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diff --git a/34610-h/34610-h.htm b/34610-h/34610-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab11826 --- /dev/null +++ b/34610-h/34610-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8629 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>How to Appreciate Music, by Gustav Kobbé, a Project Gutenberg eBook</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + @media screen { + hr.pb {margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none;border-top:thin dashed silver;} + .pagenum {display: inline; font-size: x-small; text-align: right; text-indent: 0; position: absolute; right: 2%; padding: 1px 3px; font-style: normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; text-decoration: none; background-color: inherit; border:1px solid #eee;} + .pncolor {color: silver;} + } + @media print { + hr.pb {border:none;page-break-after: always;} + .pagenum { display:none; } + } + body {margin-left: 11%; margin-right: 10%;} + p {margin-top: 0.5em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: 0.5em;} + + .TOC_chapter {font-style:italic;} + .TOC_details {margin: .75em 10% 1.5em 5%; font-style:italic;} + .TOC_section {margin-top:1em; font-size:1.2em; text-align:center;} + .center, div.center p {text-align:center;} + .contents_section_heading {text-align:center; font-size:1.1em; font-style:italic; padding-top:.5em;} + .right, div.right p {text-align:right;} + .smcap {font-variant:small-caps;} + .trnote {background-color: #EEE; color: inherit; margin: 2em 5% 1em 5%; font-size: 80%; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em; border: dotted 1px gray;} + blockquote {display: block; margin: .75em 5%; font-size: 90%;} + div.trchange {padding-left:4em; text-indent:-4em;} + h1 {font-size:1.8em; line-height:1.8;} + h1,h2,h3,h4 {font-weight:normal; text-align:center;} + h2 {font-size:1.5em;} + h3 {font-size:1.2em;} + h4 {font-style:italic; font-size:1.1em;} + img {border-style:none;} + ins.trchange {text-decoration: none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} + span.right {display:inline-block; float:right;} + span.rightpn {display:inline-block; float:right; position:relative; right:-12%; font-style:normal;} + + .caption {font-size: 90%; text-align:center;} + .chsp {margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em;} + .figcenter {margin: 2em auto 2em auto; text-align: center; width: auto;} + .figtag {height: 1px;} + a {text-decoration: none;} + hr.mini {width: 20%; border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; clear:both; margin: 1em auto;} + hr.minor {width: 40%; border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; clear:both; margin: 1em auto;} + hr.tb {border: none; border-bottom:1px solid black; width: 33%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;} + hr.toprule {width: 65%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; clear:both;} + p.cg {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-align: left; width: 101%;} + span.indent2 {margin: 0; padding:0; text-indent:0; width: 0.8em; display: block; float: left;} + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + td.chalgn {text-align:right; margin-top:0; padding-right:1em;} +</style> + +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of How to Appreciate Music, by Gustav Kobbé + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: How to Appreciate Music + +Author: Gustav Kobbé + +Release Date: December 9, 2010 [EBook #34610] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO APPRECIATE MUSIC *** + + + + +Produced by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, monkeyclogs, Dan +Horwood and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<hr class='pb' /> +<div class='center'> +<h1>HOW TO APPRECIATE MUSIC</h1> + +<p style='font-size:1.2em; margin-top:3em;'>BY<br /> +<span style='font-size:1.2em;'>GUSTAV KOBBÉ</span></p> + +<p>Author of “Wagner’s Music-Dramas Analyzed,” etc.</p> + +<p class='smcap' style='padding-top:5em;'>New York</p> +<p>MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY</p> +<p>1912</p> +<hr class='minor' /> +<p style='font-size:0.9em; padding-top:5em;'>Copyright, 1906, by<br /> +MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY<br /> +<span class='smcap'>New York</span></p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p style='font-size:0.9em; font-style:italic; padding-top:1em; padding-bottom:0em;'>Published, October, 1906</p> +<p style='font-size:0.9em; font-style:italic; padding-top:0em; padding-bottom:0em;'>Reprinted, February, 1908</p> +<p style='font-size:0.9em; font-style:italic; padding-top:0em; padding-bottom:0em;'>Reprinted, September, 1908</p> +<p style='font-size:0.9em; font-style:italic; padding-top:0em; padding-bottom:0em;'>Reprinted, May, 1912</p> + +<p style='font-size:0.8em; padding-top:5em;'>THE PREMIER PRESS<br /> +NEW YORK</p> +<hr class='toprule' style='padding-top:4em;' /> +<p style='font-size:1.2em; padding-top:4em; padding-bottom:4em; line-height:1.5;'><i>To the Memory of My Brother<br /> +PHILIP FERDINAND KOBBÉ</i></p> +</div> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7' name='page_7'></a>7</span> +<a name='CONTENTS' id='CONTENTS'></a> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +</div> +<table id='toc' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents' style='margin:1em auto;'> +<tr> + <td valign='top' colspan='3'><p class='contents_section_heading'>HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE RECITAL</p></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>I</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>The Pianoforte</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#I_THE_PIANOFORTE'>29</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>II</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Bach’s Service to Music</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#II_BACHS_SERVICE_TO_MUSIC'>48</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>III</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>From Fugue to Sonata</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#III_FROM_FUGUE_TO_SONATA'>78</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>IV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Dawn of the Romantic Period</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#IV_DAWN_OF_THE_ROMANTIC_PERIOD'>100</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>V</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Chopin, the Poet of the Pianoforte</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#V_CHOPIN_THE_POET_OF_THE_PIANOFORTE'>116</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>VI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Schumann, the “Intimate”</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VI_SCHUMANN_THE_INTIMATE'>134</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>VII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Liszt, the Giant among Virtuosos</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VII_LISZT_THE_GIANT_AMONG_VIRTUOSOS'>142</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>VIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>With Paderewski—A Modern Pianist on Tour</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VIII_WITH_PADEREWSKIA_MODERN_PIANIST_ON_TOUR'>155</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' colspan='3'><p class='contents_section_heading'>HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT</p></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>IX</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Development of the Orchestra</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#IX_DEVELOPMENT_OF_THE_ORCHESTRA'>167</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>X</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Instruments of the Orchestra</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#X_INSTRUMENTS_OF_THE_ORCHESTRA'>179</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Concerning Symphonies</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XI_CONCERNING_SYMPHONIES'>197</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Richard Strauss and His Music</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XII_RICHARD_STRAUSS_AND_HIS_MUSIC'>207</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>A Note on Chamber Music</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIII_A_NOTE_ON_CHAMBER_MUSIC'>224</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' colspan='3'><p class='contents_section_heading'>HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC</p></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XIV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Songs and Song Composers</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIV_SONGS_AND_SONG_COMPOSERS'>231</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Oratorio</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XV_ORATORIO'>248</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XVI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><i>Opera and Music-Drama</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVI_OPERA_AND_MUSICDRAMA'>260</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_9' name='page_9'></a>9</span> +<a name='TABLE_OF_CONTENTS' id='TABLE_OF_CONTENTS'></a> +<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2> +</div> +<div style='margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%;'> +<p class='TOC_section'>HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE +RECITAL</p> +<p>CHAPTER <span class='right'>PAGE</span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>I.—THE PIANOFORTE</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10' name='page_10'></a>10</span> +by Cristofori, 1711—Exploited by +Silbermann—Strings of twenty tons’ tension—Dampers +and pedals—Paderewski’s use of +both pedals—Mechanical pianofortes—Senseless decoration <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_29'>29</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>II.—BACH’S SERVICE TO MUSIC</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>Pianoforte so universal in character can give, +through it, a general survey of the art of music—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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11' name='page_11'></a>11</span> +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 <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_48'>48</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>III.—FROM FUGUE TO SONATA</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_12' name='page_12'></a>12</span> +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 <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_78'>78</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>IV.—DAWN OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>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 <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_100'>100</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>V.—CHOPIN, THE POET OF THE PIANOFORTE</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13' name='page_13'></a>13</span> +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 <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_115'>115</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>VI.—SCHUMANN, THE “INTIMATE”</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>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 <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_134'>134</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>VII.—LISZT, THE GIANT AMONG VIRTUOSOS</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14' name='page_14'></a>14</span> +“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” <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_142'>142</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>VIII.—WITH PADEREWSKI—A MODERN +PIANIST ON TOUR</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>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 <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_155'>155</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_section'>HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL +CONCERT</p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>IX.—DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORCHESTRA</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>Modern music at first vocal, and without instrumental +accompaniment—Awkward instrumentation +of the contrapuntists—Primitive +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15' name='page_15'></a>15</span> +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 <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_167'>167</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>X.—INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16' name='page_16'></a>16</span> +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 <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_179'>179</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>XI.—CONCERNING SYMPHONIES</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>The classical period of music dominated by +the symphony—Its esthetic purpose defined—A +symphonic witticism—Some comment +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17' name='page_17'></a>17</span> +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 <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_197'>197</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>XII.—RICHARD STRAUSS AND HIS +MUSIC</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18' name='page_18'></a>18</span> +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 <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_207'>207</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>XIII.—A NOTE ON CHAMBER MUSIC <span class='rightpn' style='right:0'><a href='#page_224'>224</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_section'>HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC</p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>XIV.—SONGS AND SONG COMPOSERS</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19' name='page_19'></a>19</span> +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 <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_231'>231</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>XV.—ORATORIO</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>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 <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_248'>248</a></span></p> +<p class='TOC_chapter'>XVI.—OPERA AND MUSIC-DRAMA</p> +<p class='TOC_details'>Origin of opera—Peri and the Florentines—Monteverde—Cavalli +introduces vocal melody +to relieve the monotony of recitative—Aria +developed by Alessandro Scarlatti—Characteristics +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20' name='page_20'></a>20</span> +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 <span class='rightpn'><a href='#page_260'>260</a></span></p> +</div> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21' name='page_21'></a>21</span> +<a name='LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS' id='LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS'></a> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +</div> +<table id='loi' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Illustrations' style='margin:1em auto;'> +<col style='width:75%;' /> +<col style='width:25%;' /> +<tr> + <td /> + <td valign='top' align='right'>PAGES</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'><p style="text-align:left; margin:0px;"><i>Beethoven's “Moonlight Sonata”</i></p></td> + <td valign='top' align='right'><a href='#linki_1'>52, 53</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'><i>“Two-Part Invention,” by Bach</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_3'>54</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Love Motive from “Die Walküre”</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_4'>180</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Opening of the “Lohengrin” Prelude</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_5'>183</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Walhalla Motive</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_6'>192</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Curse Motive</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_7'>269</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Siegfried Motive</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_8'>270</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Nibelung Smithy Motive</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_9'>270</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Tarnhelm Motive</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_10'>271</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Siegfried Horn Call</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_11'>272</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'><i>Develops into Motive of Siegfried, the Hero</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_12'>272</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'><i>And into Climax of the “Götterdämmerung” Funeral March</i></td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_13'>272</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' class='chalgn'><p style='text-align:left; margin:0px;'><i>Examples from “Tristan und Isolde”</i></p></td> + <td valign='top' align='right'><a href='#linki_14'>273, 274</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23' name='page_23'></a>23</span> +<a name='INTRODUCTION' id='INTRODUCTION'></a> +<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2> +</div> +<p>“Are you musical?”</p> +<p>“No; I neither play nor sing.”</p> +<p>Your answer shows a complete misunderstanding +of the case. Because you neither play nor +sing, it by no means follows that you are unmusical. +If you love music and appreciate it, you may be more +musical than many pianists or singers; and certainly +you may become so.</p> +<p>This book is planned for the lover of music, for +those who throng the concert and recital halls and the +opera—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.</p> +<p>To satisfy this natural desire which, with many, +amounts to a craving or even a passion, and to do so +in wholly untechnical language and in a manner that +shall be intelligible to the average reader, is the purpose +of this book. In carrying it out I have not neglected +the personal side of music, but have endeavored +to keep clearly before the eyes of the reader, and in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24' name='page_24'></a>24</span> +their proper sequence, the great names in musical history.</p> +<p>I am somewhat of a radical in my musical opinions, +one of those persons of advanced views who does not +lift his eyes reverentially heavenward every time the +words “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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25' name='page_25'></a>25</span> +<em>must</em> admire this, that and the other classical composer, +<em>because he is classical</em>, find themselves at a loss +and think themselves to blame because modern music +makes a more vivid and deeper impression upon them. +If they only knew it—they are in the right! But they +have needed some one to tell them so.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>More, perhaps, than in any work with the same purpose, +the great part played by the pianoforte in the +evolution of music is here recognized, and I have +availed myself of the opportunity to tell much of the +story of that evolution in connection with this, the +most popular of musical instruments, and its great +masters. Why the greater freedom of technique and +expression made possible by the modern instrument +has caused the classical sonata to be superseded by the +more romantic works of Chopin and others whose compositions +are typically pianistic, and how these works +differ in form and substance from those of the classicists, +are among the many points made clear in these +chapters.</p> +<p>The same care has been bestowed upon that portion +of the book relating to vocal music—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, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26' name='page_26'></a>26</span> +in fact, in music from Bach to Richard +Strauss; to place everything before him from the +standpoint of a writer who is himself a lover of music +and who, although thoroughly in sympathy with the +more advanced schools of the art, also appreciates the +great masters of the past and is behind none in acknowledging +what they contributed to make music +what it is.</p> +<p>“Are you musical?”</p> +<p>“No; I neither play nor sing.”</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Gustav Kobbé.</span></p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27' name='page_27'></a>27</span> +<a name='HOW_TO_APPRECIATE_A_PIANOFORTE_RECITAL' id='HOW_TO_APPRECIATE_A_PIANOFORTE_RECITAL'></a> +<h2>HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE RECITAL</h2> +</div> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29' name='page_29'></a>29</span> +<a name='I_THE_PIANOFORTE' id='I_THE_PIANOFORTE'></a> +<h2>I</h2> +<h3>THE PIANOFORTE</h3> +</div> +<p>There must be practically on the part of every +one who attends a pianoforte recital some degree +of curiosity regarding the instrument itself. +Therefore, it seems to me pertinent to institute at +the very outset an inquiry into what the pianoforte is +and how it became what it is—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.</p> +<p>The pianoforte is the most used and, for that very +reason, perhaps, the most abused of musical instruments. +Even its real name generally is denied it. Most +people call it a piano, although <i>piano</i> is a musical term +denoting a degree of sound, soft, gentle, low—the opposite +of <i>forte</i>, which means strong and loud. The +combination of the two terms in one word, pianoforte, +signifies that the instrument is capable of being played +both softly and loudly—both <i>piano</i> and <i>forte</i>. It was +this capacity that distinguished it from its immediate +precursors, the old-time harpsichords and clavichords. +One of the first requirements in learning how to understand +music is to learn to call things musical by their +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30' name='page_30'></a>30</span> +right names. To speak of a pianoforte as a piano is +one of our unjustifiable modern shortcuts of speech, +a characteristic specimen of linguistic laziness and evidence +of utter ignorance concerning the origin and +character of the instrument.</p> +<p>If I were asked to express in a single phrase the +importance of this instrument in the musical life of +to-day I would say that the pianoforte is the orchestra +of the home. Indeed, the title of the familiar song +“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.</p> +<h4>The King of Instruments.</h4> +<p>“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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31' name='page_31'></a>31</span> +brilliant triumphs as a concert pianist before he turned +his attention to the operatic stage.</p> +<p>Of all musical instruments the pianoforte is the most +intimate and at the same time the most public—“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 <i>pianissimo</i> to the most powerful <i>forte</i>; and its +mechanism, which permits of the most rapid runs and +passages, and at the same time of sustained singing +notes and phrases.</p> +<h4>Music Under One’s Fingers.</h4> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32' name='page_32'></a>32</span> +of one familiar with the painting does the engraving +suggest the color scheme of the original, whereas, +through certain nuances of technique that are more +easily felt than described, the pianoforte virtuoso who +is playing an arrangement of an orchestra composition +can make his audience hear certain instruments of the +orchestra—even such characteristic effects as the far-carrying +pizzicato, or the rumbling of the double basses +or their low growl; the hollow, reverberating percussions +of the tympani; sustained notes on the horns; the +majestic accents of trombones; the sharp shrill of piccolos; +while some of the most effective pianoforte pieces +are arrangements of songs.</p> +<p>Moreover, there are pianoforte compositions like the +Hungarian rhapsodies of Liszt which, while conceived +and carried out in the true spirit of the instrument +(“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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33' name='page_33'></a>33</span></div> +<p>Quite as remarkable and as interesting and important +is the circumstance that these tone tints are +wholly dependent upon the player. There is nothing +peculiar to the make of the strings, the sounding-board, +the hammers, that tends to produce these +effects. They are due wholly to the player’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.</p> +<h4>Melody and Accompaniment on One Instrument.</h4> +<p>This personal, one-man control of the instrument has +been of inestimable value to the pianoforte in establishing +itself in its present unassailable position. Moreover, +in controlling it the pianist commands all the resources +of music. With his two thumbs alone he can +accomplish what no player upon any other instrument +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34' name='page_34'></a>34</span> +in common use is capable of doing with all ten fingers. +He can sound together the lowest and the highest notes +in music, for all the notes of music as we know it simply +await the pressure of the fingers upon the keys of +the pianoforte. It is the one instrument capable of +power as well as of sweetness and grace which +places the whole range of harmony and counterpoint +at the disposal of one player. A vocalist can sing an +air, but can you imagine a vocalist singing through an +entire programme without accompaniment? After half +a dozen unaccompanied songs the singing even of the +greatest prima donna would become monotonous for +lack of harmony. The violin and violoncello, next to +the pianoforte the most frequently heard instruments +in the concert hall, labor under the same disadvantage +as the singer. They are dependent upon the accompaniment +of others.</p> +<p>The pianist, on the other hand, has the inestimable +advantage of being able to play melody and accompaniment +on one instrument at the same time—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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35' name='page_35'></a>35</span> +of his musical conceptions poets usually are conspicuous +by their absence. Even great singers suffer because +their accompaniments are apt not to be as sensitive of +temperament as they are; and it is a fact that the grace +and beauty of Schubert’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.</p> +<h4>Music’s Debt to the Pianoforte.</h4> +<p>It would be difficult to overestimate the debt that +music owes to the pianoforte. Including for the present +under this one name the various keyboard instruments +from which it was developed, the sonata form +had its first tentative beginnings upon it and was +wrought out to perfection through it by a process of +gradual evolution extending from Domenico Scarlatti +through Bach’s son, Philipp Emanuel Bach, to Beethoven. +As a symphony simply is a sonata for orchestra, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36' name='page_36'></a>36</span> +it follows that through the sonata and thus through the +pianoforte the form in which the classical composers +cast their greatest works was established. Richard +Strauss, in his revision of Berlioz’s book on orchestration, +even goes so far as to assert that Beethoven, and +after him Schumann and Brahms, treated the orchestra +pianistically; but the discussion of this point is better +deferred until we take up the orchestra and orchestral +music.</p> +<p>Here, however, it may be observed that in addition +to its constant use as an instrument for the concert hall +and the home, and for the delight of great audiences +and the joy of the amateur player and his familiar +circle, many of the great composers, even when writing +orchestral works, have used the pianoforte for their +first sketches, testing their harmonies on it, and often, +no doubt, while groping over the keys in search of the +psychical note, hit upon accidental improvements +and new harmonies. Even Wagner, who understood +the orchestra as none other ever has, employed the +pianoforte in sketching out his ideas. “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 <a name='TC_1'></a><ins class="trchange" title="Was 'Wesendonk'">Wesendonck</ins>, +in relating to her the genesis of the great love +duet in “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.</p> +<p>The pianoforte has in many other ways been a boon +to some of the most famous composers. Many of them +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37' name='page_37'></a>37</span> +were pianists, and by public performances of their own +works materially accelerated the appreciation of their +music. Mozart was a youthful prodigy, and later a +virtuoso of the highest rank. Beethoven, before he +was overtaken by deafness, introduced his own pianoforte +compositions to the public and was the musical +lion of the Viennese drawing-rooms. Mendelssohn was +a pianist of the same smooth, affable, gentlemanly type +as his music. Chopin was not a miscellaneous concert +player—his nature was too shrinking; but at the +Salon Pleyel in Paris he gave recitals to the musical +élite, who in turn conveyed his ideas to the greater +public. Schumann began his musical career as a virtuoso, +but strained the fourth finger of his right hand +in using a mechanical apparatus which he had devised +for facilitating the practice of finger exercises. His +wife, Clara Wieck, however, who was the most +famous woman pianist of her time, substituted her +fingers for his. Liszt literally hewed out the way for +his works on the keyboard. Brahms was a pianist of +solid, scholarly attainments. In fact, dig where you +will in musical soil, you strike the roots of the pianoforte.</p> +<h4>Its Lowly Origin.</h4> +<p>It must not be supposed, however, that the instrument +as we know it attained to its present supremacy +except through a long process of evolution. One of +the immediate precursors of the modern pianoforte was +the harpsichord, a name suggesting that the instrument +was a harp with a keyboard attachment, and such, +in a general way, the pianoforte is. But the harp is +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38' name='page_38'></a>38</span> +a very fully developed affair compared with the mean +little apparatus in which lay and was discovered many +centuries ago the first germ of the king among instruments. +This was the monochord, and it has required +about nine centuries for the evolution of an instrument +consisting of a single string set in vibration by means +of a keyboard attachment into the modern pianoforte. +But do not be alarmed. I am not about to give a nine +hundred years’ history of the pianoforte. Such detailed +consideration would belong to a technical work +on the manufacture of the instrument and would be out +of place here. Something of its history should, however, +be known to every one who wants to understand +music, but I shall endeavor to be as brief and at the +same time as clear as possible.</p> +<p>The monochord originally was used much as we use +a tuning fork, to determine true musical pitch. If you +take a short piece of string, tie one end of it fast, draw +it taut and pluck it, its vibrations will sound a note. If +you grasp the string and draw it taut from nearer to +the point where it is tied, you shorten what is called +the “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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39' name='page_39'></a>39</span> +different notes, three strings were added, each +with its bridge and graduated scale.</p> +<p>It was more or less of a nuisance, however, to continually +shift four bridges to as many different +points under the four strings. As an improvement +upon this awkward arrangement some +clever person conceived about the beginning of +the tenth century, the idea of borrowing the +keyboard from the organ and attaching it to the +monochord. To the rear end of each key was attached +an upright piece called a tangent. When the finger +pressed upon a key the tangent struck one of the strings, +set it in vibration, and at the same time, by contact, +created a node which lasted as long as the key was kept +down and the tangent remained pressed against the +string. To increase the utility of the instrument by +adding more strings and more keys was the next obvious +step, and gradually the monochord ceased to be +a mere technical apparatus for the determining of pitch +and became an instrument on which professionals and +amateurs could play with pleasure to themselves and +others.</p> +<h4>A Poet’s Advice to His Musical Daughter.</h4> +<p>There has been preserved to us from about the year +1529 a reply made by the poet Pietro Bembo to his +daughter Elena, who had written to him from the convent +where she was being educated asking if she could +have lessons upon the monochord, which seems to have +been as popular in its day as its fully developed successor, +the modern pianoforte, is now.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40' name='page_40'></a>40</span></div> +<p>“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!</p> +<h4>The Clavichord.</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>If you will raise the lid of your pianoforte you will +find that the strings become shorter from the bass up, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41' name='page_41'></a>41</span> +the lowest note being sounded by the longest, the highest +note by the shortest string; for the longer the +string the slower the vibrations and the deeper the +sounds produced, and <i>vice versa</i>. This principle is so +obvious that it seems as if it must have been applied +to the clavichord almost immediately and a separate +string provided for each key. But for many years the +strings of the clavichord continued all of equal length, +and three or four neighboring keys struck the same +string, so that the contact of the upright tangent with +the string not only set the latter in vibration but also +served to form the node which produced the desired +note. Not until after the clavichord had been in +use several centuries, were its strings made of +varying length and a separate string assigned to each +key. These new clavichords were called <i>bundfrei</i> +(fret-free or tangent-free) because the node of each +string was determined by that string’s length and not +by the contact of the tangent.</p> +<p>The clavichord retained the box shape of its prototype, +the monochord. Originally it was portable and +was set upon a table; later, however, was made, so to +speak, to stand upon its own legs. In appearance it +resembled our square pianofortes. It gave forth a +sweet, gentle and decidedly pretty musical sound. It +had a further admirable quality in its capacity for sustaining +a tone, since by keeping the tangent pressed +against the string the player was able to sustain the +tone so long as the string continued to vibrate. Moreover, +by holding down the key and at the same time +making a gentle rocking motion with the finger he was +able to produce a tremolo effect which German musicians +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42' name='page_42'></a>42</span> +called <i>Bebung</i> (trembling), and the French <i>balancement</i>.</p> +<p>A defect of the clavichord was, however, its lack of +power. This defect led to experiments which resulted +in the construction of a keyboard instrument the strings +of which, in response to the action of the keys, were +set in vibration by jacks tipped with crow-quills or +hard leather. The sound was much stronger than that +of the clavichord. But the jacks twanged the strings +with uniform power, “permitting a sharp outline, but +no shading of the tones.”</p> +<h4>The Harpsichord.</h4> +<p>If you chance to be listening to a Hungarian band +at a restaurant you may notice that one of the players +has lying on a table before him an instrument with +many strings strung very much like those of the pianoforte. +It is played with two little mallets in the player’s +hands, and produces the weird arpeggios and improvised +runs characteristic of Hungarian gypsy music. +It is a very old instrument called the cembalo. About +the fifteenth century, it seems, some one devised a keyboard +attachment with quills for this instrument, tipped +the jacks with crow-quills, and called the result a clavicembalo +(a cembalo with keys). This was the origin +of the harpsichord, the name by which the clavicembalo +soon became more generally known. Harpsichords +were shaped somewhat like our grand pianofortes, but +were much smaller. A spinet was a small harpsichord, +and the virginal a still smaller one. Sometimes, indeed, +virginals were made no larger than workboxes, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43' name='page_43'></a>43</span> +the instrument being taken out of the box and placed +on a table before the player.</p> +<p>For the purposes of this book this very general survey +of the precursors of the pianoforte seems sufficient. +The clavichord and the instruments of the harpsichord +(harpsichord, spinet, and virginal) class flourished +alongside of each other, but the best musicians gave +the preference to the clavichord because of its sweet +tone and the delicately tremulous effect that could be +produced upon it by the <i>balancement</i>. Experiments in +pianoforte making were in progress already in Bach’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.</p> +<h4>Piano and Forte.</h4> +<p>Neither on the clavichord nor on the harpsichord +could the player vary the strength of the tone which he +produced, by the degree of force with which he struck +the keys. Swells and pedals worked by the knees and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44' name='page_44'></a>44</span> +the feet were devised to overcome this difficulty, but +“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 <i>piano</i>, the harpsichord +was <i>forte</i>. Not until the invention of the hammer action, +the substitution of hammers for tangents and +quill-jacks, was an instrument possible in which +whether the tone should be <i>piano</i> or <i>forte</i> depended +upon the degree of strength with which the player +struck the keys. This instrument was the first pianoforte. +It was invented and so named in 1711 by Bartolomeo +Cristofori, of Florence, and, although nearly +two centuries have elapsed since then, the action used +by many pianoforte manufacturers of to-day is in its +essentials the same as that devised by this clever Italian. +The invention frequently is ascribed to Gottfried +Silbermann, a German (1683-1753). But the real situation +is that Cristofori was the inventor, while Silbermann +was the first successful manufacturer of the new +instruments, from a business point of view. Time and +improvements were required before they made their +way, and how slow many professional musicians were +in giving up the beloved clavichord for the pianoforte +already has been pointed out. But the latter was bound +to triumph in the end.</p> +<p>I shall not attempt to give a technical description of +the mechanism of the pianoforte. But I should like +to answer a few questions which may have suggested +themselves to players who may not have cared to +take their instruments apart and examine them, or have +not been present when their tuners have taken off the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45' name='page_45'></a>45</span> +lid and exposed the strings and mechanism to view. +The strings of the pianoforte are of steel wire, and their +tension varies from twelve tons to nearly twenty. +Those of the deepest bass are covered with copper wire. +Eight or ten tones of the bass are produced by the +vibration of these copper-wound strings. Above these, +for about an octave and a half, the strings are in pairs, +so that, the hammer striking them, there are two unison +strings to a tone, simultaneously, and producing +approximately twice as powerful a tone as if only one +string had been set in vibration. The five remaining +octaves have three strings to a tone.</p> +<h4>All Depends on the Player.</h4> +<p>When the fingers strike the keys the hammers strike +the strings, the force of the stroke depending upon +the force exerted by the player, this being the distinguishing +merit of the pianoforte as compared with its +precursors. Under the strings are a row of dampers, +and as soon as a finger releases a key the corresponding +damper springs into place against the vibrating +strings, stops the vibrations, and the tone ceases. Thus +the tone can be dampened immediately by raising the +finger or prolonged by keeping the finger pressed down +on the key. This is the device which enables the pianist +to play <i>staccato</i> or <i>legato</i>. The damper pedal, or +loud pedal, checks the action of all the dampers and +prolongs the tones even after the fingers have released +the keys. The soft pedal brings the hammers nearer +the strings, shortens the stroke and produces a softer +tone. The simultaneous use of both pedals is a modern +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46' name='page_46'></a>46</span> +virtuoso effect and a very charming one, for the damper +pedal prolongs the gentle tones produced by the +use of the soft pedal. I believe Paderewski was the +first of the great pianists who have visited this country, +to employ this effect systematically, and that he was +among the first composers to formally indicate the +simultaneous employment of both pedals in passages +in his compositions. There is a third pedal called the +sustaining pedal, but I do not think it has proved as +valuable an invention as was anticipated.</p> +<p>Within recent years there have been introduced mechanical +pianofortes, which I may designate as pianolas, +after the most popular instrument of their class. In +my opinion, these instruments are destined to play an +important part in the diffusion of musical knowledge, +and it is senseless to underestimate this. There are +thousands of people who have neither the time nor the +dexterity to master the technique of the pianoforte, +who nevertheless are people of genuine musical feeling, +and who are enabled through the pianola to cultivate +their taste for music. The device renders the +music accurately; whether expressively or not depends, +as with the pianoforte itself, upon the taste of the person +who manipulates it.</p> +<h4>Decorations That Do Not Beautify.</h4> +<p>The pianoforte often is spoken of as an instrument +of ugly appearance. This it emphatically is not. If the +straight side of the grand is placed against the wall +the side toward the room presents a graceful, sweeping +curve, while the upright effectively breaks the straight +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47' name='page_47'></a>47</span> +line of the wall against which it stands. If the pianoforte +is ugly, it is due to the so-called “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.</p> +<p>Sheet music or bound books of music on top of a +pianoforte are an abomination. If scattered about they +look disorderly; if neatly arranged in portfolios, even +worse, for they create the precise, orderly appearance +of paths and mounds in a cemetery. Often, indeed, the +pianoforte is a graveyard of musical hopes. Because +of that, however, it need not be made to look like one.</p> +<p>Equally objectionable is the elaborately decorated +or “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.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48' name='page_48'></a>48</span> +<a name='II_BACHS_SERVICE_TO_MUSIC' id='II_BACHS_SERVICE_TO_MUSIC'></a> +<h2>II</h2> +<h3>BACH’S SERVICE TO MUSIC</h3> +</div> +<p>So important has been the rôle played by the pianoforte +in the evolution of music that it is possible +in these chapters on a pianoforte recital to give +a general survey of the art, and thus prepare the +reader to enjoy not only what he will hear at such a +recital, but enable him to approach it with a more comprehensive +knowledge than that would imply. This is +one reason why I elected to lead with the chapters on +the pianoforte instead of with those on the orchestra, +as usually is done, because the orchestra is something +“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.</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49' name='page_49'></a>49</span> +fugue rather complicated and, I fear, somewhat unintelligible, +and this makes it necessary for me to point +out at once that in some respects music has had a +curious development. A Wagner music-drama, a Richard +Strauss tone poem, seem elaborate and complicated +affairs compared with a Beethoven sonata or symphony. +Yet even the most advanced work of +a Wagner or Strauss is neither as complicated nor as +elaborate as a fugue by that past master of his art, +Johann Sebastian Bach, who, although he was born +in 1685 and did not live beyond the middle of the following +century, was so far ahead of his age that not +even to this day has he fully come into his own. The +result is that the early classicists, Haydn and Mozart, +who belong in point of time to a later epoch, may more +readily be reckoned as “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.</p> +<p>Were it not for the importance of preserving an +orderly historical sequence in a book of this kind, and +that Bach usually is found at the beginning of a recital +program, it would be almost more practical, and certainly +far easier, for the author to leave Bach until +later. When you write of Mozart, or of Beethoven and +the moderns, you can depend upon more or less familiarity +with their works on the part of your readers, +whereas, comparatively few laymen know much about +Bach. They associate the name with all that is formal +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50' name='page_50'></a>50</span> +and labored. Yet among my acquaintances is a young +woman who was brought up in a very musical family, +and who, having as a child heard her mother play the +preludes and fugues of the “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.</p> +<h4>Bach in Modern Music.</h4> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51' name='page_51'></a>51</span> +composed much as they did had Bach never lived. But +when a more modern composer, a romanticist like +Wagner, wanted to enrich the means of musical +expression handed down to him from the classical +period, he reached back to Bach and combined Bach’s +teeming counterpoint with the harmonic system which +had been inherited from Beethoven. To understand +just what this means, to appreciate the influence Bach +has had upon modern music and why he had little or +none on the classical composers, it is necessary for the +reader to have at least a reasonably clear conception of +what that counterpoint is and wherein it differs from +harmony; for with Bach counterpoint reached its climax, +and all the possibilities of the style having been +exhausted by him, music of necessity took a turn in +another direction under the classicists and developed +harmonically instead of contrapuntally; so that it +can be said that modern music derives its counterpoint +from Bach, its harmony from Beethoven, +and its combination of the two systems from +Wagner.</p> +<p>There is another reason why the meaning of counterpoint +should be explained and the difference between +counterpoint and harmony be made clear to the reader +now. Nearly all the early music, the music that preceded +Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and that sometimes +is to be found on recital programs, is contrapuntal—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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52' name='page_52'></a>52</span> +the best way to do this is to explain what harmony and +counterpoint are and wherein they differ.</p> +<h4>Harmony and Counterpoint.</h4> +<p>A melody or theme is a rational progression of single +tones. Here is the melody or theme with which Beethoven +begins the familiar “Moonlight Sonata”:</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_1' id='linki_1'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-052a.png'> +<img src='images/illus-052a.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='52' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +<i>Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”</i><br />[<a href="music/052a.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>It is a melody, but it does not constitute harmony, for +harmony is the rational combination of several tones, +as distinguished from the rational progression of single +tones which constitute melody. But when Beethoven +adds an accompaniment to his theme and it becomes:</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_2' id='linki_2'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-052b.png'> +<img src='images/illus-052b.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='349' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +<i>Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”</i><br />[<a href="music/052b.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53' name='page_53'></a>53</span></div> +<p>the passage also becomes harmony, since it is an example +of the rational combination of several tones. As +has often been pointed out in books on music, and probably +often will have to be pointed out again, because +as a mistake it is to be classed with the hardy perennials, +melody is not harmony, but only a part of it. +When, however, a composer conceives a theme or melody +he usually does so with the purpose of combining +it with an accompaniment that shall support it and +throw it into bold and striking relief. Composers of +the contrapuntal school, on the other hand, conceived +a theme, not for the purpose of supporting it with an +accompaniment, but in order to combine it with another +or with several other equally important themes. That, +in a general way, is the difference between harmony +and counterpoint.</p> +<p>In harmony, then, or, more strictly speaking, in +music composed according to the harmonic system, of +which the “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 +<i>contra punctum</i>, which means point against point or +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54' name='page_54'></a>54</span> +note against note, when complicated, as in a fugue, is +about the most elaborate kind of music there is, and +a person who is unable to grasp a fugue may console +himself with the thought that, excepting for the elect, +it is a pretty stiff dose to swallow at the very beginning +of a recital.</p> +<p>There are, however, simpler pieces of counterpoint +than a fugue. Sometimes, as in the charming little “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.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_3' id='linki_3'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-054.png'> +<img src='images/illus-054.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='155' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +[<a href="music/054.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>For any one who wishes to become acquainted with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55' name='page_55'></a>55</span> +Bach there is nothing better than these “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.</p> +<h4>What a Fugue Is.</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Imagine that a composer who is an adept in +counterpoint places four pianists at different pianofortes, +and that he gives a different theme to each of +them, or a theme to one and modified versions of it to +the others. He starts the first pianist, after a few bars +nods to the second to join in with his theme, and so +on successively with the other two. It might be supposed +that when the second player joins in, the two +themes sounding together would make discord, which +would be aggravated by the addition of the third and +fourth. But, instead, they have been so conceived by +the contrapuntist that they sound well together as they +chase and answer each other, or run counter to and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56' name='page_56'></a>56</span> +parallel and enter into many different combinations, +sometimes flowing along smoothly, at other times surging +and striving, yet always, in the case of a truly +great fugue, borne along by a momentum as inexorable +as the march of Fate. Of course, it must not be supposed, +because I have called four pianists into action +in order to emphasize how distinct are these themes, +which yet, when united, are found to blend together, +that several players are required for the performance +of a complicated piece of counterpoint like a fugue. +What is demanded of the player is entire independence +of the fingers, so that he can clearly differentiate between +the themes and enable the hearer to distinguish +them apart, even in their most complicated combinations. +An edition of Bach’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.</p> +<h4>The Fugue and the Virtuoso.</h4> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57' name='page_57'></a>57</span> +had a chance to enunciate the motif, after which the +conversation goes on more freely; the subject is announced +in divers keys, by divers voices; episodes, in a +congruous style, vary the monotony; at last the subject +is emphatically asserted by the various voices in +quick succession (<i>stretto</i>), and with some little display +or grandiloquence the piece comes to an end.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58' name='page_58'></a>58</span></div> +<h4>What Counterpoint Lacks.</h4> +<p>The lack of highly personal expression in contrapuntal +compositions explains why most concert-goers +find them less attractive than modern music. The +“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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59' name='page_59'></a>59</span> +by the very formulas of the science or art of the contrapuntist. +We may marvel that Bach was able to +move so freely within its restricted forms. But I think +it true that it is far more interesting for a person +even of only moderate proficiency as a player to work +out, however awkwardly, a Bach fugue for himself +on the pianoforte than to hear it played by some one +else, however great; for, cheap and easy as it is to protest +in high-sounding phrases about the duty of the +interpreter to subordinate himself to the composer, and +against what I am about to say, I nevertheless make +bold to affirm that it is the province of the virtuoso to +express himself, his own personality, his moods, his +temperament, his subjective or even his subconscious +self, through music; and in music that is purely contrapuntal +there is a barrier to this individual power of +expression.</p> +<h4>The Mission of the Player.</h4> +<p>We often hear it said of the greatest contemporary +pianist that he is a great Chopin player, but not a great +Bach player. He could not be, and at the same time +be the greatest living virtuoso. It is the worshiper +of tradition, the reserved, continent, scholarly player, +the player who converts a Chopin nocturne into an +icicle and a Schubert impromptu into a snowball, who +revels in counterpoint—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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60' name='page_60'></a>60</span> +from the character of the piece he is playing, subjecting +it more than is permissible to his temporary mood; +but it is better for art to err on the side of originality, +provided it is not bizarre or freakish, than on the side +of subserviency to tradition.</p> +<p>While I have no desire, in writing as above, to exalt +unduly the virtuoso, the interpreter of music, at the expense +of the composer, I must insist that the great +player also is creative, in the sense that every time he +plays a work he creates it over again from his own +point of view, and thus has at least a share in its parentage. +Indeed, it seems more difficult to attain exalted +rank as a virtuoso than to gain immortality as +a composer. The world has produced two epoch-making +virtuosos—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 <em>playing</em>, and Theodore Thomas, who was not a +composer.”</p> +<h4>Music as a Science.</h4> +<p>But, to return to Bach and the other contrapuntists, +music owes them an immense debt on the technical +side. And right here, so universal are the deductions +that can be drawn from the program of a pianoforte +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61' name='page_61'></a>61</span> +recital, it should be pointed out that music differs from +other arts in having for its basis a profound and complicated +science, a science that concerns itself with the +relations of the notes of the musical scale to each other. +Upon this science are based alike the “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.</p> +<h4>Science versus Feeling.</h4> +<p>In fact, the person who is so well versed in the science +of music that he can mentally analyze a composition +while listening to it is apt to be so absorbed in the +mere process of technical analysis that he misses its +esthetic, its emotional significance. Thus a person may +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62' name='page_62'></a>62</span> +be very musical without being musical at all. He may +have profound knowledge of music as a science and +remain untouched by music as an art, just as a physicist +may be an authority on the laws of light and color, +yet stand unmoved before a great painting. With +some people music is all science, with others all art, +and I think the latter have the better of it. A musical +genius is equipped both ways. The great composer +employs the science of music as an aid in giving expression +to his creative impulse. He makes science +of service to the cause of art. Otherwise, while he +might produce something that was absolutely correct, +it would make no artistic appeal whatsoever. Thousands +of symphonies have been composed, performed +and forgotten. They were “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.</p> +<p>The composer, then, masters the science of music +and bends it to his genius. If he is a great genius, he +soon will discover that certain rules which his predecessors +regarded as hard and fast, as inviolable, can +be violated with impunity. He will discover new tone +combinations, and thus enrich the science and make it +serve the purposes of the art with greater efficiency +than before he came upon the scene. And always the +composers who have grown gray under the old system, +the system upon which the new genius is grafting his +new ideas, and the theorists and critics, who are slaves +of tradition, will throw up their hands in horror and cry +out that he is despoiling the art and robbing it of all that +is sacred and beautiful, whereas he is adding to its scope +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63' name='page_63'></a>63</span> +and potency. Did not even so broad-minded a composer +as Schumann say, “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.</p> +<h4>That “Ear for Music.”</h4> +<p>And while I am on the subject of the scientific musician +<i>versus</i> the music lover, the pedant <i>versus</i> the innovator, +I might as well refer to those people who have +in a remarkable degree what is popularly known as “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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64' name='page_64'></a>64</span> +printed pages of a new composition, and on arriving at +his destination, played it, from memory, at his concert. +William Mason, who studied with Liszt, witnessed his +master perform a similar feat. The average untrained +person with a musical ear, however, instead of being +a genius, is apt to become a nuisance, playing all kinds +of cheap music in and out of season—a sort of peripatetic +pianola, without the advantage of being under +control. Such persons, moreover, usually are born +without a soft pedal.</p> +<h4>Bach and the Weather Bureau.</h4> +<p>This digression, which I have made in order to discuss +the difference between music as a science and music +as an art, a distinction which, I have pointed out, often +is so marked that a person may be thoroughly equipped +on the scientific side of music without being sensitive +to its beauty as an art, seemed to me necessary at this +stage. I am reminded by it of the distinction which +Edmund Clarence Stedman, in his “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:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“When descends on the Atlantic the gigantic<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Storm-wind of the Equinox,<br /> +Landward in his wrath he scourges the toiling surges,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Laden with seaweed from the rocks.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And this stanza by a later balladist:</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65' name='page_65'></a>65</span></div> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“The East Wind gathered, all unknown,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>A thick sea-cloud his course before;<br /> +He left by night the frozen zone,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And smote the cliffs of Labrador;<br /> +He lashed the coasts on either hand,<br /> +And betwixt the Cape and Newfoundland,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Into the bay his armies pour.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>All this impersonation and fancy is translated by the +Weather Bureau into something like the following:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“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.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Far be it from me to imply that contrapuntal music +in general or Bach in particular represents the Weather +Bureau. None the less is it true that Bach appeals +more strongly to the scientific musician than to the +music-lover who seeks in music a secondary meaning—love, +passion, grief; the mood awakened by the contemplation +of a forest landscape with its murmuring +foliage, a boundless prairie, or the unquiet sea.</p> +<p>The technical indebtedness of modern music to Bach +is so immense, and the artistic probity of the man himself +was so wonderful, for he worked calmly on, in +spite of what was worse than opposition—neglect—that +I think the tendency on the part of Bach enthusiasts, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66' name='page_66'></a>66</span> +while not overrating the importance of the influence +he has had during the past fifty years or more, is +to underrate others as compared with him. When +critics declare that one virtuoso or another is not a +great Bach player, are they not ignoring what is a +simple fact—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.</p> +<h4>The Bacon, Not the Shakespeare, of Music.</h4> +<p>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, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67' name='page_67'></a>67</span> +of music, and the contrapuntal structure that he reared +is to the art what the Baconian theorem is to logic. +We can imagine the roamer in the field of higher mathematics +suddenly becoming excited as he sees the end +of the path leading to the solution of some complicated +problem in full view. Thus there may be moments +when even the cube root becomes emotional, the logarithmic +theory a dissipation, and differential calculus an +orgy. So, too, Bach put an enthusiasm into his work +that often threatens to sweep the student off his intellectuals +and make him regard a fugue as a scientifically +constructed fairyland. Moreover, there are Bach pieces +in which the counterpoint supports the purest kind of +melody, like the air for the G string which Thomas +arranged for his orchestra with all the strings, save the +double basses, in unison, and played with an effect that +never failed to secure a repeat and sometimes a double +encore.</p> +<h4>What Wagner Learned from Bach.</h4> +<p>If we bear in mind that counterpoint is the artistic +combination of several themes, each of equal or nearly +equal importance, and that Bach was the greatest master +of the contrapuntal school and forms its climax, +we can, with a little thought, appreciate what his service +has been to modern music. When Wagner devised +his system of leading motives it was not for the +purpose of employing them singly, like labels tacked +onto each character, thing or symbol in the drama, but +of combining them, welding them together, when occasion +arose, in order to give musical significance and +expression to each and every dramatic situation as the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68' name='page_68'></a>68</span> +story unfolded itself. A shining example of this is +found in that wonderful last scene of “Die Walküre,” +the so-called Magic Fire Scene. <i>Wotan</i> has said farewell +to <i>Brünnhilde</i>; has thrown her into a profound +slumber upon the rock; has surrounded her with a circle +of magic flame which none but a hero may penetrate +to awaken and win her. How is this scene treated in +the score? In the higher register of the orchestra +crackles and sparkles the Magic Fire Motive, the Slumber +Motive gently rising and falling with the flames; +while the superb Siegfried Motive (signifying that the +yet unborn <i>Siegfried</i> is the hero destined to break +through the fiery circle) resounds in the brass, and +there also is a suggestion of the tender strains with +which <i>Wotan</i> bade <i>Brünnhilde</i> farewell. The welding +together of these four motives into one glorious whole +of the highest dramatic significance is Wagnerian counterpoint—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.</p> +<p>“It is a pity,” said this wise man, in a condescending +manner, “but Wagner knows absolutely nothing about +counterpoint.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69' name='page_69'></a>69</span></div> +<p>At that very instant the orchestra was singing five +different melodies at once; and, as Anton Seidl was the +conductor, they were all audible.</p> +<p>Wagner scores, in fact, teem with counterpoint, +but counterpoint that palpitates, that thrills with emotion. +Note that Mr. Henderson speaks of melodies. +Wagner’s leading motives are melodies, sometimes very +brief, but always expressive, and not, like the themes +of the old contrapuntists, conceived mainly for the sake +of being combined scientifically with other themes +equally adaptable to that purpose. Counterpoint may +be, and usually is, something very dry and formal. But +from the crucible of the master magician, Richard +Wagner, it flows a glowing, throbbing, pulsating +stream of most precious metal.</p> +<h4>The Language of an Epoch.</h4> +<p>In the difference between the counterpoint of Bach +and the counterpoint of Wagner lies the difference between +two epochs separated by a long period of time. +With Bach counterpoint was everything; with Wagner +merely an incident. It will help us to a better +understanding of music if we bear in mind +that the two great composers of each epoch +spoke in the music of that epoch. Thus Bach +spoke in the language of counterpoint. His themes, +however greatly they may vary among themselves, +all bear the stamp of motives devised for the +purpose of entering into formal combinations and of +being developed according to the stringent rules of +counterpoint. Beethoven’s are more individual, more +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70' name='page_70'></a>70</span> +expressive of moods and emotions. Yet about them, +too, there is something formal. They, too, are devised +to be treated according to certain rules—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!</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71' name='page_71'></a>71</span> +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.</p> +<h4>Bach in the Recital Hall.</h4> +<p>Bach is so supreme in his own line that contrapuntal +music, so far as the pianoforte is concerned, may be dismissed +with him. Händel, too, it is true, was a master +of the contrapuntal school, but he belongs to the chapter +on oratorio. Bach’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.”</p> +<p>These partitas and suites are the most graceful and +charming efflorescence of the contrapuntal school, and +much could be accomplished toward making Bach a +popular composer if they figured more frequently on +recital programs. They are made up of the dance forms +of the day—allemandes, courants, bourrées, sarabandes, +minuets, gavottes, gigues, with airs thrown in for good +measure; the partitas and English suites furnished with +more elaborate introductions, while the French suites +begin with allemandes. Cheerful and even frisky as +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72' name='page_72'></a>72</span> +some of the dance pieces in these compositions are, it +must not be supposed that they were intended to be +danced to when contrapuntally treated—no more than +Chopin intended that people should glide through a +ballroom to the music of his waltzes.</p> +<p>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 (<i>agréments</i>) 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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73' name='page_73'></a>73</span></div> +<h4>Rubinstein and the “Triple Concerto.”</h4> +<p>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 <i>agréments</i>. “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.</p> +<p>“‘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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<h4>“The Well-Tempered Clavichord.”</h4> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74' name='page_74'></a>74</span> +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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75' name='page_75'></a>75</span></div> +<p>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.</p> +<h4>A King’s Tribute to Bach.</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>While it is true that Bach remained unappreciated +by the great mass of his contemporaries, there were +exceptions, a notable one being the music-loving king, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76' name='page_76'></a>76</span> +Frederick the Great of Prussia, whose service the composer’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.</p> +<p>The king had purchased several of the pianofortes +recently constructed by Gottfried Silbermann and had +them distributed throughout the palace. Bach and the +assemblage went from room to room, the composer +playing and improvising on the different instruments. +Finally he asked the king to set him a fugue theme, +and on this he extemporized in such masterly fashion +that all who heard him, the king included, broke out +into rounds of applause. On his return to Leipsic, +Bach dedicated to Frederick the Great a work which +he entitled “The Musical Sacrifice” (or offering), +which he based upon the fugue theme the king had +given him.</p> +<p>No other instance of musical heredity is comparable +with that afforded by the Bach family. Dr. Theodore +Baker, in his “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, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77' name='page_77'></a>77</span> +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.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78' name='page_78'></a>78</span> +<a name='III_FROM_FUGUE_TO_SONATA' id='III_FROM_FUGUE_TO_SONATA'></a> +<h2>III</h2> +<h3>FROM FUGUE TO SONATA</h3> +</div> +<p>If a pianoforte recital which begins with a Bach +fugue continues with a Beethoven sonata, it does +not require a very discriminating ear to note the +difference between the two. The Beethoven sonata is in +a style so entirely distinct from that of the fugue, and +sounds so wholly unlike it, that it seems as if Bach had +exerted no influence whatsoever upon the greatest master +of the period that followed his death. Although +Haydn and Mozart were nearer Bach in point of time +than Beethoven was, a sonata by either of them, if it +chanced to be on the program, would show the same +difference in style, the same radical departure from the +works of the master of counterpoint, as the Beethoven +sonata.</p> +<p>The question naturally suggests itself, did Bach’s +influence cease with his death? And the fact that this +question calls for an answer and that this answer leads +to a general consideration of the interim between Bach +and Beethoven, again shows how broad in its scope +as an instrument is the pianoforte and how comprehensive +in its application to music as a whole is the +music of that instrument. Two works on a recital +program furnish a legitimate basis for a discussion +of two important periods in the development of music! +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79' name='page_79'></a>79</span> +Who would have thought there was so much to a +pianoforte recital?</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“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.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80' name='page_80'></a>80</span> +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.</p> +<p>The greatness of Johann Sebastian Bach, on the technical +side at least, now is so universally acknowledged, +and professional musicians understand so well what +their art owes to him, we are apt to think of him as +the only musician of his day, whereas his significance +was but little appreciated by his contemporaries. +There were, in fact, other composers actively working +on other lines and turning music in the direction it was +destined to follow immediately after Bach’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.</p> +<p>The scheme of musical development which the reader +should bear in mind if he desires to understand music, +and to arrive at that understanding with some kind +of system in his progress, was briefly as follows:</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81' name='page_81'></a>81</span></div> +<h4>Three Periods of Musical Development.</h4> +<p>First we have counterpoint, the welding together +of several themes each of equal importance. This style +of composition culminated in Bach. Its most elaborate +form of expression was the fugue; but it also employed +the canon and impressed into its service certain minor +forms like the allemande, courant, chaçonne, gavotte, +saraband, gigue, and minuet.</p> +<p>Next, after Bach music began to develop according +to the harmonic system, or, if I may be permitted for +the sake of clarity to use an expression which technically +is incorrect, according to the melodic system. +That is, instead of combining several themes, composers +took one theme or melody and supported it +with an accompaniment so that the melody stood out +in clear relief. This first decided melodic development +covers the classical period, the period after Bach to +Beethoven, and its highest form of expression was the +sonata, which in the orchestra became the symphony.</p> +<p>The romantic period comes after Beethoven. This, +to characterize it by the readiest means, by something +external, something the eye can see, is the “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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82' name='page_82'></a>82</span> +written in certain moods, and their melody is developed +so as to follow and give full expression to the +mood in which it is conceived. New harmonies are +fearlessly invoked for the same purpose. Everything +centres in the idea that music exists not as an accessory +to form, but for the free expression of emotion. +In his useful and handy “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.</p> +<p>We still are and, happily, ever shall remain in the +romantic period. The greatest of all romanticists and, +up to the present time, the greatest of all composers is +Richard Wagner, whose genius will be appreciated +more and more as years go by until, as may be the +case, a still greater one will arise; although as dramatic +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83' name='page_83'></a>83</span> +literature culminated in Shakespeare, so music may +have found its greatest master for all time in Wagner. +Wagner, of course, was not a composer for the pianoforte, +but when he reached back and to the fuller harmony +inherited from Beethoven added the counterpoint +of Bach, thus combining the two great systems of composition, +he indicated the only method of progress possible +for music of all kinds.</p> +<h4>Rise of the Melodic School.</h4> +<p>It must not be supposed that the melodic school +which came in after Bach and which, so far as the +classical form of the sonata is concerned, culminated +in Beethoven, was the mushroom growth of a night. +So much has been said of Bach that a person unfamiliar +with the history of music might draw the erroneous +conclusion that Bach was the only composer worth +mentioning before the classical period and Germany +the only country in which music had flourished. On +the contrary, Bach was the climax of a school to which +several countries had each contributed its share, partly +vocal, partly instrumental. Palestrina’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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84' name='page_84'></a>84</span> +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.</p> +<p>Bach, however, brought the art of counterpoint to +perfection, so that, so far as it is concerned, he neither +required nor even so much as left room for a successor. +It may not be pertinent to the argument, yet it may +well be questioned whether, had the classical trio, +Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, endeavored to carry +on the contrapuntal school, they would not, in spite of +their genius, have relegated music to a more primitive +state than it occupied when Bach died. It seems a +fortunate circumstance to me that Bach’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.</p> +<p>Counterpoint is said to be polyphonic, a term composed +of two Greek words signifying many-voiced, the +combination in music of several parts or themes. Opposed +to it is homophonic, or single-voiced, music, in +which one melody or part is supported by an accompaniment. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85' name='page_85'></a>85</span> +Italy, with its genius for the sensuous and +emotional in music, already had developed a school of +melodic music, and to this Philipp Emanuel Bach turned +for a model. In Italy the pianoforte, through its employment +for the freer harmonic support of dramatic +solo singing in opera, an art form that is indigenous +to Italy, gradually had emancipated itself there from +counterpoint and acquired a style of its own. Girolamo +Frescobaldi (1583-1644), a famous Italian pianoforte +and organ virtuoso, whose first organ recital in +St. Peter’s, Rome, is said to have attracted an audience +of thirty thousand, and whose mantle fell upon his two +most renowned pupils, the German, Johann Jacob Froberger, +and the Italian, Bernardo Pasquini, not only experimented +with our modern keys, seeking to replace +with them the old ecclesiastical modes in which Palestrina +wrote, but also simplified the method of notation. +For even what seems to us so simple a matter as the +five-line staff is the result of slow evolution.</p> +<h4>Scarlatti’s Importance as Composer and Virtuoso.</h4> +<p>The Italian genius who gave the greatest impulse to +the progress of pianoforte music and who, for his day, +immensely improved the technique of pianoforte playing, +was Domenico Scarlatti (1683-1757), the famous +son of a famous father, Alessandro Scarlatti, the leading +dramatic composer of his time. Domenico Scarlatti +interests us especially because he is the only one +of the early Italians whose work retains an appreciable +foothold on modern recital programs. Von Bülow +edited selections from his works, and I recall from personal +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86' name='page_86'></a>86</span> +experience, because I was at the concert, the delight +with which some of these were received the first +time Von Bülow played them on his initial visit to this +country during the season of 1875-76. Amateurs on +the outlook for something new (even though it was +very old) took up Scarlatti, and this early Italian’s suddenly +acquired popularity was comparable with the +“run” on the Rachmaninoff “Prelude” when it was +played here by Siloti many years later.</p> +<p>Scarlatti has been called the founder of modern +pianoforte technique. Although he composed for the +harpsichord, he understood the instrument so thoroughly +and what he wrote for it accords so well with +its genius, that by unconscious anticipation it also was +adapted to the genius of the modern pianoforte. It +still is pianistic; more pianistic and more suitable to +the modern repertoire than a good deal of music by +greater men who lived considerably later. I should +say, for example, that Scarlatti’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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87' name='page_87'></a>87</span> +this is a movement in a sonata, and the characteristic +of his works as a whole is the fact that in most of them +he developed and worked out a melody or theme, and +that he established the fundamental outlines of the +sonata form.</p> +<p>Comparatively few laymen have more than a vague +idea of what is meant by sonata form. To them a +sonata simply is a composition consisting of several +movements, usually four, three of them of considerable +length, with a shorter one (a minuet or scherzo) between +the first and second or the second and fourth. +A sonata, however, must have one of its movements +(and generally it will be found to be the first) written +in a certain form. Regarding the Scarlatti sonatas, +suffice it to say here that with him the form still is in +its primitive simplicity. For example, the true sonata +movement as we now understand it employs two +themes, the second contrasting with the first. As a +rule, Scarlatti is content with one theme. It is the +peculiar merit of Philipp Emanuel Bach that he introduced +a second theme into his sonatas, or suggested it +by striking modulations when he employed only one +theme, and thus paved the way for its further elaboration +by Joseph Haydn. Mozart elaborated the form +still further, and then came Beethoven, with whom the +classical period reached its climax and whose sonatas +for all practical purposes have completely superseded +those of his forerunners.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88' name='page_88'></a>88</span></div> +<h4>Rise of the Amateur.</h4> +<p>Characteristic of the period of transition from Bach +to Beethoven, from the fugue to the sonata, was the +development of popular interest in music. Scarlatti +begins a brief introduction to a collection of thirty of +his pianoforte pieces which were published in 1746, by +addressing the “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 <i>Galanterie Parties</i> 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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89' name='page_89'></a>89</span> +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.</p> +<h4>Changes in Musical Taste.</h4> +<p>If I dismiss Philipp Emanuel Bach rather curtly and, +in this portion of the book at least, do the same with +Haydn and Mozart, this is not because I fail to appreciate +their importance in musical history, but because +they have failed to retain their hold on the modern +pianoforte repertoire. The simple fact is that the pianoforte +as an instrument has outgrown their music. We +can get more out of it than they gave it. If we bear +in mind that the pianoforte, as well as music itself, has +developed, it will aid us in understanding why so much +music, once considered far in advance of its time and +even revolutionary, has so soon become antiquated. +Why ignore facts? Some examples of primitive music +still survive because they charm us with their quaintness. +But the classical period is retiring more and +more into the shadow of history. Whatever importance +Haydn and Mozart may possess for the student, +their pianoforte music, so far as practical program-making +is concerned, is to-day a negligible quantity. +I remember the time when, as a pupil, I pored with +breathless interest over the pages of Mozart’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, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90' name='page_90'></a>90</span> +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.</p> +<p>Assuming that the modern pianoforte pupil is but +indifferently nourished on the Mozart pabulum, let +me add that this composer also was a virtuoso, and +by his choice of the pianoforte over the clavichord did +much toward making the modern instrument more +popular. He also developed the sonata form so that +Beethoven found it ready moulded for his genius. In +fact the sonata form as we know it is so much a Mozart +creation that Mr. Hanchett, in his “Art of the Musician,” +suggests calling the sonata movement proper a +mozarta—a suggestion which I presume will never be +adopted.</p> +<h4>Beethoven and the Epoch of the Sonata.</h4> +<p>In the history of music there are three figures that +easily tower above the rest. Each represents an era. +They are Bach, who stands for counterpoint, the epoch +of the fugue; Beethoven, who represents the epoch of +the sonata; Wagner, who represents the epoch of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91' name='page_91'></a>91</span> +music-drama. The first two summed up in themselves +certain art forms which others had originated. Bach’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.</p> +<p>Although Beethoven no longer is the all-dominant +figure in the musical world that he was fifty years ago, +and it requires a performance of the “Ninth Symphony” +given under specially significant circumstances +(such as the conducting of a Felix Weingartner) to attract +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92' name='page_92'></a>92</span> +as many to a concert hall as would be drawn by an +ordinary Wagner program, I trust I shall know how +to appreciate his importance to the development of musical +art and approach him with the reverence that is +his due. Like all great men who sum up an epoch, he +found certain things ready to hand. The Frenchman, +Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), “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.</p> +<h4>Beethoven’s Slow Development.</h4> +<p>I already have pointed out that while pianoforte and +orchestra have developed side by side, the general belief +that the pianoforte merely has been the handmaiden +of the orchestra is a mistaken one. On the contrary, +until the end of the classical period, at least, the pianoforte +was the pioneer. It has blazed the way for the +orchestra and led it, instead of bringing up the rear. +Thus the sonata form was developed by the pianoforte +and then was handed over by that instrument to the +orchestra under the name of symphony, which, the +reader should bear in mind, simply is a sonata written +for orchestra instead of for the pianoforte. Even Beethoven, +before he composed his first symphony, which +is his Opus 21, tested his mastery of the form and his +ideas regarding certain further developments in it, by +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93' name='page_93'></a>93</span> +first composing thirteen pianoforte sonatas, including +the familiar “Pathétique,” which used to be to concert +programs what Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2” +is now—the <i>cheval de battaille</i>, on which pianists +pranced up and down before the ranks of their astonished +audiences and unfortunate amateurs sought to +retain their equilibrium.</p> +<p>This experimentation, this comparatively slow development, +was characteristic of Beethoven; is, in fact, +characteristic of every genius who works from the soul +outward. “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.”</p> +<p>In writing sonatas Haydn and Mozart had been satisfied +with grace of outward form and a smooth and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94' name='page_94'></a>94</span> +pretty flow of melody within that form. Beethoven +was a man of intellectual force as well as of musical +genius. He applied his intellect to enlarging the sonata +form, his musical genius to supplying it with contents +worthy of the greater opportunities he himself had +created for it. There is a wonderful union of mind +and heart in Beethoven’s work. The sonata form, as +perfected by him, is a monument to his genius. It +remains to this day the flower of the classical period.</p> +<h4>The Passing of the Sonata.</h4> +<p>Nevertheless, the Beethoven sonatas no longer retain +the place of pre-eminence once accorded them on pianoforte +recital programs. When Von Bülow was in this +country during the season of 1875-76 he frequently +gave concerts at which he played only Beethoven +sonatas. I doubt if any of the great pianists of to-day +could now awaken as much public interest by such programs +as Von Bülow did. I remember the concert at +which, among others of the Beethoven sonatas, this virtuoso +played Opus 106 (“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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95' name='page_95'></a>95</span> +the sonata all over again. We considered the mishap +that gave us opportunity to hear him play so much of +the work twice, a piece of great good luck for us. +Would we so consider it now?</p> +<p>Von Bülow has passed into musical history as a great +Beethoven player, and such he undoubtedly was. I +doubt, however, if he was a greater Beethoven player +than several living pianists. Some seasons ago Eugène +d’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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96' name='page_96'></a>96</span></div> +<h4>Orchestral Instead of Pianistic.</h4> +<p>I am aware that Beethoven was a pianist of the first +rank and that within the limitations of the sonata form +he developed the capacity of the pianoforte. I also +have read Richard Strauss’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 <i>claviermässig</i> +(pianistic) in character; not sufficiently adapted to the +genius of the pianoforte as we know it to-day. It is +possible that for the times in which they were composed, +the sonatas of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven +were most pianistic. But as music has become more +and more an intimate phase of life, and as our most +intimate instrument, the instrument of the household, +is the pianoforte, we understand its capacity for the +intimate expression of moods and fancies, the lights +and shadows of life, as it never was understood before. +The modern lover of music, if I may judge his standpoint +from my own, feels that while the sonatas of +the masters I have named were written for the pianoforte, +they were thought out for orchestra, and that +even a Beethoven sonata is an engraving for pianoforte +of a symphony for orchestra. He composed nine symphonies +and thirty-two sonatas. If he had written his +nine symphonies for pianoforte, we would have had +nine more sonatas. If he had composed his sonatas +for orchestra, we would have had thirty-two more symphonies.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97' name='page_97'></a>97</span></div> +<p>This orchestral (as opposed to pianistic) character +of the Beethoven sonatas accounts for passages in +them so awkwardly written for the instrument that +they are difficult to master, and yet, when mastered, are +not effective in proportion to their difficulty. Between +enlarging the capacity of an instrument through the +problems you give the player to solve and writing passages +that are awkwardly conceived for it, and hence +ineffectual after they have been mastered, there is a +great difference. Chopin, Liszt and others pile Pelion +on Ossa in their technical requirements of the pianist; +but when he has surmounted them, he has climbed a +mountain, and from its peak may watch the world at +his feet. I think the orchestral character of much that +Beethoven wrote for the pianoforte partly accounts for +the fact that his sonatas no longer attract the great virtuosos +as they formerly did and that the public no +longer regards them as the final test of a pianist’s rank.</p> +<p>I speak so unreservedly because I have lived through +the change of taste myself. By way of personal explanation +I may be permitted to say, that while I am +not a professional musician, music was so much a +part of my life that I studied the pianoforte almost +as assiduously as if I had intended becoming a +public player, and that I was proficient enough to +meet once a week with the first violinist and the first +violoncellist of the New York Philharmonic Society +for the practice of chamber music. If there is any one +who should worship at the shrine of the sonata form, +and especially at that of the Beethoven sonatas, it should +be myself, for I was brought up on the form and those +sonatas were my daily bread. When I went to the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98' name='page_98'></a>98</span> +Von Bülow Beethoven recitals it was with book in hand, +to follow what he played note for note for purposes of +study and assimilation. Those were years when, in +the hours during which one seeks communion with +one’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.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, the sonata has had a great part to play +in the history and development of music and has played +it nobly, and we must no more forget this than we +should allow present-day hero worship to supplant the +memory of the heroes who went before. The sonata is +the firm and solid bridge over which music passed from +the contrapuntal period to the romantic, and doubtless +there still are some who prefer to linger on the bridge +rather than cross it to the promised land to which it +leads. Always there are conservatives who stand still +and look back; and that these still should let their eyes +rest longingly on the great master of the classical +epoch, Beethoven, is, to say the least, comprehensible. +One would have to be unresponsive indeed not to be +thrilled by the story of his life—his force of character, +his rugged personality, his determination in spite of +one of the greatest misfortunes that could befall a +musician, deafness; and the intellectual power which +he displayed in bending a seemingly rigid art form to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99' name='page_99'></a>99</span> +his will and making it the receptacle of his inspiration.</p> +<p>Well may these considerations be borne in mind +whenever a Beethoven sonata is on a pianoforte recital +program. If it does not move us as profoundly +as music more modern does, that is not because its +composer was less deeply concerned with the problems +of life than those who have come after him. For his +time he was wonderfully “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.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100' name='page_100'></a>100</span> +<a name='IV_DAWN_OF_THE_ROMANTIC_PERIOD' id='IV_DAWN_OF_THE_ROMANTIC_PERIOD'></a> +<h2>IV</h2> +<h3>DAWN OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD</h3> +</div> +<p>All art begins with a groping after form, then attains +form, and then emancipates itself from too +great insistence upon rigidity of form without, +however, reverting to its early formless condition. It +was absolutely necessary to the establishment of music +as an art that at some period or periods in its development +it should “pull itself together” and focus itself +in certain forms, and adhere to them somewhat rigidly +and somewhat tenaciously until they had been perfected.</p> +<p>Without saying so in as many words, I have sought, +in speaking of the sonata, to let the modern lover of +music know that if he does not like sonatas he need +not be ashamed of that fact. A few minutes ago and +before writing this sentence, I left my desk and going +to the pianoforte, played through Beethoven’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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101' name='page_101'></a>101</span> +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.</p> +<h4>What a Sonata Is.</h4> +<p>The sonata form (that is to say, the movement from +which the sonata derives its name) consists of three +main divisions and can easily be studied by securing the +Bülow and Lebert edition of the Beethoven sonatas in +Schirmer’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.</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102' name='page_102'></a>102</span> +a restatement of the first, excepting that the second +theme, instead of being in a related key, is, like the +main theme, in the tonic.</p> +<h4>How Beethoven Enlarged the Form.</h4> +<p>This is the form of the sonata movement which was +handed down to Beethoven by Haydn and Mozart. It +very soon became apparent that the greatest genius of +the classical period found it too limited for his inspiration. +In his third sonata (Opus 2, No. 3) he makes +several innovations that, for their day, are most daring. +Following the first episode after the main theme, +he introduces a second episode with which he leads +into the second theme. Then using a variant of the +first episode as a connection he leads over to a third, +a closing theme. In fact, the material of the second +episode is so thematic that I see no reason why he +should not be said to use four themes in the exposition +instead of the customary two. In the free fantasia +he insistently reiterates the main theme, practically ignoring +the others, thus familiarizing the listener with +it and making it as welcome as an old friend when the +third division ushers it in again.</p> +<p>Instead of closing the movement at the end of the +usual third division, as his predecessors, Haydn and +Mozart, did, Beethoven introduces what is one of the +most important innovations grafted by him upon the +sonata form—a coda with a cadenza. I can imagine +that this movement made his contemporaries look +dubious and shake their heads. It must have seemed +to them originality strained to the point of eccentricity +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103' name='page_103'></a>103</span> +and more bizarre than effective. As we look back upon +it, after this long lapse of time, it must be reckoned +a most brilliant achievement in the direction of freer +form, and from this point of view—please bear in mind +the reservation—its creator not only never surpassed +it, but frequently fell behind it.</p> +<p>One of the movements of this sonata is a scherzo. +Beethoven is the creator of this style of movement. +It is much less formal than the minuet which Haydn +introduced into the sonata. This especial scherzo has +a trio which in the broad sweep of its arpeggios is as +modern sounding as anything Beethoven wrote for +the pianoforte.</p> +<h4>His “Moonlight Sonata.”</h4> +<p>There are other sonatas by Beethoven that indicate +efforts on his part to be less trammeled by considerations +of form. Regard as an example the “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, “<i>une +fleur entre deux abîmes</i>” (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 “<i>attacca subito il sequente</i>,” indicating +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104' name='page_104'></a>104</span> +that the following movement is to be attacked +at once and denoting an inner relationship, a psychological +connection between the three movements. Throughout +the work the themes are of extraordinary beauty +and expressiveness even for a Beethoven and the whole +is a genuine drama of human life and experience. This +impression is produced not only by the very evident +psychological connection between the movements, but +by the manner in which the composer holds on to his +themes, developing them through bar after bar as if +he himself appreciated their beauty and were reluctant +to let go of them and introduce new material. The entire +first movement, practically a song without words +of the most exquisite poignancy, is built on a single +motive with a brief episode which is more like an improvisation +than a set part of a movement; while the +last movement consists of four eloquent themes with +only the merest suggestion of connecting episodes. +The working out in the last movement is almost +wholly a persistent iteration of the second theme. +This persistent dwelling upon theme and the +psychological relation between the different movements +make this “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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105' name='page_105'></a>105</span> +of it, that the great virtuosos shun it, very much +as they shun the sixth Chopin waltz (Mme. Dudevant’s +dog chasing its own tail), because it is played by every +pianoforte pupil of every girls’ boarding school everywhere.</p> +<h4>Striving for Freedom.</h4> +<p>In addition to what I have said of this sonata, it +was an immense gain for greater freedom of form, and +it is to be regretted that it is a more or less isolated +instance and that Beethoven did not adopt it as a standard +in shaping his remaining sonatas. Its most valuable +attribute from the modern point of view is a characteristic +to which I already have called attention several +times—the fact that its several movements stand +in psychological relation to one another; that there is +such real soul or temperamental connection between +them, that it would be doing actual violence to the work +as a whole if any one movement were to be played without +the others or if their sequence were to be inverted.</p> +<p>But, you may ask, is there not in all sonatas this +psychological inter-relationship of the several movements? +Have we not been told again and again that +there is?</p> +<p>Undoubtedly you, and others who have been misinformed +by enthusiasts who are unable to hear music +in anything that has been composed since Beethoven, +have been told so. But the sonata, with a few exceptions +like the “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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106' name='page_106'></a>106</span> +whatsoever, and to talk of there being such a +thing is nonsense. I believe the time will come when +virtuosos will not hesitate to lift single movements out +of the Beethoven sonatas and place them on their programs +and that there will be a sigh of relief from the +public because it can hear a movement that still sounds +fresh and modern without being obliged to listen to +two or three others that do not. Heresy? Maybe. +Galileo was accounted a heretic—yet the world moves +and the musical world with it.</p> +<h4>The Beethoven Periods.</h4> +<p>Beethoven was an intellectual as well as a musical +giant. He thought before he wrought. The division +of his activity into three periods, in each of which he +is supposed to have progressed further along the road +of originality and greatness, is generally accepted. +Nevertheless, it is an arbitrary one, especially as +regards the pianoforte sonatas, since it has been +seen that the first movement of one of his +earliest works, the third sonata (Opus 2, No. +3), is one of his most original contributions +to music, and one of the most strikingly developed +movements in sonata form that he has given us. The +period division which assigns this sonata as well as the +“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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107' name='page_107'></a>107</span> +Opus 101, which seems to me too early.) Because here +a restless spirit seems to be brooding over his work, it +is thought by some that his mind and heart were +warped by his misfortunes—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.</p> +<p>Because, however, Beethoven wrote thirty-two pianoforte +sonatas and because he was for many years the +all-dominating figure in the musical world, every great +composer who came after him and composed for the +pianoforte experimented with the sonata form, and +always, be it noted, with less success and less importance +to the real progress of music toward freedom +of expression than when he followed his own inner impulse +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108' name='page_108'></a>108</span> +and wrote the mood pieces, the “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.</p> +<h4>Sonatas Now Old-fashioned.</h4> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109' name='page_109'></a>109</span> +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.</p> +<p>Unless otherwise specifically mentioned I have, in +speaking of the sonata form, referred to it in connection +with the pianoforte. But it also is the form employed +for the symphony (which simply is a sonata +for orchestra); for pianoforte trios, quartets and quintets; +for string quartets and other branches of +chamber music (which are sonatas written for the combination +of instruments mentioned and such others +as are employed in chamber music), and for concertos +(which are sonatas for the combination of a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110' name='page_110'></a>110</span> +solo instrument like the pianoforte, violin or violoncello, +with orchestra). In these branches the sonata +form has held its own more successfully than on the +pianoforte, and for several extraneous reasons. In the +symphony it is due largely to the greater variety that +can be achieved through orchestral coloring; in chamber +music largely to the somewhat super-refined and +timorous taste of its devotees which would regard any +startling innovation as highly indecorous; and in the +concerto to the fact that a soloist who appears at an +orchestral concert is supposed to play a concerto simply +because the orchestra is there to play it with him, although +he, as well as the audience, probably would find +a group of solos far more effective. In fact I think +that much of the applause which usually follows a great +pianist’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.</p> +<h4>The First Romantic Composers.</h4> +<p>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, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111' name='page_111'></a>111</span> +even while Beethoven was creating those works which +are the glory of the classical period, two of his contemporaries, +Carl Maria von Weber, who died one year +before him, and Franz Schubert, who survived him +by only a year, were writing music which was destined +to turn the art into new channels. Weber (1786-1826) +is indeed regarded as the founder of the romantic +school through his opera “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.</p> +<h4>Schubert’s Pianoforte Music.</h4> +<p>Schubert was not a virtuoso and passed his life almost +in obscurity, but we now recognize that, although +he lived but thirty-one years, few composers wrought +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112' name='page_112'></a>112</span> +more lastingly than he. Of course, the proper place for +an estimate of his genius is in the chapter on song, but +as a pianoforte composer he is, even to this day, making +his influence more and more felt. Living in Vienna, +Beethoven’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, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113' name='page_113'></a>113</span> +but instead of these postulates of formality, +melody fully developed and wrought out by one who +reveled in it and was willing that his hearers should +revel in it as well. To distinguish between the classicists +and this early romantic composer, whose work survives +in all its freshness and beauty to this day, it may be +said that their music was thematic—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.</p> +<p>Naturally, the sonatas from his pen are more set. +Nevertheless, so long as it seems that we must have +sonatas on our recital programs, the neglect of those +by Schubert is shameful. I am willing to stake his +sonata No. 5, in A minor, against any sonata ever written, +and from several of the sonatas single movements +can be detached which I should think any pianist would +be glad to add to his repertoire. Among these is the +lithesome scherzo from the sonata No. 10, in B flat +major, and the beautiful slow movement (Andante sostenuto) +from the same work.</p> +<p>Schubert also wrote many valuable pianoforte duets, +among them several sets of marches and polonaises and +an elaborate and stirring “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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114' name='page_114'></a>114</span> +composed as a protest against the sonata form, but +spontaneously and without a thought on Schubert’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.</p> +<h4>Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without Words.”</h4> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115' name='page_115'></a>115</span> +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.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116' name='page_116'></a>116</span> +<a name='V_CHOPIN_THE_POET_OF_THE_PIANOFORTE' id='V_CHOPIN_THE_POET_OF_THE_PIANOFORTE'></a> +<h2>V</h2> +<h3>CHOPIN, THE POET OF THE PIANOFORTE</h3> +</div> +<p>I must ask the reader still to imagine that he is +at a pianoforte recital, although I frankly admit +that I have been guilty of many digressions, so +that it must appear to him as if he had been whisked +from Mendelssohn Hall up to Carnegie Hall, then +down to the Metropolitan Opera House and back to +Mendelssohn Hall again. This, however, as I have +sought to make clear before, is due to the universality +of the pianoforte as an instrument and to the comprehensiveness +of pianoforte music, which in itself illustrates +in great part the development of the art.</p> +<p>At this point, then, of our imaginary pianoforte recital +there is likely to be a group of compositions by +Chopin; and the larger the group, or the more groups +by this composer on the program, the better satisfied +the audience is apt to be. Baker calls Frédéric Chopin +(1810-1849) the “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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117' name='page_117'></a>117</span> +this day in orchestra, opera and music-drama as well +as in pianoforte music. For he was an innovator in +form, an intrepid adventurer in harmony and a sublime +singer of melody.</p> +<h4>Tempo Rubato.</h4> +<p>Before the pianist whose recital we are supposed to +be attending will have played many bars of the first +piece in the Chopin group, the individuality of this +composer will become apparent. Melody will pervade +the recital hall like the fragrance of flowers. At the +same time there will be an iridescence not noticeable +in any of the music that preceded Chopin, and produced +as if by cascades of jewels—those remarkable ornamental +notes which yet are not ornamental, but, in +spite of all their light and shade, and their play of +changeable colors, part of the great undercurrent +of melody itself. Here we have then, nearly at the +very outset of the first Chopin piece, the famous <i>tempo +rubato</i>, so-called, which has been explained in various +ways, but which with Chopin really means that while +the rhythm goes calmly on with one hand, the other +weaves a veil of iridescent notes around the melodic +idea. Liszt expressed it exactly when he said: “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 <i>tempo +rubato</i> is like a shower of petals from a tree in full +bloom; the firm outline of the tree, its foliage are there, +while we see the delicately tinted blossoms falling from +the branches and filling the air with color and fragrance; +or like the myriad shafts from the facets of a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118' name='page_118'></a>118</span> +jewel, piercing in all directions while the jewel itself +remains immovable, the centre of its own rays; or like +the crisp ripple on a river, while the stream itself flows +on in majesty; or, in one or two passages when Chopin +becomes a cynic, like the twaddle of critics while the +person they criticise calmly goes about his mission.</p> +<h4>The Soul of the Pianoforte.</h4> +<p>What you will notice about these compositions of +Chopin—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!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119' name='page_119'></a>119</span> +Yet Chopin is as sonorous, as passionate, as +pleading, as melancholy and as rich in effect, although +he is played only on the black and white keys of the +pianoforte, as if he were given forth by a hundred +instrumentalists, so thoroughly did he understand the +instrument for which he wrote. He was the Wagner +of the pianoforte.</p> +<h4>A Clear Melodic Line.</h4> +<p>What you will notice, too, about his music is the general +distinctness of his melody. There may be times, +as in some of his arabesque compositions, like the “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 +<i>tempo rubato</i> notes which glitter like a veil of mist in +the sunlight and yet, although a veil, allow you to see +what is beneath it, like a delicate fabric which seems +rather to emphasize and reveal the very things it is +intended to conceal.</p> +<p>Chopin was a Pole. He had the melancholy of his +race, but also its <i>verve</i>. Profoundly affected by his +country’s sorrow, he also had its haughty spirit. In +Paris, where he spent the most significant years of his +life, he was surrounded by the aristocracy of his own +country who were in exile, and by the aristocracy of +the arts. Liszt speaks of an evening at his salon where +he met, besides some of the Polish aristocrats, people +like Heinrich Heine, Meyerbeer, Delacroix, Nourrit, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120' name='page_120'></a>120</span> +the tenor, and Bellini. Chopin admired Bellini’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 <i>tempo +rubato</i>.</p> +<p>It was Liszt, afterward the first to recognize Wagner, +who was the first to recognize Chopin. It was +Liszt also who introduced him to George Sand (Mme. +Dudevant), the great passion of his life. Chopin was +the friend of many women. They adored his poetic +nature, and there is much in his music that is effeminate, +delicate and sensitive; but altogether too much +has been made of this side of his art, and of certain +morbid pieces like some of the Nocturnes. The affair +with George Sand was not only a passion, but was a +tragedy, and like all such tragedies it left on his music +the imprint of something deeper and greater than mere +delicacy and morbidity. Then, too, we have to count +with his patriotism and his sympathy with his struggling +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121' name='page_121'></a>121</span> +country, and there is much more of the virile +and heroic in his music than either the average virtuoso +or the average listener allows for.</p> +<h4>The Études.</h4> +<p>These contrasts in his music can readily be recognized +when a great pianist makes up the Chopin group +on his program from the Études, which are among +the greatest compositions of all times, whether we consider +them as pianoforte music or as music in general. +They touch the soul in many places, and in many and +varied ways, and they reflect the alternate delicacy and +daintiness of his genius as well as its vigor and nobility. +Suppose, for the sake of a brilliant beginning, the +virtuoso chooses to start off with the fifth, the so-called +“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 <i>vivace</i>, the style in +which it is to be played is indicated by the direction +<i>brillante</i>.</p> +<p>If the pianist continues with the third Étude, we +shall hear one of the most tender and beautiful melodies +that Chopin ever composed. Let him follow this with +number thirteen, the one in A flat major, and we are +reminded of what Schumann said, in his review of +this book of Études, in which he speaks of the A flat +major as “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, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122' name='page_122'></a>122</span> +yet in such a way as to leave everywhere audible a deep +fundamental tone and a soft continuously singing +upper voice.”</p> +<p>Schumann heard Chopin himself play this Étude, and +he says that whoever will play it in the way described +will get the correct idea of Chopin’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.”</p> +<h4>Vigor, Passion, and Impetus.</h4> +<p>If now the pianist wishes to show by contrast Chopin +in his full vigor, passionate and impetuous, let him +take the great C Minor Étude, the twelfth, <i>Allegro +con fuoco</i>. “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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123' name='page_123'></a>123</span> +quote again from Huneker, that “all sweeps along in +tornadic passion.”</p> +<p>A pianist hardly can go amiss in making his selection +from the twenty-seven Études, for the contrasts +which he can effect are obvious, and there is among +these compositions not one which has not its special +merits. There is the tenth, of which Von Bülow said +whoever could play it in a really finished manner might +congratulate himself on having climbed to the highest +point of the pianist’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.</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124' name='page_124'></a>124</span> +the orchestra, but remains pianoforte music in the strictest +sense of the word. “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.</p> +<h4>The Préludes.</h4> +<p>I have gone into some detail regarding these Études +because I regard them, as a whole, among the greatest +of Chopin’s works. But I once heard Rubinstein play +the entire set of twenty-four Préludes, and I sometimes +wonder, as one often does with the compositions of a +great genius, whether these Préludes, in spite of their +comparative brevity, should not be ranked as high as +anything Chopin ever wrote. According to tradition, +they were composed during the winter of 1838, which +Chopin spent with George Sand at Majorca in the +Balearic Islands. But there is authority for saying +that they received only the finishing touches there, and +are in fact the gleanings of his portfolios.</p> +<p>It seems as if in these twenty-four pieces every phase +of human emotion were brought out. If my memory +is correct, Rubinstein played them as a solo group at +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125' name='page_125'></a>125</span> +a Philharmonic concert, or he may have given them +about the same time at one of his recitals. It was in +1872; and while after this long lapse of time it is +impossible to remember every detail of his performance, +I shall never forget the exquisite tenderness with +which he played the very brief Prélude in A major, +the seventh. He simply caressed the keyboard, touched +it as if his fingers were tipped with velvet; and though +into the other compositions of the series he put, according +as their character varied, an immense amount +of passion, or more subdued emotion, I can still hear +this seventh Prélude sounding in my memory, note +for note and bar for bar, as he rendered it—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.”</p> +<p>Each number in the series is complete in itself, a +mood picture; but the series as a whole, in its collection +of moods, its panorama of emotions, represents +the entire range of Chopin’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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126' name='page_126'></a>126</span> +all the others. What a group for a recital these +twenty-four Préludes make!</p> +<h4>Nocturnes.</h4> +<p>If Chopin had not written the Nocturnes I doubt if +those who play and those who comment on him would +err so often in attributing such an excess of morbidness +to him as they do, or lay the charge of effeminacy +against him. Morbid these Nocturnes undoubtedly +are in many parts, and yet they often rise to the +dignity of elegy, and sometimes even of tragedy. Exquisitely +melodious they are, too, and full of the +haunting mystery of night. The one in C sharp minor, +Opus 27, No. 1, is perhaps the most dramatic of the +series, and Henry T. Finck, in his Chopin essay, is +entirely within bounds when he says that it embodies +a greater variety of emotion and more genuine dramatic +spirit on four pages than many operas on four +hundred. There are greater nocturnes than the one +in G, Opus 37, No. 2, but I must nevertheless regard +it as the most beautiful of all. It may bewitch and +unman the player, as Niecks has said, but, on the +other hand, I think its second melody, like a Venetian +barcarolle breathed through the moonlight, is the +most exquisite thing Chopin ever composed; and note +how, without any undulating accompaniment, its +rhythm nevertheless produces a gentle wavy effect.</p> +<p>Probably the most familiar of all the Nocturnes is +the one in E flat, the second in the first set, Opus 9. +It has been played so much that unless it is interpreted +in a perfect manner it comes perilously near to being +hackneyed; but under the hands of a great pianist, who +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127' name='page_127'></a>127</span> +unites with absolute independence of all his ten fingers, +the soul of a poet, it becomes an iridescent play of +color, with a sombre picture of melancholy seen through +the iridescence. Remenyi played a violin arrangement +of it with such delicacy and so much poetry of +feeling that he actually reconciled one to its transfer +from the pianoforte to the soprano instrument of four +strings.</p> +<h4>Chopin and Poe.</h4> +<p>John Field, an Irish composer (1782-1837), was +the first to compose nocturnes, and it is not unlikely +that Chopin got the pattern from him. Occasionally +at historical recitals one hears a nocturne by John +Field; but I think that if even those who love to question +the originality of great men were familiar with +the nocturnes of Field, they would realize how far +Chopin went beyond him, making out of a small type +an art form of such poetic content that, in spite of +Field having been first in the lists, Chopin may be +said to have originated the form. Naturally, Field did +not relish seeing himself supplanted by this greater +genius, and he said of Chopin that he composed music +for a sick-room, and had “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?</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128' name='page_128'></a>128</span></div> +<h4>Waltzes and Mazurkas.</h4> +<p>A Chopin waltz will admirably afford contrast in a +group of Chopin pieces on a recital program. Possibly +the waltzes are the most frequently played by +amateurs of all Chopin’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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129' name='page_129'></a>129</span> +passage and form gems of harmonization. But few +pianists seem to appreciate their significance and pay +sole attention to bringing out the upper voice.</p> +<p>Thoroughly characteristic of Chopin, thoroughly in +keeping with his Polish nationality and its traditions, +are the Mazurkas—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.”</p> +<h4>Liszt on the Mazurkas.</h4> +<p>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.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130' name='page_130'></a>130</span> +All this is very fine, although a trifle over-sentimental. +The fact is that the Chopin Mazurkas are archly coquettish, +passionately pleading, full of delicate banter, +love, despair and conquest—and always thoroughly +original and thoroughly interesting. In fact Chopin +never is commonplace. A Mazurka or two will add +zest to any group of his works on a recital program.</p> +<p>The Polonaises are Chopin’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.</p> +<h4>Other Works.</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131' name='page_131'></a>131</span> +Beethoven pianoforte sonatas. By no means did +he adhere to the classical form; yet these three sonatas +are not to be counted among his most successful compositions. +One of them, the B flat minor, contains the +familiar funeral march which has been said to “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.”</p> +<p>This funeral march is followed in the sonata by +a finale which aptly enough has been described as +night winds sweeping over graves. The funeral march +often is played at recitals as a detached piece. I cannot +see why pianists do not add this finale, which has real +psychological connection with it. The “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 +<i>chiaroscuro</i>, and the great F minor “Fantaisie.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132' name='page_132'></a>132</span></div> +<h4>A Noble from Head to Foot.</h4> +<p>Because Chopin wrote only for the pianoforte, because +as a rule his pieces are not long, his greatness +was not at first recognized. The conservatives seemed +to think no man could be great unless he wrote sonatas +in four movements for the piano and symphonies for the +orchestra, unless he composed for fifty or sixty instruments +instead of for only one. But although Jumbo +was large, he was not accounted beautiful, and worship +of the big is a mistaken kind of reverence. Chopin’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.”</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133' name='page_133'></a>133</span> +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?</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134' name='page_134'></a>134</span> +<a name='VI_SCHUMANN_THE_INTIMATE' id='VI_SCHUMANN_THE_INTIMATE'></a> +<h2>VI</h2> +<h3>SCHUMANN, THE “INTIMATE”</h3> +</div> +<p>Having finished with his Chopin group, the +pianist is apt to follow it with his Schumann +selections, and we meet with another original +musical genius. Robert Schumann was born at +Zwickau in June, 1810. His father was a book publisher +and was in hopes that the son would show literary +aptitude. In fact, the elder Schumann discouraged +Robert’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.</p> +<p>His meeting with the celebrated pianoforte teacher, +Frederick Wieck, the Leschetitzki of his day, determined +Schumann to enter upon a musical career. Wieck took +him into his home in Leipzig and he studied the pianoforte +with a view of becoming a virtuoso. In order +to gain greater freedom in fingering, he devised a +mechanical apparatus by which one finger was suspended +in a sling while the others played upon the keyboard. +Unfortunately, through the use of this contrivance +he strained the tendons of one hand and his +dream of a virtuoso’s career vanished. Meanwhile he +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135' name='page_135'></a>135</span> +had fallen in love with his teacher’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.</p> +<p>These circumstances in his life are mentioned here +not only because of their interest, but because they +explain some aspects of his music. Schumann was +of a brooding disposition, intensely introspective. Compared +with Chopin, his music lacks iridescence and +shows a want of brilliancy. This will be immediately +apparent if at a recital a pianist places the Schumann +pieces after a Chopin group, as he is apt to do for the +sake of the very contrast which they afford. But if +Schumann’s compositions are wanting in superficially +attractive brightness, they more than make up for it in +their profounder characteristics. All through them +one seems to hear a deep-sounding tone. One might +say that his works for the keyboard instrument are +pianoforte music for the viola, and for that reason they +appear to me so expressive and so appealing. The +harmonies are wonderfully compact. One feels after +striking a Schumann chord like stiffening the fingers +in order to hold it down more firmly, keep a grip on +it, and let it sound to its last echo.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136' name='page_136'></a>136</span></div> +<h4>Poet, Bourgeois, and Philosopher.</h4> +<p>In Schumann’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 <i>sui generis</i>, 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.</p> +<p>Schumann made valuable contributions to so-called +program music. His pieces, besides intrinsic musical +worth, have a distinct meaning, usually indicated by the +titles he gives them. And these titles themselves often +are suggested by the works of authors whom he admired, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137' name='page_137'></a>137</span> +or hark back to certain fanciful figures like +harlequins and columbines. His second work for the +pianoforte, “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.”</p> +<p>Schumann himself said, in a general way, regarding +his programmatic intentions in this and other works, +that the titles given to his music should be taken very +much like the titles of poems, and that, as in the case +of poems, the music in itself should be beautiful, irrespective +of title or printed explanation. This is true of +all program music that has survived. It will be found +beautiful in itself; but it also is easy to discover that the +titles and explanations which are calculated to place +the hearer in certain receptive moods vastly add to his +enjoyment.</p> +<h4>“Carnaval” and “Kreisleriana.”</h4> +<p>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 <i>en suite</i>, giving a separate name +to each of his diversions yet uniting them into one +composition by means of a comprehensive title. The +complete title to this work is “Carnaval Scènes +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138' name='page_138'></a>138</span> +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,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Grandfather wedded my grandmother dear,<br /> +So grandfather then was a bridegroom, I fear,”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The title of another work which ranks among his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139' name='page_139'></a>139</span> +finest productions, the “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 +<i>Kreisler</i> 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 <i>Kater Murr</i> +(literally <i>Tomcat Purr</i>). 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.</p> +<h4>Thoughts of His Clara.</h4> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140' name='page_140'></a>140</span> +you will smile when you find yourself in them! My music +seems to me so wonderfully interwoven, in spite of +all its simplicity, and speaking right from the heart. It +has that effect upon all for whom I play these things, +as I now do gladly and often.” If Clara and a thought +of Clara play the chief rôle, what becomes of <i>Kreisler</i> +and <i>Kater Murr</i>? Surely “Kreisleriana” are Schumanniana.</p> +<p>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” +(<i>Abends</i>), with its sense of perfect peace; the buoyant +“Soaring” (<i>Aufschwung</i>); “Whims” (<i>Grillen</i>); +“Night Scene,” an echo of the legend of Hero and +Leander; the fable, “Dream-Whirls” (<i>Traumeswirren</i>) +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 <a name='TC_2'></a><ins class="trchange" title="Was 'Traümerei'">“Träumerei”</ins>; +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:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Through every tone there passes,<br /> +To him who deigns to list,<br /> +In varied earthly dreaming,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>A tone of gentleness.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141' name='page_141'></a>141</span></div> +<p>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!</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142' name='page_142'></a>142</span> +<a name='VII_LISZT_THE_GIANT_AMONG_VIRTUOSOS' id='VII_LISZT_THE_GIANT_AMONG_VIRTUOSOS'></a> +<h2>VII</h2> +<h3>LISZT, THE GIANT AMONG VIRTUOSOS</h3> +</div> +<p>It is possible, but not likely, that some pianist willing, +for the moment at least, to sacrifice outward +success to inward satisfaction, will, after he has +played the Schumann selections on his program, essay +one of Brahms’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.”</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143' name='page_143'></a>143</span> +is among the finest modern works of its kind; or some +of the neo-Russians, are composers who may figure +on the program of a modern pianoforte recital. But it +is more likely that the virtuoso will here elect to bring +his recital to a close with some work by the grandest +figure in the history of pianoforte playing and one of +the greatest in the history of composition—Franz +Liszt.</p> +<h4>Kissed by Beethoven.</h4> +<p>Liszt was born at Raiding, near Odenburg in Hungary, +in October, 1811, and he died in Bayreuth in +July, 1886. From early boyhood, when he was a +pianoforte prodigy, almost until his death, he occupied +a unique position in the musical world. He was the +Paganini of the pianoforte, the greatest pianist that +ever lived, and he was a great composer; and although, +as a virtuoso, he retired from public performances long +before he died, his fame as a player and his still greater +fame as a composer have not diminished and his influence +still is potent.</p> +<p>His father was an amateur, and began giving him +instruction when he was six years old. The boy’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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144' name='page_144'></a>144</span> +took pianoforte lessons from Czerny and theory with +Salieri. Beethoven heard of him, and asked to see +him, and at their meeting, after Franz had played, without +notes and without the other instruments, Beethoven’s +pianoforte trio, Op. 97 (the large one in B +flat major), the great master embraced and kissed him. +In 1823 he was taken to Paris with a view to being +placed in the Conservatoire. But although he passed +his examination without difficulty, Cherubini, at that +time the director of the institution and prejudiced +against infant phenomena, revived a rule excluding foreigners +and admission was denied him.</p> +<p>His success as a pianist, however, was enormous and +there was the greatest demand in salons and musical +circles for “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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145' name='page_145'></a>145</span></div> +<h4>Episode with Countess D’Agoult.</h4> +<p>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. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146' name='page_146'></a>146</span> +Thereafter he divided his year between Rome, Buda-Pest, +where he had been made President of the new +Hungarian Academy of Music, and Weimar.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Liszt’s compositions for the pianoforte may be classified +as follows: “Fantasies Dramatiques”; “Années de +Pèlerinage”; “Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses”; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147' name='page_147'></a>147</span> +the Sonata, Concertos, Études, and miscellaneous +works; “Rhapsodies Hongroises”; arrangements and +transcriptions from Berlioz, Beethoven, Weber, Paganini, +Schubert and others.</p> +<h4>The Don Juan Fantasie.</h4> +<p>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 <i>tours de +force</i> 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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148' name='page_148'></a>148</span> +that any virtuoso worthy of the name as used in +a modern sense, can compass it.</p> +<p>A work called the “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.”</p> +<p>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,” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149' name='page_149'></a>149</span> +which, as Edward Dannreuther says, may be +taken as corollaries to the “Harmonies,” are tenderly +expressive pianoforte pieces.</p> +<h4>Giant Strides in Virtuosity.</h4> +<p>The Études bear the dates 1827, 1839 and 1852, and +as they are in the main progressive editions of the +same pieces, they represent the history of pianoforte +technique as it developed under Liszt’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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150' name='page_150'></a>150</span> +one of the Paganini concertos, this piece, for example, +now is far better known as a pianoforte composition +than in its original form for violin.</p> +<h4>Sonata, Concertos and Rhapsodies.</h4> +<p>The “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.</p> +<p>The two pianoforte concertos (in E flat and A +major) are superb works. Not only are they written +with all the skill which Liszt knew so well how to +apply when composing for the instrument, but with this +technical perfection they also unite thought and feeling. +Like the sonata, they show throughout their development +the psychological unity which is so essentially +modern. What the pianoforte owes to Chopin +and Liszt can be summed up by saying that they were +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151' name='page_151'></a>151</span> +poets and thinkers who took the trouble to thoroughly +understand the instrument. Because their music sounds +so well on it, at least one of them, Liszt, frequently is +stigmatized as a trickster of virtuosity and a charlatan, +as if there were some wonderful mark of genius in +writing something for one instrument that sounds better +on another or may not sound as well as it ought +to on any. If Liszt’s pianoforte music is grateful to +the player and equally grateful to the listener, it is +not only because he knew how to write for the pianoforte, +but because, with deep thoughts and poetic feelings, +he also understood how to express them clearly +and pianistically.</p> +<p>The “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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152' name='page_152'></a>152</span> +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?</p> +<h4>How Liszt Played.</h4> +<p>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 <i>Erscheinung</i>, 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.”</p> +<p>Edward Dannreuther, who heard Liszt play from +1863 onward, says that there was about his playing an +air of improvisation and the expression of a grand and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153' name='page_153'></a>153</span> +fine personality, perfect self-possession, grace, dignity +and never-failing fire; that his tone was large and penetrating, +but not hard, every effect being produced naturally +and easily. Dannreuther adds that he has heard +performances, it may be of the same pieces, by younger +men, such as Rubinstein and Tausig, but that they left +an impression as of Liszt at second-hand or of Liszt +past his prime. “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.”</p> +<p>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, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154' name='page_154'></a>154</span> +something which may some day provide a worthy +witness of the labor and study of my youth.”</p> +<p>Bear in mind that Liszt played for Beethoven, that +he was a contemporary of Chopin and Schumann, that +he was one of the first to throw himself heart and soul +into the Wagner movement, and that death came to +him while he was attending the festival performances +at Bayreuth; bear in mind, I repeat, that he played for +Beethoven and died at “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.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155' name='page_155'></a>155</span> +<a name='VIII_WITH_PADEREWSKIA_MODERN_PIANIST_ON_TOUR' id='VIII_WITH_PADEREWSKIA_MODERN_PIANIST_ON_TOUR'></a> +<h2>VIII</h2> +<h3>WITH PADEREWSKI—A MODERN PIANIST ON TOUR</h3> +</div> +<p>Liszt never was in this country, but we can gain +some idea of the success that would have been +his from the triumphs of Ignace Paderewski. +Other famous pianists have come to this country—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.</p> +<p>Why this is so is no secret. Hear him and you will +understand the reason. To a technique which does not +hesitate at anything and an industry that flinches at +nothing—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—<em>and +which he never brings into play unless it +is necessary</em>. Therefore he combines poetry with force; +and back of both is thought—intellectual capacity.</p> +<p>In a frame on the wall of a New York trust company +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156' name='page_156'></a>156</span> +is a check for $171,981.89. It represents the net receipts +of one virtuoso for one concert tour, and is believed +to be the largest actual amount ever earned in +this country by an artist, whether singer or player, in +a single season. This check is drawn to the order of +Ignace J. Paderewski.</p> +<p>An opinion regarding the piano by a man who by +playing it can earn so large a sum, and earn it because +he is the greatest living exponent of pianoforte playing, +would seem worth having. Paderewski believes +that, save in one respect, the pianoforte has reached +perfection and is incapable of further improvement. He +does not think that anything more should be done +to add to its volume of tone. If anything, he considers +this too great and the instrument too loud already. Instead +of more power, rather less would be satisfactory. +Wherein, however, he considers the instrument still +lacking, notwithstanding its wonderful development +during the last century, is in its capacity for sustained +tone—for holding a long-drawn-out tone with the facility +of the violin, for example. He is convinced, however, +that the means of imparting this capacity for sustaining +tone to the pianoforte will be discovered in due +time and that the invention probably will be made in +this country. That increased tone-sustaining power +for the instrument is a great desideratum doubtless is +the opinion of many experts; but that the greatest master +of the pianoforte considers it perfect in other respects +is highly interesting and significant. After all, +it remains the greatest of all solo instruments, because, +within the smallest compass and with the simplest +means of control, it has the range of an orchestra. For +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157' name='page_157'></a>157</span> +this reason it is the most popular of instruments and, +in its manufacture, extends from the polished dry-goods +box with internal organs of iron, wire and felt +and with a glistening row of celluloid teeth ready to +bite as soon as ever the lid is raised, to the highest-class +concert grand.</p> +<h4>The “Piano Doctor.”</h4> +<p>We who have our pianofortes in our own homes and +are content with an occasional visit from the tuner, little +dream of the care bestowed upon the instrument on +which an artist like Paderewski plays. Instrument? I +should have said instruments; for, when he is on tour, +he has a whole suite of them, no less than four, and +each is coddled as if it were a prima donna fresh from +the hands of Madame Marchesi, instead of a thing of +wood, metal and ivory. True, these pianos do not +have their throats sprayed on the slightest possible occasion, +but they are carefully protected against extremes +of heat and cold, and, while the prima donna consults +her physician only at intervals, a “piano doctor” is in +constant attendance on these instruments.</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158' name='page_158'></a>158</span> +engagements. Up to that time, however, his net +receipts from seventy-four concerts had been +$137,012.50, while before this American tour began +he gave thirty-six concerts in Australia with average +receipts of $5,000. His record concert was at Dallas, +Texas, some years ago, when the receipts were $9,000. +It occurred during a Confederate reunion. While he +was at the pianoforte, the various posts marched up to +the hall with bands and fife-and-drum corps playing. +Paderewski, however, kept right on through the blasts +and shrilling. But when one of the posts let out the +famous “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.</p> +<h4>Pianofortes on Their Travels.</h4> +<p>But to return to the pianofortes on tour. When +Paderewski came to this country from Australia, his +piano doctor met him at San Francisco with four instruments +which had been selected with great care in +New York and been shipped West in charge of the +“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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159' name='page_159'></a>159</span> +which pianoforte he would use. This instrument became, +officially, No. 1; the others No. 2 and No. 3.</p> +<p>The pianist’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:</p> +<p>Paderewski: “Well, ‘Doctor,’ it sounded all right +to-night, didn’t it?”</p> +<p>“Doctor”: “Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>Paderewski: “Well, then, please pass me the bread.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Paderewski is as careful to play his best in the least +important place in which he gives a concert as he is in +New York. This high sense of duty toward his public +accounts in part for his supremacy among pianists +Paderewski is not a mere virtuoso. He is a man of fine +intellectual gifts who plays the piano like a poet. Paul +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160' name='page_160'></a>160</span> +Potter, the playwright, who lives in Geneva, Switzerland, +and occasionally has dined there with Paderewski, +tells me that he has conversed with the pianist +on almost every conceivable subject <em>except music</em> +and always found him remarkably well informed. +His knowledge of the history of his native land, Poland, +and of its literature is said to be quite wonderful. +Chopin, also a Pole, he idolizes and regards +as far and away the greatest composer for the piano. +To the fund for the Chopin memorial at Warsaw he +contributes by charging one dollar for his autograph, +and two dollars for his signature and a few bars of +music. From the money received as the proceeds of +one season’s autographs he was able to remit about +$1,300 to the fund.</p> +<p>When the amusing little dialogue at the supper table, +which I have recorded, takes place, the pianoforte +which the virtuoso has used at his concert already will +be on the way to its next destination. For it is part of +the “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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161' name='page_161'></a>161</span></div> +<h4>“Thawing Out” a Pianoforte.</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>There was an amusing incident in the handling of +one of the Paderewski instruments at Columbus, +Mississippi, where Paderewski played for seven hundred +girls at the State College, although it was more +exciting than diverting at the time it happened. The +“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.</p> +<p>“What are you doing?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Nawthin’.”</p> +<p>“Want a job?”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162' name='page_162'></a>162</span></div> +<p>“Naw, too busy,” was the usual reply.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Fortunately such untoward incidents are forgotten +in the general atmosphere of good-humor which the +pianist diffuses about him. He enjoys his little joke. +During the last tour he handed a photograph of himself +to Mr. Francke inscribed: “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:</p> +<p>“For the brother of Mr. <i>Adams</i> on the <i>Eve</i> of his departure +from Chicago.”</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163' name='page_163'></a>163</span> +beautiful garden and vinery, his dogs, his room for +billiards, a game of which he is very fond, and unlimited +opportunity for swimming, his favorite exercise. +Apparently slender and surely most poet-looking +at the piano, he is a man of iron strength as well as +of iron will.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165' name='page_165'></a>165</span> +<a name='HOW_TO_APPRECIATE_AN_ORCHESTRAL_CONCERT' id='HOW_TO_APPRECIATE_AN_ORCHESTRAL_CONCERT'></a> +<h2>HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT</h2> +</div> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167' name='page_167'></a>167</span> +<a name='IX_DEVELOPMENT_OF_THE_ORCHESTRA' id='IX_DEVELOPMENT_OF_THE_ORCHESTRA'></a> +<h2>IX</h2> +<h3>DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORCHESTRA</h3> +</div> +<p>The appreciation and consequent enjoyment of +an orchestral concert will be greatly enhanced +if the listener is familiar with certain details +regarding the orchestra itself and some of the compositions +he is apt to hear. This I have borne in mind +in the chapter divisions of this portion of my book, and, +as a result, I have divided the subject into the general +development of the orchestra, the specific consideration +of the principal orchestral instruments, a cursory commentary +on certain phases of orchestral music and a +chapter on Richard Strauss who represents its most +advanced aspects.</p> +<p>The first music of which we moderns take account +was unaccompanied (<i>à capella</i>) singing for +church service. It was composed in the old ecclesiastical +modes, which are quite different from +our modern scales, and the name which comes most +prominently to mind in connection with this beginning +of our musical history is that of Palestrina. With the +influence of this old church choral music so dominant, +there is little wonder that the first efforts to write +music for instruments were awkward. It may be said +right here that this awkwardness, or rather this lack +of knowledge and appreciation of the individual capacity +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168' name='page_168'></a>168</span> +of various instruments, is shown throughout the +school of contrapuntal composition, even by Bach. +When Bach wrote for orchestral instruments he did +not consider their peculiar tone quality, or their capacity +for individual expression, but simply their pitch—which +instrument could take up this, that or the other +theme in his contrapuntal score, when he had carried +it as high or as low as he could on some other instrument. +This also is true of Händel, although in less +degree.</p> +<p>But just as we have seen that Domenico Scarlatti +worked along original lines for the pianoforte and created +the germ of the sonata form, while Bach was weaving +and plaiting the counterpoint of his suites, partitas +and “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.</p> +<h4>Primitive Orchestral Efforts.</h4> +<p>Although, strictly speaking, not the first composer +to use orchestral instruments in opera, and to display +skill in utilizing their individual characteristics, the +most important of these early men was Claudio Monteverde +(1568-1643). In his “Orpheo,” which he produced +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169' name='page_169'></a>169</span> +in 1608, he utilized, besides two harpsichords +(and it may be of interest to note here that instruments +of the pianoforte class were long used in orchestras as +connecting links between all the other instruments), +two bass viols, two tenor viols, one double harp, two +little French violins, two large guitars, two wood organs, +two viola di gambas, one regal, four trombones, +two cornets, one octave flute, one clarion, and three +trumpets with mutes—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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4>Beethoven and the Modern Orchestra.</h4> +<p>The first really modern composer for the orchestra +was Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), who also may be considered +the father of the symphony. Born before Mozart, +he also survived that composer. His music is gay and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170' name='page_170'></a>170</span> +naive; while Mozart, although he had decidedly greater +genius for the dramatic than Haydn, nevertheless is +only a trifle more emotional in his symphonies. The +three greatest of these which he composed during the +summer of 1788, the E flat major, G minor and +C major (known as the “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.</p> +<p>Beethoven may be said to have established the modern +orchestra. Very few instruments have been added +to it since his time, and if an orchestra to-day sounds +differently from what it did in his day, if the works +of modern composers sound richer and more effective +from a modern point of view than his orchestral compositions, +it is not because we have added a lot of new +instruments, but because our composers have acquired +greater skill in bringing out their peculiar tone qualities +and because the technique of orchestral players has +greatly improved.</p> +<p>It is for precisely the same reasons that Beethoven’s +symphonies show such a great advance upon those of +his predecessors. The point is not that Beethoven +added a few more instruments to the orchestra, but +that, so far as his own purposes were concerned, he +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171' name='page_171'></a>171</span> +handled all the instruments which he included in his +band with much greater skill than his predecessors had +shown. Many writers affect to despise technique. +But in point of fact the development of technique and +the development of art go hand in hand. An artist, +be he writer, painter or musician, cannot adequately +express his ideas unless he has the means of doing so +or the genius to create the means.</p> +<h4>How He Developed Orchestral Resources.</h4> +<p>In following Beethoven’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.</p> +<p>Beethoven not only understood to a greater degree +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172' name='page_172'></a>172</span> +than his predecessors the peculiar characteristics of orchestral +instruments, he also compelled orchestral players +to acquire a better technique by giving them more +difficult music to execute. In point of greater difficulty +in performance, a Beethoven symphony holds +about the same relation to the symphonies of Mozart +and Haydn as the Beethoven pianoforte sonatas do to +the sonatas of those composers.</p> +<h4>Beethoven and Wagner.</h4> +<p>Just as Beethoven added only a few instruments to +the orchestra of his predecessors, but showed greater +skill in handling those instruments, so the modern +musician—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.</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173' name='page_173'></a>173</span> +he scored for the Fifth Symphony; while for his +“Symphonie <a name='TC_3'></a><ins class="trchange" title="Was 'Pathètique'">Pathétique</ins>,” one of the finest of modern +orchestral works, Tschaikowsky adds only a bass tuba +to the orchestra used by Beethoven. The simple fact +is that modern composers have studied every possible +phase of tone color and expression of which each instrument +is capable. Furthermore, by skillfully dividing +the orchestra into groups and using these groups +like separate orchestras, yet uniting them into one great +orchestra, they produce wonderfully rich contrapuntal +effects, and thus make the modern orchestra sound, not +seventy-five years, but five hundred years more advanced +than that of Beethoven, however great we +gladly acknowledge Beethoven to have been.</p> +<h4>Berlioz, an Orchestral Juggler.</h4> +<p>Following Beethoven, the next great development in +the handling of orchestral resources is due to Hector +Berlioz (1803-1869), and it is curious here how nearly +one musical epoch overlaps another. Scarlatti was +composing sonatas, and thus voicing the beginning of +the classical era, while Bach was bringing the contrapuntal +period to a close. It was only five years after +the completion of the Ninth Symphony that Berlioz’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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174' name='page_174'></a>174</span> +the individuality, the potential characteristics +of each instrument.</p> +<p>Berlioz composed on a colossal scale, so colossal that +his music has been called architectural. The “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 <i>belle étage</i>, while the four extra brass +bands are stationed <i>aux troisième</i>. Unfortunately for +Berlioz, his ambition, in so far as it related to the art +of orchestration and the skill he showed in accomplishing +what he wanted to with his body of instrumentalists, +was far in excess of his inspiration. His knowledge +of the orchestra was sufficient to have afforded +him every facility for the expression of great +thoughts if he had them to express. But his +power of thematic invention, his gift for melody, was +not equal to his genius for instrumentation. Nevertheless, +through this genius for instrumentation—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.</p> +<h4>Wagner, Greatest of Orchestral Composers.</h4> +<p>Berlioz wrote a book on instrumentation, which has +lately been re-edited by Richard Strauss. In it Strauss, +modestly ignoring himself, says that Wagner’s scores +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175' name='page_175'></a>175</span> +mark the only advance in orchestration worth mentioning +since Berlioz. It is true, the technical possibilities +of the orchestra were greatly improved, so far +as the woodwind was concerned, by the introduction +of keyed instruments constructed on the system invented +by Theobald Böhm; while the French instrument +maker, Adolphe Sax, also made important improvements +by perfecting the bass clarinet and the bass +tuba. But whatever aid Wagner derived from these +improvements merely was incidental to the principle +which is illustrated by every one of his scores—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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176' name='page_176'></a>176</span> +orchestra—he makes them speak without a foreign +accent.</p> +<p>If Wagner employs a large orchestra, it is not for +the sake of making a noise, but in order to gain variety +in expression. “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.”</p> +<h4>How Wagner Produces His Effects.</h4> +<p>The effects produced by Wagner are not due to a +large orchestra, but to his manner of using the instruments +in it. Among some of his special effects are +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177' name='page_177'></a>177</span> +the employment of full harmony with what formerly +would have been merely single passing notes, and above +all, the exploitation of every resource of counterpoint +in combination with the well developed system of harmony +inherited from Beethoven, but largely added to +by himself. In fact, Wagner’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.</p> +<p>Richard Strauss is such a master of orchestration +that I am inclined to quote his summary of the development +of the art of orchestration, from his edition of +the Berlioz book, which at this writing has not yet +been translated. I should like to recall to the reader’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.</p> +<p>“Even with Beethoven, the symphony is still simply +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178' name='page_178'></a>178</span> +enlarged chamber music, the orchestra being treated in +a pianistic spirit which unfortunately shows itself even +in the orchestral work of Schumann and Brahms. +Wagner owes his polyphonic string quintet not to the +Beethoven orchestra, but to the last quartets of Beethoven, +in which each instrument is the peer of the +others.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179' name='page_179'></a>179</span> +<a name='X_INSTRUMENTS_OF_THE_ORCHESTRA' id='X_INSTRUMENTS_OF_THE_ORCHESTRA'></a> +<h2>X</h2> +<h3>INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA</h3> +</div> +<p>An orchestra is an aggregation of many instruments +which, under the baton of an able conductor, +should play as one, so far as precision +and expression are concerned. Separately, the instruments +are like the paints on a palette, and the result +of the composer’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.</p> +<p>The orchestra has developed into several distinct +groups, which are capable of playing independently, or +in union with each other, and within these groups themselves +there are various subdivisions. It is the purpose +of every modern composer who amounts to anything, +to get as many different quartets as possible out of his +orchestra. By this is meant a grouping of instruments +in such a way that as many groups as possible can play +in independent harmony.</p> +<p>It is through this system of orchestral groups that +Wagner has been able to enrich orchestral tone coloring, +and to say everything he wishes to say in exactly +the way it should be said. We cannot, for example, +imagine that the Love Motive in “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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180' name='page_180'></a>180</span> +it is exactly suited to a solo violoncello, and to a solo +violoncello Wagner gives it. In order, however, to +produce a perfectly homogenous effect, in order that +the violoncello quality of tone shall pervade not only +the melody, but also the supporting harmony, he supports +the melody with eight violoncellos, adding two +double basses to give more sonorousness to the deepest +note in the harmony. In other words he has made for +the moment a complete orchestra out of nine violoncellos +and two double basses, and produced a wondrously +rich and thrilling effect—because, having a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181' name='page_181'></a>181</span> +beautiful melody to score, he knew just the instruments +for which to score it. This is an admirable example +of what technique accomplishes in the hands +of a genius. Another composer might have used an +orchestra of a hundred instruments and not have produced +the exquisite thrill that Wagner with his magical +orchestral touch conjures out of this group of violoncellos, +a group within a group, an orchestra of violoncellos +within the string band.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_4' id='linki_4'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-180.png'> +<img src='images/illus-180.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='499' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +[<a href="music/180.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>The woodwind instruments are capable of several +similar subdivisions. Flutes, oboes and bassoons, for +example, may form a group capable of producing independent +harmony, so can the clarinets, and the same +is the case with the brass instruments. One of Wagner’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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182' name='page_182'></a>182</span></div> +<h4>The Prima Donna of the Orchestra.</h4> +<p>The leading instrument of the string group, and in +fact the leading instrument of the orchestra, is the +violin. The first violins are the prima donnas of +the orchestra, and one might say that it is almost +impossible to have too many of them. The first and +second violins should form about one-third of an orchestra, +and better still it would be for the number to +exceed that proportion. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, +which has about eighty-one players, has thirty +violins. Theodore Thomas’s New York Festival Orchestra +in 1882, consisting of three hundred and fourteen +instruments, had one hundred violins.</p> +<p>Great is the capacity of the violin. Its notes may be +crisp, sharp, decisive, brilliant, or long-drawn-out and +full of emotion. It has greater precision of attack than +any other instrument in the orchestra. And right here +it is interesting to note that while the multiplication of +instruments gives greater sonority, it also gives much +finer effects in soft passages. The pianissimo of one +hundred violins is a very much finer pianissimo and at +the same time infinitely richer and further carrying +than the pianissimo of a solo violin. It is the very +acme of a musical stage whisper.</p> +<p>In this very first and most important group of the +orchestra we can find examples of utilizing subdivisions +of groups. Although the violin cannot be played lower +than its G string, which sounds the G below the treble +clef, the violin group nevertheless has been employed +entirely by itself, and even subdivided within itself. +The most exquisite example of this, one cited in every +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183' name='page_183'></a>183</span> +work on the orchestra worth reading, is the “Lohengrin” +prelude. To this the violins are divided into +four groups and on the highest register, with an effect +that is most ethereal.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_5' id='linki_5'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-183.png'> +<img src='images/illus-183.png' alt='' title='' width='444' height='500' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +[<a href="music/183.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>Modern orchestral virtuosity may be gauged by the +statement that while Beethoven but once dared to score +for his violins above the high F, Richard Strauss in +the most casual manner carries them an octave higher.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184' name='page_184'></a>184</span></div> +<p>A little contrivance of wood or metal, with teeth, +can be pressed down over the strings of the violin so +as to deaden its vibrations. This is called the sordine, +or mute. A famous example of the use of the violins +<i>con sordini</i> is the Queen Mab Scherzo in Berlioz’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 <i>Isolde</i> intones the Love Death.</p> +<p>An unusual effect is produced by using the back of +the bow instead of the horsehair. Liszt uses it +in his symphonic poem, “Mazeppa,” for imitating the +snorting of the horse; Wagner in “Siegfried,” for accompanying +the mocking laugh of <i>Mime</i>; 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.</p> +<h4>Viola, Violoncello and Double Bass.</h4> +<p>The viola is a deeper violin, with a very beautiful +and expressive tone. Méhul, the French composer, +scored his one-act opera, “Uthal,” without violins, employing +the viola as the highest string instrument in his +score. This, however, was not a success, the brilliant +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185' name='page_185'></a>185</span> +tone of the violin being missed more and more as the +performance of the work progressed, until Grétry is +said to have risen in his seat and exclaimed: “A thousand +francs for an E string!”</p> +<p>Meyerbeer, who was among the first to appreciate +the beauty of the viola as a solo instrument, used a +single viola for the accompaniment to <i>Raoul’s</i> 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 <i>dramatis +persona</i> 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.</p> +<p>The violoncello is one of the most tenderly expressive +of all the instruments in the orchestra. Beethoven +employs it for the theme of the slow movement in his +Fifth Symphony, and although the viola joins with the +violoncello in playing this melody, the passage owes its +beauty chiefly to the latter. One of the most exquisite +melodies in all symphonic music is the theme which +Schubert has given to the violoncellos in the first movement +of his “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.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186' name='page_186'></a>186</span></div> +<p>Double basses first were used to simply double the +violoncello part in the harmony. But through Beethoven’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 <i>Moor</i> approaches <i>Desdemona’s</i> 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.</p> +<h4>Dividing the String Band.</h4> +<p>I have pointed out several examples in which the +groups of instruments in the string band are divided +within themselves, as in the prelude to “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” <i>Brangäne</i> warns the lovers from her +position on the watch-tower, the accompaniment stirs +the soul to its depth, because it gives the listener such +a weird thrill of impending danger that he almost longs +to inform the lovers of their peril. In this passage +Wagner divides the string band into no less than +fifteen parts. In the thunder-storm in “Rheingold” +the strings are divided into twenty-one parts. Richard +Strauss points out how in the introduction to “Die +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187' name='page_187'></a>187</span> +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.</p> +<p>Theodore Thomas always was insistent that the +various divisions of a string band should bow exactly +alike. It is said that he once stopped an orchestra +because he had detected something wrong with the +tonal effect, and, after watching the players, had discovered +that one violoncellist among sixteen was bowing +differently from the others. Richard Strauss, on +the other hand, never insists on the same bowing +throughout each division of strings. He thinks it robs +the melody of intensity and beauty if each individual +is not allowed to play according to his own peculiar +temperament.</p> +<h4>A Passage in “Die Walküre.”</h4> +<p>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 <em>sound</em> the +<em>aspect</em> of licking, circling flames. Indeed, the effects +that Wagner understood how to draw from the orchestral +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188' name='page_188'></a>188</span> +instruments are little short of marvellous. +In the “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 <i>Brünnhilde</i> +slumbers, depict the action with a thrilling realism.</p> +<p>Besides the regular string band, Wagner made frequent +use of the harp. It is related that at the Munich +performance of “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 <i>glissando</i> of the harp as a symbol for the rising +shades of <i>Francesco da Rimini</i> and her lover, and a very +beautiful use of harmonics on the harp with their faint +tinkle is to be found in the Waltz of the Sylphs in +Berlioz’s “Damnation de Faust.”</p> +<h4>The Woodwind.</h4> +<p>Flutes, oboes and clarinets form the woodwind. One +of the best known passages for flute is in the third +“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:</p> +<p>“Are you musical?”</p> +<p>“No, but I have a brother who plays the flute.”</p> +<p>It has also been insinuated that in Donizetti’s +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189' name='page_189'></a>189</span> +“Lucia” the heroine goes mad, not because she has +been separated from <i>Edgardo</i>, but because a flute obbligato +accompanies her principal aria. The piccolo is +a high flute used for shrill effects.</p> +<p>The instruments of both the oboe and clarinet families +are reed instruments, with this difference, however: +the instruments of the oboe family have two +vibrating reeds in the mouthpieces; those of the clarinet +family, only one. The oboe family consists of the oboe +proper, the English horn which is an alt oboe, and the +bassoon which is the bass of this group of instruments. +In Italian the bassoon is called a <i>fagotto</i>, a name derived +from its supposed resemblance to a bundle of +fagots. “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.”</p> +<h4>The English Horn in “Tristan.”</h4> +<p>The most famous use of the English horn is found +in the third act of “Tristan,” where it plays the “sad +lay” while <i>Tristan</i> awaits news of the ship which is +bearing <i>Isolde</i> toward him, and changes to a joyous +strain when the ship is sighted. The bassoon and contrabassoon, +besides their value as the bass of the oboe +family, have certain humorous qualities, which are admirably +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190' name='page_190'></a>190</span> +brought out in Beethoven’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 <i>Spectre Nuns</i> 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.</p> +<p>The clarinets have a large compass. Usually three +kinds of clarinets (in A, B flat and C because they +are transposing instruments) are employed in the orchestra, +besides the bass clarinet. The possibilities of +the clarinet group have been enormously developed by +Wagner. It is necessary only to recall the scene of +<i>Elsa’s</i> bridal procession to the cathedral in the second +act of “Lohengrin”; <i>Elisabeth’s</i> 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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191' name='page_191'></a>191</span></div> +<h4>Brass Instruments.</h4> +<p>People usually associate the brass instruments with +noise. But as a matter of fact, wonderfully rich and +soft tone effects can be produced on the brass by a +composer who knows how to score for it. Just as the +pianissimo of many violins is a finer pianissimo than +that of a solo violin, so a much more exquisitely soft +effect can be produced on a large brass group than on +a few brass instruments or a single one. When modern +composers increase the number of instruments in +the brass group, it is not for the sake of noise, but for +richer effects.</p> +<p>The trumpet is the soprano of the brass family. +The fanfare in “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.”</p> +<p>Although the notes of the trombone are produced +by a slide, this instrument belongs to the trumpet family. +For this reason, in the “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, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192' name='page_192'></a>192</span> +there probably is not a composer who would not have +used the bass tuba here instead of taking the trouble to +revive the bass trombone. But Wagner wanted an +unusually rich tone which should be solemn without a +trace of sombreness, and his keen instrumental color +sense informed him that he could secure it with the +bass trombone, which, as it belongs to the trumpet family, +has a touch of trumpet brilliancy, whereas the +tone of the bass tuba is darker.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_6' id='linki_6'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-192.png'> +<img src='images/illus-192.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='145' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +[<a href="music/192.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>Mozart employed the trombone with fine effect in +<i>Sarastro’s</i> 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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193' name='page_193'></a>193</span> +it and the tuba, which latter he used with the +horns, with which it is properly grouped.</p> +<p>Wagner has a tremendous tuba recitative in a “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.</p> +<h4>Richard Strauss’s Tribute to the Horn.</h4> +<p>To mention tubas and trombones before the horns +is very much like putting the cart before the horse, but +I have reserved the horns for the last of the brass on +account of the great tribute which Richard Strauss has +paid them. In the early orchestras one rarely found +more than two horns. Beethoven used four in the +Ninth Symphony, and now it is not at all unusual to +find eight.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194' name='page_194'></a>194</span></div> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.’</p> +<p>“Whether it rings through the primeval German forest +with the sunny exuberance of <i>Siegfried’s</i> 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 <i>Siegfried</i> +for the mother he never has known; whether it hovers +over the gently undulating sea which is to bring <i>Isolde’s</i> +gladdening form to the dying <i>Tristan</i>, or nods <i>Hans +Sachs’</i> thanks to the faithful <i>’Prentice</i>; whether in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195' name='page_195'></a>195</span> +<i>Erik’s</i> dream it causes in a few hollow accents the +North Sea to break on the lonely coast; bestows upon +the apples of Freia the gift of eternal youth; pokes +fun at the curtain-heroes (‘Meistersinger,’ Act III); +plies the cudgels on <i>Beckmesser</i> with the jealous <i>David</i> +and his comrades, and is the real instigator of the riot; +or sings in veiled notes of the wounds of <i>Tristan</i>—always +the horn, in its place and to be relied on, responds, +unique in its manifold meanings and its brilliant +significance.”</p> +<p>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 <i>Michaela’s</i> 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.</p> +<p>Instruments of Percussion.</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196' name='page_196'></a>196</span> +used in several ways. Besides the ordinary clash, +Wagner has produced a sound somewhat like that of a +gong, by the sharp stroke of a drum-stick on one cymbal, +and also a roll by using a pair of drum-sticks on +one cymbal.</p> +<p>Among composers since Beethoven, Weber, Liszt, +Saint-Saëns, Dvorak, Tschaikowsky, and, of course, +Richard Strauss—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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197' name='page_197'></a>197</span> +<a name='XI_CONCERNING_SYMPHONIES' id='XI_CONCERNING_SYMPHONIES'></a> +<h2>XI</h2> +<h3>CONCERNING SYMPHONIES</h3> +</div> +<p>I have said that music, like all other arts, had a +somewhat formless beginning, then gradually acquired +form, then became too rigidly formal, and +in modern times, while not discarding form, has become +freer in its expression of emotion.</p> +<p>Instrumental music, since the beginning of the classical +period, has been governed largely by the symphony, +which the reader should bear in mind is nothing more +than a sonata for orchestra, the form having first developed +on the pianoforte and having been handed over +by it to the aggregation of instruments. Sir Hubert +Parry, from whose book, “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. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198' name='page_198'></a>198</span> +There is deep-rooted in the matter of all instrumental +music the need of some rhythmic vitality. These composers +then set themselves to devise a scheme in which, +to begin with, the contour of connected melodic phrases, +supported and defined by simple harmonic accompaniment, +gave the impression of definite tonality—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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<h4>Esthetic Purpose of the Symphony.</h4> +<p>Later on in his book, Sir Hubert, in discussing the +type of sonata movement which was fairly established +by the time of Haydn and Mozart, gives a simpler +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199' name='page_199'></a>199</span> +esthetic explanation, pointing out that the first part +of the movement aims at definiteness of subject, definiteness +of contrast of keys, definiteness of regular balancing +groups of bars and rhythms, definiteness of progressions. +By the time this first division is over the +mind has had enough of such definiteness, and wants +a change. The second division, therefore, represents +the breaking up of the subjects into their constituent +elements of figure and rhythm, the obliteration of the +sense of regularity by grouping the bars irregularly; +and aims, by moving constantly from key to key, to +give the sense of artistic confusion; which, however, is +always regulated by some inner but disguised principle +of order. When the mind has gone through enough +of the pleasing sense of bewilderment—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.</p> +<p>The earlier symphonic writers usually wrote their +symphonies in three movements: the first or sonata +movement; a second slow movement in a simpler type +of form, usually of the song, aria, or rondo type; and +a final movement in lively time, also usually adapted +to the rondo form. Concerning this three-movement +symphony of the early writers, it was said by an old-time +wit that they wrote the first movement to show +what they could do, the second movement to show +what they could feel, and the third movement to show +how glad they were it was over—and this may be said +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200' name='page_200'></a>200</span> +to describe the view of the ultra-modern music-lover +toward rigidity of form in general.</p> +<p>Regarding form in music there is much prejudice one +way or the other. The sonnet in poetry certainly is a +rigid form; and yet those poets who have mastered it +have produced extremely effective and highly artistic +poems, and poems abounding in profound emotional +expression. Walt Whitman, on the other hand, was +quite formless, and yet he is sure to be ranked in time +as one of the greatest poets of his age. Wagner’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.</p> +<h4>Seems to Hamper Modern Composers.</h4> +<p>The symphonic form, however, or, to be more exact, +the sonata form, seems to hamper every modern composer +when he writes for the pianoforte, and the fact +that most of Beethoven’s pianoforte music was written +in this form appears to be the reason for his works +somewhat falling into disuse. On the other hand, the +form is undoubtedly holding out better in the orchestral +version of the sonata, the symphony, because the tone +color of orchestral instruments gives it greater variety. +Tschaikowsky, Dvorak and Brahms have worked successfully, +and the two former even brilliantly, in this +form; and if Brahms in his symphonies appears too +continent, too classically reserved, it would seem to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201' name='page_201'></a>201</span> +be not so much the form itself which is to blame, as +his lack of skill in instrumentation.</p> +<p>My own personal preference is for the freer form +developed by Liszt in the symphonic poem, in which +a leading motive, or possibly several motives skillfully +varied dominate the whole composition and give it +esthetic and psychological unity; and for the still freer +development of instrumental music in the tone poem +of Richard Strauss. But neither the symphonic poems +of Liszt nor the tone poems of Strauss are formless +music. That should be well understood, although it +should be borne in mind with equal distinctness that +these manifestations of the genius of two great composers +show a complete liberation from the shackles of +the classical symphony. In the end the test is found +in the music itself. If the music of a symphonic poem +which sets out to express a given title or a given +motto, if the music of a tone poem which starts out +to interpret a programmatic story or device, is worthy +to be ranked with the great productions of the art, it +not only is profoundly interesting as music, but gains +immensely in interest through its incidental secondary +meaning. It is the old story of art for art’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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202' name='page_202'></a>202</span></div> +<h4>The Naive Symphonists.</h4> +<p>At the risk of repeating what already has been said +of the sonata, the symphony may be described as a work +in four movements—the first movement, usually an +Allegro, sometimes with a slow introduction, but more +frequently without one; a second movement, ordinarily +called the slow movement, and usually in Adagio or +Andante; a third movement, either minuet or scherzo; +and a final movement in fast time and usually in +rondo form. It was Haydn who pretty definitely established +these divisions of the symphony. He composed +in all one hundred and twenty-five symphonies, +of which only a few appear on modern concert programs, +and even these but occasionally. Their music +is marked by a simplicity bordering on naïveté, and +the orchestration is a string quartet with a mere filling +out by other instruments. Mozart was of a deeper +and more dramatic nature than Haydn, and the expression +of his thought was more intense. In the same +way, there is a greater warmth and color in his orchestration. +Nevertheless, the three finest of his forty-nine +symphonies, the E flat, G minor and Jupiter, +composed in 1788, seem almost childlike in their artless +grace and beauty to us moderns.</p> +<p>Beethoven’s first two symphonies were written under +the influence of Haydn and Mozart, but with the third +he becomes distinctly epic in his musical utterance; and +this symphony, both in regard to variety and depth of +expression and skillful use of orchestral instruments, +is as great an advance upon the work of his predecessors +as, let us say, Tschaikowsky is upon Mendelssohn.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203' name='page_203'></a>203</span></div> +<h4>Beethoven to the Fore.</h4> +<p>There are apparent in the sequences of Beethoven’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: “<i>mehr Empfindung +als Malerei</i>” (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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204' name='page_204'></a>204</span></div> +<h4>Schubert’s Genius.</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205' name='page_205'></a>205</span> +either indifferent to, or ignorant of, the advance in +orchestration which had taken place since Beethoven. +Practically the same thing applies to Brahms, who, +however, deserves the credit for introducing into the +symphony a new style of movement, the intermezzo, +which takes the place of the scherzo or minuet. Rubinstein +deserves “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.</p> +<p>Liszt has written two symphonies: the “Faust Symphony,” +consisting of three movements, which represent +the three principal characters of Goethe’s drama, +<i>Faust</i>, <i>Gretchen</i>, and <i>Mephistopheles</i>; 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.</p> +<p>The Saint-Saëns symphonic poems, “Rouet d’Omphale,” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206' name='page_206'></a>206</span> +“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.</p> +<p>Wagner is not supposed to have been a purely orchestral +composer. Theoretically, he wrote for the +theatre, and his orchestra was (again theoretically) +only part of a triple scheme of voice, action and instrumental +accompaniment. But put the instrumental +part of any of his great music-drama episodes on a concert +program, and with the first wave of the conductor’s +baton and the first chord, you forget everything +else that has gone before!</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207' name='page_207'></a>207</span> +<a name='XII_RICHARD_STRAUSS_AND_HIS_MUSIC' id='XII_RICHARD_STRAUSS_AND_HIS_MUSIC'></a> +<h2>XII</h2> +<h3>RICHARD STRAUSS AND HIS MUSIC</h3> +</div> +<p>Richard Strauss—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?”</p> +<p>Something new certainly has been achieved by Richard +Strauss. It forms neither a continuation of Wagner +nor an opposition to Wagner. It has nothing to +do with Wagner, beyond that Strauss appropriates +whatever in the progression of art the latest master +has a right to take from his predecessors. Strauss +is, in fact, one of the most original and individual of +composers.</p> +<p>He has been a student, not a copyist, of Wagner. +Thus, where others who have sat at the feet of the +Bayreuth master have written poor imitations of Wagner, +and have therefore failed even to continue the +school, giving only feeble echoes of its great master, +Strauss has struck out for himself. With a mastery of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208' name='page_208'></a>208</span> +every technical resource, acquired by deep and patient +study, he has given wholly new value and importance +to a form of art entirely different from the music-drama. +The music of the average modern Wagner +disciple sounds not like Wagner, but like Wagner and +water. Richard Strauss sounds like Richard Strauss.</p> +<p>One reason for this is that his art work, like Wagner’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.</p> +<h4>Originator of the Tone Poem.</h4> +<p>Nor does Richard Strauss require such tactics. He has +made three excursions into music-drama and he may +make others. But his fame, at present, rests mainly upon +what he has accomplished as an instrumental composer, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209' name='page_209'></a>209</span> +and in the self-created realm of the Tone Poem. Tone +poem is a new term in music. It stands for something +that outstrips the symphonic poem of Liszt, something +larger both in its boundaries and in its intellectual and +musical scope. Strauss does not limit himself by the +word symphonic. He leaves himself free to give full +range to his ideas. A composer of “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.</p> +<p>He: “Are you going to the concert to-night?”</p> +<p>She: (<i>Looking out and seeing that it still is raining +hard</i>) “Do they play anything by Richard Strauss?”</p> +<p>He: “Not to-night.”</p> +<p>She: “Then I’m not going.”</p> +<p>This woman could meet the most enthusiastic admirer +of Beethoven or Wagner on his own ground. +But when she heard “Ein Heldenleben” under Emil +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210' name='page_210'></a>210</span> +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.</p> +<h4>Not a Juggler with the Orchestra.</h4> +<p>One first looks at Richard Strauss in mere amazement +at the size of what he has produced. “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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211' name='page_211'></a>211</span> +high. But this is not done as a mere fad. +What Richard Strauss accomplishes with the strings +is not merely queer or bizarre. What he seeks and +obtains is genuine original musical effects. Often +the highest register is used by him in a few of the +strings only, because, for certain polyphonic effects—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.</p> +<p>While he has increased the technical difficulties of +every instrument, what he requires of them is not impossible. +He does, indeed, call for first-rate artists in +his orchestra; but so did Wagner as compared with +Beethoven. He knows every instrument thoroughly, +for he has taken lessons on all; and, therefore, when +he is striving for new instrumental effects he is not +putting problems which cannot be legitimately solved. +His “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 <i>Don +Quixote</i> has his tilt with the windmill, he has introduced +a regular theatrical wind-machine. And why +not? The effect to be produced justifies the means. +There is an <i>à capella</i> chorus by Strauss for sixteen +voices. These are not divided into two double quartets, +or into four quartets, but the composition actually +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212' name='page_212'></a>212</span> +is scored in sixteen parts. He shrinks from no +musical problem.</p> +<h4>Not Mere Bulk and Noise.</h4> +<p>When “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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213' name='page_213'></a>213</span></div> +<h4>Life and Truth.</h4> +<p>What is the difference between classical and modern +music? Write a chapter or a book on it, and the difference +still remains just this: Classical music is the +expression of beauty; modern music the expression of +life and truth. Modern music seems entering upon a +new era with Strauss, which does not necessarily exclude +beauty. It is beginning to illustrate itself, so to +speak, like the author-artist who can both write and +draw. To-day, music not only expresses truth, but +represents it pictorially. How long will the time be +in coming when a composer will wave his bâton, the +orchestra strike a chord—and we be not only listeners +but also beholders, hearing the chord, and seeing at +the same time its image floating above the orchestra?</p> +<p>In his “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 <em>seen</em>. “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.”</p> +<p>Of course, this brilliantly written story was a daring +incursion into a seemingly impossible future. Yet it +points a tendency. When shall we have music that +can be seen? Considering how closely related are the +laws of acoustics and optics, is a “Piper of Dreams” +so visionary? Who knows but that the music of the +future may be visible sound—the work of a piper of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214' name='page_214'></a>214</span> +dreams? Sometimes, when listening to Strauss, I think +Mr. Huneker’s <i>Piper</i> is tuning up.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4>Literally Tone Dramas.</h4> +<p>That Richard Strauss is the most significant figure +in the musical world to-day seems to me too patent to +admit of discussion. The only question to be considered +is, how has he become so? The question is best +answered by showing what a Richard Strauss tone +poem is. Take “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, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_215' name='page_215'></a>215</span> +that is, the simultaneous interweaving of many +themes, was foreign to Berlioz and Liszt. Their style +is mainly homophonic. Richard Strauss is a polyphonic +composer second not even to Wagner, whose +system of leading motives in his music-dramas made +his scores such marvellous polyphonic structures. Such, +too, are the scores of Richard Strauss’s tone poems. +None but a master of polyphony could have attempted +to express in music what Richard Strauss has expressed. +For are not his tone poems literally tone +dramas?</p> +<p>It was like a man of great intellectual activity, such +as Richard Strauss is, to select for musical illustration +the Faust of modern literature—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.</p> +<p>Musically, the great <i>fortissimo</i> outburst in C major, +which, at the beginning of the work, greets the seeker +on the mountain-top with the glories of the sunrise, is +the symbol of Nature. The seeker descends the mountain. +He pursues the quest amid many surroundings, +among all sorts and conditions of men. He experiences +joy, passion, remorse. In wisdom, perchance, +lies the final solution of the problem of life. But the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216' name='page_216'></a>216</span> +emptiness of “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.</p> +<p>But hark! a sombre strophe, followed twelve times +by the even fainter stroke of a bell! Then a theme +winging its flight on the highest register of modern +instrumentation, until it seems to rise over the orchestra +and vanish into thin air. It is the soul of the +seeker, his earthly quest ended; while the theme which +greeted him at sunrise on the mountain-top resounds +in the orchestral depths, the symbol of Nature, still +mysterious, still inscrutable.</p> +<h4>An Intellectual Force in Music.</h4> +<p>Even this brief synopsis suggests that “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, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217' name='page_217'></a>217</span> +Richard Strauss is not a philosopher, but a musician.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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 <em>see</em>, if you like) the hero himself, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218' name='page_218'></a>218</span> +his jealous adversaries, the woman whose love +consoles him, the battle in which he wins his greatest +worldly triumph, his mission of peace, the world’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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<h4>Tribute to Wagner.</h4> +<p>Strauss pays a tribute to Wagner in the one-act +opera, “Feuersnot” (“Fire Famine”). According to +the old legend on which this <i>Sing-gedicht</i> (song-poem) +is founded, a young maiden has offended her lover. +But the lover being a magician, casts a spell over the +town, causing the extinction of all fire, bringing cold +and darkness upon the entire place, until the maiden +relents and smiles again upon him, when the spell is +lifted and the fires once more burn brightly. The +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219' name='page_219'></a>219</span> +young lover, <i>Kunrad</i>, in rebuking the people of the +city, says:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“In this house which to-day I destroy,<br /> +Once lodged Richard the Master.<br /> +Disgracefully did ye expel him<br /> +In envy and baseness,” etc., etc.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Accompanying these lines, Strauss introduces themes +from Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung.” Undoubtedly +“Richard the Master,” in the above lines, is Richard +Wagner.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Strauss has become such an important figure in the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220' name='page_220'></a>220</span> +world of music that it is interesting to note what has +been done to bring his work before the American public. +Theodore Thomas, with the artistic liberality +which he has always displayed toward every serious +effort in music, produced Strauss’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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221' name='page_221'></a>221</span></div> +<h4>Richard Straussiana.</h4> +<p>As data regarding Strauss’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.</p> +<p>During his advanced school years, his piano lessons +continued, he received lessons in the violin, and went +through a severe course in composition with the Royal +Kapellmeister, Meyer. In 1882, he attended the University +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_222' name='page_222'></a>222</span> +of Munich. His “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 <i>Freihild</i> 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.</p> +<p>Strauss occupies a commanding position in the world +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223' name='page_223'></a>223</span> +of music. He has achieved it through a remarkable +combination of musical technique and inspiration +coupled with rare industry. His ideals are of the highest. +His intellectual activity is great. He seems a +man of calm and noble poise, of broad horizon. It +would be presumption to speak of “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.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_224' name='page_224'></a>224</span> +<a name='XIII_A_NOTE_ON_CHAMBER_MUSIC' id='XIII_A_NOTE_ON_CHAMBER_MUSIC'></a> +<h2>XIII</h2> +<h3>A NOTE ON CHAMBER MUSIC</h3> +</div> +<p>Lovers of chamber music form an extremely +refined and cultured class, and, like all highly +refined and cultured people, are very conservative. +They are the purists among music-lovers, the +last people who would care to see the classical forms +abandoned, and who would be disturbed, not to say +shocked, by any great departure from the sonata form. +For the string quartet is to chamber music what the +symphony is to orchestra and the sonata to the pianoforte—is, +in fact, a sonata for two violins, viola and +violoncello, just as the symphony is a sonata for orchestra.</p> +<p>Oddly enough, a pianoforte solo is more effective in +a large hall than a string quartet, although the latter +employs four times as many instruments; and the same +is true of those pieces of chamber music in which +the pianoforte is used, such as sonatas for pianoforte +and violin or violoncello, pianoforte trios, quartets, +quintets, and so on. A fine soloist on the pianoforte +will be more at home in a large auditorium like Carnegie +Hall or even the Metropolitan Opera House than +would a string quartet or any other combination of +chamber-music players. Paderewski plays in Carnegie +Hall, and, I am sure, would be equally effective in the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_225' name='page_225'></a>225</span> +Opera House. But an organization of chamber-music +players would be lost in either place. The Kneisel +Quartet plays in New York in Mendelssohn Hall, a +small auditorium which is just about correctly proportioned +for music of this kind.</p> +<p>Indeed, compared with the opera, the orchestra and +even with the pianoforte, chamber music requires a +setting like a jewel. For just as its devotees are the +purists among music-lovers, so chamber music itself +is something very “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.</p> +<p>The same opinions that have been expressed regarding +the sonatas and the symphonies of the great composers +apply in a general way to their chamber music. +Haydn’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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_226' name='page_226'></a>226</span> +to Count Rasumovski, who maintained a private +string quartet in which he played second violin, the +others being professionals.</p> +<p>Schubert’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.”</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227' name='page_227'></a>227</span> +in F (Opus 96) on Negro themes. Tschaikowsky and +neo-Russians like Arensky, and the Frenchmen, César +Franck, Saint-Saëns, d’Indy and Debussy, are some +of the modern names that figure on chamber-music +programs.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229' name='page_229'></a>229</span> +<a name='HOW_TO_APPRECIATE_VOCAL_MUSIC' id='HOW_TO_APPRECIATE_VOCAL_MUSIC'></a> +<h2>HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC</h2> +</div> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_231' name='page_231'></a>231</span> +<a name='XIV_SONGS_AND_SONG_COMPOSERS' id='XIV_SONGS_AND_SONG_COMPOSERS'></a> +<h2>XIV</h2> +<h3>SONGS AND SONG COMPOSERS</h3> +</div> +<p>Songs either are strophic or “<i>durchcomponirt</i>” +(composed through). In the strophic song the +melody and accompaniment are repeated unchanged +through each stanza or strophe of the poem; +while, when a song is composed through, the music, +although the principal melody may be repeated more +than once, is subjected to changes in accordance with +the moods of the poem.</p> +<p>Schubert is the first song composer who requires serious +consideration. While not strictly the originator +of the <i>Lied</i>, he is universally acknowledged to be the +first great song composer and to have lifted song to +its proper place of importance in music. Gluck set +Klopfstock’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.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232' name='page_232'></a>232</span></div> +<p>Where Schubert got his musical genius from is a +mystery. His father was a schoolmaster, whose first +wife, Schubert’s mother, was a cook. The couple had +fourteen children and an income of $175. If this income +is somewhat disproportionate to the size of the +family, it yet is fortunate that they had fourteen children +instead of only thirteen. Otherwise there would +have been one great name less in musical history, for +Schubert was the fourteenth.</p> +<p>He was born in Vienna in January, 1797. His +thirty-one years—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.</p> +<h4>Too Poor to Buy Music Paper.</h4> +<p>Shortly before he was twelve years old, Schubert, +who had been singing soprano solos and playing violin +in the parish choir, was sent to the so-called Convict, +the Imperial school for training boys for the Court +chapel. During his five years there his progress was +so rapid that even before he was fourteen years old he +was occasionally asked to substitute for the conductor +of the school orchestra. Life, however, was hard. He +had no money with which to buy even a few luxuries +in the way of food to eke out the wretched fare of +the Convict, nor music paper. Had it not been for the +kindness of a fellow pupil and friend, named Spaun, he +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233' name='page_233'></a>233</span> +would not have been able to write down and work out +his ideas.</p> +<p>When his voice changed, the straitened family circumstances +obliged him to become an assistant in his +father’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 +“<i>Kann er wass?</i>” (Can he do anything?)</p> +<p>Outside a small circle of acquaintances, Schubert remained +practically unknown until he made the acquaintance +of Johann Michael Vogl, an opera singer, +to whom his devoted friend, Von Schober, introduced +him. Vogl was somewhat reserved in his opinion of +the songs which he tried over with Schubert at their +first meeting, but they made an impression. He followed +up the acquaintance and became the first professional +interpreter of Schubert’s lyrics. “The manner +in which Vogl sings and I accompany,” wrote Schubert +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234' name='page_234'></a>234</span> +to his brother Ferdinand, “so that we appear like +<em>one</em> 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.</p> +<h4>How the “Erlking” was Composed.</h4> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_235' name='page_235'></a>235</span> +which occurs three times in the course of the +composition and depicts the child’s terror of the <i>Erlking</i>, +the old organist struck these chords and explained +how perfectly they reflected the spirit of the +poem and how felicitously they were worked out in +their musical resolution.</p> +<p>Schubert’s song is almost Wagnerian in its descriptive +and dramatic quality. The coaxing voice of the +<i>Erlking</i>, the terror of the child, the efforts of the father +to allay his boy’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.”</p> +<h4>Finck on Schubert.</h4> +<p>More than six hundred songs by Schubert have been +published, and when we remember that he wrote symphonies, +sonatas, shorter pianoforte pieces, chamber +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236' name='page_236'></a>236</span> +music and operas, the fertility of his brief life is astounding. +The rapidity with which he composed, however, +was not due to carelessness, but to the spontaneity +of his genius and the fact that he loved to compose. +“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 <i>Speise Karte</i>, +and Schubert, with the varied noises of the tavern going +on about him, jotted down the song then and there.</p> +<p>Of course, it is impossible to touch on all the aspects +of such a genius as his. In his songs clear and beautiful +melody is, as a rule, combined with a descriptive +accompaniment. Sometimes the description is given +by means of only a few chords, like the preluding ones +in “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”; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237' name='page_237'></a>237</span> +the veiled mist that seems to hang over the scenes in the +wonderfully dramatic poem, “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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>Lied</i>, the familiar “On the Wings of Song.”</p> +<h4>Schumann’s Individuality.</h4> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_238' name='page_238'></a>238</span> +Schubert and Schumann, I should say that there is a +twofold interest in most of Schubert’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.</p> +<p>The proportion of fine songs among the two hundred +and forty-five composed by Schumann is, however, +much smaller than in the heritage left us by Schubert; +and while Schubert, from the time he wrote his first +great vocal compositions, added many equally great +ones every year, Schumann’s songs, on the whole, show +a decided falling off after he had wooed and won Clara +Wieck. It was during his courtship that he produced +his best songs. Separated from her by the command +of her stern father, he made love to her in music.</p> +<p>“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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_239' name='page_239'></a>239</span> +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.</p> +<h4>Phases of Franz’s Genius.</h4> +<p>Robert Franz (1815-1892) had his life embittered +by neglect and physical ills. His family name originally +was Knauth, his father having been Christoph +Knauth. But in order to distinguish him from his +brother, who was engaged in the same business, he +was addressed as Christoph Franz, a name which he +subsequently had legalized. Yet critics insisted that +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240' name='page_240'></a>240</span> +Robert Franz was a pseudonym which the composer +had adopted from vanity in order to indicate that he +was as great as <em>Robert</em> Schumann and <em>Franz</em> Schubert +put together.</p> +<p>Franz was strongly influenced by Bach and Händel, +many of whose scores he supplied with what are known +as “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.”</p> +<p>Franz did not endeavor to reproduce visible things +in his pianoforte parts, and the voice in his songs often +is declamatory, merging into melody only in the more +deeply emotional passages. He is a reflective rather +than a dramatic composer, disliked opera, and himself +said that any one who had penetrated deeply into his +songs well knew that the dramatic element was not to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241' name='page_241'></a>241</span> +be found in them, nor was it intended to be. Composers, +however, have many theories regarding their +music which, in practice, come to naught; and whether +Franz thought his songs dramatic or not, the fact remains +that when Lilli Lehmann sang his “Im Herbst” +it was as thrillingly dramatic as anything could be.</p> +<h4>Self-Critical.</h4> +<p>Franz was extremely self-critical. He kept his productions +in his desk for years, working over them again +and again, until in many cases the song in its final +shape bore slight resemblance to what it had been at +first. He declared his Opus 1 to be no worse than his +latest work, because it had been composed with equal +care and had had the benefit of his ripening judgment +and experience. He admired Wagner and dedicated +one of his song volumes to him; but when some critics +fancied that they discovered Wagnerian traits in several +songs in his last collection, Op. 51-52, he was +able to prove that these very songs were among the +first he had written, and were published so late in +his career simply because he had kept them back for +revision.</p> +<p>His physical disabilities were pitiable. When he was +about thirty-three years old and shortly after his marriage, +he was standing in the Halle railway station +when a locomotive close by sounded its shrill whistle. +The effect upon him was like the piercing of his ears. +For several days afterward he heard nothing but confused +buzzing, and from that time on his hearing became +worse and worse, until finally his ears pained +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242' name='page_242'></a>242</span> +him even when he composed. In 1876 he became +totally deaf, and a few years later his right arm was +paralyzed from shoulder to thumb. He was a poor +man, and right at the worst time in his life, when he +was totally deaf, a small pension which he had received +from the Bach Society was taken away from him. But +his admirers, many of them Americans, came to his +rescue and raised a fund for his support.</p> +<p>Among his finest songs are “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.”</p> +<h4>Brahms a Thinker in Music.</h4> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_243' name='page_243'></a>243</span> +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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<hr class='tb' /> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244' name='page_244'></a>244</span> +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.</p> +<h4>Grieg’s Originality.</h4> +<p>One of the most fascinating among modern song +writers is the Norwegian, Grieg. He has been unusually +fortunate in having a fine singer as a wife. +Mr. Finck relates that Ibsen, after hearing her sing +his poems as set to music by Grieg, whispered as he +shook the hands of this musical couple, the one word, +“Understood.”</p> +<p>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 <i>Lieder</i>.</p> +<p>Chopin is much too little known as a song writer. +His genius as a composer for the pianoforte has overshadowed +his songs, and the public is familiar with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_245' name='page_245'></a>245</span> +little else save “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 “<i>crescendo sempre piu accellerando</i>.” +Certainly <i>sempre</i> (always) and <i>accellerando</i> +(faster) are capital words when applied to a +kiss!</p> +<p>Richard Wagner, when twenty-six years old, in +Paris, tried to relieve his poverty by composing a few +songs, among which is a very charming setting of +Ronsard’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.”</p> +<h4>Liszt’s Genius for Song.</h4> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_246' name='page_246'></a>246</span> +with which the contemplation of a pure woman fills a +man’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.</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247' name='page_247'></a>247</span> +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.”</p> +<p>Saint-Saëns, Delibes, Godard, Massenet, Chaminade +and the late Augusta Holmès are among French song +writers whose work is clever, but who seem to me +more concerned with manner than with matter. Gounod’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.</p> +<p>American composers who have produced noteworthy +songs are Edward A. MacDowell, G. W. Chadwick, +Arthur Foote, Clayton Johns, Homer N. Bartlett, Margaret +Ruthven Lang, and the late Ethelbert Nevin.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_248' name='page_248'></a>248</span> +<a name='XV_ORATORIO' id='XV_ORATORIO'></a> +<h2>XV</h2> +<h3>ORATORIO</h3> +</div> +<p>Oratorio had its origin in an attempt by a +sixteenth century Italian monk to make divine +service more interesting—to draw to +church people who might not be attracted by the opportunity +to hear a sermon, but could be persuaded +to come if music a trifle more entertaining to the common +mind than the unaccompanied (<i>à capella</i>) ecclesiastical +compositions of Palestrina and other masters of +the polyphonic school, were thrown in with them. +Music still is regarded as a prime drawing card in +churches, and when nowadays a fine basso rises after +the sermon and sings “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.</p> +<p>As it exists to-day, however, oratorio has little to do +with religious worship, and usually is practiced amid +secular surroundings, with a female chorus in variegated +evening attire and a male chorus in claw-hammers, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249' name='page_249'></a>249</span> +the singers hanging more or less anxiously on +the baton of the conductor. This living picture which, +so far as this country is concerned, I have, I believe, +drawn in correct perspective, is so much out of keeping +with the religious subjects which usually underlie the +texts of oratorios that it may account for the comparative +lack of interest shown by Americans for this form +of musical entertainment.</p> +<p>It also is true, however, that in this country oratorio +never has had more than half a chance. This is +due to the fact that the American man is not as sensitive +to music nor musically as well educated as the +American woman, the result being that the male contingent +of the average American oratorio chorus is less +competent than the women singers. Tenors are “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.</p> +<h4>An Incongruous Art-Form.</h4> +<p>Even at its best, however, oratorio is an incongruous +art-form, neither an opera nor a church service, but +rather an attempt to design something that shall not +shock people who consider it “wicked” to go to the +opera, nor afflict with <i>ennui</i> those who would consider +an invitation to listen to sacred music during the week +an imposition. It seems peculiarly adapted to the idea +of entertainment which prevails in England, where apparently +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_250' name='page_250'></a>250</span> +any diversion in order to be considered legal +must be more or less of a bore. Fortunately, however, +there be many men of many minds; so that while, for +example, one could not well draw a gloomier picture +of the hereafter for a critic like Mr. Henry T. Finck +than as a place where he would be obliged to hear, +let me suggest, semi-weekly performances of “The +Messiah,” the annual Christmas auditions of that work +have been the financial salvation of oratorio in America.</p> +<p>San Filippo Neri, who was born in Florence in 1515, +and was the founder of the Congregation of the Fathers +of the Oratory, was the originator of oratorio. In order +to attract people to church, he instituted before and +after the sermon dramatic and musical renderings of +scenes from Scripture. It is not unlikely that the suggestion +for the underlying dramatic text came from +the old Mystery and Miracle plays, which, to say the +least, were naive. In one of these, representing Noah +and his family about to embark in the ark, <i>Mrs. Noah</i> +declares that she prefers to stay behind with her +worldly friends, and when at last her son <i>Shem</i> seizes +and forces her into the ark, she retaliates by giving the +worthy <i>Noah</i> a box on the ear. In another play of +this kind which represented the Creation, a horse, pigs +with rings in their noses, and a mastiff with a brass +collar were brought up to <i>Adam</i> to name. But in one +performance the mastiff spied a cow’s rib-bone which +had been provided for the formation of <i>Eve</i>, grabbed +it and carried it off, in spite of the efforts of the <i>Angel</i> +to whistle him back, and <i>Eve</i> had to be created without +the aid of the rib.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_251' name='page_251'></a>251</span></div> +<h4>Primitive Efforts.</h4> +<p>It is not likely that any such contretemps accompanied +the performances of San Filippo’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.”</p> +<p>It was the composer, Giovanni Carissimi, who first +introduced the narrator in oratorio, this function being +to continue the action with explanatory recitatives between +the numbers. In his oratorio, “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.</p> +<p>Up to this point, in fact, oratorio and opera may +be said to have developed hand in hand, but now, +through the influence of German composers and especially +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_252' name='page_252'></a>252</span> +through their Passion Music, it assumed a more +distinct form. “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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253' name='page_253'></a>253</span></div> +<h4>Bach’s “Passion Music.”</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_254' name='page_254'></a>254</span> +in Berlin, on March 12th, 1829—an epoch-making +performance.</p> +<p>Strictly speaking, Passion Music is not an oratorio, +but a church service, and Bach actually designed his +to serve as a counter-attraction to the Mass as performed +in the Roman Church. What we understand +under oratorio derived its vitality from George Frederick +Händel, who was born at Halle in Lower Saxony, +1685, but whose most important work was accomplished +in London, where he died in 1759 and was +buried in Westminster Abbey. Before Händel wrote +his two greatest oratorios, “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.</p> +<h4>Rockstro on Händel.</h4> +<p>Händel may in fact be called the founder of variety +and freedom in writing for chorus. While I must confess +that I do not share Rockstro’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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255' name='page_255'></a>255</span> +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:</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>This work was performed for the first time on April +13, 1742, at the Music Hall, Dublin, when Händel was +on a visit to the Duke of Devonshire, then Lord Lieutenant +of Ireland. The rehearsals, at which many +people were present by invitation, had aroused so much +enthusiasm, that those who were interested in the charitable +object for which it was given, requested “as a +favor that the ladies who honor this performance with +their presence would be pleased to come without hoops, +as it would greatly increase the charity by making room +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256' name='page_256'></a>256</span> +for more company.” 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4>Mendelssohn’s Oratorios.</h4> +<p>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” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_257' name='page_257'></a>257</span> +is so apparent that it has been said more than once to +be capable of stage representation with scenery, costumes +and action. This is especially true of the prophet +himself, whose personality is so definitely developed +that he stands before us almost like a character behind +the footlights. This dramatic value is felt at the very +beginning, when, after four solemn chords on the brass, +the work, instead of opening with an overture, is ushered +in by <i>Elijah’s</i> prophecy of the drought. Then +comes the overture, which is descriptive of the effects +of the prophecy.</p> +<p>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 +<i>Elijah</i>, 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 +<i>Angel’s</i> 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 +<i>Angel</i> carried on such a lively flirtation with the +<i>Prophet</i> that she almost missed the cue for her most +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_258' name='page_258'></a>258</span> +important solo; in fact would have missed it, had not +the conductor sharply called her attention to the fact +that it was time for her to begin.</p> +<p>I think that oratorio reached its successive climaxes +with “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.</p> +<p>There are certain sacred, semi-sacred and even secular +works that are apt to figure on the programs of +oratorio and allied societies. Mr. Frank Damrosch’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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_259' name='page_259'></a>259</span> +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.”</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_260' name='page_260'></a>260</span> +<a name='XVI_OPERA_AND_MUSICDRAMA' id='XVI_OPERA_AND_MUSICDRAMA'></a> +<h2>XVI</h2> +<h3>OPERA AND MUSIC-DRAMA</h3> +</div> +<p>Opera originated in Florence toward the close +of the sixteenth century. A band of enthusiastic, +intellectual composers aimed at reproducing the +musical declamation which they believed to +have been characteristic of the representation of Greek +tragedy. The first attempt resulted in a cantata, “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.</p> +<p>These composers aimed at an exact oratorical rendering +of the words. Consequently, their scores were +neither fugal nor in any other sense polyphonic, but +strictly monodic. They were not, however, melodious, +but declamatory; and if Richard Wagner had wished, +in the nineteenth century, to claim any historical foundation +for the declamatory recitative which he introduced +in his music-dramas, he might have fallen back +upon these composers of the late sixteenth and early +seventeenth centuries, and through them back to Greek +tragedy with its bands of lyres and flutes.</p> +<p>These Italian composers, then, were the creators of +recitative, so different from the polyphonic church +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_261' name='page_261'></a>261</span> +music of the school of Palestrina. What usually is +classed as the first opera, Jacopo Peri’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.</p> +<p>The new art-form received great stimulus from +Claudio Monteverde, the Duke of Mantua’s <i>maestro di +capella</i>, who composed “Arianna” in honor of the marriage +of Francesco Gonzaga with Margherita, Infanta +of Savoy. The scene in which <i>Ariadne</i> bewails her +desertion by her lover was so dramatically written +(from the standpoint of the day, of course) that it produced +a sensation, and when Monteverde brought out +with even greater success his opera “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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Melody, free and beautiful melody, soaring above a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_262' name='page_262'></a>262</span> +comparatively simple accompaniment, was the characteristic +of Italian opera from Scarlatti’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.</p> +<h4>Reforms by Gluck.</h4> +<p>The charge most frequently laid against Italian +opera is that its composers have been too subservient +to the singers, and have sacrificed dramatic truth and +depth of expression, as well as the musicianship which +is required of a well-written and well-balanced score, +as between the vocal and instrumental portions, to the +vanity of those upon the stage—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. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_263' name='page_263'></a>263</span> +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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4>Comparative Popularity of Certain Operas.</h4> +<p>These characteristics remained for many years to +come the distinguishing marks of German opera. They +will be discovered in Mozart’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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_264' name='page_264'></a>264</span> +dramatic element and his superior skill in orchestration. +They also will be discovered in Beethoven’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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_265' name='page_265'></a>265</span> +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.</p> +<p>Wagner has had far-reaching effect upon music in +general, and even Italian opera, which, of all art-forms, +was least like his music-dramas, has felt his influence. +Boito’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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_266' name='page_266'></a>266</span> +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.</p> +<h4>Wagner’s Music-Dramas.</h4> +<p>I doubt whether Wagner had either the Greek +drama or the declamatory recitative of the early +Italian opera composers in mind when he originated +the music-drama. My opinion is that he thought +it out free from any extraneous suggestion, but afterward, +anticipating the attacks which in the then state +of music in Germany would be made upon his theories, +sought for prototypes and found them in ancient Greece +and renascent Italy.</p> +<p>His theory of dramatic music is that it should express +with undeviating fidelity the words which underly +it; not words in their mere outward aspect, but +their deeper significance in their relation to the persons, +controlling ideas, impulses and passions out of which +grow the scenes, situations, climaxes and crises of the +written play, the libretto, if so you choose to call it—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.</p> +<p>Opera is the glorification of the voice and the deification +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_267' name='page_267'></a>267</span> +of the singer.—Do we not call the prima donna a +<i>diva</i>? Music-drama, on the other hand, is the glorification +of music in its broadest sense, instrumental and +vocal combined, and the deification of dramatic truth +on the musical stage. Opera, as handled by the Italian +and the French, undoubtedly is a very attractive art-form, +but music-drama is a higher art-form, because +more serious and more searching and more elevated in +its expression of emotion.</p> +<p>Wagner was German to the core—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.</p> +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_268' name='page_268'></a>268</span> +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.”</p> +<h4>Wagner a Melodist.</h4> +<p>It sometimes is contended that Wagner adopted his +system of leading motives because he was not a melodist. +This is refuted by the melodies that abound in his +earlier works; and, even as I write, I can hear the pupils +in a nearby public school singing the melody of the +“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: <i>Siegmund’s</i> +“Love Song” and <i>Wotan’s</i> “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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_269' name='page_269'></a>269</span> +that have occurred earlier in the Cycle, yet give this +passage an overpowering pathos without equal in absolute +music and just as effective whether you know the +story of the music-drama and the significance of the +motives, or not. If you do know the story and the significance +of these musical phrases, you will find that in +this Funeral March the whole “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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_7' id='linki_7'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-269.png'> +<img src='images/illus-269.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='80' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +[<a href="music/269.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>To illustrate his method, take the Curse Motive, in +the “Ring of the Nibelung,” which is heard when <i>Alberich</i> +curses the Ring, and all into whose possession it +shall come. When, near the end of “Rheingold,” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270' name='page_270'></a>270</span> +<i>Fafner</i> kills his brother, <i>Fasolt</i>, in wresting the Ring +from him, the motive recurs with a significance which +is readily understood. <i>Fasolt</i> is the first victim of the +curse. Again, in “Götterdämmerung,” when <i>Siegfried</i> +lands at the entrance to the castle of <i>Gibichungs</i>, +and is greeted by <i>Hagen</i>, although the greeting seems +hearty enough, the motive is heard and conveys its +sinister lure.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_8' id='linki_8'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-270a.png'> +<img src='images/illus-270a.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='141' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +[<a href="music/270a.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>When, in “Die Walküre,” <i>Brünnhilde</i> predicts the +birth of a son to <i>Sieglinde</i>, you hear the Siegfried Motive, +signifying that the child will be none other than +the young hero of the next drama. The motive is +heard again when <i>Wotan</i> promises <i>Brünnhilde</i> to surround +her with a circle of flames which none but a hero +can penetrate, <i>Siegfried</i> being that hero; and also when +<i>Siegfried</i> himself, in the music-drama “Siegfried,” tells +of seeing his image in the brook.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_9' id='linki_9'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-270b.png'> +<img src='images/illus-270b.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='64' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +[<a href="music/270b.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>There are motives which are almost wholly rhythmical, +like the “Nibelung” Smithy Motive, which depicts +the slavery of the <i>Nibelungs</i>, eternally working in the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_271' name='page_271'></a>271</span> +mines of Nibelheim; and motives with strange, weird +harmonies, like the motive of the Tarnhelm, which conveys +a sense of mystery, the Tarnhelm giving its +wearer the power to change his form.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_10' id='linki_10'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-271.png'> +<img src='images/illus-271.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='82' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +[<a href="music/271.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<h4>Leading Motives not Mere Labels.</h4> +<p>Leading motives are not mere labels. They concern +themselves with more than the superficial aspect of +things and persons. With persons they express character; +with things they symbolize what these stand for. +The Curse Motive is weird, sinister. You feel when +listening to it that it bodes evil to all who come within +its dark circle. The Siegfried Motive, on the other +hand, is buoyant with youth, vigor, courage; vibrates +with the love of achievement; and stirs the soul with +its suggestion of heroism. But when you hear it in +the Funeral March in “Götterdämmerung” and it recalls +by association the gay-hearted, tender yet courageous +boy, who slew the dragon, awakened <i>Brünnhilde</i> +with his kiss, only to be betrayed and murdered by +<i>Hagen</i>, and now is being borne over the mountain to +the funeral pyre, those heroic strains have a tragic +significance that almost brings tears to your eyes.</p> +<p>The Siegfried Motive is a good example of a musical +phrase the contour of which practically remains unchanged +through the music-drama. The varied emotions +with which we listen to it are effected by association. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_272' name='page_272'></a>272</span> +But many of Wagner’s leading motives are extremely +plastic and undergo many changes in illustrating +the development of character or the special bearing +of certain dramatic situations upon those concerned in +the action of the drama. As a gay-hearted youth, +<i>Siegfried</i> winds his horn:</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_11' id='linki_11'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-272a.png'> +<img src='images/illus-272a.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='85' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +[<a href="music/272a.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>This horn call becomes, when, as <i>Brünnhilde’s</i> husband, +he bids farewell to his bride and departs in quest of +knightly adventure, the stately Motive of <i>Siegfried</i>, the +Hero:</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_12' id='linki_12'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-272b.png'> +<img src='images/illus-272b.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='74' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +[<a href="music/272b.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>And when the dead <i>Siegfried</i>, stretched upon a +rude bier, is borne from the scene, it voices the climax +of the tragedy with overwhelming power:</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_13' id='linki_13'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-272c.png'> +<img src='images/illus-272c.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='148' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +[<a href="music/272c.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>Thus we have two derivatives from the “Siegfried” +horn call, each with its own special significance, yet +harking back to the original germ.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_273' name='page_273'></a>273</span></div> +<p>Soon after the opening of “Tristan und Isolde” a +sailor sings an unaccompanied song of farewell to his +<i>Irish Maid</i>. 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.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_14' id='linki_14'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-273a.png'> +<img src='images/illus-273a.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='160' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +Frisch weht der Wind der Hei-mat zu: mein i-risch Kind, wo wei-lest du?<br /> +[<a href="music/273a.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>This same phrase gracefully undulates through <i>Brangäne’s</i> +reply to <i>Isolde’s</i> 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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_274' name='page_274'></a>274</span> +wrath when she invokes the elements to destroy the +ship and all upon it. Examples like these occur many +times in the scores of Wagner’s music-dramas.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_15' id='linki_15'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-273b.png'> +<img src='images/illus-273b.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='155' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +[<a href="music/273b.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<div class='figcenter'> +<div class='figtag'> +<a name='linki_16' id='linki_16'></a> +</div> +<a href='images/big_illus-273c.png'> +<img src='images/illus-273c.png' alt='' title='' width='500' height='142' /><br /> +</a> +<p class='caption'> +[<a href="music/273c.mid">Listen</a>]<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>Often, when several characters are participating in a +scene, or when the act or influence of one, or the principle +for which he stands in the drama, is potent, though +he himself is not present, Wagner with rare skill combines +several motives, utilizing for this purpose all the +resources of counterpoint. Elsewhere I already have +described how he has done this in the Magic Fire +Scene in “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.</p> +<p>Wagner was a great dramatist, but he was a far +greater musician. There are many splendid scenes and +climaxes in the dramas which he wrote for his music, +and if he had not been a composer it is possible he would +have achieved immortality as a writer of tragedy. On +the other hand, however, there are in his dramas many +long stretches in which the action is unconsciously delayed +by talk. He believed that music and drama +should go hand in hand and each be of equal interest; +but his supreme musicianship has disproved his own +theories, for his dramas derive the breath of life from +his music. Theoretically, he is not supposed to have +written absolute music—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 +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_275' name='page_275'></a>275</span> +without the slightest clue to their meaning in their +given place, constitute the greatest achievements in +absolute music that history up to the present time can +show.</p> +<p class='center' style='font-weight:bold; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:2em;'>THE END</p> +<hr class='pb' /> +<div class="trnote"> +<p>Transcriber’s Note:</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em'>Author’s archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is mostly preserved.</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em'>Author’s punctuation style is preserved.</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em'>Illustrations have been moved closer to their relevant paragraphs, but the original +page numbers are preserved in the List of Illustrations. Illustrations may be viewed +full-size by clicking on them.</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em'>Any missing page numbers in this HTML version refer to blank or un-numbered pages in the original.</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em'>Typographical problems have been changed, and these are +<ins class="trchange" title="Was 'hgihligthed'">highlighted</ins>.</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em'>All musical excerpts are scans from the original book except for that on page 269, which has +been reproduced due to damage in the original book. Below each musical excerpt is a link to a midi file [Listen].</p> +<p>Transcriber’s Changes:</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em'><a href='#TC_1'>Page 35</a>: Was ‘Wesendonk’ (as if I had it by heart,” he writes from Venice to Mathilde <b>Wesendonck</b>, in relating to her the genesis of the great love)</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em'><a href='#TC_2'>Page 139</a>: Was ‘Traümerei’ (And then there are the “Scenes from Childhood,” to which belongs the <b>“Träumerei”</b>; the “Forest Scenes,” the “Sonatas;”)</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em'><a href='#TC_3'>Page 172</a>: Was ‘Pathètique’ (while for his “Symphonie <b>Pathétique</b>,” one of the finest of modern orchestral works, Tschaikowsky adds only a bass tuba)</p> +</div> +<hr class='pb' /> + +<!-- generated by ppg.rb version: 3.21k3 --> +<!-- timestamp: Thu Dec 09 21:54:51 +0700 2010 --> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How to Appreciate Music, by Gustav Kobbé + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO APPRECIATE MUSIC *** + +***** This file should be named 34610-h.htm or 34610-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/6/1/34610/ + +Produced by Mark C. 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