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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
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO APPRECIATE MUSIC ***
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