performed for him on twenty-two clarinets, of which four were basset
+horns (alto clarinets), two brass clarinets, and one contra-bass
+clarinet; and he suggests that it will be along such lines that the
+orchestra of the future will be enlarged. With an orchestra with all
+the family groups of instruments complete in the manner suggested by
+Strauss, and used by a musical genius, a genius who combines with
+melodic invention virtuosity of instrumentation, marvellous results
+are yet to be achieved.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+CONCERNING SYMPHONIES
+
+
+I have said that music, like all other arts, had a somewhat formless
+beginning, then gradually acquired form, then became too rigidly
+formal, and in modern times, while not discarding form, has become
+freer in its expression of emotion.
+
+Instrumental music, since the beginning of the classical period, has
+been governed largely by the symphony, which the reader should bear in
+mind is nothing more than a sonata for orchestra, the form having
+first developed on the pianoforte and having been handed over by it to
+the aggregation of instruments. Sir Hubert Parry, from whose book,
+"The Evolution of the Art of Music," I have had previous occasion to
+quote, has several apt paragraphs concerning the earlier development
+of the sonata, which of course apply with equal force to the symphony.
+After stating that the instinct of the composers who first sought the
+liberation of music from the all-predominating counterpoint, impelled
+them to develop movements of wider and freer range, which should admit
+of warm melodic expression, without degenerating into incoherent,
+rambling ecstasy, Sir Hubert continues: "They had the sense to see
+from the first that mere formal continuous melody is not the most
+suitable type for instrumental music. There is deep-rooted in the
+matter of all instrumental music the need of some rhythmic vitality.
+These composers then set themselves to devise a scheme in which, to
+begin with, the contour of connected melodic phrases, supported and
+defined by simple harmonic accompaniment, gave the impression of
+definite tonality--that is, of being decisively in some particular key
+and giving an unmistakable indication of it. They found out how to
+proceed by giving the impression of using that key and passing to
+another without departing from the characteristic spirit and mood of
+the music, as shown in the 'subjects' and figures; and how to give the
+impression of relative completeness, by closing in a key which is in
+strong contrast to the first, and so round off one-half of the
+design.
+
+"But this point being in apposition to the starting point, leaves the
+mind dissatisfied and in expectation of fresh disclosures; so they
+made the balance complete by resuming the subjects and melodic figures
+of the first part in extraneous keys, and working back to the starting
+point; and they made their final close with the same figures as were
+used to conclude the first half, but in the principal key instead of
+the key of contract." This is a somewhat more elaborate method of
+describing the sonata form than I have adopted in the division of this
+book relating to the pianoforte.
+
+
+Esthetic Purpose of the Symphony.
+
+Later on in his book, Sir Hubert, in discussing the type of sonata
+movement which was fairly established by the time of Haydn and Mozart,
+gives a simpler esthetic explanation, pointing out that the first
+part of the movement aims at definiteness of subject, definiteness of
+contrast of keys, definiteness of regular balancing groups of bars and
+rhythms, definiteness of progressions. By the time this first division
+is over the mind has had enough of such definiteness, and wants a
+change. The second division, therefore, represents the breaking up of
+the subjects into their constituent elements of figure and rhythm, the
+obliteration of the sense of regularity by grouping the bars
+irregularly; and aims, by moving constantly from key to key, to give
+the sense of artistic confusion; which, however, is always regulated
+by some inner but disguised principle of order. When the mind has gone
+through enough of the pleasing sense of bewilderment--the sense that
+has made riddles attractive to the human creature from time
+immemorial--the scheme is completed by resuming the orderly methods of
+the first division and firmly re-establishing the principal theme
+which has been carefully avoided since the commencement.
+
+The earlier symphonic writers usually wrote their symphonies in three
+movements: the first or sonata movement; a second slow movement in a
+simpler type of form, usually of the song, aria, or rondo type; and a
+final movement in lively time, also usually adapted to the rondo form.
+Concerning this three-movement symphony of the early writers, it was
+said by an old-time wit that they wrote the first movement to show
+what they could do, the second movement to show what they could feel,
+and the third movement to show how glad they were it was over--and
+this may be said to describe the view of the ultra-modern music-lover
+toward rigidity of form in general.
+
+Regarding form in music there is much prejudice one way or the other.
+The sonnet in poetry certainly is a rigid form; and yet those poets
+who have mastered it have produced extremely effective and highly
+artistic poems, and poems abounding in profound emotional expression.
+Walt Whitman, on the other hand, was quite formless, and yet he is
+sure to be ranked in time as one of the greatest poets of his age.
+Wagner's idea was that the symphonic form had reached its climax with
+Beethoven's Ninth Symphony; yet it is by no means incredible that if
+Wagner in his maturer years had undertaken to compose a symphony, the
+result would have disproved his own theory.
+
+
+Seems to Hamper Modern Composers.
+
+The symphonic form, however, or, to be more exact, the sonata form,
+seems to hamper every modern composer when he writes for the
+pianoforte, and the fact that most of Beethoven's pianoforte music was
+written in this form appears to be the reason for his works somewhat
+falling into disuse. On the other hand, the form is undoubtedly
+holding out better in the orchestral version of the sonata, the
+symphony, because the tone color of orchestral instruments gives it
+greater variety. Tschaikowsky, Dvorak and Brahms have worked
+successfully, and the two former even brilliantly, in this form; and
+if Brahms in his symphonies appears too continent, too classically
+reserved, it would seem to be not so much the form itself which is to
+blame, as his lack of skill in instrumentation.
+
+My own personal preference is for the freer form developed by Liszt in
+the symphonic poem, in which a leading motive, or possibly several
+motives skillfully varied dominate the whole composition and give it
+esthetic and psychological unity; and for the still freer development
+of instrumental music in the tone poem of Richard Strauss. But neither
+the symphonic poems of Liszt nor the tone poems of Strauss are
+formless music. That should be well understood, although it should be
+borne in mind with equal distinctness that these manifestations of the
+genius of two great composers show a complete liberation from the
+shackles of the classical symphony. In the end the test is found in
+the music itself. If the music of a symphonic poem which sets out to
+express a given title or a given motto, if the music of a tone poem
+which starts out to interpret a programmatic story or device, is
+worthy to be ranked with the great productions of the art, it not only
+is profoundly interesting as music, but gains immensely in interest
+through its incidental secondary meaning. It is the old story of art
+for art's sake--art for the purpose of merely gratifying the eye or
+the ear--or art for the purpose of conveying something besides itself
+to the beholder or the listener; and it seems to me that, in the
+history of the art, art for art's sake has always been the more
+primitive expression and eventually has been obliged to give way.
+
+
+The Naive Symphonists.
+
+At the risk of repeating what already has been said of the sonata, the
+symphony may be described as a work in four movements--the first
+movement, usually an Allegro, sometimes with a slow introduction, but
+more frequently without one; a second movement, ordinarily called the
+slow movement, and usually in Adagio or Andante; a third movement,
+either minuet or scherzo; and a final movement in fast time and
+usually in rondo form. It was Haydn who pretty definitely established
+these divisions of the symphony. He composed in all one hundred and
+twenty-five symphonies, of which only a few appear on modern concert
+programs, and even these but occasionally. Their music is marked by a
+simplicity bordering on naivete, and the orchestration is a string
+quartet with a mere filling out by other instruments. Mozart was of a
+deeper and more dramatic nature than Haydn, and the expression of his
+thought was more intense. In the same way, there is a greater warmth
+and color in his orchestration. Nevertheless, the three finest of his
+forty-nine symphonies, the E flat, G minor and Jupiter, composed in
+1788, seem almost childlike in their artless grace and beauty to us
+moderns.
+
+Beethoven's first two symphonies were written under the influence of
+Haydn and Mozart, but with the third he becomes distinctly epic in his
+musical utterance; and this symphony, both in regard to variety and
+depth of expression and skillful use of orchestral instruments, is as
+great an advance upon the work of his predecessors as, let us say,
+Tschaikowsky is upon Mendelssohn.
+
+
+Beethoven to the Fore.
+
+There are apparent in the sequences of Beethoven's symphonies
+certain climaxes and certain rests. Thus the Third is the climax of
+the first three. The Fourth is far less profound; the master
+relaxes. But the Fifth, with its compact, vigorous theme, which
+Beethoven himself is said to have described as Fate knocking at
+the door, and his skillful introduction of this theme in varied form
+in each of the movements, is by many regarded as his masterpiece--even
+greater than the Ninth. After this he seems to have relaxed again
+in the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth, in order to prepare himself for the
+climax of his career in his final symphonic work, the Ninth. In the
+slow movement of the Sixth (the "Pastoral"), in which he imitates
+the call of birds, he gives the direction: "_mehr Empfindung als
+Malerei_" (more feeling than painting), a direction which often is
+quoted by opponents of modern program music; notwithstanding the fact
+that Beethoven, in spite of his own qualifying words, straightway
+indulged in "painting" of the most childish description. The Seventh
+Symphony is an extremely brilliant work and the Eighth an exceedingly
+joyous one, while with the Ninth, as though he himself felt that he
+was going beyond the limits of orchestral music, he introduced in
+the last movement solo singers and a chorus, but not with as much
+effect as the employment of this unusual scheme might lead one to
+anticipate, because, unfortunately, his writing for voices is
+extremely awkward.
+
+
+Schubert's Genius.
+
+Like Beethoven, Schubert wrote nine symphonies, but the "Unfinished,"
+which was his eighth, and the C major, his ninth, which was discovered
+by Schumann in the possession of Schubert's brother and sent to
+Mendelssohn for production at Leipzig, are the ones which seem
+destined to survive. They are among the most beautiful examples of
+orchestral music--the first movement of the "Unfinished Symphony" full
+of dramatic moments as well as of exquisite melody, the slow movement
+a veritable rose of orchestration; while as regards the C major
+symphony, Schumann's reference to its "heavenly length" sufficiently
+describes its inspiration.
+
+Mendelssohn's Italian and Scotch symphonies are his best known
+orchestral works. They are clear and serene, and for any one who
+thinks a symphony is something very abstruse and wants to be gradually
+familiarized with its mysteries, they form an easily taken and
+innocuous dose--the symphony made palatable. Of Schumann's four
+symphonies, the one in E flat, the "Rhenish," supposed to represent a
+series of impressions of the Rhine country, the fourth movement
+especially, to represent the exaltation which possessed his soul
+during a religious ceremony in the cathedral at Cologne; and the D
+minor, which latter really is a fantasia, deserve to rank highest. In
+the D minor the movements follow each other without pause; there is a
+certain thematic relationship between the first and the last
+movements, and this connection gives the work a freer and more modern
+effect. But Schumann was either indifferent to, or ignorant of, the
+advance in orchestration which had taken place since Beethoven.
+Practically the same thing applies to Brahms, who, however, deserves
+the credit for introducing into the symphony a new style of movement,
+the intermezzo, which takes the place of the scherzo or minuet.
+Rubinstein deserves "honorable mention"; but the most modern heroes of
+symphony are Dvorak, with his "New World," and Tschaikowsky, with his
+"Pathetique." Such works are life-preservers that may help keep a
+sinking art form afloat. But modern orchestral music is tending more
+and more toward the symphonic poem and the tone poem.
+
+Liszt has written two symphonies: the "Faust Symphony," consisting of
+three movements, which represent the three principal characters of
+Goethe's drama, _Faust_, _Gretchen_, and _Mephistopheles_; and a
+symphony to Dante's "Divina Commedia." In both these symphonies a
+chorus is introduced. Of his symphonic poems, the best known are
+"Les Preludes," and "Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo." In these symphonic
+poems Liszt has made use of the principle of the leitmotif in
+orchestral music. They are dramatic episodes for orchestra,
+superbly instrumentated, profoundly beautiful in thought and
+intention--great program music in fact, because conceived in
+accordance with the highest canons of the art, and infinitely more
+interesting than "pure" music because they mean something. By some
+people Liszt is regarded as a mere charlatan, by others as a great
+composer. Not only was he a great composer, but one of the very
+greatest.
+
+The Saint-Saens symphonic poems, "Rouet d'Omphale," "Phaeton," "Danse
+Macabre," should be mentioned as successful works of this class, but
+considerably below Liszt's in genuine musical value. And then, there
+are the orchestral impressions of Charles Martin Loeffler, among which
+the symphonic poem, "La Mort de Tintagiles," is the most conspicuous.
+A separate chapter is devoted to Richard Strauss.
+
+Wagner is not supposed to have been a purely orchestral composer.
+Theoretically, he wrote for the theatre, and his orchestra was (again
+theoretically) only part of a triple scheme of voice, action and
+instrumental accompaniment. But put the instrumental part of any of
+his great music-drama episodes on a concert program, and with the
+first wave of the conductor's baton and the first chord, you forget
+everything else that has gone before!
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+RICHARD STRAUSS AND HIS MUSIC
+
+
+Richard Strauss--a new name to conjure with in music! His banner is
+borne by a band of enthusiasts like those who, many years ago, carried
+the flag of Wagner to the front. "Did not Wagner put a full stop after
+the word 'music'?" some will ask in surprise. "Did he not strike the
+final note? Are the 'Ring,' 'Tristan' and 'Parsifal' not to be
+succeeded by an eternal pause? Is there something still to be achieved
+in music as in other arts and sciences?"
+
+Something new certainly has been achieved by Richard Strauss. It forms
+neither a continuation of Wagner nor an opposition to Wagner. It has
+nothing to do with Wagner, beyond that Strauss appropriates whatever
+in the progression of art the latest master has a right to take from
+his predecessors. Strauss is, in fact, one of the most original and
+individual of composers.
+
+He has been a student, not a copyist, of Wagner. Thus, where others
+who have sat at the feet of the Bayreuth master have written poor
+imitations of Wagner, and have therefore failed even to continue the
+school, giving only feeble echoes of its great master, Strauss has
+struck out for himself. With a mastery of every technical resource,
+acquired by deep and patient study, he has given wholly new value and
+importance to a form of art entirely different from the music-drama.
+The music of the average modern Wagner disciple sounds not like
+Wagner, but like Wagner and water. Richard Strauss sounds like Richard
+Strauss.
+
+One reason for this is that his art work, like Wagner's, has an
+independent intellectual reason for being. Let me not for one moment
+be understood as belittling Wagner, in order to magnify Strauss.
+Wagner is the one creator of an art-form who also seems destined to
+remain its greatest exponent. Other creators of art-forms have been
+mere pioneers, leaving to those who have come after them the
+development and rounding out of what with them were experiments. The
+story of the sonata form may be said to have begun with Philipp
+Emanuel Bach and to have been "continued in our next" to Beethoven,
+with "supplements" ever since. The music-drama had its tentative
+beginnings in "The Flying Dutchman," its consummation in "Parsifal."
+The years from 1843 to 1882 lay between, but the music-drama was
+guided ever by the same hand, the master hand of Richard Wagner. No,
+it would be self-defeating folly to make Wagner appear less in order
+to have Strauss appear more.
+
+
+Originator of the Tone Poem.
+
+Nor does Richard Strauss require such tactics. He has made three
+excursions into music-drama and he may make others. But his fame, at
+present, rests mainly upon what he has accomplished as an instrumental
+composer, and in the self-created realm of the Tone Poem. Tone poem
+is a new term in music. It stands for something that outstrips the
+symphonic poem of Liszt, something larger both in its boundaries and
+in its intellectual and musical scope. Strauss does not limit himself
+by the word symphonic. He leaves himself free to give full range to
+his ideas. A composer of "program music," his works are so stupendous
+in scope that the word symphonic would have hampered him. His "Also
+Sprach Zarathustra" ("Thus Spake Zarathustra") and "Ein Heldenleben"
+("A Hero's Life") are not symphonic poems, but tone poems of enormous
+proportions. These, his last two instrumental productions, together
+with the growing familiarity of the musical public with his beautiful
+and eloquent songs, established his reputation in this country.
+To-day, a Strauss work on a program means as much to the musically
+elect as a Wagner work meant a quarter of a century ago. In fact, to
+advanced musicians, to those who are not content to rest upon what has
+been achieved, but are ready to welcome further serious effort,
+Strauss's works form the latest great utterance in music. Let me
+repeat verbatim a conversation that occurred on a recent rainy night,
+the date of an important concert.
+
+He: "Are you going to the concert to-night?"
+
+She: (_Looking out and seeing that it still is raining hard_) "Do they
+play anything by Richard Strauss?"
+
+He: "Not to-night."
+
+She: "Then I'm not going."
+
+This woman could meet the most enthusiastic admirer of Beethoven or
+Wagner on his own ground. But when she heard "Ein Heldenleben" under
+Emil Paur's baton at a concert of the New York Philharmonic Society,
+she heard what she had been waiting twenty years for--something new in
+music that also was something great; something that was not merely an
+imitation of what she had heard a hundred times before, but something
+which pointed the way to untraveled paths. It always is woman who
+throws the first rose at the feet of genius.
+
+
+Not a Juggler with the Orchestra.
+
+One first looks at Richard Strauss in mere amazement at the size of
+what he has produced. "Thus Spake Zarathustra" lasts thirty-three
+minutes, "A Hero's Life" forty-five--considerable lengths for
+orchestral works. This initial sense of "bigness," as such, having
+worn off, one becomes aware of marvellous tone combinations and
+orchestral effects. Listening again, one discovers that these daring
+instrumental combinations have not been entered into merely for the
+sake of juggling with the orchestra, but because the composer, being a
+modern of moderns, has the most modern message in music to deliver,
+and, in order to deliver it, has developed the modern orchestra to a
+state of efficiency and versatility of tonal expression beyond any of
+his predecessors. Richard Strauss scores, in the most casual manner,
+an octave higher than Beethoven dared go with the violins. Except in
+the "Egmont" overture, Beethoven did not carry the violins higher than
+F above the staff. What should have been higher he wrote an octave
+lower. All the strings in the Richard Strauss orchestra are scored
+correspondingly high. But this is not done as a mere fad. What
+Richard Strauss accomplishes with the strings is not merely queer or
+bizarre. What he seeks and obtains is genuine original musical
+effects. Often the highest register is used by him in a few of the
+strings only, because, for certain polyphonic effects--the weaving and
+interweaving of various themes--he divides and subdivides all the
+strings into numerous groups. For the same reason, he has regularly
+added four or five hitherto rarely used instruments to the woodwind
+and scores, regularly, for eight horns, besides employing from four to
+five trumpets.
+
+While he has increased the technical difficulties of every instrument,
+what he requires of them is not impossible. He does, indeed, call for
+first-rate artists in his orchestra; but so did Wagner as compared
+with Beethoven. He knows every instrument thoroughly, for he has taken
+lessons on all; and, therefore, when he is striving for new
+instrumental effects he is not putting problems which cannot be
+legitimately solved. His "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" makes,
+possibly, the greatest demand of all his works on an orchestra. But,
+if properly played, it is one of the most bizarre and amusing scherzos
+in the repertoire. In his "Don Quixote," he has gone outside the list
+of orchestral instruments; and in the scene where _Don Quixote_ has
+his tilt with the windmill, he has introduced a regular theatrical
+wind-machine. And why not? The effect to be produced justifies the
+means. There is an _a capella_ chorus by Strauss for sixteen voices.
+These are not divided into two double quartets, or into four quartets,
+but the composition actually is scored in sixteen parts. He shrinks
+from no musical problem.
+
+
+Not Mere Bulk and Noise.
+
+When "A Hero's Life" was produced in New York it was given at a public
+rehearsal and concert of the Philharmonic. It made such a profound
+impression--it was recognized as music, not as mere bulk and
+noise--that it had to be repeated at a following public rehearsal and
+concert, thus having the honor of four consecutive performances by the
+same society in one season. Previous performances of Strauss's works,
+mainly by the Chicago Orchestra, under Thomas, and the Boston Symphony
+Orchestra, had begun to direct public attention to this composer. But
+the "Heldenleben" performances by the Philharmonic created something
+of a sensation. They made the "hit" to which the public unconsciously
+had been working up for several seasons. Large as are the dimensions
+of "A Hero's Life," Richard Strauss had chosen a subject that made a
+very direct appeal. Despite its wealth of polyphony and theme
+combination, the score told, without a word of synopsis, a clear
+intelligible story of a hero's material victory, followed by a greater
+moral one. It placed the public on a human, familiar footing with a
+composer whom previously they had regarded with more awe than
+interest. Here was music interesting as mere music, but all the more
+interesting because it had an intellectual message to convey.
+
+
+Life and Truth.
+
+What is the difference between classical and modern music? Write a
+chapter or a book on it, and the difference still remains just this:
+Classical music is the expression of beauty; modern music the
+expression of life and truth. Modern music seems entering upon a new
+era with Strauss, which does not necessarily exclude beauty. It is
+beginning to illustrate itself, so to speak, like the author-artist
+who can both write and draw. To-day, music not only expresses truth,
+but represents it pictorially. How long will the time be in coming
+when a composer will wave his baton, the orchestra strike a chord--and
+we be not only listeners but also beholders, hearing the chord, and
+seeing at the same time its image floating above the orchestra?
+
+In his "Melomaniacs," the most remarkable collection of musical
+stories I have read, Mr. Huneker has a tale called "A Piper of
+Dreams," the most advanced piece of musical fiction I know of. This
+piper of dreams produces music which is _seen_. "Do you know why you
+like it?" Mr. Huneker asked me, when I told him how intensely I
+admired the story. "Because," he continued, "the hero of the story is
+a Richard Strauss."
+
+Of course, this brilliantly written story was a daring incursion into
+a seemingly impossible future. Yet it points a tendency. When shall we
+have music that can be seen? Considering how closely related are the
+laws of acoustics and optics, is a "Piper of Dreams" so visionary? Who
+knows but that the music of the future may be visible sound--the work
+of a piper of dreams? Sometimes, when listening to Strauss, I think
+Mr. Huneker's _Piper_ is tuning up.
+
+Richard Strauss's tone poems are large in plan. In fact they are
+colossal. They show him to be a man of great intellectual activity, as
+well as an inspired composer. The latter, of course, is the test by
+which a musical work stands or falls. No matter how intellectually it
+is planned, if it is inadequate musically it fails. But if it is
+musically inspired, it gains vastly in effect when it rests on a brain
+basis.
+
+
+Literally Tone Dramas.
+
+That Richard Strauss is the most significant figure in the musical
+world to-day seems to me too patent to admit of discussion. The only
+question to be considered is, how has he become so? The question is
+best answered by showing what a Richard Strauss tone poem is. Take
+"Thus Spake Zarathustra" and "A Hero's Life." Without going into an
+elaborate discussion I must insist that, to consider Richard Strauss
+as in any way a development from Berlioz or Liszt, shows a deplorable
+unfamiliarity with his works. Berlioz wrote program music. Liszt wrote
+program music. Richard Strauss writes program music. But this point of
+resemblance is wholly superficial. Berlioz admittedly strove to adhere
+to the orthodox symphonic form. Liszt aptly named his own productions
+"symphonic poems." They are much freer in form than Berlioz's, and
+possibly pointed the way to the Richard Strauss tone poem. But when we
+examine the musical kernel, the difference at once is apparent.
+Polyphony, that is, the simultaneous interweaving of many themes, was
+foreign to Berlioz and Liszt. Their style is mainly homophonic.
+Richard Strauss is a polyphonic composer second not even to Wagner,
+whose system of leading motives in his music-dramas made his scores
+such marvellous polyphonic structures. Such, too, are the scores of
+Richard Strauss's tone poems. None but a master of polyphony could
+have attempted to express in music what Richard Strauss has expressed.
+For are not his tone poems literally tone dramas?
+
+It was like a man of great intellectual activity, such as Richard
+Strauss is, to select for musical illustration the Faust of modern
+literature--Nietzsche's "Zarathustra." The composer became interested
+in Nietzsche's works in 1892, when he was writing his music-drama,
+"Guntram." The full fruition of his study of this philosopher's works
+is "Thus Spake Zarathustra." But this is not an attempt to set
+Nietzsche to music, not an effort to express a system of philosophy
+through sound. It is rather the musical portrayal of a quest--a being
+longing to solve the problems of life, finding at the end of his
+varied pilgrimage that which he had left at the beginning, Nature deep
+and inscrutable.
+
+Musically, the great _fortissimo_ outburst in C major, which, at the
+beginning of the work, greets the seeker on the mountain-top with the
+glories of the sunrise, is the symbol of Nature. The seeker descends
+the mountain. He pursues the quest amid many surroundings, among all
+sorts and conditions of men. He experiences joy, passion, remorse. In
+wisdom, perchance, lies the final solution of the problem of life. But
+the emptiness of "wisdom" is depicted by the composer with the
+keenest satire in a learned, yet dry, five-part fugue. The seeker's
+varied experiences form as many divisions of the tone poem. There is
+even a waltz theme. Unending joy! Therein he may reach the end of his
+quest.
+
+But hark! a sombre strophe, followed twelve times by the even fainter
+stroke of a bell! Then a theme winging its flight on the highest
+register of modern instrumentation, until it seems to rise over the
+orchestra and vanish into thin air. It is the soul of the seeker, his
+earthly quest ended; while the theme which greeted him at sunrise on
+the mountain-top resounds in the orchestral depths, the symbol of
+Nature, still mysterious, still inscrutable.
+
+
+An Intellectual Force in Music.
+
+Even this brief synopsis suggests that "Zarathustra" is planned on a
+large scale. It presupposes an intellectual grasp of the subject on
+the composer's part. In its choice, in the selection and rejection of
+details and in outlining his scheme, Richard Strauss shows that he has
+thoroughly assimilated Nietzsche. But, at a certain point, the
+musician in Richard Strauss asserts himself above the litterateur.
+"Thus Spake Zarathustra" was not intended for a preachment, save
+indirectly. From what occurs during that vain quest, from the last
+deep mysterious chord of the Nature theme, let the listener draw his
+own conclusion. In the last analysis, "Thus Spake Zarathustra" is not
+a philosophical treatise, but a tone poem. In the last analysis,
+Richard Strauss is not a philosopher, but a musician.
+
+"A Hero's Life" is another work of large plan. Like "Zarathustra," it
+derives its importance as an art-work from its eloquence as a musical
+composition. With a musical work, no matter how intellectual or
+dramatic its foundation, its test ever will be its value as pure
+music. Richard Wagner's theories would have fallen like a house of
+cards, had not his music been eloquent and beautiful. But as his music
+gained wonderfully in added eloquence and beauty by induction from its
+intellectual content, so does Strauss's. The fact is, music is music,
+while philosophies come and go. Yesterday it was Schopenhauer; to-day
+it is Nietzsche; to-morrow it will be another. Doubtless, Wagner
+thought his "Ring" was Schopenhauer's "Negation of the Will to Live"
+set to music. Possibly, Richard Strauss thought Nietzsche looked out
+between the bars of "Thus Spake Zarathustra." In point of fact,
+neither Wagner nor Richard Strauss incorporated their favorite
+philosophers in their music. Wagner may have derived his inspiration
+from his reading of Schopenhauer, and Richard Strauss from Nietzsche,
+for one mind inspires another. But the real result, both in Wagner and
+Strauss, was great music.
+
+This is made clear by Strauss's "A Hero's Life." Like "Zarathustra,"
+it would be effective as music without a line of programmatic
+explanation. The latter simply adds to its effectiveness by giving it
+the further interest of "fiction" and ethical import. In "A Hero's
+Life" we hear (and _see_, if you like) the hero himself, his jealous
+adversaries, the woman whose love consoles him, the battle in which he
+wins his greatest worldly triumph, his mission of peace, the world's
+indifference and the final flight of his soul toward the empyrean. All
+this is depicted musically with the greatest eloquence. The
+battlefield scene is a stupendous massing of orchestral forces. On the
+other hand, the amorous episode, entitled "The Hero's Helpmate," is
+impassioned and charming.
+
+In the world's indifference to the hero's mission of peace, there is
+little doubt that Strauss was indulging in a retrospect of his own
+struggles for recognition. For here are heard numerous reminiscences
+of his earlier works--his tone poems, "Don Juan," "Death and
+Transfiguration," "Macbeth," "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks," "Thus
+Spake Zarathustra," "Don Quixote"; his music-drama, "Guntram"; and his
+song, "Dream During Twilight." These reminiscences give "A Hero's
+Life" the same autobiographical interest as attaches to Wagner's
+"Meistersinger."
+
+
+Tribute to Wagner.
+
+Strauss pays a tribute to Wagner in the one-act opera, "Feuersnot" ("Fire
+Famine"). According to the old legend on which this _Sing-gedicht_
+(song-poem) is founded, a young maiden has offended her lover. But the
+lover being a magician, casts a spell over the town, causing the
+extinction of all fire, bringing cold and darkness upon the entire
+place, until the maiden relents and smiles again upon him, when the
+spell is lifted and the fires once more burn brightly. The young
+lover, _Kunrad_, in rebuking the people of the city, says:
+
+    "In this house which to-day I destroy,
+    Once lodged Richard the Master.
+    Disgracefully did ye expel him
+    In envy and baseness," etc., etc.
+
+Accompanying these lines, Strauss introduces themes from Wagner's
+"Ring of the Nibelung." Undoubtedly "Richard the Master," in the above
+lines, is Richard Wagner.
+
+While Mr. Paur was not the first orchestral leader who has played
+Strauss's music in this country, he may justly be regarded as
+Strauss's prophet in New York at least. Not only do we owe to him the
+performances of "A Hero's Life," which definitely "created" Strauss
+here, but it was he who brought forward "Thus Spake Zarathustra," when
+he was conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As long ago as
+1889, when Mr. Paur was conductor at Mannheim, he invited Strauss to
+direct his symphony in F minor there. Strauss accepted and also
+brought with him his just completed "Macbeth," asking to be allowed to
+try it over with the orchestra, as he wanted to hear it--a request
+which was readily granted. Afterward, at Mr. Paur's house, Strauss's
+piano quartet was played, with the composer himself at the piano and
+Mr. Paur at the violin. It is not surprising that when Mr. Paur came
+over here as the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he
+championed Richard Strauss's work, continued to do so after he became
+conductor of the New York Philharmonic Society, and probably still
+does as conductor of the Pittsburg Orchestra.
+
+Strauss has become such an important figure in the world of music
+that it is interesting to note what has been done to bring his work
+before the American public. Theodore Thomas, with the artistic
+liberality which he has always displayed toward every serious effort
+in music, produced Strauss's symphony in F minor, which bears date
+1883, as early as December 13, 1884, with the New York Philharmonic
+Society. It was the first performance of this work anywhere.
+Strauss was not, however, heard again at the concerts of this
+organization until January, 1892, when Seidl brought out "Death
+and Transfiguration."
+
+After he became conductor of the Chicago Orchestra, Thomas gave many
+performances of Richard Strauss's works--in 1895, the prelude to
+"Guntram," "Death and Transfiguration" and "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry
+Pranks"; in 1897, "Don Juan" and "Thus Spake Zarathustra"; in 1899,
+"Don Quixote" and the symphonic fantasia, "Italy"; in 1900, "A Hero's
+Life" (the first performance in this country) and the "Serenade" for
+wind instruments; in 1902, "Macbeth" (first performance in this
+country) and the "Feuersnot" fragment. Several of these works, besides
+those noted, had their first performance in this country by the
+Chicago Orchestra, and several have had repeated performances.
+
+The Boston Symphony Orchestra also has a fine record as regards the
+performance of Richard Strauss's works. Nikisch, Paur, and Gericke are
+the conductors under whom these performances have been given. Several
+of the works have been played repeatedly not only in Boston, but in
+other cities where this famous orchestra gives concerts.
+
+
+Richard Straussiana.
+
+As data regarding Strauss's life, at the disposal of English readers,
+are both scant and scattered, it may not be amiss to tell here
+something of his career. He was born on June 11, 1864, in Munich,
+where his father, Franz Strauss, played the French-horn in the Royal
+Orchestra, and was noted for his remarkable proficiency on the
+instrument. The elder Strauss lived long enough to watch with pride
+his son's growing fame. Richard began to play the piano when he was
+four years old. At the age of six he heard some children singing
+around a Christmas tree. "I can compose something like that," he said,
+and he produced unaided a three-part song. When he went to school, his
+mother by chance put covers of music paper on his books. As a result,
+he occupied much of his time composing on this paper, and during a
+French lesson sketched out the scherzo of a string quartet which has
+been published as his Opus 2. While he was still at school, he
+composed a symphony in D minor. This was played by the Royal Orchestra
+under Levi. When, in response to calls for the composer, Richard came
+out, some one in the audience asked: "What has that boy to do with the
+symphony?" "Oh, he's only the composer," was the reply. The year
+before (1880), the Royal Opera prima donna, Meysenheim, had publicly
+sung three of his songs.
+
+During his advanced school years, his piano lessons continued, he
+received lessons in the violin, and went through a severe course in
+composition with the Royal Kapellmeister, Meyer. In 1882, he attended
+the University of Munich. His "Serenade" for wind instruments,
+composed at this time, attracted the attention of Hans von Buelow,
+under whom he studied for a while at Raff's conservatory in Frankfort.
+Buelow invited him to Meiningen as co-director of the orchestra, and
+when in November, 1885, Buelow resigned as conductor, Strauss became
+his successor, remaining there, however, only till April, 1886. His
+symphonic fantasia, "Italy," had its origin through a trip to Rome and
+Naples during this year. In August, 1886, he was appointed assistant
+conductor to Levi and Fischer at the Munich Opera, where he remained
+until July, 1889, when he became conductor at Weimar. In 1892, he
+almost died from an attack of pneumonia, and on his recovery took a
+long trip through Greece, Egypt and Sicily. It was on this tour that
+he wrote and composed "Guntram," which was brought out at Weimar in
+May, 1894. After the first performance, he announced his engagement to
+the singer of _Freihild_ in "Guntram," Pauline de Ahna, the daughter
+of a Bavarian general. The same year he returned to Munich as
+conductor, remaining there until 1899, when he became one of the
+conductors at the Berlin Opera, which position he still holds. He is
+one of the "star" conductors of Europe, receiving invitations to
+conduct concerts in many cities, including Brussels, Moscow,
+Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, London and Paris; and his American tour
+was a memorable one. He is a man of untiring industry. It is said that
+he worked no less than half a year on "Thus Spake Zarathustra," and
+that the writing of his scores is a model of beauty.
+
+Strauss occupies a commanding position in the world of music. He has
+achieved it through a remarkable combination of musical technique and
+inspiration coupled with rare industry. His ideals are of the highest.
+His intellectual activity is great. He seems a man of calm and noble
+poise, of broad horizon. It would be presumption to speak of
+"expectations" as to one who has accomplished so much. For the great
+achievements already to his credit, and among these "Salome" surely
+must be included, are the best promise for the future.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+A NOTE ON CHAMBER MUSIC
+
+
+Lovers of chamber music form an extremely refined and cultured
+class, and, like all highly refined and cultured people, are very
+conservative. They are the purists among music-lovers, the last
+people who would care to see the classical forms abandoned, and who
+would be disturbed, not to say shocked, by any great departure
+from the sonata form. For the string quartet is to chamber music what
+the symphony is to orchestra and the sonata to the pianoforte--is, in
+fact, a sonata for two violins, viola and violoncello, just as the
+symphony is a sonata for orchestra.
+
+Oddly enough, a pianoforte solo is more effective in a large hall than
+a string quartet, although the latter employs four times as many
+instruments; and the same is true of those pieces of chamber music in
+which the pianoforte is used, such as sonatas for pianoforte and
+violin or violoncello, pianoforte trios, quartets, quintets, and so
+on. A fine soloist on the pianoforte will be more at home in a large
+auditorium like Carnegie Hall or even the Metropolitan Opera House
+than would a string quartet or any other combination of chamber-music
+players. Paderewski plays in Carnegie Hall, and, I am sure, would be
+equally effective in the Opera House. But an organization of
+chamber-music players would be lost in either place. The Kneisel
+Quartet plays in New York in Mendelssohn Hall, a small auditorium
+which is just about correctly proportioned for music of this kind.
+
+Indeed, compared with the opera, the orchestra and even with the
+pianoforte, chamber music requires a setting like a jewel. For just as
+its devotees are the purists among music-lovers, so chamber music
+itself is something very "precious." It certainly is a most charming
+and intimate form of musical entertainment and the constituency of a
+well-established string quartet inevitably consists of the musical
+elite.
+
+The same opinions that have been expressed regarding the sonatas and
+the symphonies of the great composers apply in a general way to their
+chamber music. Haydn's is naive; Mozart's more emotional in
+expression; Beethoven's, among that of classical composers, the most
+dramatic. In fact, Beethoven's last quartets, in which the instruments
+are employed quite independently and in which roles practically of
+equal importance are assigned to each, are regarded by Richard Strauss
+as having given the cue to Wagner for his polyphonic treatment of the
+orchestra, and Wagner himself spoke of them as works through which
+"Music first raised herself to an equal height with the poetry and
+painting of the greatest periods of the past." Nevertheless, there are
+many who hold that in his last quartets Beethoven sought to accomplish
+more than can be expressed with four stringed instruments, and prefer
+his earlier works of this class, like the three "Rasumovski" quartets,
+Opus 59, dedicated by the composer to Count Rasumovski, who
+maintained a private string quartet in which he played second violin,
+the others being professionals.
+
+Schubert's most famous quartet is the one in D minor with the lovely
+slow movement, a theme with variations, the theme being his own song,
+"Death and the Maiden." One of the greatest works in the whole range
+of chamber music is his string quintet with two violoncellos. His
+pianoforte trios also are noble contributions to this branch of
+musical art. "One glance at this trio," writes Schumann of the
+Schubert trio in B flat major, "and all the wretchedness of existence
+is put to flight and the world seems young again.... Many and
+beautiful as are the things Time brings forth, it will be long ere it
+produces another Schubert."
+
+Mendelssohn's chamber music is as polished, affable and gentlemanly as
+most of his other productions, and rapidly falling into the same
+state of unlamented desuetude. Schumann has given us his lovely
+pianoforte quintet in E flat. Brahms has contributed much that is
+noteworthy to chamber music, and, as a rule, it is less complex and
+more intelligently scored than his orchestral music. Dvorak in his E
+flat major quartet (Opus 51) introduces as the second movement a Dumka
+or Bohemian elegy, one of the most exquisite of his compositions.
+Fascinating in his national musical tints, he was genius enough for
+his music to be universal in its expression; and he who used the
+folksongs of his native Bohemia so skillfully was no less artistic
+in the results he accomplished when, during his residence in New
+York, he wrote his string quartet in F (Opus 96) on Negro themes.
+Tschaikowsky and neo-Russians like Arensky, and the Frenchmen,
+Cesar Franck, Saint-Saens, d'Indy and Debussy, are some of the modern
+names that figure on chamber-music programs.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+SONGS AND SONG COMPOSERS
+
+
+Songs either are strophic or "_durchcomponirt_" (composed through). In
+the strophic song the melody and accompaniment are repeated unchanged
+through each stanza or strophe of the poem; while, when a song is
+composed through, the music, although the principal melody may be
+repeated more than once, is subjected to changes in accordance with
+the moods of the poem.
+
+Schubert is the first song composer who requires serious consideration.
+While not strictly the originator of the _Lied_, he is universally
+acknowledged to be the first great song composer and to have lifted song
+to its proper place of importance in music. Gluck set Klopfstock's odes to
+music; Haydn as a song writer is remembered by "Liebes Maedchen hoer' mir
+Zu"; Mozart by "Das Veilchen"; and Beethoven by "Adelaide" and one or
+two other songs. Before Schubert's day this form of composition was
+regarded as something rather trivial and beneath the dignity of genius.
+But Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven at least did one thing through which they
+may possibly have contributed to the development of song-writing. By their
+freer writing for the pianoforte they prepared the way for the Schubert
+accompaniments.
+
+Where Schubert got his musical genius from is a mystery. His father
+was a schoolmaster, whose first wife, Schubert's mother, was a cook.
+The couple had fourteen children and an income of $175. If this income
+is somewhat disproportionate to the size of the family, it yet is
+fortunate that they had fourteen children instead of only thirteen.
+Otherwise there would have been one great name less in musical
+history, for Schubert was the fourteenth.
+
+He was born in Vienna in January, 1797. His thirty-one years--for this
+genius who so enriched music lived to be only thirty-one--were passed
+in poverty. His father was wretchedly poor, and his own works, when
+they could be disposed of at all to publishers, were sold at beggarly
+prices. Now they are universally recognized as masterpieces and are
+worth many times their weight in gold.
+
+
+Too Poor to Buy Music Paper.
+
+Shortly before he was twelve years old, Schubert, who had been singing
+soprano solos and playing violin in the parish choir, was sent to the
+so-called Convict, the Imperial school for training boys for the Court
+chapel. During his five years there his progress was so rapid that
+even before he was fourteen years old he was occasionally asked to
+substitute for the conductor of the school orchestra. Life, however,
+was hard. He had no money with which to buy even a few luxuries in the
+way of food to eke out the wretched fare of the Convict, nor music
+paper. Had it not been for the kindness of a fellow pupil and friend,
+named Spaun, he would not have been able to write down and work out
+his ideas.
+
+When his voice changed, the straitened family circumstances obliged
+him to become an assistant in his father's school. He was able to bear
+poverty with patience, but not the drudgery of teaching, and he is
+said often to have lost his temper with the boys. Altogether, he
+taught for three years, 1815 to 1818; and while his work was most
+distasteful to him, his genius was so spontaneous that during his
+three years he composed many songs, among them his immortal "Erlking."
+Finally a university student, Franz von Schober, who, having heard
+some of Schubert's songs, had become an enthusiastic admirer of the
+composer, offered him one of his rooms as a lodging, whereupon
+Schubert, straightway accepting the offer, gave up teaching and from
+that time to the end of his brief life led a Bohemian existence with a
+clique of friends of varied accomplishments. In this circle he was
+known as "Canevas," because whenever some new person joined it, his
+first question regarding the newcomer was "_Kann er wass?_" (Can he do
+anything?)
+
+Outside a small circle of acquaintances, Schubert remained practically
+unknown until he made the acquaintance of Johann Michael Vogl, an
+opera singer, to whom his devoted friend, Von Schober, introduced him.
+Vogl was somewhat reserved in his opinion of the songs which he tried
+over with Schubert at their first meeting, but they made an
+impression. He followed up the acquaintance and became the first
+professional interpreter of Schubert's lyrics. "The manner in which
+Vogl sings and I accompany," wrote Schubert to his brother Ferdinand,
+"so that we appear like _one_ on such occasions, is something new and
+unheard of to our listeners." Publishers, however, held aloof. Five
+years after the "Erlking" was composed, several of them refused to
+print it, although Schubert offered to forego royalties on it.
+Finally, some of Schubert's friends had the song published at their
+own expense, and its success led to the issuing of eleven other songs,
+Schubert unwisely accepting eight hundred florins in lieu of royalty
+on these and the "Erlking." Yet from one of these songs alone, "The
+Wanderer," the publishers received twenty-seven thousand florins
+between the years 1822 and 1861.
+
+
+How the "Erlking" was Composed.
+
+Schubert being the greatest of song composers, and the "Erlking" his
+greatest song, the circumstances under which it was written are of
+especial interest. His friend Spaun, the same who provided him with
+music paper at the Convict, relates that one afternoon toward the
+close of the year 1815 he went with the poet Mayrhofer to visit
+Schubert. They found the composer all aglow, reading the "Erlking"
+aloud to himself. He walked up and down the room several times, book
+in hand, then suddenly sat down and as fast as his pen could travel
+put the music on paper. Having no piano, the three men hurried over to
+the Convict, where the "Erlking" was sung the same evening and
+received with enthusiasm. The old Court organist, Ruziczka, afterward
+played it over himself without the voice, and when some of those
+present objected to the dissonance which occurs three times in the
+course of the composition and depicts the child's terror of the
+_Erlking_, the old organist struck these chords and explained how
+perfectly they reflected the spirit of the poem and how felicitously
+they were worked out in their musical resolution.
+
+Schubert's song is almost Wagnerian in its descriptive and dramatic
+quality. The coaxing voice of the _Erlking_, the terror of the child,
+the efforts of the father to allay his boy's fears, each has its
+characteristic expression, which yet is different from the narrative
+portions of the poem, while in the accompaniment the horse gallops
+along. Schubert was but eighteen years old when he set this ballad of
+Goethe's to music; yet there is no more thrilling climax to be found
+in all song literature than those dissonances which I have mentioned
+and which with each repeat rise to a higher interval and become each
+time more shrill with terror. Whoever has heard Lilli Lehmann sing
+this song should be able to appreciate its real greatness, as Goethe,
+who had remained utterly indifferent to Schubert's music, did when the
+"Erlking" was sung to him by Frau Schroeder-Devrient, to whom he
+exclaimed: "Thank you a thousand times for this great artistic
+achievement. When I heard this song before I did not like it at all,
+but sung in your way it becomes a true picture."
+
+
+Finck on Schubert.
+
+More than six hundred songs by Schubert have been published, and when
+we remember that he wrote symphonies, sonatas, shorter pianoforte
+pieces, chamber music and operas, the fertility of his brief life is
+astounding. The rapidity with which he composed, however, was not due
+to carelessness, but to the spontaneity of his genius and the fact
+that he loved to compose. "He composed as a bird sings in the spring,
+or as a well gushes from a mountain-side, simply because he could not
+help it," says Mr. Finck, in his "Songs and Song Writers." We have it
+on the authority of Schubert's friend, Spaun, that when he went to bed
+he kept his spectacles on, so that when he woke up he could go right
+to the table and compose without wasting time looking for his glasses.
+In the two years 1815-16 he wrote no less than two hundred and
+fifty-four songs. Six of the songs in the "Winterreise" cycle were
+composed in one morning, and he had eight songs to his credit in a
+single day. The charming "Hark, Hark, the Lark" was written at a
+tavern where he chanced to see the poem in a book the leaves of which
+he was slowly turning over. "If I only had some music paper!" he
+exclaimed, whereupon one of his friends promptly ruled lines on the
+back of his _Speise Karte_, and Schubert, with the varied noises of
+the tavern going on about him, jotted down the song then and there.
+
+Of course, it is impossible to touch on all the aspects of such a
+genius as his. In his songs clear and beautiful melody is, as a rule,
+combined with a descriptive accompaniment. Sometimes the description
+is given by means of only a few chords, like the preluding ones in "Am
+Meer." At other times the description runs through the entire
+accompaniment, like the waves that flash and dance around the melody
+of "Auf dem Wasser zu Singen"; the galloping horse in the "Erlking";
+the veiled mist that seems to hang over the scenes in the wonderfully
+dramatic poem, "Die Stadt"; the flutter of the bird in "Hark, Hark,
+the Lark"; the brook that flows like a leitmotif through the "Maid of
+the Mill" cycle--these are a few of the examples that with Schubert
+could be cited by the dozen.
+
+And the range of his work--here again space forbids the multiplication
+of examples. It extends from the naive "Haiden Roeslein" to the tragic
+"Doppelgaenger"; from the whispering foliage of the "Linden Tree" to
+the pathetic drone of the "Hurdy-Gurdy Man"; from the "Serenade" to
+"Todt und das Maedchen." Schubert is the greatest genius among song
+composers. Compare the growing reputation of him who of all musicians
+was perhaps the most neglected during his life, with that of
+Mendelssohn, the most feted of composers, but now rapidly dropping to
+the position of a minor tone poet, and who, although he wrote
+eighty-three songs, is as a song writer remembered outside of Germany
+by barely more than one _Lied_, the familiar "On the Wings of Song."
+
+
+Schumann's Individuality.
+
+In Schumann's songs the piano part is more closely knit and interwoven
+with the vocal melody than with Schubert's, and, as a result, the
+voice does not stand out so clearly. While his songs are not what they
+have been called by a German critic, "pianoforte pieces with
+accidental vocal accompaniments," at times, in his vocal compositions,
+the pianoforte gains too great an ascendancy over the voice. If asked
+to draw a distinction between Schubert and Schumann, I should say
+that there is a twofold interest in most of Schubert's songs. He
+reproduces the feeling of the poem in his vocal melody; then, if the
+poem contains a descriptive suggestion, he produces that phase of it
+in his accompaniment, without, however, allowing the pianoforte part
+to encroach on the vocal melody. The melody gives the feeling, the
+accompaniment the description or mood picture. Schumann, on the other
+hand, rarely is descriptive. Nearly always he produces a mood picture
+in tone, but requires both voice and pianoforte to effect his purpose.
+As this, however, is Schumann's method of composition, and as it is
+better that each composer should leave the seal of his individuality
+on everything he does, and not be an imitator, it is not cause for
+regret that while Schubert is Schubert, Schumann is Schumann.
+
+The proportion of fine songs among the two hundred and forty-five
+composed by Schumann is, however, much smaller than in the heritage
+left us by Schubert; and while Schubert, from the time he wrote his
+first great vocal compositions, added many equally great ones every
+year, Schumann's songs, on the whole, show a decided falling off after
+he had wooed and won Clara Wieck. It was during his courtship that he
+produced his best songs. Separated from her by the command of her
+stern father, he made love to her in music.
+
+"I am now writing nothing but songs, great and small," we find him
+saying in a letter to a friend in the summer of 1840. "Hardly can I
+tell you how delicious it is to write for voice instead of for
+instruments, and what a turmoil and tumult I feel within me when I
+sit down to it." While he was composing his song cycle, "Die
+Myrthen," he wrote to Clara: "Since yesterday morning I have
+written twenty-seven pages of music, all new, concerning which the
+best I can tell you is that I laughed and wept for joy while
+composing them." A month later he writes her, in sending her his
+first printed songs: "When I composed them my soul was within
+yours; without such a love, indeed, no one could write such
+music--and this I intend as a special compliment." ... "I could
+sing myself to death, like a nightingale," he writes to her again,
+on May 15th. Never was there such a musical wooing, and those who
+wish to participate in it can do so by singing or listening to such
+songs as "Dedication," "The Almond Tree," "The Lotos Flower," "In
+the Forest" (Waldesgespraech), "Spring Night," "He, the Noblest of
+the Noble," "Thou Ring upon My Finger," "'Twas in the Lovely Month of
+May," "Where'er My Tears Are Falling," "I'll Not Complain," and
+"Nightly in My Dreaming." Among his songs not inspired by love
+should be mentioned the "Two Grenadiers," which Plancon sings so
+inimitably.
+
+
+Phases of Franz's Genius.
+
+Robert Franz (1815-1892) had his life embittered by neglect and
+physical ills. His family name originally was Knauth, his father
+having been Christoph Knauth. But in order to distinguish him from his
+brother, who was engaged in the same business, he was addressed as
+Christoph Franz, a name which he subsequently had legalized. Yet
+critics insisted that Robert Franz was a pseudonym which the composer
+had adopted from vanity in order to indicate that he was as great as
+_Robert_ Schumann and _Franz_ Schubert put together.
+
+Franz was strongly influenced by Bach and Haendel, many of whose scores
+he supplied with what are known as "additional accompaniments,"
+filling out gaps which these composers left in their scores according
+to the custom of their day. His songs show this influence in their
+polyphony, and the German critic, Ambros, said that Franz's song, "Der
+Schwere Abend," looked as if Bach had sat down and composed a Franz
+song out of thanks for all that Franz was to do for him through his
+additional accompaniments. Besides their polyphony derived from Bach,
+Franz's songs are interesting for their modulations, which are
+employed not simply for the sake of showing cleverness or originality,
+but for their appropriateness in expressing the mood of the poem. He
+also was extremely careful in regard to the choice of key and
+decidedly objected to transpositions of his songs, in order to make
+them singable for higher or lower voices than could use the original
+key. "When I am dead," he wrote to his publisher, "I cannot prevent
+these transpositions, but so long as I am alive I shall fight them."
+
+Franz did not endeavor to reproduce visible things in his pianoforte
+parts, and the voice in his songs often is declamatory, merging into
+melody only in the more deeply emotional passages. He is a reflective
+rather than a dramatic composer, disliked opera, and himself said that
+any one who had penetrated deeply into his songs well knew that the
+dramatic element was not to be found in them, nor was it intended to
+be. Composers, however, have many theories regarding their music
+which, in practice, come to naught; and whether Franz thought his
+songs dramatic or not, the fact remains that when Lilli Lehmann sang
+his "Im Herbst" it was as thrillingly dramatic as anything could be.
+
+
+Self-Critical.
+
+Franz was extremely self-critical. He kept his productions in his desk
+for years, working over them again and again, until in many cases the
+song in its final shape bore slight resemblance to what it had been at
+first. He declared his Opus 1 to be no worse than his latest work,
+because it had been composed with equal care and had had the benefit
+of his ripening judgment and experience. He admired Wagner and
+dedicated one of his song volumes to him; but when some critics
+fancied that they discovered Wagnerian traits in several songs in his
+last collection, Op. 51-52, he was able to prove that these very songs
+were among the first he had written, and were published so late in his
+career simply because he had kept them back for revision.
+
+His physical disabilities were pitiable. When he was about thirty-three
+years old and shortly after his marriage, he was standing in the Halle
+railway station when a locomotive close by sounded its shrill whistle.
+The effect upon him was like the piercing of his ears. For several
+days afterward he heard nothing but confused buzzing, and from that
+time on his hearing became worse and worse, until finally his ears
+pained him even when he composed. In 1876 he became totally deaf,
+and a few years later his right arm was paralyzed from shoulder to
+thumb. He was a poor man, and right at the worst time in his life,
+when he was totally deaf, a small pension which he had received from
+the Bach Society was taken away from him. But his admirers, many of
+them Americans, came to his rescue and raised a fund for his support.
+
+Among his finest songs are "Widmung," "Leise Zieht durch mein Gemuht,"
+"Bitte," "Die Lotos Blume," "Es Ragt der Alte Eborus," "Meerfahrt,"
+"Das is ein Brausen und Heulen," "Ich Hab' in Deinem Auge," "Ich Will
+meine seele Taugen," and "Es Hat' Die Rose sich Beklagt."
+
+
+Brahms a Thinker in Music.
+
+Brahms was a profound thinker in music--not a philosopher, but a
+reflective poet, whose musicianship, however, was so great that he
+cared too little for the practical side of his art as compared with
+the theoretical. If what he wrote looked all right on paper he was
+indifferent as to whether it sounded right or not; consequently, if he
+started out with a certain rhythmical figuration or a certain scheme
+of harmonic progression, he carried it through rigidly to its logical
+conclusion, utterly oblivious to, or at least utterly regardless of,
+any tonal blemishes that might result, although by slightly altering
+his scheme here and there he might have obviated these. This is the
+reason why some people find passages in his music which to them sound
+repellant. But those who have not allowed this aspect of Brahms's
+work to prejudice them and have familiarized themselves with his
+music, well know that he is one of the loftiest souls that ever put
+pen to staff. He never is drastic, never sensational, never
+superficial; and the climaxes of his songs, as in his other music, are
+produced not by great outbursts of sound, but by sudden modulations or
+change of rhythm, which give a wonderful "lift" to voice and
+accompaniment.
+
+Among his best known songs (and each of these is a masterpiece) are:
+"Wie Bist du meine Koenigin," "Ruhe, Suess Liebschen," "Von ewiger
+Liebe," "Wiegenlied," "Minnelied," "Feldeinsamkeit," "Wie Melodien
+zeiht es mir," "Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer," "Meine Lieder,"
+"Wir wandelten, wir Swei, zusammen."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+One of the most impassioned modern lyrical outbursts is Jensen's
+setting of Heine's "Lehn deine Wang' an Meine Wang'," and his
+"Fruehlingsnacht" also is a very beautiful song, although the
+popularity of Schumann's setting of the same poem has cast it unduly
+into the shade. Rubinstein will be found considerably less prolix in
+his songs than in his music in other branches, and those which he
+wrote to the Persian poems of Von Bodenstedt ("Mirza Schaffy") are
+fascinating in their Oriental coloring. The "Asra," and "Yellow
+Rolls at my Feet," (Gold Rollt mir zu Fuessen) are among the best
+known of these; while "Es blink't der Thau," "Du Bist wie eine
+Blume," and "Der Traum" are among Rubinstein's songs which are or
+should be in the repertoire of every singer. Tschaikowsky and
+Dvorak are not noteworthy as song writers, but the former's
+setting of "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt" and the latter's "Gypsy
+Songs" are highly successful.
+
+
+Grieg's Originality.
+
+One of the most fascinating among modern song writers is the
+Norwegian, Grieg. He has been unusually fortunate in having a fine
+singer as a wife. Mr. Finck relates that Ibsen, after hearing her sing
+his poems as set to music by Grieg, whispered as he shook the hands of
+this musical couple, the one word, "Understood."
+
+Grieg's originality has not been thoroughly appreciated, because much
+of the beauty of his music has been attributed to what is supposed to
+be its Norwegian origin. Grieg is national, it is true, but not in a
+cramped or narrow sense. His music is the product of his individual
+genius, and his genius has made him so popular that what is his has
+come to be wrongly considered Norwegian, whereas it is Norway
+interpreted through the genius of Grieg. His music is not a dialect,
+but music of universal significance, fortunately tinged with his
+individuality. "I Love You," Ibsen's "The Swan," "By the Riverside,"
+"Springtide," "Wounded Heart," "The Mother Sings" (a mother mourning
+her dead child), "At the Bier of a Young Woman," and "From Monte
+Pincio," are among his finest _Lieder_.
+
+Chopin is much too little known as a song writer. His genius as a
+composer for the pianoforte has overshadowed his songs, and the public
+is familiar with little else save "The Maiden's Wish," which is one
+of Madame Sembrich's favorite encores and to which she plays her own
+accompaniment so delightfully. But there is plenty of national color
+in the "Lithuanina" song, plenty of pathos in "Poland's Dirge," and
+plenty of lyrical passion in "My Delights." Finck says that in all
+music, lyric or dramatic, the thrill of a kiss has never been
+expressed so ecstatically as in the twelve bars of this song marked
+"_crescendo sempre piu accellerando_." Certainly _sempre_ (always) and
+_accellerando_ (faster) are capital words when applied to a kiss!
+
+Richard Wagner, when twenty-six years old, in Paris, tried to
+relieve his poverty by composing a few songs, among which is a very
+charming setting of Ronsard's "Dors mon enfant." He also set Heine's
+"The Two Grenadiers" to music, utilizing the "Marsellaise" in the
+accompaniment; but, as a whole, the Wagner version of this poem is
+not as effective as Schumann's. In 1862 he composed music to five
+poems written by Mathilde Wesendonck, among which is the famous
+"Traeume," which utilizes the theme of the love duet that later on
+appeared in "Tristan."
+
+
+Liszt's Genius for Song.
+
+Liszt's songs are a complete musical exposition of the poems to which
+they are composed. Thus while, by way of comparison, Rubinstein's
+setting of "Du Bist wie eine Blume" gives through its simplicity a
+rare impression of purity, Liszt in his setting of the same poem adds
+to that purity the sense of sacredness with which the contemplation
+of a pure woman fills a man's heart and causes him to worship her. His
+"Lorelei" is a beautiful lyric scene. We view the flowing river, seem
+to hear the seductive voice of the temptress, and watch the
+treacherous and stormy current that hurries the ensnared boatman to
+his doom. And what song has more of that valuable quality we call
+"atmosphere" than Liszt's version of "Kennst du das Land?" As will be
+the case with Liszt in other branches of music, he will be recognized
+some day as one of the greatest of song composers.
+
+Richard Strauss's songs, from having been regarded as so bristling
+with difficulties as to be impossible, have become favorites in the
+song repertoire. When it is a genius who creates difficulties these
+are sure to be overcome by ambitious players and singers, and music
+advances technically by just so much. Strauss's "Staendchen," with its
+deliciously delicate accompaniment, so difficult to play with the
+requisite grace, was the first of Strauss's songs to become popular
+here, and it was the art of our great singer, Madame Nordica, that
+made it so. Now we hear "Die Nacht," "Traum durch die Daemmerung,"
+"Heimliche Aufforderung," "Allerseelem," "Breit ueber mein Haupt Dein
+schwarzes Haar," and many of his other songs with growing frequency.
+There are few song composers with whom the pianoforte accompaniment is
+so entirely distinct from the melody (or so difficult to play), as
+often is the case with Strauss. As with Schubert, every descriptive
+suggestion contained in the poem is carried into the accompaniment,
+but the vocal part is more declamatory and more varied. Even now it
+seems certain that Strauss's songs are permanent acquisitions to the
+repertoire. It still is too soon, however, to affirm the same thing of
+the unfortunate Hugo Wolf's songs, although I find myself strongly
+attracted by "Er ists," "Fruehling uebers Jahr," "Fussteise," "Der Koenig
+bei der Kroening," "Gesang Weyla's," "Elfenlied" and "Der Tambour."
+
+Saint-Saens, Delibes, Godard, Massenet, Chaminade and the late Augusta
+Holmes are among French song writers whose work is clever, but who
+seem to me more concerned with manner than with matter. Gounod's rank
+as a song composer is much below his reputation as the composer of
+"Faust" and "Romeo et Juliette." Oddly enough, however, the idea that
+came to him of placing a melody above a prelude from Bach's "Well
+Tempered Clavichord" did more than anything he had accomplished up to
+that time to make him famous. Originally he scored it for violin with
+a small female chorus off stage. Then he replaced the chorus with a
+harmonium. Finally he seems to have been struck with the fact that the
+melody fitted the words of the "Ave Maria," substituted a single voice
+for the violin, which, however, still can supplement the vocal melody
+with an obbligato, did away with the harmonium, and the result was the
+Gounod-Bach "Ave Maria." The Bach prelude, of course, sinks to the
+level of a mere accompaniment, for it has to be taken much slower than
+Bach intended.
+
+American composers who have produced noteworthy songs are Edward A.
+MacDowell, G. W. Chadwick, Arthur Foote, Clayton Johns, Homer N.
+Bartlett, Margaret Ruthven Lang, and the late Ethelbert Nevin.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+ORATORIO
+
+
+Oratorio had its origin in an attempt by a sixteenth century Italian
+monk to make divine service more interesting--to draw to church people
+who might not be attracted by the opportunity to hear a sermon, but
+could be persuaded to come if music a trifle more entertaining to the
+common mind than the unaccompanied (_a capella_) ecclesiastical
+compositions of Palestrina and other masters of the polyphonic school,
+were thrown in with them. Music still is regarded as a prime drawing
+card in churches, and when nowadays a fine basso rises after the
+sermon and sings "It is enough," we can paraphrase it as meaning, "It
+is enough so far as the sermon is concerned, and now to make up for it
+you are going to have a chance to listen to some music." When the
+announcement is made that such-and-such a well-known singer has been
+engaged for a church it means that the Reverend ---- is doing just
+what the monk, Neri, did, about four hundred years ago--fishing for a
+congregation with music.
+
+As it exists to-day, however, oratorio has little to do with religious
+worship, and usually is practiced amid secular surroundings, with a
+female chorus in variegated evening attire and a male chorus in
+claw-hammers, the singers hanging more or less anxiously on the baton
+of the conductor. This living picture which, so far as this country is
+concerned, I have, I believe, drawn in correct perspective, is so much
+out of keeping with the religious subjects which usually underlie the
+texts of oratorios that it may account for the comparative lack of
+interest shown by Americans for this form of musical entertainment.
+
+It also is true, however, that in this country oratorio never has had
+more than half a chance. This is due to the fact that the American man
+is not as sensitive to music nor musically as well educated as the
+American woman, the result being that the male contingent of the
+average American oratorio chorus is less competent than the women
+singers. Tenors are "rare birds" in any land, and rarer here
+apparently than elsewhere, so that in this division of our mixed
+choruses there is a lack of brilliancy in tone and of precision in
+attack. These several circumstances combine to prevent that
+well-balanced ensemble necessary to a satisfactory performance.
+
+
+An Incongruous Art-Form.
+
+Even at its best, however, oratorio is an incongruous art-form,
+neither an opera nor a church service, but rather an attempt to design
+something that shall not shock people who consider it "wicked" to go
+to the opera, nor afflict with _ennui_ those who would consider an
+invitation to listen to sacred music during the week an imposition. It
+seems peculiarly adapted to the idea of entertainment which prevails
+in England, where apparently any diversion in order to be considered
+legal must be more or less of a bore. Fortunately, however, there be
+many men of many minds; so that while, for example, one could not well
+draw a gloomier picture of the hereafter for a critic like Mr. Henry
+T. Finck than as a place where he would be obliged to hear, let me
+suggest, semi-weekly performances of "The Messiah," the annual
+Christmas auditions of that work have been the financial salvation of
+oratorio in America.
+
+San Filippo Neri, who was born in Florence in 1515, and was the
+founder of the Congregation of the Fathers of the Oratory, was the
+originator of oratorio. In order to attract people to church, he
+instituted before and after the sermon dramatic and musical renderings
+of scenes from Scripture. It is not unlikely that the suggestion for
+the underlying dramatic text came from the old Mystery and Miracle
+plays, which, to say the least, were naive. In one of these,
+representing Noah and his family about to embark in the ark, _Mrs.
+Noah_ declares that she prefers to stay behind with her worldly
+friends, and when at last her son _Shem_ seizes and forces her into
+the ark, she retaliates by giving the worthy _Noah_ a box on the ear.
+In another play of this kind which represented the Creation, a horse,
+pigs with rings in their noses, and a mastiff with a brass collar were
+brought up to _Adam_ to name. But in one performance the mastiff spied
+a cow's rib-bone which had been provided for the formation of _Eve_,
+grabbed it and carried it off, in spite of the efforts of the _Angel_
+to whistle him back, and _Eve_ had to be created without the aid of
+the rib.
+
+
+Primitive Efforts.
+
+It is not likely that any such contretemps accompanied the performances
+of San Filippo's primitive oratorios, and yet it is probable that they
+were not only sung, but also acted with some kind of scenic setting
+and costumes; for Emelio del Cavaliere, a Roman composer, whose
+oratorio, "La Rappresentazione dell' Anima e del Corpo" (The Soul and
+the Body), was performed in February, 1600, in the Church of Santa
+Maria della Vallicella, but who died before the production, left
+minute directions regarding the scenery and action. In this oratorio,
+as in some of the other early ones, there was a ballet, which,
+according to its composer's directions, was to enliven certain scenes
+"with capers" and to execute others "sedately and reverentially."
+
+It was the composer, Giovanni Carissimi, who first introduced the
+narrator in oratorio, this function being to continue the action
+with explanatory recitatives between the numbers. In his oratorio,
+"Jephtha," there is a solo for Jephtha's daughter, "Plorate
+colles, dolate montes" (Weep, ye hills; mourn, ye mountains), which
+has an echo for two sopranos at the end of each phrase of the
+melody. Alessandro Scarlatti, who developed the aria in opera, also
+gave more definite form to the solos in oratorio and a more dramatic
+accompaniment to the recitatives which related to action, leaving
+the narrative recitals unaccompanied.
+
+Up to this point, in fact, oratorio and opera may be said to have
+developed hand in hand, but now, through the influence of German
+composers and especially through their Passion Music, it assumed a
+more distinct form. "Die Auferstehung Christi" (The Resurrection), by
+Heinrich Schuetz, produced in Dresden in 1623, and his "Sieben Worte
+Christi" (The Seven Words of Christ), subjects which have been
+reverentially set by many German composers, are regarded as pioneer
+works of their kind. In the development of Passion Music much use was
+made of church chorales, the grand sacred melodies of the German
+people, which have had incalculable influence in forming the stability
+of character that is a distinguishing mark of the race. They are
+conspicuous in the "Tod Jesu," a famous work by Karl Heinrich Graun, a
+contemporary of Bach, whose own "Passion According to St. Matthew" is
+regarded by advanced lovers of music as the greatest of all works in
+oratorio or quasi-oratorio style, although the English still cling to
+Haendel.
+
+"However close the imitation or complicated the involutions of the
+several voices," says Rockstro, in writing of Haendel, "we never meet
+with an inharmonious collision. He (Haendel) seems always to have aimed
+at making his parts run on velvet; whereas Bach, writing on a totally
+different principle, evidently delighted in bringing harmony out of
+discord and made a point of introducing hard passing notes in order to
+avail himself of the pleasant effect of their ultimate resolution."
+The "inharmonious collisions," the "hard passing notes" are among the
+very things which make Bach so modern; since modern ears do not set
+much store by music that "runs on velvet."
+
+
+Bach's "Passion Music."
+
+It is interesting to note that this "Passion According to St. Matthew"
+is in two parts, and that, as was the case with the oratorios of San
+Filippo Neri, the sermon came between. The text was prepared by
+Christian Friedrichs Henrici, writing under the pseudonym of Picander,
+and is partly dramatic, partly epic in form, with an Evangelist to
+relate the various events in the story, but with the Lord, St. Peter
+and others using their own words according to the sacred text. A
+double chorus is employed, sometimes representing the Disciples,
+sometimes the infuriated populace; but always treated in dramatic
+fashion.
+
+At the time the "Passion" was written, the arias and certain of the
+choruses which contained meditations on the events narrated were
+called "Soliloquiae"; and in singing the beautiful chorales, the
+congregation was expected to join. The recitatives assigned to the
+Saviour are accompanied by string orchestra only, and are, as Rockstro
+says, full of gentle dignity, while the choruses are marked by an
+amount of dramatic power which is remarkable when one considers that
+Bach never paid any attention to the most dramatic of all musical
+forms, the opera. The "Passion According to St. Matthew," by Johann
+Sebastian Bach, was his greatest work and one of the greatest works of
+all times. It was produced for the first time at the afternoon service
+in the Church of St. Thomas, Leipzig, where Bach was Cantor, on Good
+Friday, 1729, and it was one hundred years before it was heard again,
+when it was revived by Mendelssohn, in Berlin, on March 12th,
+1829--an epoch-making performance.
+
+Strictly speaking, Passion Music is not an oratorio, but a church
+service, and Bach actually designed his to serve as a counter-attraction
+to the Mass as performed in the Roman Church. What we understand under
+oratorio derived its vitality from George Frederick Haendel, who was
+born at Halle in Lower Saxony, 1685, but whose most important work was
+accomplished in London, where he died in 1759 and was buried in
+Westminster Abbey. Before Haendel wrote his two greatest oratorios, "Israel
+in Egypt" and "The Messiah," he had, through the composition of
+numerous operas, mastered the principles of dramatic writing, and in
+his oratorios he aims, whenever the text makes it permissible, at
+dramatic expression. It is only necessary to recall the "Plague Choruses"
+in "Israel in Egypt," especially the "Hail-Stone Chorus" and the
+chorus of rejoicing ("The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the
+sea"); or by way of contrast, the tenderly expressive melody of "As for
+His people, He led them forth like sheep," to realize what an adept Haendel
+was in dramatic expression.
+
+
+Rockstro on Haendel.
+
+Haendel may in fact be called the founder of variety and freedom in
+writing for chorus. While I must confess that I do not share
+Rockstro's intense enthusiasm for Haendel and for "The Messiah,"
+nevertheless he expresses so well the general feeling in England and
+the feeling on the part of those in this country who crowd the annual
+Christmas performances of "The Messiah," toward that work, that the
+best means of conveying an idea of what oratorio signifies to those
+who like it, is to quote him. Referring to Haendel's free and varied
+treatment of chorus writing, he says:
+
+"He bids us 'Behold the Lamb of God' and we feel that he has helped us
+to do so. He tells us that 'With His stripes we are healed,' and we
+are sensible not of the healing only, but of the cruel price at which
+it was purchased. And we yield him equal obedience when he calls upon
+us to join in his hymns of praise. Who hearing the noble subject of 'I
+will sing unto the Lord,' led off by the tenors and altos, does not
+long to reinforce their voices with his own? Who does not feel a
+choking in his throat before the first bar of the 'Hallelujah Chorus'
+is completed, though he may be listening to it for the hundredth time?
+Hard indeed must his heart be who can refuse to hear when Haendel
+preaches through the voice of his chorus." The "Messiah" also contains
+two of Haendel's most famous solos, "He shall feed His flock" and "I
+know that my Redeemer liveth."
+
+This work was performed for the first time on April 13, 1742, at the
+Music Hall, Dublin, when Haendel was on a visit to the Duke of
+Devonshire, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The rehearsals, at which
+many people were present by invitation, had aroused so much
+enthusiasm, that those who were interested in the charitable object
+for which it was given, requested "as a favor that the ladies who
+honor this performance with their presence would be pleased to come
+without hoops, as it would greatly increase the charity by making
+room for more company." Gentlemen also were requested to come without
+swords, for the same reason. It is said that at the first London
+performance, when the "Hallelujah Chorus" rang out, the King rose in
+his place and, followed by the entire audience, stood during the
+singing of the chorus, and that thus the custom, which still is
+observed, originated.
+
+Following Haendel, Haydn in 1798, when nearly seventy years old, wrote
+"The Creation," founded on passages from Milton's "Paradise Lost," and
+after it "The Seasons," for which Thomson's familiar poem supplied the
+text. In both of these there is much purely descriptive music,
+especially in the earlier oratorio, when the creation of various
+animals is related. In "The Creation," too, after the passages for
+muted strings, is the famous outburst of orchestra and chorus, "And
+there was light." Haydn was a far greater master of orchestration than
+Haendel. He also was one of the early composers of the homophonic
+school, and there is a freer, more spontaneous flow of melody in his
+oratorios. But they undoubtedly lack the grandeur of Haendel's.
+
+
+Mendelssohn's Oratorios.
+
+Between Haydn and Mendelssohn, in the development of oratorio, nothing
+need be mentioned, excepting Beethoven's "Mount of Olives" and Spohr's
+"The Last Judgment" (Die Letzten Dinge). Mendelssohn, in his "St.
+Paul," followed the example of the old passionists, and introduced
+chorales, but in his greater oratorio, "Elijah," which is purely an
+Hebraic subject, he discarded these. The dramatic quality of "Elijah"
+is so apparent that it has been said more than once to be capable of
+stage representation with scenery, costumes and action. This is
+especially true of the prophet himself, whose personality is so
+definitely developed that he stands before us almost like a character
+behind the footlights. This dramatic value is felt at the very
+beginning, when, after four solemn chords on the brass, the work,
+instead of opening with an overture, is ushered in by _Elijah's_
+prophecy of the drought. Then comes the overture, which is descriptive
+of the effects of the prophecy.
+
+Next to "The Messiah," "Elijah" probably is the most popular of
+oratorios, and I think this is due to its dramatic value, and to the
+fact that its descriptive music, instead of being somewhat naive, not
+to say childish, as is the case with some passages in Haydn's
+"Creation," is extremely effective. It is necessary only to remind the
+reader of the descent of the fire and the destruction of the prophets
+of Baal; of the description of the gradual approach of the rain-storm,
+as _Elijah_, standing on Mount Carmel and watching for the coming of
+the rain, is informed of the little cloud, "out of the sea, like a
+man's hand"--a little cloud which we seem to see in the music, and
+which grows in size and blackness until it bursts like a deluge over
+the scene. Then there are the famous bass solo, "It is enough"; the
+unaccompanied "Trio of Angels"; the _Angel's_ song, "Oh, rest in the
+Lord"; and the tenderly expressive chorus, "He, watching over Israel."
+I once heard a performance of "Elijah" during which the _Angel_
+carried on such a lively flirtation with the _Prophet_ that she almost
+missed the cue for her most important solo; in fact would have missed
+it, had not the conductor sharply called her attention to the fact
+that it was time for her to begin.
+
+I think that oratorio reached its successive climaxes with "The
+Messiah" and "Elijah." Gounod's "Redemption" and "Mors et Vita," in
+spite of passages of undeniable beauty, seem to me, as a whole, rather
+spineless. Edward Elgar's "Dream of Gerontius" and "The Apostles" have
+created much excitement in England and considerable interest here, but
+while it is too soon to hazard a definite opinion of this composer, he
+appears to be lacking in individuality--to derive from Wagner whatever
+is interesting in his scores, while what is original with him is
+unimportant.
+
+There are certain sacred, semi-sacred and even secular works that are
+apt to figure on the programs of oratorio and allied societies. Mr.
+Frank Damrosch's Society of Musical Art sings very beautifully some of
+the unaccompanied choruses of the early Italian polyphonic school,
+such as Palestrina's "Papae Marcelli Mass," "Stabat Mater" and
+"Requiem"; the "Miserere" of Allegri (sought to be retained
+exclusively by the choir of the Sistine Chapel, but which Mozart wrote
+out from memory after hearing it twice); and the "Stabat Mater" of
+Pergolesi. There are also the Bach cantatas, Mozart's "Requiem," with
+its tragic associations; Beethoven's "Mass in D;" Schumann's "Paradise
+and the Peri" and his music to Byron's "Manfred" (with recitation);
+Liszt's "Graner Mass," "Legend of St. Elizabeth" and "Christus";
+Rubinstein's "Tower of Babel" and "Paradise Lost"; Brahms's "German
+Requiem," a noble but difficult work; Dvorak's "Stabat Mater";
+Rossini's "Moses in Egypt" and "Stabat Mater"; Berlioz's "Requiem" and
+"Damnation de Faust," the American production of which latter was one
+of the late Dr. Leopold Damrosch's finest achievements; and Verdi's
+"Manzoni Requiem."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+OPERA AND MUSIC-DRAMA
+
+
+Opera originated in Florence toward the close of the sixteenth
+century. A band of enthusiastic, intellectual composers aimed at
+reproducing the musical declamation which they believed to have been
+characteristic of the representation of Greek tragedy. The first
+attempt resulted in a cantata, "Il Conte Ugolino," for single voice
+with the accompaniment of a single instrument, and composed by
+Vincenzo Galileo, father of the famous astronomer. Another composer,
+Giulio Caccini, wrote several shorter pieces in similar style.
+
+These composers aimed at an exact oratorical rendering of the words.
+Consequently, their scores were neither fugal nor in any other sense
+polyphonic, but strictly monodic. They were not, however, melodious,
+but declamatory; and if Richard Wagner had wished, in the nineteenth
+century, to claim any historical foundation for the declamatory
+recitative which he introduced in his music-dramas, he might have
+fallen back upon these composers of the late sixteenth and early
+seventeenth centuries, and through them back to Greek tragedy with its
+bands of lyres and flutes.
+
+These Italian composers, then, were the creators of recitative, so
+different from the polyphonic church music of the school of
+Palestrina. What usually is classed as the first opera, Jacopo Peri's
+"Dafne," was privately performed at the Palazzo Corsi, Florence, in
+1597. So great was its success that Peri was commissioned, in 1600, to
+write a similar work for the festivities incidental to the marriage of
+Henry IV of France with Maria de Medici, and produced "Euridice," the
+first Italian opera ever performed in public.
+
+The new art-form received great stimulus from Claudio Monteverde, the
+Duke of Mantua's _maestro di capella_, who composed "Arianna" in honor
+of the marriage of Francesco Gonzaga with Margherita, Infanta of
+Savoy. The scene in which _Ariadne_ bewails her desertion by her lover
+was so dramatically written (from the standpoint of the day, of
+course) that it produced a sensation, and when Monteverde brought out
+with even greater success his opera "Orfeo," which showed a great
+advance in dramatic expression, as well as in the treatment of the
+instrumental score, the permanency of opera was assured.
+
+Monteverde's scores contained, besides recitative, suggestions of
+melody, but these suggestions occurred only in the instrumental
+ritornelles. The Venetian composer Cavalli, however, introduced melody
+into the vocal score in order to relieve the monotonous effect of
+continuous recitative, and in his airs for voice he foreshadowed the
+aria form which was destined to be freely developed by Alessandro
+Scarlatti, who is regarded as the founder of modern Italian opera in
+the form in which it flourished from his day to and including the
+earlier period of Verdi's activity.
+
+Melody, free and beautiful melody, soaring above a comparatively
+simple accompaniment, was the characteristic of Italian opera from
+Scarlatti's first opera, "L'Onesta nell' Amore," produced in Rome in
+1680, to Verdi's "Trovatore," produced in the same city in 1853. The
+names, besides Verdi's, associated with its most brilliant successes,
+are: Rossini ("Il Barbiere di Siviglia," "Guillaume Tell"), Bellini
+("Norma," "La Sonnambula," "I Puritani"), and Donizetti ("Lucia,"
+"L'Elisir d'Amore," "La Fille du Regiment"). These composers possessed
+dramatic verve to a great degree, aimed straight for the mark, and
+when at their best always hit the operatic target in the bull's-eye.
+
+
+Reforms by Gluck.
+
+The charge most frequently laid against Italian opera is that its
+composers have been too subservient to the singers, and have
+sacrificed dramatic truth and depth of expression, as well as the
+musicianship which is required of a well-written and well-balanced
+score, as between the vocal and instrumental portions, to the vanity
+of those upon the stage--in brief, that Italian opera consists too
+much of show-pieces for its interpreters. Among the first to protest
+practically against this abuse was Gluck, a German, who, from copying
+the Italian style of operatic composition early in his career, changed
+his entire method as late as 1762, when he was nearly fifty years old.
+"Orfeo et Euridice," the oldest opera that to-day still holds a place
+in the operatic repertoire, and containing the favorite air, "Che faro
+senza Euridice" (I have lost my Eurydice), was produced by Gluck, in
+Vienna, in the year mentioned. There Gluck followed it up with
+"Alceste," then went to Paris, and scored a triumph with "Iphigenie en
+Aulite." But on the arrival, in Paris, of the Italian composer,
+Piccini, the Italian party there seized upon him as a champion to pit
+against Gluck, and there then ensued in the French capital a rivalry
+so fierce that it became a veritable musical War of the Roses until
+Gluck completely triumphed over Piccini with "Iphigenie en Tauride."
+
+Gluck's reform of opera lay in his abandoning all effort at claptrap
+effect--effect merely for its own sake--and in making his choruses as
+well as his soloists participants, musically and actively, in the
+unfolding of the dramatic story. But while he avoided senseless vocal
+embellishments and ceased to make a display of singers' talents the
+end and purpose of opera, he never hesitated to introduce beautiful
+melody for the voice when the action justified it. In fact, what he
+aimed at was dramatic truth in his music, and with this end in view he
+also gave greater importance to the instrumental portion of his
+score.
+
+
+Comparative Popularity of Certain Operas.
+
+These characteristics remained for many years to come the distinguishing
+marks of German opera. They will be discovered in Mozart's "Nozze di
+Figaro," "Don Giovanni" and "Zauberfloete," which differ from Gluck's
+operas in not being based on heroic or classical subjects, and in
+exhibiting the general advance made in freer musical expression, as
+well as Mozart's greater spontaneity of melodic invention, his keen
+sense of the dramatic element and his superior skill in orchestration.
+They also will be discovered in Beethoven's "Fidelio," which again
+differs from Mozart's operas in the same degree in which the
+individuality of one great composer differs from that of another. With
+Weber's "Freischuetz," "Euryanthe" and "Oberon," German opera enters
+upon the romantic period, from which it is but a step to the "Flying
+Dutchman," "Tannhaeuser," "Lohengrin" and the music-dramas of Richard
+Wagner.
+
+Meanwhile, the French had developed a style of opera of their own,
+which is represented by Meyerbeer's "Les Huguenots," Gounod's "Faust,"
+apparently destined to live as long as any opera that now graces the
+stage, and by Bizet's absolutely unique "Carmen." In French opera the
+instrumental support of the voices is far richer and more delicately
+discriminating than in Italian opera, and the whole form is more
+serious. It is better thought out, shows greater intellectual effort
+and not such a complete abandon to absolute musical inspiration. It is
+true, there is much claptrap in Meyerbeer, but "Les Huguenots" still
+lives--and vitality is, after all, the final test of an art-work.
+
+Unquestionably, Italian operas like "Il Barbiere di Siviglia," "La
+Sonnambula," "Lucia," and "Trovatore" are more popular in this
+country than Mozart's or Weber's operatic works. In assigning
+reasons for this it seems generally to be forgotten that these Italian
+operas are far more modern. "Don Giovanni" was produced in 1787,
+whereas "Il Barbiere" was brought out in 1816, "La Sonnambula" in
+1831, "Lucia" in 1835, "Trovatore" in 1853 and Verdi's last work in
+operatic style, "Aida," in 1871. "Don Giovanni" still employs the
+dry recitative (recitatives accompanied by simple chords on the
+violoncello), which is exceedingly tedious and makes the work drag
+at many points. In "Il Barbiere," although the recitatives are
+musically as uninteresting, they are humorous, and, with Italian
+buffos, trip lightly and vivaciously from the tongue. As regards
+"Fidelio" and "Der Freischuetz," the amount of spoken dialogue in
+them is enough to keep these works off the American stage, or at
+least to prevent them from becoming popular here.
+
+Wagner has had far-reaching effect upon music in general, and
+even Italian opera, which, of all art-forms, was least like his
+music-dramas, has felt his influence. Boito's "Mefistofele,"
+Ponchielli's "La Gioconda," Verdi's "Otello" and "Falstaff," are
+examples of the far-reaching results of Wagner's theories. Even
+in "Aida," Verdi's more discriminating treatment of the orchestral
+score and his successful effort to give genuine Oriental color to at
+least some portions of it, show that even then he was beginning
+to weary of the cheaper successes he had won with operas like
+"Il Trovatore," "La Traviata" and "Rigoletto," and, while by no
+means inclined to menace his own originality by copying Wagner
+or by adopting his system, was willing to profit by the more serious
+attitude of Wagner toward his art. Puccini, in "La Tosca," has
+written a first-act finale which is palpably constructed on
+Wagnerian lines. In his "La Boheme," in Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci"
+and in Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana," the distinct efforts
+made to have the score reflect the characteristics of the text
+show Wagner's influence potent in the most modern phases of
+Italian opera. Humperdinck's "Haensel und Gretel" and Richard
+Strauss's "Feuersnot" and "Salome" represent the further working out
+of Wagner's art-form in Germany.
+
+
+Wagner's Music-Dramas.
+
+I doubt whether Wagner had either the Greek drama or the declamatory
+recitative of the early Italian opera composers in mind when he
+originated the music-drama. My opinion is that he thought it out free
+from any extraneous suggestion, but afterward, anticipating the
+attacks which in the then state of music in Germany would be made upon
+his theories, sought for prototypes and found them in ancient Greece
+and renascent Italy.
+
+His theory of dramatic music is that it should express with
+undeviating fidelity the words which underly it; not words in their
+mere outward aspect, but their deeper significance in their relation
+to the persons, controlling ideas, impulses and passions out of which
+grow the scenes, situations, climaxes and crises of the written play,
+the libretto, if so you choose to call it--so long as you don't say
+"book of the opera." For even from this brief characterization, it
+must be patent that a music-drama is not an opera, but what opera
+should be or would be had it not, through the Italian love of clearly
+defined melody and the Italian admiration for beautiful singing,
+become a string of solos, duets and other "numbers" written in set
+form to the detriment of the action.
+
+Opera is the glorification of the voice and the deification of the
+singer.--Do we not call the prima donna a _diva_? Music-drama, on the
+other hand, is the glorification of music in its broadest sense,
+instrumental and vocal combined, and the deification of dramatic truth
+on the musical stage. Opera, as handled by the Italian and the French,
+undoubtedly is a very attractive art-form, but music-drama is a higher
+art-form, because more serious and more searching and more elevated in
+its expression of emotion.
+
+Wagner was German to the core--as national as Luther, says Mr.
+Krehbiel most aptly, in his "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," which,
+like everything this critic writes, is the work of a thinker. For the
+dramas which Wagner created as the bases for his scores, he went back
+to legends which, if not always Teutonic in their origin, had become
+steeped in Germanism. The profound impression made by Wagner's art
+works may be indicated by saying that the whole folk-lore movement
+dates from his activity, and that so far as Germany itself is
+concerned, his argument for a national art work as well as his
+practical illustration of what he meant through his own music-dramas,
+gave immense impetus to the development of united Germany as
+manifested in the German empire. He as well as the men of blood and
+iron had a share in Sedan.
+
+Wagner's first successful work, "Rienzi," was an out-and-out opera in
+Meyerbeerian style. The "Flying Dutchman" already is legendary and
+more serious, while "Tannhaeuser" and "Lohengrin" show immense
+technical progress, besides giving a clue to his system of leading
+motives, which is fully developed in the scores of the "Ring of the
+Nibelung," "Tristan und Isolde," "Die Meistersinger," and "Parsifal."
+That his theories met with a storm of opposition and that for many
+years the battle between Wagnerism and anti-Wagnerism raged with
+unabated vigor in the musical world, are matters of history. Whoever
+wishes to explore this phase of Wagner's career will find it set forth
+in the most interesting Wagner biography in any language, Mr. Finck's
+"Wagner and His Works."
+
+
+Wagner a Melodist.
+
+It sometimes is contended that Wagner adopted his system of leading
+motives because he was not a melodist. This is refuted by the melodies
+that abound in his earlier works; and, even as I write, I can hear the
+pupils in a nearby public school singing the melody of the "Pilgrim's
+Chorus" from "Tannhaeuser." Moreover, his leading motives themselves
+are descriptively or soulfully melodious as the requirement may be.
+They are brief phrases, it is true, but none the less they are
+melodies. And, in certain episodes in his music-dramas, when he deemed
+it permissible, he introduced beautiful melodies that are complete in
+themselves: _Siegmund's_ "Love Song" and _Wotan's_ "Farewell," in "Die
+Walkuere," the Love Duet at the end of "Siegfried," the love scene in
+"Tristan und Isolde," the Prize Song in "Die Meistersinger." The
+eloquence of the brief melodious phrases which we call leading
+motives, considered by themselves alone and without any reference to
+the dramatic situation, must be clear to any one who has heard the
+Funeral March in "Goetterdaemmerung," which consists entirely of a
+series of leading motives that have occurred earlier in the Cycle,
+yet give this passage an overpowering pathos without equal in absolute
+music and just as effective whether you know the story of the
+music-drama and the significance of the motives, or not. If you do
+know the story and the significance of these musical phrases, you will
+find that in this Funeral March the whole "Ring of the Nibelung" is
+being summed up for you, and coming as it does near the end of
+"Goetterdaemmerung," but one scene intervening between it and the final
+curtain, it gives a wonderful sense of unity to the whole work.
+
+Unity is, in fact, a distinguishing trait of music-drama; and the very
+term "unity" suggests that certain recurring salient points in the
+drama, whether they be personages, ideas or situations, should be
+treated musically with a certain similarity, and have certain
+recognizable characteristics. In fact, the adaptation of music to a
+drama would seem to suggest association of ideas through musical
+unity, and to presuppose the employment of something like leading
+motives. They had indeed been used tentatively by Berlioz in
+orchestral music, and by Weber in opera ("Euryanthe"), but it remained
+for Wagner to work up the suggestion into a complete and consistent
+system.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+To illustrate his method, take the Curse Motive, in the "Ring of
+the Nibelung," which is heard when _Alberich_ curses the Ring, and
+all into whose possession it shall come. When, near the end of
+"Rheingold," _Fafner_ kills his brother, _Fasolt_, in wresting
+the Ring from him, the motive recurs with a significance which is
+readily understood. _Fasolt_ is the first victim of the curse.
+Again, in "Goetterdaemmerung," when _Siegfried_ lands at the entrance
+to the castle of _Gibichungs_, and is greeted by _Hagen_, although the
+greeting seems hearty enough, the motive is heard and conveys its
+sinister lure.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+When, in "Die Walkuere," _Bruennhilde_ predicts the birth of a son to
+_Sieglinde_, you hear the Siegfried Motive, signifying that the child
+will be none other than the young hero of the next drama. The motive
+is heard again when _Wotan_ promises _Bruennhilde_ to surround her with
+a circle of flames which none but a hero can penetrate, _Siegfried_
+being that hero; and also when _Siegfried_ himself, in the music-drama
+"Siegfried," tells of seeing his image in the brook.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+There are motives which are almost wholly rhythmical, like the
+"Nibelung" Smithy Motive, which depicts the slavery of the _Nibelungs_,
+eternally working in the mines of Nibelheim; and motives with strange,
+weird harmonies, like the motive of the Tarnhelm, which conveys a
+sense of mystery, the Tarnhelm giving its wearer the power to change his
+form.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+
+Leading Motives not Mere Labels.
+
+Leading motives are not mere labels. They concern themselves with more
+than the superficial aspect of things and persons. With persons they
+express character; with things they symbolize what these stand for.
+The Curse Motive is weird, sinister. You feel when listening to it
+that it bodes evil to all who come within its dark circle. The
+Siegfried Motive, on the other hand, is buoyant with youth, vigor,
+courage; vibrates with the love of achievement; and stirs the soul
+with its suggestion of heroism. But when you hear it in the Funeral
+March in "Goetterdaemmerung" and it recalls by association the
+gay-hearted, tender yet courageous boy, who slew the dragon, awakened
+_Bruennhilde_ with his kiss, only to be betrayed and murdered by
+_Hagen_, and now is being borne over the mountain to the funeral pyre,
+those heroic strains have a tragic significance that almost brings
+tears to your eyes.
+
+The Siegfried Motive is a good example of a musical phrase the contour
+of which practically remains unchanged through the music-drama. The
+varied emotions with which we listen to it are effected by association.
+But many of Wagner's leading motives are extremely plastic and undergo
+many changes in illustrating the development of character or the
+special bearing of certain dramatic situations upon those concerned
+in the action of the drama. As a gay-hearted youth, _Siegfried_
+winds his horn:
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+This horn call becomes, when, as _Bruennhilde's_ husband, he bids
+farewell to his bride and departs in quest of knightly adventure, the
+stately Motive of _Siegfried_, the Hero:
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+And when the dead _Siegfried_, stretched upon a rude bier, is borne
+from the scene, it voices the climax of the tragedy with overwhelming
+power:
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+Thus we have two derivatives from the "Siegfried" horn call, each with
+its own special significance, yet harking back to the original germ.
+
+Soon after the opening of "Tristan und Isolde" a sailor sings an
+unaccompanied song of farewell to his _Irish Maid_. The words, "The
+wind blows freshly toward our home," are sung to an undulating phrase
+which seems to represent the gentle heaving of the sea.
+
+[Music illustration: Frisch weht der Wind der Hei-mat zu: mein i-risch
+Kind, wo wei-lest du?]
+
+This same phrase gracefully undulates through _Brangaene's_ reply to
+_Isolde's_ question as to the vessel's course, changes entirely in
+character, and surges savagely around her wild outburst of anger when
+she is told that the vessel is nearing Cornwall's shore, and breaks
+itself in savage fury against her despairing wrath when she invokes
+the elements to destroy the ship and all upon it. Examples like these
+occur many times in the scores of Wagner's music-dramas.
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+[Music illustration]
+
+Often, when several characters are participating in a scene, or when
+the act or influence of one, or the principle for which he stands in
+the drama, is potent, though he himself is not present, Wagner with
+rare skill combines several motives, utilizing for this purpose all
+the resources of counterpoint. Elsewhere I already have described how
+he has done this in the Magic Fire Scene in "Die Walkuere," and one
+could add page after page of examples of this kind. I have also spoken
+of his supreme mastership of instrumentation, through which he gives
+an endless variety of tone color to his score.
+
+Wagner was a great dramatist, but he was a far greater musician. There
+are many splendid scenes and climaxes in the dramas which he wrote for
+his music, and if he had not been a composer it is possible he would
+have achieved immortality as a writer of tragedy. On the other hand,
+however, there are in his dramas many long stretches in which the
+action is unconsciously delayed by talk. He believed that music and
+drama should go hand in hand and each be of equal interest; but his
+supreme musicianship has disproved his own theories, for his dramas
+derive the breath of life from his music. Theoretically, he is not
+supposed to have written absolute music--music for its own sake--but
+music that would be intelligible and interesting only in connection
+with the drama to which it was set. But the scores of the great scenes
+in his music-dramas, played simply as instrumental selections in
+concert and without the slightest clue to their meaning in their
+given place, constitute the greatest achievements in absolute music
+that history up to the present time can show.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Author's archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is mostly
+  preserved.
+
+  Author's punctuation style is preserved.
+
+  Illustrations have been moved closer to their relevant paragraphs,
+  but the original page numbers are preserved in the List of
+  Illustrations. Illustrations may be viewed full-size by clicking on
+  them.
+
+  Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.
+
+  Passages in bold indicated by =equal signs=.
+
+  Typographical problems have been changed, and are listed below.
+
+
+Transcriber's Changes:
+
+  Page 35: Was 'Wesendonk' (as if I had it by heart," he writes from
+           Venice to Mathilde =Wesendonck=, in relating to her the
+           genesis of the great love)
+
+  Page 139: Was 'Trauemerei' (And then there are the "Scenes from
+            Childhood," to which belongs the ="Traeumerei"=; the
+            "Forest Scenes," the "Sonatas;")
+
+  Page 172: Was 'Pathetique' (while for his "Symphonie =Pathetique=,"
+            one of the finest of modern orchestral works, Tschaikowsky
+            adds only a bass tuba)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How to Appreciate Music, by Gustav Kobbe
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