25213	----	None 
30412	----	[Illustration: M. Camille Saint-Saëns] ON THE EXECUTION OF MUSIC, AND PRINCIPALLY OF ANCIENT MUSIC BY M. CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS _Delivered at the_ "_Salon de la Pensée Française_" _Panama-Pacific International Exposition_ _San Francisco, June First_ _Nineteen Hundred_ _& Fifteen_ DONE INTO ENGLISH WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY HENRY P. BOWIE SAN FRANCISCO: THE BLAIR-MURDOCK COMPANY 1915 _Copyright, 1915_ _by M. Camille Saint-Saëns_ ON THE EXECUTION OF MUSIC, AND PRINCIPALLY OF ANCIENT MUSIC MUSIC was written in a scrawl impossible to decipher up to the thirteenth century, when Plain Song[1] (_Plain Chant_) made its appearance in square and diamond-shaped notes. The graduals and introits had not yet been reduced to bars, but the songs of the troubadours appear to have been in bars of three beats with the accent on the feeble note of each bar. However, the theory that this bar of three beats or triple time was used exclusively is probably erroneous. St. Isidore, in his treatise on music, speaking of how Plain Song should be interpreted, considers in turn all the voices and recommends those which are high, sweet and clear, for the execution of vocal sounds, introits, graduals, offertories, etc. This is exactly contrary to what we now do, since in place of utilizing these light tenor voices for Plain Song, we have recourse to voices both heavy and low. In the last century when it was desired to restore Plain Song to its primitive purity, one met with insurmountable obstacles due to its prodigious prolixity of long series of notes, repeating indefinitely the same musical forms; but in considering this in the light of explanations given by St. Isidore, and in view of the Oriental origin of the Christian religion, we are led to infer that these long series of notes were chants or vocalizations analogous to the songs of the Muezzins of the Orient. At the beginning of the sixteenth century musical laws began to be elaborated without, however, in this evolution towards modern tonal art, departing entirely from all influence of the antique methods. The school named after Palestrina employed as yet only the triads or perfect chords; this prevented absolutely all expression, although some traces of it appear in the "Stabat Mater" of that composer. This music, ecclesiastical in character, in which it would have been chimerical to try to introduce modern expression, flourished in France, in Flanders, in Spain at the same time as in Italy, and enjoyed the favor of Pope Marcellus, who recognized the merit of Palestrina in breaking loose from the grievous practice of adapting popular songs to church music. In the middle ages, as in antiquity, the laws of harmony were unknown; when it was desired to sing in two parts, they sang at first in intervals of fifths and fourths, where it would have seemed much more natural to sing in thirds and sixths. Such first attempts at music in several parts were made in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when they were hunting for laws, and such music was discordant. It bore the name of Diaphony. The real Polyphony came in the sixteenth century with the school of Palestrina. Later on, little by little, laws were established, not arbitrarily, but laws resulting from a long experience, and during all the sixteenth century admirable music was written, though deprived of melody, properly speaking. Melody was reserved for dance music which, in fact, was perfectly written in four and even in five part scores, as I have been able to convince myself in hunting for dance music of the sixteenth century for my opera "Ascanio." But no indication of movement, nuances or shading, enlightens us as to the manner in which this music should be interpreted. At Paris the first attempts to execute the music of Palestrina were made in the time of Louis Philippe, by the Prince of Moscow. He had founded a choral society of amateurs, all titled, but gifted with good voices and a certain musical talent. This society executed many of the works of Palestrina and particularly the famous "Mass of Pope Marcellus." They adopted at that time the method of singing most of these pieces very softly and with an extreme slowness so that in the long-sustained notes the singers were forced to divide their task by some taking up the sound when the others were out of breath. Consonant chords thus presented evidently produced music which was very agreeable to the ear, but unquestionably the author could not recognize his work in such rendering. Quite different was the method of the singers in the Sistine Chapel when I heard them for the first time in Rome in 1855 when they sung the "Sicut Cervus" of Palestrina. They roared in a head-splitting way without the least regard for the pleasure of the listener, or for the meaning of the words they sang. It is difficult to believe that this music was ever composed to be executed in such a barbarous manner, which, it seems to me, differs completely from our musical conceptions; and it is a great mistake also in modern editions of such music to introduce delicate shadings or nuances and even employ the words "very expressive." Palestrina has had his admirers among French literary writers. We recall the scene created by Octave Feuillet in "M. de Camors." M. de Camors is at his window; a lady is at the piano; a gentleman at the cello, and another lady sings the Mass of Palestrina which I have referred to above. Such a way of playing this music is simply out of the question. Feuillet had obtained his inspiration for this from a fanciful painting which he had seen somewhere. Expression was introduced into music by the chord of the dominant seventh, the invention of which is attributed to Monteverde. However, Palestrina had already employed that chord in his "Adoremus," but probably without understanding its importance or divining its future. Before this invention the interval of three whole tones (Triton) was considered an intolerable dissonance and was called "the devil in music." The dominant seventh has been the open door to all dissonances and to the domain of expression. It was a death blow to that learned music of the sixteenth century; it was the arrival of the reign of melody--of the development of the art of singing. Very often the song or the solo instrument would be accompanied by a simple, ciphered bass, the ciphers indicating the chords which he who accompanied should play as well as he could, either on the harpsichord or the theorbe. The theorbe was an admirable instrument which is now to be found only in museums,--a sort of enormous guitar with a long neck and multiple strings which offered great opportunities to a skilful artist. It is curious to note that in ancient times there was not attributed to the minor and major keys the same character as is assigned them to-day.[2] The joyous canticle of the Catholic church, "O Filii et Filiæ," is in the minor. "The Romanesca," a dance air of the sixteenth century, is equally in the minor, just like all the dance airs of Lully, and of Rameau, and the gavottes of Sebastian Bach. The celebrated "Funeral March" of Haendel, reproduced in many of his works, is in C Major. The delicious love duo of Acis and Galathee, which changes to a trio by the addition of the part of Polyphemus, is in A Minor. When Galathee weeps afterward over the death of Acis, the air is in F Major. It is only recently that we find dance airs in the major mood or key. From the seventeenth century on, music entered into everyday life, never again to be separated from it. Thus music has remained in favor, and we are continually hearing executed the works of Bach, of Haendel, of Hayden, of Mozart and of Beethoven. How are such works executed? Are they executed as they should be? That is another question. One source of error is found in the evolution which musical instruments have undergone. In the time of Bach and Haendel the bow truly merited its Italian name of "arco." It was curved like an arc--the hairs of the bow constituted the chord of the arc, a very great flexibility resulting which allowed the strings of the instrument to be enveloped and to be played simultaneously. The bow seldom quitted the strings, doing so only in rare cases and when especially indicated. On this account it happens that the indication of "legato" is very rare. Even though there was a separate stroke of the bow for each note, the notes were not separated one from the other. Nowadays the form of the bow is completely changed. The execution of the music is based upon the detached bow, and although it is easy to keep the bow upon the strings just as they did at the commencement of the nineteenth century, performers have lost the habit of it. The result is that they give to ancient music a character of perpetually jumping, which completely destroys its nature. The very opposite movement has been produced in instruments of the key or piano type. The precise indications of Mozart show that "non-legato," which doesn't mean at all "staccato," was the ordinary way of playing the instrument, and that the veritable "legato" was played only where the author specially indicated it. The clavecin or harpsichord, which preceded the piano, when complete with two banks of keys, many registers giving the octaves and different tone qualities, oftentimes like the organ with a key for pedals, offered resources which the piano does not possess. A Polish lady, Madame Landowska, has studied thoroughly these resources, and has shown us how pieces written for this instrument thus disclosed elements of variety which are totally missing when the same are played upon the piano; but the clavecin tone lacked fulness, and shadings or nuances were out of the question. Sonority or tone was varied by changing the keys or register just as on the organ. On the other hand, with the piano one can vary the sonority by augmenting or diminishing the force of the attack, hence its original name of "forte piano,"--a name too long, which was shortened at first by suppressing the last syllables; so that one reads, not without astonishment, in the accounts given of young Mozart, of the skill he showed in playing "forte" at a time when he was playing on instruments of a very feeble tone. Nowadays when athletic artists exert all their force upon the modern instruments of terrific sonority, they are said to play the "piano" (_toucher du piano_). We must conclude that the indication "non-legato" finally degenerated into meaning "staccato." In my youth I heard persons advanced in age whose performance on the piano was extremely dry and jumpy. Then a reaction took place. The tyrannical reign of the perpetual "legato" succeeded. It was decided that in piano playing unless indicated to the contrary, and even at times in spite of such indication, everything everywhere should be tied together.[3] This was a great misfortune of which Kalkbrenner gives a manifest proof in the arrangement he has made of Beethoven's symphonies. Besides, this "legato" tyranny continues. Notwithstanding the example of Liszt, the greatest pianist of the nineteenth century, and notwithstanding his numerous pupils, the fatal school of the "legato" has prevailed,--not that it is unfortunate in itself, but because it has perverted the intentions of musical authors. Our French professors have followed the example of Kalkbrenner. The house of Breitkopf, which until lately had the best editions of the German classics, has substituted in their places new editions where professors have eagerly striven to perfect in their own manner the music of the masters. When this great house wished to make a complete edition of the works of Mozart, which are prodigiously numerous, it appealed to all who possessed manuscripts of Mozart, and then having gathered these most precious documents, instead of reproducing them faithfully, that house believed it was doing well to leave to the professors full liberty of treatment and change. Thus that admirable series of concertos for piano has been ornamented by Karl Reinecke with a series of joined notes, tied notes, legato, molto legato, and sempre legato which are the very opposite of what the composer intended. Worse still, in a piece which Mozart had the genial idea of terminating suddenly with a delicately shaded phrase, they have taken out such nuances and terminated the piece with a _forte_ passage of the most commonplace character. One other plague in modern editions is the abuse of the pedal. Mozart never indicated the pedal. As purity of taste is one of his great qualities, it is probable that he made no abuse of the pedal. Beethoven indicated it in a complicated and cumbersome manner. When he wanted the pedal he wrote "senza sordini," which means without dampers, and to take them off he wrote "con sordini," meaning with dampers. The soft pedal is indicated by "una corda." The indication to take it off, an indication which exists even now, was written "tre corde." The indication "ped" for the grand pedal is assuredly more convenient, but that is no reason for making an abuse of it and inflicting it upon the author where his writing indicates the contrary. As it seems to me, it is only from the eighteenth century that authors have indicated the movements of their compositions, but the words which they have employed have changed in sense with time. Formerly the difference between the slowest movement and the most rapid movement was much less than at present. The "largo" was only an "adagio" and the "presto" would be scarcely an "allegro" to-day. The "andante" which now indicates a slow movement, had at that time its original signification, meaning "going." It was an "allegro moderate." Haendel often wrote "andante allegro." Through ignorance of that fact the beautiful air of Gluck, "Divinities of the Styx," is sung too slowly and the air of Thaos in the "Iphigenia in Tauris" equally so. Berlioz recollected having heard at the opera in his youth a much more animated execution of these works. Finally, in ancient times notes were not defined as they are to-day and their value was approximative only. This liberty in the execution of music is particularly perceptible in the works of Rameau. To conform to his intentions in the vocal part such music must not be interpreted literally. One must be governed by the declamation, and not by the written note indicating a long or short duration. The proof of this is to be seen when the violins and the voice are in unison--the way of writing them is different. A great obstacle to executing ancient works from the eighteenth century on is in the interpretation of grace notes, "appoggiaturas" and others. In these cases there is an unfortunate habit in players of conforming to their own taste, which may guide a little, but cannot suffice in every instance. One can be convinced of this in studying The Method of Violin by the father of Mozart. We find there things which one would never dream of. The "appoggiatura"[4] (from _appoggiare_, which in Italian means "to lean upon"), should always be long, the different ways in which it may be written having no influence upon its length. There is an exception to this when its final little note, ascending or descending, and preceding the larger note, is distant from it a disjointed degree. In this case it is not an "appoggiatura," and should be played short. In many cases it prolongs the duration of the note which follows it. It may even alter the value of the notes following. I will cite in connection with the subject of the "appoggiatura" the beautiful duo with chorus of the "Passion According to St. Matthew," and at the same time, I would point out the error committed in making of this passion a most grandios performance with grand choral and instrumental masses. One is deceived by its noble character, by its two choruses, by its two orchestras, and one forgets that it was destined for the little Church of St. Thomas in Leipsig, where Sebastian Bach was organist. While in certain cantatas that composer employed horns, trumpets, trombones and cymbals, for the "Passion According to St. Matthew," he only used in each of the orchestras two flutes, two hautbois, changing from the ordinary hautbois to the hautbois d'amour and the hautbois of the chase,--now the English horn; that is to say, hautbois pitched a third and a fifth lower. These two orchestras and these two choruses then certainly were reduced to a very small number of performers. In all very ancient music, from the time of Lully, one finds constantly a little cross marked over the notes. Often this certainly indicates a trill, but it seems difficult to take it always to mean such. However, perhaps fashion desired that trills should thus be made out of place. I have never been able to find an explanation of this sign, not even in the musical dictionary of J. J. Rousseau. This dictionary none the less contains a great deal of precious information. Does it not inform us, among other things, that the copyists of former times were veritable collaborators? When the author indicated the altos with the basses, the hautbois with the violins, these copyists undertook to make the necessary modifications. Times have unfortunately changed since. In Rameau's music, certain signs are unintelligible. Musical treatises of that time say that it is impossible to describe them, and that to understand them it was necessary to have heard them interpreted by a professor of singing. With clavecinists the multiplicity of grace notes is extreme. As a rule they give the explanation of these at the head of their works, just as Rameau did. I note a curious sign which indicates that the right hand should arrive upon the keys a little after the left. This shows that there was not then that frightful habit of playing one hand after the other as is often done nowadays. This prolixity of grace notes indulged by players upon the clavecin is rather terrifying at first, but one need not be detained by them, for they are not indispensable. The published methods of those times inform us in fact that pupils were first taught to play the pieces without these grace notes, and that they were added by degrees. Besides, Rameau in transcribing for the clavecin fragments of his operas, has indicated those grace notes which the original did not contain. Ornaments are much less numerous in the writings of Sebastian Bach. Numberless confusions have been produced in the interpretation of the mordant,[5] or biting note. It should be executed above or below the principal note depending on whether the notes which precede the mordant are superior or inferior to it. With reference to the difficulties in interpreting the works of Rameau and of Gluck, I would point out the change in the diapason or pitch which at that time was a tone lower than in our days. The organ of St. Merry had a pitch in B flat. In addition to the tempi and the different instruments which make the execution difficult, one must add the recitatives which were very much employed and of which at that time a serious study was made. I recall a beautiful example of recitative in the "Iphigenia in Tauris." We come now to the modern epoch. From the time of Liszt, who not only revolutionized the performance of music on the piano, but also the way of writing it, authors give to performers all necessary indications, and they have only to carefully observe them. There are, however, some interesting remarks applicable to the music of Chopin which recent editions unfortunately are commencing to falsify. Chopin detested the abuse of the pedal. He could not bear that through an ignorant employment of the pedal two different chords should be mixed in tone together. Therefore, he has given indications with the greatest pains. Employing it where he has not indicated it, must be avoided. But great skill is necessary to thus do without the pedal. Therefore, in the new editions of the author, no account of the author's indications whatever is observed. Thus in the "Cradle Song," where the author has indicated that the pedal be put on each measure and taken off in the middle of it, modern editions preserve the pedal throughout the entire measure, thus mixing up hopelessly the tonic with the dominant, which the composer was so careful to avoid. A question of the greatest importance in playing the music of Chopin is that of "tempo rubato." That does not mean, as many think, that the time is to be dislocated. It means permitting great liberty to the singing part or melody of the composition, while the accompaniment keeps rigorous time. Mozart played in this way and he speaks of it in one of his letters and he describes it marvelously, only the term "tempo rubato" had not at that time been invented. This kind of playing, demanding complete independence of the two hands, is not within the ability of everybody. Therefore, to give the illusion of such effect, players dislocate the bass and destroy the rhythm of the bar. When to this disorder is joined the abuse of the pedal, there results that vicious execution which, passing muster, is generally accepted in the salons and often elsewhere. Another plague in the modern execution of music is the abuse of the tremolo by both singers and instrumental performers. With singers, this quivering is often the result of a fatigued voice, in which case it is involuntary and is only to be deplored; but that is not the case with violin and violoncello players. It is a fashion with them born of a desire to make an effect at any cost, and is due to the depraved taste of the public for a passionate execution of music; but art does not live on passion alone. In our time, when art, through an admirable evolution, has conquered all domains, music should express all, from the most perfect calm to the most violent emotions. When one is strongly moved the voice is altered, and in moving situations the singer should make his voice vibrate. Formerly the German female singers sang with all their voice, without any vibration in the sound and without any reference to the situation; one would say they were clarinets. Now, one must vibrate all the time. I heard the Meistersingers' quintette sung in Paris. It was dreadful and the composition incomprehensible. Not all singers, fortunately, have this defect, but it has taken possession of violinists and 'cello players. That was not the way Franchomme, the 'cello player and collaborator of Chopin, played, nor was it the way Sarasate, Sivori or Joachim played. I have written a concerto, the first and last movements of which are very passionate. They are separated by a movement of the greatest calm,--a lake between two mountains. Those great violin players who do me the honor to play this piece, do not understand the contrast and they vibrate on the lake just as they do on the mountains. Sarasate, for whom this concerto was written, was as calm on the lake as he was agitated on the mountains; nor did he fail on this account to produce always a great effect--for there is nothing like giving to music its veritable character. Anciently music was not written as scrupulously as it is to-day, and a certain liberty was permitted to interpretation. This liberty went farther than one would think, resembling much what the great Italian singers furnished examples of in the days of Rubini and Malibran. They did not hesitate to embroider the compositions, and the _reprises_ were widespread. _Reprises_ meant that when the same piece was sung a second time, the executants gave free bridle to their own inspiration. I have heard in my youth the last echoes of this style of performance. Nowadays _reprises_ are suppressed, and that is more prudent. However, it would be betraying the intentions of Mozart to execute literally many passages in concertos written by that author for the piano. At times he would write a veritable scheme only, upon which he would improvise. However, one should not imitate Kalkbrenner, who, in executing at Paris the great concerto in C Major of Mozart, had rewritten all its passages in a different manner from the author. On the other hand, when I played at the Conservatoire in Paris Mozart's magnificent concerto in C Minor, I would have thought I was committing a crime in executing literally the piano part of the Adagio, which would have been absurd if thus presented in the midst of an orchestra of great tonal wealth. There as elsewhere the letter kills; the spirit vivifies. But in a case like that one must know Mozart and assimilate his style, which demands a long study. EXPLANATORY NOTES [1] Plain Song (Fr. _Plain Chant_) was the earliest form of Christian church music. As its name indicates, it was a plain, artless chant without rhythm, accent, modulation or accompaniment, and was first sung in unison. Oriental or Grecian in origin, it had four keys called Authentic Modes, to which were added later four more called Plagal Modes. These modes, called Phrygian, Dorian, Lydian, etc., are merely different presentations in the regular order of the notes of the C Major scale--first, with D as the initial or tonic note, then with E _et seq_. They lack the sentiment of a leading seventh note. In these weird keys Plain Song was conceived for psalms, graduals, introits, and other offices of the primitive church. Such music was generally called Gregorian, because St. Gregory, Pope of Rome in the seventh century, collected and codified it, adding thereto his own contributions. Two centuries previous it was known as Ambrosian music, after St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. Originally, a single chorister intoned the Plain Song, to which a full chorus responded. Later this manner was altered to antiphonal singing--two choruses being used, one for the initial and the other for the responsive chant. Such music thus rendered was singularly grave, dignified, and awe-inspiring. During the middle ages Plain Song unfortunately degenerated much from its original sacred character, and, in one disguise or another, popular and even indecorous songs were smuggled into it. In the time of Pope Marcellus, 1576, Palestrina was employed to purge Gregorian music of its scandalous laxities. M. Saint-Saëns, to illustrate the clever way in which popular songs were given an ecclesiastical or Plain Song character, has here added to his luminous lecture the following precious original composition, reproduced in facsimile, in which through ingenious contrapuntal treatment he gives a mock sacred form to an old French ditty, "I Have Some Good Tobacco in My Snuffbox." [Illustration: musical notation] "_It is apparent here that by assigning the melody to the tenor part, it is unrecognizable. Oftentimes licentious songs were taken as the Plain Chant text, and on this account Pope Marcellus commissioned Palestrina to put an end to such practices._" In a note he adds: "It must be remembered that before popular songs were thus treated in counterpoint [which means that while the song is being produced by one voice, the other voice or voices are singing against it notes entirely different from the melody], the text for that kind of treatment was the Plain Song--the singing of which was always assigned to the tenor part. In my youth I have heard graduals treated in this fashion at High Mass in my parish church of St. Sulpice in Paris, which is still renowned for the splendor of its ceremonials." [2] (Illustration: musical notation) There are here illustrations of (a) the difference between the written manner of Gluck, in a passage from his "Alceste"--and the actually correct way of interpreting and playing it; (b) a passage from the scherzo of Mendelssohn's string quartet,--to show how a gay subject can be treated in the minor mood--and M. Saint-Saëns adds: "Mendelssohn's scherzo of his 'Midsummer Night's Dream' is in sol minor but it evokes no idea of sadness, although oftentimes those who play it, deceived by its minor mood, give it a melancholy character, which is very far from what the composer intended." [3] (Illustration: musical notation) Here M. Saint-Saëns has written a passage from a piano concerto of Mozart to illustrate how that composer wished the _non-legato_ to be interpreted--namely, in a flute-like manner,--the piano repeating textually the passages indicated to be played first by the flutes. Again he illustrates the same subject with a passage taken from a piano and violin sonata of Beethoven. The _non-legato_ passages here are not to be played on the violin in a way approaching the _staccato_, although they are written as detached notes; and the piano part follows the rendering of the violin. A final illustration is furnished in the "Turkish March" of Mozart. (Illustration: musical notation) The proper manner of writing the graceful _gruppetto_ is here given--with an illustration following of how it is to be correctly played, and how it is incorrectly executed. [5] Next is illustrated the two ways of playing the _mordant_. [4] Finally, are several examples of the _appoggiature,_--showing both the way they are written, and the way they are to be executed. The last line of the music above is an example of how in Haendel the rhythm as interpreted differs from that in which the passage is written. 
17474	----	HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS TO UNTAUGHT LOVERS OF THE ART BY HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL _Author of "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," "Notes on the Cultivation of Choral Music," "The Philharmonic Society of New York," etc._ _SEVENTH EDITION_ NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1897 COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK * * * * * TO W.J. HENDERSON WHO HAS HELPED ME TO RESPECT MUSICAL CRITICISM * * * * * AUTHOR'S NOTE The author is beholden to the Messrs. Harper & Brothers for permission to use a small portion of the material in Chapter I., the greater part of Chapter IV., and the Plates which were printed originally in one of their publications; also to the publishers of "The Looker-On" for the privilege of reprinting a portion of an essay written for them entitled "Singers, Then and Now." CONTENTS [Sidenote: CHAP. I.] _Introduction_ Purpose and scope of this book--Not written for professional musicians, but for untaught lovers of the art--neither for careless seekers after diversion unless they be willing to accept a higher conception of what "entertainment" means--The capacity properly to listen to music as a touchstone of musical talent--It is rarely found in popular concert-rooms--Travellers who do not see and listeners who do not hear--Music is of all the arts that which is practised most and thought about least--Popular ignorance of the art caused by the lack of an object for comparison--How simple terms are confounded by literary men--Blunders by Tennyson, Lamb, Coleridge, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, F. Hopkinson Smith, Brander Matthews, and others--A warning against pedants and rhapsodists. _Page 3_ [Sidenote: CHAP. II.] _Recognition of Musical Elements_ The dual nature of music--Sense-perception, fancy, and imagination--Recognition of Design as Form in its primary stages--The crude materials of music--The co-ordination of tones--Rudimentary analysis of Form--Comparison, as in other arts, not possible--Recognition of the fundamental elements--Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm--The value of memory--The need of an intermediary--Familiar music best liked--Interrelation of the elements--Repetition the fundamental principle of Form--Motives, Phrases, and Periods--A Creole folk-tune analyzed--Repetition at the base of poetic forms--Refrain and Parallelism--Key-relationship as a bond of union--Symphonic unity illustrated in examples from Beethoven--The C minor symphony and "Appassionata" sonata--The Concerto in G major--The Seventh and Ninth symphonies. _Page 15_ [Sidenote: CHAP. III.] _The Content and Kinds of Music_ How far it is necessary for the listener to go into musical philosophy--Intelligent hearing not conditioned upon it--Man's individual relationship to the art--Musicians proceed on the theory that feelings are the content of music--The search for pictures and stories condemned--How composers hear and judge--Definitions of the capacity of music by Wagner, Hauptmann, and Mendelssohn--An utterance by Herbert Spencer--Music as a language--Absolute music and Programme music--The content of all true art works--Chamber music--Meaning and origin of the term--Haydn the servant of a Prince--The characteristics of Chamber music--Pure thought, lofty imagination, and deep learning--Its chastity--Sympathy between performers and listeners essential to its enjoyment--A correct definition of Programme music--Programme music defended--The value of titles and superscriptions--Judgment upon it must, however, go to the music, not the commentary--Subjects that are unfit for music--Kinds of Programme music--Imitative music--How the music of birds has been utilized--The cuckoo of nature and Beethoven's cuckoo--Cock and hen in a seventeenth century composition--Rameau's pullet--The German quail--Music that is descriptive by suggestion--External and internal attributes--Fancy and Imagination--Harmony and the major and minor mode--Association of ideas--Movement delineated--Handel's frogs--Water in the "Hebrides" overture and "Ocean" symphony--Height and depth illustrated by acute and grave tones--Beethoven's illustration of distance--His rule enforced--Classical and Romantic music--Genesis of the terms--What they mean in literature--Archbishop Trench on classical books--The author's definitions of both terms in music--Classicism as the conservative principle, Romanticism as the progressive, regenerative, and creative--A contest which stimulates life. _Page 36_ [Sidenote: CHAP. IV.] _The Modern Orchestra_ Importance of the instrumental band--Some things that can be learned by its study--The orchestral choirs--Disposition of the players--Model bands compared--Development of instrumental music--The extent of an orchestra's register--The Strings: Violin, Viola, Violoncello, and Double-bass--Effects produced by changes in manipulation--The wood-winds: Flute, Oboe, English horn, Bassoon, Clarinet--The Brass: French Horn, Trumpet and Cornet, Trombone, Tuba--The Drums--The Conductor--Rise of the modern interpreter--The need of him--His methods--Scores and Score-reading. _Page 71_ [Sidenote: CHAP. V.] _At an Orchestral Concert_ "Classical" and "Popular" as generally conceived--Symphony Orchestras and Military bands--The higher forms in music as exemplified at a classical concert--Symphonies, Overtures, Symphonic Poems, Concertos, etc.--A Symphony not a union of unrelated parts--History of the name--The Sonata form and cyclical compositions--The bond of union between the divisions of a Symphony--Material and spiritual links--The first movement and the sonata form--"Exposition, illustration, and repetition"--The subjects and their treatment--Keys and nomenclature of the Symphony--The _Adagio_ or second movement--The _Scherzo_ and its relation to the Minuet--The Finale and the Rondo form--The latter illustrated in outline by a poem--Modifications of the symphonic form by Beethoven, Schumann, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Saint-Saëns and Dvorák--Augmentation of the forces--Symphonies with voices--The Symphonic Poem--Its three characteristics--Concertos and Cadenzas--M. Ysaye's opinion of the latter--Designations in Chamber music--The Overture and its descendants--Smaller forms: Serenades, Fantasias, Rhapsodies, Variations, Operatic Excerpts. _Page 122_ [Sidenote: CHAP. VI.] _At a Pianoforte Recital_ The Popularity of Pianoforte music exemplified in M. Paderewski's recitals--The instrument--A universal medium of music study--Its defects and merits contrasted--Not a perfect melody instrument--Value of the percussive element--Technique; the false and the true estimate of its value--Pianoforte literature as illustrated in recitals--Its division, for the purposes of this study, into four periods: Classic, Classic-romantic, Romantic, and Bravura--Precursors of the Pianoforte--The Clavichord and Harpsichord, and the music composed for them--Peculiarities of Bach's style--His Romanticism--Scarlatti's Sonatas--The Suite and its constituents--Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue, Minuet, and Gavotte--The technique of the period--How Bach and Handel played--Beethoven and the Sonata--Mozart and Beethoven as pianists--The Romantic composers--Schumann and Chopin and the forms used by them--Schumann and Jean Paul--Chopin's Preludes, Études, Nocturnes, Ballades, Polonaises, Mazurkas, Krakowiak--The technique of the Romantic period--"Idiomatic" pianoforte music--Development of the instrument--The Pedal and its use--Liszt and his Hungarian Rhapsodies. _Page 154_ [Sidenote: CHAP. VII.] _At the Opera_ Instability of popular taste in respect of operas--Our lists seldom extend back of the present century--The people of to-day as indifferent as those of two centuries ago to the language used--Use and abuse of foreign languages--The Opera defended as an art-form--Its origin in the Greek tragedies--Why music is the language of emotion--A scientific explanation--Herbert Spencer's laws--Efforts of Florentine scholars to revive the classic tragedy result in the invention of the lyric drama--The various kinds of Opera: _Opera seria_, _Opera buffa_, _Opera semiseria_, French _grand Opéra_, and _Opéra comique_--Operettas and musical farces--Romantic Opera--A popular conception of German opera--A return to the old terminology led by Wagner--The recitative: Its nature, aims, and capacities--The change from speech to song--The arioso style, the accompanied recitative and the aria--Music and dramatic action--Emancipation from set forms--The orchestra--The decay of singing--Feats of the masters of the Roman school and La Bastardella--Degeneracy of the Opera of their day--Singers who have been heard in New York--Two generations of singers compared--Grisi, Jenny Lind, Sontag, La Grange, Piccolomini, Adelina Patti, Nilsson, Sembrich, Lucca, Gerster, Lehmann, Melba, Eames, Calvé, Mario, Jean and Edouard de Reszke--Wagner and his works--Operas and lyric dramas--Wagner's return to the principles of the Florentine reformers--Interdependence of elements in a lyric drama--Forms and the endless melody--The Typical Phrases: How they should be studied. _Page 202_ [Sidenote: CHAP. VIII.] _Choirs and Choral Music_ Value of chorus singing in musical culture--Schumann's advice to students--Choristers and instrumentalists--Amateurs and professionals--Oratorio and _Männergesang_--The choirs of Handel and Bach--Glee Unions, Male Clubs, and Women's Choirs--Boys' voices not adapted to modern music--Mixed choirs--American Origin of amateur singing societies--Priority over Germany--The size of choirs--Large numbers not essential--How choirs are divided--Antiphonal effects--Excellence in choir singing--Precision, intonation, expression, balance of tone, enunciation, pronunciation, declamation--The cause of monotony in Oratorio performances--_A capella_ music--Genesis of modern hymnology--Influence of Luther and the Germans--Use of popular melodies by composers--The chorale--Preservation of the severe style of writing in choral music--Palestrina and Bach--A study of their styles--Latin and Teuton--Church and individual--Motets and Church Cantatas--The Passions--The Oratorio--Sacred opera and Cantata--Epic and Drama--Characteristic and descriptive music--The Mass: Its secularization and musical development--The dramatic tendency illustrated in Beethoven and Berlioz. _Page 253_ [Sidenote: CHAP. IX.] _Musician, Critic and Public_ Criticism justified--Relationship between Musician, Critic and Public--To end the conflict between them would result in stagnation--How the Critic might escape--The Musician prefers to appeal to the public rather than to the Critic--Why this is so--Ignorance as a safeguard against and promoter of conservatism--Wagner and Haydn--The Critic as the enemy of the charlatan--Temptations to which he is exposed--Value of popular approbation--Schumann's aphorisms--The Public neither bad judges nor good critics--The Critic's duty is to guide popular judgment--Fickleness of the people's opinions--Taste and judgment not a birthright--The necessity of antecedent study--The Critic's responsibility--Not always that toward the Musician which the latter thinks--How the newspaper can work for good--Must the Critic be a Musician?--Pedants and Rhapsodists--Demonstrable facts in criticism--The folly and viciousness of foolish rhapsody--The Rev. Mr. Haweis cited--Ernst's violin--Intelligent rhapsody approved--Dr. John Brown on Beethoven--The Critic's duty. _Page 297_ * * * * * PLATES I. VIOLIN--(CLIFFORD SCHMIDT).--II. VIOLONCELLO--(VICTOR HERBERT).--III. PICCOLO FLUTE--(C. KURTH, JUN.).--IV. OBOE--(JOSEPH ELLER).--V. ENGLISH HORN--(JOSEPH ELLER).--VI. BASSOON (FEDOR BERNHARDI).--VII. CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER).--VIII. BASS CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER).--IX. FRENCH HORN--(CARL PIEPER).--X. TROMBONE--(J. PFEIFFENSCHNEIDER).--XI. BASS TUBA--(ANTON REITER).--XII. THE CONDUCTOR'S SCORE. _Page 325_ INDEX _Page 351_ How to Listen to Music I _Introduction_ [Sidenote: _The book's appeal._] This book has a purpose, which is as simple as it is plain; and an unpretentious scope. It does not aim to edify either the musical professor or the musical scholar. It comes into the presence of the musical student with all becoming modesty. Its business is with those who love music and present themselves for its gracious ministrations in Concert-Room and Opera House, but have not studied it as professors and scholars are supposed to study. It is not for the careless unless they be willing to inquire whether it might not be well to yield the common conception of entertainment in favor of the higher enjoyment which springs from serious contemplation of beautiful things; but if they are willing so to inquire, they shall be accounted the class that the author is most anxious to reach. The reasons which prompted its writing and the laying out of its plan will presently appear. For the frankness of his disclosure the author might be willing to apologize were his reverence for music less and his consideration for popular affectations more; but because he is convinced that a love for music carries with it that which, so it be but awakened, shall speedily grow into an honest desire to know more about the beloved object, he is willing to seem unamiable to the amateur while arguing the need of even so mild a stimulant as his book, and ingenuous, mayhap even childish, to the professional musician while trying to point a way in which better appreciation may be sought. [Sidenote: _Talent in listening._] The capacity properly to listen to music is better proof of musical talent in the listener than skill to play upon an instrument or ability to sing acceptably when unaccompanied by that capacity. It makes more for that gentleness and refinement of emotion, thought, and action which, in the highest sense of the term, it is the province of music to promote. And it is a much rarer accomplishment. I cannot conceive anything more pitiful than the spectacle of men and women perched on a fair observation point exclaiming rapturously at the loveliness of mead and valley, their eyes melting involuntarily in tenderness at the sight of moss-carpeted slopes and rocks and peaceful wood, or dilating in reverent wonder at mountain magnificence, and then learning from their exclamations that, as a matter of fact, they are unable to distinguish between rock and tree, field and forest, earth and sky; between the dark-browns of the storm-scarred rock, the greens of the foliage, and the blues of the sky. [Sidenote: _Ill equipped listeners._] Yet in the realm of another sense, in the contemplation of beauties more ethereal and evanescent than those of nature, such is the experience which in my capacity as a writer for newspapers I have made for many years. A party of people blind to form and color cannot be said to be well equipped for a Swiss journey, though loaded down with alpenstocks and Baedekers; yet the spectacle of such a party on the top of the Rigi is no more pitiful and anomalous than that presented by the majority of the hearers in our concert-rooms. They are there to adventure a journey into a realm whose beauties do not disclose themselves to the senses alone, but whose perception requires a co-operation of all the finer faculties; yet of this they seem to know nothing, and even of that sense to which the first appeal is made it may be said with profound truth that "hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." [Sidenote: _Popular ignorance of music._] Of all the arts, music is practised most and thought about least. Why this should be the case may be explained on several grounds. A sweet mystery enshrouds the nature of music. Its material part is subtle and elusive. To master it on its technical side alone costs a vast expenditure of time, patience, and industry. But since it is, in one manifestation or another, the most popular of the arts, and one the enjoyment of which is conditioned in a peculiar degree on love, it remains passing strange that the indifference touching its nature and elements, and the character of the phenomena which produce it, or are produced by it, is so general. I do not recall that anybody has ever tried to ground this popular ignorance touching an art of which, by right of birth, everybody is a critic. The unamiable nature of the task, of which I am keenly conscious, has probably been a bar to such an undertaking. But a frank diagnosis must precede the discovery of a cure for every disease, and I have undertaken to point out a way in which this grievous ailment in the social body may at least be lessened. [Sidenote: _Paucity of intelligent comment._] [Sidenote: _Want of a model._] It is not an exaggeration to say that one might listen for a lifetime to the polite conversation of our drawing-rooms (and I do not mean by this to refer to the United States alone) without hearing a symphony talked about in terms indicative of more than the most superficial knowledge of the outward form, that is, the dimensions and apparatus, of such a composition. No other art provides an exact analogy for this phenomenon. Everybody can say something containing a degree of appositeness about a poem, novel, painting, statue, or building. If he can do no more he can go as far as Landseer's rural critic who objected to one of the artist's paintings on the ground that not one of the three pigs eating from a trough had a foot in it. It is the absence of the standard of judgment employed in this criticism which makes significant talk about music so difficult. Nature failed to provide a model for this ethereal art. There is nothing in the natural world with which the simple man may compare it. [Sidenote: _Simple terms confounded._] It is not alone a knowledge of the constituent factors of a symphony, or the difference between a sonata and a suite, a march and a mazurka, that is rare. Unless you chance to be listening to the conversation of musicians (in which term I wish to include amateurs who are what the word amateur implies, and whose knowledge stands in some respectable relation to their love), you will find, so frequently that I have not the heart to attempt an estimate of the proportion, that the most common words in the terminology of the art are misapplied. Such familiar things as harmony and melody, time and tune, are continually confounded. Let us call a distinguished witness into the box; the instance is not new, but it will serve. What does Tennyson mean when he says: "All night have the roses heard The flute, violin, bassoon; All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd To the dancers dancing in tune?" [Sidenote: _Tune and time._] Unless the dancers who wearied Maud were provided with even a more extraordinary instrumental outfit than the Old Lady of Banbury Cross, how could they have danced "in tune?" [Sidenote: _Blunders of poets and essayists._] Musical study of a sort being almost as general as study of the "three Rs," it must be said that the gross forms of ignorance are utterly inexcusable. But if this is obvious, it is even more obvious that there is something radically wrong with the prevalent systems of musical instruction. It is because of a plentiful lack of knowledge that so much that is written on music is without meaning, and that the most foolish kind of rhapsody, so it show a collocation of fine words, is permitted to masquerade as musical criticism and even analysis. People like to read about music, and the books of a certain English clergyman have had a sale of stupendous magnitude notwithstanding they are full of absurdities. The clergyman has a multitudinous companionship, moreover, among novelists, essayists, and poets whose safety lies in more or less fantastic generalization when they come to talk about music. How they flounder when they come to detail! It was Charles Lamb who said, in his "Chapter on Ears," that in voices he could not distinguish a soprano from a tenor, and could only contrive to guess at the thorough-bass from its being "supereminently harsh and disagreeable;" yet dear old Elia may be forgiven, since his confounding the bass voice with a system of musical short-hand is so delightful a proof of the ignorance he was confessing. [Sidenote: _Literary realism and musical terminology._] But what shall the troubled critics say to Tennyson's orchestra consisting of a flute, violin, and bassoon? Or to Coleridge's "_loud_ bassoon," which made the wedding-guest to beat his breast? Or to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's pianist who played "with an airy and bird-like touch?" Or to our own clever painter-novelist who, in "Snubbin' through Jersey," has Brushes bring out his violoncello and play "the symphonies of Beethoven" to entertain his fellow canal-boat passengers? The tendency toward realism, or "veritism," as it is called, has brought out a rich crop of blunders. It will not do to have a character in a story simply sing or play something; we must have the names of composers and compositions. The genial gentleman who enriched musical literature with arrangements of Beethoven's symphonies for violoncello without accompaniment has since supplemented this feat by creating a German fiddler who, when he thinks himself unnoticed, plays a sonata for violin and contralto voice; Professor Brander Matthews permits one of his heroines to sing Schumann's "Warum?" and one of his heroes plays "The Moonlight Concerto;" one of Ouida's romantic creatures spends hours at an organ "playing the grand old masses of Mendelssohn;" in "Moths" the tenor never wearies of singing certain "exquisite airs of Palestrina," which recalls the fact that an indignant correspondent of a St. Louis newspaper, protesting against the Teutonism and heaviness of an orchestra conductor's programmes, demanded some of the "lighter" works of "Berlioz and Palestrina." [Sidenote: _A popular need._] Alas! these things and the many others equally amusing which Mr. G. Sutherland Edwards long ago catalogued in an essay on "The Literary Maltreatment of Music" are but evidences that even cultured folk have not yet learned to talk correctly about the art which is practised most widely. There is a greater need than pianoforte teachers and singing teachers, and that is a numerous company of writers and talkers who shall teach the people how to listen to music so that it shall not pass through their heads like a vast tonal phantasmagoria, but provide the varied and noble delights contemplated by the composers. [Sidenote: _A warning against writers._] [Sidenote: _Pedants and rhapsodists._] Ungracious as it might appear, it may yet not be amiss, therefore, at the very outset of an inquiry into the proper way in which to listen to music, to utter a warning against much that is written on the art. As a rule it will be found that writers on music are divided into two classes, and that neither of these classes can do much good. Too often they are either pedants or rhapsodists. This division is wholly natural. Music has many sides and is a science as well as an art. Its scientific side is that on which the pedant generally approaches it. He is concerned with forms and rules, with externals, to the forgetting of that which is inexpressibly nobler and higher. But the pedants are not harmful, because they are not interesting; strictly speaking, they do not write for the public at all, but only for their professional colleagues. The harmful men are the foolish rhapsodists who take advantage of the fact that the language of music is indeterminate and evanescent to talk about the art in such a way as to present themselves as persons of exquisite sensibilities rather than to direct attention to the real nature and beauty of music itself. To them I shall recur in a later chapter devoted to musical criticism, and haply point out the difference between good and bad critics and commentators from the view-point of popular need and popular opportunity. II _Recognition of Musical Elements_ [Sidenote: _The nature of music._] Music is dual in its nature; it is material as well as spiritual. Its material side we apprehend through the sense of hearing, and comprehend through the intellect; its spiritual side reaches us through the fancy (or imagination, so it be music of the highest class), and the emotional part of us. If the scope and capacity of the art, and the evolutionary processes which its history discloses (a record of which is preserved in its nomenclature), are to be understood, it is essential that this duality be kept in view. There is something so potent and elemental in the appeal which music makes that it is possible to derive pleasure from even an unwilling hearing or a hearing unaccompanied by effort at analysis; but real appreciation of its beauty, which means recognition of the qualities which put it in the realm of art, is conditioned upon intelligent hearing. The higher the intelligence, the keener will be the enjoyment, if the former be directed to the spiritual side as well as the material. [Sidenote: _Necessity of intelligent hearing._] So far as music is merely agreeably co-ordinated sounds, it may be reduced to mathematics and its practice to handicraft. But recognition of design is a condition precedent to the awakening of the fancy or the imagination, and to achieve such recognition there must be intelligent hearing in the first instance. For the purposes of this study, design may be held to be Form in its primary stages, the recognition of which is possible to every listener who is fond of music; it is not necessary that he be learned in the science. He need only be willing to let an intellectual process, which will bring its own reward, accompany the physical process of hearing. [Sidenote: _Tones and musical material._] Without discrimination it is impossible to recognize even the crude materials of music, for the first step is already a co-ordination of those materials. A tone becomes musical material only by association with another tone. We might hear it alone, study its quality, and determine its degree of acuteness or gravity (its pitch, as musicians say), but it can never become music so long as it remains isolated. When we recognize that it bears certain relationships with other tones in respect of time or tune (to use simple terms), it has become for us musical material. We do not need to philosophize about the nature of those relationships, but we must recognize their existence. [Sidenote: _The beginnings of Form._] Thus much we might hear if we were to let music go through our heads like water through a sieve. Yet the step from that degree of discrimination to a rudimentary analysis of Form is exceedingly short, and requires little more than a willingness to concentrate the attention and exercise the memory. Everyone is willing to do that much while looking at a picture. Who would look at a painting and rest satisfied with the impression made upon the sense of sight by the colors merely? No one, surely. Yet so soon as we look, so as to discriminate between the outlines, to observe the relationship of figure to figure, we are indulging in intellectual exercise. If this be a condition precedent to the enjoyment of a picture (and it plainly is), how much more so is it in the case of music, which is intangible and evanescent, which cannot pause a moment for our contemplation without ceasing to be? [Sidenote: _Comparison with a model not possible._] There is another reason why we must exercise intelligence in listening, to which I have already alluded in the first chapter. Our appreciation of beauty in the plastic arts is helped by the circumstance that the critical activity is largely a matter of comparison. Is the picture or the statue a good copy of the object sought to be represented? Such comparison fails us utterly in music, which copies nothing that is tangibly present in the external world. [Sidenote: _What degree of knowledge is necessary?_] [Sidenote: _The Elements._] [Sidenote: _Value of memory._] It is then necessary to associate the intellect with sense perception in listening to music. How far is it essential that the intellectual process shall go? This book being for the untrained, the question might be put thus: With how little knowledge of the science can an intelligent listener get along? We are concerned only with his enjoyment of music or, better, with an effort to increase it without asking him to become a musician. If he is fond of the art it is more than likely that the capacity to discriminate sufficiently to recognize the elements out of which music is made has come to him intuitively. Does he recognize that musical tones are related to each other in respect of time and pitch? Then it shall not be difficult for him to recognize the three elements on which music rests--Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm. Can he recognize them with sufficient distinctness to seize upon their manifestations while music is sounding? Then memory shall come to the aid of discrimination, and he shall be able to appreciate enough of design to point the way to a true and lofty appreciation of the beautiful in music. The value of memory is for obvious reasons very great in musical enjoyment. The picture remains upon the wall, the book upon the library shelf. If we have failed to grasp a detail at the first glance or reading, we need but turn again to the picture or open the book anew. We may see the picture in a changed light, or read the poem in a different mood, but the outlines, colors, ideas are fixed for frequent and patient perusal. Music goes out of existence with every performance, and must be recreated at every hearing. [Sidenote: _An intermediary necessary._] Not only that, but in the case of all, so far as some forms are concerned, and of all who are not practitioners in others, it is necessary that there shall be an intermediary between the composer and the listener. The written or printed notes are not music; they are only signs which indicate to the performer what to do to call tones into existence such as the composer had combined into an art-work in his mind. The broadly trained musician can read the symbols; they stir his imagination, and he hears the music in his imagination as the composer heard it. But the untaught music-lover alone can get nothing from the printed page; he must needs wait till some one else shall again waken for him the "Sound of a voice that is still." [Sidenote: _The value of memory._] This is one of the drawbacks which are bound up in the nature of music; but it has ample compensation in the unusual pleasure which memory brings. In the case of the best music, familiarity breeds ever-growing admiration. New compositions are slowly received; they make their way to popular appreciation only by repeated performances; the people like best the songs as well as the symphonies which they know. The quicker, therefore, that we are in recognizing the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic contents of a new composition, and the more apt our memory in seizing upon them for the operation of the fancy, the greater shall be our pleasure. [Sidenote: _Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm._] [Sidenote: _Comprehensiveness of Melody._] In simple phrase Melody is a well-ordered series of tones heard successively; Harmony, a well-ordered series heard simultaneously; Rhythm, a symmetrical grouping of tonal time units vitalized by accent. The life-blood of music is Melody, and a complete conception of the term embodies within itself the essence of both its companions. A succession of tones without harmonic regulation is not a perfect element in music; neither is a succession of tones which have harmonic regulation but are void of rhythm. The beauty and expressiveness, especially the emotionality, of a musical composition depend upon the harmonies which either accompany the melody in the form of chords (a group of melodic intervals sounded simultaneously), or are latent in the melody itself (harmonic intervals sounded successively). Melody is Harmony analyzed; Harmony is Melody synthetized. [Sidenote: _Repetition._] [Sidenote: _A melody analyzed._] The fundamental principle of Form is repetition of melodies, which are to music what ideas are to poetry. Melodies themselves are made by repetition of smaller fractions called motives (a term borrowed from the fine arts), phrases, and periods, which derive their individuality from their rhythmical or intervallic characteristics. Melodies are not all of the simple kind which the musically illiterate, or the musically ill-trained, recognize as "tunes," but they all have a symmetrical organization. The dissection of a simple folk-tune may serve to make this plain and also indicate to the untrained how a single feature may be taken as a mark of identification and a holding-point for the memory. Here is the melody of a Creole song called sometimes _Pov' piti Lolotte_, sometimes _Pov' piti Momzelle Zizi_, in the patois of Louisiana and Martinique: [Music illustration] [Sidenote: _Motives, phrases, and periods._] It will be as apparent to the eye of one who cannot read music as it will to his ear when he hears this melody played, that it is built up of two groups of notes only. These groups are marked off by the heavy lines across the staff called bars, whose purpose it is to indicate rhythmical subdivisions in music. The second, third, fifth, sixth, and seventh of these groups are repetitions merely of the first group, which is the germ of the melody, but on different degrees of the scale; the fourth and eighth groups are identical and are an appendage hitched to the first group for the purpose of bringing it to a close, supplying a resting-point craved by man's innate sense of symmetry. Musicians call such groups cadences. A musical analyst would call each group a motive, and say that each successive two groups, beginning with the first, constitute a phrase, each two phrases a period, and the two periods a melody. We have therefore in this innocent Creole tune eight motives, four phrases, and two periods; yet its material is summed up in two groups, one of seven notes, one of five, which only need to be identified and remembered to enable a listener to recognize something of the design of a composer if he were to put the melody to the highest purposes that melody can be put in the art of musical composition. [Sidenote: _Repetition in music._] Repetition is the constructive principle which was employed by the folk-musician in creating this melody; and repetition is the fundamental principle in all musical construction. It will suffice for many merely to be reminded of this to appreciate the fact that while the exercise of memory is a most necessary activity in listening to music, it lies in music to make that exercise easy. There is repetition of motives, phrases, and periods in melody; repetition of melodies in parts; and repetition of parts in the wholes of the larger forms. [Sidenote: _Repetition in poetry._] The beginnings of poetic forms are also found in repetition; in primitive poetry it is exemplified in the refrain or burden, in the highly developed poetry of the Hebrews in parallelism. The Psalmist wrote: "O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure." [Sidenote: _Key relationship._] Here is a period of two members, the latter repeating the thought of the former. A musical analyst might find in it an admirable analogue for the first period of a simple melody. He would divide it into four motives: "Rebuke me not | in thy wrath | neither chasten me | in thy hot displeasure," and point out as intimate a relationship between them as exists in the Creole tune. The bond of union between the motives of the melody as well as that in the poetry illustrates a principle of beauty which is the most important element in musical design after repetition, which is its necessary vehicle. It is because this principle guides the repetition of the tone-groups that together they form a melody that is perfect, satisfying, and reposeful. It is the principle of key-relationship, to discuss which fully would carry me farther into musical science than I am permitted to go. Let this suffice: A harmony is latent in each group, and the sequence of groups is such a sequence as the experience of ages has demonstrated to be most agreeable to the ear. [Sidenote: _The rhythmical stamp._] [Sidenote: _The principle of Unity._] In the case of the Creole melody the listener is helped to a quick appreciation of its form by the distinct physiognomy which rhythm has stamped upon it; and it is by noting such a characteristic that the memory can best be aided in its work of identification. It is not necessary for a listener to follow all the processes of a composer in order to enjoy his music, but if he cultivates the habit of following the principal themes through a work of the higher class he will not only enjoy the pleasures of memory but will frequently get a glimpse into the composer's purposes which will stimulate his imagination and mightily increase his enjoyment. There is nothing can guide him more surely to a recognition of the principle of unity, which makes a symphony to be an organic whole instead of a group of pieces which are only externally related. The greatest exemplar of this principle is Beethoven; and his music is the best in which to study it for the reason that he so frequently employs material signs for the spiritual bond. So forcibly has this been impressed upon me at times that I am almost willing to believe that a keen analytical student of his music might arrange his greater works into groups of such as were in process of composition at the same time without reference to his personal history. Take the principal theme of the C minor Symphony for example: [Music illustration] [Sidenote: _A rhythmical motive pursued._] This simple, but marvellously pregnant, motive is not only the kernel of the first movement, it is the fundamental thought of the whole symphony. We hear its persistent beat in the scherzo as well: [Music illustration] and also in the last movement: [Music illustration] More than this, we find the motive haunting the first movement of the pianoforte sonata in F minor, op. 57, known as the "Sonata Appassionata," now gloomily, almost morosely, proclamative in the bass, now interrogative in the treble: [Music illustration] [Sidenote: _Relationships in Beethoven's works._] [Sidenote: _The C minor Symphony and "Appassionata" sonata._] [Sidenote: _Beethoven's G major Concerto._] Schindler relates that when once he asked Beethoven to tell him what the F minor and the D minor (Op. 31, No. 2) sonatas meant, he received for an answer only the enigmatical remark: "Read Shakespeare's 'Tempest.'" Many a student and commentator has since read the "Tempest" in the hope of finding a clew to the emotional contents which Beethoven believed to be in the two works, so singularly associated, only to find himself baffled. It is a fancy, which rests perhaps too much on outward things, but still one full of suggestion, that had Beethoven said: "Hear my C minor Symphony," he would have given a better starting-point to the imagination of those who are seeking to know what the F minor sonata means. Most obviously it means music, but it means music that is an expression of one of those psychological struggles which Beethoven felt called upon more and more to delineate as he was more and more shut out from the companionship of the external world. Such struggles are in the truest sense of the word tempests. The motive, which, according to the story, Beethoven himself said indicates, in the symphony, the rappings of Fate at the door of human existence, is common to two works which are also related in their spiritual contents. Singularly enough, too, in both cases the struggle which is begun in the first movement and continued in the third, is interrupted by a period of calm reassuring, soul-fortifying aspiration, which in the symphony as well as in the sonata takes the form of a theme with variations. Here, then, the recognition of a simple rhythmical figure has helped us to an appreciation of the spiritual unity of the parts of a symphony, and provided a commentary on the poetical contents of a sonata. But the lesson is not yet exhausted. Again do we find the rhythm coloring the first movement of the pianoforte concerto in G major: [Music illustration] Symphony, concerto, and sonata, as the sketch-books of the master show, were in process of creation at the same time. [Sidenote: _His Seventh Symphony._] Thus far we have been helped in identifying a melody and studying relationships by the rhythmical structure of a single motive. The demonstration might be extended on the same line into Beethoven's symphony in A major, in which the external sign of the poetical idea which underlies the whole work is also rhythmic--so markedly so that Wagner characterized it most happily and truthfully when he said that it was "the apotheosis of the dance." Here it is the dactyl, [dactyl symbol], which in one variation, or another, clings to us almost as persistently as in Hood's "Bridge of Sighs:" "One more unfortunate Weary of breath, Rashly importunate, Gone to her death." [Sidenote: _Use of a dactylic figure._] We hear it lightly tripping in the first movement: [Music illustration] and [Music illustration]; gentle, sedate, tender, measured, through its combination with a spondee in the second: [Music illustration]; cheerily, merrily, jocosely happy in the Scherzo: [Music illustration]; hymn-like in the Trio: [Music illustration] and wildly bacchanalian when subjected to trochaic abbreviation in the Finale: [Music illustration] [Sidenote: _Intervallic characteristics._] Intervallic characteristics may place the badge of relationship upon melodies as distinctly as rhythmic. There is no more perfect illustration of this than that afforded by Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Speaking of the subject of its finale, Sir George Grove says: "And note--while listening to the simple tune itself, before the variations begin--how _very_ simple it is; the plain diatonic scale, not a single chromatic interval, and out of fifty-six notes only three not consecutive."[A] [Sidenote: _The melodies in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony._] Earlier in the same work, while combating a statement by Lenz that the resemblance between the second subject of the first movement and the choral melody is a "thematic reference of the most striking importance, vindicating the unity of the entire work, and placing the whole in a perfectly new light," Sir George says: "It is, however, very remarkable that so many of the melodies in the Symphony should consist of consecutive notes, and that in no less than four of them the notes should run up a portion of the scale and down again--apparently pointing to a consistent condition of Beethoven's mind throughout this work." [Sidenote: _Melodic likenesses._] Like Goethe, Beethoven secreted many a mystery in his masterpiece, but he did not juggle idly with tones, or select the themes of his symphonies at hap-hazard; he would be open to the charge, however, if the resemblances which I have pointed out in the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, and those disclosed by the following melodies from his Ninth, should turn out through some incomprehensible revelation to be mere coincidences: From the first movement: [Music illustration] From the second: [Music illustration] The choral melody: [Music illustration] [Sidenote: _Design and Form._] From a recognition of the beginnings of design, to which identification of the composer's thematic material and its simpler relationships will lead, to so much knowledge of Form as will enable the reader to understand the later chapters in this book, is but a step. FOOTNOTES: [A] "Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies," p. 374. III _The Content and Kinds of Music_ [Sidenote: _Metaphysics to be avoided herein._] Bearing in mind the purpose of this book, I shall not ask the reader to accompany me far afield in the region of æsthetic philosophy or musical metaphysics. A short excursion is all that is necessary to make plain what is meant by such terms as Absolute music, Programme music, Classical, Romantic, and Chamber music and the like, which not only confront us continually in discussion, but stand for things which we must know if we would read programmes understandingly and appreciate the various phases in which music presents itself to us. It is interesting and valuable to know why an art-work stirs up pleasurable feelings within us, and to speculate upon its relations to the intellect and the emotions; but the circumstance that philosophers have never agreed, and probably never will agree, on these points, so far as the art of music is concerned, alone suffices to remove them from the field of this discussion. [Sidenote: _Personal equation in judgment._] Intelligent listening is not conditioned upon such knowledge. Even when the study is begun, the questions whether or not music has a content beyond itself, where that content is to be sought, and how defined, will be decided in each case by the student for himself, on grounds which may be said to be as much in his nature as they are in the argument. The attitude of man toward the art is an individual one, and in some of its aspects defies explanation. [Sidenote: _A musical fluid._] The amount and kind of pleasure which music gives him are frequently as much beyond his understanding and control as they are beyond the understanding and control of the man who sits beside him. They are consequences of just that particular combination of material and spiritual elements, just that blending of muscular, nervous, and cerebral tissues, which make him what he is, which segregate him as an individual from the mass of humanity. We speak of persons as susceptible or insusceptible to music as we speak of good and poor conductors of electricity; and the analogy implied here is particularly apt and striking. If we were still using the scientific terms of a few decades ago I should say that a musical fluid might yet be discovered and its laws correlated with those of heat, light, and electricity. Like them, when reduced to its lowest terms, music is a form of motion, and it should not be difficult on this analogy to construct a theory which would account for the physical phenomena which accompany the hearing of music in some persons, such as the recession of blood from the face, or an equally sudden suffusion of the same veins, a contraction of the scalp accompanied by chilliness or a prickling sensation, or that roughness of the skin called goose-flesh, "flesh moved by an idea, flesh horripilated by a thought." [Sidenote: _Origin of musical elements._] [Sidenote: _Feelings and counterpoint._] It has been denied that feelings are the content of music, or that it is the mission of music to give expression to feelings; but the scientific fact remains that the fundamental elements of vocal music--pitch, quality, and dynamic intensity--are the results of feelings working upon the vocal organs; and even if Mr. Herbert Spencer's theory be rejected, it is too late now to deny that music is conceived by its creators as a language of the emotions and so applied by them. The German philosopher Herbarth sought to reduce the question to an absurdity by expressing surprise that musicians should still believe that feelings could be "the proximate cause of the rules of simple and double counterpoint;" but Dr. Stainer found a sufficient answer by accepting the proposition as put, and directing attention to the fact that the feelings of men having first decided what was pleasurable in polyphony, and the rules of counterpoint having afterward been drawn from specimens of pleasurable polyphony, it was entirely correct to say that feelings are the proximate cause of the laws of counterpoint. [Sidenote: _How composers hear music._] It is because so many of us have been taught by poets and romancers to think that there is a picture of some kind, or a story in every piece of music, and find ourselves unable to agree upon the picture or the story in any given case, that confusion is so prevalent among the musical laity. Composers seldom find difficulty in understanding each other. They listen for beauty, and if they find it they look for the causes which have produced it, and in apprehending beauty and recognizing means and cause they unvolitionally rise to the plane whence a view of the composer's purposes is clear. Having grasped the mood of a composition and found that it is being sustained or varied in a manner accordant with their conceptions of beauty, they occupy themselves with another kind of differentiation altogether than the misled disciples of the musical rhapsodists who overlook the general design and miss the grand proclamation in their search for petty suggestions for pictures and stories among the details of the composition. Let musicians testify for us. In his romance, "Ein Glücklicher Abend," Wagner says: [Sidenote: _Wagner's axiom._] "That which music expresses is eternal and ideal. It does not give voice to the passion, the love, the longing of this or the other individual, under these or the other circumstances, but to passion, love, longing itself." Moritz Hauptmann says: [Sidenote: _Hauptmann's._] "The same music will admit of the most varied verbal expositions, and of not one of them can it be correctly said that it is exhaustive, the right one, and contains the whole significance of the music. This significance is contained most definitely in the music itself. It is not music that is ambiguous; it says the same thing to everybody; it speaks to mankind and gives voice only to human feelings. Ambiguity only then makes its appearance when each person attempts to formulate in his manner the emotional impression which he has received, when he attempts to fix and hold the ethereal essence of music, to utter the unutterable." [Sidenote: _Mendelssohn's._] [Sidenote: _The "Songs without Words."_] Mendelssohn inculcated the same lesson in a letter which he wrote to a young poet who had given titles to a number of the composer's "Songs Without Words," and incorporated what he conceived to be their sentiments in a set of poems. He sent his work to Mendelssohn with the request that the composer inform the writer whether or not he had succeeded in catching the meaning of the music. He desired the information because "music's capacity for expression is so vague and indeterminate." Mendelssohn replied: "You give the various numbers of the book such titles as 'I Think of Thee,' 'Melancholy,' 'The Praise of God,' 'A Merry Hunt.' I can scarcely say whether I thought of these or other things while composing the music. Another might find 'I Think of Thee' where you find 'Melancholy,' and a real huntsman might consider 'A Merry Hunt' a veritable 'Praise of God.' But this is not because, as you think, music is vague. On the contrary, I believe that musical expression is altogether too definite, that it reaches regions and dwells in them whither words cannot follow it and must necessarily go lame when they make the attempt as you would have them do." [Sidenote: _The tonal language._] [Sidenote: _Herbert Spencer's definition._] [Sidenote: _Natural expression._] [Sidenote: _Absolute music._] If I were to try to say why musicians, great musicians, speak thus of their art, my explanation would be that they have developed, farther than the rest of mankind have been able to develop it, a language of tones, which, had it been so willed, might have been developed so as to fill the place now occupied by articulate speech. Herbert Spencer, though speaking purely as a scientific investigator, not at all as an artist, defined music as "a language of feelings which may ultimately enable men vividly and completely to impress on each other the emotions they experience from moment to moment." We rely upon speech to do this now, but ever and anon when, in a moment of emotional exaltation, we are deserted by the articulate word we revert to the emotional cry which antedates speech, and find that that cry is universally understood because it is universally felt. More than speech, if its primitive element of emotionality be omitted, more than the primitive language of gesture, music is a natural mode of expression. All three forms have attained their present stage of development through conventions. Articulate speech has led in the development; gesture once occupied a high plane (in the pantomimic dance of the ancients) but has now retrograded; music, supreme at the outset, then neglected, is but now pushing forward into the place which its nature entitles it to occupy. When we conceive of an art-work composed of such elements, and foregoing the adventitious helps which may accrue to it from conventional idioms based on association of ideas, we have before us the concept of Absolute music, whose content, like that of every noble artistic composition, be it of tones or forms or colors or thoughts expressed in words, is that high ideal of goodness, truthfulness, and beauty for which all lofty imaginations strive. Such artworks are the instrumental compositions in the classic forms; such, too, may be said to be the high type of idealized "Programme" music, which, like the "Pastoral" symphony of Beethoven, is designed to awaken emotions like those awakened by the contemplation of things, but does not attempt to depict the things themselves. Having mentioned Programme music I must, of course, try to tell what it is; but the exposition must be preceded by an explanation of a kind of music which, because of its chastity, is set down as the finest form of absolute music. This is Chamber music. [Sidenote: _Chamber music._] [Sidenote: _History of the term._] [Sidenote: _Haydn a servant._] In a broad sense, but one not employed in modern definition, Chamber music is all music not designed for performance in the church or theatre. (Out-of-door music cannot be considered among these artistic forms of aristocratic descent.) Once, and indeed at the time of its invention, the term meant music designed especially for the delectation of the most eminent patrons of the art--the kings and nobles whose love for it gave it maintenance and encouragement. This is implied by the term itself, which has the same etymology wherever the form of music is cultivated. In Italian it is _Musica da Camera_; in French, _Musique de Chambre_; in German, _Kammermusik_. All the terms have a common root. The Greek [Greek: kamara] signified an arch, a vaulted room, or a covered wagon. In the time of the Frankish kings the word was applied to the room in the royal palace in which the monarch's private property was kept, and in which he looked after his private affairs. When royalty took up the cultivation of music it was as a private, not as a court, function, and the concerts given for the entertainment of the royal family took place in the king's chamber, or private room. The musicians were nothing more nor less than servants in the royal household. This relationship endured into the present century. Haydn was a _Hausofficier_ of Prince Esterhazy. As vice-chapelmaster he had to appear every morning in the Prince's ante-room to receive orders concerning the dinner-music and other entertainments of the day, and in the certificate of appointment his conduct is regulated with a particularity which we, who remember him and reverence his genius but have forgotten his master, think humiliating in the extreme. [Sidenote: _Beethoven's Chamber music._] Out of this cultivation of music in the private chamber grew the characteristics of Chamber music, which we must consider if we would enjoy it ourselves and understand the great reverence which the great masters of music have always felt for it. Beethoven was the first great democrat among musicians. He would have none of the shackles which his predecessors wore, and compelled aristocracy of birth to bow to aristocracy of genius. But such was his reverence for the style of music which had grown up in the chambers of the great that he devoted the last three years of his life almost exclusively to its composition; the peroration of his proclamation to mankind consists of his last quartets--the holiest of holy things to the Chamber musicians of to-day. [Sidenote: _The characteristics of Chamber music._] Chamber music represents pure thought, lofty imagination, and deep learning. These attributes are encouraged by the idea of privacy which is inseparable from the form. Composers find it the finest field for the display of their talents because their own skill in creating is to be paired with trained skill in hearing. Its representative pieces are written for strings alone--trios, quartets, and quintets. With the strings are sometimes associated a pianoforte, or one or more of the solo wind instruments--oboe, clarinet, or French horn; and as a rule the compositions adhere to classical lines (see Chapter V.). Of necessity the modesty of the apparatus compels it to forego nearly all the adventitious helps with which other forms of composition gain public approval. In the delineative arts Chamber music shows analogy with correct drawing and good composition, the absence of which cannot be atoned for by the most gorgeous coloring. In no other style is sympathy between performers and listeners so necessary, and for that reason Chamber music should always be heard in a small room with performers and listeners joined in angelic wedlock. Communities in which it flourishes under such conditions are musical. [Sidenote: _Programme music._] [Sidenote: _The value of superscriptions._] [Sidenote: _The rule of judgment._] Properly speaking, the term Programme music ought to be applied only to instrumental compositions which make a frank effort to depict scenes, incidents, or emotional processes to which the composer himself gives the clew either by means of a descriptive title or a verbal motto. It is unfortunate that the term has come to be loosely used. In a high sense the purest and best music in the world is programmatic, its programme being, as I have said, that "high ideal of goodness, truthfulness, and beauty" which is the content of all true art. But the origin of the term was vulgar, and the most contemptible piece of tonal imitation now claims kinship in the popular mind with the exquisitely poetical creations of Schumann and the "Pastoral" symphony of Beethoven; and so it is become necessary to defend it in the case of noble compositions. A programme is not necessarily, as Ambros asserts, a certificate of poverty and an admission on the part of the composer that his art has got beyond its natural bounds. Whether it be merely a suggestive title, as in the case of some of the compositions of Beethoven, Schumann, and Mendelssohn, or an extended commentary, as in the symphonic poems of Liszt and the symphonies of Berlioz and Raff, the programme has a distinct value to the composer as well as the hearer. It can make the perceptive sense more impressible to the influence of the music; it can quicken the fancy, and fire the imagination; it can prevent a gross misconception of the intentions of a composer and the character of his composition. Nevertheless, in determining the artistic value of the work, the question goes not to the ingenuity of the programme or the clearness with which its suggestions have been carried out, but to the beauty of the music itself irrespective of the verbal commentary accompanying it. This rule must be maintained in order to prevent a degradation of the object of musical expression. The vile, the ugly, the painful are not fit subjects for music; music renounces, contravenes, negatives itself when it attempts their delineation. A classification of Programme music might be made on these lines: [Sidenote: _Kinds of Programme music._] I. Descriptive pieces which rest on imitation or suggestion of natural sounds. II. Pieces whose contents are purely musical, but the mood of which is suggested by a poetical title. III. Pieces in which the influence which determined their form and development is indicated not only by a title but also by a motto which is relied upon to mark out a train of thought for the listener which will bring his fancy into union with that of the composer. The motto may be verbal or pictorial. IV. Symphonies or other composite works which have a title to indicate their general character, supplemented by explanatory superscriptions for each portion. [Sidenote: _Imitation of natural sounds._] [Sidenote: _The nightingale._] [Sidenote: _The cat._] [Sidenote: _The cuckoo._] The first of these divisions rests upon the employment of the lowest form of conventional musical idiom. The material which the natural world provides for imitation by the musician is exceedingly scant. Unless we descend to mere noise, as in the descriptions of storms and battles (the shrieking of the wind, the crashing of thunder, and the roar of artillery--invaluable aids to the cheap descriptive writer), we have little else than the calls of a few birds. Nearly thirty years ago Wilhelm Tappert wrote an essay which he called "Zooplastik in Tönen." He ransacked the musical literature of centuries, but in all his examples the only animals the voices of which are unmistakable are four fowls--the cuckoo, quail (that is the German bird, not the American, which has a different call), the cock, and the hen. He has many descriptive sounds which suggest other birds and beasts, but only by association of idea; separated from title or text they suggest merely what they are--musical phrases. A reiteration of the rhythmical figure called the "Scotch snap," breaking gradually into a trill, is the common symbol of the nightingale's song, but it is not a copy of that song; three or four tones descending chromatically are given as the cat's mew, but they are made to be such only by placing the syllables _Mi-au_ (taken from the vocabulary of the German cat) under them. Instances of this kind might be called characterization, or description by suggestion, and some of the best composers have made use of them, as will appear in these pages presently. The list being so small, and the lesson taught so large, it may be well to give a few striking instances of absolutely imitative music. The first bird to collaborate with a composer seems to have been the cuckoo, whose notes [Music illustration: Cuck-oo!] had sounded in many a folk-song ere Beethoven thought of enlisting the little solo performer in his "Pastoral" symphony. It is to be borne in mind, however, as a fact having some bearing on the artistic value of Programme music, that Beethoven's cuckoo changes his note to please the musician, and, instead of singing a minor third, he sings a major third thus: [Music illustration: Cuck-oo!] [Sidenote: _Cock and hen._] As long ago as 1688 Jacob Walter wrote a musical piece entitled "Gallina et Gallo," in which the hen was delineated in this theme: [Music illustration: _Gallina._] while the cock had the upper voice in the following example, his clear challenge sounding above the cackling of his mate: [Music illustration: _Gallo._] The most effective use yet made of the song of the hen, however, is in "La Poule," one of Rameau's "Pièces de Clavecin," printed in 1736, a delightful composition with this subject: [Music illustration: Co co co co co co co dai, etc.] [Sidenote: _The quail._] The quail's song is merely a monotonic rhythmical figure to which German fancy has fitted words of pious admonition: [Music illustration: Fürch-te Gott! Lo-be Gott!] [Sidenote: _Conventional idioms._] [Sidenote: _Association of ideas._] [Sidenote: _Fancy and imagination._] [Sidenote: _Harmony and emotionality._] The paucity of examples in this department is a demonstration of the statement made elsewhere that nature does not provide music with models for imitation as it does painting and sculpture. The fact that, nevertheless, we have come to recognize a large number of idioms based on association of ideas stands the composer in good stead whenever he ventures into the domain of delineative or descriptive music, and this he can do without becoming crudely imitative. Repeated experiences have taught us to recognize resemblances between sequences or combinations of tones and things or ideas, and on these analogies, even though they be purely conventional (that is agreed upon, as we have agreed that a nod of the head shall convey assent, a shake of the head dissent, and a shrug of the shoulders doubt or indifference), the composers have built up a voluminous vocabulary of idioms which need only to be helped out by a suggestion to the mind to be eloquently illustrative. "Sometimes hearing a melody or harmony arouses an emotion like that aroused by the contemplation of a thing. Minor harmonies, slow movements, dark tonal colorings, combine directly to put a musically susceptible person in a mood congenial to thoughts of sorrow and death; and, inversely, the experience of sorrow, or the contemplation of death, creates affinity for minor harmonies, slow movements, and dark tonal colorings. Or we recognize attributes in music possessed also by things, and we consort the music and the things, external attributes bringing descriptive music into play, which excites the fancy, internal attributes calling for an exercise of the loftier faculty, imagination, to discern their meaning."[B] The latter kind is delineative music of the higher order, the kind that I have called idealized programme music, for it is the imagination which, as Ruskin has said, "sees the heart and inner nature and makes them felt, but is often obscure, mysterious, and interrupted in its giving out of outer detail," which is "a seer in the prophetic sense, calling the things that are not as though they were, and forever delighting to dwell on that which is not tangibly present." In this kind of music, harmony, the real seat of emotionality in music, is an eloquent factor, and, indeed, there is no greater mystery in the art, which is full of mystery, than the fact that the lowering of the second tone in the chord, which is the starting-point of harmony, should change an expression of satisfaction, energetic action, or jubilation into an accent of pain or sorrow. The major mode is "to do," the minor, "to suffer:" [Sidenote: _Major and minor._] [Music illustration: Hur-rah! A-las!] [Sidenote: _Music and movement._] How near a large number of suggestions, which are based wholly upon experience or association of ideas, lie to the popular fancy, might be illustrated by scores of examples. Thoughts of religious functions arise in us the moment we hear the trombones intone a solemn phrase in full harmony; an oboe melody in sixth-eighth time over a drone bass brings up a pastoral picture of a shepherd playing upon his pipe; trumpets and drums suggest war, and so on. The delineation of movement is easier to the musician than it is to the poet. Handel, who has conveyed the sensation of a "darkness which might be felt," in a chorus of his "Israel in Egypt," by means which appeal solely to the imagination stirred by feelings, has in the same work pictured the plague of frogs with a frank _naïveté_ which almost upsets our seriousness of demeanor, by suggesting the characteristic movement of the creatures in the instrumental accompaniment to the arioso, "Their land brought forth frogs," which begins thus: [Sidenote: _Handel's frogs._] [Music illustration] [Sidenote: _The movement of water._] We find the gentle flux and reflux of water as if it were lapping a rocky shore in the exquisite figure out of which Mendelssohn constructed his "Hebrides" overture: [Music illustration] and in fancy we ride on mighty surges when we listen to the principal subject of Rubinstein's "Ocean" symphony: [Music illustration] In none of these instances can the composer be said to be imitative. Music cannot copy water, but it can do what water does, and so suggest water. [Sidenote: _High and low._] Some of the most common devices of composers are based on conceptions that are wholly arbitrary. A musical tone cannot have position in space such as is indicated by high or low, yet so familiar is the association of acuteness of pitch with height, and gravity of pitch with depth, that composers continually delineate high things with acute tones and low things with grave tones, as witness Handel in one of the choruses of "The Messiah:" [Music illustration: Glo-ry to God in the high-est, and peace on earth.] [Sidenote: _Ascent, descent, and distance delineated._] Similarly, too, does Beethoven describe the ascent into heaven and the descent into hell in the Credo of his mass in D. Beethoven's music, indeed, is full of tone-painting, and because it exemplifies a double device I make room for one more illustration. It is from the cantata "Becalmed at Sea, and a Prosperous Voyage," and in it the composer pictures the immensity of the sea by a sudden, extraordinary spreading out of his harmonies, which is musical, and dwelling a long time on the word "distance" (_Weite_) which is rhetorical: [Music illustration: In der un-ge-heu-'ren Wei-te.] [Sidenote: _Bald imitation bad art._] [Sidenote: _Vocal music and delineation._] [Sidenote: _Beethoven's canon._] The extent to which tone-painting is justified is a question which might profitably concern us; but such a discussion as it deserves would far exceed the limits set for this book, and must be foregone. It cannot be too forcibly urged, however, as an aid to the listener, that efforts at musical cartooning have never been made by true composers, and that in the degree that music attempts simply to copy external things it falls in the scale of artistic truthfulness and value. Vocal music tolerates more of the descriptive element than instrumental because it is a mixed art; in it the purpose of music is to illustrate the poetry and, by intensifying the appeal to the fancy, to warm the emotions. Every piece of vocal music, moreover, carries its explanatory programme in its words. Still more tolerable and even righteous is it in the opera where it is but one of several factors which labor together to make up the sum of dramatic representation. But it must ever remain valueless unless it be idealized. Mendelssohn, desiring to put _Bully Bottom_ into the overture to "A Midsummer Night's Dream," did not hesitate to use tones which suggest the bray of a donkey, yet the effect, like Handel's frogs and flies in "Israel," is one of absolute musical value. The canon which ought continually to be before the mind of the listener is that which Beethoven laid down with most painstaking care when he wrote the "Pastoral" symphony. Desiring to inform the listeners what were the images which inspired the various movements (in order, of course, that they might the better enter into the work by recalling them), he gave each part a superscription thus: [Sidenote: _The "Pastoral" symphony._] I. "The agreeable and cheerful sensations awakened by arrival in the country." II. "Scene by the brook." III. "A merrymaking of the country folk." IV. "Thunder-storm." V. "Shepherds' song--feelings of charity combined with gratitude to the Deity after the storm." In the title itself he included an admonitory explanation which should have everlasting validity: "Pastoral Symphony; more expression of feeling than painting." How seriously he thought on the subject we know from his sketch-books, in which occur a number of notes, some of which were evidently hints for superscriptions, some records of his convictions on the subject of descriptive music. The notes are reprinted in Nottebohm's "Zweite Beethoveniana," but I borrow Sir George Grove's translation: [Sidenote: _Beethoven's notes on descriptive music._] "The hearers should be allowed to discover the situations." "Sinfonia caracteristica, or a recollection of country life." "All painting in instrumental music, if pushed too far, is a failure." "Sinfonia pastorella. Anyone who has an idea of country life can make out for himself the intentions of the author without many titles." "People will not require titles to recognize the general intention to be more a matter of feeling than of painting in sounds." "Pastoral symphony: No picture, but something in which the emotions are expressed which are aroused in men by the pleasure of the country (or), in which some feelings of country life are set forth."[C] As to the relation of programme to music Schumann laid down an admirable maxim when he said that while good music was not harmed by a descriptive title it was a bad indication if a composition needed one. [Sidenote: _Classic and Romantic._] There are, among all the terms used in music, no words of vaguer meaning than Classic and Romantic. The idea which they convey most widely in conjunction is that of antithesis. When the Romantic School of composers is discussed it is almost universally presented as something opposed in character to the Classical School. There is little harm in this if we but bear in mind that all the terms which have come into use to describe different phases of musical development are entirely artificial and arbitrary--that they do not stand for anything absolute, but only serve as platforms of observation. If the terms had a fixed meaning we ought to be able, since they have established themselves in the language of history and criticism, to describe unambiguously and define clearly the boundary which separates them. This, however, is impossible. Each generation, nay, each decade, fixes the meaning of the words for itself and decides what works shall go into each category. It ought to be possible to discover a principle, a touchstone, which shall emancipate us from the mischievous and misleading notions that have so long prompted men to make the partitions between the schools out of dates and names. [Sidenote: _Trench's definition of "classical."_] The terms were borrowed from literary criticism; but even there, in the words of Archbishop Trench, "they either say nothing at all or say something erroneous." Classical has more to defend it than Romantic, because it has greater antiquity and, in one sense, has been used with less arbitrariness. "The term," says Trench, "is drawn from the political economy of Rome. Such a man was rated as to his income in the third class, such another in the fourth, and so on, and he who was in the highest was emphatically said to be of the class, _classicus_, a class man, without adding the number as in that case superfluous; while all others were _infra classem_. Hence by an obvious analogy the best authors were rated as _classici_, or men of the highest class; just as in English we say 'men of rank' absolutely for men who are in the highest ranks of the State." Thus Trench, and his historical definition, explains why in music also there is something more than a lurking suggestion of excellence in the conception of "classical;" but that fact does not put away the quarrel which we feel exists between Classic and Romantic. [Sidenote: _Romantic in literature._] [Sidenote: _Schumann and Jean Paul._] [Sidenote: _Weber's operas._] [Sidenote: _Mendelssohn._] As applied to literature Romantic was an adjective affected by certain poets, first in Germany, then in France, who wished to introduce a style of thought and expression different from that of those who followed old models. Intrinsically, of course, the term does not imply any such opposition but only bears witness to the source from which the poets drew their inspiration. This was the imaginative literature of the Middle Ages, the fantastical stories of chivalry and knighthood written in the Romance, or Romanic languages, such as Italian, Spanish, and Provençal. The principal elements of these stories were the marvellous and the supernatural. The composers whose names first spring into our minds when we think of the Romantic School are men like Mendelssohn and Schumann, who drew much of their inspiration from the young writers of their time who were making war on stilted rhetoric and conventionalism of phrase. Schumann touches hands with the Romantic poets in their strivings in two directions. His artistic conduct, especially in his early years, is inexplicable if Jean Paul be omitted from the equation. His music rebels against the formalism which had held despotic sway over the art, and also seeks to disclose the beauty which lies buried in the world of mystery in and around us, and give expression to the multitude of emotions to which unyielding formalism had refused adequate utterance. This, I think, is the chief element of Romanticism. Another has more of an external nature and genesis, and this we find in the works of such composers as Von Weber, who is Romantic chiefly in his operas, because of the supernaturalism and chivalry in their stories, and Mendelssohn, who, while distinctly Romantic in many of his strivings, was yet so great a master of form, and so attached to it, that the Romantic side of him was not fully developed. [Sidenote: _A definition of "Classical" in music._] [Sidenote: _The creative and conservative principles._] [Sidenote: _Musical laws of necessity progressive._] [Sidenote: _Bach and Romanticism._] [Sidenote: _Creation and conservation._] If I were to attempt a definition it would be this: Classical composers are those of the first rank (to this extent we yield to the ancient Roman conception) who have developed music to the highest pitch of perfection on its formal side and, in obedience to generally accepted laws, preferring æsthetic beauty, pure and simple, over emotional content, or, at any rate, refusing to sacrifice form to characteristic expression. Romantic composers are those who have sought their ideals in other regions and striven to give expression to them irrespective of the restrictions and limitations of form and the conventions of law--composers with whom, in brief, content outweighs manner. This definition presents Classicism as the regulative and conservative principle in the history of the art, and Romanticism as the progressive, regenerative, and creative principle. It is easy to see how the notion of contest between them grew up, and the only harm which can come from such a notion will ensue only if we shut our eyes to the fact that it is a contest between two elements whose very opposition stimulates life, and whose union, perfect, peaceful, mutually supplemental, is found in every really great art-work. No law which fixes, and hence limits, form, can remain valid forever. Its end is served when it enforces itself long enough to keep lawlessness in check till the test of time has determined what is sound, sweet, and wholesome in the innovations which are always crowding eagerly into every creative activity in art and science. In art it is ever true, as _Faust_ concludes, that "In the beginning was the deed." The laws of composition are the products of compositions; and, being such, they cannot remain unalterable so long as the impulse freshly to create remains. All great men are ahead of their time, and in all great music, no matter when written, you shall find instances of profounder meaning and deeper or newer feeling than marked the generality of contemporary compositions. So Bach frequently floods his formal utterances with Romantic feeling, and the face of Beethoven, serving at the altar in the temple of Beauty, is transfigured for us by divine light. The principles of creation and conservation move onward together, and what is Romantic to-day becomes Classic to-morrow. Romanticism is fluid Classicism. It is the emotional stimulus informing Romanticism which calls music into life, but no sooner is it born, free, untrammelled, nature's child, than the regulative principle places shackles upon it; but it is enslaved only that it may become and remain art. FOOTNOTES: [B] "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," p. 22. [C] "Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies," by George Grove, C.B., 2d ed., p. 191. IV _The Modern Orchestra_ [Sidenote: _The orchestra as an instrument._] [Sidenote: _What may be heard from a band._] The most eloquent, potent, and capable instrument of music in the world is the modern orchestra. It is the instrument whose employment by the classical composers and the geniuses of the Romantic School in the middle of our century marks the high tide of the musical art. It is an instrument, moreover, which is never played upon without giving a great object-lesson in musical analysis, without inviting the eye to help the ear to discern the cause of the sounds which ravish our senses and stir up pleasurable emotions. Yet the popular knowledge of its constituent parts, of the individual value and mission of the factors which go to make up its sum, is scarcely greater than the popular knowledge of the structure of a symphony or sonata. All this is the more deplorable since at least a rudimentary knowledge of these things might easily be gained, and in gaining it the student would find a unique intellectual enjoyment, and have his ears unconsciously opened to a thousand beauties in the music never perceived before. He would learn, for instance, to distinguish the characteristic timbre of each of the instruments in the band; and after that to the delight found in what may be called the primary colors he would add that which comes from analyzing the vast number of tints which are the products of combination. Noting the capacity of the various instruments and the manner in which they are employed, he would get glimpses into the mental workshop of the composer. He would discover that there are conventional means of expression in his art analogous to those in the other arts; and collating his methods with the effects produced, he would learn something of the creative artist's purposes. He would find that while his merely sensuous enjoyment would be left unimpaired, and the emotional excitement which is a legitimate fruit of musical performance unchecked, these pleasures would have others consorted with them. His intellectual faculties would be agreeably excited, and he would enjoy the pleasures of memory, which are exemplified in music more delightfully and more frequently than in any other art, because of the rôle which repetition of parts plays in musical composition. [Sidenote: _Familiar instruments._] [Sidenote: _The instrumental choirs._] The argument is as valid in the study of musical forms as in the study of the orchestra, but it is the latter that is our particular business in this chapter. Everybody listening to an orchestral concert recognizes the physical forms of the violins, flutes, cornets, and big drum; but even of these familiar instruments the voices are not always recognized. As for the rest of the harmonious fraternity, few give heed to them, even while enjoying the music which they produce; yet with a few words of direction anybody can study the instruments of the band at an orchestral concert. Let him first recognize the fact that to the mind of a composer an orchestra always presents itself as a combination of four groups of instruments--choirs, let us call them, with unwilling apology to the lexicographers. These choirs are: first, the viols of four sorts--violins, violas, violoncellos, and double-basses, spoken of collectively as the "string quartet;" second, the wind instruments of wood (the "wood-winds" in the musician's jargon)--flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons; third, the wind instruments of brass (the "brass")--trumpets, horns, trombones, and bass tuba. In all of these subdivisions there are numerous variations which need not detain us now. A further subdivision might be made in each with reference to the harmony voices (showing an analogy with the four voices of a vocal choir--soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass); but to go into this might make the exposition confusing. The fourth "choir" (here the apology to the lexicographers must be repeated with much humility and earnestness) consists of the instruments of percussion--the kettle-drums, big drum, cymbals, triangle, bell chime, etc. (sometimes spoken of collectively in the United States as "the battery"). [Illustration: SEATING PLAN OF THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY.] [Sidenote: _How orchestras are seated._] [Sidenote: _Plan of the New York Philharmonic._] The disposition of these instruments in our orchestras is largely a matter of individual taste and judgment in the conductor, though the general rule is exemplified in the plan given herewith, showing how Mr. Anton Seidl has arranged the desks for the concerts of the Philharmonic Society of New York. Mr. Theodore Thomas's arrangement differed very little from that of Mr. Seidl, the most noticeable difference being that he placed the viola-players beside the second violinists, where Mr. Seidl has the violoncellists. Mr. Seidl's purpose in making the change was to gain an increase in sonority for the viola part, the position to the right of the stage (the left of the audience) enabling the viola-players to hold their instruments with the F-holes toward the listeners instead of away from them. The relative positions of the harmonious battalions, as a rule, are as shown in the diagram. In the foreground, the violins, violas, and 'cellos; in the middle distance, the wood-winds; in the background, the brass and the battery; the double-basses flanking the whole body. This distribution of forces is dictated by considerations of sonority, the most assertive instruments--the brass and drums--being placed farthest from the hearers, and the instruments of the viol tribe, which are the real backbone of the band and make their effect by a massing of voices in each part, having the place of honor and greatest advantage. Of course it is understood that I am speaking of a concert orchestra. In the case of theatrical or operatic bands the arrangement of the forces is dependent largely upon the exigencies of space. [Sidenote: _Solo instruments._] Outside the strings the instruments are treated by composers as solo instruments, a single flute, oboe, clarinet, or other wind instrument sometimes doing the same work in the development of the composition as the entire body of first violins. As a rule, the wood-winds are used in pairs, the purpose of this being either to fill the harmony when what I may call the principal thought of the composition is consigned to a particular choir, or to strengthen a voice by permitting two instruments to play in unison. [Sidenote: _Groupings for harmony effects._] [Sidenote: _Wagner's instrumental characterization._] [Sidenote: _An instrumental language._] Each choir, except the percussion instruments, is capable of playing in full harmony; and this effect is frequently used by composers. In "Lohengrin," which for that reason affords to the amateur an admirable opportunity for orchestral study, Wagner resorts to this device in some instances for the sake of dramatic characterization. _Elsa_, a dreamy, melancholy maiden, crushed under the weight of wrongful accusation, and sustained only by the vision of a seraphic champion sent by Heaven to espouse her cause, is accompanied on her entrance and sustained all through her scene of trial by the dulcet tones of the wood-winds, the oboe most often carrying the melody. _Lohengrin's_ superterrestrial character as a Knight of the Holy Grail is prefigured in the harmonies which seem to stream from the violins, and in the prelude tell of the bringing of the sacred vessel of Christ's passion to Monsalvat; but in his chivalric character he is greeted by the militant trumpets in a strain of brilliant puissance and rhythmic energy. Composers have studied the voices of the instruments so long and well, and have noted the kind of melodies and harmonies in which the voices are most effective, that they have formulated what might almost be called an instrumental language. Though the effective capacity of each instrument is restricted not only by its mechanics, but also by the quality of its tones--a melody conceived for one instrument sometimes becoming utterly inexpressive and unbeautiful by transferrence to another--the range of effects is extended almost to infinity by means of combination, or, as a painter might say, by mixing the colors. The art of writing effectively for instruments in combination is the art of instrumentation or orchestration, in which Berlioz and Wagner were Past Grand Masters. [Sidenote: _Number of instruments._] The number of instruments of each kind in an orchestra may also be said to depend measurably upon the music, or the use to which the band is to be put. Neither in instruments nor in numbers is there absolute identity between a dramatic and a symphonic orchestra. The apparatus of the former is generally much more varied and complex, because of the vast development of variety in dramatic expression stimulated by Wagner. [Sidenote: _Symphony and dramatic orchestras._] The modern symphony, especially the symphonic poem, shows the influence of this dramatic tendency, but not in the same degree. A comparison between model bands in each department will disclose what is called the normal orchestral organization. For the comparison (see page 82), I select the bands of the first Wagner Festival held in Bayreuth in 1876, the Philharmonic Society of New York, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. [Sidenote: _Instruments rarely used._] Instruments like the corno di bassetto, bass trumpet, tenor tuba, contra-bass tuba, and contra-bass trombone are so seldom called for in the music played by concert orchestras that they have no place in their regular lists. They are employed when needed, however, and the horns and other instruments are multiplied when desirable effects are to be obtained by such means. [Sidenote: _Orchestras compared._] New York Instruments Bayreuth. Philharmonic. Boston. Chicago. First violins 16 18 16 16 Second violins 16 18 14 16 Violas 12 14 10 10 Violoncellos 12 14 8 10 Double-basses 8 14 8 9 Flutes 3 3 3 3 Oboes 3 3 2 3 English horn 1 1 1 1 Clarinets 3 3 3 3 Basset-horn 1 0 0 0 Bassoons 3 3 3 3 Trumpets or cornets 3 3 4 4 Horns 8 4 4 4 Trombones 3 3 3 3 Bass trumpet 1 0 0 1 Tenor tubas 2 0 2 4 Bass tubas 2 1 2 1 Contra-bass tuba 1 0 1 0 Contra-bass trombone 1 0 0 1 Tympani (pairs) 2 2 2 2 Bass drum 1 1 1 1 Cymbals (pairs) 1 1 1 1 Harps 6 1 1 2 [Sidenote: _The string quartet._] [Sidenote: _Old laws against instrumentalists._] [Sidenote: _Early instrumentation._] [Sidenote: _Handel's orchestra._] The string quartet, it will be seen, makes up nearly three-fourths of a well-balanced orchestra. It is the only choir which has numerous representation of its constituent units. This was not always so, but is the fruit of development in the art of instrumentation which is the newest department in music. Vocal music had reached its highest point before instrumental music made a beginning as an art. The former was the pampered child of the Church, the latter was long an outlaw. As late as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries instrumentalists were vagabonds in law, like strolling players. They had none of the rights of citizenship; the religious sacraments were denied them; their children were not permitted to inherit property or learn an honourable trade; and after death the property for which they had toiled escheated to the crown. After the instruments had achieved the privilege of artistic utterance, they were for a long time mere slavish imitators of the human voice. Bach treated them with an insight into their possibilities which was far in advance of his time, for which reason he is the most modern composer of the first half of the eighteenth century; but even in Handel's case the rule was to treat them chiefly as supports for the voices. He multiplied them just as he did the voices in his choruses, consorting a choir of oboes and bassoons, and another of trumpets of almost equal numbers with his violins. [Sidenote: _The modern band._] The so-called purists in England talk a great deal about restoring Handel's orchestra in performances of his oratorios, utterly unmindful of the fact that to our ears, accustomed to the myriad-hued orchestra of to-day, the effect would seem opaque, heavy, unbalanced, and without charm were a band of oboes to play in unison with the violins, another of bassoons to double the 'cellos, and half a dozen trumpets to come flaring and crashing into the musical mass at intervals. Gluck in the opera, and Haydn and Mozart in the symphony, first disclosed the charm of the modern orchestra with the wind instruments apportioned to the strings so as to obtain the multitude of tonal tints which we admire to-day. On the lines which they marked out the progress has been exceedingly rapid and far-reaching. [Sidenote: _Capacity of the orchestra._] [Sidenote: _The extremes of range._] In the hands of the latter-day Romantic composers, and with the help of the instrument-makers, who have marvellously increased the capacity of the wind instruments, and remedied the deficiencies which embarrassed the Classical writers, the orchestra has developed into an instrument such as never entered the mind of the wildest dreamer of the last century. Its range of expression is almost infinite. It can strike like a thunder-bolt, or murmur like a zephyr. Its voices are multitudinous. Its register is coextensive in theory with that of the modern pianoforte, reaching from the space immediately below the sixth added line under the bass staff to the ninth added line above the treble staff. These two extremes, which belong respectively to the bass tuba and piccolo flute, are not at the command of every player, but they are within the capacity of the instruments, and mark the orchestra's boundaries in respect of pitch. The gravest note is almost as deep as any in which the ordinary human ear can detect pitch, and the acutest reaches the same extremity in the opposite direction. [Sidenote: _The viols._] [Sidenote: _The violin._] With all the changes that have come over the orchestra in the course of the last two hundred years, the string quartet has remained its chief factor. Its voice cannot grow monotonous or cloying, for, besides its innate qualities, it commands a more varied manner of expression than all the other instruments combined. The viol, which term I shall use generically to indicate all the instruments of the quartet, is the only instrument in the band, except the harp, that can play harmony as well as melody. Its range is the most extensive; it is more responsive to changes in manipulation; it is endowed more richly than any other instrument with varieties of timbre; it has an incomparable facility of execution, and answers more quickly and more eloquently than any of its companions to the feelings of the player. A great advantage which the viol possesses over wind instruments is that, not being dependent on the breath of the player, there is practically no limit to its ability to sustain tones. It is because of this long list of good qualities that it is relied on to provide the staff of life to instrumental music. The strings as commonly used show four members of the viol family, distinguished among themselves by their size, and the quality in the changes of tone which grows out of the differences in size. The violins (Appendix, Plate I.) are the smallest members of the family. Historically they are the culmination of a development toward diminutiveness, for in their early days viols were larger than they are now. When the violin of to-day entered the orchestra (in the score of Monteverde's opera "Orfeo") it was specifically described as a "little French violin." Its voice, Berlioz says, is the "true female voice of the orchestra." Generally the violin part of an orchestral score is two-voiced, but the two groups may be split into a great number. In one passage in "Tristan und Isolde" Wagner divides his first and second violins into sixteen groups. Such divisions, especially in the higher regions, are productive of entrancing effects. [Sidenote: _Violin effects._] [Sidenote: _Pizzicato._] [Sidenote: _"Col legno dall'arco."_] [Sidenote: _Harmonics._] [Sidenote: _Vibrato._] [Sidenote: _"Con sordino."_] The halo of sound which streams from the beginning and end of the "Lohengrin" prelude is produced by this device. High and close harmonies from divided violins always sound ethereal. Besides their native tone quality (that resulting from a string stretched over a sounding shell set to vibrating by friction), the violins have a number of modified qualities resulting from changes in manipulation. Sometimes the strings are plucked (_pizzicato_), when the result is a short tone something like that of a banjo with the metallic clang omitted; very dainty effects can thus be produced, and though it always seems like a degradation of the instrument so pre-eminently suited to a broad singing style, no less significant a symphonist than Tschaikowsky has written a Scherzo in which the violins are played _pizzicato_ throughout the movement. Ballet composers frequently resort to the piquant effect, but in the larger and more serious forms of composition, the device is sparingly used. Differences in quality and expressiveness of tone are also produced by varied methods of applying the bow to the strings: with stronger or lighter pressure; near the bridge, which renders the tone hard and brilliant, and over the end of the finger-board, which softens it; in a continuous manner (_legato_), or detached (_staccato_). Weird effects in dramatic music are sometimes produced by striking the strings with the wood of the bow, Wagner resorting to this means to delineate the wicked glee of his dwarf _Mime_, and Meyerbeer to heighten the uncanniness of _Nelusko's_ wild song in the third act of "L'Africaine." Another class of effects results from the manner in which the strings are "stopped" by the fingers of the left hand. When they are not pressed firmly against the finger-board but touched lightly at certain places called nodes by the acousticians, so that the segments below the finger are permitted to vibrate along with the upper portion, those peculiar tones of a flute-like quality called harmonics or flageolet tones are produced. These are oftener heard in dramatic music than in symphonies; but Berlioz, desiring to put Shakespeare's description of Queen Mab, "Her wagon-spokes made of long spinner's legs; The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; The traces, of the smallest spider's web; The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams--" into music in his dramatic symphony, "Romeo and Juliet," achieved a marvellously filmy effect by dividing his violins, and permitting some of them to play harmonics. Yet so little was his ingenious purpose suspected when he first brought the symphony forward in Paris, that one of the critics spoke contemptuously of this effect as sounding "like an ill-greased syringe." A quivering motion imparted to the fingers of the left hand in stopping the strings produces a tremulousness of tone akin to the _vibrato_ of a singer; and, like the vocal _vibrato_, when not carried to excess, this effect is a potent expression of sentimental feeling. But it is much abused by solo players. Another modification of tone is caused by placing a tiny instrument called a sordino, or mute, upon the bridge. This clamps the bridge, makes it heavier, and checks the vibrations, so that the tone is muted or muffled, and at times sounds mysterious. [Sidenote: _Pizzicato on the basses._] [Sidenote: _Tremolo._] These devices, though as a rule they have their maximum of effectiveness in the violins, are possible also on the violas, violoncellos, and double-basses, which, as I have already intimated, are but violins of a larger growth. The _pizzicato_ is, indeed, oftenest heard from the double-basses, where it has a much greater eloquence than on the violins. In music of a sombre cast, the short, deep tones given out by the plucked strings of the contra-bass sometimes have the awfulness of gigantic heart-throbs. The difficulty of producing the other effects grows with the increase of difficulty in handling the instruments, this being due to the growing thickness of the strings and the wideness of the points at which they must be stopped. One effect peculiar to them all--the most used of all effects, indeed, in dramatic music--is the _tremolo_, produced by dividing a tone into many quickly reiterated short tones by a rapid motion of the bow. This device came into use with one of the earliest pieces of dramatic music. It is two centuries old, and was first used to help in the musical delineation of a combat. With scarcely an exception, the varied means which I have described can be detected by those to whom they are not already familiar by watching the players while listening to the music. [Sidenote: _The viola._] The viola is next in size to the violin, and is tuned at the interval of a fifth lower. Its highest string is A, which is the second string of the violin, and its lowest C. Its tone, which sometimes contains a comical suggestion of a boy's voice in mutation, is lacking in incisiveness and brilliancy, but for this it compensates by a wonderful richness and filling quality, and a pathetic and inimitable mournfulness in melancholy music. It blends beautifully with the violoncello, and is often made to double that instrument's part for the sake of color effect--as, to cite a familiar instance, in the principal subject of the Andante in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. [Sidenote: _The violoncello._] [Sidenote: _Violoncello effects._] The strings of the violoncello (Plate II.) are tuned like those of the viola, but an octave lower. It is the knee-fiddle (_viola da gamba_) of the last century, as the viola is the arm-fiddle (_viola da braccio_), and got its old name from the position in which it is held by the player. The 'cello's voice is a bass--it might be called the barytone of the choir--and in the olden time of simple writing, little else was done with it than to double the bass part one octave higher. But modern composers, appreciating its marvellous capacity for expression, which is next to that of the violin, have treated it with great freedom and independence as a solo instrument. Its tone is full of voluptuous languor. It is the sighing lover of the instrumental company, and can speak the language of tender passion more feelingly than any of its fellows. The ravishing effect of a multiplication of its voice is tellingly exemplified in the opening of the overture to "William Tell," which is written for five solo 'celli, though it is oftenest heard in an arrangement which gives two of the middle parts to violas. When Beethoven wished to produce the emotional impression of a peacefully rippling brook in his "Pastoral" symphony, he gave a murmuring figure to the divided violoncellos, and Wagner uses the passionate accents of four of these instruments playing in harmony to support _Siegmund_ when he is pouring out the ecstasy of his love in the first act of "Die Walküre." In the love scene of Berlioz's "Romeo and Juliet" symphony it is the violoncello which personifies the lover, and holds converse with the modest oboe. [Sidenote: _The double-bass._] The patriarchal double-bass is known to all, and also its mission of providing the foundation for the harmonic structure of orchestral music. It sounds an octave lower than the music written for it, being what is called a transposing instrument of sixteen-foot tone. Solos are seldom written for this instrument in orchestral music, though Beethoven, with his daring recitatives in the Ninth Symphony, makes it a mediator between the instrumental and vocal forces. Dragonetti and Bottesini, two Italians, the latter of whom is still alive, won great fame as solo players on the unwieldy instrument. The latter uses a small bass viol, and strings it with harp strings; but Dragonetti played a full double-bass, on which he could execute the most difficult passages written for the violoncello. [Sidenote: _The wood-winds._] Since the instruments of the wood-wind choir are frequently used in solos, their acquaintance can easily be made by an observing amateur. To this division of the orchestra belong the gentle accents in the instrumental language. Violent expression is not its province, and generally when the band is discoursing in heroic style or giving voice to brave or angry emotion the wood-winds are either silent or are used to give weight to the body of tone rather than color. Each of the instruments has a strongly characteristic voice, which adapts itself best to a certain style of music; but by use of different registers and by combinations among them, or with the instruments of the other choirs, a wide range of expression within the limits suggested has been won for the wood-winds. [Sidenote: _The flute._] [Sidenote: _The piccolo flute._] [Sidenote: _Janizary music._] [Sidenote: _The story of the flute._] The flute, which requires no description, is, for instance, an essentially soulless instrument; but its marvellous agility and the effectiveness with which its tones can be blended with others make it one of the most useful instruments in the band. Its native character, heard in the compositions written for it as a solo instrument, has prevented it from being looked upon with dignity. As a rule, brilliancy is all that is expected from it. It is a sort of _soprano leggiero_ with a small range of superficial feelings. It can sentimentalize, and, as Dryden says, be "soft, complaining," but when we hear it pour forth a veritable ecstasy of jubilation, as it does in the dramatic climax of Beethoven's overture "Leonore No. 3," we marvel at the transformation effected by the composer. Advantage has also been taken of the difference between its high and low tones, and now in some romantic music, as in Raff's "Lenore" symphony, or the prayer of _Agathe_ in "Der Freischütz," the hollowness of the low tones produces a mysterious effect that is exceedingly striking. Still the fact remains that the native voice of the instrument, though sweet, is expressionless compared with that of the oboe or clarinet. Modern composers sometimes write for three flutes; but in the older writers, when a third flute is used, it is generally an octave flute, or piccolo flute (Plate III.)--a tiny instrument whose aggressiveness of voice is out of all proportion to its diminutiveness of body. This is the instrument which shrieks and whistles when the band is playing at storm-making, to imitate the noise of the wind. It sounds an octave higher than is indicated by the notes in its part, and so is what is called a transposing instrument of four-foot tone. It revels in military music, which is proper, for it is an own cousin to the ear-piercing fife, which annually makes up for its long silence in the noisy days before political elections. When you hear a composition in march time, with bass and snare drum, cymbals and triangle, such as the Germans call "Turkish" or "Janizary" music, you may be sure to hear also the piccolo flute. The flute is doubtless one of the oldest instruments in the world. The primitive cave-dwellers made flutes of the leg-bones of birds and other animals, an origin of which a record is preserved in the Latin name _tibia_. The first wooden flutes were doubtless the Pandean pipes, in which the tone was produced by blowing across the open ends of hollow reeds. The present method, already known to the ancient Egyptians, of closing the upper end, and creating the tone by blowing across a hole cut in the side, is only a modification of the method pursued, according to classic tradition, by Pan when he breathed out his dejection at the loss of the nymph Syrinx, by blowing across the tuneful reeds which were that nymph in her metamorphosed state. [Sidenote: _Reed instruments._] [Sidenote: _Double reeds._] The flute or pipe of the Greeks and Romans was only distantly related to the true flute, but was the ancestor of its orchestral companions, the oboe and clarinet. These instruments are sounded by being blown in at the end, and the tone is created by vibrating reeds, whereas in the flute it is the result of the impinging of the air on the edge of the hole called the embouchure, and the consequent stirring of the column of air in the flue of the instrument. The reeds are thin slips or blades of cane. The size and bore of the instruments and the difference between these reeds are the causes of the differences in tone quality between these relatives. The oboe or hautboy, English horn, and the bassoon have what are called double reeds. Two narrow blades of cane are fitted closely together, and fastened with silk on a small metal tube extending from the upper end of the instrument in the case of the oboe and English horn, from the side in the case of the bassoon. The reeds are pinched more or less tightly between the lips, and are set to vibrating by the breath. [Sidenote: _The oboe._] [Sidenote: _The English horn._] The oboe (Plate IV.) is naturally associated with music of a pastoral character. It is pre-eminently a melody instrument, and though its voice comes forth shrinkingly, its uniqueness of tone makes it easily heard. It is a most lovable instrument. "Candor, artless grace, soft joy, or the grief of a fragile being suits the oboe's accents," says Berlioz. The peculiarity of its mouth-piece gives its tone a reedy or vibrating quality totally unlike the clarinet's. Its natural alto is the English horn (Plate V.), which is an oboe of larger growth, with curved tube for convenience of manipulation. The tone of the English horn is fuller, nobler, and is very attractive in melancholy or dreamy music. There are few players on the English horn in this country, and it might be set down as a rule that outside of New York, Boston, and Chicago, the English horn parts are played by the oboe in America. No melody displays the true character of the English horn better than the _Ranz des Vaches_ in the overture to Rossini's "William Tell"--that lovely Alpine song which the flute embroiders with exquisite ornament. One of the noblest utterances of the oboe is the melody of the funeral march in Beethoven's "Heroic" symphony, in which its tenderness has beautiful play. It is sometimes used effectively in imitative music. In Haydn's "Seasons," and also in that grotesque tone poem by Saint-Saëns, the "Danse Macabre," it gives the cock crow. It is the timid oboe that sounds the A for the orchestra to tune by. [Sidenote: _The bassoon._] [Sidenote: _An orchestral humorist._] [Sidenote: _Supernatural effects._] The grave voice of the oboe is heard from the bassoon (Plate VI.), where, without becoming assertive, it gains a quality entirely unknown to the oboe and English horn. It is this quality that makes the bassoon the humorist _par excellence_ of the orchestra. It is a reedy bass, very apt to recall to those who have had a country education the squalling tone of the homely instrument which the farmer's boy fashions out of the stems of the pumpkin-vine. The humor of the bassoon is an unconscious humor, and results from the use made of its abysmally solemn voice. This solemnity in quality is paired with astonishing flexibility of utterance, so that its gambols are always grotesque. Brahms permits the bassoon to intone the _Fuchslied_ of the German students in his "Academic" overture. Beethoven achieves a decidedly comical effect by a stubborn reiteration of key-note, fifth, and octave by the bassoon under a rustic dance intoned by the oboe in the scherzo of his "Pastoral" symphony; and nearly every modern composer has taken advantage of the instrument's grotesqueness. Mendelssohn introduces the clowns in his "Midsummer-Night's-Dream" music by a droll dance for two bassoons over a sustained bass note from the violoncellos; but when Meyerbeer wanted a very different effect, a ghastly one indeed, in the scene of the resuscitation of the nuns in his "Robert le Diable," he got it by taking two bassoons as solo instruments and using their weak middle tones, which, Berlioz says, have "a pale, cold, cadaverous sound." Singularly enough, Handel resorted to a similar device in his "Saul," to accompany the vision of the Witch of Endor. [Sidenote: _The double bassoon._] In all these cases a great deal depends upon the relation between the character of the melody and the nature of the instrument to which it is set. A swelling martial fanfare may be made absurd by changing it from trumpets to a weak-voiced wood-wind. It is only the string quartet that speaks all the musical languages of passion and emotion. The double-bassoon is so large an instrument that it has to be bent on itself to bring it under the control of the player. It sounds an octave lower than the written notes. It is not brought often into the orchestra, but speaks very much to the purpose in Brahms's beautiful variations on a theme by Haydn, and the glorious finale of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. [Sidenote: _The clarinet._] [Sidenote: _The bass clarinet._] The clarinet (Plate VII.) is the most eloquent member of the wood-wind choir, and, except some of its own modifications or the modifications of the oboe and bassoon, the latest arrival in the harmonious company. It is only a little more than a century old. It has the widest range of expression of the wood-winds, and its chief structural difference is in its mouth-piece. It has a single flat reed, which is much wider than that of the oboe or bassoon, and is fastened by a metallic band and screw to the flattened side of the mouth-piece, whose other side is cut down, chisel shape, for convenience. Its voice is rich, mellow, less reedy, and much fuller and more limpid than the voice of the oboe, which Berlioz tries to describe by analogy as "sweet-sour." It is very flexible, too, and has a range of over three and a half octaves. Its high tones are sometimes shrieky, however, and the full beauty of the instrument is only disclosed when it sings in the middle register. Every symphony and overture contains passages for the clarinet which serve to display its characteristics. Clarinets are made of different sizes for different keys, the smallest being that in E-flat, with an unpleasantly piercing tone, whose use is confined to military bands. There is also an alto clarinet and a bass clarinet (Plate VIII.). The bell of the latter instrument is bent upward, pipe fashion, and its voice is peculiarly impressive and noble. It is a favorite solo instrument in Liszt's symphonic poems. [Sidenote: _Lips and reeds._] [Sidenote: _The brass instruments._] [Sidenote: _Improvements in brass instruments._] [Sidenote: _Valves and slides._] The fundamental principle of the instruments last described is the production of tone by vibrating reeds. In the instruments of the brass choir, the duty of the reeds is performed by the lips of the player. Variety of tone in respect of quality is produced by variations in size, shape, and modifications in parts like the bell and mouth-piece. The _forte_ of the orchestra receives the bulk of its puissance from the brass instruments, which, nevertheless, can give voice to an extensive gamut of sentiments and feelings. There is nothing more cheery and jocund than the flourishes of the horns, but also nothing more mild and soothing than the songs which sometimes they sing. There is nothing more solemn and religious than the harmony of the trombones, while "the trumpet's loud clangor" is the very voice of a war-like spirit. All of these instruments have undergone important changes within the last few score years. The classical composers, almost down to our own time, were restricted in the use of them because they were merely natural tubes, and their notes were limited to the notes which inflexible tubes can produce. Within this century, however, they have all been transformed from imperfect diatonic instruments to perfect chromatic instruments; that is to say, every brass instrument which is in use now can give out all the semitones within its compass. This has been accomplished through the agency of valves, by means of which differing lengths of the sonorous tube are brought within the command of the players. In the case of the trombones an exceedingly venerable means of accomplishing the same end is applied. The tube is in part made double, one part sliding over the other. By moving his arm, the player lengthens or shortens the tube, and thus changing the key of the instrument, acquires all the tones which can be obtained from so many tubes of different lengths. The mouth-pieces of the trumpet, trombone, and tuba are cup-shaped, and larger than the mouth-piece of the horn, which is little else than a flare of the slender tube, sufficiently wide to receive enough of the player's lips to form the embouchure, or human reed, as it might here be named. [Sidenote: _The French horn._] [Sidenote: _Manipulation of the French horn._] The French horn (Plate IX.), as it is called in the orchestra, is the sweetest and mellowest of all the wind instruments. In Beethoven's time it was but little else than the old hunting-horn, which, for the convenience of the mounted hunter, was arranged in spiral convolutions that it might be slipped over the head and carried resting on one shoulder and under the opposite arm. The Germans still call it the _Waldhorn_, _i.e._, "forest horn;" the old French name was _cor de chasse_, the Italian _corno di caccia_. In this instrument formerly the tones which were not the natural resonances of the harmonic division of the tube were helped out by partly closing the bell with the right hand, it having been discovered accidentally that by putting the hand into the lower end of the tube--the flaring part called the bell--the pitch of a tone was raised. Players still make use of this method for convenience, and sometimes because a composer wishes to employ the slightly muffled effect of these tones; but since valves have been added to the instrument, it is possible to play a chromatic scale in what are called the unstopped or open tones. [Sidenote: _Kinds of horns._] [Sidenote: _The trumpet._] [Sidenote: _The cornet._] Formerly it was necessary to use horns of different pitch, and composers still respect this tradition, and designate the key of the horns which they wish to have employed; but so skilful have the players become that, as a rule, they use horns whose fundamental tone is F for all keys, and achieve the old purpose by simply transposing the music as they read it. If these most graceful instruments were straightened out they would be seventeen feet long. The convolutions of the horn and the many turns of the trumpet are all the fruit of necessity; they could not be manipulated to produce the tones that are asked of them if they were not bent and curved. The trumpet, when its tube is lengthened by the addition of crooks for its lowest key, is eight feet long; the tuba, sixteen. In most orchestras (in all of those in the United States, in fact, except the Boston and Chicago Orchestras and the Symphony Society of New York) the word trumpet is merely a euphemism for cornet, the familiar leading instrument of the brass band, which, while it falls short of the trumpet in the quality of its tone, in the upper registers especially, is a more easily manipulated instrument than the trumpet, and is preferable in the lower tones. [Sidenote: _The trombone._] Mendelssohn is quoted as saying that the trombones (Plate X.) "are too sacred to use often." They have, indeed, a majesty and nobility all their own, and the lowest use to which they can be put is to furnish a flaring and noisy harmony in an orchestral _tutti_. They are marvellously expressive instruments, and without a peer in the whole instrumental company when a solemn and spiritually uplifting effect is to be attained. They can also be made to sound menacing and lugubrious, devout and mocking, pompously heroic, majestic, and lofty. They are often the heralds of the orchestra, and make sonorous proclamations. [Sidenote: _Trombone effects._] [Sidenote: _The tuba._] The classic composers always seemed to approach the trombones with marked respect, but nowadays it requires a very big blue pencil in the hands of a very uncompromising conservatory professor to prevent a student engaged on his _Opus 1_ from keeping his trombones going half the time at least. It is an old story how Mozart keeps the instruments silent through three-fourths of his immortal "Don Giovanni," so that they may enter with overwhelming impressiveness along with the ghostly visitor of the concluding scene. As a rule, there are three trombones in the modern orchestra--two tenors and a bass. Formerly there were four kinds, bearing the names of the voices to which they were supposed to be nearest in tone-quality and compass--soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. Full four-part harmony is now performed by the three trombones and the tuba (Plate XI.). The latter instrument, which, despite its gigantic size, is exceedingly tractable can "roar you as gently as any sucking dove." Far-away and strangely mysterious tones are got out of the brass instruments, chiefly the cornet and horn, by almost wholly closing the bell. [Sidenote: _Instruments of percussion._] [Sidenote: _The xylophone._] [Sidenote: _Kettle-drums._] [Sidenote: _Pfund's tuning device._] [Sidenote: _Pitch of the drums._] [Sidenote: _Qualifications of a drummer._] The percussion apparatus of the modern orchestra includes a multitude of instruments scarcely deserving of description. Several varieties of drums, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, steel bars (_Glockenspiel_), gongs, bells, and many other things which we are now inclined to look upon as toys, rather than as musical instruments, are brought into play for reasons more or less fantastic. Saint-Saëns has even utilized the barbarous xylophone, whose proper place is the variety hall, in his "Danse Macabre." There his purpose was a fantastic one, and the effect is capital. The pictorial conceit at the bottom of the poem which the music illustrates is Death, as a skeleton, seated on a tombstone, playing the viol, and gleefully cracking his bony heels against the marble. To produce this effect, the composer uses the xylophone with capital results. But of all the ordinary instruments of percussion, the only one that is really musical and deserving of comment is the kettle-drum. This instrument is more musical than the others because it has pitch. Its voice is not mere noise, but musical noise. Kettle-drums, or tympani, are generally used in pairs, though the vast multiplication of effects by modern composers has resulted also in the extension of this department of the band. It is seldom that more than two pairs are used, a good player with a quick ear being able to accomplish all that Wagner asks of six drums by his deftness in changing the pitch of the instruments. This work of tuning is still performed generally in what seems a rudimentary way, though a German drum-builder named Pfund invented a contrivance by which the player, by simply pressing on a balanced pedal and watching an indicator affixed to the side of the drums, can change the pitch to any desired semitone within the range of an octave. The tympani are hemispherical brass or copper vessels, kettles in short, covered with vellum heads. The pitch of the instrument depends on the tension of the head, which is applied generally by key-screws working through the iron ring which holds the vellum. There is a difference in the size of the drums to place at the command of the player the octave from F in the first space below the bass staff to F on the fourth line of the same staff. Formerly the purpose of the drums was simply to give emphasis, and they were then uniformly tuned to the key-note and fifth of the key in which a composition was set. Now they are tuned in many ways, not only to allow for the frequent change of keys, but also so that they may be used as harmony instruments. Berlioz did more to develop the drums than any composer who has ever lived, though Beethoven already manifested appreciation of their independent musical value. In the last movement of his Eighth Symphony and the scherzo of his Ninth, he tunes them in octaves, his purpose in the latter case being to give the opening figure, an octave leap, of the scherzo melody to the drums solo. The most extravagant use ever made of the drums, however, was by Berlioz in his "Messe des Morts," where he called in eight pairs of drums and ten players to help him to paint his tonal picture of the terrors of the last judgment. The post of drummer is one of the most difficult to fill in a symphonic orchestra. He is required to have not only a perfect sense of time and rhythm, but also a keen sense of pitch, for often the composer asks him to change the pitch of one or both of his drums in the space of a very few seconds. He must then be able to shut all other sounds out of his mind, and bring his drums into a new key while the orchestra is playing--an extremely nice task. [Sidenote: _The bass drum._] The development of modern orchestral music has given dignity also to the bass drum, which, though definite pitch is denied to it, is now manipulated in a variety of ways productive of striking effects. Rolls are played on it with the sticks of the kettle-drums, and it has been emancipated measurably from the cymbals, which in vulgar brass-band music are its inseparable companions. [Sidenote: _The conductor._] [Sidenote: _Time-beaters and interpreters._] [Sidenote: _The conductor a necessity._] In the full sense of the term the orchestral conductor is a product of the latter half of the present century. Of course, ever since concerted music began, there has been a musical leader of some kind. Mural paintings and carvings fashioned in Egypt long before Apollo sang his magic song and "Ilion, like a mist, rose into towers," show the conductor standing before his band beating time by clapping his hands; and if we are to credit what we have been told about Hebrew music, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, when they stood before their multitudinous choirs in the temple at Jerusalem, promoted synchronism in the performance by stamping upon the floor with lead-shodden feet. Before the era which developed what I might call "star" conductors, these leaders were but captains of tens and captains of hundreds who accomplished all that was expected of them if they made the performers keep musical step together. They were time-beaters merely--human metronomes. The modern conductor is, in a sense not dreamed of a century ago, a mediator between the composer and the audience. He is a virtuoso who plays upon men instead of a key-board, upon a hundred instruments instead of one. Music differs from her sister arts in many respects, but in none more than in her dependence on the intermediary who stands between her and the people for whose sake she exists. It is this intermediary who wakens her into life. "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter," is a pretty bit of hyperbole which involves a contradiction in terms. An unheard melody is no melody at all, and as soon as we have music in which a number of singers or instrumentalists are employed, the taste, feeling, and judgment of an individual are essential to its intelligent and effective publication. In the gentle days of the long ago, when suavity and loveliness of utterance and a recognition of formal symmetry were the "be-all and end-all" of the art, a time-beater sufficed to this end; but now the contents of music are greater, the vessel has been wondrously widened, the language is become curiously complex and ingenious, and no composer of to-day can write down universally intelligible signs for all that he wishes to say. Someone must grasp the whole, expound it to the individual factors which make up the performing sum and provide what is called an interpretation to the public. [Sidenote: _"Star" conductors._] That someone, of course, is the conductor, and considering the progress that music is continually making it is not at all to be wondered at that he has become a person of stupendous power in the culture of to-day. The one singularity is that he should be so rare. This rarity has had its natural consequence, and the conductor who can conduct, in contradistinction to the conductor who can only beat time, is now a "star." At present we see him going from place to place in Europe giving concerts in which he figures as the principal attraction. The critics discuss his "readings" just as they do the performances of great pianists and singers. A hundred blowers of brass, scrapers of strings, and tootlers on windy wood, labor beneath him transmuting the composer's mysterious symbols into living sound, and when it is all over we frequently find that it seems all to have been done for the greater glory of the conductor instead of the glory of art. That, however, is a digression which it is not necessary to pursue. [Sidenote: _Mistaken popular notions._] [Sidenote: _What the conductor does._] [Sidenote: _Rests and cues._] Questions and remarks have frequently been addressed to me indicative of the fact that there is a widespread popular conviction that the mission of a conductor is chiefly ornamental at an orchestral concert. That is a sad misconception, and grows out of the old notion that a conductor is only a time-beater. Assuming that the men of the band have played sufficiently together, it is thought that eventually they might keep time without the help of the conductor. It is true that the greater part of the conductor's work is done at rehearsal, at which he enforces upon his men his wishes concerning the speed of the music, expression, and the balance of tone between the different instruments. But all the injunctions given at rehearsal by word of mouth are reiterated by means of a system of signs and signals during the concert performance. Time and rhythm are indicated by the movements of the bâton, the former by the speed of the beats, the latter by the direction, the tones upon which the principal stress is to fall being indicated by the down-beat of the bâton. The amplitude of the movements also serves to indicate the conductor's wishes concerning dynamic variations, while the left hand is ordinarily used in pantomimic gestures to control individual players or groups. Glances and a play of facial expression also assist in the guidance of the instrumental body. Every musician is expected to count the rests which occur in his part, but when they are of long duration (and sometimes they amount to a hundred measures or more) it is customary for the conductor to indicate the entrance of an instrument by a glance at the player. From this mere outline of the communications which pass between the conductor and his band it will be seen how indispensable he is if music is to have a consistent and vital interpretation. [Sidenote: _Personal magnetism._] The layman will perhaps also be enabled, by observing the actions of a conductor with a little understanding of their purposes, to appreciate what critics mean when they speak of the "magnetism" of a leader. He will understand that among other things it means the aptitude or capacity for creating a sympathetic relationship between himself and his men which enables him the better by various devices, some arbitrary, some technical and conventional, to imbue them with his thoughts and feelings relative to a composition, and through them to body them forth to the audience. [Sidenote: _The score._] [Sidenote: _Its arrangement._] [Sidenote: _Score reading._] What it is that the conductor has to guide him while giving his mute commands to his forces may be seen in the reproduction, in the Appendix, of a page from an orchestral score (Plate XII). A score, it will be observed, is a reproduction of all the parts of a composition as they lie upon the desks of the players. The ordering of these parts in the score has not always been as now, but the plan which has the widest and longest approval is that illustrated in our example. The wood-winds are grouped together on the uppermost six staves, the brass in the middle with the tympani separating the horns and trumpets from the trombones, the strings on the lowermost five staves. The example has been chosen because it shows all the instruments of the band employed at once (it is the famous opening _tutti_ of the triumphal march of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony), and is easy of comprehension by musical amateurs for the reason that none of the parts requires transposition except it be an octave up in the case of the piccolo, an instrument of four-foot tone, and an octave down in the case of the double-basses, which are of sixteen-foot tone. All the other parts are to be read as printed, proper attention being given to the alto and tenor clefs used in the parts of the trombones and violas. The ability to "read score" is one of the most essential attributes of a conductor, who, if he have the proper training, can bring all the parts together and reproduce them on the pianoforte, transposing those which do not sound as written and reading the different clefs at sight as he goes along. V _At an Orchestral Concert_ [Sidenote: _Classical and Popular._] [Sidenote: _Orchestras and military bands._] In popular phrase all high-class music is "classical," and all concerts at which such music is played are "classical concerts." Here the word is conceived as the antithesis of "popular," which term is used to designate the ordinary music of the street and music-hall. Elsewhere I have discussed the true meaning of the word and shown its relation to "romantic" in the terminology of musical critics and historians. No harm is done by using both "classical" and "popular" in their common significations, so far as they convey a difference in character between concerts. The highest popular conception of a classical concert is one in which a complete orchestra performs symphonies and extended compositions in allied forms, such as overtures, symphonic poems, and concertos. Change the composition of the instrumental body, by omitting the strings and augmenting the reed and brass choirs, and you have a military band which is best employed in the open air, and whose programmes are generally made up of compositions in the simpler and more easily comprehended forms--dances, marches, fantasias on popular airs, arrangements of operatic excerpts and the like. These, then, are popular concerts in the broadest sense, though it is proper enough to apply the term also to concerts given by a symphonic band when the programme is light in character and aims at more careless diversion than should be sought at a "classical" concert. The latter term, again, is commended to use by the fact that as a rule the music performed at such a concert exemplifies the higher forms in the art, classicism in music being defined as that principle which seeks expression in beauty of form, in a symmetrical ordering of parts and logical sequence, "preferring æsthetic beauty, pure and simple, over emotional content," as I have said in Chapter III. [Sidenote: _The Symphony._] [Sidenote: _Mistaken ideas about the form._] As the highest type of instrumental music, we take the Symphony. Very rarely indeed is a concert given by an organization like the New York and London Philharmonic Societies, or the Boston and Chicago Orchestras, at which the place of honor in the scheme of pieces is not given to a symphony. Such a concert is for that reason also spoken of popularly as a "Symphony concert," and no confusion would necessarily result from the use of the term even if it so chanced that there was no symphony on the programme. What idea the word symphony conveys to the musically illiterate it would be difficult to tell. I have known a professional writer on musical subjects to express the opinion that a symphony was nothing else than four unrelated compositions for orchestra arranged in a certain sequence for the sake of an agreeable contrast of moods and tempos. It is scarcely necessary to say that the writer in question had a very poor opinion of the Symphony as an Art-form, and believed that it had outlived its usefulness and should be relegated to the limbo of Archaic Things. If he, however, trained in musical history and familiar with musical literature, could see only four unrelated pieces of music in a symphony by Beethoven, we need not marvel that hazy notions touching the nature of the form are prevalent among the untaught public, and that people can be met in concert-rooms to whom such words as "Symphony in C minor," and the printed designations of the different portions of the work--the "movements," as musicians call them--are utterly bewildering. [Sidenote: _History of the term._] [Sidenote: _Changes in meaning._] [Sidenote: _Handel's "Pastoral Symphony."_] The word symphony has itself a singularly variegated history. Like many another term in music it was borrowed by the modern world from the ancient Greek. To those who coined it, however, it had a much narrower meaning than to us who use it, with only a conventional change in transliteration, now. By [Greek: symphônia] the Greeks simply expressed the concept of agreement, or consonance. Applied to music it meant first such intervals as unisons; then the notion was extended to include consonant harmonies, such as the fifth, fourth, and octave. The study of the ancient theoreticians led the musicians of the Middle Ages to apply the word to harmony in general. Then in some inexplicable fashion it came to stand as a generic term for instrumental compositions such as toccatas, sonatas, etc. Its name was given to one of the precursors of the pianoforte, and in Germany in the sixteenth century the word _Symphoney_ came to mean a town band. In the last century and the beginning of this the term was used to designate an instrumental introduction to a composition for voices, such as a song or chorus, as also an instrumental piece introduced in a choral work. The form, that is the extent and structure of the composition, had nothing to do with the designation, as we see from the Italian shepherds' tune which Handel set for strings in "The Messiah;" he called it simply _pifa_, but his publishers called it a "Pastoral symphony," and as such we still know it. It was about the middle of the eighteenth century that the present signification became crystallized in the word, and since the symphonies of Haydn, in which the form first reached perfection, are still to be heard in our concert-rooms, it may be said that all the masterpieces of symphonic literature are current. [Sidenote: _The allied forms._] [Sidenote: _Sonata form._] [Sidenote: _Symphony, sonata, and concerto._] I have already hinted at the fact that there is an intimate relationship between the compositions usually heard at a classical concert. Symphonies, symphonic poems, concertos for solo instruments and orchestra, as well as the various forms of chamber music, such as trios, quartets, and quintets for strings, or pianoforte and strings, are but different expressions of the idea which is best summed up in the word sonata. What musicians call the "sonata form" lies at the bottom of them all--even those which seem to consist of a single piece, like the symphonic poem and overture. Provided it follow, not of necessity slavishly, but in its general structure, a certain scheme which was slowly developed by the geniuses who became the law-givers of the art, a composite or cyclical composition (that is, one composed of a number of parts, or movements) is, as the case may be, a symphony, concerto, or sonata. It is a sonata if it be written for a solo instrument like the pianoforte or organ, or for one like the violin or clarinet, with pianoforte accompaniment. If the accompaniment be written for orchestra, it is called a concerto. A sonata written for an orchestra is a symphony. The nature of the interpreting medium naturally determines the exposition of the form, but all the essential attributes can be learned from a study of the symphony, which because of the dignity and eloquence of its apparatus admits of a wider scope than its allies, and must be accepted as the highest type, not merely of the sonata, but of the instrumental art. It will be necessary presently to point out the more important modifications which compositions of this character have undergone in the development of music, but the ends of clearness will be best subserved if the study be conducted on fundamental lines. [Sidenote: _What a symphony is._] [Sidenote: _The bond of unity between the parts._] The symphony then, as a rule, is a composition for orchestra made up of four parts, or movements, which are not only related to each other by a bond of sympathy established by the keys chosen but also by their emotional contents. Without this higher bond the unity of the work would be merely mechanical, like the unity accomplished by sameness of key in the old-fashioned suite. (See Chapter VI.) The bond of key-relationship, though no longer so obvious as once it was, is yet readily discovered by a musician; the spiritual bond is more elusive, and presents itself for recognition to the imagination and the feelings of the listener. Nevertheless, it is an element in every truly great symphony, and I have already indicated how it may sometimes become patent to the ear alone, so it be intelligently employed, and enjoy the co-operation of memory. [Sidenote: _The first movement._] [Sidenote: _Exposition of subjects._] [Sidenote: _Repetition of the first subdivision._] It is the first movement of a symphony which embodies the structural scheme called the "sonata form." It has a triple division, and Mr. Edward Dannreuther has aptly defined it as "the triune symmetry of exposition, illustration, and repetition." In the first division the composer introduces the melodies which he has chosen to be the thematic material of the movement, and to fix the character of the entire work; he presents it for identification. The themes are two, and their exposition generally exemplifies the principle of key-relationship, which was the basis of my analysis of a simple folk tune in Chapter II. In the case of the best symphonists the principal and second subjects disclose a contrast, not violent but yet distinct, in mood or character. If the first is rhythmically energetic and assertive--masculine, let me say--the second will be more sedate, more gentle in utterance--feminine. After the two subjects have been introduced along with some subsidiary phrases and passages which the composer uses to bind them together and modulate from one key into another, the entire division is repeated. That is the rule, but it is now as often "honored in the breach" as in the observance, some conductors not even hesitating to ignore the repeat marks in Beethoven's scores. [Sidenote: _The free fantasia or "working-out" portion._] [Sidenote: _Repetition._] The second division is now taken up. In it the composer exploits his learning and fancy in developing his thematic material. He is now entirely free to send it through long chains of keys, to vary the harmonies, rhythms, and instrumentation, to take a single pregnant motive and work it out with all the ingenuity he can muster; to force it up "steep-up spouts" of passion and let it whirl in the surge, or plunge it into "steep-down gulfs of liquid fire," and consume its own heart. Technically this part is called the "free fantasia" in English, and the _Durchführung_--"working out"--in German. I mention the terms because they sometimes occur in criticisms and analyses. It is in this division that the genius of a composer has fullest play, and there is no greater pleasure, no more delightful excitement, for the symphony-lover than to follow the luminous fancy of Beethoven through his free fantasias. The third division is devoted to a repetition, with modifications, of the first division and the addition of a close. [Sidenote: _Introductions._] [Sidenote: _Keys and Titles._] First movements are quick and energetic, and frequently full of dramatic fire. In them the psychological story is begun which is to be developed in the remaining chapters of the work--its sorrows, hopes, prayers, or communings in the slow movement; its madness or merriment in the scherzo; its outcome, triumphant or tragic, in the finale. Sometimes the first movement is preceded by a slow introduction, intended to prepare the mind of the listener for the proclamation which shall come with the _Allegro_. The key of the principal subject is set down as the key of the symphony, and unless the composer gives his work a special title for the purpose of providing a hint as to its poetical contents ("Eroica," "Pastoral," "Faust," "In the Forest," "Lenore," "Pathétique," etc.), or to characterize its style ("Scotch," "Italian," "Irish," "Welsh," "Scandinavian," "From the New World"), it is known only by its key, or the number of the work (_opus_) in the composer's list. Therefore we have Mozart's Symphony "in G minor," Beethoven's "in A major," Schumann's "in C," Brahms's "in F," and so on. [Sidenote: _The second movement._] [Sidenote: _Variations._] The second movement in the symphonic scheme is the slow movement. Musicians frequently call it the Adagio, for convenience, though the tempi of slow movements ranges from extremely slow (_Largo_) to the border line of fast, as in the case of the Allegretto of the Seventh Symphony of Beethoven. The mood of the slow movement is frequently sombre, and its instrumental coloring dark; but it may also be consolatory, contemplative, restful, religiously uplifting. The writing is preferably in a broadly sustained style, the effect being that of an exalted hymn, and this has led to a predilection for a theme and variations as the mould in which to cast the movement. The slow movements of Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies are made up of variations. [Sidenote: _The Scherzo._] [Sidenote: _Genesis of the Scherzo._] [Sidenote: _The Trio._] The Scherzo is, as the term implies, the playful, jocose movement of a symphony, but in the case of sublime geniuses like Beethoven and Schumann, who blend profound melancholy with wild humor, the playfulness is sometimes of a kind which invites us to thoughtfulness instead of merriment. This is true also of some Russian composers, whose scherzos have the desperate gayety which speaks from the music of a sad people whose merrymaking is not a spontaneous expression of exuberant spirits but a striving after self-forgetfulness. The Scherzo is the successor of the Minuet, whose rhythm and form served the composers down to Beethoven. It was he who substituted the Scherzo, which retains the chief formal characteristics of the courtly old dance in being in triple time and having a second part called the Trio. With the change there came an increase in speed, but it ought to be remembered that the symphonic minuet was quicker than the dance of the same name. A tendency toward exaggeration, which is patent among modern conductors, is threatening to rob the symphonic minuet of the vivacity which gave it its place in the scheme of the symphony. The entrance of the Trio is marked by the introduction of a new idea (a second minuet) which is more sententious than the first part, and sometimes in another key, the commonest change being from minor to major. [Sidenote: _The Finale._] [Sidenote: _Rondo form._] The final movement, technically the Finale, is another piece of large dimensions in which the psychological drama which plays through the four acts of the symphony is brought to a conclusion. Once the purpose of the Finale was but to bring the symphony to a merry end, but as the expressive capacity of music has been widened, and mere play with æsthetic forms has given place to attempts to convey sentiments and feelings, the purposes of the last movement have been greatly extended and varied. As a rule the form chosen for the Finale is that called the Rondo. Borrowed from an artificial verse-form (the French _Rondeau_), this species of composition illustrates the peculiarity of that form in the reiteration of a strophe ever and anon after a new theme or episode has been exploited. In modern society verse, which has grown out of an ambition to imitate the ingenious form invented by mediæval poets, we have the Triolet, which may be said to be a rondeau in miniature. I choose one of Mr. H.C. Bunner's dainty creations to illustrate the musical refrain characteristic of the rondo form because of its compactness. Here it is: [Sidenote: _A Rondo pattern in poetry._] "A pitcher of mignonette In a tenement's highest casement: Queer sort of a flower-pot--yet That pitcher of mignonette Is a garden in heaven set, To the little sick child in the basement-- The pitcher of mignonette, In the tenement's highest casement." [Sidenote: _Other forms for the Finale._] If now the first two lines of this poem, which compose its refrain, be permitted to stand as the principal theme of a musical piece, we have in Mr. Bunner's triolet a rondo _in nuce_. There is in it a threefold exposition of the theme alternating with episodic matter. Another form for the finale is that of the first movement (the Sonata form), and still another, the theme and variations. Beethoven chose the latter for his "Eroica," and the choral close of his Ninth, Dvorák, for his symphony in G major, and Brahms for his in E minor. [Sidenote: _Organic Unities._] [Sidenote: _How enforced._] [Sidenote: _Berlioz's "idée fixe."_] [Sidenote: _Recapitulation of themes._] I am attempting nothing more than a characterization of the symphony, and the forms with which I associated it at the outset, which shall help the untrained listener to comprehend them as unities despite the fact that to the careless hearer they present themselves as groups of pieces each one of which is complete in itself and has no connection with its fellows. The desire of composers to have their symphonies accepted as unities instead of compages of unrelated pieces has led to the adoption of various devices designed to force the bond of union upon the attention of the hearer. Thus Beethoven in his symphony in C minor not only connects the third and fourth movements but also introduces a reminiscence of the former into the midst of the latter; Berlioz in his "Symphonie Fantastique," which is written to what may be called a dramatic scheme, makes use of a melody which he calls "_l'idée fixe_," and has it recur in each of the four movements as an episode. This, however, is frankly a symphony with programme, and ought not to be treated as a modification of the pure form. Dvorák in his symphony entitled "From the New World," in which he has striven to give expression to the American spirit, quotes the first period of his principal subject in all the subsequent movements, and then sententiously recapitulates the principal themes of the first, second, and third movements in the finale; and this without a sign of the dramatic purpose confessed by Berlioz. [Sidenote: _Introduction of voices._] [Sidenote: _Abolition of pauses._] In the last movement of his Ninth Symphony Beethoven calls voices to the aid of his instruments. It was a daring innovation, as it seemed to disrupt the form, and we know from the story of the work how long he hunted for the connecting link, which finally he found in the instrumental recitative. Having hit upon the device, he summons each of the preceding movements, which are purely instrumental, into the presence of his augmented forces and dismisses it as inadequate to the proclamation which the symphony was to make. The double-basses and solo barytone are the spokesmen for the tuneful host. He thus achieves the end of connecting the Allegro, Scherzo, and Adagio with each other, and all with the Finale, and at the same time points out what it is that he wishes us to recognize as the inspiration of the whole; but here, again, the means appear to be somewhat extraneous. Schumann's example, however, in abolishing the pauses between the movements of the symphony in D minor, and having melodic material common to all the movements, is a plea for appreciation which cannot be misunderstood. Before Schumann Mendelssohn intended that his "Scotch" symphony should be performed without pauses between the movements, but his wishes have been ignored by the conductors, I fancy because he having neglected to knit the movements together by community of ideas, they can see no valid reason for the abolition of the conventional resting-places. [Sidenote: _Beethoven's "choral" symphony followed._] Beethoven's augmentation of the symphonic forces by employing voices has been followed by Berlioz in his "Romeo and Juliet," which, though called a "dramatic symphony," is a mixture of symphony, cantata, and opera; Mendelssohn in his "Hymn of Praise" (which is also a composite work and has a composite title--"Symphony Cantata"), and Liszt in his "Faust" symphony, in the finale of which we meet a solo tenor and chorus of men's voices who sing Goethe's _Chorus mysticus_. [Sidenote: _Increase in the number of movements._] A number of other experiments have been made, the effectiveness of which has been conceded in individual instances, but which have failed permanently to affect the symphonic form. Schumann has two trios in his symphony in B-flat, and his E-flat, the so-called "Rhenish," has five movements instead of four, there being two slow movements, one in moderate tempo (_Nicht schnell_), and the other in slow (_Feierlich_). In this symphony, also, Schumann exercises the license which has been recognized since Beethoven's time, of changing the places in the scheme of the second and third movements, giving the second place to the jocose division instead of the slow. Beethoven's "Pastoral" has also five movements, unless one chooses to take the storm which interrupts the "Merry-making of the Country Folk" as standing toward the last movement as an introduction, as, indeed, it does in the composer's idyllic scheme. Certain it is, Sir George Grove to the contrary notwithstanding, that the sense of a disturbance of the symphonic plan is not so vivid at a performance of the "Pastoral" as at one of Schumann's "Rhenish," in which either the third movement or the so-called "Cathedral Scene" is most distinctly an interloper. [Sidenote: _Further extension of boundaries._] [Sidenote: _Saint-Saëns's C minor symphony._] Usually it is deference to the demands of a "programme" that influences composers in extending the formal boundaries of a symphony, and when this is done the result is frequently a work which can only be called a symphony by courtesy. M. Saint-Saëns, however, attempted an original excursion in his symphony in C minor, without any discoverable, or at least confessed, programmatic idea. He laid the work out in two grand divisions, so as to have but one pause. Nevertheless in each division we can recognize, though as through a haze, the outlines of the familiar symphonic movements. In the first part, buried under a sequence of time designations like this: _Adagio_--_Allegro moderato_--_Poco adagio_, we discover the customary first and second movements, the former preceded by a slow introduction; in the second division we find this arrangement: _Allegro moderato_--_Presto_--_Maestoso_--_Allegro_, this multiplicity of terms affording only a sort of disguise for the regulation scherzo and finale, with a cropping out of reminiscences from the first part which have the obvious purpose to impress upon the hearer that the symphony is an organic whole. M. Saint-Saëns has also introduced the organ and a pianoforte with two players into the instrumental apparatus. [Sidenote: _The Symphonic Poem._] [Sidenote: _Its characteristics._] Three characteristics may be said to distinguish the Symphonic Poem, which in the view of the extremists who follow the lead of Liszt is the logical outcome of the symphony and the only expression of its æsthetic principles consonant with modern thought and feeling. _First_, it is programmatic--that is, it is based upon a poetical idea, a sequence of incidents, or of soul-states, to which a clew is given either by the title or a motto; _second_, it is compacted in form to a single movement, though as a rule the changing phases delineated in the separate movements of the symphony are also to be found in the divisions of the work marked by changes in tempo, key, and character; _third_, the work generally has a principal subject of such plasticity that the composer can body forth a varied content by presenting it in a number of transformations. [Sidenote: _Liszt's first pianoforte concerto._] The last two characteristics Liszt has carried over into his pianoforte concerto in E-flat. This has four distinct movements (viz.: I. _Allegro maestoso_; II. _Quasi adagio_; III. _Allegretto vivace, scherzando_; IV. _Allegro marziale animato_), but they are fused into a continuous whole, throughout which the principal thought of the work, the stupendously energetic phrase which the orchestra proclaims at the outset, is presented in various forms to make it express a great variety of moods and yet give unity to the concerto. "Thus, by means of this metamorphosis," says Mr. Edward Dannreuther, "the poetic unity of the whole musical tissue is made apparent, spite of very great diversity of details; and Coleridge's attempt at a definition of poetic unity--unity in multiety--is carried out to the letter." [Sidenote: _Other cyclical forms._] [Sidenote: _Pianoforte and orchestra._] It will readily be understood that the other cyclical compositions which I have associated with a classic concert, that is, compositions belonging to the category of chamber music (see Chapter III.), and concertos for solo instruments with orchestral accompaniment, while conforming to the scheme which I have outlined, all have individual characteristics conditioned on the expressive capacity of the apparatus. The modern pianoforte is capable of asserting itself against a full orchestra, and concertos have been written for it in which it is treated as an orchestral integer rather than a solo instrument. In the older conception, the orchestra, though it frequently assumed the privilege of introducing the subject-matter, played a subordinate part to the solo instrument in its development. In violin as well as pianoforte concertos special opportunity is given to the player to exploit his skill and display the solo instrument free from structural restrictions in the cadenza introduced shortly before the close of the first, last, or both movements. [Sidenote: _Cadenzas._] [Sidenote: _Improvisations by the player._] [Sidenote: _M. Ysaye's opinion of Cadenzas._] Cadenzas are a relic of a time when the art of improvisation was more generally practised than it is now, and when performers were conceded to have rights beyond the printed page. Solely for their display, it became customary for composers to indicate by a hold ([fermata symbol]) a place where the performer might indulge in a flourish of his own. There is a tradition that Mozart once remarked: "Wherever I smear that thing," indicating a hold, "you can do what you please;" the rule is, however, that the only privilege which the cadenza opens to the player is that of improvising on material drawn from the subjects already developed, and since, also as a rule, composers are generally more eloquent in the treatment of their own ideas than performers, it is seldom that a cadenza contributes to the enjoyment afforded by a work, except to the lovers of technique for technique's sake. I never knew an artist to make a more sensible remark than did M. Ysaye, when on the eve of a memorably beautiful performance of Beethoven's violin concerto, he said: "If I were permitted to consult my own wishes I would put my violin under my arm when I reach the _fermate_ and say: 'Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the cadenza. It is presumptuous in any musician to think that he can have anything to say after Beethoven has finished. With your permission we will consider my cadenza played.'" That Beethoven may himself have had a thought of the same nature is a fair inference from the circumstance that he refused to leave the cadenza in his E-flat pianoforte concerto to the mercy of the virtuosos but wrote it himself. [Sidenote: _Concertos._] [Sidenote: _Chamber music._] Concertos for pianoforte or violin are usually written in three movements, of which the first and last follow the symphonic model in respect of elaboration and form, and the second is a brief movement in slow or moderate time, which has the character of an intermezzo. As to the nomenclature of chamber music, it is to be noted that unless connected with a qualifying word or phrase, "Quartet" means a string quartet. When a pianoforte is consorted with strings the work is spoken of as a Pianoforte Trio, Quartet, or Quintet, as the case may be. [Sidenote: _The Overture._] [Sidenote: _Pot-pourris._] The form of the overture is that of the first movement of the sonata, or symphony, omitting the repetition of the first subdivision. Since the original purpose, which gave the overture its name (_Ouverture_ = aperture, opening), was to introduce a drama, either spoken or lyrical, an oratorio, or other choral composition, it became customary for the composers to choose the subjects of the piece from the climacteric moments of the music used in the drama. When done without regard to the rules of construction (as is the case with practically all operetta overtures and Rossini's) the result is not an overture at all, but a _pot-pourri_, a hotch-potch of jingles. The present beautiful form, in which Beethoven and other composers have shown that it is possible to epitomize an entire drama, took the place of an arbitrary scheme which was wholly aimless, so far as the compositions to which they were attached were concerned. [Sidenote: _Old styles of overtures._] [Sidenote: _The Prelude._] [Sidenote: _Gluck's principle._] [Sidenote: _Descriptive titles._] The earliest fixed form of the overture is preserved to the current lists of to-day by the compositions of Bach and Handel. It is that established by Lully, and is tripartite in form, consisting of a rapid movement, generally a fugue, preceded and followed by a slow movement which is grave and stately in its tread. In its latest phase the overture has yielded up its name in favor of Prelude (German, _Vorspiel_), Introduction, or Symphonic Prologue. The finest of these, without borrowing their themes from the works which they introduce, but using new matter entirely, seek to fulfil the aim which Gluck set for himself, when, in the preface to "Alceste," he wrote: "I imagined that the overture ought to prepare the audience for the action of the piece, and serve as a kind of argument to it." Concert overtures are compositions designed by the composers to stand as independent pieces instead of for performance in connection with a drama, opera, or oratorio. When, as is frequently the case, the composer, nevertheless, gives them a descriptive title ("Hebrides," "Sakuntala"), their poetical contents are to be sought in the associations aroused by the title. Thus, in the instances cited, "Hebrides" suggests that the overture was designed by Mendelssohn to reflect the mood awakened in him by a visit to the Hebrides, more particularly to Fingal's Cave (wherefore the overture is called the "Fingal's Cave" overture in Germany)--"Sakuntala" invites to a study of Kalidasa's drama of that name as the repository of the sentiments which Goldmark undertook to express in his music. [Sidenote: _Serenades._] [Sidenote: _The Serenade in Shakespeare._] A form which is variously employed, for solo instruments, small combinations, and full orchestra (though seldom with the complete modern apparatus), is the Serenade. Historically, it is a contemporary of the old suites and the first symphonies, and like them it consists of a group of short pieces, so arranged as to form an agreeable contrast with each other, and yet convey a sense of organic unity. The character of the various parts and their order grew out of the purpose for which the serenade was originated, which was that indicated by the name. In the last century, and earlier, it was no uncommon thing for a lover to bring the tribute of a musical performance to his mistress, and it was not always a "woful ballad" sung to her eyebrow. Frequently musicians were hired, and the tribute took the form of a nocturnal concert. In Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen of Verona," _Proteus_, prompting _Thurio_ what to do to win _Silvia's_ love, says: "Visit by night your lady's chamber window With some sweet concert: to their instruments Tune a deploring dump; the night's dread silence Will well become such sweet complaining grievance." [Sidenote: _Out-of-doors music._] [Sidenote: _Old forms._] [Sidenote: _The "Dump."_] [Sidenote: _Beethoven's Serenade, op. 8._] It was for such purposes that the serenade was invented as an instrumental form. Since they were to play out of doors, _Sir Thurio's_ musicians would have used wind instruments instead of viols, and the oldest serenades are composed for oboes and bassoons. Clarinets and horns were subsequently added, and for such bands Mozart wrote serenades, some of which so closely approach the symphony that they have been published as symphonies. A serenade in the olden time opened very properly with a march, to the strains of which we may imagine the musicians approaching the lady's chamber window. Then came a minuet to prepare her ear for the "deploring dump" which followed, the "dump" of Shakespeare's day, like the "dumka" of ours (with which I am tempted to associate it etymologically), being a mournful piece of music most happily characterized by the poet as a "sweet complaining grievance." Then followed another piece in merry tempo and rhythm, then a second _adagio_, and the entertainment ended with an _allegro_, generally in march rhythm, to which we fancy the musicians departing. The order is exemplified in Beethoven's serenade for violin, viola, and violoncello, op. 8, which runs thus: _March_; _Adagio_; _Minuet_; _Adagio_ with episodic _Scherzo_; _Polacca_; _Andante_ (variations), the opening march repeated. [Sidenote: _The Orchestral Suite._] [Sidenote: _Ballet music._] The Suite has come back into favor as an orchestral piece, but the term no longer has the fixed significance which once it had. It is now applied to almost any group of short pieces, pleasantly contrasted in rhythm, tempo, and mood, each complete in itself yet disclosing an æsthetic relationship with its fellows. Sometimes old dance forms are used, and sometimes new, such as the polonaise and the waltz. The ballet music, which fills so welcome a place in popular programmes, may be looked upon as such a suite, and the rhythm of the music and the orchestral coloring in them are frequently those peculiar to the dances of the countries in which the story of the opera or drama for which the music was written plays. The ballets therefore afford an excellent opportunity for the study of local color. Thus the ballet music from Massenet's "Cid" is Spanish, from Rubinstein's "Feramors" Oriental, from "Aïda" Egyptian--Oriental rhythms and colorings being those most easily copied by composers. [Sidenote: _Operatic excerpts._] [Sidenote: _Gluck and Vestris._] The other operatic excerpts common to concerts of both classes are either between-acts music, fantasias on operatic airs, or, in the case of Wagner's contributions, portions of his dramas which are so predominantly instrumental that it has been found feasible to incorporate the vocal part with the orchestral. In ballet music from the operas of the last century, some of which has been preserved to the modern concert-room, local color must not be sought. Gluck's Greeks, like Shakespeare's, danced to the rhythms of the seventeenth century. Vestris, whom the people of his time called "The god of the dance," once complained to Gluck that his "Iphigénie en Aulide" did not end with a chaconne, as was the rule. "A chaconne!" cried Gluck; "when did the Greeks ever dance a chaconne?" "Didn't they? Didn't they?" answered Vestris; "so much the worse for the Greeks." There ensued a quarrel. Gluck became incensed, withdrew the opera which was about to be produced, and would have left Paris had not Marie Antoinette come to the rescue. But Vestris got his chaconne. VI _At a Pianoforte Recital_ [Sidenote: _Mr. Paderewski's concerts._] No clearer illustration of the magical power which lies in music, no more convincing proof of the puissant fascination which a musical artist can exert, no greater demonstration of the capabilities of an instrument of music can be imagined than was afforded by the pianoforte recitals which Mr. Paderewski gave in the United States during the season of 1895-96. More than threescore times in the course of five months, in the principal cities of this country, did this wonderful man seat himself in the presence of audiences, whose numbers ran into the thousands, and were limited only by the seating capacity of the rooms in which they gathered, and hold them spellbound from two to three hours by the eloquence of his playing. Each time the people came in a gladsome frame of mind, stimulated by the recollection of previous delights or eager expectation. Each time they sat listening to the music as if it were an evangel on which hung everlasting things. Each time there was the same growth in enthusiasm which began in decorous applause and ended in cheers and shouts as the artist came back after the performance of a herculean task, and added piece after piece to a programme which had been laid down on generous lines from the beginning. The careless saw the spectacle with simple amazement, but for the judicious it had a wondrous interest. [Sidenote: _Pianoforte recitals._] [Sidenote: _The pianoforte's underlying principles._] I am not now concerned with Mr. Paderewski beyond invoking his aid in bringing into court a form of entertainment which, in his hands, has proved to be more attractive to the multitude than symphony, oratorio, and even opera. What a world of speculation and curious inquiry does such a recital invite one into, beginning with the instrument which was the medium of communication between the artist and his hearers! To follow the progressive development of the mechanical principles underlying the pianoforte, one would be obliged to begin beyond the veil which separates history from tradition, for the first of them finds its earliest exemplification in the bow twanged by the primitive savage. Since a recognition of these principles may help to an understanding of the art of pianoforte playing, I enumerate them now. They are: 1. A stretched string as a medium of tone production. 2. A key-board as an agency for manipulating the strings. 3. A blow as the means of exciting the strings to vibratory action, by which the tone is produced. [Sidenote: _Their Genesis._] [Sidenote: _Significance of the pianoforte._] Many interesting glimpses of the human mind and heart might we have in the course of the promenade through the ancient, mediæval, and modern worlds which would be necessary to disclose the origin and growth of these three principles, but these we must forego, since we are to study the music of the instrument, not its history. Let the knowledge suffice that the fundamental principle of the pianoforte is as old as music itself, and that scientific learning, inventive ingenuity, and mechanical skill, tributary always to the genius of the art, have worked together for centuries to apply this principle, until the instrument which embodies it in its highest potency is become a veritable microcosm of music. It is the visible sign of culture in every gentle household; the indispensable companion of the composer and teacher; the intermediary between all the various branches of music. Into the study of the orchestral conductor it brings a translation of all the multitudinous voices of the band; to the choir-master it represents the chorus of singers in the church-loft or on the concert-platform; with its aid the opera director fills his imagination with the people, passions, and pageantry of the lyric drama long before the singers have received their parts, or the costumer, stage manager, and scene-painter have begun their work. It is the only medium through which the musician in his study can commune with the whole world of music and all its heroes; and though it may fail to inspire somewhat of that sympathetic nearness which one feels toward the violin as it nestles under the chin and throbs synchronously with the player's emotions, or those wind instruments into which the player breathes his own breath as the breath of life, it surpasses all its rivals, save the organ, in its capacity for publishing the grand harmonies of the masters, for uttering their "sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies." [Sidenote: _Defects of the pianoforte._] [Sidenote: _Lack of sustaining power._] This is one side of the picture and serves to show why the pianoforte is the most universal, useful, and necessary of all musical instruments. The other side shows its deficiencies, which must also be known if one is to appreciate rightly the many things he is called upon to note while listening intelligently to pianoforte music. Despite all the skill, learning, and ingenuity which have been spent on its perfection, the pianoforte can be made only feebly to approximate that sustained style of musical utterance which is the soul of melody, and finds its loftiest exemplification in singing. To give out a melody perfectly, presupposes the capacity to sustain tones without loss in power or quality, to bind them together at will, and sometimes to intensify their dynamic or expressive force while they sound. The tone of the pianoforte, being produced by a blow, begins to die the moment it is created. The history of the instrument's mechanism, and also of its technical manipulation, is the history of an effort to reduce this shortcoming to a minimum. It has always conditioned the character of the music composed for the instrument, and if we were not in danger of being led into too wide an excursion, it would be profitable to trace the parallelism which is disclosed by the mechanical evolution of the instrument, and the technical and spiritual evolution of the music composed for it. A few points will be touched upon presently, when the intellectual activity invited by a recital is brought under consideration. [Sidenote: _The percussive element._] [Sidenote: _Melody with drum-beats._] [Sidenote: _Rhythmical accentuation._] [Sidenote: _A universal substitute._] It is to be noted, further, that by a beautiful application of the doctrine of compensations, the factor which limits the capacity of the pianoforte as a melody instrument endows it with a merit which no other instrument has in the same degree, except the instruments of percussion, which, despite their usefulness, stand on the border line between savage and civilized music. It is from its relationship to the drum that the pianoforte derives a peculiarity quite unique in the melodic and harmonic family. Rhythm is, after all, the starting-point of music. More than melody, more than harmony, it stirs the blood of the savage, and since the most vital forces within man are those which date back to his primitive state, so the sense of rhythm is the most universal of the musical senses among even the most cultured of peoples to-day. By themselves the drums, triangles, and cymbals of an orchestra represent music but one remove from noise; but everybody knows how marvellously they can be utilized to glorify a climax. Now, in a very refined degree, every melody on the pianoforte, be it played as delicately as it may, is a melody with drum-beats. Manufacturers have done much toward eliminating the thump of the hammers against the strings, and familiarity with the tone of the instrument has closed our ears against it to a great extent as something intrusive, but the blow which excites the string to vibration, and thus generates sound, is yet a vital factor in determining the character of pianoforte music. The recurrent pulsations, now energetic, incisive, resolute, now gentle and caressing, infuse life into the melody, and by emphasizing its rhythmical structure (without unduly exaggerating it), present the form of the melody in much sharper outline than is possible on any other instrument, and much more than one would expect in view of the evanescent character of the pianoforte's tone. It is this quality, combined with the mechanism which places all the gradations of tone, from loudest to softest, at the easy and instantaneous command of the player, which, I fancy, makes the pianoforte, in an astonishing degree, a substitute for all the other instruments. Each instrument in the orchestra has an idiom, which sounds incomprehensible when uttered by some other of its fellows, but they can all be translated, with more or less success, into the language of the pianoforte--not the quality of the tone, though even that can be suggested, but the character of the phrase. The pianoforte can sentimentalize like the flute, make a martial proclamation like the trumpet, intone a prayer like the churchly trombone. [Sidenote: _The instrument's mechanism._] [Sidenote: _Tone formation and production._] In the intricacy of its mechanism the pianoforte stands next to the organ. The farther removed from direct utterance we are the more difficult is it to speak the true language of music. The violin player and the singer, and in a less degree the performers upon some of the wind instruments, are obliged to form the musical tone--which, in the case of the pianist, is latent in the instrument, ready to present itself in two of its attributes in answer to a simple pressure upon the key. The most unmusical person in the world can learn to produce a series of tones from a pianoforte which shall be as exact in pitch and as varied in dynamic force as can Mr. Paderewski. He cannot combine them so ingeniously nor imbue them with feeling, but in the simple matter of producing the tone with the attributes mentioned, he is on a level with the greatest virtuoso. Very different is the case of the musician who must exercise a distinctly musical gift in the simple evocation of the materials of music, like the violinist and singer, who both form and produce the tone. For them compensation flows from the circumstance that the tone thus formed and produced is naturally instinct with emotional life in a degree that the pianoforte tone knows nothing of. [Sidenote: _Technical manipulation._] [Sidenote: _Touch and emotionality._] In one respect, it may be said that the mechanics of pianoforte playing represent a low plane of artistic activity, a fact which ought always to be remembered whenever the temptation is felt greatly to exalt the technique of the art; but it must also be borne in mind that the mechanical nature of simple tone production in pianoforte playing raises the value of the emotional quality which, nevertheless, stands at the command of the player. The emotional potency of the tone must come from the manner in which the blow is given to the string. Recognition of this fact has stimulated reflection, and this in turn has discovered methods by which temperament and emotionality may be made to express themselves as freely, convincingly, and spontaneously in pianoforte as in violin playing. If this were not so it would be impossible to explain the difference in the charm exerted by different virtuosi, for it has frequently happened that the best-equipped mechanician and the most intellectual player has been judged inferior as an artist to another whose gifts were of the soul rather than of the brains and fingers. [Sidenote: _The technical cult._] [Sidenote: _A low form of art._] The feats accomplished by a pianoforte virtuoso in the mechanical department are of so extraordinary a nature that there need be small wonder at the wide prevalence of a distinctly technical cult. All who know the real nature and mission of music must condemn such a cult. It is a sign of a want of true appreciation to admire technique for technique's sake. It is a mistaking of the outward shell for the kernel, a means for the end. There are still many players who aim to secure this admiration, either because they are deficient in real musical feeling, or because they believe themselves surer of winning applause by thus appealing to the lowest form of appreciation. In the early part of the century they would have been handicapped by the instrument which lent itself to delicacy, clearness, and gracefulness of expression, but had little power. Now the pianoforte has become a thing of rigid steel, enduring tons of strain from its strings, and having a voice like the roar of many waters; to keep pace with it players have become athletes with "Thews of Anakim And pulses of a Titan's heart." [Sidenote: _Technical skill a matter of course._] They care no more for the "murmurs made to bless," unless it be occasionally for the sake of contrast, but seek to astound, amaze, bewilder, and confound with feats of skill and endurance. That with their devotion to the purely mechanical side of the art they are threatening to destroy pianoforte playing gives them no pause whatever. The era which they illustrate and adorn is the technical era which was, is, and ever shall be, the era of decay in artistic production. For the judicious technique alone, be it never so marvellous, cannot serve to-day. Its possession is accepted as a condition precedent in the case of everyone who ventures to appear upon the concert-platform. He must be a wonder, indeed, who can disturb our critical equilibrium by mere digital feats. We want strength and velocity of finger to be coupled with strength, velocity, and penetration of thought. We want no halting or lisping in the proclamation of what the composer has said, but we want the contents of his thought, not the hollow shell, no matter how distinctly its outlines be drawn. [Sidenote: _The plan of study in this chapter._] [Sidenote: _A typical scheme of pieces._] The factors which present themselves for consideration at a pianoforte recital--mechanical, intellectual, and emotional--can be most intelligently and profitably studied along with the development of the instrument and its music. All branches of the study are invited by the typical recital programme. The essentially romantic trend of Mr. Paderewski's nature makes his excursions into the classical field few and short; and it is only when a pianist undertakes to emulate Rubinstein in his historical recitals that the entire pre-Beethoven vista is opened up. It will suffice for the purposes of this discussion to imagine a programme containing pieces by Bach, D. Scarlatti, Handel, and Mozart in one group; a sonata by Beethoven; some of the shorter pieces of Schumann and Chopin, and one of the transcriptions or rhapsodies of Liszt. [Sidenote: _Periods in pianoforte music._] Such a scheme falls naturally into four divisions, plainly differentiated from each other in respect of the style of composition and the manner of performance, both determined by the nature of the instrument employed and the status of the musical idea. Simply for the sake of convenience let the period represented by the first group be called the classic; the second the classic-romantic; the third the romantic, and the last the bravura. I beg the reader, however, not to extend these designations beyond the boundaries of the present study; they have been chosen arbitrarily, and confusion might result if the attempt were made to apply them to any particular concert scheme. I have chosen the composers because of their broadly representative capacity. And they must stand for a numerous _epigonoi_ whose names make up our concert lists: say, Couperin, Rameau, and Haydn in the first group; Schubert in the second; Mendelssohn and Rubinstein in the third. It would not be respectful to the memory of Liszt were I to give him the associates with whom in my opinion he stands; that matter may be held in abeyance. [Sidenote: _Predecessors of the pianoforte._] [Sidenote: _The Clavichord._] [Sidenote: _"Bebung."_] The instruments for which the first group of writers down to Haydn and Mozart wrote, were the immediate precursors of the pianoforte--the clavichord, spinet, or virginal, and harpsichord. The last was the concert instrument, and stood in the same relationship to the others that the grand pianoforte of to-day stands to the upright and square. The clavichord was generally the medium for the composer's private communings with his muse, because of its superiority over its fellows in expressive power; but it gave forth only a tiny tinkle and was incapable of stirring effects beyond those which sprang from pure emotionality. The tone was produced by a blow against the string, delivered by a bit of brass set in the farther end of the key. The action was that of a direct lever, and the bit of brass, which was called the tangent, also acted as a bridge and measured off the segment of string whose vibration produced the desired tone. It was therefore necessary to keep the key pressed down so long as it was desired that the tone should sound, a fact which must be kept in mind if one would understand the shortcomings as well as the advantages of the instrument compared with the spinet or harpsichord. It also furnishes one explanation of the greater lyricism of Bach's music compared with that of his contemporaries. By gently rocking the hand while the key was down, a tremulous motion could be communicated to the string, which not only prolonged the tone appreciably but gave it an expressive effect somewhat analogous to the vibrato of a violinist. The Germans called this effect _Bebung_, the French _Balancement_, and it was indicated by a row of dots under a short slur written over the note. It is to the special fondness which Bach felt for the clavichord that we owe, to a great extent, the cantabile style of his music, its many-voicedness and its high emotionality. [Sidenote: _Quilled instruments._] [Sidenote: _Tone of the harpsichord and spinet._] [Sidenote: _Bach's "Music of the future."_] The spinet, virginal, and harpsichord were quilled instruments, the tone of which was produced by snapping the strings by means of plectra made of quill, or some other flexible substance, set in the upper end of a bit of wood called the jack, which rested on the farther end of the key and moved through a slot in the sounding-board. When the key was pressed down, the jack moved upward past the string which was caught and twanged by the plectrum. The blow of the clavichord tangent could be graduated like that of the pianoforte hammer, but the quills of the other instruments always plucked the strings with the same force, so that mechanical devices, such as a swell-box, similar in principle to that of the organ, coupling in octaves, doubling the strings, etc., had to be resorted to for variety of dynamic effects. The character of tone thus produced determined the character of the music composed for these instruments to a great extent. The brevity of the sound made sustained melodies ineffective, and encouraged the use of a great variety of embellishments and the spreading out of harmonies in the form of arpeggios. It is obvious enough that Bach, being one of those monumental geniuses that cast their prescient vision far into the future, refused to be bound by such mechanical limitations. Though he wrote _Clavier_, he thought organ, which was his true interpretative medium, and so it happens that the greatest sonority and the broadest style that have been developed in the pianoforte do not exhaust the contents of such a composition as the "Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue." [Sidenote: _Scarlatti's sonatas._] The earliest music written for these instruments--music which does not enter into this study--was but one remove from vocal music. It came through compositions written for the organ. Of Scarlatti's music the pieces most familiar are a Capriccio and Pastorale which Tausig rewrote for the pianoforte. They were called sonatas by their composer, but are not sonatas in the modern sense. Sonata means "sound-piece," and when the term came into music it signified only that the composition to which it was applied was written for instruments instead of voices. Scarlatti did a great deal to develop the technique of the harpsichord and the style of composing for it. His sonatas consist each of a single movement only, but in their structure they foreshadow the modern sonata form in having two contrasted themes, which are presented in a fixed key-relationship. They are frequently full of grace and animation, but are as purely objective, formal, and soulless in their content as the other instrumental compositions of the epoch to which they belong. [Sidenote: _The suite._] [Sidenote: _Its history and form._] [Sidenote: _The bond between the movements._] The most significant of the compositions of this period are the Suites, which because they make up so large a percentage of _Clavier_ literature (using the term to cover the pianoforte and its predecessors), and because they pointed the way to the distinguishing form of the subsequent period, the sonata, are deserving of more extended consideration. The suite is a set of pieces in the same key, but contrasted in character, based upon certain admired dance-forms. Originally it was a set of dances and nothing more, but in the hands of the composers the dances underwent many modifications, some of them to the obvious detriment of their national or other distinguishing characteristics. The suite came into fashion about the middle of the seventeenth century and was also called _Sonata da Camera_ and _Balletto_ in Italy, and, later, _Partita_ in France. In its fundamental form it embraced four movements: I. Allemande. II. Courante. III. Sarabande. IV. Gigue. To these four were sometimes added other dances--the Gavotte, Passepied, Branle, Minuet, Bourrée, etc.--but the rule was that they should be introduced between the Sarabande and the Gigue. Sometimes also the set was introduced by a Prelude or an Overture. Identity of key was the only external tie between the various members of the suite, but the composers sought to establish an artistic unity by elaborating the sentiments for which the dance-forms seemed to offer a vehicle, and presenting them in agreeable contrast, besides enriching the primitive structure with new material. The suites of Bach and Handel are the high-water mark in this style of composition, but it would be difficult to find the original characteristics of the dances in their settings. It must suffice us briefly to indicate the characteristics of the principal forms. [Sidenote: _The Allemande._] The Allemande, as its name indicates, was a dance of supposedly German origin. For that reason the German composers, when it came to them from France, where the suite had its origin, treated it with great partiality. It is in moderate tempo, common time, and made up of two periods of eight measures, both of which are repeated. It begins with an upbeat, and its metre, to use the terms of prosody, is iambic. The following specimen from Mersenne's "Harmonie Universelle," 1636, well displays its characteristics: [Music illustration] [Sidenote: _Iambics in music and poetry._] Robert Burns's familiar iambics, "Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae fu' o' care!" might serve to keep the rhythmical characteristics of the Allemande in mind were it not for the arbitrary changes made by the composers already hinted at. As it is, we frequently find the stately movement of the old dance broken up into elaborate, but always quietly flowing, ornamentation, as indicated in the following excerpt from the third of Bach's English suites: [Music illustration] [Sidenote: _The Courante._] The Courante, or Corrente ("Teach lavoltas high and swift corantos," says Shakespeare), is a French dance which was extremely popular in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries--a polite dance, like the minuet. It was in triple time, and its movement was bright and brisk, a merry energy being imparted to the measure by the prevailing figure, a dotted quarter-note, an eighth, and a quarter in a measure, as illustrated in the following excerpt also from Mersenne: [Music illustration] The suite composers varied the movement greatly, however, and the Italian Corrente consists chiefly of rapid running passages. [Sidenote: _The Sarabande._] The Sarabande was also in triple time, but its movement was slow and stately. In Spain, whence it was derived, it was sung to the accompaniment of castanets, a fact which in itself suffices to indicate that it was originally of a lively character, and took on its solemnity in the hands of the later composers. Handel found the Sarabande a peculiarly admirable vehicle for his inspirations, and one of the finest examples extant figures in the triumphal music of his "Almira," composed in 1704: [Sidenote: _A Sarabande by Handel._] [Music illustration] Seven years after the production of "Almira," Handel recurred to this beautiful instrumental piece, and out of it constructed the exquisite lament beginning "_Lascia ch'io pianga_" in his opera "Rinaldo." [Sidenote: _The Gigue._] [Sidenote: _The Minuet._] [Sidenote: _The Gavotte._] Great Britain's contribution to the Suite was the final Gigue, which is our jolly and familiar friend the jig, and in all probability is Keltic in origin. It is, as everybody knows, a rollicking measure in 6-8, 12-8, or 4-4 time, with twelve triplet quavers in a measure, and needs no description. It remained a favorite with composers until far into the eighteenth century. Shakespeare proclaims its exuberant lustiness when he makes _Sir Toby Belch_ protest that had he _Sir Andrew's_ gifts his "very walk should be a jig." Of the other dances incorporated into the suite, two are deserving of special mention because of their influence on the music of to-day--the Minuet, which is the parent of the symphonic scherzo, and the Gavotte, whose fascinating movement is frequently heard in latter-day operettas. The Minuet is a French dance, and came from Poitou. Louis XIV. danced it to Lully's music for the first time at Versailles in 1653, and it soon became the most popular of court and society dances, holding its own down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was long called the Queen of Dances, and there is no one who has grieved to see the departure of gallantry and grace from our ball-rooms but will wish to see Her Gracious Majesty restored to her throne. The music of the minuet is in 3-4 time, and of stately movement. The Gavotte is a lively dance-measure in common time, beginning, as a rule, on the third beat. Its origin has been traced to the mountain people of the Dauphiné called Gavots--whence its name. [Sidenote: _Technique of the Clavier players._] [Sidenote: _Change in technique._] The transferrence of this music to the modern pianoforte has effected a vast change in the manner of its performance. In the period under consideration emotionality, which is considered the loftiest attribute of pianoforte playing to-day, was lacking, except in the case of such masters of the clavichord as the great Bach and his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, who inherited his father's preference for that instrument over the harpsichord and pianoforte. Tastefulness in the giving out of the melody, distinctness of enunciation, correctness of phrasing, nimbleness and lightness of finger, summed up practically all that there was in virtuosoship. Intellectuality and digital skill were the essential factors. Beauty of tone through which feeling and temperament speak now was the product of the maker of the instrument, except again in the case of the clavichord, in which it may have been largely the creation of the player. It is, therefore, not surprising that the first revolution in technique of which we hear was accomplished by Bach, who, the better to bring out the characteristics of his polyphonic style, made use of the thumb, till then considered almost a useless member of the hand in playing, and bent his fingers, so that their movements might be more unconstrained. [Sidenote: _Bach's touch._] [Sidenote: _Handel's playing._] [Sidenote: _Scarlatti's style._] Of the varieties of touch, which play such a rôle in pianoforte pedagogics to-day, nothing was known. Only on the clavichord was a blow delivered directly against the string, and, as has already been said, only on that instrument was the dynamic shading regulated by the touch. Practically, the same touch was used on the organ and the stringed instruments with key-board. When we find written praise of the old players it always goes to the fluency and lightness of their fingering. Handel was greatly esteemed as a harpsichord player, and seems to have invented a position of the hand like Bach's, or to have copied it from that master. Forkel tells us the movement of Bach's fingers was so slight as to be scarcely noticeable; the position of his hands remained unchanged throughout, and the rest of his body motionless. Speaking of Handel's harpsichord playing, Burney says that his fingers "seemed to grow to the keys. They were so curved and compact when he played that no motion, and scarcely the fingers themselves, could be discovered." Scarlatti's significance lies chiefly in an extension of the technique of his time so as to give greater individuality to the instrument. He indulged freely in brilliant passages and figures which sometimes call for a crossing of the hands, also in leaps of over an octave, repetition of a note by different fingers, broken chords in contrary motion, and other devices which prefigure modern pianoforte music. [Sidenote: _The sonata._] That Scarlatti also pointed the way to the modern sonata, I have already said. The history of the sonata, as the term is now understood, ends with Beethoven. Many sonatas have been written since the last one of that great master, but not a word has been added to his proclamation. He stands, therefore, as a perfect exemplar of the second period in the scheme which we have adopted for the study of pianoforte music and playing. In a general way a sonata may be described as a composition of four movements, contrasted in mood, tempo, sentiment, and character, but connected by that spiritual bond of which mention was made in our study of the symphony. In short, a sonata is a symphony for a solo instrument. [Sidenote: _Haydn._] When it came into being it was little else than a convenient formula for the expression of musical beauty. Haydn, who perfected it on its formal side, left it that and nothing more. Mozart poured the vessel full of beauty, but Beethoven breathed the breath of a new life into it. An old writer tells us of Haydn that he was wont to say that the whole art of composing consisted in taking up a subject and pursuing it. Having invented his theme, he would begin by choosing the keys through which he wished to make it pass. "His exquisite feeling gave him a perfect knowledge of the greater or less degree of effect which one chord produces in succeeding another, and he afterward imagined a little romance which might furnish him with sentiments and colors." [Sidenote: _Beethoven._] [Sidenote: _Mozart's manner of playing._] Beethoven began with the sentiment and worked from it outwardly, modifying the form when it became necessary to do so, in order to obtain complete and perfect utterance. He made spirit rise superior to matter. This must be borne in mind when comparing the technique of the previous period with that of which I have made Beethoven the representative. In the little that we are privileged to read of Mozart's style of playing, we see only a reflex of the players who went before him, saving as it was permeated by the warmth which went out from his own genial personality. His manipulation of the keys had the quietness and smoothness that were praised in Bach and Handel. "Delicacy and taste," says Kullak, "with his lifting of the entire technique to the spiritual aspiration of the idea, elevate him as a virtuoso to a height unanimously conceded by the public, by connoisseurs, and by artists capable of judging. Clementi declared that he had never heard any one play so soulfully and charmfully as Mozart; Dittersdorf finds art and taste combined in his playing; Haydn asseverated with tears that Mozart's playing he could never forget, for it touched the heart. His staccato is said to have possessed a peculiarly brilliant charm." [Sidenote: _Clementi._] [Sidenote: _Beethoven as a pianist._] The period of C.P.E. Bach, Haydn, and Mozart is that in which the pianoforte gradually replaced its predecessors, and the first real pianist was Mozart's contemporary and rival, Muzio Clementi. His chief significance lies in his influence as a technician, for he opened the way to the modern style of play with its greater sonority and capacity for expression. Under him passage playing became an entirely new thing; deftness, lightness, and fluency were replaced by stupendous virtuosoship, which rested, nevertheless, on a full and solid tone. He is said to have been able to trill in octaves with one hand. He was necessary for the adequate interpretation of Beethoven, whose music is likely to be best understood by those who know that he, too, was a superb pianoforte player, fully up to the requirements which his last sonatas make upon technical skill as well as intellectual and emotional gifts. [Sidenote: _Beethoven's technique._] [Sidenote: _Expression supreme._] Czerny, who was a pupil of Beethoven, has preserved a fuller account of that great composer's art as a player than we have of any of his predecessors. He describes his technique as tremendous, better than that of any virtuoso of his day. He was remarkably deft in connecting the full chords, in which he delighted, without the use of the pedal. His manner at the instrument was composed and quiet. He sat erect, without movement of the upper body, and only when his deafness compelled him to do so, in order to hear his own music, did he contract a habit of leaning forward. With an evident appreciation of the necessities of old-time music he had a great admiration for clean fingering, especially in fugue playing, and he objected to the use of Cramer's studies in the instruction of his nephew by Czerny because they led to what he called a "sticky" style of play, and failed to bring out crisp staccatos and a light touch. But it was upon expression that he insisted most of all when he taught. [Sidenote: _Music and emotion._] More than anyone else it was Beethoven who brought music back to the purpose which it had in its first rude state, when it sprang unvolitionally from the heart and lips of primitive man. It became again a vehicle for the feelings. As such it was accepted by the romantic composers to whom he belongs as father, seer, and prophet, quite as intimately as he belongs to the classicists by reason of his adherence to form as an essential in music. To his contemporaries he appears as an image-breaker, but to the clearer vision of to-day he stands an unshakable barrier to lawless iconoclasm. Says Sir George Grove, quoting Mr. Edward Dannreuther, in the passages within the inverted commas: [Sidenote: _Beethoven a Romanticist._] "That he was no wild radical altering for the mere pleasure of alteration, or in the mere search for originality, is evident from the length of time during which he abstained from publishing, or even composing works of pretension, and from the likeness which his early works possess to those of his predecessors. He began naturally with the forms which were in use in his days, and his alteration of them grew very gradually with the necessities of his expression. The form of the sonata is 'the transparent veil through which Beethoven seems to have looked at all music.' And the good points of that form he retained to the last--the 'triune symmetry of exposition, illustration, and repetition,' which that admirable method allowed and enforced--but he permitted himself a much greater liberty than his predecessors had done in the relationship of the keys of the different movements, and parts of movements, and in the proportion of the clauses and sections with which he built them up. In other words, he was less bound by the forms and musical rules, and more swayed by the thought which he had to express, and the directions which that thought took in his mind." [Sidenote: _Schumann and Chopin._] It is scarcely to be wondered at that when men like Schumann and Chopin felt the full force of the new evangel which Beethoven had preached, they proceeded to carry the formal side of poetic expression, its vehicle, into regions unthought of before their time. The few old forms had now to give way to a large variety. In their work they proceeded from points that were far apart--Schumann's was literary, Chopin's political. In one respect the lists of their pieces which appear most frequently on recital programmes seem to hark back to the suites of two centuries ago--they are sets of short compositions grouped, either by the composer (as is the case with Schumann) or by the performer (as is the case with Chopin in the hands of Mr. Paderewski). Such fantastic musical miniatures as Schumann's "Carnaval" and "Papillons" are eminently characteristic of the composer's intellectual and emotional nature, which in his university days had fallen under the spell of literary romanticism. [Sidenote: _Jean Paul's influence._] [Sidenote: _Schumann's inspirations._] While ostensibly studying jurisprudence at Heidelberg, Schumann devoted seven hours a day to the pianoforte and several to Jean Paul. It was this writer who moulded not only Schumann's literary style in his early years, but also gave the bent which his creative activity in music took at the outset. To say little, but vaguely hint at much, was the rule which he adopted; to remain sententious in expression, but give the freest and most daring flight to his imagination, and spurn the conventional limitations set by rule and custom, his ambition. Such fanciful and symbolical titles as "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces," "Titan," etc., which Jean Paul adopted for his singular mixtures of tale, rhapsody, philosophy, and satire, were bound to find an imitator in so ardent an apostle as young Schumann, and, therefore, we have such compositions as "Papillons," "Carnaval," "Kreisleriana," "Phantasiestücke," and the rest. Almost always, it may be said, the pieces which make them up were composed under the poetical and emotional impulses derived from literature, then grouped and named. To understand their poetic contents this must be known. [Sidenote: _Chopin's music._] [Sidenote: _Preludes._] Chopin's fancy, on the other hand, found stimulation in the charm which, for him, lay in the tone of the pianoforte itself (to which he added a new loveliness by his manner of writing), as well as in the rhythms of the popular dances of his country. These dances he not only beautified as the old suite writers beautified their forms, but he utilized them as vessels which he filled with feeling, not all of which need be accepted as healthy, though much of it is. As to his titles, "Preludes" is purely an arbitrary designation for compositions which are equally indefinite in form and character; Niecks compares them very aptly to a portfolio full of drawings "in all stages of advancement--finished and unfinished, complete and incomplete compositions, sketches and mere memoranda, all mixed indiscriminately together." So, too, they appeared to Schumann: "They are sketches, commencements of studies, or, if you will, ruins, single eagle-wings, all strangely mixed together." Nevertheless some of them are marvellous soul-pictures. [Sidenote: _Études._] [Sidenote: _Nocturnes._] The "Études" are studies intended to develop the technique of the pianoforte in the line of the composer's discoveries, his method of playing extended arpeggios, contrasted rhythms, progressions in thirds and octaves, etc., but still they breathe poetry and sometimes passion. Nocturne is an arbitrary, but expressive, title for a short composition of a dreamy, contemplative, or even elegiac, character. In many of his nocturnes Chopin is the adored sentimentalist of boarding-school misses. There is poppy in them and seductive poison for which Niecks sensibly prescribes Bach and Beethoven as antidotes. The term ballad has been greatly abused in literature, and in music is intrinsically unmeaning. Chopin's four Ballades have one feature in common--they are written in triple time; and they are among his finest inspirations. [Sidenote: _The Polonaise._] Chopin's dances are conventionalized, and do not all speak the idiom of the people who created their forms, but their original characteristics ought to be known. The Polonaise was the stately dance of the Polish nobility, more a march or procession than a dance, full of gravity and courtliness, with an imposing and majestic rhythm in triple time that tends to emphasize the second beat of the measure, frequently syncopating it and accentuating the second half of the first beat: [Music illustration] [Sidenote: _The Mazurka._] National color comes out more clearly in his Mazurkas. Unlike the Polonaise this was the dance of the common people, and even as conventionalized and poetically refined by Chopin there is still in the Mazurka some of the rude vigor which lies in its propulsive rhythm: [Music illustration] or [Music illustration] [Sidenote: _The Krakowiak._] The Krakowiak (French _Cracovienne_, Mr. Paderewski has a fascinating specimen in his "Humoresques de Concert," op. 14) is a popular dance indigenous to the district of Cracow, whence its name. Its rhythmical elements are these: [Music illustration] and [Music illustration] [Sidenote: _Idiomatic music._] [Sidenote: _Content higher than idiom._] In the music of this period there is noticeable a careful attention on the part of the composers to the peculiarities of the pianoforte. No music, save perhaps that of Liszt, is so idiomatic. Frequently in Beethoven the content of the music seems too great for the medium of expression; we feel that the thought would have had better expression had the master used the orchestra instead of the pianoforte. We may well pause a moment to observe the development of the instrument and its technique from then till now, but as condemnation has already been pronounced against excessive admiration of technique for technique's sake, so now I would first utter a warning against our appreciation of the newer charm. "Idiomatic of the pianoforte" is a good enough phrase and a useful, indeed, but there is danger that if abused it may bring something like discredit to the instrument. It would be a pity if music, which contains the loftiest attributes of artistic beauty, should fail of appreciation simply because it had been observed that the pianoforte is not the most convenient, appropriate, or effective vehicle for its publication--a pity for the pianoforte, for therein would lie an exemplification of its imperfection. So, too, it would be a pity if the opinion should gain ground that music which had been clearly designed to meet the nature of the instrument was for that reason good pianoforte music, _i.e._, "idiomatic" music, irrespective of its content. [Sidenote: _Development of the pianoforte._] In Beethoven's day the pianoforte was still a feeble instrument compared with the grand of to-day. Its capacities were but beginning to be appreciated. Beethoven had to seek and invent effects which now are known to every amateur. The instrument which the English manufacturer Broadwood presented to him in 1817 had a compass of six octaves, and was a whole octave wider in range than Mozart's pianoforte. In 1793 Clementi extended the key-board to five and a half octaves; six and a half octaves were reached in 1811, and seven in 1851. Since 1851 three notes have been added without material improvement to the instrument. This extension of compass, however, is far from being the most important improvement since the classic period. The growth in power, sonority, and tonal brilliancy has been much more marked, and of it Liszt made striking use. [Sidenote: _The Pedals._] [Sidenote: _Shifting pedal._] [Sidenote: _Damper pedal._] Very significant, too, in their relation to the development of the music, were the invention and improvement of the pedals. The shifting pedal was invented by a Viennese maker named Stein, who first applied it to an instrument which he named "Saiten-harmonika." Before then soft effects were obtained by interposing a bit of felt between the hammers and the strings, as may still be seen in old square pianofortes. The shifting pedal, or soft pedal as it is popularly called, moves the key-board and action so that the hammer strikes only one or two of the unison strings, leaving the other to vibrate sympathetically. Beethoven was the first to appreciate the possibilities of this effect (see the slow movement of his concerto in G major and his last sonatas), but after him came Schumann and Chopin, and brought pedal manipulation to perfection, especially that of the damper pedal. This is popularly called the loud pedal, and the vulgarest use to which it can be put is to multiply the volume of tone. It was Chopin who showed its capacity for sustaining a melody and enriching the color effects by releasing the strings from the dampers and utilizing the ethereal sounds which rise from the strings when they vibrate sympathetically. [Sidenote: _Liszt._] [Sidenote: _A dual character._] It is no part of my purpose to indulge in criticism of composers, but something of the kind is made unavoidable by the position assigned to Liszt in our pianoforte recitals. He is relied upon to provide a scintillant close. The pianists, then, even those who are his professed admirers, are responsible if he is set down in our scheme as the exemplar of the technical cult. Technique having its unquestioned value, we are bound to admire the marvellous gifts which enabled Liszt practically to sum up all the possibilities of pianoforte mechanism in its present stage of construction, but we need not look with unalloyed gratitude upon his influence as a composer. There were, I fear, two sides to Liszt's artistic character as well as his moral. I believe he had in him a touch of charlatanism as well as a magnificent amount of artistic sincerity--just as he blended a laxity of moral ideas with a profound religious mysticism. It would have been strange indeed, growing up as he did in the whited sepulchre of Parisian salon life, if he had not accustomed himself to sacrifice a little of the soul of art for the sake of vainglory, and a little of its poetry and feeling to make display of those dazzling digital feats which he invented. But, be it said to his honor, he never played mountebank tricks in the presence of the masters whom he revered. It was when he approached the music of Beethoven that he sank all thought of self and rose to a peerless height as an interpreting artist. [Sidenote: _Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies._] [Sidenote: _Gypsies and Magyars._] Liszt's place as a composer of original music has not yet been determined, but as a transcriber of the music of others the givers of pianoforte recitals keep him always before us. The showy Hungarian Rhapsodies with which the majority of pianoforte recitals end are, however, more than mere transcriptions. They are constructed out of the folk-songs of the Magyars, and in their treatment the composer has frequently reproduced the characteristic performances which they receive at the hands of the Gypsies from whom he learned them. This fact and the belief to which Liszt gave currency in his book "Des Bohémiens et de leur musique en Hongrie" have given rise to the almost universal belief that the Magyar melodies are of Gypsy origin. This belief is erroneous. The Gypsies have for centuries been the musical practitioners of Hungary, but they are not the composers of the music of the Magyars, though they have put a marked impress not only on the melodies, but also on popular taste. The Hungarian folk-songs are a perfect reflex of the national character of the Magyars, and some have been traced back centuries in their literature. Though their most marked melodic peculiarity, the frequent use of a minor scale containing one or even two superfluous seconds, as thus: [Sidenote: _Magyar scales._] [Music illustration] may be said to belong to Oriental music as a whole (and the Magyars are Orientals), the songs have a rhythmical peculiarity which is a direct product of the Magyar language. This peculiarity consists of a figure in which the emphasis is shifted from the strong to the weak part by making the first take only a fraction of the time of the second, thus: [Music illustration] [Sidenote: _The Scotch snap._] [Sidenote: _Gypsy epics._] In Scottish music this rhythm also plays a prominent part, but there it falls into the beginning of a measure, whereas in Hungarian it forms the middle or end. The result is an effect of syncopation which is peculiarly forceful. There is an indubitable Oriental relic in the profuse embellishments which the Gypsies weave around the Hungarian melodies when playing them; but the fact that they thrust the same embellishments upon Spanish and Russian music, in fact upon all the music which they play, indicates plainly enough that the impulse to do so is native to them, and has nothing to do with the national taste of the countries for which they provide music. Liszt's confessed purpose in writing the Hungarian Rhapsodies was to create what he called "Gypsy epics." He had gathered a large number of the melodies without a definite purpose, and was pondering what to do with them, when it occurred to him that "These fragmentary, scattered melodies were the wandering, floating, nebulous part of a great whole, that they fully answered the conditions for the production of an harmonious unity which would comprehend the very flower of their essential properties, their most unique beauties," and "might be united in one homogeneous body, a complete work, its divisions to be so arranged that each song would form at once a whole and a part, which might be severed from the rest and be examined and enjoyed by and for itself; but which would, none the less, belong to the whole through the close affinity of subject matter, the similarity of its inner nature and unity in development."[D] [Sidenote: _The Czardas._] The basis of Liszt's Rhapsodies being thus distinctively national, he has in a manner imitated in their character and tempo the dual character of the Hungarian national dance, the Czardas, which consists of two movements, a _Lassu_, or slow movement, followed by a _Friss_. These alternate at the will of the dancer, who gives a sign to the band when he wishes to change from one to the other. FOOTNOTES: [D] Weitzmann, "Geschichte des Clavierspiels," p. 197. VII _At the Opera_ [Sidenote: _Instability of taste._] [Sidenote: _The age of operas._] Popular taste in respect of the opera is curiously unstable. It is surprising that the canons of judgment touching it have such feeble and fleeting authority in view of the popularity of the art-form and the despotic hold which it has had on fashion for two centuries. No form of popular entertainment is acclaimed so enthusiastically as a new opera by an admired composer; none forgotten so quickly. For the spoken drama we go back to Shakespeare in the vernacular, and, on occasions, we revive the masterpieces of the Attic poets who flourished more than two millenniums ago; but for opera we are bounded by less than a century, unless occasional performances of Gluck's "Orfeo" and Mozart's "Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Magic Flute" be counted as submissions to popular demand, which, unhappily, we know they are not. There is no one who has attended the opera for twenty-five years who might not bewail the loss of operas from the current list which appealed to his younger fancy as works of real loveliness. In the season of 1895-96 the audiences at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York heard twenty-six different operas. The oldest were Gluck's "Orfeo" and Beethoven's "Fidelio," which had a single experimental representation each. After them in seniority came Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor," which is sixty-one years old, and has overpassed the average age of "immortal" operas by from ten to twenty years, assuming Dr. Hanslick's calculation to be correct. [Sidenote: _Decimation of the operatic list._] [Sidenote: _Dependence on singers._] The composers who wrote operas for the generation that witnessed Adelina Patti's _début_ at the Academy of Music, in New York, were Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Meyerbeer. Thanks to his progressive genius, Verdi is still alive on the stage, though nine-tenths of the operas which made his fame and fortune have already sunk into oblivion; Meyerbeer, too, is still a more or less potent factor with his "Huguenots," which, like "Lucia," has endured from ten to twenty years longer than the average "immortal;" but the continued existence of Bellini and Donizetti seems to be as closely bound up with that of two or three singers as was Meleager's life with the burning billet which his mother snatched from the flames. So far as the people of London and New York are concerned whether or not they shall hear Donizetti more, rests with Mesdames Patti and Melba, for Donizetti spells "Lucia;" Bellini pleads piteously in "Sonnambula," but only Madame Nevada will play the mediator between him and our stiff-necked generation. [Sidenote: _An unstable art-form._] [Sidenote: _Carelessness of the public._] [Sidenote: _Addison's criticism._] [Sidenote: _Indifference to the words._] Opera is a mixed art-form and has ever been, and perhaps must ever be, in a state of flux, subject to the changes of taste in music, the drama, singing, acting, and even politics and morals; but in one particular the public has shown no change for a century and a half, and it is not quite clear why this has not given greater fixity to popular appreciation. The people of to-day are as blithely indifferent to the fact that their operas are all presented in a foreign tongue as they were two centuries ago in England. The influence of Wagner has done much to stimulate a serious attitude toward the lyric drama, but this is seldom found outside of the audiences in attendance on German representations. The devotees of the Latin exotic, whether it blend French or Italian (or both, as is the rule in New York and London) with its melodic perfume, enjoy the music and ignore the words with the same nonchalance that Addison made merry over. Addison proves to have been a poor prophet. The great-grandchildren of his contemporaries are not at all curious to know "why their forefathers used to sit together like an audience of foreigners in their own country, and to hear whole plays acted before them in a tongue which they did not understand." What their great-grandparents did was also done by their grandparents and their parents, and may be done by their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren after them, unless Englishmen and Americans shall take to heart the lessons which Wagner essayed to teach his own people. For the present, though we have abolished many absurdities which grew out of a conception of opera that was based upon the simple, sensuous delight which singing gave, the charm of music is still supreme, and we can sit out an opera without giving a thought to the words uttered by the singers. The popular attitude is fairly represented by that of Boileau, when he went to hear "Atys" and requested the box-keeper to put him in a place where he could hear Lully's music, which he loved, but not Quinault's words, which he despised. [Sidenote: _Past and present._] It is interesting to note that in this respect the condition of affairs in London in the early part of the eighteenth century, which seemed so monstrously diverting to Addison, was like that in Hamburg in the latter part of the seventeenth, and in New York at the end of the nineteenth. There were three years in London when Italian and English were mixed in the operatic representations. "The king or hero of the play generally spoke in Italian and his slaves answered him in English; the lover frequently made his court and gained the heart of his princess in a language which she did not understand." [Sidenote: _Polyglot opera._] At length, says Addison, the audience got tired of understanding half the opera, "and to ease themselves entirely of the fatigue of thinking, so ordered it that the whole opera was performed in an unknown tongue." [Sidenote: _Perversions of texts._] There is this difference, however, between New York and London and Hamburg at the period referred to: while the operatic ragout was compounded of Italian and English in London, Italian and German in Hamburg, the ingredients here are Italian, French, and German, with no admixture of the vernacular. Strictly speaking, our case is more desperate than that of our foreign predecessors, for the development of the lyric drama has lifted its verbal and dramatic elements into a position not dreamed of two hundred years ago. We might endure with equanimity to hear the chorus sing [Sidenote: _"Robert le Diable."_] "_La soupe aux choux se fait dans la marmite, Dans la marmite on fait la soupe aux choux_" at the beginning of "Robert le Diable," as tradition says used to be done in Paris, but we surely ought to rise in rebellion when the chorus of guards change their muttered comments on Pizarro's furious aria in "Fidelio" from [Sidenote: _"Fidelio."_] _"Er spricht von Tod und Wunde!"_ to _"Er spricht vom todten Hunde!"_ as is a prevalent custom among the irreverent choristers of Germany. Addison confesses that he was often afraid when seeing the Italian performers "chattering in the vehemence of action," that they were calling the audience names and abusing them among themselves. I do not know how to measure the morals and manners of our Italian singers against those of Addison's time, but I do know that many of the things which they say before our very faces for their own diversion are not complimentary to our intelligence. I hope I have a proper respect for Mr. Gilbert's "bashful young potato," but I do not think it right while we are sympathizing with the gentle passion of _Siebel_ to have his representative bring an offering of flowers and, looking us full in the face, sing: _"Le patate d'amor, O cari fior!"_ [Sidenote: _"Faust."_] [Sidenote: _Porpora's "Credo."_] It isn't respectful, and it enables the cynics of to-day to say, with the poetasters and fiddlers of Addison's day, that nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense. Operatic words were once merely stalking-horses for tunes, but that day is past. We used to smile at Brignoli's "_Ah si! ah si! ah si!_" which did service for any text in high passages; but if a composer should, for the accommodation of his music, change the wording of the creed into "_Credo, non credo, non credo in unum Deum_," as Porpora once did, we should all cry out for his excommunication. As an art-form the opera has frequently been criticised as an absurdity, and it is doubtless owing to such a conviction that many people are equally indifferent to the language employed and the sentiments embodied in the words. Even so serious a writer as George Hogarth does not hesitate in his "Memoirs of the Opera" to defend this careless attitude. [Sidenote: _Are words unessential?_] "The words of an air are of small importance to the comprehension of the business of the piece," he says; "they merely express a sentiment, a reflection, a feeling; it is quite enough if their general import is known, and this may most frequently be gathered from the situation, aided by the character and expression of the music." [Sidenote: _"Il Trovatore."_] I, myself, have known an ardent lover of music who resolutely refused to look into a libretto because, being of a lively and imaginative temperament, she preferred to construct her own plots and put her own words in the mouths of the singers. Though a constant attendant on the opera, she never knew what "Il Trovatore" was about, which, perhaps, is not so surprising after all. Doubtless the play which she had fashioned in her own mind was more comprehensible than Verdi's medley of burnt children and asthmatic dance rhythms. Madame de Staël went so far as to condemn the German composers because they "follow too closely the sense of the words," whereas the Italians, "who are truly the musicians of nature, make the air and the words conform to each other only in a general way." [Sidenote: _The opera defended as an art-form._] [Sidenote: _The classic tragedy._] Now the present generation has witnessed a revolution in operatic ideas which has lifted the poetical elements upon a plane not dreamed of when opera was merely a concert in costume, and it is no longer tolerable that it be set down as an absurdity. On the contrary, I believe that, looked at in the light thrown upon it by the history of the drama and the origin of music, the opera is completely justified as an art-form, and, in its best estate, is an entirely reasonable and highly effective entertainment. No mean place, surely, should be given in the estimation of the judicious to an art-form which aims in an equal degree to charm the senses, stimulate the emotions, and persuade the reason. This, the opera, or, perhaps I would better say the lyric drama, can be made to do as efficiently as the Greek tragedy did it, so far as the differences between the civilizations of ancient Hellas and the nineteenth century will permit. The Greek tragedy was the original opera, a fact which literary study would alone have made plain even if it were not clearly of record that it was an effort to restore the ancient plays in their integrity that gave rise to the Italian opera three centuries ago. [Sidenote: _Genesis of the Greek plays._] Every school-boy knows now that the Hellenic plays were simply the final evolution of the dances with which the people of Hellas celebrated their religious festivals. At the rustic Bacchic feasts of the early Greeks they sang hymns in honor of the wine-god, and danced on goat-skins filled with wine. He who held his footing best on the treacherous surface carried home the wine as a reward. They contended in athletic games and songs for a goat, and from this circumstance scholars have surmised we have the word tragedy, which means "goat-song." The choric songs and dances grew in variety and beauty. Finally, somebody (tradition preserves the name of Thespis as the man) conceived the idea of introducing a simple dialogue between the strophes of the choric song. Generally this dialogue took the form of a recital of some story concerning the god whose festival was celebrating. Then when the dithyrambic song returned, it would either continue the narrative or comment on its ethical features. [Sidenote: _Mimicry and dress._] The merry-makers, or worshippers, as one chooses to look upon them, manifested their enthusiasm by imitating the appearance as well as the actions of the god and his votaries. They smeared themselves with wine-lees, colored their bodies black and red, put on masks, covered themselves with the skins of beasts, enacted the parts of nymphs, fauns, and satyrs, those creatures of primitive fancy, half men and half goats, who were the representatives of natural sensuality untrammelled by conventionality. [Sidenote: _Melodrama._] Next, somebody (Archilocus) sought to heighten the effect of the story or the dialogue by consorting it with instrumental music; and thus we find the germ of what musicians--not newspaper writers--call melodrama, in the very early stages of the drama's development. Gradually these simple rustic entertainments were taken in hand by the poets who drew on the legendary stores of the people for subjects, branching out from the doings of gods to the doings of god-like men, the popular heroes, and developed out of them the masterpieces of dramatic poetry which are still studied with amazement, admiration, and love. [Sidenote: _Factors in ancient tragedy._] The dramatic factors which have been mustered in this outline are these: 1. The choric dance and song with a religious purpose. 2. Recitation and dialogue. 3. Characterization by means of imitative gestures--pantomime, that is--and dress. 4. Instrumental music to accompany the song and also the action. [Sidenote: _Operatic elements._] [Sidenote: _Words and music united._] All these have been retained in the modern opera, which may be said to differ chiefly from its ancient model in the more important and more independent part which music plays in it. It will appear later in our study that the importance and independence achieved by one of the elements consorted in a work by nature composite, led the way to a revolution having for its object a restoration of something like the ancient drama. In this ancient drama and its precursor, the dithyrambic song and dance, is found a union of words and music which scientific investigation proves to be not only entirely natural but inevitable. In a general way most people are in the habit of speaking of music as the language of the emotions. The elements which enter into vocal music (of necessity the earliest form of music) are unvolitional products which we must conceive as co-existent with the beginnings of human life. Do they then antedate articulate speech? Did man sing before he spoke? I shall not quarrel with anybody who chooses so to put it. [Sidenote: _Physiology of singing._] Think a moment about the mechanism of vocal music. Something occurs to stir up your emotional nature--a great joy, a great sorrow, a great fear; instantly, involuntarily, in spite of your efforts to prevent it, maybe, muscular actions set in which proclaim the emotion which fills you. The muscles and organs of the chest, throat, and mouth contract or relax in obedience to the emotion. You utter a cry, and according to the state of feeling which you are in, that cry has pitch, quality (_timbre_ the singing teachers call it), and dynamic intensity. You attempt to speak, and no matter what the words you utter, the emotional drama playing on the stage of your heart is divulged. [Sidenote: _Herbert Spencer's laws._] The man of science observes the phenomenon and formulates its laws, saying, for instance, as Herbert Spencer has said: "All feelings are muscular stimuli;" and, "Variations of voice are the physiological results of variations of feeling." It was the recognition of this extraordinary intimacy between the voice and the emotions which brought music all the world over into the service of religion, and provided the phenomenon, which we may still observe if we be but minded to do so, that mere tones have sometimes the sanctity of words, and must as little be changed as ancient hymns and prayers. [Sidenote: _Invention of Italian opera._] [Sidenote: _Musical declamation._] The end of the sixteenth century saw a coterie of scholars, art-lovers, and amateur musicians in Florence who desired to re-establish the relationship which they knew had once existed between music and the drama. The revival of learning had made the classic tragedy dear to their hearts. They knew that in the olden time tragedy, of which the words only have come down to us, had been musical throughout. In their efforts to bring about an intimacy between dramatic poetry and music they found that nothing could be done with the polite music of their time. It was the period of highest development in ecclesiastical music, and the climax of artificiality. The professional musicians to whom they turned scorned their theories and would not help them; so they fell back on their own resources. They cut the Gordian knot and invented a new style of music, which they fancied was like that used by the ancients in their stage-plays. They abolished polyphony, or contrapuntal music, in everything except their choruses, and created a sort of musical declamation, using variations of pitch and harmonies built up on a simple bass to give emotional life to their words. In choosing their tones they were guided by observation of the vocal inflections produced in speech under stress of feeling, showing thus a recognition of the law which Herbert Spencer formulated two hundred and fifty years later. [Sidenote: _The music of the Florentine reformers._] [Sidenote: _The solo style, harmony, and declamation._] [Sidenote: _Fluent recitatives._] The music which these men produced and admired sounds to us monotonous in the extreme, for what little melody there is in it is in the choruses, which they failed to emancipate from the ecclesiastical art, and which for that reason were as stiff and inelastic as the music which in their controversies with the musicians they condemned with vigor. Yet within their invention there lay an entirely new world of music. Out of it came the solo style, a song with instrumental accompaniment of a kind unknown to the church composers. Out of it, too, came harmony as an independent factor in music instead of an accident of the simultaneous flow of melodies; and out of it came declamation, which drew its life from the text. The recitatives which they wrote had the fluency of spoken words and were not retarded by melodic forms. The new style did not accomplish what its creators hoped for, but it gave birth to Italian opera and emancipated music in a large measure from the formalism that dominated it so long as it belonged exclusively to the composers for the church. [Sidenote: _Predecessors of Wagner._] [Sidenote: _Old operatic distinctions._] [Sidenote: _Opera buffa._] [Sidenote: _Opera seria._] [Sidenote: _Recitative._] Detailed study of the progress of opera from the first efforts of the Florentines to Wagner's dramas would carry us too far afield to serve the purposes of this book. My aim is to fix the attitude proper, or at least useful, to the opera audience of to-day. The excursion into history which I have made has but the purpose to give the art-form a reputable standing in court, and to explain the motives which prompted the revolution accomplished by Wagner. As to the elements which compose an opera, only those need particular attention which are illustrated in the current repertory. Unlike the opera audiences of two centuries ago, we are not required to distinguish carefully between the various styles of opera in order to understand why the composer adopted a particular manner, and certain fixed forms in each. The old distinctions between _Opera seria_, _Opera buffa_, and _Opera semiseria_ perplex us no more. Only because of the perversion of the time-honored Italian epithet _buffa_ by the French mongrel _Opéra bouffe_ is it necessary to explain that the classic _Opera buffa_ was a polite comedy, whose musical integument did not of necessity differ from that of _Opera seria_ except in this--that the dialogue was carried on in "dry" recitative (_recitativo secco_, or _parlante_) in the former, and a more measured declamation with orchestral accompaniment (_recitativo stromentato_) in the latter. So far as subject-matter was concerned the classic distinction between tragedy and comedy served. The dry recitative was supported by chords played by a double-bass and harpsichord or pianoforte. In London, at a later period, for reasons of doubtful validity, these chords came to be played on a double-bass and violoncello, as we occasionally hear them to-day. [Sidenote: _Opera semiseria._] [Sidenote: _"Don Giovanni."_] Shakespeare has taught us to accept an infusion of the comic element in plays of a serious cast, but Shakespeare was an innovator, a Romanticist, and, measured by old standards, his dramas are irregular. The Italians, who followed classic models, for a reason amply explained by the genesis of the art-form, rigorously excluded comedy from serious operas, except as _intermezzi_, until they hit upon a third classification, which they called _Opera semiseria_, in which a serious subject was enlivened with comic episodes. Our dramatic tastes being grounded in Shakespeare, we should be inclined to put down "Don Giovanni" as a musical tragedy; or, haunted by the Italian terminology, as _Opera semiseria_; but Mozart calls it _Opera buffa_, more in deference to the librettist's work, I fancy, than his own, for, as I have suggested elsewhere,[E] the musician's imagination in the fire of composition went far beyond the conventional fancy of the librettist in the finale of that most wonderful work. [Sidenote: _An Opera buffa._] [Sidenote: _French Grand Opéra._] [Sidenote: _Opéra comique._] [Sidenote: _"Mignon."_] [Sidenote: _"Faust."_] It is well to remember that "Don Giovanni" is an _Opera buffa_ when watching the buffooneries of _Leporello_, for that alone justifies them. The French have _Grand Opéra_, in which everything is sung to orchestra accompaniment, there being neither spoken dialogue nor dry recitative, and _Opéra comique_, in which the dialogue is spoken. The latter corresponds with the honorable German term _Singspiel_, and one will not go far astray if he associate both terms with the English operas of Wallace and Balfe, save that the French and Germans have generally been more deft in bridging over the chasm between speech and song than their British rivals. _Opéra comique_ has another characteristic, its _dénouement_ must be happy. Formerly the _Théatre national de l'Opéra-Comique_ in Paris was devoted exclusively to _Opéra comique_ as thus defined (it has since abolished the distinction and _Grand Opéra_ may be heard there now), and, therefore, when Ambroise Thomas brought forward his "Mignon," Goethe's story was found to be changed so that _Mignon_ recovered and was married to _Wilhelm Meister_ at the end. The Germans are seldom pleased with the transformations which their literary masterpieces are forced to undergo at the hands of French librettists. They still refuse to call Gounod's "Faust" by that name; if you wish to hear it in Germany you must go to the theatre when "Margarethe" is performed. Naturally they fell indignantly afoul of "Mignon," and to placate them we have a second finale, a _dénouement allemand_, provided by the authors, in which _Mignon_ dies as she ought. [Sidenote: _Grosse Oper._] [Sidenote: _Comic opera and operetta._] [Sidenote: _Opéra bouffe._] [Sidenote: _Romantic operas._] Of course the _Grosse Oper_ of the Germans is the French _Grand Opéra_ and the English grand opera--but all the English terms are ambiguous, and everything that is done in Covent Garden in London or the Metropolitan Opera House in New York is set down as "grand opera," just as the vilest imitations of the French _vaudevilles_ or English farces with music are called "comic operas." In its best estate, say in the delightful works of Gilbert and Sullivan, what is designated as comic opera ought to be called operetta, which is a piece in which the forms of grand opera are imitated, or travestied, the dialogue is spoken, and the purpose of the play is to satirize a popular folly. Only in method, agencies, and scope does such an operetta (the examples of Gilbert and Sullivan are in mind) differ from comedy in its best conception, as a dramatic composition which aims to "chastise manners with a smile" ("_Ridendo castigat mores_"). Its present degeneracy, as illustrated in the _Opéra bouffe_ of the French and the concoctions of the would-be imitators of Gilbert and Sullivan, exemplifies little else than a pursuit far into the depths of the method suggested by a friend to one of Lully's imitators who had expressed a fear that a ballet written, but not yet performed, would fail. "You must lengthen the dances and shorten the ladies' skirts," he said. The Germans make another distinction based on the subject chosen for the story. Spohr's "Jessonda," Weber's "Freischütz," "Oberon," and "Euryanthe," Marschner's "Vampyr," "Templer und Jüdin," and "Hans Heiling" are "Romantic" operas. The significance of this classification in operatic literature may be learned from an effort which I have made in another chapter to discuss the terms Classic and Romantic as applied to music. Briefly stated, the operas mentioned are put in a class by themselves (and their imitations with them) because their plots were drawn from the romantic legends of the Middle Ages, in which the institutions of chivalry, fairy lore, and supernaturalism play a large part. [Sidenote: _Modern designations._] [Sidenote: _German opera and Wagner._] These distinctions we meet in reading about music. As I have intimated, we do not concern ourselves much with them now. In New York and London the people speak of Italian, English, and German opera, referring generally to the language employed in the performance. But there is also in the use of the terms an underlying recognition of differences in ideals of performance. As all operas sung in the regular seasons at Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera House are popularly spoken of as Italian operas, so German opera popularly means Wagner's lyric dramas, in the first instance, and a style of performance which grew out of Wagner's influence in the second. As compared with Italian opera, in which the principal singers are all and the _ensemble_ nothing, it means, mayhap, inferior vocalists but better actors in the principal parts, a superior orchestra and chorus, and a more conscientious effort on the part of conductor, stage manager, and artists, from first to last, to lift the general effect above the conventional level which has prevailed for centuries in the Italian opera houses. [Sidenote: _Wagner's "Musikdrama."_] [Sidenote: _Modern Italian terminology._] In terminology, as well as in artistic aim, Wagner's lyric dramas round out a cycle that began with the works of the Florentine reformers of the sixteenth century. Wagner called his later operas _Musikdramen_, wherefore he was soundly abused and ridiculed by his critics. When the Italian opera first appeared it was called _Dramma per musica_, or _Melodramma_, or _Tragedia per musica_, all of which terms stand in Italian for the conception that _Musikdrama_ stands for in German. The new thing had been in existence for half a century, and was already on the road to the degraded level on which we shall find it when we come to the subject of operatic singing, before it came to be called _Opera in musica_, of which "opera" is an abbreviation. Now it is to be observed that the composers of all countries, having been taught to believe that the dramatic contents of an opera have some significance, are abandoning the vague term "opera" and following Wagner in his adoption of the principles underlying the original terminology. Verdi called his "Aïda" an _Opera in quattro atti_, but his "Otello" he designated a lyric drama (_Dramma lirico_), his "Falstaff" a lyric comedy (_Commedia lirica_), and his example is followed by the younger Italian composers, such as Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and Puccini. [Sidenote: _Recitative._] In the majority of the operas of the current list the vocal element illustrates an amalgamation of the archaic recitative and aria. The dry form of recitative is met with now only in a few of the operas which date back to the last century or the early years of the present. "Le Nozze di Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" are the most familiar works in which it is employed, and in the second of these it is used only by the bearers of the comedy element. The dissolute _Don_ chatters glibly in it with _Zerlina_, but when _Donna Anna_ and _Don Ottavio_ converse, it is in the _recitativo stromentato_. [Sidenote: _The object of recitative._] [Sidenote: _Defects of the recitative._] [Sidenote: _What it can do._] In both forms recitative is the vehicle for promoting the action of the play, preparing its incidents, and paving the way for the situations and emotional states which are exploited, promulgated, and dwelt upon in the set music pieces. Its purpose is to maintain the play in an artificial atmosphere, so that the transition from dialogue to song may not be so abrupt as to disturb the mood of the listener. Of all the factors in an opera, the dry recitative is the most monotonous. It is not music, but speech about to break into music. Unless one is familiar with Italian and desirous of following the conversation, which we have been often told is not necessary to the enjoyment of an opera, its everlasting use of stereotyped falls and intervallic turns, coupled with the strumming of arpeggioed cadences on the pianoforte (or worse, double-bass and violoncello), makes it insufferably wearisome to the listener. Its expression is fleeting--only for the moment. It lacks the sustained tones and structural symmetry essential to melody, and therefore it cannot sustain a mood. It makes efficient use of only one of the fundamental factors of vocal music--variety of pitch--and that in a rudimentary way. It is specifically a product of the Italian language, and best adapted to comedy in that language. Spoken with the vivacity native to it in the drama, dry recitative is an impossibility in English. It is only in the more measured and sober gait proper to oratorio that we can listen to it in the vernacular without thought of incongruity. Yet it may be made most admirably to preserve the characteristics of conversation, and even illustrate Spencer's theory of the origin of music. Witness the following brief example from "Don Giovanni," in which the vivacity of the master is admirably contrasted with the lumpishness of his servant: [Sidenote: _An example from Mozart._] [Music illustration: _Sempre sotto voce._ DON GIOVANNI. LEPORELLO. _Le-po-rel-lo, o-ve sei? Son qui per_ Le-po-rel-lo, where are you? I'm here and D.G. LEP. _dis-gra-zi-a! e vo-i? Son qui. Chi è_ more's the pit-y! and you, Sir? Here too. Who's D.G. _mor-to, voi, o il vec-chio? Che do-_ been killed, you or the old one? What a LEP. _man-da da bes-tia! il vec-chio. Bra-vo!_ ques-tion, you boo-by! the old one. Bra-vo!] [Sidenote: _Its characteristics._] Of course it is left to the intelligence and taste of the singers to bring out the effects in a recitative, but in this specimen it ought to be noted how sluggishly the disgruntled _Leporello_ replies to the brisk question of _Don Giovanni_, how correct is the rhetorical pause in "you, or the old one?" and the greater sobriety which comes over the manner of the _Don_ as he thinks of the murder just committed, and replies, "the old one." [Sidenote: _Recitative of some sort necessary._] [Sidenote: _The speaking voice in opera._] I am strongly inclined to the belief that in one form or the other, preferably the accompanied, recitative is a necessary integer in the operatic sum. That it is possible to accustom one's self to the change alternately from speech to song we know from the experiences made with German, French, and English operas, but these were not true lyric dramas, but dramas with incidental music. To be a real lyric drama an opera ought to be musical throughout, the voice being maintained from beginning to end on an exalted plane. The tendency to drop into the speaking voice for the sake of dramatic effect shown by some tragic singers does not seem to me commendable. Wagner relates with enthusiasm how Madame Schroeder-Devrient in "Fidelio" was wont to give supreme emphasis to the phrase immediately preceding the trumpet signal in the dungeon scene ("Another step, and you are _dead_!") by speaking the last word "with an awful accent of despair." He then comments: "The indescribable effect of this manifested itself to all like an agonizing plunge from one sphere into another, and its sublimity consisted in this, that with lightning quickness a glimpse was given to us of the nature of both spheres, of which one was the ideal, the other the real." [Sidenote: _Wagner and Schroeder-Devrient._] I have heard a similar effect produced by Herr Niemann and Madame Lehmann, but could not convince myself that it was not an extremely venturesome experiment. Madame Schroeder-Devrient saw the beginning of the modern methods of dramatic expression, and it is easy to believe that a sudden change like that so well defined by Wagner, made with her sweeping voice and accompanied by her plastic and powerful acting, was really thrilling; but, I fancy, nevertheless, that only Beethoven and the intensity of feeling which pervades the scene saved the audience from a disturbing sense of the incongruity of the performance. [Sidenote: _Early forms._] [Sidenote: _The dialogue of the Florentines._] The development which has taken place in the recitative has not only assisted in elevating opera to the dignity of a lyric drama by saving us from alternate contemplation of the two spheres of ideality and reality, but has also made the factor itself an eloquent vehicle of dramatic expression. Save that it had to forego the help of the instruments beyond a mere harmonic support, the _stilo rappresentativo_, or _musica parlante_, as the Florentines called their musical dialogue, approached the sustained recitative which we hear in the oratorio and grand opera more closely than it did the _recitative secco_. Ever and anon, already in the earliest works (the "Eurydice" of Rinuccini as composed by both Peri and Caccini) there are passages which sound like rudimentary melodies, but are charged with vital dramatic expression. Note the following phrase from _Orpheus's_ monologue on being left in the infernal regions by _Venus_, from Peri's opera, performed A.D. 1600, in honor of the marriage of Maria de' Medici to Henry IV. of France: [Sidenote: _An example from Peri._] [Music illustration: _E voi, deh per pie-tà, del mio mar-ti-re Che nel mi-se-ro cor di-mo-ra e-ter-no, La-cri-ma-te al mio pian-to om-bre d'in-fer-no!_] [Sidenote: _Development of the arioso._] [Sidenote: _The aria supplanted._] [Sidenote: _Music and action._] Out of this style there grew within a decade something very near the arioso, and for all the purposes of our argument we may accept the melodic devices by which Wagner carries on the dialogue of his operas as an uncircumscribed arioso superimposed upon a foundation of orchestral harmony; for example, _Lohengrin's_ address to the swan, _Elsa's_ account of her dream. The greater melodiousness of the _recitativo stromentato_, and the aid of the orchestra when it began to assert itself as a factor of independent value, soon enabled this form of musical conversation to become a reflector of the changing moods and passions of the play, and thus the value of the aria, whether considered as a solo, or in its composite form as duet, trio, quartet, or _ensemble_, was lessened. The growth of the accompanied recitative naturally brought with it emancipation from the tyranny of the classical aria. Wagner's reform had nothing to do with that emancipation, which had been accomplished before him, but went, as we shall see presently, to a liberation of the composers from all the formal dams which had clogged the united flow of action and music. We should, however, even while admiring the achievements of modern composers in blending these elements (and I know of no more striking illustration than the scene of the fat knight's discomfiture in _Ford's_ house in Verdi's "Falstaff") bear in mind that while we may dream of perfect union between words and music, it is not always possible that action and music shall go hand in hand. Let me repeat what once I wrote in a review of Cornelius's opera, "Der Barbier von Bagdad:"[F] [Sidenote: _How music can replace incident._] "After all, of the constituents of an opera, action, at least that form of it usually called incident, is most easily spared. Progress in feeling, development of the emotional element, is indeed essential to variety of musical utterance, but nevertheless all great operas have demonstrated that music is more potent and eloquent when proclaiming an emotional state than while seeking to depict progress toward such a state. Even in the dramas of Wagner the culminating musical moments are predominantly lyrical, as witness the love-duet in 'Tristan,' the close of 'Das Rheingold,' _Siegmund's_ song, the love-duet, and _Wotan's_ farewell in 'Die Walküre,' the forest scene and final duet in 'Siegfried,' and the death of _Siegfried_ in 'Die Götterdämmerung.' It is in the nature of music that this should be so. For the drama which plays on the stage of the heart, music is a more truthful language than speech; but it can stimulate movement and prepare the mind for an incident better than it can accompany movement and incident. Yet music that has a high degree of emotional expressiveness, by diverting attention from externals to the play of passion within the breasts of the persons can sometimes make us forget the paucity of incident in a play. 'Tristan und Isolde' is a case in point. Practically, its outward action is summed up in each of its three acts by the same words: Preparation for a meeting of the ill-starred lovers; the meeting. What is outside of this is mere detail; yet the effect of the tragedy upon a listener is that of a play surcharged with pregnant occurrence. It is the subtle alchemy of music that transmutes the psychological action of the tragedy into dramatic incident." [Sidenote: _Set forms not to be condemned._] [Sidenote: _Wagner's influence._] [Sidenote: _His orchestra._] [Sidenote: _Vocal feats._] For those who hold such a view with me it will be impossible to condemn pieces of set forms in the lyric drama. Wagner still represents his art-work alone, but in the influence which he exerted upon contemporaneous composers in Italy and France, as well as Germany, he is quite as significant a figure as he is as the creator of the _Musikdrama_. The operas which are most popular in our Italian and French repertories are those which benefited by the liberation from formalism and the exaltation of the dramatic idea which he preached and exemplified--such works as Gounod's "Faust," Verdi's "Aïda" and "Otello," and Bizet's "Carmen." With that emancipation there came, as was inevitable, new conceptions of the province of dramatic singing as well as new convictions touching the mission of the orchestra. The instruments in Wagner's latter-day works are quite as much as the singing actors the expositors of the dramatic idea, and in the works of the other men whom I have mentioned they speak a language which a century ago was known only to the orchestras of Gluck and Mozart with their comparatively limited, yet eloquent, vocabulary. Coupled with praise for the wonderful art of Mesdames Patti and Melba (and I am glad to have lived in their generation, though they do not represent my ideal in dramatic singing), we are accustomed to hear lamentations over the decay of singing. I have intoned such jeremiads myself, and I do not believe that music is suffering from a greater want to-day than that of a more thorough training for singers. I marvel when I read that Senesino sang cadences of fifty seconds' duration; that Ferri with a single breath could trill upon each note of two octaves, ascending and descending, and that La Bastardella's art was equal to a perfect performance (perfect in the conception of her day) of a flourish like this: [Sidenote: _La Bastardella's flourish._] [Music illustration] [Sidenote: _Character of the opera a century and a half ago._] [Sidenote: _Music and dramatic expression._] I marvel, I say, at the skill, the gifts, and the training which could accomplish such feats, but I would not have them back again if they were to be employed in the old service. When Senesino, Farinelli, Sassarelli, Ferri, and their tribe dominated the stage, it strutted with sexless Agamemnons and Cæsars. Telemachus, Darius, Nero, Cato, Alexander, Scipio, and Hannibal ran around on the boards as languishing lovers, clad in humiliating disguises, singing woful arias to their mistress's eyebrows--arias full of trills and scales and florid ornaments, but void of feeling as a problem in Euclid. Thanks very largely to German influences, the opera is returning to its original purposes. Music is again become a means of dramatic expression, and the singers who appeal to us most powerfully are those who are best able to make song subserve that purpose, and who to that end give to dramatic truthfulness, to effective elocution, and to action the attention which mere voice and beautiful utterance received in the period which is called the Golden Age of singing, but which was the Leaden Age of the lyric drama. [Sidenote: _Singers heard in New York._] For seventy years the people of New York, scarcely less favored than those of London, have heard nearly all the great singers of Europe. Let me talk about some of them, for I am trying to establish some ground on which my readers may stand when they try to form an estimate of the singing which they are privileged to hear in the opera houses of to-day. Madame Malibran was a member of the first Italian company that ever sang here. Madame Cinti-Damoreau came in 1844, Bosio in 1849, Jenny Lind in 1850, Sontag in 1853, Grisi in 1854, La Grange in 1855, Frezzolini in 1857, Piccolomini in 1858, Nilsson in 1870, Lucca in 1872, Titiens in 1876, Gerster in 1878, and Sembrich in 1883. I omit the singers of the German opera as belonging to a different category. Adelina Patti was always with us until she made her European début in 1861, and remained abroad twenty years. Of the men who were the artistic associates of these _prime donne_, mention may be made of Mario, Benedetti, Corsi, Salvi, Ronconi, Formes, Brignoli, Amadeo, Coletti, and Campanini, none of whom, excepting Mario, was of first-class importance compared with the women singers. [Sidenote: _Grisi._] [Sidenote: _Jenny Lind._] [Sidenote: _Lilli Lehmann._] Nearly all of these singers, even those still living and remembered by the younger generation of to-day, exploited their gifts in the operas of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, the early Verdi, and Meyerbeer. Grisi was acclaimed a great dramatic singer, and it is told of her that once in "Norma" she frightened the tenor who sang the part of _Pollio_ by the fury of her acting. But measured by the standards of to-day, say that set by Calvé's _Carmen_, it must have been a simple age that could be impressed by the tragic power of anyone acting the part of Bellini's Druidical priestess. The surmise is strengthened by the circumstance that Madame Grisi created a sensation in "Il Trovatore" by showing signs of agitation in the tower scene, walking about the stage during _Manrico's_ "_Ah! che la morte ognora_," as if she would fain discover the part of the castle where her lover was imprisoned. The chief charm of Jenny Lind in the memory of the older generation is the pathos with which she sang simple songs. Mendelssohn esteemed her greatly as a woman and artist, but he is quoted as once remarking to Chorley: "I cannot think why she always prefers to be in a bad theatre." Moscheles, recording his impressions of her in Meyerbeer's "Camp of Silesia" (now "L'Étoile du Nord"), reached the climax of his praise in the words: "Her song with the two concertante flutes is perhaps the most incredible feat in the way of bravura singing that can possibly be heard." She was credited, too, with fine powers as an actress; and that she possessed them can easily be believed, for few of the singers whom I have mentioned had so early and intimate an association with the theatre as she. Her repugnance to it in later life she attributed to a prejudice inherited from her mother. A vastly different heritage is disclosed by Madame Lehmann's devotion to the drama, a devotion almost akin to religion. I have known her to go into the scene-room of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and search for mimic stumps and rocks with which to fit out a scene in "Siegfried," in which she was not even to appear. That, like her super-human work at rehearsals, was "for the good of the cause," as she expressed it. [Sidenote: _Sontag._] Most amiable are the memories that cluster around the name of Sontag, whose career came to a grievous close by her sudden death in Mexico in 1854. She was a German, and the early part of her artistic life was influenced by German ideals, but it is said that only in the music of Mozart and Weber, which aroused in her strong national emotion, did she sing dramatically. For the rest she used her light voice, which had an extraordinary range, brilliancy, and flexibility, very much as Patti and Melba use their voices to-day--in mere unfeeling vocal display. "She had an extensive soprano voice," says Hogarth; "not remarkable for power, but clear, brilliant, and singularly flexible; a quality which seems to have led her (unlike most German singers in general) to cultivate the most florid style, and even to follow the bad example set by Catalani, of seeking to convert her voice into an instrument, and to astonish the public by executing the violin variations on Rode's air and other things of that stamp." [Sidenote: _La Grange._] [Sidenote: _Piccolomini._] [Sidenote: _Adelina Patti._] [Sidenote: _Gerster._] [Sidenote: _Lucca and Nilsson._] [Sidenote: _Sembrich._] Madame La Grange had a voice of wide compass, which enabled her to sing contralto rôles as well as soprano, but I have never heard her dramatic powers praised. As for Piccolomini, read of her where you will, you shall find that she was "charming." She was lovely to look upon, and her acting in soubrette parts was fascinating. Until Melba came Patti was for thirty years peerless as a mere vocalist. She belongs, as did Piccolomini and Sontag, to the comic _genre_; so did Sembrich and Gerster, the latter of whom never knew it. I well remember how indignant she became on one occasion, in her first American season, at a criticism which I wrote of her _Amina_ in "La Sonnambula," a performance which remains among my loveliest and most fragrant recollections. I had made use of Catalani's remark concerning Sontag: "_Son genre est petit, mais elle est unique dans son genre_," and applied it to her style. She almost flew into a passion. "_Mon genre est grand!_" said she, over and over again, while Dr. Gardini, her husband, tried to pacify her. "Come to see my _Marguerite_ next season." Now, Gounod's _Marguerite_ does not quite belong to the heroic rôles, though we can all remember how Lucca thrilled us by her intensity of action as well as of song, and how Madame Nilsson sent the blood out of our cheeks, though she did stride through the opera like a combination of the _grande dame_ and Ary Scheffer's spirituelle pictures; but such as it is, Madame Gerster achieved a success of interest only, and that because of her strivings for originality. Sembrich and Gerster, when they were first heard in New York, had as much execution as Melba or Nilsson; but their voices had less emotional power than that of the latter, and less beauty than that of the former--beauty of the kind that might be called classic, since it is in no way dependent on feeling. [Sidenote: _Melba and Eames._] [Sidenote: _Calvé._] [Sidenote: _Dramatic singers._] [Sidenote: _Jean de Reszke._] [Sidenote: _Edouard de Reszke and Plançon._] Patti, Lucca, Nilsson, and Gerster sang in the operas in which Melba and Eames sing to-day, and though the standard of judgment has been changed in the last twenty-five years by the growth of German ideals, I can find no growth of potency in the performances of the representative women of Italian and French opera, except in the case of Madame Calvé. For the development of dramatic ideals we must look to the singers of German affiliations or antecedents, Mesdames Materna, Lehmann, Sucher, and Nordica. As for the men of yesterday and to-day, no lover, I am sure, of the real lyric drama would give the declamatory warmth and gracefulness of pose and action which mark the performances of M. Jean de Reszke for a hundred of the high notes of Mario (for one of which, we are told, he was wont to reserve his powers all evening), were they never so lovely. Neither does the fine, resonant, equable voice of Edouard de Reszke or the finished style of Plançon leave us with curious longings touching the voices and manners of Lablache and Formes. Other times, other manners, in music as in everything else. The great singers of to-day are those who appeal to the taste of to-day, and that taste differs, as the clothes which we wear differ, from the style in vogue in the days of our ancestors. [Sidenote: _Wagner's operas._] [Sidenote: _Wagner's lyric dramas._] [Sidenote: _His theories._] [Sidenote: _The mission of music._] [Sidenote: _Distinctions abolished._] [Sidenote: _The typical phrases._] [Sidenote: _Characteristics of some motives._] A great deal of confusion has crept into the public mind concerning Wagner and his works by the failure to differentiate between his earlier and later creations. No injustice is done the composer by looking upon his "Flying Dutchman," "Tannhäuser," and "Lohengrin" as operas. We find the dramatic element lifted into noble prominence in "Tannhäuser," and admirable freedom in the handling of the musical factors in "Lohengrin," but they must, nevertheless, be listened to as one would listen to the operas of Weber, Marschner, or Meyerbeer. They are, in fact, much nearer to the conventional operatic type than to the works which came after them, and were called _Musikdramen_. "Music drama" is an awkward phrase, and I have taken the liberty of substituting "lyric drama" for it, and as such I shall designate "Tristan und Isolde," "Die Meistersinger," "Der Ring des Nibelungen," and "Parsifal." In these works Wagner exemplified his reformatory ideas and accomplished a regeneration of the lyric drama, as we found it embodied in principle in the Greek tragedy and the _Dramma per musica_ of the Florentine scholars. Wagner's starting-point is, that in the opera music had usurped a place which did not belong to it.[G] It was designed to be a means and had become an end. In the drama he found a combination of poetry, music, pantomime, and scenery, and he held that these factors ought to co-operate on a basis of mutual dependence, the inspiration of all being dramatic expression. Music, therefore, ought to be subordinate to the text in which the dramatic idea is expressed, and simply serve to raise it to a higher power by giving it greater emotional life. So, also, it ought to vivify pantomime and accompany the stage pictures. In order that it might do all this, it had to be relieved of the shackles of formalism; only thus could it move with the same freedom as the other elements consorted with it in the drama. Therefore, the distinctions between recitative and aria were abolished, and an "endless melody" took the place of both. An exalted form of speech is borne along on a flood of orchestral music, which, quite as much as song, action, and scenery concerns itself with the exposition of the drama. That it may do this the agencies, spiritual as well as material, which are instrumental in the development of the play, are identified with certain melodic phrases, out of which the musical fabric is woven. These phrases are the much mooted, much misunderstood "leading motives"--typical phrases I call them. Wagner has tried to make them reflect the character or nature of the agencies with which he has associated them, and therefore we find the giants in the Niblung tetralogy symbolized in heavy, slowly moving, cumbersome phrases; the dwarfs have two phrases, one suggesting their occupation as smiths, by its hammering rhythm, and the other their intellectual habits, by its suggestion of brooding contemplativeness. I cannot go through the catalogue of the typical phrases which enter into the musical structure of the works which I have called lyric dramas as contra-distinguished from operas. They should, of course, be known to the student of Wagner, for thereby will he be helped to understand the poet-composer's purposes, but I would fain repeat the warning which I uttered twice in my "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama:" [Sidenote: _The phrases should be studied._] "It cannot be too forcibly urged that if we confine our study of Wagner to the forms and names of the phrases out of which he constructs his musical fabric, we shall, at the last, have enriched our minds with a thematic catalogue and--nothing else. We shall remain guiltless of knowledge unless we learn something of the nature of those phrases by noting the attributes which lend them propriety and fitness, and can recognize, measurably at least, the reasons for their introduction and development. Those attributes give character and mood to the music constructed out of the phrases. If we are able to feel the mood, we need not care how the phrases which produce it have been labelled. If we do not feel the mood, we may memorize the whole thematic catalogue of Wolzogen and have our labor for our pains. It would be better to know nothing about the phrases, and content one's self with simple sensuous enjoyment than to spend one's time answering the baldest of all the riddles of Wagner's orchestra--'What am I playing now?' [Sidenote: _The question of effectiveness._] "The ultimate question concerning the correctness or effectiveness of Wagner's system of composition must, of course, be answered along with the question: 'Does the composition, as a whole, touch the emotions, quicken the fancy, fire the imagination?' If it does these things, we may, to a great extent, if we wish, get along without the intellectual processes of reflection and comparison which are conditioned upon a recognition of the themes and their uses. But if we put aside this intellectual activity, we shall deprive ourselves, among other things, of the pleasures which it is the province of memory to give; and the exercise of memory is called for by music much more urgently than by any other art, because of its volatile nature and the rôle which repetition plays in it." FOOTNOTES: [E] "But no real student can have studied the score deeply, or listened discriminatingly to a good performance, without discovering that there is a tremendous chasm between the conventional aims of the Italian poet in the book of the opera and the work which emerged from the composer's profound imagination. Da Ponte contemplated a _dramma giocoso_; Mozart humored him until his imagination came within the shadow cast before by the catastrophe, and then he transformed the poet's comedy into a tragedy of crushing power. The climax of Da Ponte's ideal is reached in a picture of the dissolute _Don_ wrestling in idle desperation with a host of spectacular devils, and finally disappearing through a trap, while fire bursts out on all sides, the thunders roll, and _Leporello_ gazes on the scene, crouched in a comic attitude of terror, under the table. Such a picture satisfied the tastes of the public of his time, and that public found nothing incongruous in a return to the scene immediately afterward of all the characters save the reprobate, who had gone to his reward, to hear a description of the catastrophe from the buffoon under the table, and platitudinously to moralize that the perfidious wretch, having been stored away safely in the realm of Pluto and Proserpine, nothing remained for them to do except to raise their voices in the words of the "old song," _"Questo è il fin di chi fa mal: E dei perfidi la morte Alla vita è sempre ugual."_ "New York Musical Season, 1889-90." [F] "Review of the New York Musical Season, 1889-90," p. 75. [G] See "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," chapter I. VIII _Choirs and Choral Music_ [Sidenote: _Choirs a touchstone of culture._] [Sidenote: _The value of choir singing._] No one would go far astray who should estimate the extent and sincerity of a community's musical culture by the number of its chorus singers. Some years ago it was said that over three hundred cities and towns in Germany contained singing societies and orchestras devoted to the cultivation of choral music. In the United States, where there are comparatively a small number of instrumental musicians, there has been a wonderful development of singing societies within the last generation, and it is to this fact largely that the notable growth in the country's knowledge and appreciation of high-class music is due. No amount of mere hearing and study can compare in influence with participation in musical performance. Music is an art which rests on love. It is beautiful sound vitalized by feeling, and it can only be grasped fully through man's emotional nature. There is no quicker or surer way to get to the heart of a composition than by performing it, and since participation in chorus singing is of necessity unselfish and creative of sympathy, there is no better medium of musical culture than membership in a choir. It was because he realized this that Schumann gave the advice to all students of music: "Sing diligently in choirs; especially the middle voices, for this will make you musical." [Sidenote: _Singing societies and orchestras._] [Sidenote: _Neither numbers nor wealth necessary._] There is no community so small or so ill-conditioned that it cannot maintain a singing society. Before a city can give sustenance to even a small body of instrumentalists it must be large enough and rich enough to maintain a theatre from which those instrumentalists can derive their support. There can be no dependence upon amateurs, for people do not study the oboe, bassoon, trombone, or double-bass for amusement. Amateur violinists and amateur flautists there are in plenty, but not amateur clarinetists and French-horn players; but if the love for music exists in a community, a dozen families shall suffice to maintain a choral club. Large numbers are therefore not essential; neither is wealth. Some of the largest and finest choirs in the world flourish among the Welsh miners in the United States and Wales, fostered by a native love for the art and the national institution called Eisteddfod. [Sidenote: _Lines of choral culture in the United States._] The lines on which choral culture has proceeded in the United States are two, of which the more valuable, from an artistic point of view, is that of the oratorio, which went out from New England. The other originated in the German cultivation of the _Männergesang_, the importance of which is felt more in the extent of the culture, prompted as it is largely by social considerations, than in the music sung, which is of necessity of a lower grade than that composed for mixed voices. It is chiefly in the impulse which German _Männergesang_ carried into all the corners of the land, and especially the impetus which the festivals of the German singers gave to the sections in which they have been held for half a century, that this form of culture is interesting. [Sidenote: _Church and oratorio._] [Sidenote: _Secular choirs._] The cultivation of oratorio music sprang naturally from the Church, and though it is now chiefly in the hands of secular societies, the biblical origin of the vast majority of the texts used in the works which are performed, and more especially the regular performances of Handel's "Messiah" in the Christmastide, have left the notion, more or less distinct, in the public mind, that oratorios are religious functions. Nevertheless (or perhaps because of this fact) the most successful choral concerts in the United States are those given by oratorio societies. The cultivation of choral music which is secular in character is chiefly in the hands of small organizations, whose concerts are of a semi-private nature and are enjoyed by the associate members and invited guests. This circumstance is deserving of notice as a characteristic feature of choral music in America, though it has no particular bearing upon this study, which must concern itself with choral organizations, choral music, and choral performances in general. [Sidenote: _Amateur choirs originated in the United States._] [Sidenote: _The size of old choirs._] Organizations of the kind in view differ from instrumental in being composed of amateurs; and amateur choir-singing is no older anywhere than in the United States. Two centuries ago and more the singing of catches and glees was a common amusement among the gentler classes in England, but the performances of the larger forms of choral music were in the hands of professional choristers who were connected with churches, theatres, schools, and other public institutions. Naturally, then, the choral bodies were small. Choirs of hundreds and thousands, such as take part in the festivals of to-day, are a product of a later time. [Sidenote: _Handel's choirs._] "When Bach and Handel wrote their Passions, Church Cantatas, and Oratorios, they could only dream of such majestic performances as those works receive now; and it is one of the miracles of art that they should have written in so masterly a manner for forces that they could never hope to control. Who would think, when listening to the 'Hallelujah' of 'The Messiah,' or the great double choruses of 'Israel in Egypt,' in which the voice of the composer is 'as the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of many thunderings, saying, "Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!"' that these colossal compositions were never heard by Handel from any chorus larger than the most modest of our church choirs? At the last performance of 'The Messiah' at which Handel was advertised to appear (it was for the benefit of his favorite charity, the Foundling Hospital, on May 3, 1759--he died before the time, however), the singers, including principals, numbered twenty-three, while the instrumentalists numbered thirty-three. At the first great Handel Commemoration, in Westminster Abbey, in 1784, the choir numbered two hundred and seventy-five, the band two hundred and fifty; and this was the most numerous force ever gathered together for a single performance in England up to that time. [Sidenote: _Choirs a century ago._] [Sidenote: _Bach's choir._] "In 1791 the Commemoration was celebrated by a choir of five hundred and a band of three hundred and seventy-five. In May, 1786, Johann Adam Hiller, one of Bach's successors as cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipsic, directed what was termed a _Massenaufführung_ of 'The Messiah,' in the Domkirche, in Berlin. His 'masses' consisted of one hundred and eighteen singers and one hundred and eighty-six instrumentalists. In Handel's operas, and sometimes even in his oratorios, the _tutti_ meant, in his time, little more than a union of all the solo singers; and even Bach's Passion music and church cantatas, which seem as much designed for numbers as the double choruses of 'Israel,' were rendered in the St. Thomas Church by a ludicrously small choir. Of this fact a record is preserved in the archives of Leipsic. In August, 1730, Bach submitted to the authorities a plan for a church choir of the pupils in his care. In this plan his singers numbered twelve, there being one principal and two ripienists in each voice; with characteristic modesty he barely suggests a preference for sixteen. The circumstance that in the same document he asked for at least eighteen instrumentalists (two more if flutes were used), taken in connection with the figures given relative to the 'Messiah' performances, gives an insight into the relations between the vocal and the instrumental parts of a choral performance in those days."[H] [Sidenote: _Proportion of voices and instruments._] This relation has been more than reversed since then, the orchestras at modern oratorio performances seldom being one-fifth as large as the choir. This difference, however, is due largely to the changed character of modern music, that of to-day treating the instruments as independent agents of expression instead of using them chiefly to support the voices and add sonority to the tonal mass, as was done by Handel and most of the composers of his day. [Sidenote: _Glee unions and male choirs._] I omit from consideration the Glee Unions of England, and the quartets, which correspond to them, in this country. They are not cultivators of choral music, and the music which they sing is an insignificant factor in culture. The male choirs, too, need not detain us long, since it may be said without injustice that their mission is more social than artistic. In these choirs the subdivision into parts is, as a rule, into two tenor voices, first and second, and two bass, first and second. In the glee unions, the effect of whose singing is fairly well imitated by the college clubs of the United States (pitiful things, indeed, from an artistic point of view), there is a survival of an old element in the male alto singing above the melody voice, generally in a painful falsetto. This abomination is unknown to the German part-songs for men's voices, which are written normally, but are in the long run monotonous in color for want of the variety in timbre and register which the female voices contribute in a mixed choir. [Sidenote: _Women's choirs._] There are choirs also composed exclusively of women, but they are even more unsatisfactory than the male choirs, for the reason that the absence of the bass voice leaves their harmony without sufficient foundation. Generally, music for these choirs is written for three parts, two sopranos and contralto, with the result that it hovers, suspended like Mahomet's coffin, between heaven and earth. When a fourth part is added it is a second contralto, which is generally carried down to the tones that are hollow and unnatural. [Sidenote: _Boys' choirs._] The substitution of boys for women in Episcopal Church choirs has grown extensively within the last ten years in the United States, very much to the promotion of æsthetic sentimentality in the congregations, but without improving the character of worship-music. Boys' voices are practically limitless in an upward direction, and are naturally clear and penetrating. Ravishing effects can be produced with them, but it is false art to use passionless voices in music conceived for the mature and emotional voices of adults; and very little of the old English Cathedral music, written for choirs of boys and men, is preserved in the service lists to-day. [Sidenote: _Mixed choirs._] The only satisfactory choirs are the mixed choirs of men and women. Upon them has devolved the cultivation of artistic choral music in our public concert-rooms. As we know such choirs now, they are of comparatively recent origin, and it is a singular commentary upon the way in which musical history is written, that the fact should have so long been overlooked that the credit of organizing the first belongs to the United States. A little reflection will show this fact, which seems somewhat startling at first blush, to be entirely natural. Large singing societies are of necessity made up of amateurs, and the want of professional musicians in America compelled the people to enlist amateurs at a time when in Europe choral activity rested on the church, theatre, and institute choristers, who were practically professionals. [Sidenote: _Origin of amateur singing societies._] [Sidenote: _The German record._] [Sidenote: _American priority._] [Sidenote: _The American record._] As the hitherto accepted record stands, the first amateur singing society was the Singakademie of Berlin, which Carl Friedrich Fasch, accompanist to the royal flautist, Frederick the Great, called into existence in 1791. A few dates will show how slow the other cities of musical Germany were in following Berlin's example. In 1818 there were only ten amateur choirs in all Germany. Leipsic organized one in 1800, Stettin in 1800, Münster in 1804, Dresden in 1807, Potsdam in 1814, Bremen in 1815, Chemnitz in 1817, Schwäbisch-Hall in 1817, and Innsbruck in 1818. The Berlin Singakademie is still in existence, but so also is the Stoughton Musical Society in Stoughton, Mass., which was founded on November 7, 1786. Mr. Charles C. Perkins, historian of the Handel and Haydn Society, whose foundation was coincident with the sixth society in Germany (Bremen, 1815), enumerates the following predecessors of that venerable organization: the Stoughton Musical Society, 1786; Independent Musical Society, "established at Boston in the same year, which gave a concert at King's Chapel in 1788, and took part there in commemorating the death of Washington (December 14, 1799) on his first succeeding birthday;" the Franklin, 1804; the Salem, 1806; Massachusetts Musical, 1807; Lock Hospital, 1812, and the Norfolk Musical, the date of whose foundation is not given by Mr. Perkins. [Sidenote: _Choirs in the West._] When the Bremen Singakademie was organized there were already choirs in the United States as far west as Cincinnati. In that city they were merely church choirs at first, but within a few years they had combined into a large body and were giving concerts at which some of the choruses of Handel and Haydn were sung. That their performances, as well as those of the New England societies, were cruder than those of their European rivals may well be believed, but with this I have nothing to do. I am simply seeking to establish the priority of the United States in amateur choral culture. The number of American cities in which oratorios are performed annually is now about fifty. [Sidenote: _The size of choirs._] [Sidenote: _Large numbers not essential._] [Sidenote: _How "divisions" used to be sung._] In size mixed choirs ordinarily range from forty voices to five hundred. It were well if it were understood by choristers as well as the public that numbers merely are not a sign of merit in a singing society. So the concert-room be not too large, a choir of sixty well-trained voices is large enough to perform almost everything in choral literature with good effect, and the majority of the best compositions will sound better under such circumstances than in large rooms with large choirs. Especially is this true of the music of the Middle Ages, written for voices without instrumental accompaniment, of which I shall have something to say when the discussion reaches choral programmes. There is music, it is true, like much of Handel's, the impressiveness of which is greatly enhanced by masses, but it is not extensive enough to justify the sacrifice of correctness and finish in the performance to mere volume. The use of large choirs has had the effect of developing the skilfulness of amateur singers in an astonishing degree, but there is, nevertheless, a point where weightiness of tone becomes an obstacle to finished execution. When Mozart remodelled Handel's "Messiah" he was careful to indicate that the florid passages ("divisions" they used to be called in England) should be sung by the solo voices alone, but nowadays choirs of five hundred voices attack such choruses as "For unto us a Child is Born," without the slightest hesitation, even if they sometimes make a mournful mess of the "divisions." [Sidenote: _The division of choirs._] [Sidenote: _Five-part music._] [Sidenote: _Eight part._] [Sidenote: _Antiphonal music._] [Sidenote: _Bach's "St. Matthew Passion."_] The normal division of a mixed choir is into four parts or voices--soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass; but composers sometimes write for more parts, and the choir is subdivided to correspond. The custom of writing for five, six, eight, ten, and even more voices was more common in the Middle Ages, the palmy days of the _a capella_ (_i.e._, for the chapel, unaccompanied) style than it is now, and, as a rule, a division into more than four voices is not needed outside of the societies which cultivate this old music, such as the Musical Art Society in New York, the Bach Choir in London, and the Domchor in Berlin. In music for five parts, one of the upper voices, soprano or tenor, is generally doubled; for six, the ordinary distribution is into two sopranos, two contraltos, tenor, and bass. When eight voices are reached a distinction is made according as there are to be eight real parts (_a otto voci reali_), or two choruses of the four normal parts each (_a otto voci in due cori reali_). In the first instance the arrangement commonly is three sopranos, two contraltos, two tenors, and one bass. One of the most beautiful uses of the double choir is to produce antiphonal effects, choir answering to choir, both occasionally uniting in the climaxes. How stirring this effect can be made may be observed in some of Bach's compositions, especially those in which he makes the division of the choir subserve a dramatic purpose, as in the first chorus of "The Passion according to St. Matthew," where the two choirs, one representing _Daughters of Zion_, the other _Believers_, interrogate and answer each other thus: I. "Come, ye daughters, weep for anguish; See Him! II. "Whom? I. "The Son of Man. See Him! II. "How? I. "So like a lamb. See it! II. "What? I. "His love untold. Look! II. "Look where? I. "Our guilt behold." [Sidenote: _Antiphony in a motet._] Another most striking instance is in the same master's motet, "Sing ye to the Lord," which is written for two choirs of four parts each. (In the example from the "St. Matthew Passion" there is a third choir of soprano voices which sings a chorale while the dramatic choirs are conversing.) In the motet the first choir begins a fugue, in the midst of which the second choir is heard shouting jubilantly, "Sing ye! Sing ye! Sing ye!" Then the choirs change rôles, the first delivering the injunction, the second singing the fugue. In modern music, composers frequently consort a quartet of solo voices, soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass, with a four-part chorus, and thus achieve fine effects of contrast in dynamics and color, as well as antiphonal. [Sidenote: _Excellence in choral singing._] [Sidenote: _Community of action._] [Sidenote: _Individualism._] [Sidenote: _Dynamics._] [Sidenote: _Beauty of tone._] [Sidenote: _Contralto voices._] The question is near: What constitutes excellence in a choral performance? To answer: The same qualities that constitute excellence in an orchestral performance, will scarcely suffice, except as a generalization. A higher degree of harmonious action is exacted of a body of singers than of a body of instrumentalists. Many of the parts in a symphony are played by a single instrument. Community of voice belongs only to each of the five bodies of string-players. In a chorus there are from twelve to one hundred and fifty voices, or even more, united in each part. This demands the effacement of individuality in a chorus, upon the assertion of which, in a band, under the judicious guidance of the conductor, many of the effects of color and expression depend. Each group in a choir must strive for homogeneity of voice quality; each singer must sink the _ego_ in the aggregation, yet employ it in its highest potency so far as the mastery of the technics of singing is concerned. In cultivating precision of attack (_i.e._, promptness in beginning a tone and leaving it off), purity of intonation (_i.e._, accuracy or justness of pitch--"singing in tune" according to the popular phrase), clearness of enunciation, and careful attention to all the dynamic gradations of tone, from very soft up to very loud, and all shades of expression between, in the development of that gradual augmentation of tone called _crescendo_, and the gradual diminution called _diminuendo_, the highest order of individual skill is exacted from every chorister; for upon individual perfection in these things depends the collective effect which it is the purpose of the conductor to achieve. Sensuous beauty of tone, even in large aggregations, is also dependent to a great degree upon careful and proper emission of voice by each individual, and it is because the contralto part in most choral music, being a middle part, lies so easily in the voices of the singers that the contralto contingent in American choirs, especially, so often attracts attention by the charm of its tone. Contralto voices are seldom forced into the regions which compel so great a physical strain that beauty and character must be sacrificed to mere accomplishment of utterance, as is frequently the case with the soprano part. [Sidenote: _Selfishness fatal to success._] [Sidenote: _Tonal balance._] Yet back of all this exercise of individual skill there must be a spirit of self-sacrifice which can only exist in effective potency if prompted by universal sympathy and love for the art. A selfish chorister is not a chorister, though possessed of the voice of a Melba or Mario. Balance between the parts, not only in the fundamental constitution of the choir but also in all stages of a performance, is also a matter of the highest consideration. In urban communities, especially, it is difficult to secure perfect tonal symmetry--the rule is a poverty in tenor voices--but those who go to hear choral concerts are entitled to hear a well-balanced choir, and the presence of an army of sopranos will not condone a squad of tenors. Again, I say, better a well-balanced small choir than an ill-balanced large one. [Sidenote: _Declamation._] [Sidenote: _Expression._] [Sidenote: _The choruses in "The Messiah."_] [Sidenote: _Variety of declamation in Handel's oratorio._] I have not enumerated all the elements which enter into a meritorious performance, nor shall I discuss them all; only in passing do I wish to direct attention to one which shines by its absence in the choral performances not only of America but also of Great Britain and Germany. Proper pronunciation of the texts is an obvious requirement; so ought also to be declamation. There is no reason why characteristic expression, by which I mean expression which goes to the genius of the melodic phrase when it springs from the verbal, should be ignored, simply because it may be difficult of attainment from large bodies of singers. There is so much monotony in oratorio concerts because all oratorios and all parts of any single oratorio are sung alike. Only when the "Hallelujah" is sung in "The Messiah" at the gracious Christmastide is an exaltation above the dull level of the routine performances noticeable, and then it is communicated to the singers by the act of the listeners in rising to their feet. Now, despite the structural sameness in the choruses of "The Messiah," they have a great variety of content, and if the characteristic physiognomy of each could but be disclosed, the grand old work, which seems hackneyed to so many, would acquire amazing freshness, eloquence, and power. Then should we be privileged to note that there is ample variety in the voice of the old master, of whom a greater than he said that when he wished, he could strike like a thunderbolt. Then should we hear the tones of amazed adoration in [Music illustration: Be-hold the Lamb of God!] of cruel scorn in [Music illustration: He trust-ed in God that would de-li-ver Him, let him de-li-ver him if he de-light in him.] of boastfulness and conscious strength in [Music illustration: Let us break their bonds a-sun-der.] and learn to admire as we ought to admire the declamatory strength and truthfulness so common in Handel's choruses. [Sidenote: _Mediæval music._] [Sidenote: _Madrigals._] There is very little cultivation of choral music of the early ecclesiastical type, and that little is limited to the Church and a few choirs specially organized for its performance, like those that I have mentioned. This music is so foreign to the conceptions of the ordinary amateur, and exacts so much skill in the singing of the intervals, lacking the prop of modern tonality as it does, that it is seldom that an amateur body can be found equal to its performance. Moreover, it is nearly all of a solemn type. Its composers were churchmen, and when it was written nearly all that there was of artistic music was in the service of the Church. The secular music of the time consisted chiefly in Madrigals, which differed from ecclesiastical music only in their texts, they being generally erotic in sentiment. The choristers of to-day, no less than the public, find it difficult to appreciate them, because they are not melodic in the sense that most music is nowadays. In them the melody is not the privileged possession of the soprano voice. All the voices stand on an equal footing, and the composition consists of a weaving together, according to scientific rules, of a number of voices--counterpoint as it is called. [Sidenote: _Homophonic hymns._] [Sidenote: _Calvin's restrictive influence._] Our hymn-tunes are homophonic, based upon a melody sung by one voice, for which the other voices provide the harmony. This style of music came into the Church through the German Reformation. Though Calvin was a lover of music he restricted its practice among his followers to unisonal psalmody, that is, to certain tunes adapted to the versified psalms sung without accompaniment of harmony voices. On the adoption of the Genevan psalter he gave the strictest injunction that neither its text nor its melodies were to be altered. "Those songs and melodies," said he, "which are composed for the mere pleasure of the ear, and all they call ornamental music, and songs for four parts, do not behoove the majesty of the Church, and cannot fail greatly to displease God." [Sidenote: _Luther and the German Church._] Under the influence of the German reformers music was in a very different case. Luther was not only an amateur musician, he was also an ardent lover of scientific music. Josquin des Pres, a contemporary of Columbus, was his greatest admiration; nevertheless, he was anxious from the beginning of his work of Church establishment to have the music of the German Church German in spirit and style. In 1525 he wrote: [Sidenote: _A German mass._] "I should like to have a German mass, and I am indeed at work on one; but I am anxious that it shall be truly German in manner. I have no objection to a translated Latin text and Latin notes; but they are neither proper nor just (_aber es lautet nicht artig noch rechtschaffen_); text and notes, accent, melodies, and demeanor must come from our mother tongue and voice, else will it all be but a mimicry, like that of the apes." [Sidenote: _Secular tunes used._] [Sidenote: _Congregational singing._] In the Church music of the time, composed, as I have described, by a scientific interweaving of voices, the composers had got into the habit of utilizing secular melodies as the foundation on which to build their contrapuntal structures. I have no doubt that it was the spirit which speaks out of Luther's words which brought it to pass that in Germany contrapuntal music with popular melodies as foundations developed into the chorale, in which the melody and not the counterpoint was the essential thing. With the Lutheran Church came congregational singing; with congregational singing the need of a new style of composition, which should not only make the participation of the people in the singing possible, but should also stimulate them to sing by freeing the familiar melodies (the melodies of folk-songs) from the elaborate and ingenious, but soulless, counterpoint which fettered them. [Sidenote: _Counterpoint._] [Sidenote: _The first congregational hymns._] The Flemish masters, who were the musical law-givers, had been using secular tunes for over a century, but only as stalking-horses for counterpoint; and when the Germans began to use their tunes, they, too, buried them beyond recognition in the contrapuntal mass. The people were invited to sing paraphrases of the psalms to familiar tunes, it is true, but the choir's polyphony went far to stifle the spirit of the melody. Soon the free spirit which I have repeatedly referred to as Romanticism, and which was powerfully encouraged by the Reformation, prompted a style of composition in which the admired melody was lifted into relief. This could not be done until the new style of writing invented by the creators of the opera (see Chapter VII.) came in, but as early as 1568 Dr. Lucas Ostrander published fifty hymns and psalms with music so arranged "that the congregation may join in singing them." This, then, is in outline the story of the beginning of modern hymnology, and it is recalled to the patrons of choral concerts whenever in Bach's "Passion Music" or in Mendelssohn's "St. Paul" the choir sings one of the marvellous old hymns of the German Church. [Sidenote: _The Church and conservatism._] [Sidenote: _Harmony and emotion._] Choral music being bound up with the Church, it has naturally participated in the conservatism characteristic of the Church. The severe old style has survived in the choral compositions of to-day, while instrumental music has grown to be almost a new thing within the century which is just closing. It is the severe style established by Bach, however, not that of Palestrina. In the Church compositions prior to Palestrina the emotional power of harmony was but little understood. The harmonies, indeed, were the accidents of the interweaving of melodies. Palestrina was among the first to feel the uplifting effect which might result from a simple sequence of pure consonant harmonies, and the three chords which open his famous "Stabat Mater" [Sidenote: _Palestrina's "Stabat Mater."_] [Sidenote: _Characteristics of his music._] [Music illustration: Sta-bat ma-ter] are a sign of his style as distinct in its way as the devices by means of which Wagner stamps his individuality on his phrases. His melodies, too, compared with the artificial _motivi_ of his predecessors, are distinguished by grace, beauty, and expressiveness, while his command of ætherial effects, due to the manner in which the voices are combined, is absolutely without parallel from his day to this. Of the mystery of pure beauty he enjoyed a wonderful revelation, and has handed it down to us in such works as the "Stabat Mater," "Missa Papæ Marcelli," and the "Improperia." [Sidenote: _Palestrina's music not dramatic._] [Sidenote: _A churchman._] [Sidenote: _Effect of the Reformation._] This music must not be listened to with the notion in mind of dramatic expression such as we almost instinctively feel to-day. Palestrina does not seek to proclaim the varying sentiment which underlies his texts. That leads to individual interpretation and is foreign to the habits of churchmen in the old conception, when the individual was completely resolved in the organization. He aimed to exalt the mystery of the service, not to bring it down to popular comprehension and make it a personal utterance. For such a design in music we must wait until after the Reformation, when the ancient mysticism began to fall back before the demands of reason, when the idea of the sole and sufficient mediation of the Church lost some of its power in the face of the growing conviction of intimate personal relationship between man and his creator. Now idealism had to yield some of its dominion to realism, and a more rugged art grew up in place of that which had been so wonderfully sublimated by mysticism. [Sidenote: _The source of beauty in Palestrina's music._] It is in Bach, who came a century after Palestrina, that we find the most eloquent musical proclamation of the new régime, and it is in no sense disrespectful to the great German master if we feel that the change in ideals was accompanied with a loss in sensuous charm, or pure æsthetic beauty. Effect has had to yield to idea. It is in the flow of the voices, the color effects which result from combination and registers, the clarity of the harmonies, the reposefulness coming from conscious ease of utterance, the loveliness of each individual part, and the spiritual exaltation of the whole that the æsthetic mystery of Palestrina's music lies. [Sidenote: _Bach._] Like Palestrina, Bach is the culmination of the musical practice of his time, but, unlike Palestrina, he is also the starting-point of a new development. With Bach the old contrapuntal art, now not vocal merely but instrumental also and mixed, reaches its climax, and the tendency sets in which leads to the highly complex and dramatic art of to-day. Palestrina's art is Roman; the spirit of restfulness, of celestial calm, of supernatural revelation and supernal beauty broods over it. Bach's is Gothic--rugged, massive, upward striving, human. In Palestrina's music the voice that speaks is the voice of angels; in Bach's it is the voice of men. [Sidenote: _Bach a German Protestant._] [Sidenote: _Church and individual._] [Sidenote: _Ingenuousness of feeling._] Bach is the publisher of the truest, tenderest, deepest, and most individual religious feeling. His music is peculiarly a hymning of the religious sentiment of Protestant Germany, where salvation is to be wrought out with fear and trembling by each individual through faith and works rather than the agency of even a divinely constituted Church. It reflects, with rare fidelity and clearness, the essential qualities of the German people--their warm sympathy, profound compassion, fervent love, and sturdy faith. As the Church fell into the background and the individual came to the fore, religious music took on the dramatic character which we find in the "Passion Music" of Bach. Here the sufferings and death of the Saviour, none the less an ineffable mystery, are depicted as the most poignant experience of each individual believer, and with an ingenuousness that must forever provoke the wonder of those who are unable to enter into the German nature. The worshippers do not hesitate to say: "My Jesus, good-night!" as they gather in fancy around His tomb and invoke sweet rest for His weary limbs. The difference between such a proclamation and the calm voice of the Church should be borne in mind when comparing the music of Palestrina with that of Bach; also the vast strides made by music during the intervening century. [Sidenote: _The motet._] Of Bach's music we have in the repertories of our best choral societies a number of motets, church cantatas, a setting of the "Magnificat," and the great mass in B minor. The term Motet lacks somewhat of definiteness of the usage of composers. Originally it seems likely that it was a secular composition which the Netherland composers enlisted in the service of the Church by adapting it to Biblical and other religious texts. Then it was always unaccompanied. In the later Protestant motets the chorale came to play a great part; the various stanzas of a hymn were given different settings, the foundation of each being the hymn tune. These were interspersed with independent pieces, based on Biblical words. [Sidenote: _Church cantatas._] The Church Cantatas (_Kirchencantaten_) are larger services with orchestral accompaniment, which were written to conform to the various religious festivals and Sundays of the year; each has for a fundamental subject the theme which is proper to the day. Again, a chorale provides the musical foundation. Words and melody are retained, but between the stanzas occur recitatives and metrical airs, or ariosos, for solo voices in the nature of commentaries or reflections on the sentiment of the hymn or the gospel lesson for the day. [Sidenote: _The "Passions."_] [Sidenote: _Origin of the "Passions."_] [Sidenote: _Early Holy Week services._] The "Passions" are still more extended, and were written for use in the Reformed Church in Holy Week. As an art-form they are unique, combining a number of elements and having all the apparatus of an oratorio plus the congregation, which took part in the performance by singing the hymns dispersed through the work. The service (for as a service, rather than as an oratorio, it must be treated) roots in the Miracle plays and Mysteries of the Middle Ages, but its origin is even more remote, going back to the custom followed by the primitive Christians of making the reading of the story of the Passion a special service for Holy Week. In the Eastern Church it was introduced in a simple dramatic form as early as the fourth century A.D., the treatment being somewhat like the ancient tragedies, the text being intoned or chanted. In the Western Church, until the sixteenth century, the Passion was read in a way which gave the service one element which is found in Bach's works in an amplified form. Three deacons were employed, one to read (or rather chant to Gregorian melodies) the words of Christ, another to deliver the narrative in the words of the Evangelist, and a third to give the utterances and exclamations of the Apostles and people. This was the _Cantus Passionis Domini nostri Jesu Christe_ of the Church, and had so strong a hold upon the tastes of the people that it was preserved by Luther in the Reformed Church. [Sidenote: _The service amplified._] [Sidenote: _Bach's settings._] Under this influence it was speedily amplified. The successive steps of the progress are not clear, but the choir seems to have first succeeded to the part formerly sung by the third deacon, and in some churches the whole Passion was sung antiphonally by two choirs. In the seventeenth century the introduction of recitatives and arias, distributed among singers who represented the personages of sacred history, increased the dramatic element of the service which reached its climax in the "St. Matthew" setting by Bach. The chorales are supposed to have been introduced about 1704. Bach's "Passions" are the last that figure in musical history. That "according to St. John" is performed occasionally in Germany, but it yields the palm of excellence to that "according to St. Matthew," which had its first performance on Good Friday, 1729, in Leipsic. It is in two parts, which were formerly separated by the sermon, and employs two choirs, each with its own orchestra, solo singers in all the classes of voices, and a harpsichord to accompany all the recitatives, except those of _Jesus_, which are distinguished by being accompanied by the orchestral strings. [Sidenote: _Oratorios._] [Sidenote: _Sacred operas._] In the nature of things passions, oratorios, and their secular cousins, cantatas, imply scenes and actions, and therefore have a remote kinship with the lyric drama. The literary analogy which they suggest is the epic poem as contra-distinguished from the drama. While the drama presents incident, the oratorio relates, expounds, and celebrates, presenting it to the fancy through the ear instead of representing it to the eye. A great deal of looseness has crept into this department of music as into every other, and the various forms have been approaching each other until in some cases it is become difficult to say which term, opera or oratorio, ought to be applied. Rubinstein's "sacred operas" are oratorios profusely interspersed with stage directions, many of which are impossible of scenic realization. Their whole purpose is to work upon the imagination of the listeners and thus open gate-ways for the music. Ever since its composition, Saint-Saëns's "Samson and Delilah" has held a place in both theatre and concert-room. Liszt's "St. Elizabeth" has been found more effective when provided with pictorial accessories than without. The greater part of "Elijah" might be presented in dramatic form. [Sidenote: _Influence of the Church plays._] [Sidenote: _Origin of the oratorio._] [Sidenote: _The choral element extended._] [Sidenote: _Narrative and descriptive choruses._] [Sidenote: _Dramatization._] Confusing and anomalous as these things are, they find their explanation in the circumstance that the oratorio never quite freed itself from the influence of the people's Church plays in which it had its beginning. As a distinct art-form it began in a mixture of artistic entertainment and religious worship provided in the early part of the sixteenth century by Filippo Neri (now a saint) for those who came for pious instruction to his oratory (whence the name). The purpose of these entertainments being religious, the subjects were Biblical, and though the musical progress from the beginning was along the line of the lyric drama, contemporaneous in origin with it, the music naturally developed into broader forms on the choral side, because music had to make up for the lack of pantomime, costumes, and scenery. Hence we have not only the preponderance of choruses in the oratorio over recitative, arias, duets, trios, and so forth, but also the adherence in the choral part to the old manner of writing which made the expansion of the choruses possible. Where the choruses left the field of pure reflection and became narrative, as in "Israel in Egypt," or assumed a dramatic character, as in the "Elijah," the composer found in them vehicles for descriptive and characteristic music, and so local color came into use. Characterization of the solo parts followed as a matter of course, an early illustration being found in the manner in which Bach lifted the words of Christ into prominence by surrounding them with the radiant halo which streams from the violin accompaniment. In consequence the singer to whom was assigned the task of singing the part of _Jesus_ presented himself to the fancy of the listeners as a representative of the historical personage--as the Christ of the drama. [Sidenote: _The chorus in opera and oratorio._] The growth of the instrumental art here came admirably into play, and so it came to pass that opera and oratorio now have their musical elements of expression in common, and differ only in their application of them--opera foregoing the choral element to a great extent as being a hindrance to action, and oratorio elevating it to make good the absence of scenery and action. While oratorios are biblical and legendary, cantatas deal with secular subjects and, in the form of dramatic ballads, find a delightful field in the world of romance and supernaturalism. [Sidenote: _The Mass._] [Sidenote: _Secularization of the Mass._] Transferred from the Church to the concert-room, and considered as an art-form instead of the eucharistic office, the Mass has always made a strong appeal to composers, and half a dozen masterpieces of missal composition hold places in the concert lists of the singing societies. Notable among these are the Requiems of Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi, and the Solemn Mass in D by Beethoven. These works represent at one and the same time the climax of accomplishment in the musical treatment and the secularization of the missal text. They are the natural outcome of the expansion of the office by the introduction of the orchestra into the Church, the departure from the _a capella_ style of writing, which could not be consorted with the orchestra, and the growth of a desire to enhance the pomp of great occasions in the Church by the production of masses specially composed for them. Under such circumstances the devotional purpose of the mass was lost in the artistic, and composers gave free reign to their powers, for which they found an ample stimulus in the missal text. [Sidenote: _Sentimental masses._] [Sidenote: _Mozart and the Mass._] [Sidenote: _The masses for the dead._] [Sidenote: _Gossec's Requiem._] The first effect, and the one which largely justifies the adherents of the old ecclesiastical style in their crusade against the Catholic Church music of to-day, was to make the masses sentimental and operatic. So little regard was had for the sentiment of the words, so little respect for the solemnity of the sacrament, that more than a century ago Mozart (whose masses are far from being models of religious expression) could say to Cantor Doles of a _Gloria_ which the latter showed him, "_S'ist ja alles nix_," and immediately sing the music to "_Hol's der Geier, das geht flink!_" which words, he said, went better. The liberty begotten by this license, though it tended to ruin the mass, considered strictly as a liturgical service, developed it musically. The masses for the dead were among the earliest to feel the spirit of the time, for in the sequence, _Dies iræ_, they contained the dramatic element which the solemn mass lacked. The _Kyrie_, _Credo_, _Gloria_, _Sanctus_, and _Agnus Dei_ are purely lyrical, and though the evolutionary movement ended in Beethoven conceiving certain portions (notably the _Agnus Dei_) in a dramatic sense, it was but natural that so far as tradition fixed the disposition and formal style of the various parts, it should not be disturbed. At an early date the composers began to put forth their powers of description in the _Dies iræ_, however, and there is extant in a French mass an amusing example of the length to which tone-painting in this music was carried by them. Gossec wrote a Requiem on the death of Mirabeau which became famous. The words, _Quantus tremor est futurus_, he set so that on each syllable there were repetitions, _staccato_, of a single tone, thus: [Music illustration: Quan-tus tre---mor, tre-- etc.] This absurd stuttering Gossec designed to picture the terror inspired by the coming of the Judge at the last trumpet. [Sidenote: _The orchestra in the Mass._] [Sidenote: _Beethoven and Berlioz._] The development of instrumentation placed a factor in the hands of these writers which they were not slow to utilize, especially in writing music for the _Dies iræ_, and how effectively Mozart used the orchestra in his Requiem it is not necessary to state. It is a safe assumption that Beethoven's Mass in D was largely instrumental in inspiring Berlioz to set the Requiem as he did. With Beethoven the dramatic idea is the controlling one, and so it is with Berlioz. Beethoven, while showing a reverence for the formulas of the Church, and respecting the tradition which gave the _Kyrie_ a triple division and made fugue movements out of the phrases "_Cum sancto spiritu in gloria Dei patris--Amen_," "_Et vitam venturi_," and "_Osanna in excelsis_," nevertheless gave his composition a scope which placed it beyond the apparatus of the Church, and filled it with a spirit that spurns the limitations of any creed of less breadth and universality than the grand Theism which affectionate communion with nature had taught him. [Sidenote: _Berlioz's Requiem._] [Sidenote: _Dramatic effects in Haydn's masses._] [Sidenote: _Berlioz's orchestra._] Berlioz, less religious, less reverential, but equally fired by the solemnity and majesty of the matter given into his hands, wrote a work in which he placed his highest conception of the awfulness of the Last Judgment and the emotions which are awakened by its contemplation. In respect of the instrumentation he showed a far greater audacity than Beethoven displayed even in the much-mooted trumpets and drums of the _Agnus Dei_, where he introduces the sounds of war to heighten the intensity of the prayer for peace, "_Dona nobis pacem_." This is talked about in the books as a bold innovation. It seems to have escaped notice that the idea had occurred to Haydn twenty-four years before and been realized by him. In 1796 Haydn wrote a mass, "In Tempore Belli," the French army being at the time in Steyermark. He set the words, "_Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi_," to an accompaniment of drums, "as if the enemy were already heard coming in the distance." He went farther than this in a Mass in D minor, when he accompanied the _Benedictus_ with fanfares of trumpets. But all such timid ventures in the use of instruments in the mass sink into utter insignificance when compared with Berlioz's apparatus in the _Tuba mirum_ of his Requiem, which supplements the ordinary symphonic orchestra, some of its instruments already doubled, with four brass bands of eight or ten instruments each, sixteen extra drums, and a tam-tam. FOOTNOTES: [H] "Notes on the Cultivation of Choral Music," by H.E. Krehbiel, p. 17. IX _Musician, Critic, and Public_ [Sidenote: _The newspapers and the public._] I have been told that there are many people who read the newspapers on the day after they have attended a concert or operatic representation for the purpose of finding out whether or not the performance gave them proper or sufficient enjoyment. It would not be becoming in me to inquire too curiously into the truth of such a statement, and in view of a denunciation spoken in the introductory chapter of this book, I am not sure that it is not a piece of arrogance, or impudence, on my part to undertake in any way to justify any critical writing on the subject of music. Certain it is that some men who write about music for the newspapers believe, or affect to believe, that criticism is worthless, and I shall not escape the charge of inconsistency, if, after I have condemned the blunders of literary men, who are laymen in music, and separated the majority of professional writers on the art into pedants and rhapsodists, I nevertheless venture to discuss the nature and value of musical criticism. Yet, surely, there must be a right and wrong in this as in every other thing, and just as surely the present structure of society, which rests on the newspaper, invites attention to the existing relationship between musician, critic, and public as an important element in the question How to Listen to Music. [Sidenote: _Relationship between musician, critic, and public._] [Sidenote: _The need and value of conflict._] As a condition precedent to the discussion of this new element in the case, I lay down the proposition that the relationship between the three factors enumerated is so intimate and so strict that the world over they rise and fall together; which means that where the people dwell who have reached the highest plane of excellence, there also are to be found the highest types of the musician and critic; and that in the degree in which the three factors, which united make up the sum of musical activity, labor harmoniously, conscientiously, and unselfishly, each striving to fulfil its mission, they advance music and further themselves, each bearing off an equal share of the good derived from the common effort. I have set the factors down in the order which they ordinarily occupy in popular discussion and which symbolizes their proper attitude toward each other and the highest potency of their collaboration. In this collaboration, as in so many others, it is conflict that brings life. Only by a surrender of their functions, one to the other, could the three apparently dissonant yet essentially harmonious factors be brought into a state of complacency; but such complacency would mean stagnation. If the published judgment on compositions and performances could always be that of the exploiting musicians, that class, at least, would read the newspapers with fewer heart-burnings; if the critics had a common mind and it were followed in concert-room and opera-house, they, as well as the musicians, would have need of fewer words of displacency and more of approbation; if, finally, it were to be brought to pass that for the public nothing but amiable diversion should flow simultaneously from platform, stage, and press, then for the public would the millennium be come. A religious philosopher can transmute Adam's fall into a blessing, and we can recognize the wisdom of that dispensation which put enmity between the seed of Jubal, who was the "father of all such as handle the harp and pipe," and the seed of Saul, who, I take it, is the first critic of record (and a vigorous one, too, for he accentuated his unfavorable opinion of a harper's harping with a javelin thrust). [Sidenote: _The critic an Ishmaelite._] [Sidenote: _The critic not to be pitied._] [Sidenote: _How he might extricate himself._] [Sidenote: _The public like to be flattered._] We are bound to recognize that between the three factors there is, ever was, and ever shall be _in sæcula sæculorum_ an irrepressible conflict, and that in the nature of things the middle factor is the Ishmaelite whose hand is raised against everybody and against whom everybody's hand is raised. The complacency of the musician and the indifference, not to say ignorance, of the public ordinarily combine to make them allies, and the critic is, therefore, placed between two millstones, where he is vigorously rasped on both sides, and whence, being angular and hard of outer shell, he frequently requites the treatment received with complete and energetic reciprocity. Is he therefore to be pitied? Not a bit; for in this position he is performing one of the most significant and useful of his functions, and disclosing one of his most precious virtues. While musician and public must perforce remain in the positions in which they have been placed with relation to each other it must be apparent at half a glance that it would be the simplest matter in the world for the critic to extricate himself from his predicament. He would only need to take his cue from the public, measuring his commendation by the intensity of their applause, his dispraise by their signs of displeasure, and all would be well with him. We all know this to be true, that people like to read that which flatters them by echoing their own thoughts. The more delightfully it is put by the writer the more the reader is pleased, for has he not had the same idea? Are they not his? Is not their appearance in a public print proof of the shrewdness and soundness of his judgment? Ruskin knows this foible in human nature and condemns it. You may read in "Sesame and Lilies:" "Very ready we are to say of a book, 'How good this is--that's exactly what I think!' But the right feeling is, 'How strange that is! I never thought of that before, and yet I see it is true; or if I do not now, I hope I shall, some day.' But whether thus submissively or not, at least be sure that you go at the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours. Judge it afterward if you think yourself qualified to do so, but ascertain it first." [Sidenote: _The critic generally outspoken._] As a rule, however, the critic is not guilty of the wrong of speaking out the thought of others, but publishes what there is of his own mind, and this I laud in him as a virtue, which is praiseworthy in the degree that it springs from loftiness of aim, depth of knowledge, and sincerity and unselfishness of purpose. [Sidenote: _Musician and Public._] [Sidenote: _The office of ignorance._] [Sidenote: _Popularity of Wagner's music not a sign of intelligent appreciation._] Let us look a little into the views which our factors do and those which they ought to entertain of each other. The utterances of musicians have long ago made it plain that as between the critic and the public the greater measure of their respect and deference is given to the public. The critic is bound to recognize this as entirely natural; his right of protest does not accrue until he can show that the deference is ignoble and injurious to good art. It is to the public that the musician appeals for the substantial signs of what is called success. This appeal to the jury instead of the judge is as characteristic of the conscientious composer who is sincerely convinced that he was sent into the world to widen the boundaries of art, as it is of the mere time-server who aims only at tickling the popular ear. The reason is obvious to a little close thinking: Ignorance is at once a safeguard against and a promoter of conservatism. This sounds like a paradox, but the rapid growth of Wagner's music in the admiration of the people of the United States might correctly be cited as a proof that the statement is true. Music like the concert fragments from Wagner's lyric dramas is accepted with promptitude and delight, because its elements are those which appeal most directly and forcibly to our sense-perception and those primitive tastes which are the most readily gratified by strong outlines and vivid colors. Their vigorous rhythms, wealth of color, and sonority would make these fragments far more impressive to a savage than the suave beauty of a symphony by Haydn; yet do we not all know that while whole-hearted, intelligent enjoyment of a Haydn symphony is conditioned upon a considerable degree of culture, an equally whole-hearted, intelligent appreciation of Wagner's music presupposes a much wider range of sympathy, a much more extended view of the capabilities of musical expression, a much keener discernment, and a much profounder susceptibility to the effects of harmonic progressions? And is the conclusion not inevitable, therefore, that on the whole the ready acceptance of Wagner's music by a people is evidence that they are not sufficiently cultured to feel the force of that conservatism which made the triumph of Wagner consequent on many years of agitation in musical Germany? [Sidenote: _"Ahead of one's time."_] In one case the appeal is elemental; in the other spiritual. He who wishes to be in advance of his time does wisely in going to the people instead of the critics, just as the old fogy does whose music belongs to the time when sensuous charm summed up its essence. There is a good deal of ambiguity about the stereotyped phrase "ahead of one's time." Rightly apprehended, great geniuses do live for the future rather than the present, but where the public have the vastness of appetite and scantness of taste peculiar to the ostrich, there it is impossible for a composer to be ahead of his time. It is only where the public are advanced to the stage of intelligent discrimination that a Ninth Symphony and a Nibelung Tetralogy are accepted slowly. [Sidenote: _The charlatan._] [Sidenote: _Influencing the critics._] Why the charlatan should profess to despise the critic and to pay homage only to the public scarcely needs an explanation. It is the critic who stands between him and the public he would victimize. Much of the disaffection between the concert-giver and the concert-reviewer arises from the unwillingness of the latter to enlist in a conspiracy to deceive and defraud the public. There is no need of mincing phrases here. The critics of the newspaper press are besieged daily with requests for notices of a complimentary character touching persons who have no honest standing in art. They are fawned on, truckled to, cajoled, subjected to the most seductive influences, sometimes bribed with woman's smiles or manager's money--and why? To win their influence in favor of good art, think you? No; to feed vanity and greed. When a critic is found of sufficient self-respect and character to resist all appeals and to be proof against all temptations, who is quicker than the musician to cite against his opinion the applause of the public over whose gullibility and ignorance, perchance, he made merry with the critic while trying to purchase his independence and honor? [Sidenote: _The public an elemental force._] [Sidenote: _Critic and public._] [Sidenote: _Schumann and popular approval._] It is only when musicians divide the question touching the rights and merits of public and critic that they seem able to put a correct estimate upon the value of popular approval. At the last the best of them are willing, with Ferdinand Hiller, to look upon the public as an elemental power like the weather, which must be taken as it chances to come. With modern society resting upon the newspaper they might be willing to view the critic in the same light; but this they will not do so long as they adhere to the notion that criticism belongs of right to the professional musician, and will eventually be handed over to him. As for the critic, he may recognize the naturalness and reasonableness of a final resort for judgment to the factor for whose sake art is (_i.e._, the public), but he is not bound to admit its unfailing righteousness. Upon him, so he be worthy of his office, weighs the duty of first determining whether the appeal is taken from a lofty purpose or a low one, and whether or not the favored tribunal is worthy to try the case. Those who show a willingness to accept low ideals cannot exact high ones. The influence of their applause is a thousand-fold more injurious to art than the strictures of the most acrid critic. A musician of Schumann's mental and moral stature could recognize this and make it the basis of some of his most forcible aphorisms: "'It pleased,' or 'It did not please,' say the people; as if there were no higher purpose than to please the people." "The most difficult thing in the world to endure is the applause of fools!" [Sidenote: _Depreciation of the critic._] [Sidenote: _Value of public opinion._] The belief professed by many musicians--professed, not really held--that the public can do no wrong, unquestionably grows out of a depreciation of the critic rather than an appreciation of the critical acumen of the masses. This depreciation is due more to the concrete work of the critic (which is only too often deserving of condemnation) than to a denial of the good offices of criticism. This much should be said for the musician, who is more liable to be misunderstood and more powerless against misrepresentation than any other artist. A line should be drawn between mere expression of opinion and criticism. It has been recognized for ages--you may find it plainly set forth in Quintilian and Cicero--that in the long run the public are neither bad judges nor good critics. The distinction suggests a thought about the difference in value between a popular and a critical judgment. The former is, in the nature of things, ill considered and fleeting. It is the product of a momentary gratification or disappointment. In a much greater degree than a judgment based on principle and precedent, such as a critic's ought to be, it is a judgment swayed by that variable thing called fashion--"_Qual piùm' al vento._" [Sidenote: _Duties of the critic._] [Sidenote: _The musician's duty toward the critic._] But if this be so we ought plainly to understand the duties and obligations of the critic; perhaps it is because there is much misapprehension on this point that critics' writings have fallen under their own condemnation. I conceive that the first, if not the sole, office of the critic should be to guide public judgment. It is not for him to instruct the musician in his art. If this were always borne in mind by writers for the press it might help to soften the asperity felt by the musician toward the critic; and possibly the musician might then be persuaded to perform his first office toward the critic, which is to hold up his hands while he labors to steady and dignify public opinion. No true artist would give up years of honorable esteem to be the object for a moment of feverish idolatry. The public are fickle. "The garlands they twine," says Schumann, "they always pull to pieces again to offer them in another form to the next comer who chances to know how to amuse them better." Are such garlands worth the sacrifice of artistic honor? If it were possible for the critic to withhold them and offer instead a modest sprig of enduring bay, would not the musician be his debtor? [Sidenote: _The critic should steady public judgment._] [Sidenote: _Taste and judgment must be achieved._] Another thought. Conceding that the people are the elemental power that Hiller says they are, who shall save them from the changeableness and instability which they show with relation to music and her votaries? Who shall bid the restless waves be still? We, in America, are a new people, a vast hotch-potch of varied and contradictory elements. We are engaged in conquering a continent; employed in a mad scramble for material things; we give feverish hours to win the comfort for our bodies that we take only seconds to enjoy; the moments which we steal from our labors we give grudgingly to relaxation, and that this relaxation may come quickly we ask that the agents which produce it shall appeal violently to the faculties which are most easily reached. Under these circumstances whence are to come the intellectual poise, the refined taste, the quick and sure power of analysis which must precede a correct estimate of the value of a composition or its performance? "A taste or judgment," said Shaftesbury, "does not come ready formed with us into this world. Whatever principles or materials of this kind we may possibly bring with us, a legitimate and just taste can neither be begotten, made, conceived, or produced without the antecedent labor and pains of criticism." [Sidenote: _Comparative qualifications of critic and public._] Grant that this antecedent criticism is the province of the critic and that he approaches even remotely a fulfilment of his mission in this regard, and who shall venture to question the value and the need of criticism to the promotion of public opinion? In this work the critic has a great advantage over the musician. The musician appeals to the public with volatile and elusive sounds. When he gets past the tympanum of the ear he works upon the emotions and the fancy. The public have no time to let him do more; for the rest they are willing to refer him to the critic, whose business it is continually to hear music for the purpose of forming opinions about it and expressing them. The critic has both the time and the obligation to analyze the reasons why and the extent to which the faculties are stirred into activity. Is it not plain, therefore, that the critic ought to be better able to distinguish the good from the bad, the true from the false, the sound from the meretricious, than the unindividualized multitude, who are already satisfied when they have felt the ticklings of pleasure? [Sidenote: _The critic's responsibilities._] [Sidenote: _Toward the musician._] [Sidenote: _Position and power of the newspaper._] But when we place so great a mission as the education of public taste before the critic, we saddle him with a vast responsibility which is quite evenly divided between the musician and the public. The responsibility toward the musician is not that which we are accustomed to hear harped on by the aggrieved ones on the day after a concert. It is toward the musician only as a representative of art, and his just claims can have nothing of selfishness in them. The abnormal sensitiveness of the musician to criticism, though it may excite his commiseration and even honest pity, should never count with the critic in the performance of a plain duty. This sensitiveness is the product of a low state in music as well as criticism, and in the face of improvement in the two fields it will either disappear or fall under a killing condemnation. The power of the press will here work for good. The newspaper now fills the place in the musician's economy which a century ago was filled in Europe by the courts and nobility. Its support, indirect as well as direct, replaces the patronage which erstwhile came from these powerful ones. The evils which flow from the changed conditions are different in extent but not in kind from the old. Too frequently for the good of art that support is purchased by the same crookings of "the pregnant hinges of the knee" that were once the price of royal or noble condescension. If the tone of the press at times becomes arrogant, it is from the same causes that raised the voices and curled the lips of the petty dukes and princes, to flatter whose vanity great artists used to labor. [Sidenote: _The musician should help to elevate the standard of criticism._] [Sidenote: _A critic must not necessarily be a musician._] [Sidenote: _Pedantry not wanted._] The musician knows as well as anyone how impossible it is to escape the press, and it is, therefore, his plain duty to seek to raise the standard of its utterances by conceding the rights of the critic and encouraging honesty, fearlessness, impartiality, intelligence, and sympathy wherever he finds them. To this end he must cast away many antiquated and foolish prejudices. He must learn to confess with Wagner, the arch-enemy of criticism, that "blame is much more useful to the artist than praise," and that "the musician who goes to destruction because he is faulted, deserves destruction." He must stop the contention that only a musician is entitled to criticise a musician, and without abating one jot of his requirements as to knowledge, sympathy, liberality, broad-mindedness, candor, and incorruptibility on the part of the critic, he must quit the foolish claim that to pronounce upon the excellence of a ragout one must be able to cook it; if he will not go farther he must, at least, go with the elder D'Israeli to the extent of saying that "the talent of judgment may exist separately from the power of execution." One need not be a composer, but one must be able to feel with a composer before he can discuss his productions as they ought to be discussed. Not all the writers for the press are able to do this; many depend upon effrontery and a copious use of technical phrases to carry them through. The musician, alas! encourages this method whenever he gets a chance; nine times out of ten, when an opportunity to review a composition falls to him, he approaches it on its technical side. Yet music is of all the arts in the world the last that a mere pedant should discuss. But if not a mere pedant, then neither a mere sentimentalist. [Sidenote: _Intelligence versus emotionalism._] "If I had to choose between the merits of two classes of hearers, one of whom had an intelligent appreciation of music without feeling emotion; the other an emotional feeling without an intelligent analysis, I should unhesitatingly decide in favor of the intelligent non-emotionalist. And for these reasons: The verdict of the intelligent non-emotionalist would be valuable as far as it goes, but that of the untrained emotionalist is not of the smallest value; his blame and his praise are equally unfounded and empty." [Sidenote: _Personal equation._] [Sidenote: _Exact criticism._] So writes Dr. Stainer, and it is his emotionalist against whom I uttered a warning in the introductory chapter of this book, when I called him a rhapsodist and described his motive to be primarily a desire to present himself as a person of unusually exquisite sensibilities. Frequently the rhapsodic style is adopted to conceal a want of knowledge, and, I fancy, sometimes also because ill-equipped critics have persuaded themselves that criticism being worthless, what the public need to read is a fantastic account of how music affects them. Now, it is true that what is chiefly valuable in criticism is what a man qualified to think and feel tells us he did think and feel under the inspiration of a performance; but when carried too far, or restricted too much, this conception of a critic's province lifts personal equation into dangerous prominence in the critical activity, and depreciates the elements of criticism, which are not matters of opinion or taste at all, but questions of fact, as exactly demonstrable as a problem in mathematics. In musical performance these elements belong to the technics of the art. Granted that the critic has a correct ear, a thing which he must have if he aspire to be a critic at all, and the possession of which is as easily proved as that of a dollar-bill in his pocket, the questions of justness of intonation in a singer or instrumentalist, balance of tone in an orchestra, correctness of phrasing, and many other things, are mere determinations of fact; the faculties which recognize their existence or discover their absence might exist in a person who is not "moved by concord of sweet sounds" at all, and whose taste is of the lowest type. It was the acoustician Euler, I believe, who said that he could construct a sonata according to the laws of mathematics--figure one out, that is. [Sidenote: _The Rhapsodists._] [Sidenote: _An English exemplar._] Because music is in its nature such a mystery, because so little of its philosophy, so little of its science is popularly known, there has grown up the tribe of rhapsodical writers whose influence is most pernicious. I have a case in mind at which I have already hinted in this book--that of a certain English gentleman who has gained considerable eminence because of the loveliness of the subject on which he writes and his deftness in putting words together. On many points he is qualified to speak, and on these he generally speaks entertainingly. He frequently blunders in details, but it is only when he writes in the manner exemplified in the following excerpt from his book called "My Musical Memories," that he does mischief. The reverend gentleman, talking about violins, has reached one that once belonged to Ernst. This, he says, he sees occasionally, but he never hears it more except [Sidenote: _Ernst's violin._] "In the night ... under the stars, when the moon is low and I see the dark ridges of the clover hills, and rabbits and hares, black against the paler sky, pausing to feed or crouching to listen to the voices of the night.... "By the sea, when the cold mists rise, and hollow murmurs, like the low wail of lost spirits, rush along the beach.... "In some still valley in the South, in midsummer. The slate-colored moth on the rock flashes suddenly into crimson and takes wing; the bright lizard darts timorously, and the singing of the grasshopper--" [Sidenote: _Mischievous writing._] [Sidenote: _Musical sensibility and sanity._] Well, the reader, if he has a liking for such things, may himself go on for quantity. This is intended, I fancy, for poetical hyperbole, but as a matter of fact it is something else, and worse. Mr. Haweis does not hear Ernst's violin under any such improbable conditions; if he thinks he does he is a proper subject for medical inquiry. Neither does his effort at fine writing help us to appreciate the tone of the instrument. He did not intend that it should, but he probably did intend to make the reader marvel at the exquisite sensibility of his soul to music. This is mischievous, for it tends to make the injudicious think that they are lacking in musical appreciation, unless they, too, can see visions and hear voices and dream fantastic dreams when music is sounding. When such writing is popular it is difficult to make men and women believe that they may be just as susceptible to the influence of music as the child Mozart was to the sound of a trumpet, yet listen to it without once feeling the need of taking leave of their senses or wandering away from sanity. Moreover, when Mr. Haweis says that he sees but does not hear Ernst's violin more, he speaks most undeserved dispraise of one of the best violin players alive, for Ernst's violin now belongs to and is played by Lady Hallé--she that was Madame Norman-Neruda. [Sidenote: _A place for rhapsody._] [Sidenote: _Intelligent rhapsody._] Is there, then, no place for rhapsodic writing in musical criticism? Yes, decidedly. It may, indeed, at times be the best, because the truest, writing. One would convey but a sorry idea of a composition were he to confine himself to a technical description of it--the number of its measures, its intervals, modulations, speed, and rhythm. Such a description would only be comprehensible to the trained musician, and to him would picture the body merely, not the soul. One might as well hope to tell of the beauty of a statue by reciting its dimensions. But knowledge as well as sympathy must speak out of the words, so that they may realize Schumann's lovely conception when he said that the best criticism is that which leaves after it an impression on the reader like that which the music made on the hearer. Read Dr. John Brown's account of one of Hallé's recitals, reprinted from "The Scotsman," in the collection of essays entitled "Spare Hours," if you would see how aptly a sweetly sane mind and a warm heart can rhapsodize without the help of technical knowledge: [Sidenote: _Dr. Brown and Beethoven._] "Beethoven (Dr. Brown is speaking of the Sonata in D, op. 10, No. 3) begins with a trouble, a wandering and groping in the dark, a strange emergence of order out of chaos, a wild, rich confusion and misrule. Wilful and passionate, often harsh, and, as it were, thick with gloom; then comes, as if 'it stole upon the air,' the burden of the theme, the still, sad music--_Largo e mesto_--so human, so sorrowful, and yet the sorrow overcome, not by gladness but by something better, like the sea, after a dark night of tempest, falling asleep in the young light of morning, and 'whispering how meek and gentle it can be.' This likeness to the sea, its immensity, its uncertainty, its wild, strong glory and play, its peace, its solitude, its unsearchableness, its prevailing sadness, comes more into our minds with this great and deep master's works than any other." That is Beethoven. [Sidenote: _Apollo and the critic--a fable._] [Sidenote: _The critic's duty to admire._] [Sidenote: _A mediator between musician and public._] [Sidenote: _Essential virtues._] Once upon a time--it is an ancient fable--a critic picked out all the faults of a great poet and presented them to Apollo. The god received the gift graciously and set a bag of wheat before the critic with the command that he separate the chaff from the kernels. The critic did the work with alacrity, and turning to Apollo for his reward, received the chaff. Nothing could show us more appositely than this what criticism should not be. A critic's duty is to separate excellence from defect, as Dr. Crotch says; to admire as well as to find fault. In the proportion that defects are apparent he should increase his efforts to discover beauties. Much flows out of this conception of his duty. Holding it the critic will bring besides all needful knowledge a fulness of love into his work. "Where sympathy is lacking, correct judgment is also lacking," said Mendelssohn. The critic should be the mediator between the musician and the public. For all new works he should do what the symphonists of the Liszt school attempt to do by means of programmes; he should excite curiosity, arouse interest, and pave the way to popular comprehension. But for the old he should not fail to encourage reverence and admiration. To do both these things he must know his duty to the past, the present, and the future, and adjust each duty to the other. Such adjustment is only possible if he knows the music of the past and present, and is quick to perceive the bent and outcome of novel strivings. He should be catholic in taste, outspoken in judgment, unalterable in allegiance to his ideals, unswervable in integrity. PLATES [Illustration: PLATE I VIOLIN--(CLIFFORD SCHMIDT)] [Illustration: PLATE II VIOLONCELLO--(VICTOR HERBERT)] [Illustration: PLATE III PICCOLO FLUTE--(C. KURTH, JUN.)] [Illustration: PLATE IV OBOE--(JOSEPH ELLER)] [Illustration: PLATE V ENGLISH HORN--(JOSEPH ELLER)] [Illustration: PLATE VI BASSOON--(FEDOR BERNHARDI)] [Illustration: PLATE VII CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER)] [Illustration: PLATE VIII BASS CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER)] [Illustration: PLATE IX FRENCH HORN--(CARL PIEPER)] [Illustration: PLATE X TROMBONE--(J. PFEIFFENSCHNEIDER)] [Illustration: PLATE XI BASS TUBA--(ANTON REITER)] [Illustration: PLATE XII THE CONDUCTOR'S SCORE] INDEX Absolute music, 36 Academy of Music, New York, 203 Adagio, in symphony, 133 Addison, 205, 206, 208 Allegro, in symphony, 132 Allemande, 173, 174 Alto clarinet, 104 Alto, male, 260 Amadeo, 241 Ambros, August Wilhelm, 49 Antiphony, 267 Archilochus, 213 Aria, 235 Arioso, 235 Asaph, 115 Bach, C.P.E., 180, 185 Bach, Johann Sebastian, 69, 83, 148, 167, 169, 170, 171, 174, 176, 180, 181, 184, 192, 257, 259, 267, 268, 278, 281, 282, 283, 286, 287, 289; his music, 281 _et seq._; his technique as player, 180, 181, 184; his choirs, 257, 259; compared with Palestrina, 278; "Magnificat," 283; Mass in B minor, 283; Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, 171; Suites, 174, 176; "St. Matthew Passion," 267, 278, 282, 286, 289; Motet, "Sing ye to the Lord," 268; "St. John Passion," 286 _Balancement_, 170 Balfe, 223 Ballade, 192 Ballet music, 152 _Balletto_, 173 Bass clarinet, 104 Bass trumpet, 81, 82 Basset horn, 82 Bassoon, 74, 82, 99, 101 _et seq._ Bastardella, La, 239 Bayreuth Festival orchestra, 81, 82 _Bebung_, 169, 170 Beethoven, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 44, 46, 47, 49, 53, 60, 62, 63, 70, 92, 94, 101, 102, 103, 106, 113, 120, 125, 131, 132, 133, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 146, 147, 151, 167, 182, 184, 186, 187, 193, 195, 196, 203, 208, 232, 292, 321, 322; likenesses in his melodies, 33, 34; unity in his works, 27, 28, 29; his chamber music, 47; his sonatas, 182; his democracy, 46; not always idiomatic, 193; his pianoforte, 195; his pedal effects, 196; missal compositions, 292, 294; his overtures, 147; his free fantasias, 131; his technique as a player, 186; "Eroica" symphony, 100, 132, 136; Fifth symphony, 28, 29, 30, 31, 92, 103, 120, 125, 133; "Pastoral" symphony, 44, 49, 53, 62, 63, 94, 102, 132, 140, 141; Seventh symphony, 31, 32, 132, 133; Eighth symphony, 113; Ninth symphony, 33, 34, 35, 94, 133, 136, 138, 305; Sonata, op. 10, No. 3, 321; Sonata, op. 31, No. 2, 29; Sonata "Appassionata," 29, 30, 31; Pianoforte concerto in G, 31; Pianoforte concerto in E-flat, 146; Violin concerto, 146; "Becalmed at Sea," 60; "Fidelio," 203, 208, 232; Mass in D, 60, 292, 294; Serenade, op. 8, 151 Bell chime, 74 Bellini, 203, 204, 242, 245; "La Sonnambula," 204, 245; "Norma," 242 Benedetti, 242 Berlin _Singakademie_, 262 Berlioz, 49, 80, 87, 89, 90, 94, 100, 102, 104, 113, 137, 138, 139, 294, 295; "_L'idée fixe_," 137; "Symphonie Fantastique," 137; "Romeo and Juliet," 90, 94, 139; Requiem, 113, 294, 295 Bizet, "Carmen," 238, 242 Boileau, 206 Bosio, 241 Boston Symphony Orchestra, 81, 82, 108 Bottesini, 94 Bourrée, 173 Brahms's "Academic overture," 101 Branle, 173 Brass instruments, 74, 104 _et seq._ Brignoli, 209, 242 Broadwood's pianoforte, 195 Brown, Dr. John, 321 _Bully Bottom_ in music, 61 Bunner, H.C., 136 Burns's "Ye flowery banks," 175 Caccini, "Eurydice," 234 Cadences, 23 Cadenzas, 145 Calvé, Emma, 242, 247 Calvin and music, 275 Campanini, 242 Cantatas, 290 Cat's mew in music, 52 Catalani, 245, 246 Chaconne, 153 Chamber music, 36, 44 _et seq._, 144 Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 81, 82, 108 Choirs, 253 _et seq._; size of, 257 _et seq._, 264, 271; men's, 255, 260; boys', 261; women's, 261; mixed, 262, 264; division of, 260, 266; growth of, in Germany, 262; history of, in America, 263; in Cincinnati, 264; contralto voices in, 270 Choirs, orchestral, 74 Chopin, 167, 188, 190, 191, 192, 196; his romanticism, 188; Preludes, 190; Études, 191; Nocturnes, 191; Ballades, 192; Polonaises, 192; Mazurkas, 192; his pedal effects, 196 Choral music, 253 _et seq._; antiphonal, 267; mediæval, 274; Calvin on, 275; Luther's influence on, 276; congregational, 277; secular tunes in, 276, 277; Romanticism, influence on, 277; preponderance in oratorio, 289; dramatic and descriptive, 289 Chorley, H.F., on Jenny Lind's singing, 243 Church cantatas, 284 Cicero, 309 Cincinnati, choirs in, 264 Cinti-Damoreau, 241 Clarinet, 47, 74, 78, 82, 103 _et seq._, 151 Classical concerts, 122 _et seq._ Classical music, 36, 64, 122 _et seq._ Clavichord, 168, 181 _Clavier_, 171, 173 Clementi, 185, 195 Cock, song of the, 51, 53, 54 Coleridge, 11, 144 Coletti, 242 Comic opera, 224 Composers, how they hear music, 40 Concerto, 128, 144 _et seq._ Conductor, 114 _et seq._ Content of music, 36 _et seq._ Contra-bass trombone, 81, 82 Contra-bass tuba, 81, 82 Co-ordination of tones, 17 Coranto, Corrente, 173, 176 Cornelius, "Barbier von Bagdad," 236 Cornet, 73, 82, 108 Corno di bassetto, 81, 82 Corsi, 242 Couperin, 168 Courante, 173, 176 Covent Garden Theatre, London, 224, 226 Cowen, "Welsh" and "Scandinavian" symphonies, 132 Cracovienne, 193 Creole tune analyzed, 23, 24 Critics and criticism, 13, 297 _et seq._ Crotch, Dr., 322 Cuckoo, 51, 52, 53 Cymbals, 74, 82 Czardas, 201 Czerny, 186 Dactylic metre, 31 Dance, the ancient, 43, 212 Dannreuther, Edward, 129, 144, 187 Depth, musical delineation of, 59, 60 De Reszke, Edouard, 248 De Reszke, Jean, 247 Descriptive music, 51 _et seq._ Design and form, 16 De Staël, Madame, 210 D'Israeli, 315 Distance, musical delineation of, 60 Dithyramb, 212, 213 "Divisions," 265 Doles, Cantor, 292 Donizetti, 203, 204, 242; "Lucia," 203, 204 Double-bass, 74, 78, 82, 94 Double-bassoon, 103 Dragonetti, 94 Dramatic ballads, 290 Dramatic orchestras, 81, 82 _Dramma per musica_, 227, 249 Drummers, 113 Drums, 73, 74, 82, 110 _et seq._ Duality of music, 15 "Dump" and _Dumka_, 151 _Durchführung_, 131 Dvorák, symphonies, "From the New World," 132, 138; in G major, 136 Eames, Emma, 247 Edwards, G. Sutherland, 12 Elements of music, 15, 19 Emotionality in music, 43 English horn, 82, 99, 100 English opera, 223 Ernst's violin, 320 Esterhazy, Prince, 46 Euler, acoustician, 317 Expression, words of, 43 Familiar music best liked, 21 Fancy, 15, 16, 58 Farinelli, 240 Fasch, C.F., 262 Feelings, their relation to music, 38 _et seq._, 215, 216 Ferri, 239, 240 Finale, symphonic, 135 First movement in symphony, 131 Flageolet tones, 89 Florentine inventors of the opera, 217, 227, 234, 249 Flute, 73, 74, 78, 82, 95 _et seq._ Form, 16, 17, 22, 35 Formes, 242, 248 Frederick the Great, 263 Free Fantasia, 131 French horn, 47, 106 _et seq._ Frezzolini, 242 _Friss_, 201 Frogs, musical delineation of, 58, 62 "Gallina et Gallo," 53 Gavotte, 173, 179 German opera, 226 Gerster, Etelka, 242, 245 Gesture, 43 Gigue, 173, 174, 178 Gilbert, W.S., 208, 224 Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas, 224 _Glockenspiel_, 110 Gluck, 84, 148, 153, 202, 203, 238; his dancers, 153; his orchestra, 238; "Alceste," 148; "Iphigénie en Aulide," 153; "Orfeo," 202, 203 Goethe, 34, 140, 223 Goldmark, "Sakuntala" overture, 149 Gong, 110 Gossec, Requiem, 293 Gounod, "Faust," 209, 224, 238, 246 _Grand Opéra_, 223, 224 Greek Tragedy, 211 _et seq._ Grisi, 241, 242 _Grosse Oper_, 224 Grove, Sir George, 33, 63, 141, 187 Gypsy music, 198 _et seq._ Hallé, Lady, 320 Hamburg, opera in, 206, 207 Handel, 58, 60, 62, 83, 102, 126, 148, 174, 177, 178, 181, 182, 184, 256, 257, 258, 259, 265, 272; his orchestra, 84; his suites, 174; his overtures, 148; his technique as a player, 181, 182, 184; his choirs, 257; Commemoration, 258; his _tutti_, 258; "Messiah," 60, 126, 256, 257, 265, 272; "Saul," 102; "Almira," 177; "Rinaldo," 178; "Israel in Egypt," 58, 62, 257, 259, 289; "_Lascia ch'io pianga_," 178 Hanslick, Dr. Eduard, 203 Harmonics, on violin, 89 Harmony, 19, 21, 22, 218 Harp, 82 Harpsichord, 168, 170 Hauptmann, M., 41 Hautboy, 99 Haweis, the Rev. Mr., 318 _et seq._ Haydn, 46, 84, 100, 127, 168, 183, 295; his manner of composing, 183; dramatic effects in his masses, 295; "Seasons," 100 Hebrew music, 114; poetry, 25 Height, musical delineation of, 59, 60 Heman, 115 Hen, song of, in music, 52, 53, 54 Herbarth, philosopher, 39 Hiller, Ferdinand, 307, 310 Hiller, Johann Adam, 258 Hogarth, Geo., "Memoirs of the Opera," 210, 245 Horn, 82, 105, 106 _et seq._, 151 Hungarian music, 198 _et seq._ Hymn-tunes, history of, 275 Iambics, 175 "_Idée fixe_," Berlioz's, 137 Identification of themes, 35 Idiomatic pianoforte music, 193, 194 Idioms, musical, 44, 51, 55 Imagination, 15, 16, 58 Imitation of natural sounds, 51 Individual attitude of man toward music, 37 Instrumental musicians, former legal status of, 83 Instrumentation, 71 _et seq._; in the mass, 293 _et seq._ Intelligent hearing, 16, 18, 37 Intermediary necessary, 20 _Intermezzi_, 221 Interrelation of musical elements, 22 Janizary music, 97 Jean Paul, 67, 189, 190 Jeduthun, 115 Jig, 179 Judgment, 311 Kalidasa, 149 Kettle-drums, 111 _et seq._ Key relationship, 26, 129 Kinds of music, 36 _et seq._ _Kirchencantaten_, 284 Krakowiak, 193 Kullak, 184 Lablache, 248 La Grange, 241, 245 Lamb, Charles, 10 Language of tones, 42, 43 _Lassu_, 201 Laws, musical, mutability of, 69 Lehmann, Lilli, 233, 244, 247 Lenz, 33 Leoncavallo, 228 Lind, Jenny, 241, 243 Liszt, 132, 140, 142, 143, 167, 168, 193, 197, 198, 228; his music, 168, 193, 197; his transcriptions, 167; his rhapsodies, 167, 198; his symphonic poems, 142; "Faust" symphony, 132, 140; Concerto in E-flat, 143; "St. Elizabeth," 288 Literary blunders concerning music, 9, 10, 11, 12 Local color, 152, 153 London opera, 206, 207, 226 Louis XIV., 179 Lucca, Pauline, 242, 246, 247 Lully, his overtures, 148; minuet, 179; "Atys," 206 Luther, Martin, 276 Lyric drama, 231, 234, 237, 251 Madrigal, 274 Magyar music, 198 _et seq._ Major mode, 57 Male alto, 260 Male chorus, 255, 260 Malibran, 241 _Männergesang_, 255, 260 Marie Antoinette, 153 Mario, 242, 247, 271 Marschner, "Hans Heiling," 225; "Templer und Jüdin," 225; "Vampyr," 225; his operas, 248 Mascagni, 228 Mass, the, 290 _et seq._ Massenet, "Le Cid," 152 Materials of music, 16 Materna, Amalia, 247 Matthews, Brander, 11 Mazurka, 192 Melba, Nellie, 204, 238, 245, 247, 271 Melody, 19, 21, 22, 24 Memory, 19, 21, 73 Mendelssohn, 41, 42, 49, 59, 61, 67, 102, 109, 132, 139, 140, 149, 168, 243, 278, 288, 289, 322; on the content of music, 41, 42; his Romanticism, 67; on the use of the trombones, 109; opinion of Jenny Lind, 243; "Songs without Words," 41; "Hebrides" overture, 59, 149; "Midsummer Night's Dream," 61, 102; "Scotch" symphony, 132, 139; "Italian" symphony, 132; "Hymn of Praise," 140; "St. Paul," 278; "Elijah," 288, 289 Mersenne, "Harmonie universelle," 175, 176 Metropolitan Opera House, New York, 203, 224, 226, 244 Meyerbeer, 89, 102, 203, 204, 208, 242, 243, 244; "L'Africaine," 89; "Robert le Diable," 102, 208, 244; "Huguenots," 204; "L'Étoile du Nord," 243 Military bands, 123 Minor mode, 57 Minuet, 134, 151, 173, 179 Mirabeau, 293 Model, none in nature for music, 8, 180 Monteverde, "Orfeo," 87 Moscheles, on Jenny Lind's singing, 243 Motet, 283 Motives, 22, 24 Mozart, 84, 109, 132, 145, 151, 168, 183, 184, 195, 202, 203, 221, 224, 228, 230, 238, 244, 265, 292; his pianoforte technique, 184; on Doles's mass, 292; his orchestra, 238; his edition of Handel's "Messiah," 265; on cadenzas, 145; his pianoforte, 195; his serenades, 151; "Don Giovanni," 109, 202, 221, 222, 228, 230; "Magic Flute," 203; G-minor symphony, 132; "Figaro," 202, 228 _Musica parlante_, 234 Musical instruction, deficiencies in, 9 Musician, Critic, and Public, 297 _Musikdrama_, 227, 238, 249 Neri, Filippo, 288 Nevada, Emma, 204 Newspaper, the modern, 297, 298, 313 New York Opera, 206, 226, 241 Niecks, Frederick, 192 Niemann, Albert, 233 Nightingale, in music, 52 Nilsson, Christine, 242, 246, 247 Nordica, Lillian, 247 Norman-Neruda, Madame, 320 Notes not music, 20 Nottebohm, "Beethoveniana," 63 Oboe, 47, 74, 78, 82, 84, 98 _et seq._ Opera, descriptive music in, 61; history of, 202 _et seq._; language of, 205; polyglot performances of, 207 _et seq._; their texts perverted, 207 _et seq._; words of, 209, 210; elements in, 214; invention of, 216 _et seq._; varieties of, 220 _et seq._; comic elements in, 221; action and incident in, 236; singing in, 239; singers compared, 241 _et seq._ _Opéra bouffe_, 220, 221, 225 _Opera buffa_, 220 _Opéra comique_, 223 _Opéra, Grand_, 223 _Opera in musica_, 228 _Opera semiseria_, 221 _Opera seria_, 220 _Opus_, 132 Oratorio, 256, 287 _et seq._ Orchestra, 71 _et seq._ Ostrander, Dr. Lucas, 278 "Ouida," 12 Overture, 147 _et seq._, 174 Paderewski, his recitals, 154 _et seq._; his Romanticism, 167; "Krakowiak," 193 Painful, the, not fit subject for music, 50 Palestrina and Bach, 278 _et seq._; his music, 279 _et seq._; "Stabat Mater," 279, 280; "Improperia," 280; "Missa Papæ Marcelli," 280 Pandean pipes, 98 Pantomime, 43 Parallelism, 25 Passepied, 173 "Passions," 284 _et seq._ Patti, Adelina, 203, 204, 238, 242, 245, 247 Pedals, pianoforte, 195, 196 Pedants, 13, 315 Percussion instruments, 110 _et seq._ Peri, "Eurydice," 234 Periods, musical, 22, 24 Perkins, C.C., 263 Pfund, his drums, 112 Philharmonic Society of New York, 76, 77, 81, 82 Phrases, musical, 22, 24 Physical effects of music, 38 Pianoforte, history and description of, 154 _et seq._; its music, 154 _et seq._, 166 _et seq._; concertos, 144; trios, 147 Piccolo flute, 85, 97 Piccolomini, 242, 245 Pictures in music, 40 _Pifa_, Handel's, 126 _Pizzicato_, 88, 91 Plançon, 248 Polonaise, 192 Polyphony and feelings, 39 Popular concerts, 122 Porpora, 209 "_Pov' piti Momzelle Zizi_," 23 Preludes, 148, 174 Programme music, 36, 44, 48 _et seq._, 64, 142 Puccini, 228 Quail, call of, in music, 51, 54 Quartet, 147 Quilled instruments, 170 Quinault, "Atys," 206 Quintet, 147 Quintillian, 309 Raff, 49, 96, 132; "Lenore" symphony, 96, 132; "Im Walde" symphony, 132 Rameau, 168 Recitative, 219, 220, 228 _et seq._ Reed instruments, 98 _et seq._ Reformation, its influence on music, 275, 278, 280 Refrain, 25 Register of the orchestra, 85 Repetition, 22, 25 Rhapsodists among writers, 13, 315 _et seq._ Rhythm, 19, 21, 26, 160 "_Ridendo castigat mores_," 225 Rinuccini, "Eurydice," 234 Romantic music, 36, 64 _et seq._, 71, 277 Romantic opera, 225 Ronconi, 242 Rondeau and Rondo, 135 Rossini, 147, 228, 242; his overtures, 147; "Il Barbiere," 228; "William Tell," 93, 100 Rubinstein, 59, 152, 167, 168, 287; his historical recitals, 167; his sacred operas, 287; "Ocean" symphony, 59; "Feramors," 152 Ruskin, John, 302 Russian composers, 134 Sacred Operas, 287 Saint-Saëns, "Danse Macabre," 101, 111; symphony in C minor, 141; "Samson and Delilah," 288 Salvi, 242 Sarabande, 173, 174, 177 Sassarelli, 240 Scarlatti, D., 167, 172, 182; his technique, 172; "Capriccio" and "Pastorale," 172 Scheffer, Ary, 246 Scherzo, 133, 179 Schröder-Devrient, 232 Schubert, 168 Schumann, 49, 64, 132, 133, 139, 140, 141, 167, 188, 189, 190, 196, 254, 308, 310; his Romanticism, 188; and Jean Paul, 189; his pedal effects, 196; on popular judgment, 308, 310; symphony in C, 132; symphony in D minor, 139; symphony in B-flat, 140; "Rhenish" symphony, 140, 141; "Carnaval," 189, 190; "Papillons," 189, 190; "Kreisleriana," 190; "Phantasiestücke," 190 Score, 120 "Scotch snap," 52, 200 Second movement in symphony, 133 Seidl, Anton, 77 Sembrich, Marcella, 242, 245 Senesino, 239, 240 Sense-perception, 18 Serenade, 149 _et seq._ Shaftesbury, Lord, 311 Shakespeare, his dances, 153, 179; his dramas, 202; a Romanticist, 221; "Two Gentlemen of Verona," 150; Queen Mab, 90 Singing, physiology of, 215, 218; operatic, 239; choral, 268 Singing Societies, 253 _et seq._ _Singspiel_, 223 Smith, F. Hopkinson, 11 _Sonata da Camera_, 173 Sonata, 127, 182, 183 Sonata form, 127 _et seq._ Sontag, 241, 244, 245, 246 Sordino, 90 Space, music has no place in, 59 Speech and music, 43 Spencer, Herbert, 39, 43, 216, 218, 230 Spinet, 168, 170 Spohr, "Jessonda," 225 Stainer, Dr., 39, 316 Stein, pianoforte maker, 196 _Stilo rappresentativo_, 234 Stories, in music, 40 Strings, orchestral, 74, 82, 86 _et seq._, 102 Sucher, Rosa, 247 Suite, 129, 152, 173 _et seq._ Symphonic poem, 142 Symphonic prologue, 148 Symphony, 124 _et seq._, 183 Syrinx, 98 Talent in listening, 4 Tambourine, 110 Tappert, "Zooplastik in Tönen," 51 Taste, 311 Technique, 163 _et seq._ Tennyson, 9 Terminology, musical, 8 _Théatre nationale de l'Opéra-Comique_, 223 Thespis, 212 Thomas, "Mignon," 223 _Tibia_, 98 Titiens, 242 Tonal language, 42, 43 Tones, co-ordination of, 17 Touch, 163 _et seq._ _Tragedia per musica_, 227 Tremolo, 91 Trench, Archbishop, 65, 66 Triangle, 74, 110 Trio, 134 Triolet, 136 Trombone, 82, 105, 106, 109 _et seq._ Trumpet, 105, 108 Tschaikowsky, 88, 132; "Symphonie Pathétique," 132 Tuba, 82, 85, 106, 108 "Turkish" music, 97 Tympani, 82, 111 _et seq._ Ugly, the, not fit for music, 50 United States, first to have amateur singing societies, 257, 262; spread of choral music in, 263 Unity in the symphony, 27, 137 Vaudevilles, 224 Verdi, 152, 203, 210, 228, 236, 238, 242, 243; "Aïda," 152, 228, 238; "Il Trovatore," 210, 243; "Otello," 228, 238; "Falstaff," 228, 236; Requiem, 290 Vestris, 153 Vibrato, 90 Vile, the, unfit for music, 50 Viola, 74, 77, 82, 92, 93 _Viole da braccio_, 93 _Viole da gamba_, 93 Violin, 73, 74, 77, 82, 86 _et seq._, 144, 162 Violin concertos, 145 Violoncello, 74, 77, 82, 92, 93, 94 Virginal, 168, 170 Vocal music, 61, 215 _Vorspiel_, 148 Wagner, 41, 79, 80, 81, 88, 89, 94, 111, 205, 206, 219, 226, 227, 232, 235, 237, 238, 244, 248, 249, 250, 251, 303, 305, 314; on the content of music, 41; his instrumentation, 80, 111; his dramas, 219, 226, 227, 248; _Musikdrama_, 227, 249; his dialogue, 235; his orchestra, 238, 250; his operas, 248; his theories, 249; endless melody, 250; typical phrases, 250; "leading motives," 250; popularity of his music, 303; on criticism, 314; "Flying Dutchman," 248; "Tannhäuser," 248; "Lohengrin," 79, 88, 235, 248; "Die Meistersinger," 249; "Tristan und Isolde," 87, 237, 249; "Rheingold," 237; "Die Walküre," 94, 237; "Siegfried," 237, 244; "Die Götterdämmerung," 237; "Ring of the Nibelung," 249, 251, 305; "Parsifal," 249 _Waldhorn,_ 107 Wallace, W.V., 223 Walter, Jacob, 53 Water, musical delineation of, 58, 59 Weber, 67, 96, 244, 248; his Romanticism, 67; "Der Freischütz," 96, 225; "Oberon," 225; "Euryanthe," 225 Weitzmann, "Geschichte des Clavierspiels," 201 Welsh choirs, 255 Wood-wind instruments, 74, 77, 78, 95 Xylophone, 111 Ysaye, on Cadenzas, 146 SOME MUSICAL BOOKS THE LETTERS OF FRANZ LISZT. Edited and collected by LA MARA. With portraits. Crown 8vo, 2 vols., $6.00. RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS to his Dresden Friends--Theodore Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine. Translated by J.S. SHEDLOCK. Crown 8vo, $3.50. JENNY LIND THE ARTIST, 1820-1851. Memoir of Madame Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt. Her Art Life and Dramatic Career, from original documents, etc. By CANON H.S. HOLLAND and W.S. ROCKSTRO. With illustrations, 12mo, $2.50. WAGNER AND HIS WORKS. The Story of his Life, with Critical Comments. By HENRY T. FINCK. Third edition. With portraits. 2 vols., 12mo, $4.00. CHOPIN AND OTHER MUSICAL ESSAYS. By HENRY T. FINCK. 12mo, $1.50. A CONCISE HISTORY OF MUSIC, from the Commencement of the Christian Era to the present time. By H.G.B. HUNT. With numerous tables. 12mo, $1.00. CHARLES GOUNOD, AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES, with Family Letters and Notes on Music. Translated by the HON. W. HUTCHINSON. With portrait. 8vo, $3.00. THE GREAT MUSICIANS SERIES. Edited by F. HUEFFER. 14 vols., 12mo, each, $1.00. THE STUDENT'S HELMHOLTZ. Musical Acoustics, or the Phenomena of Sound. By JOHN BROADHOUSE. With musical illustrations and examples. 12mo, $3.00. CYCLOPEDIA OF MUSIC AND MUSICIANS. Edited by JOHN DENISON CHAMPLIN, JR. Critical editor, W.F. APTHORP. Popular edition. Large octavo, 3 vols., $15.00 net. LETTERS OF A BARITONE. By FRANCIS WALKER. 16mo, $1.25. MUSICIANS AND MUSIC LOVERS, AND OTHER ESSAYS. By W.F. APTHORP. 12mo, $1.50. THE WAGNER STORY BOOK. Firelight Tales of the Great Music-Dramas. By W.H. FROST. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50. MASTERS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC. 4 vols., 12mo. Illustrated. Each, $1.75. Masters of English Music, by Charles Willeby; Masters of French Music, by Arthur Hervey; Masters of German Music, by J.A. Fuller-Maitland; Masters of Italian Music, by R.A. Streatfield. THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH MUSIC. By Rev. F.L. HUMPHREYS, 12mo, $1.75 net. THE STORY OF BRITISH MUSIC, from the Earliest Times to the Tudor Period. By F.J. CROWEST. Illustrated. 8vo, $3.50. THE HISTORY OF MUSIC, from the Earliest Times to the Time of the Troubadours. By J.F. ROWBOTHAM. 12mo, $2.50. THE LEGENDS OF THE WAGNER DRAMA. Studies in Mythology and Romance. By JESSIE L. WESTON. 12mo, $2.25. _A Descriptive List of Musical Books (112 pages) sent upon application._ Charles Scribner's Sons, Publishers, 153-157 Fifth Ave., New York. 
34610	----	HOW TO APPRECIATE MUSIC by GUSTAV KOBBÉ Author of "Wagner's Music-Dramas Analyzed," etc. New York Moffat, Yard & Company 1912 Copyright, 1906, by Moffat, Yard & Company New York Published, October, 1906 Reprinted, February, 1908 Reprinted, September, 1908 Reprinted, May, 1912 The Premier Press New York * * * * * To the Memory of My Brother PHILIP FERDINAND KOBBÉ * * * * * CONTENTS _HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE RECITAL_ CHAPTER PAGE I The Pianoforte 29 II Bach's Service to Music 48 III From Fugue to Sonata 78 IV Dawn of the Romantic Period 100 V Chopin, the Poet of the Pianoforte 116 VI Schumann, the "Intimate" 134 VII Liszt, the Giant among Virtuosos 142 VIII With Paderewski--A Modern Pianist on Tour 155 _HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT_ IX Development of the Orchestra 167 X Instruments of the Orchestra 179 XI Concerning Symphonies 197 XII Richard Strauss and His Music 207 XIII A Note on Chamber Music 224 _HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC_ XIV Songs and Song Composers 231 XV Oratorio 248 XVI Opera and Music-Drama 260 TABLE OF CONTENTS _HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE RECITAL_ CHAPTER PAGE I.--THE PIANOFORTE Why the king of musical instruments--Music under one's fingers--Can render anything in music--Liszt played the whole orchestra on the pianoforte--Fingers of a great virtuoso the ambassadors of his soul--Melody and accompaniment on one instrument--No intermediaries to mar effect--Paderewski's playing of "Hark, Hark, the Lark"--Music's debt to the pianoforte--Developed sonata form and gave it to orchestra--Richard Strauss on Beethoven's pianistic orchestration--A boon to many famous composers, even to Wagner--Its lowly origin--Nine centuries to develop pianoforte from monochord--The monochord described--Joined to a keyboard--Poet's amusing advice to his musical daughter--Clavichord developed from monochord--Its lack of power--Bebung, or balancement--The harpsichord--Originated in the cembalo of the Hungarian gypsy orchestra--Spinet and virginal--Pianoforte invented by Cristofori, 1711--Exploited by Silbermann--Strings of twenty tons' tension--Dampers and pedals--Paderewski's use of both pedals--Mechanical pianofortes--Senseless decoration 29 II.--BACH'S SERVICE TO MUSIC Pianoforte so universal in character can give, through it, a general survey of the art of music--Bach illustrates an epoch--A Bach fugue more elaborate than a music-drama or tone poem--Bach more modern than Haydn or Mozart--His influence on modern music--Wagner unites the harmony of Beethoven with the polyphony of Bach--Melody, harmony and counterpoint defined and differentiated--Illustrated from the "Moonlight Sonata"--What a fugue is--The fugue and the virtuoso--Not "grateful" music for public performance--Daniel Gregory Mason's tribute and reservation--What counterpoint lacks--Fails to give the player as much scope as modern music--Barrier to individuality of expression--The virtuoso's mission--Creative as well as interpretive--Mr. Hanchett's dictum--Music both a science and an art--Science versus feeling--Person may be very musical without being musical at all--The great composer bends science to art--That "ear for music"--Bach and the Weather Bureau--The Bacon, not the Shakespeare, of music--What Wagner learned from Bach--Illustration from "Die Walküre"--W. J. Henderson's anecdote--Wagner's counterpoint emotional--Bach's the language of an epoch; Wagner's the language of liberated music--Bach in the recital hall--Rubinstein and Bach's "Triple Concerto"--"The Well-Tempered Clavichord"--Meaning of "well-tempered"--A king's tribute to Bach--Two hundred and forty-one years of Bachs 48 III.--FROM FUGUE TO SONATA Break in Bach's influence--Mr. Parry on this hiatus in the evolution of music--Three periods of musical development--Rise of the harmonic, or "melodic," school--Began with Domenico Scarlatti--The founder of modern pianoforte technique--Beginnings of the sonata form--Philipp Emanuel Bach and the sonata--Rise of the amateur--"The Contented Ear and Quickened Soul," and other quaint titles--Changes in musical taste--Pianoforte has outgrown the music of Haydn and Mozart--Bach, Beethoven and Wagner the three great epoch-making figures in music--Beethoven and the epoch of the sonata--His slow development--Union of mind and heart in his work--His sonatas, however, no longer all-dominant in pianoforte music--Von Bülow and D'Albert as Beethoven players--Incident at a Von Bülow Beethoven recital--Changes of taste in thirty years--The Beethoven sonatas too orchestric--The passing of the sonata 78 IV.--DAWN OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD What a sonata is--How Beethoven enlarged the form--Illustrated in his Opus 2, No. 3, and in the "Moonlight Sonata"--The three Beethoven periods--In his last sonatas seems chafing under restraint of form--The sonata form reached its climax with Beethoven--Hampers modern composers--Lawrence Gilman on MacDowell's "Keltic Sonata"--The first romantic composers--Weber--Schubert's inexhaustible genius--Mendelssohn smooth, polished and harmless 100 V.--CHOPIN, THE POET OF THE PIANOFORTE An incomparable composer--Liszt's definition of tempo rubato--The Wagner of the pianoforte--Clear melody and weird, entrancing harmonies--Racial traits--Friends in Paris--Liszt the first to recognize him--The Études--Vigor, passion, impetus--Von Bülow on the great C minor Étude--The Préludes--Schumann's opinion of them--Rubinstein's playing of the Seventh Prélude--The Nocturnes--Chopin and Poe--The Waltzes--Liszt on the Mazurkas--The Polonaises--Chopin's battle hymns--Other works--"A noble from head to foot"--Huneker on Chopin 115 VI.--SCHUMANN, THE "INTIMATE" A composer with an academic education--Pupil in pianoforte of Frederick Wieck--Strains a finger and abandons career as a virtuoso--Marries Clara Wieck--Afflicted with insanity--Attempts suicide--Dies in asylum--His music introspective and brooding--Poet, bourgeois and philosopher--Contributions to program music--"Carnaval" and "Kreisleriana"--Latter title explained--Really Schumanniana--Thoughts of his Clara--"Fantasie Pieces"--His compositions at first neglected 134 VII.--LISZT, THE GIANT AMONG VIRTUOSOS A youthful phenomenon--Refused at the Paris Conservatory--"Le petit Litz"--Inspired by Paganini--Episode with Countess D'Agoult--Court conductor at Weimar--Makes Weimar the musical Mecca of Germany--Produces "Lohengrin"--His "six Lives"--His pianoforte compositions--The "Don Juan Fantasie"--"Hexameron"--"Années de Pèlerinage"--Progressive edition of the Études--Giant strides in virtuosity--History of the famous "Rhapsodies Hongroises"--Characterisation of his pianoforte music--A great composer, not a charlatan--Liszt as a virtuoso--His tribute to the pianoforte--A long and influential career--Played for Beethoven and died at "Parsifal" 142 VIII.--WITH PADEREWSKI--A MODERN PIANIST ON TOUR The most successful virtuoso ever heard here--$171,981.89 for one season--His opinion of the pianoforte--Perfect save for greater sustaining power of tone--Has four pianofortes on his tours--Duties of the "piano doctor"--How the instruments are cared for--Thawing out a pianoforte--Paderewski's humor 155 _HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT_ IX.--DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORCHESTRA Modern music at first vocal, and without instrumental accompaniment--Awkward instrumentation of the contrapuntists--Primitive orchestration in Italy--The orchestra of Monteverde--Haydn the father of modern orchestral music--The Mozart symphonies--Beethoven establishes the modern orchestra--But few instruments added since--Greater richness due to subtler technique--Beethoven's development of the orchestra traced in his symphonies--Greater technical demands on the players--Beethoven and Wagner--"Meistersinger" score has only three more instruments than the Fifth Symphony--Berlioz an orchestral juggler--Architectural music--Wagner, greatest of orchestral composers--Employs large orchestra not for noise, but for variety of expression--Richard Strauss's tribute to Wagner--Wonderfully reserved in the use of his forces--Wagner's scores the only advance worth mentioning since Berlioz 167 X.--INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA The orchestra an aggregation of instruments that should play as one--Wagner's employment of orchestral groups illustrated by the Love motive in "Die Walküre" and the Walhalla motive--Division of the orchestra--The violin--Its varied capacity--The musical stage whisper of a hundred violins--The violins in the "Lohengrin" prelude--Modern orchestral virtuosity--The sordine and its use--A pizzicato movement by Tschaikowski--The viola, violoncello and double bass--Dividing the string band--Examples from the scores of Wagner--Anecdote regarding the harp in "Rheingold"--The woodwind--The flute--The oboe in Schubert's C major symphony--The English horn in "Tristan"--Beethoven's use of the bassoon in the Fifth and Ninth symphonies--The clarinets in "Tannhäuser," "Lohengrin," and "Götterdämmerung"--Brass instruments and various illustrations of their employment--The trumpet in "Fidelio" and "Carmen"--The trombone group in "The Ring of the Nibelung"--The trombones in "The Magic Flute," in Schubert's C major symphony, and in the introduction to the third act of "Lohengrin"--The tubas in the Funeral March in "Götterdämmerung"--Richard Strauss's apotheosis of the horn, and its importance in the Wagner scores--Tympani and cymbals--Mozart's G minor symphony on twenty-two clarinets--Richard Strauss, on the future development of the orchestra 179 XI.--CONCERNING SYMPHONIES The classical period of music dominated by the symphony--Its esthetic purpose defined--A symphonic witticism--Some comment on form in music--Divisions of the symphony established by Haydn--Artless grace and beauty of Mozart's symphonies--Beethoven to the fore--Climaxes and rests--The Ninth Symphony--Schubert's genius--Mendelssohn and Schumann--Liszt's symphonies and symphonic poems--Other symphonists--Wagner not supposed to have been a purely orchestral composer, yet the greatest of all 197 XII.--RICHARD STRAUSS AND HIS MUSIC One of the most original and individual of composers--A student, not a copyist, of Wagner--Independent intellectual basis for his art--Originator of the tone poem--Unhampered by even the word "symphonic"--Means much to the musically elect--Not a juggler with the orchestra--A modern of moderns--Technical difficulties, but not impossibilities in his works--"Thus Spake Zarathustra" and other scores--Life and truth, not mere beauty, the burden of modern music--Huneker's "Piper of Dreams"--"Zarathustra" and "A Hero's Life" described--An intellectual force in music--"A Hero's Life" Strauss's "Meistersinger"--Tribute to Wagner in "Feuersnot"--Performances of Richard Strauss's scores in America--His symphony in F minor (1883) had its first performance anywhere, under Theodore Thomas--Straussiana--Boyhood anecdotes--Scribbled scores on schoolbook covers--Still at school when first symphony was played in public--Studied with Von Bülow--Married his Freihild--Ideals of the highest 207 XIII.--A NOTE ON CHAMBER MUSIC 224 _HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC_ XIV.--SONGS AND SONG COMPOSERS Strophic and "composed through"--Schubert the first song composer to require consideration; also the greatest--Early struggles--Too poor to buy music paper--Becomes a school-teacher--Impatient under drudgery--Publishers hold aloof--Fortune for a song, but not for him--History of "The Erlking"--How it was composed--Written down as fast as pen could travel--Tried over the same evening--The famous dissonances--As sung by Lilli Lehmann--Schubert only eighteen years old when he composed "The Erlking"--His marvelous fecundity--Died at thirty-one, yet wrote six hundred songs and many other works--Schumann's individuality--Distinguished from Schubert--Not the same proportion of great songs--The best composed during his wooing of Clara--Phases of Franz's genius--Traces of his knowledge and admiration of Bach--Choice of keys--Objected to transpositions--Pitiable physical disabilities--Brahms a profound thinker in music--Jensen, Rubinstein, Grieg, Chopin, Wagner--Liszt one of the greatest of song composers--Richard Strauss, Hugo Wolf and others 231 XV.--ORATORIO An incongruous art form--Originated in Italy with San Filippo Neri--Scenery, action and even ballet in the early oratorio--The influence of German composers--Bach's "Passion" music--Dramatic expression in Händel--Rockstro's characterisation of--First performance of "The Messiah"--Haydn's "Creation" and "Seasons"--Mendelssohn's "Elijah" next to "The Messiah" in popularity--Dramatic episodes in the work--Gounod, Elgar and others 248 XVI.--OPERA AND MUSIC-DRAMA Origin of opera--Peri and the Florentines--Monteverde--Cavalli introduces vocal melody to relieve the monotony of recitative--Aria developed by Alessandro Scarlatti--Characteristics of Italian opera from Scarlatti to Verdi--Gluck's reforms--German and French opera--"Les Huguenots," "Faust," and "Carmen"--Comparative popularity of certain operas here--Far-reaching effects of Wagner's theories--Their influence on the later Verdi and contemporary Italian composers--Wagner's music-dramas--A music-drama not an opera--Form wholly original with Wagner--Gave impetus to folk-lore movement--Krehbiel's "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama"--Wagner and anti-Wagner--Finck's "Wagner and His Works"--Wagner a melodist--Examples--Unity a distinguishing trait of the music-drama--Wagner's method illustrated by musical examples--The Curse Motive--The Siegfried, Nibelung, and Tarnhelm motives--Leading motives not mere labels--Their plasticity musically illustrated--The Siegfried horn call developed into the motive of Siegfried, the hero, and into the climax of the "Götterdämmerung" Funeral March--An illustration from "Tristan"--Wagner as a composer of absolute music--His scores the greatest achievement musical history, up to the present time, has to show 260 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGES Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" 52, 53 "Two-Part Invention," by Bach 54 Love Motive from "Die Walküre" 181 Opening of the "Lohengrin" Prelude 183 Walhalla Motive 192 Curse Motive 269 Siegfried Motive 270 Nibelung Smithy Motive 270 Tarnhelm Motive 271 Siegfried Horn Call 272 Develops into Motive of Siegfried, the Hero 272 And into Climax of the "Götterdämmerung" Funeral March 272 Examples from "Tristan und Isolde" 273, 274 INTRODUCTION "Are you musical?" "No; I neither play nor sing." Your answer shows a complete misunderstanding of the case. Because you neither play nor sing, it by no means follows that you are unmusical. If you love music and appreciate it, you may be more musical than many pianists or singers; and certainly you may become so. This book is planned for the lover of music, for those who throng the concert and recital halls and the opera--those who have not followed music as a profession, and yet love it as an art; who may not play or sing, and yet are musical. Among these is an ever-growing number that "wants to know," that no longer is satisfied simply with allowing music to play upon the senses and the emotions, but wants to understand why it does so. To satisfy this natural desire which, with many, amounts to a craving or even a passion, and to do so in wholly untechnical language and in a manner that shall be intelligible to the average reader, is the purpose of this book. In carrying it out I have not neglected the personal side of music, but have endeavored to keep clearly before the eyes of the reader, and in their proper sequence, the great names in musical history. I am somewhat of a radical in my musical opinions, one of those persons of advanced views who does not lift his eyes reverentially heavenward every time the words "symphony" and "sonata" are mentioned. In fact, I am most in sympathy with the liberating tendencies of modern music, which lays more stress upon the expression of life and truth than upon the exact form in which these are sought to be expressed. Nevertheless, I am quite aware that only through the gradual development and expansion of forms that now may be growing obsolete has music achieved its emancipation from the tyranny of form. Therefore, while I would rather listen to a Wagner music-drama than to a Mozart opera, or might go to more trouble to hear a Richard Strauss tone poem than a Beethoven symphony, I am not such an unconscionable heretic as to be unaware of the great, the very great part played by the Mozart opera and the Beethoven symphony in the evolution of music, or their importance in the orderly and systematic study of the art. Indeed, I was brought up on "Don Giovanni," the Fifth Symphony and the Sonatas before I brought myself up on Chopin, Liszt (for whom I have far greater admiration than most critics), and Wagner. Therefore, an ample portion of this book will be found devoted to the classical epoch and its great masters, especially its greatest master, Beethoven, and to the forms in which they worked. Nor do I think that these pages will be found written unsympathetically. But something is due the great body of music-lovers who, being told that they _must_ admire this, that and the other classical composer, _because he is classical_, find themselves at a loss and think themselves to blame because modern music makes a more vivid and deeper impression upon them. If they only knew it--they are in the right! But they have needed some one to tell them so. "Advanced," this book is. But plenty will be found in it regarding the sonata and the symphony, and, through the latter, the development of the orchestra; and orchestral instruments, their tone quality, scope and purpose are described and explained. More, perhaps, than in any work with the same purpose, the great part played by the pianoforte in the evolution of music is here recognized, and I have availed myself of the opportunity to tell much of the story of that evolution in connection with this, the most popular of musical instruments, and its great masters. Why the greater freedom of technique and expression made possible by the modern instrument has caused the classical sonata to be superseded by the more romantic works of Chopin and others whose compositions are typically pianistic, and how these works differ in form and substance from those of the classicists, are among the many points made clear in these chapters. The same care has been bestowed upon that portion of the book relating to vocal music--to songs, opera, music-drama and oratorio. In fact, the aim has been to equip the lover of music--that is, of good music of all kinds--with the knowledge which will enable him to enjoy far more than before either an orchestral concert, a piano or song recital, an opera or a music-drama--anything, in fact, in music from Bach to Richard Strauss; to place everything before him from the standpoint of a writer who is himself a lover of music and who, although thoroughly in sympathy with the more advanced schools of the art, also appreciates the great masters of the past and is behind none in acknowledging what they contributed to make music what it is. "Are you musical?" "No; I neither play nor sing." But, if you can read and listen, there is no reason why you should not be more musical--a more genuine lover of music--than many of those whose musicianship lies merely in their fingers or vocal cords. Try! GUSTAV KOBBÉ. HOW TO APPRECIATE A PIANOFORTE RECITAL I THE PIANOFORTE There must be practically on the part of every one who attends a pianoforte recital some degree of curiosity regarding the instrument itself. Therefore, it seems to me pertinent to institute at the very outset an inquiry into what the pianoforte is and how it became what it is--the most practical, most expressive and most universal of musical instruments, the instrument of the concert hall and of the intimate home circle. Knowledge of such things surely will enhance the enjoyment of a pianoforte recital--should be, in fact, a prerequisite to it. The pianoforte is the most used and, for that very reason, perhaps, the most abused of musical instruments. Even its real name generally is denied it. Most people call it a piano, although _piano_ is a musical term denoting a degree of sound, soft, gentle, low--the opposite of _forte_, which means strong and loud. The combination of the two terms in one word, pianoforte, signifies that the instrument is capable of being played both softly and loudly--both _piano_ and _forte_. It was this capacity that distinguished it from its immediate precursors, the old-time harpsichords and clavichords. One of the first requirements in learning how to understand music is to learn to call things musical by their right names. To speak of a pianoforte as a piano is one of our unjustifiable modern shortcuts of speech, a characteristic specimen of linguistic laziness and evidence of utter ignorance concerning the origin and character of the instrument. If I were asked to express in a single phrase the importance of this instrument in the musical life of to-day I would say that the pianoforte is the orchestra of the home. Indeed, the title of the familiar song "What Is Home Without a Mother?" might, without any undue stretch of imagination, be changed to "What Is Home Without a Pianoforte?"--although, if you are working hard at your music and practicing scales and finger exercises several hours a day, it might be wiser not to ask your neighbor's opinion on this point. The King of Instruments. "In households where there is no pianoforte we seem to breathe a foreign atmosphere," says Oscar Bie, in his history of the instrument and its players; and he adds with perfect truth that it has become an essential part of our life, giving its form to our whole musical culture and stamping its characteristics upon our whole conception of music. Surely out of every ten musical persons, layman or professional, at least nine almost invariably have received their first introduction to music through the pianoforte and have derived the greater part of their musical knowledge from it. Even composers like Wagner and Meyerbeer, whose work is wholly associated with opera, had their first lessons in music on the pianoforte, and Meyerbeer achieved brilliant triumphs as a concert pianist before he turned his attention to the operatic stage. Of all musical instruments the pianoforte is the most intimate and at the same time the most public--"the favorite of the lonely mourner and of the solitary soul whose joy seeks expression" and the tie that unites the circle of family and friends. Yet it also thrills the great audience of the concert hall and rouses it to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. It is the king of instruments, and the reason for its supremacy is not far to seek. Weitzmann, the author of the first comprehensive account of the pianoforte and its literature, speaks of its ability "to lend living expression to all phases of emotion for which language lacks words"; its full, resonant tone; its volume vying with that of the orchestra; its command of every shade of sound from the gentlest _pianissimo_ to the most powerful _forte_; and its mechanism, which permits of the most rapid runs and passages, and at the same time of sustained singing notes and phrases. Music Under One's Fingers. But this is not all. There is an overture by Weber entitled "The Ruler of the Spirits." Well, he who commands the row of white and black keys is ruler of the spirits of music. He has music, all that music can give, within the grasp of his two hands, under his ten fingers. The pianoforte can render anything in music. Besides music of its own, it can reproduce the orchestra or the voice with even greater fidelity than the finest engraving renders a painting; for only to the eyes of one familiar with the painting does the engraving suggest the color scheme of the original, whereas, through certain nuances of technique that are more easily felt than described, the pianoforte virtuoso who is playing an arrangement of an orchestra composition can make his audience hear certain instruments of the orchestra--even such characteristic effects as the far-carrying pizzicato, or the rumbling of the double basses or their low growl; the hollow, reverberating percussions of the tympani; sustained notes on the horns; the majestic accents of trombones; the sharp shrill of piccolos; while some of the most effective pianoforte pieces are arrangements of songs. Moreover, there are pianoforte compositions like the Hungarian rhapsodies of Liszt which, while conceived and carried out in the true spirit of the instrument ("pianistic," as they say), yet suggest the tone colors of the orchestra without permitting these to obtrude themselves too much. This is one of the many services of Liszt, the giant of virtuosos and a giant among composers, to his art. It has been said that Liszt played the whole orchestra on the pianoforte. He did even more. He developed the technique of the instrument to such a point that the suggestion of many of the clang tints of the orchestra has become part of its heritage. This dual capacity of the pianoforte, the fact that it has a tone quality wholly peculiar to itself, so that when, for example, we are playing Chopin we never think of the orchestra, while at the same time it can take up into itself and reproduce, or at least suggest, the tone colors of other instruments, is one of its most remarkable characteristics. Quite as remarkable and as interesting and important is the circumstance that these tone tints are wholly dependent upon the player. There is nothing peculiar to the make of the strings, the sounding-board, the hammers, that tends to produce these effects. They are due wholly to the player's subtle manipulation of the keys, so that we get the added thrill of the virtuoso's personal magnetism. The pianoforte owes much of its popularity, much of its supremacy, to the fact that a player's interpretation of a composition cannot be marred by any one but himself. It rests in his hands alone, whereas the conductor of an orchestra is dependent upon a hundred players, some of whom may have no more soul than so many wooden Indians. Even supposing a conductor to be gifted with a highly poetic and musically sensitive nature, it is impossible that so many men of varying degrees of temperament as go to make up an orchestra, and none of them probably a virtuoso of the highest rank, will be as sympathetically responsive to his baton as a pianoforte is to the fingers of a musical poet like Paderewski; for the fingers of a great virtuoso are the ambassadors of his soul. Melody and Accompaniment on One Instrument. This personal, one-man control of the instrument has been of inestimable value to the pianoforte in establishing itself in its present unassailable position. Moreover, in controlling it the pianist commands all the resources of music. With his two thumbs alone he can accomplish what no player upon any other instrument in common use is capable of doing with all ten fingers. He can sound together the lowest and the highest notes in music, for all the notes of music as we know it simply await the pressure of the fingers upon the keys of the pianoforte. It is the one instrument capable of power as well as of sweetness and grace which places the whole range of harmony and counterpoint at the disposal of one player. A vocalist can sing an air, but can you imagine a vocalist singing through an entire programme without accompaniment? After half a dozen unaccompanied songs the singing even of the greatest prima donna would become monotonous for lack of harmony. The violin and violoncello, next to the pianoforte the most frequently heard instruments in the concert hall, labor under the same disadvantage as the singer. They are dependent upon the accompaniment of others. The pianist, on the other hand, has the inestimable advantage of being able to play melody and accompaniment on one instrument at the same time--all in one. While singing with some of his fingers the tender melodic phrase of a Chopin nocturne, he completes with the others the exquisite weave of harmony, and reveals the musical fabric to us in all its beauty. Moreover, it is the pianist himself who does this, not some one else at his signal, which the intermediary possibly may not wholly understand. When Paderewski is at the pianoforte we hear Paderewski--not some one else of a less sensitive temperament whom he is directing with a baton. A poet is at the instrument and we hear the poet. A poet may be at the conductor's desk--but in the orchestra that is required for the interpretation of his musical conceptions poets usually are conspicuous by their absence. Even great singers suffer because their accompaniments are apt not to be as sensitive of temperament as they are; and it is a fact that the grace and beauty of Schubert's "Hark, Hark, the Lark" never have been so fully revealed to me by a singer as by Paderewski's playing of Liszt's arrangement of the song, because the pianist is able to shade the accompaniment to the most delicate nuances of the melody. How delightful, too, it is to go through the pianoforte score of a Wagner music-drama and, as you play the wonderful music--all placed within the grasp of your ten fingers--watch the scenic pictures and the action pass in imagination before your eyes in your own music room without the defects inseparable from every public performance, because the success of a performance depends upon the co-operation of so many who do not co-operate. Yes, the pianoforte is the king of instruments because it is the most independent of instruments and because it makes him who plays upon it independent. Music's Debt to the Pianoforte. It would be difficult to overestimate the debt that music owes to the pianoforte. Including for the present under this one name the various keyboard instruments from which it was developed, the sonata form had its first tentative beginnings upon it and was wrought out to perfection through it by a process of gradual evolution extending from Domenico Scarlatti through Bach's son, Philipp Emanuel Bach, to Beethoven. As a symphony simply is a sonata for orchestra, it follows that through the sonata and thus through the pianoforte the form in which the classical composers cast their greatest works was established. Richard Strauss, in his revision of Berlioz's book on orchestration, even goes so far as to assert that Beethoven, and after him Schumann and Brahms, treated the orchestra pianistically; but the discussion of this point is better deferred until we take up the orchestra and orchestral music. Here, however, it may be observed that in addition to its constant use as an instrument for the concert hall and the home, and for the delight of great audiences and the joy of the amateur player and his familiar circle, many of the great composers, even when writing orchestral works, have used the pianoforte for their first sketches, testing their harmonies on it, and often, no doubt, while groping over the keys in search of the psychical note, hit upon accidental improvements and new harmonies. Even Wagner, who understood the orchestra as none other ever has, employed the pianoforte in sketching out his ideas. "I went to my Erard and wrote out the passage as rapidly as if I had it by heart," he writes from Venice to Mathilde Wesendonck, in relating to her the genesis of the great love duet in "Tristan und Isolde," and I could quote other passages from my "Wagner and his Isolde," which is based on the romantic passages in the lives of the composer and the woman who inspired his great music-drama, to show the frequency with which he made similar use of the universal musical instrument. The pianoforte has in many other ways been a boon to some of the most famous composers. Many of them were pianists, and by public performances of their own works materially accelerated the appreciation of their music. Mozart was a youthful prodigy, and later a virtuoso of the highest rank. Beethoven, before he was overtaken by deafness, introduced his own pianoforte compositions to the public and was the musical lion of the Viennese drawing-rooms. Mendelssohn was a pianist of the same smooth, affable, gentlemanly type as his music. Chopin was not a miscellaneous concert player--his nature was too shrinking; but at the Salon Pleyel in Paris he gave recitals to the musical élite, who in turn conveyed his ideas to the greater public. Schumann began his musical career as a virtuoso, but strained the fourth finger of his right hand in using a mechanical apparatus which he had devised for facilitating the practice of finger exercises. His wife, Clara Wieck, however, who was the most famous woman pianist of her time, substituted her fingers for his. Liszt literally hewed out the way for his works on the keyboard. Brahms was a pianist of solid, scholarly attainments. In fact, dig where you will in musical soil, you strike the roots of the pianoforte. Its Lowly Origin. It must not be supposed, however, that the instrument as we know it attained to its present supremacy except through a long process of evolution. One of the immediate precursors of the modern pianoforte was the harpsichord, a name suggesting that the instrument was a harp with a keyboard attachment, and such, in a general way, the pianoforte is. But the harp is a very fully developed affair compared with the mean little apparatus in which lay and was discovered many centuries ago the first germ of the king among instruments. This was the monochord, and it has required about nine centuries for the evolution of an instrument consisting of a single string set in vibration by means of a keyboard attachment into the modern pianoforte. But do not be alarmed. I am not about to give a nine hundred years' history of the pianoforte. Such detailed consideration would belong to a technical work on the manufacture of the instrument and would be out of place here. Something of its history should, however, be known to every one who wants to understand music, but I shall endeavor to be as brief and at the same time as clear as possible. The monochord originally was used much as we use a tuning fork, to determine true musical pitch. If you take a short piece of string, tie one end of it fast, draw it taut and pluck it, its vibrations will sound a note. If you grasp the string and draw it taut from nearer to the point where it is tied, you shorten what is called the "node," increase the number of vibrations and produce a higher note. The monochord in its simplest form consisted of a string drawn taut over an oblong box and tuned to a given pitch by means of a peg. Under the string and in contact with it was a bridge or fret that could be moved by hand along a graduated scale marked on the bottom of the box. By moving the bridge the node of the string could be shortened and the notes marked at corresponding points on the graduated scale produced. After a while, and in order to facilitate the study of the harmonious relationship between different notes, three strings were added, each with its bridge and graduated scale. It was more or less of a nuisance, however, to continually shift four bridges to as many different points under the four strings. As an improvement upon this awkward arrangement some clever person conceived about the beginning of the tenth century, the idea of borrowing the keyboard from the organ and attaching it to the monochord. To the rear end of each key was attached an upright piece called a tangent. When the finger pressed upon a key the tangent struck one of the strings, set it in vibration, and at the same time, by contact, created a node which lasted as long as the key was kept down and the tangent remained pressed against the string. To increase the utility of the instrument by adding more strings and more keys was the next obvious step, and gradually the monochord ceased to be a mere technical apparatus for the determining of pitch and became an instrument on which professionals and amateurs could play with pleasure to themselves and others. A Poet's Advice to His Musical Daughter. There has been preserved to us from about the year 1529 a reply made by the poet Pietro Bembo to his daughter Elena, who had written to him from the convent where she was being educated asking if she could have lessons upon the monochord, which seems to have been as popular in its day as its fully developed successor, the modern pianoforte, is now. "Touching thy request for permission to play upon the monochord," begins Bembo's quaint answer, "I reply that because of thy tender years thou canst not know that playing is an art for vain and frivolous women, whereas I would that thou shouldst be the most chaste and modest maiden alive. Besides, if thou wert to play badly it would cause thee little pleasure and no little shame. Yet in order to play well thou must needs give up from ten to twelve years to the exercise, without so much as thinking of aught else. How far this would benefit thee thou canst see for thyself without my telling thee. But thy schoolmates, if they desire thee to learn to play for their pleasure, tell them thou dost not care to have them laugh at thy mortification. Therefore, content thyself with the pursuit of the sciences and the practice of needlework." These words of the poet Bembo to his daughter Elena--are they so wholly lacking in application to our own day? And I wonder--did or did not Elena learn to play the monochord? If not, it was because she lived a few centuries too soon. She would have had her own way to-day! The Clavichord. Monochord means "one string," and the application of the term to the instrument after other strings had been added was a misnomer. The monochord on which Elena, to the evident distress of her distinguished parent, desired to play, really was a clavichord, which was derived directly from the primitive monochord. If you will raise the lid of your pianoforte you will find that the strings become shorter from the bass up, the lowest note being sounded by the longest, the highest note by the shortest string; for the longer the string the slower the vibrations and the deeper the sounds produced, and _vice versa_. This principle is so obvious that it seems as if it must have been applied to the clavichord almost immediately and a separate string provided for each key. But for many years the strings of the clavichord continued all of equal length, and three or four neighboring keys struck the same string, so that the contact of the upright tangent with the string not only set the latter in vibration but also served to form the node which produced the desired note. Not until after the clavichord had been in use several centuries, were its strings made of varying length and a separate string assigned to each key. These new clavichords were called _bundfrei_ (fret-free or tangent-free) because the node of each string was determined by that string's length and not by the contact of the tangent. The clavichord retained the box shape of its prototype, the monochord. Originally it was portable and was set upon a table; later, however, was made, so to speak, to stand upon its own legs. In appearance it resembled our square pianofortes. It gave forth a sweet, gentle and decidedly pretty musical sound. It had a further admirable quality in its capacity for sustaining a tone, since by keeping the tangent pressed against the string the player was able to sustain the tone so long as the string continued to vibrate. Moreover, by holding down the key and at the same time making a gentle rocking motion with the finger he was able to produce a tremolo effect which German musicians called _Bebung_ (trembling), and the French _balancement_. A defect of the clavichord was, however, its lack of power. This defect led to experiments which resulted in the construction of a keyboard instrument the strings of which, in response to the action of the keys, were set in vibration by jacks tipped with crow-quills or hard leather. The sound was much stronger than that of the clavichord. But the jacks twanged the strings with uniform power, "permitting a sharp outline, but no shading of the tones." The Harpsichord. If you chance to be listening to a Hungarian band at a restaurant you may notice that one of the players has lying on a table before him an instrument with many strings strung very much like those of the pianoforte. It is played with two little mallets in the player's hands, and produces the weird arpeggios and improvised runs characteristic of Hungarian gypsy music. It is a very old instrument called the cembalo. About the fifteenth century, it seems, some one devised a keyboard attachment with quills for this instrument, tipped the jacks with crow-quills, and called the result a clavicembalo (a cembalo with keys). This was the origin of the harpsichord, the name by which the clavicembalo soon became more generally known. Harpsichords were shaped somewhat like our grand pianofortes, but were much smaller. A spinet was a small harpsichord, and the virginal a still smaller one. Sometimes, indeed, virginals were made no larger than workboxes, the instrument being taken out of the box and placed on a table before the player. For the purposes of this book this very general survey of the precursors of the pianoforte seems sufficient. The clavichord and the instruments of the harpsichord (harpsichord, spinet, and virginal) class flourished alongside of each other, but the best musicians gave the preference to the clavichord because of its sweet tone and the delicately tremulous effect that could be produced upon it by the _balancement_. Experiments in pianoforte making were in progress already in Bach's day, but he clung to the clavichord, as did his son, Philipp Emanuel Bach. Mozart was the first of the great masters to realize the value of the pianoforte and to aid materially in making it popular by using it for his public performances. And yet even then the clavichord, "that lonely, melancholy, unspeakably sweet instrument," was not abandoned without lingering regret by the older musicians, and it still was to be found in occasional use as late as the beginning of the last century. How thoroughly modern the pianoforte is will be appreciated when it is said that a celebrated firm of English makers founded in 1730 did not begin to manufacture pianofortes until 1780 and continued the production of clavichords until 1793. Piano and Forte. Neither on the clavichord nor on the harpsichord could the player vary the strength of the tone which he produced, by the degree of force with which he struck the keys. Swells and pedals worked by the knees and the feet were devised to overcome this difficulty, but "touch" as we understand it to-day was impossible with the instruments in which the degree of sound to be produced was not under the control of the player's fingers. The clavichord was _piano_, the harpsichord was _forte_. Not until the invention of the hammer action, the substitution of hammers for tangents and quill-jacks, was an instrument possible in which whether the tone should be _piano_ or _forte_ depended upon the degree of strength with which the player struck the keys. This instrument was the first pianoforte. It was invented and so named in 1711 by Bartolomeo Cristofori, of Florence, and, although nearly two centuries have elapsed since then, the action used by many pianoforte manufacturers of to-day is in its essentials the same as that devised by this clever Italian. The invention frequently is ascribed to Gottfried Silbermann, a German (1683-1753). But the real situation is that Cristofori was the inventor, while Silbermann was the first successful manufacturer of the new instruments, from a business point of view. Time and improvements were required before they made their way, and how slow many professional musicians were in giving up the beloved clavichord for the pianoforte already has been pointed out. But the latter was bound to triumph in the end. I shall not attempt to give a technical description of the mechanism of the pianoforte. But I should like to answer a few questions which may have suggested themselves to players who may not have cared to take their instruments apart and examine them, or have not been present when their tuners have taken off the lid and exposed the strings and mechanism to view. The strings of the pianoforte are of steel wire, and their tension varies from twelve tons to nearly twenty. Those of the deepest bass are covered with copper wire. Eight or ten tones of the bass are produced by the vibration of these copper-wound strings. Above these, for about an octave and a half, the strings are in pairs, so that, the hammer striking them, there are two unison strings to a tone, simultaneously, and producing approximately twice as powerful a tone as if only one string had been set in vibration. The five remaining octaves have three strings to a tone. All Depends on the Player. When the fingers strike the keys the hammers strike the strings, the force of the stroke depending upon the force exerted by the player, this being the distinguishing merit of the pianoforte as compared with its precursors. Under the strings are a row of dampers, and as soon as a finger releases a key the corresponding damper springs into place against the vibrating strings, stops the vibrations, and the tone ceases. Thus the tone can be dampened immediately by raising the finger or prolonged by keeping the finger pressed down on the key. This is the device which enables the pianist to play _staccato_ or _legato_. The damper pedal, or loud pedal, checks the action of all the dampers and prolongs the tones even after the fingers have released the keys. The soft pedal brings the hammers nearer the strings, shortens the stroke and produces a softer tone. The simultaneous use of both pedals is a modern virtuoso effect and a very charming one, for the damper pedal prolongs the gentle tones produced by the use of the soft pedal. I believe Paderewski was the first of the great pianists who have visited this country, to employ this effect systematically, and that he was among the first composers to formally indicate the simultaneous employment of both pedals in passages in his compositions. There is a third pedal called the sustaining pedal, but I do not think it has proved as valuable an invention as was anticipated. Within recent years there have been introduced mechanical pianofortes, which I may designate as pianolas, after the most popular instrument of their class. In my opinion, these instruments are destined to play an important part in the diffusion of musical knowledge, and it is senseless to underestimate this. There are thousands of people who have neither the time nor the dexterity to master the technique of the pianoforte, who nevertheless are people of genuine musical feeling, and who are enabled through the pianola to cultivate their taste for music. The device renders the music accurately; whether expressively or not depends, as with the pianoforte itself, upon the taste of the person who manipulates it. Decorations That Do Not Beautify. The pianoforte often is spoken of as an instrument of ugly appearance. This it emphatically is not. If the straight side of the grand is placed against the wall the side toward the room presents a graceful, sweeping curve, while the upright effectively breaks the straight line of the wall against which it stands. If the pianoforte is ugly, it is due to the so-called "ornaments" that are placed upon it--the knicknacks, framed pictures and other senseless things. To my mind, there is but one thing which it is permissible to place upon a pianoforte, a slender vase with a single flower, preferably a rose--the living symbol of the soul that waits to be awakened within the instrument. Sheet music or bound books of music on top of a pianoforte are an abomination. If scattered about they look disorderly; if neatly arranged in portfolios, even worse, for they create the precise, orderly appearance of paths and mounds in a cemetery. Often, indeed, the pianoforte is a graveyard of musical hopes. Because of that, however, it need not be made to look like one. Equally objectionable is the elaborately decorated or "period" pianoforte designed for rooms decorated in the style of some historical art period. A pianoforte has no business in a "period" room. If the person is rich enough to afford "period" rooms, he also can afford a music room, and the simpler this is, within the bounds of good taste, and the less there is in it besides the instrument itself, the better. The more proficient the pianist the less he cares for decoration and the more satisfied he is with the pianoforte turned out in the ordinary course of business by the high-class manufacturer. No--decorated pianofortes are for those who are too rich to be musical. II BACH'S SERVICE TO MUSIC So important has been the rôle played by the pianoforte in the evolution of music that it is possible in these chapters on a pianoforte recital to give a general survey of the art, and thus prepare the reader to enjoy not only what he will hear at such a recital, but enable him to approach it with a more comprehensive knowledge than that would imply. This is one reason why I elected to lead with the chapters on the pianoforte instead of with those on the orchestra, as usually is done, because the orchestra is something "big." In point of fact, however, the pianoforte, so far as its influence is concerned, is quite as "big," if not, indeed, bigger than the orchestra; for often, in the evolution of music (as I pointed out in the previous chapter), this instrument, which is so sufficient in itself, has led the orchestra. In reviewing a pianoforte recital it therefore is quite possible to review many phases of musical history. Take as an example a composition by Bach, one of the preludes and fugues from "The Well-Tempered Clavichord," with which a pianoforte recital is quite apt to open. The selection illustrates a whole epoch in music which Bach rounded off and brought alike to its climax and its close. You will be apt to find this fugue rather complicated and, I fear, somewhat unintelligible, and this makes it necessary for me to point out at once that in some respects music has had a curious development. A Wagner music-drama, a Richard Strauss tone poem, seem elaborate and complicated affairs compared with a Beethoven sonata or symphony. Yet even the most advanced work of a Wagner or Strauss is neither as complicated nor as elaborate as a fugue by that past master of his art, Johann Sebastian Bach, who, although he was born in 1685 and did not live beyond the middle of the following century, was so far ahead of his age that not even to this day has he fully come into his own. The result is that the early classicists, Haydn and Mozart, who belong in point of time to a later epoch, may more readily be reckoned as "old-fashioned" than Father Bach. When at a recital you listen to a fugue by Bach and find it hard and labored--many people regard it simply as a difficult species of finger exercises--you think that is because it is so very ancient, something in the same class with Greek or Sanscrit. In point of fact it is because in some respects it is so very modern. Were it not for the importance of preserving an orderly historical sequence in a book of this kind, and that Bach usually is found at the beginning of a recital program, it would be almost more practical, and certainly far easier, for the author to leave Bach until later. When you write of Mozart, or of Beethoven and the moderns, you can depend upon more or less familiarity with their works on the part of your readers, whereas, comparatively few laymen know much about Bach. They associate the name with all that is formal and labored. Yet among my acquaintances is a young woman who was brought up in a very musical family, and who, having as a child heard her mother play the preludes and fugues of the "Well-Tempered Clavichord," finds Bach as simple as the alphabet. But hers is a most exceptional case. The appreciation of Bach, as a rule, comes only with advanced age. My music teacher used to say to me: "You rave over Schubert and Wagner now, but when you get to be as old as I am you will go back to Father Bach." While I cannot say that his prophecy has come true, while I still am ultra-modern in my musical predilections, my musical gods being Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Richard Strauss and, above all, Wagner, I should consider myself unfit to write this book if I failed to realize the debt modern music owes to Bach, and that the more modern the music the greater the debt. Bach in Modern Music. One of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of the art--and a generalization like this is as much in place in discussing pianoforte music as elsewhere, because the instrument has had so much to do with the evolution of music--is the gap between Bach and modern music. While the following must not be taken too literally, it is true in general that Bach had little or no influence on the age that immediately came after him, the classical age of music, that age which we sum up in the names of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, the age of the sonata and the symphony. The three masters mentioned probably would have developed and composed much as they did had Bach never lived. But when a more modern composer, a romanticist like Wagner, wanted to enrich the means of musical expression handed down to him from the classical period, he reached back to Bach and combined Bach's teeming counterpoint with the harmonic system which had been inherited from Beethoven. To understand just what this means, to appreciate the influence Bach has had upon modern music and why he had little or none on the classical composers, it is necessary for the reader to have at least a reasonably clear conception of what that counterpoint is and wherein it differs from harmony; for with Bach counterpoint reached its climax, and all the possibilities of the style having been exhausted by him, music of necessity took a turn in another direction under the classicists and developed harmonically instead of contrapuntally; so that it can be said that modern music derives its counterpoint from Bach, its harmony from Beethoven, and its combination of the two systems from Wagner. There is another reason why the meaning of counterpoint should be explained and the difference between counterpoint and harmony be made clear to the reader now. Nearly all the early music, the music that preceded Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and that sometimes is to be found on recital programs, is contrapuntal--written in counterpoint. As I have said before, it would be much easier to start with the sonata form, with harmony instead of counterpoint, for of the two harmony is the simpler. But we must "face the music"--the music of the old contrapuntal composers--and the best way to do this is to explain what harmony and counterpoint are and wherein they differ. Harmony and Counterpoint. A melody or theme is a rational progression of single tones. Here is the melody or theme with which Beethoven begins the familiar "Moonlight Sonata": [Music illustration] It is a melody, but it does not constitute harmony, for harmony is the rational combination of several tones, as distinguished from the rational progression of single tones which constitute melody. But when Beethoven adds an accompaniment to his theme and it becomes: [Music illustration] the passage also becomes harmony, since it is an example of the rational combination of several tones. As has often been pointed out in books on music, and probably often will have to be pointed out again, because as a mistake it is to be classed with the hardy perennials, melody is not harmony, but only a part of it. When, however, a composer conceives a theme or melody he usually does so with the purpose of combining it with an accompaniment that shall support it and throw it into bold and striking relief. Composers of the contrapuntal school, on the other hand, conceived a theme, not for the purpose of supporting it with an accompaniment, but in order to combine it with another or with several other equally important themes. That, in a general way, is the difference between harmony and counterpoint. In harmony, then, or, more strictly speaking, in music composed according to the harmonic system, of which the "Moonlight Sonata" is a good example, the theme, the melody, stands out from the accompaniment, which is subordinate. Counterpoint, on the other hand, rests on the combination of several themes, each of equal importance. This is the reason why, when there is a fugue or other complicated contrapuntal work on the program of a pianoforte recital, the average listener is apt to find it dry and uninteresting. His ear readily can distinguish the themes of a sonata, which usually are heard one at a time and stand out clearly from the accompaniment, but it has not been trained to unravel the themes of the fugue as they travel along together. Counterpoint, the term being derived from the Latin _contra punctum_, which means point against point or note against note, when complicated, as in a fugue, is about the most elaborate kind of music there is, and a person who is unable to grasp a fugue may console himself with the thought that, excepting for the elect, it is a pretty stiff dose to swallow at the very beginning of a recital. There are, however, simpler pieces of counterpoint than a fugue. Sometimes, as in the charming little "Gavotte" by Padre Martini, which now and then figures among the lighter numbers on the programs of historical recitals, the contrapuntist combines a theme with itself, or, rather, "imitates" it, which is a simple form of the canon. Another form of canon is the round of which "Three Blind Mice" is a familiar example. How many people, when singing this, have realized that they were being initiated into that mysterious thing known as counterpoint? A comparatively simple form of counterpoint is well illustrated by a dapper little piece in Bach's "Two-Part Inventions," in which the spirited theme given out by the right hand answers itself a bar later in the left, an "imitation" which crops out again and again in the piece and gives it somewhat the character of a canon. [Music illustration] For any one who wishes to become acquainted with Bach there is nothing better than these "Two-Part Inventions," especially the fascinating little piece from which I have just quoted, compact, buoyant and gay, even "pert," as I once heard a young girl characterize it; a perfect example of old Father Bach in moments of relaxation when he has laid aside his periwig and is amusing himself at his clavichord. What a Fugue Is. Bach's fugues, and especially his "Well-Tempered Clavichord," forty-eight preludes and fugues in all the keys, form the climax of contrapuntal music. Goethe once said that "the history of the world is a mighty fugue in which the voice of nation after nation becomes audible." This is a freely poetic definition of that highly complicated musical form, the fugue. Let me attempt to illustrate it in a different way. Imagine that a composer who is an adept in counterpoint places four pianists at different pianofortes, and that he gives a different theme to each of them, or a theme to one and modified versions of it to the others. He starts the first pianist, after a few bars nods to the second to join in with his theme, and so on successively with the other two. It might be supposed that when the second player joins in, the two themes sounding together would make discord, which would be aggravated by the addition of the third and fourth. But, instead, they have been so conceived by the contrapuntist that they sound well together as they chase and answer each other, or run counter to and parallel and enter into many different combinations, sometimes flowing along smoothly, at other times surging and striving, yet always, in the case of a truly great fugue, borne along by a momentum as inexorable as the march of Fate. Of course, it must not be supposed, because I have called four pianists into action in order to emphasize how distinct are these themes, which yet, when united, are found to blend together, that several players are required for the performance of a complicated piece of counterpoint like a fugue. What is demanded of the player is entire independence of the fingers, so that he can clearly differentiate between the themes and enable the hearer to distinguish them apart, even in their most complicated combinations. An edition of Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavichord" by Bernardus Boekelman prints the themes in different colors, so that they are easy to trace through all their interweaving, and is interesting to study from. The Fugue and the Virtuoso. In his book, "Beethoven and His Forerunners," Daniel Gregory Mason devotes a paragraph toward dispelling the mystery regarding the fugue that prevails with the public, and points out that "the actual formal rules, despite the awe they have immemorially aroused in the popular mind, are few and simple. After the first announcement of the subject by a single voice, it is answered by a second voice, at an interval of a fifth above; then again stated by a third voice, and answered by a fourth. This process goes on until each voice has had a chance to enunciate the motif, after which the conversation goes on more freely; the subject is announced in divers keys, by divers voices; episodes, in a congruous style, vary the monotony; at last the subject is emphatically asserted by the various voices in quick succession (_stretto_), and with some little display or grandiloquence the piece comes to an end." Further along in the same book Mr. Mason has a page of apostrophe to the Bach fugues. When he characterizes them as "the first great independent monuments of pure music," and refers to their "consummate beauty of structure," he pays them an eminently just tribute. But when he speaks of the "profundity, poignancy and variety of feeling they express," I am inclined to quote his own qualifying sentence from the next page of his book: "It is true, nevertheless, not only that the fugue form makes the severest demands on the attention and intelligence of the listener, but also that, because of the ecclesiastical origin and polyphonic style, it is incapable of the kind of highly personal, secular expression that it was in the spirit of the seventeenth century to demand." The same is even more true of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The progress of music toward individual freedom of expression on the part of the composer, and equally so on the part of the interpreter, has been steady, and when, through the very perfection which Bach imparted to counterpoint, it ceased to attract composers as a means of expression because he had accomplished so much there was nothing more left for them to do along the same lines, the progress I have indicated received a great lift and stimulus. What Counterpoint Lacks. The lack of highly personal expression in contrapuntal compositions explains why most concert-goers find them less attractive than modern music. The "D Minor Toccata and Fugue" or the "Chromatic Fantasie and Fugue" by Bach, even in the arrangements of Tausig and Liszt, on the program of a pianoforte recital, are tolerated because of the modern pieces that come later. Nine out of ten persons in the house would rather omit them. Why deny so obvious a fact, especially when it is easy enough to explain? To follow a contrapuntal composition intelligently requires a highly trained ear. Moreover, in such a work as a Bach fugue the individuality of the player is of less importance than in modern music. Yet a virtuoso's individuality is the very thing that distinguishes him from other virtuosos and attracts the public to his concerts, while those of other players may be poorly attended. I firmly believe in personality of the virtuoso or singer or orchestral conductor, for in it lies the secret of individual interpretation, the reason why the performance of one person is fascinating or thrilling and that of another not. Modern music affords the player full scope to interpret it according to his own mood and fancy, to color it with his own personality, whereas contrapuntal music exists largely for itself alone. It is music for music's sake, not for the sake of interpreting some mood, some feeling, or of painting in tone colors something quite outside of music. The player of counterpoint is restricted in his power of expression by the very formulas of the science or art of the contrapuntist. We may marvel that Bach was able to move so freely within its restricted forms. But I think it true that it is far more interesting for a person even of only moderate proficiency as a player to work out, however awkwardly, a Bach fugue for himself on the pianoforte than to hear it played by some one else, however great; for, cheap and easy as it is to protest in high-sounding phrases about the duty of the interpreter to subordinate himself to the composer, and against what I am about to say, I nevertheless make bold to affirm that it is the province of the virtuoso to express himself, his own personality, his moods, his temperament, his subjective or even his subconscious self, through music; and in music that is purely contrapuntal there is a barrier to this individual power of expression. The Mission of the Player. We often hear it said of the greatest contemporary pianist that he is a great Chopin player, but not a great Bach player. He could not be, and at the same time be the greatest living virtuoso. It is the worshiper of tradition, the reserved, continent, scholarly player, the player who converts a Chopin nocturne into an icicle and a Schubert impromptu into a snowball, who revels in counterpoint--the player who always is slavishly subordinating himself to what he is pleased to call the "composer's intentions" and forgets that the truly great virtuoso creates when he interprets. Some times the virtuoso may go too far and depart too much from the character of the piece he is playing, subjecting it more than is permissible to his temporary mood; but it is better for art to err on the side of originality, provided it is not bizarre or freakish, than on the side of subserviency to tradition. While I have no desire, in writing as above, to exalt unduly the virtuoso, the interpreter of music, at the expense of the composer, I must insist that the great player also is creative, in the sense that every time he plays a work he creates it over again from his own point of view, and thus has at least a share in its parentage. Indeed, it seems more difficult to attain exalted rank as a virtuoso than to gain immortality as a composer. The world has produced two epoch-making virtuosos--Paganini on the violin, Liszt on the piano. Within about the same period covered by the careers of these two there have been half a dozen or even more composers, each of whom marks an epoch in some phase of the art. "The interpretive artist," says Henry G. Hanchett in his "Art of the Musician," "deserves a place no whit beneath that of the composer. No two composers have influenced musical progress in America more strongly than have Anton Rubinstein by his _playing_, and Theodore Thomas, who was not a composer." Music as a Science. But, to return to Bach and the other contrapuntists, music owes them an immense debt on the technical side. And right here, so universal are the deductions that can be drawn from the program of a pianoforte recital, it should be pointed out that music differs from other arts in having for its basis a profound and complicated science, a science that concerns itself with the relations of the notes of the musical scale to each other. Upon this science are based alike the "coon song" and the Wagner music-drama. What is true of "Tristan" is true also of "Bedelia." Each makes its draft upon the science of music; the music-drama, of course, in a far greater degree than the song. This science has its textbooks with their theorems and problems, like any other science, and theoretical musicians have produced learned and useful works on the subject which the great mass of laymen, many virtuosos, and indeed the average professional musician, may never have heard of, let alone have read. For a person not intuitively predisposed toward the subject would find the science of music as difficult to master as integral calculus; nor, in order to appreciate music, or even to interpret it, is it necessary to be versed in this science. A virtuoso can play a chord of the ninth, the listener can be thrilled by the virtuoso's playing of the chord of the ninth, without either of them knowing that there is such a thing as the chord of the ninth. Science versus Feeling. In fact, the person who is so well versed in the science of music that he can mentally analyze a composition while listening to it is apt to be so absorbed in the mere process of technical analysis that he misses its esthetic, its emotional significance. Thus a person may be very musical without being musical at all. He may have profound knowledge of music as a science and remain untouched by music as an art, just as a physicist may be an authority on the laws of light and color, yet stand unmoved before a great painting. With some people music is all science, with others all art, and I think the latter have the better of it. A musical genius is equipped both ways. The great composer employs the science of music as an aid in giving expression to his creative impulse. He makes science of service to the cause of art. Otherwise, while he might produce something that was absolutely correct, it would make no artistic appeal whatsoever. Thousands of symphonies have been composed, performed and forgotten. They were "well made," constructed with scientific accuracy from beginning to end, but had no value as art; and music is a profound science applied to the production of a great art. The composer, then, masters the science of music and bends it to his genius. If he is a great genius, he soon will discover that certain rules which his predecessors regarded as hard and fast, as inviolable, can be violated with impunity. He will discover new tone combinations, and thus enrich the science and make it serve the purposes of the art with greater efficiency than before he came upon the scene. And always the composers who have grown gray under the old system, the system upon which the new genius is grafting his new ideas, and the theorists and critics, who are slaves of tradition, will throw up their hands in horror and cry out that he is despoiling the art and robbing it of all that is sacred and beautiful, whereas he is adding to its scope and potency. Did not even so broad-minded a composer as Schumann say, "The trouble with Wagner is that he is not a musician"? So far was Wagner ahead of his time! While the great composer nearly always begins where his predecessors left off, he is sure to outstrip them later on. Even so rugged a genius as Beethoven is somewhat under Mozart's influence in his first works, and Wagner's "Rienzi" is distinctly Meyerbeerian. But genius soon learns to soar with its own wings and to look down with indifference upon the little men who are discharging their shafts of envy, malice and ignorance. That "Ear for Music." And while I am on the subject of the scientific musician _versus_ the music lover, the pedant _versus_ the innovator, I might as well refer to those people who have in a remarkable degree what is popularly known as "an ear for music," and who are able to remember and to play "by ear" anything they hear played or sung, even if it is for the first time. This ear for music, again, is something quite different from scientific knowledge of music or from the emotional sensitiveness which makes the music-lover. It is a purely physical endowment, and may--in fact, usually does--exist without a corresponding degree of real feeling for music. It is, of course, a highly valuable adjunct to a genuine musical genius like a Mozart or a Schubert and to a genuine virtuoso. It is related of Von Bülow that his ear for music and his memory were so prodigious that once, while traveling in the cars, he read over the printed pages of a new composition, and on arriving at his destination, played it, from memory, at his concert. William Mason, who studied with Liszt, witnessed his master perform a similar feat. The average untrained person with a musical ear, however, instead of being a genius, is apt to become a nuisance, playing all kinds of cheap music in and out of season--a sort of peripatetic pianola, without the advantage of being under control. Such persons, moreover, usually are born without a soft pedal. Bach and the Weather Bureau. This digression, which I have made in order to discuss the difference between music as a science and music as an art, a distinction which, I have pointed out, often is so marked that a person may be thoroughly equipped on the scientific side of music without being sensitive to its beauty as an art, seemed to me necessary at this stage. I am reminded by it of the distinction which Edmund Clarence Stedman, in his "Nature and Elements of Poetry," so wittily draws between the indications of a storm as described by a poet and by the official prognostications of the Weather Bureau. Mr. Stedman quotes two stanzas: "When descends on the Atlantic the gigantic Storm-wind of the Equinox, Landward in his wrath he scourges the toiling surges, Laden with seaweed from the rocks." And this stanza by a later balladist: "The East Wind gathered, all unknown, A thick sea-cloud his course before; He left by night the frozen zone, And smote the cliffs of Labrador; He lashed the coasts on either hand, And betwixt the Cape and Newfoundland, Into the bay his armies pour." All this impersonation and fancy is translated by the Weather Bureau into something like the following: "An area of extreme low pressure is rapidly moving up the Atlantic Coast, with wind and rain. Storm-center now off Charleston, S. C. Wind N. E.; velocity, 54. Barometer, 29.6. The disturbance will reach New York on Wednesday, and proceed eastward to the Banks and Bay of St. Lawrence. Danger signals ordered for all North Atlantic ports." Far be it from me to imply that contrapuntal music in general or Bach in particular represents the Weather Bureau. None the less is it true that Bach appeals more strongly to the scientific musician than to the music-lover who seeks in music a secondary meaning--love, passion, grief; the mood awakened by the contemplation of a forest landscape with its murmuring foliage, a boundless prairie, or the unquiet sea. The technical indebtedness of modern music to Bach is so immense, and the artistic probity of the man himself was so wonderful, for he worked calmly on, in spite of what was worse than opposition--neglect--that I think the tendency on the part of Bach enthusiasts, while not overrating the importance of the influence he has had during the past fifty years or more, is to underrate others as compared with him. When critics declare that one virtuoso or another is not a great Bach player, are they not ignoring what is a simple fact--that no player can make the same appeal through Bach that it is possible for him to make through modern music, and that, as a rule, when a virtuoso, however good a musician he may be, places Bach on his program, he does so not from predilection, but as a tribute to one of the greatest names in musical history? It seems to me that the extreme Bach enthusiasts can be divided into two classes--musicians who are able to appreciate what he did for music on its technical side, and people who want to create the impression that they know more than they really do. The Bacon, Not the Shakespeare, of Music. Bach's greatest importance to music lies in his having treated it in the abstract and for itself alone, so that when he penned a work he did this not to bring home to the listener the significance of a certain mood or situation, but from pure delight in following out a musical problem to its most extreme development. Algebra makes mighty interesting study, but furnishes rather a poor subject for dramatic reading. This simile must, of course, be taken with a grain of salt, and merely as illustrating in a general way my contention that Bach's great service to music was technical and intellectual. He was the Bacon, not the Shakespeare, of music, and the contrapuntal structure that he reared is to the art what the Baconian theorem is to logic. We can imagine the roamer in the field of higher mathematics suddenly becoming excited as he sees the end of the path leading to the solution of some complicated problem in full view. Thus there may be moments when even the cube root becomes emotional, the logarithmic theory a dissipation, and differential calculus an orgy. So, too, Bach put an enthusiasm into his work that often threatens to sweep the student off his intellectuals and make him regard a fugue as a scientifically constructed fairyland. Moreover, there are Bach pieces in which the counterpoint supports the purest kind of melody, like the air for the G string which Thomas arranged for his orchestra with all the strings, save the double basses, in unison, and played with an effect that never failed to secure a repeat and sometimes a double encore. What Wagner Learned from Bach. If we bear in mind that counterpoint is the artistic combination of several themes, each of equal or nearly equal importance, and that Bach was the greatest master of the contrapuntal school and forms its climax, we can, with a little thought, appreciate what his service has been to modern music. When Wagner devised his system of leading motives it was not for the purpose of employing them singly, like labels tacked onto each character, thing or symbol in the drama, but of combining them, welding them together, when occasion arose, in order to give musical significance and expression to each and every dramatic situation as the story unfolded itself. A shining example of this is found in that wonderful last scene of "Die Walküre," the so-called Magic Fire Scene. _Wotan_ has said farewell to _Brünnhilde_; has thrown her into a profound slumber upon the rock; has surrounded her with a circle of magic flame which none but a hero may penetrate to awaken and win her. How is this scene treated in the score? In the higher register of the orchestra crackles and sparkles the Magic Fire Motive, the Slumber Motive gently rising and falling with the flames; while the superb Siegfried Motive (signifying that the yet unborn _Siegfried_ is the hero destined to break through the fiery circle) resounds in the brass, and there also is a suggestion of the tender strains with which _Wotan_ bade _Brünnhilde_ farewell. The welding together of these four motives into one glorious whole of the highest dramatic significance is Wagnerian counterpoint--science employed in the service of art and with thrilling effect. Another passage from Wagner, the closing episode in the "Meistersinger" Vorspiel, often is quoted to show Wagner's skill in the use of counterpoint, although he employs it so spontaneously that few people stop to consider how scientific his musical structure is. W. J. Henderson, in his capital book, "The Orchestra and Orchestral Music," relates that on one occasion a professional musician was engaged in a discussion of Wagner in the corridor of the Metropolitan Opera House, while inside the orchestra was playing this "Meistersinger" Vorspiel. "It is a pity," said this wise man, in a condescending manner, "but Wagner knows absolutely nothing about counterpoint." At that very instant the orchestra was singing five different melodies at once; and, as Anton Seidl was the conductor, they were all audible. Wagner scores, in fact, teem with counterpoint, but counterpoint that palpitates, that thrills with emotion. Note that Mr. Henderson speaks of melodies. Wagner's leading motives are melodies, sometimes very brief, but always expressive, and not, like the themes of the old contrapuntists, conceived mainly for the sake of being combined scientifically with other themes equally adaptable to that purpose. Counterpoint may be, and usually is, something very dry and formal. But from the crucible of the master magician, Richard Wagner, it flows a glowing, throbbing, pulsating stream of most precious metal. The Language of an Epoch. In the difference between the counterpoint of Bach and the counterpoint of Wagner lies the difference between two epochs separated by a long period of time. With Bach counterpoint was everything; with Wagner merely an incident. It will help us to a better understanding of music if we bear in mind that the two great composers of each epoch spoke in the music of that epoch. Thus Bach spoke in the language of counterpoint. His themes, however greatly they may vary among themselves, all bear the stamp of motives devised for the purpose of entering into formal combinations and of being developed according to the stringent rules of counterpoint. Beethoven's are more individual, more expressive of moods and emotions. Yet about them, too, there is something formal. They, too, are devised to be treated according to certain rules--to be molded into sonatas. But with Wagner we feel that music has thrown off the shackles of arbitrary form, of dry rule and rote. His motives suggest absolute freedom of expression and development, through previously undreamed-of wealth of harmony and contrapuntal combinations which are mere incidents, not the chief purpose of their being. Each represents some person, impulse or symbol in a drama; represents them with such eloquence and power that, once we know for what they stand, we need but hear them again or recall them to memory to have the corresponding episode in the music-drama in which they occur brought vividly before our eyes. Bach's language was the language of the fugue; Beethoven's the language of the sonata. Fugue and sonata are musical forms. Wagner spoke the language of no form. His language is that of the free, plastic, unfettered leading motive--the language of liberated music, of which he himself was the liberator! Whether Wagner would have devised his system of leading motives without the wonderful structure of counterpoint left by Bach; whether Bach's counterpoint, his combination of themes, suggested the system of leading motives to the greatest master of them all, we probably never shall know. The system, in its completeness, doubtless is Wagner's own; but when he came to put it into practical effect he found the rich heritage left by Bach ready to hand. One of Wagner's instructors in musical theory, and the one from whose teaching he himself declares he learned most, was Theodor Weinlig, one of Bach's successors as Cantor of the Thomasschule at Leipsic. Wagner quotes him as having said: "You may never find it necessary to compose a fugue, but the ability to do it often may stand you in good stead." And the Cantor set him exercises in all varieties of counterpoint. There thus is presented the phenomenon of a composer who for nearly a century after his death had little or no influence on the course of music, suddenly becoming a potent force in its most modern development. Bach in the Recital Hall. Bach is so supreme in his own line that contrapuntal music, so far as the pianoforte is concerned, may be dismissed with him. Händel, too, it is true, was a master of the contrapuntal school, but he belongs to the chapter on oratorio. Bach's pianoforte works in smaller form are the "Two-Part Inventions" already mentioned; the "Three-Part Inventions," which go a step farther in contrapuntal treatment, and the "Partitas," the six "French Suites" and the six "English Suites." These partitas and suites are the most graceful and charming efflorescence of the contrapuntal school, and much could be accomplished toward making Bach a popular composer if they figured more frequently on recital programs. They are made up of the dance forms of the day--allemandes, courants, bourrées, sarabandes, minuets, gavottes, gigues, with airs thrown in for good measure; the partitas and English suites furnished with more elaborate introductions, while the French suites begin with allemandes. Cheerful and even frisky as some of the dance pieces in these compositions are, it must not be supposed that they were intended to be danced to when contrapuntally treated--no more than Chopin intended that people should glide through a ballroom to the music of his waltzes. Besides "sonatas" for pianoforte with one or more other instruments, among them the six "Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violin" (the term sonata as employed here must not be confused with the classical sonata form as developed by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven), Bach composed concertos for from one to four pianofortes. Of these latter the one best known in this country is the so-called "Triple Concerto," for three pianofortes with accompaniment of string quartet, which can at will be increased to a string orchestra. In 1873, during Rubinstein's tour, I heard it played in New York, under Theodore Thomas's direction, by Rubinstein, William Mason and Sebastian Bach Mills, and three years later by Mme. Annette Essipoff, Mr. Mason and Mr. Boscovitz. Mason, when he was studying under Liszt in Weimar in 1854, had performed it with two fellow-pupils, and Liszt had been very particular in regard to the manner in which they played the many embellishments (_agréments_) which were used in Bach's time. Later, Mason found that whenever three pianists came together for the purpose of playing this concerto they were certain to disagree regarding "the agreements," and usually wasted much time in discussing them, especially the mordent. Rubinstein and the "Triple Concerto." Accordingly, when Mason played the "Triple Concerto" with Rubinstein and Mills, he came to the rehearsal armed with a book by Friedrich Wilhelm Marburg, published in Berlin in 1765, and giving written examples of all the _agréments_. "I told Rubinstein about my ancient authority," says Mr. Mason in his entertaining "Memories of a Musical Life," "adding that we should be spared the tediousness of a discussion as to the manner of playing. "'Let me see the old book,' said Rubinstein. Running over the leaves he came to the illustrations of the mordent. The moment his eyes fell upon them he exclaimed: 'All wrong; here is the way I play it!'" And that ended the usefulness of "the old book" for that particular occasion, the other two pianists adopting, without comment, Rubinstein's method, which Mr. Mason intimates was incorrect. When, at the rehearsal with Essipoff, the mordent came up for discussion she exclaimed: "'I cannot play these things; show me how they are done.' After repeated trials, however," records Mr. Mason, "she failed to get the knack of playing them, as indeed so many pianists do; so at the rehearsal she omitted them and left their performance to Boscovitz and me." "The Well-Tempered Clavichord." Bach's monumental work for pianoforte, however, is "The Well-Tempered Clavichord," consisting of forty-eight preludes and fugues in all keys. I find much prevalent ignorance among amateurs regarding the meaning of "well-tempered" as used in this title. I have heard people explain it by saying that when a pianist had mastered the book he was "tempered" like steel and ready for any difficulties that other music might present! I even have heard a rotund and affable person say that "The Well-Tempered Clavichord" was so entitled because when you listened to its preludes and fugues it smoothed out your temper and made you feel good-natured! In point of fact, the word is difficult to explain in untechnical language. It relates, however, to Bach's method of tuning his clavichord--another boon which he conferred upon music. In general, the system may be explained by the statement that certain tone intervals, which theoretically are pure, practically result in harmonic discrepancies, which Bach's "tempered" system corrected. In other words, slight and practically imperceptible inaccuracies are introduced in the tuning in order to counterbalance the greater faults which result when tuning is absolutely correct from a theoretical point of view; just as, in navigating the high northern waters, you are obliged to make allowance for variations of the compass. The system was not actually the invention of Bach, but he did so much to promote its adoption that it is associated with his name. Before it was adopted it was impossible to employ all the major and minor keys on clavichords and harpsichords, and on the pianofortes, just beginning to come into use. It became possible under the tempered system of tuning, and was illustrated by Bach in "The Well-Tempered Clavichord," each major and minor key being represented by a prelude and fugue. Besides the system of tuning in "equal temperament," Bach modernized the technique of fingering by introducing the freer and more frequent employment of the hitherto neglected thumb and little finger. The services of this great man to music, therefore, were threefold. He left us his teeming counterpoint, upon which modern music draws so freely; he promoted the system of tuning in equal temperament; and he laid the foundation of modern pianoforte technique, and so of modern virtuosity. A King's Tribute to Bach. Besides being a great composer, Bach's traits as a man were most admirable. He was uncompromising in his convictions, sturdy, honest and upright. His fixedness of purpose is shown by an anecdote of his boyhood. In his tenth year he lost his parents and went to live with an elder brother, who was so jealous of his superior talents that he refused him the loan of a manuscript volume of music by composers of the day. Obtaining possession of it without his brother's knowledge, Bach secretly copied it at night by moonlight, the task covering something like six months. His reward was to have it taken away by his brother, who accidentally discovered him playing from it. Fortunately, this brother died soon afterward, and Bach recovered his treasure. While it is true that Bach remained unappreciated by the great mass of his contemporaries, there were exceptions, a notable one being the music-loving king, Frederick the Great of Prussia, whose service the composer's second son, Philipp Emanuel Bach, entered in 1746. At the king's earnest urging, Philipp Emanuel induced his father to visit Potsdam the following year. The king, who had arranged a concert at the palace, was about to begin playing on the flute, when an officer entered and handed him a list of the strangers who had arrived at Potsdam. Glancing over it, Frederick discovered Bach's name. "Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "old Bach is here!" And nothing would do save that the master must be brought immediately into the royal presence, before he even had time to doff his traveling clothes. The king had purchased several of the pianofortes recently constructed by Gottfried Silbermann and had them distributed throughout the palace. Bach and the assemblage went from room to room, the composer playing and improvising on the different instruments. Finally he asked the king to set him a fugue theme, and on this he extemporized in such masterly fashion that all who heard him, the king included, broke out into rounds of applause. On his return to Leipsic, Bach dedicated to Frederick the Great a work which he entitled "The Musical Sacrifice" (or offering), which he based upon the fugue theme the king had given him. No other instance of musical heredity is comparable with that afforded by the Bach family. Dr. Theodore Baker, in his "Biographical Dictionary of Musicians," gives a list of no less than twenty Bachs, all of the same line, whom he deems worthy of mention, and who covered a period ranging from 1604 to 1845, when the great Bach's grandson and last male descendant, Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach, died in Berlin. Thus for two hundred and forty-one years the Bach family was professionally active in music. III FROM FUGUE TO SONATA If a pianoforte recital which begins with a Bach fugue continues with a Beethoven sonata, it does not require a very discriminating ear to note the difference between the two. The Beethoven sonata is in a style so entirely distinct from that of the fugue, and sounds so wholly unlike it, that it seems as if Bach had exerted no influence whatsoever upon the greatest master of the period that followed his death. Although Haydn and Mozart were nearer Bach in point of time than Beethoven was, a sonata by either of them, if it chanced to be on the program, would show the same difference in style, the same radical departure from the works of the master of counterpoint, as the Beethoven sonata. The question naturally suggests itself, did Bach's influence cease with his death? And the fact that this question calls for an answer and that this answer leads to a general consideration of the interim between Bach and Beethoven, again shows how broad in its scope as an instrument is the pianoforte and how comprehensive in its application to music as a whole is the music of that instrument. Two works on a recital program furnish a legitimate basis for a discussion of two important periods in the development of music! Who would have thought there was so much to a pianoforte recital? "It would have been an eminently pardonable mistake for any intelligent musician to have fallen into, in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, if he had concluded that Johann Sebastian Bach's career was a failure, and that his influence upon the progress of his art amounted to the minimum conceivable. Indeed, the whole course of musical history in every branch went straight out of the sphere of his activity for a long while; his work ceased to have any significance to the generation which succeeded him, and his eloquence fell upon deaf ears. A few of his pupils went on writing music of the same type as his in a half-hearted way, and his own most distinguished son, Philipp Emanuel, adopted at least the artistic manner of working up his details and making the internal organization of his works alive with figure and rhythm. But even he, the sincerest composer of the following generation, was infected by the complacent, polite superficiality of his time; and he was forced, in accepting the harmonic principle of working in its Italian phase, to take with it some of the empty formulas and conventional tricks of speech which had become part of its being, and which sometimes seem to belie the genuineness of his utterances and put him somewhat out of touch with his whole-hearted father." This passage from one of the most admirably thought-out books on music I know, Sir Hubert Parry's "Evolution of the Art of Music," is no exaggeration. For many years after Bach's death, for nearly a century in fact, his influence was but little felt. And yet so aptly does the development of art adjust itself to human needs and aspirations, the very neglect into which Bach fell turned music into certain channels from which it derived the greater freedom of expression essential to its progress and gave it the tinge of romanticism which is the essence of modern music. The greatness of Johann Sebastian Bach, on the technical side at least, now is so universally acknowledged, and professional musicians understand so well what their art owes to him, we are apt to think of him as the only musician of his day, whereas his significance was but little appreciated by his contemporaries. There were, in fact, other composers actively working on other lines and turning music in the direction it was destined to follow immediately after Bach's death--and for its own ultimate good, be it observed. The simple fact is, that pure counterpoint culminated in Bach. What he accomplished was so stupendous that his successors could not keep up with him. They became exhausted before they even were prepared to begin where he left off. And yet the reaction from Bach was, as I have indicated, absolutely necessary to the further progress of music. The scheme of musical development which the reader should bear in mind if he desires to understand music, and to arrive at that understanding with some kind of system in his progress, was briefly as follows: Three Periods of Musical Development. First we have counterpoint, the welding together of several themes each of equal importance. This style of composition culminated in Bach. Its most elaborate form of expression was the fugue; but it also employed the canon and impressed into its service certain minor forms like the allemande, courant, chaçonne, gavotte, saraband, gigue, and minuet. Next, after Bach music began to develop according to the harmonic system, or, if I may be permitted for the sake of clarity to use an expression which technically is incorrect, according to the melodic system. That is, instead of combining several themes, composers took one theme or melody and supported it with an accompaniment so that the melody stood out in clear relief. This first decided melodic development covers the classical period, the period after Bach to Beethoven, and its highest form of expression was the sonata, which in the orchestra became the symphony. The romantic period comes after Beethoven. This, to characterize it by the readiest means, by something external, something the eye can see, is the "single piece" period, the period in which the impromptu of Schubert, the song without words of Mendelssohn, the nocturne of Chopin, the novelette of Schumann, takes the place of the sonata, which consists of a group of pieces or movements. Composers begin to find a too exacting insistence upon correctness of form irritating. Expression becomes of more importance than form, which is promptly violated if it interferes with the composer's trend of thought or feeling. Pieces are written in certain moods, and their melody is developed so as to follow and give full expression to the mood in which it is conceived. New harmonies are fearlessly invoked for the same purpose. Everything centres in the idea that music exists not as an accessory to form, but for the free expression of emotion. In his useful and handy "Dictionary of Musical Terms," Theodore Baker defines a nocturne as a title for a piano piece "of a dreamily romantic or sentimental character, but lacking a distinctive form." When we see the title "Sonata" over a composition we think of form. When we see the title "Nocturne" we think of mood, not manner. The title arouses within us, by anticipation, the very feeling, the very mood, the very emotional condition which the composer is seeking to express. The form in which he seeks to express it is wholly a secondary matter. A composition is a sonata because it follows a certain formal development. It is a nocturne because it is "dreamily romantic or sentimental." In no better way, perhaps, could the difference between the classical period of music and the romantic period which set in after Beethoven be explained. The romanticist is no more hampered by form than the writer of poetry or fiction is by facts. Form dominates feeling in classical music, feeling dominates form in romantic music. We still are and, happily, ever shall remain in the romantic period. The greatest of all romanticists and, up to the present time, the greatest of all composers is Richard Wagner, whose genius will be appreciated more and more as years go by until, as may be the case, a still greater one will arise; although as dramatic literature culminated in Shakespeare, so music may have found its greatest master for all time in Wagner. Wagner, of course, was not a composer for the pianoforte, but when he reached back and to the fuller harmony inherited from Beethoven added the counterpoint of Bach, thus combining the two great systems of composition, he indicated the only method of progress possible for music of all kinds. Rise of the Melodic School. It must not be supposed that the melodic school which came in after Bach and which, so far as the classical form of the sonata is concerned, culminated in Beethoven, was the mushroom growth of a night. So much has been said of Bach that a person unfamiliar with the history of music might draw the erroneous conclusion that Bach was the only composer worth mentioning before the classical period and Germany the only country in which music had flourished. On the contrary, Bach was the climax of a school to which several countries had each contributed its share, partly vocal, partly instrumental. Palestrina's name naturally comes to mind as representative of the early period of Italian church music; there also was the "Belgian Orpheus," Orlandus Lassus (or Lasso), the greatest composer of the Flemish school; and England had its Gibbons and other madrigal composers. Their music was vocal and requires to be considered more thoroughly under the head of vocal music, but it also was contrapuntal and played its part in the general development of the art before Bach came upon the scene. Of course, there also was instrumental music in counterpoint before Bach's day. There is "Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book," a manuscript collection of music made either during her reign or shortly afterward and containing pieces for the virginal by Tallis, Bird, Giles, Dr. John Bull and others, including also the madrigalist, Gibbons. The Englishman, Henry Purcell (1658-1695); the Frenchman, François Couperin (1668-1733), who wrote a harpsichord method; the Germans, Hans Leo von Hasler (1564-1612) and Froberger; and the Italian, Frescobaldi--these were some among many composers of counterpoint more or less noted in their day. Bach, however, brought the art of counterpoint to perfection, so that, so far as it is concerned, he neither required nor even so much as left room for a successor. It may not be pertinent to the argument, yet it may well be questioned whether, had the classical trio, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, endeavored to carry on the contrapuntal school, they would not, in spite of their genius, have relegated music to a more primitive state than it occupied when Bach died. It seems a fortunate circumstance to me that Bach's son appears to have realized his inferiority to his father and that, in consequence, he turned from counterpoint to the development of harmony--the working out of a clearly defined theme or melody supported by accompaniment. Counterpoint is said to be polyphonic, a term composed of two Greek words signifying many-voiced, the combination in music of several parts or themes. Opposed to it is homophonic, or single-voiced, music, in which one melody or part is supported by an accompaniment. Italy, with its genius for the sensuous and emotional in music, already had developed a school of melodic music, and to this Philipp Emanuel Bach turned for a model. In Italy the pianoforte, through its employment for the freer harmonic support of dramatic solo singing in opera, an art form that is indigenous to Italy, gradually had emancipated itself there from counterpoint and acquired a style of its own. Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1644), a famous Italian pianoforte and organ virtuoso, whose first organ recital in St. Peter's, Rome, is said to have attracted an audience of thirty thousand, and whose mantle fell upon his two most renowned pupils, the German, Johann Jacob Froberger, and the Italian, Bernardo Pasquini, not only experimented with our modern keys, seeking to replace with them the old ecclesiastical modes in which Palestrina wrote, but also simplified the method of notation. For even what seems to us so simple a matter as the five-line staff is the result of slow evolution. Scarlatti's Importance as Composer and Virtuoso. The Italian genius who gave the greatest impulse to the progress of pianoforte music and who, for his day, immensely improved the technique of pianoforte playing, was Domenico Scarlatti (1683-1757), the famous son of a famous father, Alessandro Scarlatti, the leading dramatic composer of his time. Domenico Scarlatti interests us especially because he is the only one of the early Italians whose work retains an appreciable foothold on modern recital programs. Von Bülow edited selections from his works, and I recall from personal experience, because I was at the concert, the delight with which some of these were received the first time Von Bülow played them on his initial visit to this country during the season of 1875-76. Amateurs on the outlook for something new (even though it was very old) took up Scarlatti, and this early Italian's suddenly acquired popularity was comparable with the "run" on the Rachmaninoff "Prelude" when it was played here by Siloti many years later. Scarlatti has been called the founder of modern pianoforte technique. Although he composed for the harpsichord, he understood the instrument so thoroughly and what he wrote for it accords so well with its genius, that by unconscious anticipation it also was adapted to the genius of the modern pianoforte. It still is pianistic; more pianistic and more suitable to the modern repertoire than a good deal of music by greater men who lived considerably later. I should say, for example, that Scarlatti's name is found more frequently on pianoforte recital programs than Mozart's, although Mozart was incomparably the greater genius. But there is about Scarlatti's music such a quaint and primitive charm that one always listens to it with the zest of a discoverer, whereas Mozart's pianoforte music, although more modern, just misses being modern enough. This clever Italian gives us the early beginnings of the sonata form. He merely lisps in sonata accents, it is true, but his lisp is as fascinating as the ingenuous prattle of an attractive child. His best, known work, "The Cat's Fugue," the subject of which is said to have been suggested to him by a cat gliding over the keyboard, is indeed contrapuntal. But even this is a movement in a sonata, and the characteristic of his works as a whole is the fact that in most of them he developed and worked out a melody or theme, and that he established the fundamental outlines of the sonata form. Comparatively few laymen have more than a vague idea of what is meant by sonata form. To them a sonata simply is a composition consisting of several movements, usually four, three of them of considerable length, with a shorter one (a minuet or scherzo) between the first and second or the second and fourth. A sonata, however, must have one of its movements (and generally it will be found to be the first) written in a certain form. Regarding the Scarlatti sonatas, suffice it to say here that with him the form still is in its primitive simplicity. For example, the true sonata movement as we now understand it employs two themes, the second contrasting with the first. As a rule, Scarlatti is content with one theme. It is the peculiar merit of Philipp Emanuel Bach that he introduced a second theme into his sonatas, or suggested it by striking modulations when he employed only one theme, and thus paved the way for its further elaboration by Joseph Haydn. Mozart elaborated the form still further, and then came Beethoven, with whom the classical period reached its climax and whose sonatas for all practical purposes have completely superseded those of his forerunners. Rise of the Amateur. Characteristic of the period of transition from Bach to Beethoven, from the fugue to the sonata, was the development of popular interest in music. Scarlatti begins a brief introduction to a collection of thirty of his pianoforte pieces which were published in 1746, by addressing the "amateur or professor, whoever you be." Significant in this is the inclusion of, in fact the seeming preference given to the amateur. Music of the counterpoint variety had been music for the church, the court and the professional. Now, with the development of the freer harmonic or melodic system, it was growing more in touch with the people. During Philipp Emanuel Bach's life the increase of popular interest in music was remarkable. The titles that began to appear on compositions show that composers were reaching out for a larger public. Bie quotes some of them: "Cecilia Playing on the Pianoforte and Satisfying the Hearing"; "The Busy Muse Clio"; "Pianoforte Practice for the Delight of Mind and Ear, in Six Easy _Galanterie Parties_ Adapted to Modern Taste, Composed Chiefly for Young Ladies"; "The Contented Ear and the Quickened Soul"; while Philipp Emanuel Bach inscribes some of his pieces as "easy" or "for ladies." Evidently the "young person" figured as extensively in the calculations of musical composers then as she does now in those of the publishers of fiction. Musical periodicals sprang up like mushrooms--"Musical Miscellany," "Floral Garnerings for Pianoforte Amateurs," "New Music Journal for Encouragement and Entertainment in Solitude at the Pianoforte for the Skilled and Unskilled," such were some of the titles. These periodicals often went the way of most periodical flesh and in the customary brief period, but they show a quickened public interest in music--the "contented ear and the quickened soul," so to speak. Changes in Musical Taste. If I dismiss Philipp Emanuel Bach rather curtly and, in this portion of the book at least, do the same with Haydn and Mozart, this is not because I fail to appreciate their importance in musical history, but because they have failed to retain their hold on the modern pianoforte repertoire. The simple fact is that the pianoforte as an instrument has outgrown their music. We can get more out of it than they gave it. If we bear in mind that the pianoforte, as well as music itself, has developed, it will aid us in understanding why so much music, once considered far in advance of its time and even revolutionary, has so soon become antiquated. Why ignore facts? Some examples of primitive music still survive because they charm us with their quaintness. But the classical period is retiring more and more into the shadow of history. Whatever importance Haydn and Mozart may possess for the student, their pianoforte music, so far as practical program-making is concerned, is to-day a negligible quantity. I remember the time when, as a pupil, I pored with breathless interest over the pages of Mozart's "Sonata in A Minor" and his "Fantasy and Sonata in C Minor." But to-day, when I read in a book published about twenty-five years ago that Mozart indulged in harmonies, chord progressions and modulations, "sometimes considered of doubtful propriety even now" and "quite as harshly censured as are to-day the similar licenses of free-thinking composers"--I wonder where they are. For his own day, nevertheless, Mozart was an innovator, as every genius is; for it is through those daring deviations of genius from established rule and tradition, which contemporaries regard as unjustifiable license, that art progresses. This should be borne in mind by those who were intolerant toward the opponents of Wagner, yet now are guilty of a similar solecism in proclaiming Richard Strauss a charlatan. Assuming that the modern pianoforte pupil is but indifferently nourished on the Mozart pabulum, let me add that this composer also was a virtuoso, and by his choice of the pianoforte over the clavichord did much toward making the modern instrument more popular. He also developed the sonata form so that Beethoven found it ready moulded for his genius. In fact the sonata form as we know it is so much a Mozart creation that Mr. Hanchett, in his "Art of the Musician," suggests calling the sonata movement proper a mozarta--a suggestion which I presume will never be adopted. Beethoven and the Epoch of the Sonata. In the history of music there are three figures that easily tower above the rest. Each represents an era. They are Bach, who stands for counterpoint, the epoch of the fugue; Beethoven, who represents the epoch of the sonata; Wagner, who represents the epoch of the music-drama. The first two summed up in themselves certain art forms which others had originated. Bach's root goes back to Palestrina, Beethoven's to Scarlatti. Wagner presents the phenomenon of being both the germ and the full fruition of the art form for which he stands. It is conceivable that the work of these men will at some time fall into desuetude, for in art all things are possible, and the classical period seems to be losing its grip on music more and more every day and we ourselves may live to see the sonata movement become obsolete. It certainly is having less and less vogue, and a composer who now writes a sonata with undeviating allegiance to its classical outlines, deliberately invites neglect, because the listener no longer cares to have his faculties of appreciation restricted by too rigid insistence upon form, preferring that genius should have the utmost latitude and be absolutely untrammeled in giving expression to what it has to say. Nevertheless, music always will bear the impress of these three master minds, just as our language, although we do not speak in blank verse, always will bear the impress of Shakespeare. "I don't think much of that play," exclaimed the countryman, after hearing "Hamlet" for the first time. "It's all made up of quotations!" Equally familiar, not to say colloquial, are certain musical phrases, certain modulations, which have come down to us from the masters. Although Beethoven no longer is the all-dominant figure in the musical world that he was fifty years ago, and it requires a performance of the "Ninth Symphony" given under specially significant circumstances (such as the conducting of a Felix Weingartner) to attract as many to a concert hall as would be drawn by an ordinary Wagner program, I trust I shall know how to appreciate his importance to the development of musical art and approach him with the reverence that is his due. Like all great men who sum up an epoch, he found certain things ready to hand. The Frenchman, Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), "the creator of the modern system of harmony," had published his "Nouveau Système de Musique Théorique"; the sonata movement from its tentative beginnings under Scarlatti had been developed through Philipp Emanuel Bach, Haydn and Mozart into a definite art form awaiting the final test of a great genius--which Beethoven proved to be. Beethoven's Slow Development. I already have pointed out that while pianoforte and orchestra have developed side by side, the general belief that the pianoforte merely has been the handmaiden of the orchestra is a mistaken one. On the contrary, until the end of the classical period, at least, the pianoforte was the pioneer. It has blazed the way for the orchestra and led it, instead of bringing up the rear. Thus the sonata form was developed by the pianoforte and then was handed over by that instrument to the orchestra under the name of symphony, which, the reader should bear in mind, simply is a sonata written for orchestra instead of for the pianoforte. Even Beethoven, before he composed his first symphony, which is his Opus 21, tested his mastery of the form and his ideas regarding certain further developments in it, by first composing thirteen pianoforte sonatas, including the familiar "Pathétique," which used to be to concert programs what Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" is now--the _cheval de battaille_, on which pianists pranced up and down before the ranks of their astonished audiences and unfortunate amateurs sought to retain their equilibrium. This experimentation, this comparatively slow development, was characteristic of Beethoven; is, in fact, characteristic of every genius who works from the soul outward. "Like most artists whose spur is more in themselves than in natural artistic facilities, he was very slow to come to any artistic achievement," writes Sir Hubert Parry. "It is almost a law of things that men whose artistic personality is very strong, and who touch the world by the greatness and the power of their expression, come to maturity comparatively late, and sometimes grow greater all through their lives--so it was with Bach, Gluck, Beethoven and Wagner--while men whose aims are more purely artistic and whose main spur is facility of diction, come to the point of production early and do not grow much afterward. Such composers as Mozart and Mendelssohn succeeded in expressing themselves brilliantly at a very early age; but their technical facility was out of proportion to their individuality and their force of human nature, and therefore there is no such surprising difference between the work of their later years and the work of their childhood as there is in the case of Beethoven and Wagner." In writing sonatas Haydn and Mozart had been satisfied with grace of outward form and a smooth and pretty flow of melody within that form. Beethoven was a man of intellectual force as well as of musical genius. He applied his intellect to enlarging the sonata form, his musical genius to supplying it with contents worthy of the greater opportunities he himself had created for it. There is a wonderful union of mind and heart in Beethoven's work. The sonata form, as perfected by him, is a monument to his genius. It remains to this day the flower of the classical period. The Passing of the Sonata. Nevertheless, the Beethoven sonatas no longer retain the place of pre-eminence once accorded them on pianoforte recital programs. When Von Bülow was in this country during the season of 1875-76 he frequently gave concerts at which he played only Beethoven sonatas. I doubt if any of the great pianists of to-day could now awaken as much public interest by such programs as Von Bülow did. I remember the concert at which, among others of the Beethoven sonatas, this virtuoso played Opus 106 ("Grosse Sonata für das Hammerklavier"). After he had played through part of the first movement he became restless, and from time to time peered over the keyboard and into the instrument as if something were wrong with it. Finally he broke off in the middle of the movement, rose from his seat and walked off the stage. When he reappeared, he had with him an attendant from the firm of manufacturers whose pianofortes he used, and together they fussed over the instrument for a while, before the attendant made his exit and the irate little pianist began the sonata all over again. We considered the mishap that gave us opportunity to hear him play so much of the work twice, a piece of great good luck for us. Would we so consider it now? Von Bülow has passed into musical history as a great Beethoven player, and such he undoubtedly was. I doubt, however, if he was a greater Beethoven player than several living pianists. Some seasons ago Eugène d'Albert played a Beethoven program. His performance did not evoke the enthusiasm he anticipated. In fact there were intimations in the comments on his performance that he was not as great a Beethoven player as he thought he was. Personally, and having a very clear recollection of Von Bülow's Beethoven recitals, because I attended every one he gave in New York, and in my mind's eye can see him sitting at the pianoforte, bending away over, with his ear almost to the keyboard, I think d'Albert played his Beethoven program quite as well. What had happened, however, was this: A little matter of thirty years had passed and with it the classical period and its efflorescence, the sonata form, had faded by just so much, and by just so much no longer was considered by the public the crucial test of a pianist's musicianship. Incidentally it is worth noting that the public usually is far ahead of the profession and of the majority of critics in appreciating new tendencies in music and in realizing what is passing away; and the same thing probably prevails in other arts. Orchestral Instead of Pianistic. I am aware that Beethoven was a pianist of the first rank and that within the limitations of the sonata form he developed the capacity of the pianoforte. I also have read Richard Strauss's opinion, in his edition of Berlioz's work on instrumentation, that Beethoven treated the orchestra pianistically. Nevertheless, from the modern viewpoint the essential fault of the sonata, Beethoven's sonatas included, seems to me to be that it is too orchestral and not sufficiently _claviermässig_ (pianistic) in character; not sufficiently adapted to the genius of the pianoforte as we know it to-day. It is possible that for the times in which they were composed, the sonatas of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were most pianistic. But as music has become more and more an intimate phase of life, and as our most intimate instrument, the instrument of the household, is the pianoforte, we understand its capacity for the intimate expression of moods and fancies, the lights and shadows of life, as it never was understood before. The modern lover of music, if I may judge his standpoint from my own, feels that while the sonatas of the masters I have named were written for the pianoforte, they were thought out for orchestra, and that even a Beethoven sonata is an engraving for pianoforte of a symphony for orchestra. He composed nine symphonies and thirty-two sonatas. If he had written his nine symphonies for pianoforte, we would have had nine more sonatas. If he had composed his sonatas for orchestra, we would have had thirty-two more symphonies. This orchestral (as opposed to pianistic) character of the Beethoven sonatas accounts for passages in them so awkwardly written for the instrument that they are difficult to master, and yet, when mastered, are not effective in proportion to their difficulty. Between enlarging the capacity of an instrument through the problems you give the player to solve and writing passages that are awkwardly conceived for it, and hence ineffectual after they have been mastered, there is a great difference. Chopin, Liszt and others pile Pelion on Ossa in their technical requirements of the pianist; but when he has surmounted them, he has climbed a mountain, and from its peak may watch the world at his feet. I think the orchestral character of much that Beethoven wrote for the pianoforte partly accounts for the fact that his sonatas no longer attract the great virtuosos as they formerly did and that the public no longer regards them as the final test of a pianist's rank. I speak so unreservedly because I have lived through the change of taste myself. By way of personal explanation I may be permitted to say, that while I am not a professional musician, music was so much a part of my life that I studied the pianoforte almost as assiduously as if I had intended becoming a public player, and that I was proficient enough to meet once a week with the first violinist and the first violoncellist of the New York Philharmonic Society for the practice of chamber music. If there is any one who should worship at the shrine of the sonata form, and especially at that of the Beethoven sonatas, it should be myself, for I was brought up on the form and those sonatas were my daily bread. When I went to the Von Bülow Beethoven recitals it was with book in hand, to follow what he played note for note for purposes of study and assimilation. Those were years when, in the hours during which one seeks communion with one's other self, the Beethoven sonatas were the medium of communication. But now--give me the men who emancipated themselves from a form that fettered the individuality of the pianoforte, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, and the pianoforte scores of the Wagner music-dramas, which actually sound more pianistic than the sonatas of the classical period and in which it is a delight to plunge oneself and be borne along on a flood of free, exultant melody. Nevertheless, the sonata has had a great part to play in the history and development of music and has played it nobly, and we must no more forget this than we should allow present-day hero worship to supplant the memory of the heroes who went before. The sonata is the firm and solid bridge over which music passed from the contrapuntal period to the romantic, and doubtless there still are some who prefer to linger on the bridge rather than cross it to the promised land to which it leads. Always there are conservatives who stand still and look back; and that these still should let their eyes rest longingly on the great master of the classical epoch, Beethoven, is, to say the least, comprehensible. One would have to be unresponsive indeed not to be thrilled by the story of his life--his force of character, his rugged personality, his determination in spite of one of the greatest misfortunes that could befall a musician, deafness; and the intellectual power which he displayed in bending a seemingly rigid art form to his will and making it the receptacle of his inspiration. Well may these considerations be borne in mind whenever a Beethoven sonata is on a pianoforte recital program. If it does not move us as profoundly as music more modern does, that is not because its composer was less deeply concerned with the problems of life than those who have come after him. For his time he was wonderfully "subjective," drawing his inspiration from the heart, yet always preserving a sane mental poise. If to-day the sonatas of this great genius and splendid man seem to us less dramatic and emotional than they once did to audiences, it is because of the progress of music toward greater plasticity of expression and our conviction that such should be its mission. IV DAWN OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD All art begins with a groping after form, then attains form, and then emancipates itself from too great insistence upon rigidity of form without, however, reverting to its early formless condition. It was absolutely necessary to the establishment of music as an art that at some period or periods in its development it should "pull itself together" and focus itself in certain forms, and adhere to them somewhat rigidly and somewhat tenaciously until they had been perfected. Without saying so in as many words, I have sought, in speaking of the sonata, to let the modern lover of music know that if he does not like sonatas he need not be ashamed of that fact. A few minutes ago and before writing this sentence, I left my desk and going to the pianoforte, played through Beethoven's "Sonata Pathétique." It used to be a thrilling experience to play it or to hear it played. To-day the Grave which introduces the first movement still seemed portentous, the individual themes throughout the work had lost none of their beauty. And yet the effect produced in earlier years by this sonata as a whole was lacking. I shall not say that it sounded pedantic, for I dislike to apply that word to anything that sprang from the heart and brain of a genius like Beethoven's, but there was a feeling of restraint about it--the restraint of set form, the restraint of pathos patterned to measure, which is incompatible with our modern notions of absolute freedom of expression in music. Moreover, there is ample evidence that Beethoven himself chafed under the restraint of the sonata form and constantly strove to make it more elastic and more yielding to his inspiration. What a Sonata Is. The sonata form (that is to say, the movement from which the sonata derives its name) consists of three main divisions and can easily be studied by securing the Bülow and Lebert edition of the Beethoven sonatas in Schirmer's library, in which the various divisions and subdivisions are indicated as they occur in the music. The first division (sometimes with a slow introduction like the Grave of the "Sonata Pathétique") may be called the exposition. It consists of the main theme in the key of the piece, a connecting episode, a second theme in a related key and contrasting with the first, and a concluding passage. As a rule the exposition is repeated--an extremely artificial proceeding, since there is no esthetic or psychological reason for it. After the exposition comes the second division, the development or "working out," a treatment of both themes with much figuration and imitation, generally called the "free fantasia" and consisting "chiefly of a free development of motives taken from the first part" (Baker). This leads into the third division, which is a restatement of the first, excepting that the second theme, instead of being in a related key, is, like the main theme, in the tonic. How Beethoven Enlarged the Form. This is the form of the sonata movement which was handed down to Beethoven by Haydn and Mozart. It very soon became apparent that the greatest genius of the classical period found it too limited for his inspiration. In his third sonata (Opus 2, No. 3) he makes several innovations that, for their day, are most daring. Following the first episode after the main theme, he introduces a second episode with which he leads into the second theme. Then using a variant of the first episode as a connection he leads over to a third, a closing theme. In fact, the material of the second episode is so thematic that I see no reason why he should not be said to use four themes in the exposition instead of the customary two. In the free fantasia he insistently reiterates the main theme, practically ignoring the others, thus familiarizing the listener with it and making it as welcome as an old friend when the third division ushers it in again. Instead of closing the movement at the end of the usual third division, as his predecessors, Haydn and Mozart, did, Beethoven introduces what is one of the most important innovations grafted by him upon the sonata form--a coda with a cadenza. I can imagine that this movement made his contemporaries look dubious and shake their heads. It must have seemed to them originality strained to the point of eccentricity and more bizarre than effective. As we look back upon it, after this long lapse of time, it must be reckoned a most brilliant achievement in the direction of freer form, and from this point of view--please bear in mind the reservation--its creator not only never surpassed it, but frequently fell behind it. One of the movements of this sonata is a scherzo. Beethoven is the creator of this style of movement. It is much less formal than the minuet which Haydn introduced into the sonata. This especial scherzo has a trio which in the broad sweep of its arpeggios is as modern sounding as anything Beethoven wrote for the pianoforte. His "Moonlight Sonata." There are other sonatas by Beethoven that indicate efforts on his part to be less trammeled by considerations of form. Regard as an example the "Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia," Opus 27, No. 2, generally, and by no means inaptly, called the "Moonlight Sonata." This begins with the broad and beautiful slow movement, with its sustained melody, a poem of profound pathos in musical accents. It is followed by an Allegretto, "_une fleur entre deux abîmes_" (a flower 'twixt two abysses) Liszt called it; and then comes the concluding movement, a Presto agitato, which is one of Beethoven's most impassioned creations. There are only three movements, and the usual sequence is inverted, for the last of the three is the Sonata movement. At the end of the Adagio sostenuto and at the end of the Allegretto as well, is the direction "_attacca subito il sequente_," indicating that the following movement is to be attacked at once and denoting an inner relationship, a psychological connection between the three movements. Throughout the work the themes are of extraordinary beauty and expressiveness even for a Beethoven and the whole is a genuine drama of human life and experience. This impression is produced not only by the very evident psychological connection between the movements, but by the manner in which the composer holds on to his themes, developing them through bar after bar as if he himself appreciated their beauty and were reluctant to let go of them and introduce new material. The entire first movement, practically a song without words of the most exquisite poignancy, is built on a single motive with a brief episode which is more like an improvisation than a set part of a movement; while the last movement consists of four eloquent themes with only the merest suggestion of connecting episodes. The working out in the last movement is almost wholly a persistent iteration of the second theme. This persistent dwelling upon theme and the psychological relation between the different movements make this "Moonlight Sonata" to me the most modern sounding of Beethoven's pianoforte works, although when mere structural greatness is considered, most critics will incline to rank it lower than the "Sonata Appassionata" and the four last sonatas, Op. 106 and 109-11. Undoubtedly, however, it is the most "temperamental" of his sonatas--and herein again the most modern. My one quarrel with Von Bülow is that he made it so popular by his frequent playing of it and his exceptionally poetic interpretation of it, that the great virtuosos shun it, very much as they shun the sixth Chopin waltz (Mme. Dudevant's dog chasing its own tail), because it is played by every pianoforte pupil of every girls' boarding school everywhere. Striving for Freedom. In addition to what I have said of this sonata, it was an immense gain for greater freedom of form, and it is to be regretted that it is a more or less isolated instance and that Beethoven did not adopt it as a standard in shaping his remaining sonatas. Its most valuable attribute from the modern point of view is a characteristic to which I already have called attention several times--the fact that its several movements stand in psychological relation to one another; that there is such real soul or temperamental connection between them, that it would be doing actual violence to the work as a whole if any one movement were to be played without the others or if their sequence were to be inverted. But, you may ask, is there not in all sonatas this psychological inter-relationship of the several movements? Have we not been told again and again that there is? Undoubtedly you, and others who have been misinformed by enthusiasts who are unable to hear music in anything that has been composed since Beethoven, have been told so. But the sonata, with a few exceptions like the "Moonlight," simply is a group usually of four movements, three long-ones with a shorter one between, and, save for their being in related keys, there is no temperamental relationship between the movements whatsoever, and to talk of there being such a thing is nonsense. I believe the time will come when virtuosos will not hesitate to lift single movements out of the Beethoven sonatas and place them on their programs and that there will be a sigh of relief from the public because it can hear a movement that still sounds fresh and modern without being obliged to listen to two or three others that do not. Heresy? Maybe. Galileo was accounted a heretic--yet the world moves and the musical world with it. The Beethoven Periods. Beethoven was an intellectual as well as a musical giant. He thought before he wrought. The division of his activity into three periods, in each of which he is supposed to have progressed further along the road of originality and greatness, is generally accepted. Nevertheless, it is an arbitrary one, especially as regards the pianoforte sonatas, since it has been seen that the first movement of one of his earliest works, the third sonata (Opus 2, No. 3), is one of his most original contributions to music, and one of the most strikingly developed movements in sonata form that he has given us. The period division which assigns this sonata as well as the "Sonata Pathétique" to the first period is absurd. The fact is, that the works of the so-called first and second periods overlap; but there is a decided change in his style when we come to his third period which, in the pianoforte sonatas, begins with Opus 109. (The beginning of this period usually is assigned to the sonata Opus 101, which seems to me too early.) Because here a restless spirit seems to be brooding over his work, it is thought by some that his mind and heart were warped by his misfortunes--his deafness, the ingratitude of a worthless nephew to whom he had been as a father, and other family and material troubles. To me, however, Beethoven seems in these sonatas to be chafing more and more under the restraint of form and to be struggling to free himself from it, bending all his intellect to the task. Frankly, I do not think that in these last sonatas he achieved his purpose. He had outgrown the form he himself had perfected, and the thoughts which toward the last he endeavored to mould in it called for absolutely free and untrammeled development. He had become too great for it and, as a result, it cramped and hampered him in his latest utterances. It is my firm belief that had Beethoven come upon the scene fifty years later, he would not have composed a single sonata, but have revived the suite in modern style, as Schumann practically did in his "Carnaval," "Kreisleriana," and "Faschingschwank aus Wien," or have created for the pianoforte something corresponding to the freely developed tone poems of Richard Strauss. Because, however, Beethoven wrote thirty-two pianoforte sonatas and because he was for many years the all-dominating figure in the musical world, every great composer who came after him and composed for the pianoforte experimented with the sonata form, and always, be it noted, with less success and less importance to the real progress of music toward freedom of expression than when he followed his own inner impulse and wrote the mood pieces, the "music of intention," the subjective expressions of indicated thoughts and feelings, that were more consonant with the tendencies of the romantic period which followed Beethoven and for which he may be said to have paved the way. For just as Bach brought the contrapuntal form to such perfection that those who came after him could not even begin where he left off, let alone surpass him, so Beethoven brought the sonata form to such perfection that no further advance in it was possible. No wonder therefore that the pianoforte sonatas of the romanticists are comparatively few in number and the least satisfactory of their works. These composers seem to have written sonatas simply to show that they could write them and under a mistaken idea that length is a measure of greatness and that shorter pieces are minor achievements, whereas as much genius can be displayed in a nocturne as in a sonata. Sonatas Now Old-fashioned. Lawrence Gilman, one of our younger American critics, in his "Phases of Modern Music," a collection of essays, brief but containing a wealth of suggestion and breathing throughout the spirit of modernity, sums up the matter in speaking of Edward MacDowell's "Keltic Sonata": "I cannot help wishing that he might contrive some expedient for doing away, so far as he himself is concerned, with the sonata form which he occasionally uses, rather inconsistently, as a vehicle for the expression of that vision and emotion that are in him; for, generally speaking, and in spite of the triumphant success of the 'Keltic,' Mr. MacDowell is less fortunate in his sonatas than in those freer and more elastically wrought tone poems in which he voices a mood or an experience with epigrammatic concision and directness. The 'Keltic' succeeds in spite of its form, ... though even here, and notwithstanding the freedom of manipulation, one feels that he would have worked to still finer ends in a more flexible and fluent form. He is never so compelling, so persuasively eloquent, as in those impressionistically conceived pieces in which he moulds his inspiration upon the events of an interior emotional program, rather than upon a musical formula necessarily arbitrary and anomalous." This applies to pianoforte music in general since Beethoven. Such I believe to be the consensus of opinion among the younger generation of critics, to whom, after all, the future belongs, as well as the opinion of those older critics who refuse to allow themselves to be pitchforked by their years into the ranks of the old fogies and who still hold themselves ever receptive to every new manifestation in music that is based on a union of mind and heart. Unless otherwise specifically mentioned I have, in speaking of the sonata form, referred to it in connection with the pianoforte. But it also is the form employed for the symphony (which simply is a sonata for orchestra); for pianoforte trios, quartets and quintets; for string quartets and other branches of chamber music (which are sonatas written for the combination of instruments mentioned and such others as are employed in chamber music), and for concertos (which are sonatas for the combination of a solo instrument like the pianoforte, violin or violoncello, with orchestra). In these branches the sonata form has held its own more successfully than on the pianoforte, and for several extraneous reasons. In the symphony it is due largely to the greater variety that can be achieved through orchestral coloring; in chamber music largely to the somewhat super-refined and timorous taste of its devotees which would regard any startling innovation as highly indecorous; and in the concerto to the fact that a soloist who appears at an orchestral concert is supposed to play a concerto simply because the orchestra is there to play it with him, although he, as well as the audience, probably would find a group of solos far more effective. In fact I think that much of the applause which usually follows a great pianist's playing of a concerto is due not so much to the audience's enthusiasm over it as to the hope that he may be induced to come out and play something alone. So far as the symphony is concerned, it is liberating itself more and more from the sonata form and taking the direction indicated by Liszt in his symphonic poems and by Richard Strauss in his tone poems, the freest form of orchestral composition yet conceived. The First Romantic Composers. In music, as in other arts, periods overlap. We have seen that during Bach's life Scarlatti in Italy was laying the foundations of the harmonic system and shaping the outlines of the sonata form which was to develop through Philipp Emanuel Bach, Haydn and Mozart and find its greatest master in Beethoven. Likewise, even while Beethoven was creating those works which are the glory of the classical period, two of his contemporaries, Carl Maria von Weber, who died one year before him, and Franz Schubert, who survived him by only a year, were writing music which was destined to turn the art into new channels. Weber (1786-1826) is indeed regarded as the founder of the romantic school through his opera "Der Freischütz." It seems to me, however, that Schubert (1797-1828) contributed quite as much to the new movement through his songs, while the contributions of both to the pianoforte are important. Weber was a finished pianist, had an enormous reach (he could stretch a twelfth), and besides utilizing the facility thus afforded him to add to the brilliancy of pianoforte technique (as in his well-known "Concert Piece for Piano and Orchestra"), he deliberately, in some of his compositions, ignored the sonata form and wrote a "Momento Capriccioso," a "Polonaise," a "Rondo Brilliant," a "Polacca Brilliant" and the fascinating "Invitation to the Dance." The last, even in its original form and without the elaborations in Tausig's version of it, and the "Concert Piece" still are brilliant and effective numbers in the modern pianoforte repertoire. Considering the age in which they were composed, their freedom from pedantry is little short of marvelous. Schubert's Pianoforte Music. Schubert was not a virtuoso and passed his life almost in obscurity, but we now recognize that, although he lived but thirty-one years, few composers wrought more lastingly than he. Of course, the proper place for an estimate of his genius is in the chapter on song, but as a pianoforte composer he is, even to this day, making his influence more and more felt. Living in Vienna, Beethoven's city, and a fervent admirer of that genius, it was natural that he should have composed sonatas, and there is a whole volume of them among his pianoforte works. Nevertheless, so original was his genius and so fertile, that, in addition to his numerous other works, he composed eight impromptus, among them the highly poetic one in G flat major (Opus 42, No. 2), usually called "The Elegy"; another in B flat major (Opus 142, No. 3), which is a theme with variations, some of them brilliant, others profoundly expressive; and the beautifully melodious one in A flat major; six dainty "Moments Musicals"; the exquisite little waltz melodies from which Liszt fashioned the "Soirées de Vienne"; the "Fantasia in G," from which the popular minuet is taken; and the broadly dramatic "Fantasia" on a theme from his song, "The Wanderer," for which Liszt wrote an orchestral obbligato, thus converting it into a highly effective and thoroughly modern fantasy for pianoforte and orchestra. These detached compositions are as eloquent in their appeal to-day as if they had been written during the last ten years instead of during the first quarter of the last century. They are melodious with the sustained melody that delights the modern ear. There is not, as in the sonata form or, for that matter, in all the classical music that Schubert heard around him, the brief giving out of a theme, then an episode, then another brief theme and so on, all couched in the formulas in which the classicists delighted, but instead of these postulates of formality, melody fully developed and wrought out by one who reveled in it and was willing that his hearers should revel in it as well. To distinguish between the classicists and this early romantic composer, whose work survives in all its freshness and beauty to this day, it may be said that their music was thematic--based on the kind of themes that lent themselves to formal working out as prescribed by the sonata formula; whereas these detached pieces of Schubert are based on melodies--long-drawn-out melodies, if you wish, and be grateful that they are--that conjure up mood pictures and through their exquisite harmonization exhale the very fragrance of romanticism. Naturally, the sonatas from his pen are more set. Nevertheless, so long as it seems that we must have sonatas on our recital programs, the neglect of those by Schubert is shameful. I am willing to stake his sonata No. 5, in A minor, against any sonata ever written, and from several of the sonatas single movements can be detached which I should think any pianist would be glad to add to his repertoire. Among these is the lithesome scherzo from the sonata No. 10, in B flat major, and the beautiful slow movement (Andante sostenuto) from the same work. Schubert also wrote many valuable pianoforte duets, among them several sets of marches and polonaises and an elaborate and stirring "Divertissement à l'Hongroise," which last seems to foreshadow the "Hungarian Rhapsodies" of Liszt. In these and the detached pianoforte solo pieces a special value lies in that they do not appear to have been composed as a protest against the sonata form, but spontaneously and without a thought on Schubert's part that he was doing anything in any way remarkable. They are expressions of musical feeling in the manner that appealed to him as most natural. The "Moments Musicals" especially are little mood pieces and impressionistic sketches with here and there a bit of realism. Who, for example, is apt to forget Essipoff's playing of the third "Moment" in Hungarian style, with a long crescendo and diminuendo (the same effect used by Rubinstein, when he played his arrangement of the "Turkish March" from Beethoven's "Ruins of Athens"), so that it seemed as if a band of gypsies approached from afar, danced by, and vanished in the distance? Thoroughly modern is Schubert, a most modern of the moderns, whether we listen to his original pianoforte compositions, or to the Schubert-Liszt waltzes, or "Hark, Hark, the Lark," "To Be Sung on the Water" (barcarolle) and other songs of his which have been arranged for the pianoforte by Liszt. Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words." Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, the musical idol of his day and now correspondingly neglected, contributed to the romantic movement his "Songs Without Words," short pieces for the pianoforte and aptly named because their sustained melody clearly defined against a purposely subordinated accompaniment gives them the character of songs, in the popular meaning of the word. Mendelssohn was a fluent, gentlemanly composer, whose music was readily understood and therefore attained immediate popularity. But the very qualities that made it popular--its smoothness and polish and its rather commonplace harmlessness--have caused it to lose caste. The "Songs Without Words," however, still occupy a place in the music master's curriculum, forming a graceful and easily crossed bridge from classical to romantic music. I can remember still, when, as a lad, I received from my music teacher my first Mendelssohn "Song Without Words," the G minor barcarolle, how it seemed to open up a new world of music to me. Many of these compositions, which are unique in their way, still will be found to possess much merit. That they are polished little pieces and poetic in feeling almost goes without saying. The "Spring Song" may be one of the most hackneyed of pianoforte pieces and the same may be true of the "Spinning Song," but it is equally true that the former is as graceful and charming as the latter is brilliant and showy. A tender and expressive little lyric is the one in F major (No. 22), which Joseffy frequently used as an encore and played with exquisite effect. A group of Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words" is never out of place on a pianist's program. At least half a dozen of them, I think, are apt to survive the vicissitudes of many years to come. Mendelssohn wrote three sonatas, a "Sonata Ecossaies" (Scotch), several capriccios and other pieces for the pianoforte, besides two pianoforte concertos, of which the one in G minor is the stock selection of conservatory pupils at their graduation exercises and later at their début. With it they shoot the musical chutes. V CHOPIN, THE POET OF THE PIANOFORTE I must ask the reader still to imagine that he is at a pianoforte recital, although I frankly admit that I have been guilty of many digressions, so that it must appear to him as if he had been whisked from Mendelssohn Hall up to Carnegie Hall, then down to the Metropolitan Opera House and back to Mendelssohn Hall again. This, however, as I have sought to make clear before, is due to the universality of the pianoforte as an instrument and to the comprehensiveness of pianoforte music, which in itself illustrates in great part the development of the art. At this point, then, of our imaginary pianoforte recital there is likely to be a group of compositions by Chopin; and the larger the group, or the more groups by this composer on the program, the better satisfied the audience is apt to be. Baker calls Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) the "incomparable composer for the pianoforte." But he was more. He was an incomparable composer from every point of view, great, unique, a tone poet, as well as the first composer who searched the very soul of the instrument for which he specialized. Extraordinary as is his significance for that instrument, his influence extends through it into other realms of music, and his art is making itself felt to this day in orchestra, opera and music-drama as well as in pianoforte music. For he was an innovator in form, an intrepid adventurer in harmony and a sublime singer of melody. Tempo Rubato. Before the pianist whose recital we are supposed to be attending will have played many bars of the first piece in the Chopin group, the individuality of this composer will become apparent. Melody will pervade the recital hall like the fragrance of flowers. At the same time there will be an iridescence not noticeable in any of the music that preceded Chopin, and produced as if by cascades of jewels--those remarkable ornamental notes which yet are not ornamental, but, in spite of all their light and shade, and their play of changeable colors, part of the great undercurrent of melody itself. Here we have then, nearly at the very outset of the first Chopin piece, the famous _tempo rubato_, so-called, which has been explained in various ways, but which with Chopin really means that while the rhythm goes calmly on with one hand, the other weaves a veil of iridescent notes around the melodic idea. Liszt expressed it exactly when he said: "You see that tree? Its leaves move to and fro in the wind and follow the gentle motion of the air; but its trunk stands there immovable in its form." Or the _tempo rubato_ is like a shower of petals from a tree in full bloom; the firm outline of the tree, its foliage are there, while we see the delicately tinted blossoms falling from the branches and filling the air with color and fragrance; or like the myriad shafts from the facets of a jewel, piercing in all directions while the jewel itself remains immovable, the centre of its own rays; or like the crisp ripple on a river, while the stream itself flows on in majesty; or, in one or two passages when Chopin becomes a cynic, like the twaddle of critics while the person they criticise calmly goes about his mission. The Soul of the Pianoforte. What you will notice about these compositions of Chopin--and I say "these compositions" deliberately, although I have not named any (for it makes no difference what pieces of his are on the program, the effect will be the same)--is the fact that in none of them is there the slightest suggestion of anything but pianoforte music. Chopin's great achievement so far as the pianoforte is concerned is the fact that he liberated it completely from orchestral and choral influences, and made it an instrument sufficient unto itself, brought it into its own in all its beauty of tone and expression and enlarged its capacity; sought out its soul and reproduced it in tone, as no other composer had done before him or has done since. The recognition of the true piano tone seems to have been instinctive with him. It appears in his earliest works. Nothing he ever wrote suggests orchestra or voice. For the beautiful singing quality he brings out in much of his music is a singing quality which belongs to the noble instrument to which he devoted himself. Not once while listening to a Chopin composition do you think to yourself, as you do so often with classical works, like the Beethoven sonatas, "How well this would sound on the orchestra!" Yet Chopin is as sonorous, as passionate, as pleading, as melancholy and as rich in effect, although he is played only on the black and white keys of the pianoforte, as if he were given forth by a hundred instrumentalists, so thoroughly did he understand the instrument for which he wrote. He was the Wagner of the pianoforte. A Clear Melodic Line. What you will notice, too, about his music is the general distinctness of his melody. There may be times, as in some of his arabesque compositions, like the "F Minor Étude," when the effect is slightly blurred. But this is done purposely, and as a rule there will be found a clear melodic line running through everything he wrote. Combined with this melody are weird, exquisite, entrancing harmonies, and those showers of _tempo rubato_ notes which glitter like a veil of mist in the sunlight and yet, although a veil, allow you to see what is beneath it, like a delicate fabric which seems rather to emphasize and reveal the very things it is intended to conceal. Chopin was a Pole. He had the melancholy of his race, but also its _verve_. Profoundly affected by his country's sorrow, he also had its haughty spirit. In Paris, where he spent the most significant years of his life, he was surrounded by the aristocracy of his own country who were in exile, and by the aristocracy of the arts. Liszt speaks of an evening at his salon where he met, besides some of the Polish aristocrats, people like Heinrich Heine, Meyerbeer, Delacroix, Nourrit, the tenor, and Bellini. Chopin admired Bellini's music, its clear and beautiful melodiousness, and I myself think that Chopin's melody often has Italian characteristics, although it is combined with harmony that is German in its seriousness, but wholly Chopinesque in all its essentials. In those numerous groups of ornamental, or rather semi-ornamental, notes, so many of them chromatic, and all of them usually designated by the technical term "passing notes," signifying that they are merely incidental to the melody and to the harmonic structure, there are nevertheless many that have far greater importance than if they were merely "passing." It is in bringing out this significance by slight accelerations and retards, by allowing a few of them to flash out here while the others remain slightly veiled, that the inspired Chopin player shows his true conception of what the composer meant by _tempo rubato_. It was Liszt, afterward the first to recognize Wagner, who was the first to recognize Chopin. It was Liszt also who introduced him to George Sand (Mme. Dudevant), the great passion of his life. Chopin was the friend of many women. They adored his poetic nature, and there is much in his music that is effeminate, delicate and sensitive; but altogether too much has been made of this side of his art, and of certain morbid pieces like some of the Nocturnes. The affair with George Sand was not only a passion, but was a tragedy, and like all such tragedies it left on his music the imprint of something deeper and greater than mere delicacy and morbidity. Then, too, we have to count with his patriotism and his sympathy with his struggling country, and there is much more of the virile and heroic in his music than either the average virtuoso or the average listener allows for. The Études. These contrasts in his music can readily be recognized when a great pianist makes up the Chopin group on his program from the Études, which are among the greatest compositions of all times, whether we consider them as pianoforte music or as music in general. They touch the soul in many places, and in many and varied ways, and they reflect the alternate delicacy and daintiness of his genius as well as its vigor and nobility. Suppose, for the sake of a brilliant beginning, the virtuoso chooses to start off with the fifth, the so-called "Étude on Black Keys," and flashes it in our eyes, making the pianoforte play the part of a mirror held in the sunlight. This gives us one side of Chopin's music, its brilliancy; and it is noticeable that while the tempo of the piece is given as _vivace_, the style in which it is to be played is indicated by the direction _brillante_. If the pianist continues with the third Étude, we shall hear one of the most tender and beautiful melodies that Chopin ever composed. Let him follow this with number thirteen, the one in A flat major, and we are reminded of what Schumann said, in his review of this book of Études, in which he speaks of the A flat major as "an æolian harp, possessed of all the musical scales, the hand of the artist causing them all to intermingle in many varieties of fantastic embellishment, yet in such a way as to leave everywhere audible a deep fundamental tone and a soft continuously singing upper voice." Schumann heard Chopin himself play this Étude, and he says that whoever will play it in the way described will get the correct idea of Chopin's performance. "But it would be an error to think that Chopin permitted every one of the small notes to be distinctly heard. It was rather an undulation of the A flat major chord here and there thrown aloft anew by the pedal. Throughout all the harmonies one always heard in great tones a wondrous melody, while once only in the middle of the piece, besides that chief song, a tenor voice became prominent in the midst of the chords. After the Étude, a feeling came over one as of having seen in a dream a beatific picture which, when half awake, one would gladly recall." Vigor, Passion, and Impetus. If now the pianist wishes to show by contrast Chopin in his full vigor, passionate and impetuous, let him take the great C Minor Étude, the twelfth, _Allegro con fuoco_. "Great in outline, pride, force and velocity, it never relaxes its grim grip from the first shrill dissonance to the overwhelming chordal close," says Huneker, adding that "this end rings out like the crack of creation." It is supposed to be an expression of the alternating wrath and despair with which Chopin received the tidings of the taking of Warsaw by the Russians in September, 1831, for it was shortly after this that the Étude was composed. No wonder, to quote again from Huneker, that "all sweeps along in tornadic passion." A pianist hardly can go amiss in making his selection from the twenty-seven Études, for the contrasts which he can effect are obvious, and there is among these compositions not one which has not its special merits. There is the tenth, of which Von Bülow said whoever could play it in a really finished manner might congratulate himself on having climbed to the highest point of the pianist's Parnassus, and that the whole repertory of music for the pianoforte does not contain a study of perpetual motion so full of genius and fancy as this especial one is universally acknowledged to be, excepting, possibly, Liszt's "Feux Follets." Then there is number nineteen in C sharp minor, like a nocturne with the melody in the left hand, with the right hand answering as a flute would a 'cello. For contrast take number twenty-one, the so-called "Butterfly Étude"--a wretched misnomer, because a pianist gifted with true musical clairvoyance can work up such a gust of passion in this Étude that any butterfly would be swept away as if by a hurricane. Nor, in order to accomplish this, is it necessary to make such a bravura piece of the Étude as so many pianists ignorantly do. We have, too, the "Winter Wind Étude," in A minor, Opus 25, number eleven--the twenty-third in the collection as usually published--planned on a grand scale and carried out in a manner equal to the plan. Von Bülow calls attention to the fact that, with all its sonorousness, "the greatest fullness of sound imaginable," it nowhere trespasses upon the domain of the orchestra, but remains pianoforte music in the strictest sense of the word. "To Chopin," says Von Bülow, in referring to this Étude, "is due the honor and credit of having set fast the boundary between piano and orchestral music which, through other composers of the romantic school, especially Robert Schumann, has been defaced and blotted out, to the prejudice and damage of both species." While agreeing with Von Bülow that Chopin was the great liberator of the pianoforte, I cannot agree with the exception he takes to the music of Robert Schumann. If he had referred back to the unpianistic classical sonata form, he would have been more accurate. The Préludes. I have gone into some detail regarding these Études because I regard them, as a whole, among the greatest of Chopin's works. But I once heard Rubinstein play the entire set of twenty-four Préludes, and I sometimes wonder, as one often does with the compositions of a great genius, whether these Préludes, in spite of their comparative brevity, should not be ranked as high as anything Chopin ever wrote. According to tradition, they were composed during the winter of 1838, which Chopin spent with George Sand at Majorca in the Balearic Islands. But there is authority for saying that they received only the finishing touches there, and are in fact the gleanings of his portfolios. It seems as if in these twenty-four pieces every phase of human emotion were brought out. If my memory is correct, Rubinstein played them as a solo group at a Philharmonic concert, or he may have given them about the same time at one of his recitals. It was in 1872; and while after this long lapse of time it is impossible to remember every detail of his performance, I shall never forget the exquisite tenderness with which he played the very brief Prélude in A major, the seventh. He simply caressed the keyboard, touched it as if his fingers were tipped with velvet; and though into the other compositions of the series he put, according as their character varied, an immense amount of passion, or more subdued emotion, I can still hear this seventh Prélude sounding in my memory, note for note and bar for bar, as he rendered it--a prolonged, tremulous whisper. Schumann regarded the Préludes as most remarkable, saying that "in every piece we find in his own hand 'Frédéric Chopin wrote it.' One recognizes him in his pauses, in his quick-coming breath. He is the boldest, the proudest poet-soul of his time." Each number in the series is complete in itself, a mood picture; but the series as a whole, in its collection of moods, its panorama of emotions, represents the entire range of Chopin's art. The fourth in E minor, covering only a page, is one of the most pathetic plaints ever penned. The fifteenth in D flat major, with its continual reiteration of the dominant, like the incessant drip of rain on a roof, is a nocturne--Chopin in one of his morbid moments; while the eighteenth in F minor is as bold a piece of dramatic recitative as though it had been lifted bodily out of a music-drama. And so we might run the whole range of the collection, finding each admirable in itself, yet different from all the others. What a group for a recital these twenty-four Préludes make! Nocturnes. If Chopin had not written the Nocturnes I doubt if those who play and those who comment on him would err so often in attributing such an excess of morbidness to him as they do, or lay the charge of effeminacy against him. Morbid these Nocturnes undoubtedly are in many parts, and yet they often rise to the dignity of elegy, and sometimes even of tragedy. Exquisitely melodious they are, too, and full of the haunting mystery of night. The one in C sharp minor, Opus 27, No. 1, is perhaps the most dramatic of the series, and Henry T. Finck, in his Chopin essay, is entirely within bounds when he says that it embodies a greater variety of emotion and more genuine dramatic spirit on four pages than many operas on four hundred. There are greater nocturnes than the one in G, Opus 37, No. 2, but I must nevertheless regard it as the most beautiful of all. It may bewitch and unman the player, as Niecks has said, but, on the other hand, I think its second melody, like a Venetian barcarolle breathed through the moonlight, is the most exquisite thing Chopin ever composed; and note how, without any undulating accompaniment, its rhythm nevertheless produces a gentle wavy effect. Probably the most familiar of all the Nocturnes is the one in E flat, the second in the first set, Opus 9. It has been played so much that unless it is interpreted in a perfect manner it comes perilously near to being hackneyed; but under the hands of a great pianist, who unites with absolute independence of all his ten fingers, the soul of a poet, it becomes an iridescent play of color, with a sombre picture of melancholy seen through the iridescence. Remenyi played a violin arrangement of it with such delicacy and so much poetry of feeling that he actually reconciled one to its transfer from the pianoforte to the soprano instrument of four strings. Chopin and Poe. John Field, an Irish composer (1782-1837), was the first to compose nocturnes, and it is not unlikely that Chopin got the pattern from him. Occasionally at historical recitals one hears a nocturne by John Field; but I think that if even those who love to question the originality of great men were familiar with the nocturnes of Field, they would realize how far Chopin went beyond him, making out of a small type an art form of such poetic content that, in spite of Field having been first in the lists, Chopin may be said to have originated the form. Naturally, Field did not relish seeing himself supplanted by this greater genius, and he said of Chopin that he composed music for a sick-room, and had "a talent of the hospital." On recital programs Chopin's nocturnes often appear, and, when played by a master like Paderewski, who is sensitive to every shade of Chopin's genius, they are heard with an exquisite feeling of sorrow. In these Nocturnes, Chopin always seems to me like Edgar Allan Poe in "Ullalume" or in "Annabel Lee"--and was not Poe one of the only two American poets of real genius? Waltzes and Mazurkas. A Chopin waltz will admirably afford contrast in a group of Chopin pieces on a recital program. Possibly the waltzes are the most frequently played by amateurs of all Chopin's compositions. But, to perpetrate an Irish bull, even those that have been played to death still are very much alive. It was Schumann who said that if these waltzes were to be played for dancing more than half the dancers should be Countesses, the music is so aristocratic. Indeed, to listen to these waltzes is like looking at a dance through a fairy lens. They seem to be improvisations of the pianist during a dance, and to reflect the thoughts that arise in the player's mind as he looks on, giving out the rhythm with the left hand, while the melody and the ornamental note-groups indicate his fancies--love, a jealous plaint, joy, ecstasy, and the tender whispering of enamored couples as they glide past. The slow A minor "Waltz," with its viola-like left-hand melody, was Chopin's favorite, and he was so pleased when Stephen Heller told him that it was his favorite one, too, that he invited him to luncheon. (Strange that we always should regard food as the most appropriate reward of artistic sympathy!) Each waltz, with the exception of some of the posthumous ones, has its individual charm, but to me the most beautiful is the one in C sharp minor, with its infinite expression of longing in its leading theme and its remarkable chromatic descent before the brilliant right-hand passage that follows in the second episode. These chromatics should be emphasized, as they are a feature of the passage and form gems of harmonization. But few pianists seem to appreciate their significance and pay sole attention to bringing out the upper voice. Thoroughly characteristic of Chopin, thoroughly in keeping with his Polish nationality and its traditions, are the Mazurkas--jewels of music, full of the finest feeling, the most delicate harmonization, and with a dash and spirit entirely their own. Weitzmann truly says that they are the most faithful and animated pictures of his nation which Chopin has left us, and that they are masterpieces of their class: "Here he stands forth in his full originality as the head of the romantic school of music; in them his novel and alluring melodic and harmonic progressions are even more surprising than in his larger compositions." Liszt on the Mazurkas. Liszt, too, pauses to pay his tribute to them: "Some portray foolhardy gaiety in the sultry and oppressive air of a ball, and on the eve of a battle; one hears the low sighs of parting, whose sobs are stifled by sharp rhythms of the dance. Others portray the grief of the sorely anxious soul amid festivities, whose tumult is unable to drown the profound woe of the heart. Others, again, show the tears, premonitions and struggles of a broken heart, devoured by jealousy, sorrowing over its loss, but repressing the curse. Now we are surrounded by a swirling frenzy, pierced by an ever-recurring palpitating melody like the anxious beating of a loving but rejected heart; and anon distant trumpet calls resound like dim memories of bygone fame." All this is very fine, although a trifle over-sentimental. The fact is that the Chopin Mazurkas are archly coquettish, passionately pleading, full of delicate banter, love, despair and conquest--and always thoroughly original and thoroughly interesting. In fact Chopin never is commonplace. A Mazurka or two will add zest to any group of his works on a recital program. The Polonaises are Chopin's battle-hymns. The roll of drums, the booming of cannon, the rattle of musketry and the plaint for the dead--all these things one may hear in some of these compositions. The mourning notes, however, are missing from the "A Major Polonaise," Opus 40, and usually called "Le Militaire." It is not a large canvas, but it is heroic and one of the most virile of all his works. It was of this polonaise Chopin said that if he could play it as it should be played, he would break all the strings of the pianoforte before he had finished. Other Works. And then the Ballades and the Scherzos. These are perhaps Chopin's greatest contributions to the music of the pianoforte. They are wonderfully original, wonderfully emotional, yet never to the point of morbidness, full of his original harmonies, fascinating rhythms and glow. In the Scherzos he is not gaily abandoned, as the title would suggest, but often grim and mocking--tragedy mocking itself. Chopin also wrote Sonatas--felt himself obliged to, perhaps, because he was writing for the pianoforte, because pianoforte music still was in the grip of the thirty-two Beethoven pianoforte sonatas. By no means did he adhere to the classical form; yet these three sonatas are not to be counted among his most successful compositions. One of them, the B flat minor, contains the familiar funeral march which has been said to "give forth the pain and grief of an entire nation"--Chopin's nation, sorrowing Poland; and, indeed, the middle episode, the trio of the march, is pathetic to the verge of tears, while in the other portions the march progresses to the grave amid the tolling of bells and the heavy tramp of soldiery. It is played and played, possibly played too much; and yet, when well played, never misses leaving a deep impression. Because people will persist in "playing" certain popular pieces, there is no reason these should not be enjoyed when interpreted by a master. There is a vast difference between interpretation and mere "playing." This funeral march is followed in the sonata by a finale which aptly enough has been described as night winds sweeping over graves. The funeral march often is played at recitals as a detached piece. I cannot see why pianists do not add this finale, which has real psychological connection with it. The "Berceuse," a "Barcarolle," two "Concertos for Piano and Orchestra," which often are slightingly spoken of, and most unjustly, since they are full of beautiful melody and most grateful to play--beyond these it does not seem necessary to go here, unless, perhaps, to mention the Impromptus, which are full of the most delightful _chiaroscuro_, and the great F minor "Fantaisie." A Noble from Head to Foot. Because Chopin wrote only for the pianoforte, because as a rule his pieces are not long, his greatness was not at first recognized. The conservatives seemed to think no man could be great unless he wrote sonatas in four movements for the piano and symphonies for the orchestra, unless he composed for fifty or sixty instruments instead of for only one. But although Jumbo was large, he was not accounted beautiful, and worship of the big is a mistaken kind of reverence. Chopin's briefest mazurka is worth infinitely more than many sonatas that cover many pages. This composer was a tone poet of the highest order. While to-day we regard him mainly as the interpreter of beauty, in his own day he was an innovator, a reformer and, like his own Poles, a revolutionist. The pianoforte--the pianoforte as a solo instrument--sufficed for his most beautiful dreams, for his most passionate longings. Bie, in his "History of the Pianoforte and Pianoforte Players," tells us that Chopin smiled when he heard that Czerny had composed another overture for eight pianos and sixteen persons, and was very happy over it. "Chopin," adds Bie, "opened to the two hands a wider world than Czerny could give to thirty-two." Rubinstein, as quoted by Huneker, apostrophizes him as "the piano bard, the piano rhapsodist, the piano mind, the piano soul.... Tragic, romantic, virile, heroic, dramatic, fantastic, soulful, sweet, dreamy, brilliant, grand, simple--all possible expressions are found in his compositions and all are sung by him upon his instrument." Huneker himself says: "In Chopin's music there are many pianists, many styles, and all are correct if they are poetically musical, logical and individually sincere." Best of all, he enlarged the scope for individual expression in music. Once for all, he got pianoforte music away from the set form of the classical sonata. "He was sincere, and his survival when nearly all of Mendelssohn, much of Schumann, and half of Berlioz have suffered an eclipse, is proof positive of his vitality."--Thus again Huneker. Bie says, in summing up his position, that his greatness is his aristocracy; that "he stands among musicians, in his faultless vesture, a noble from head to foot." But, above all, he is a searcher of the human soul, and, because he searched it out on the pianoforte, is he therefore less great than if he had drawn it out on the strings, piped it on the reeds, blown it through the tubes and battered it on the drumheads of the orchestra? VI SCHUMANN, THE "INTIMATE" Having finished with his Chopin group, the pianist is apt to follow it with his Schumann selections, and we meet with another original musical genius. Robert Schumann was born at Zwickau in June, 1810. His father was a book publisher and was in hopes that the son would show literary aptitude. In fact, the elder Schumann discouraged Robert's musical aspirations; and as a result, instead of receiving early in life a systematic musical training, his education was along other lines. He studied law at Leipzig in 1828 and in Heidelberg in 1829, and was thus what is rare among musicians--a composer with an academic education. His meeting with the celebrated pianoforte teacher, Frederick Wieck, the Leschetitzki of his day, determined Schumann to enter upon a musical career. Wieck took him into his home in Leipzig and he studied the pianoforte with a view of becoming a virtuoso. In order to gain greater freedom in fingering, he devised a mechanical apparatus by which one finger was suspended in a sling while the others played upon the keyboard. Unfortunately, through the use of this contrivance he strained the tendons of one hand and his dream of a virtuoso's career vanished. Meanwhile he had fallen in love with his teacher's daughter, Clara Wieck, and finally, after determined opposition on the part of her father, married her in 1840. Later in life a brain trouble from which he had suffered intermittently became more severe, and in February, 1854, he became possessed of the idea that Schubert's spirit had appeared to him and given him a theme to work out. He abruptly left the room in which he was sitting with some friends in his house at Düsseldorf and threw himself into the Rhine. Some boatmen rescued him from drowning, but he had to be taken to an asylum near Bonn, where he died in July, 1856. These circumstances in his life are mentioned here not only because of their interest, but because they explain some aspects of his music. Schumann was of a brooding disposition, intensely introspective. Compared with Chopin, his music lacks iridescence and shows a want of brilliancy. This will be immediately apparent if at a recital a pianist places the Schumann pieces after a Chopin group, as he is apt to do for the sake of the very contrast which they afford. But if Schumann's compositions are wanting in superficially attractive brightness, they more than make up for it in their profounder characteristics. All through them one seems to hear a deep-sounding tone. One might say that his works for the keyboard instrument are pianoforte music for the viola, and for that reason they appear to me so expressive and so appealing. The harmonies are wonderfully compact. One feels after striking a Schumann chord like stiffening the fingers in order to hold it down more firmly, keep a grip on it, and let it sound to its last echo. Poet, Bourgeois, and Philosopher. In Schumann's music the sensitive listener will find a curious blending of poet, bourgeois, and philosopher. He had the higher fancy, the warmth of the poet, a bourgeois love of what was intimate and homely, and the introspection of the philosopher. Sometimes he is so introspective that he appears to me actually to be burrowing in harmony like a mole. The melodies are interwoven; sometimes the upper voice flutters lightly down upon "contrapuntal collisions in the bass"; frequently his rhythms are syncopated; melodies are superimposed upon each other; he uses "imitations," canonic figuration, and often by introducing a single note foreign to the scale, suddenly lowers or lifts an entire passage. There are interior voices in his music, half suppressed, yet making themselves heard now and then above the principal melody. He loves "anticipations"--advancing a single note or a few notes of the harmony and then filling in the sustained tone or tones with what was at first lacking. These characteristics are so marked that it is as easy to recognize Schumann as it is to distinguish Chopin in the first few bars of a work by either. Each is _sui generis_, each has his own hallmark, and it is a great thing in music, as in other arts, to have one's product so personal that there can be no mistaking whose it is. Schumann made valuable contributions to so-called program music. His pieces, besides intrinsic musical worth, have a distinct meaning, usually indicated by the titles he gives them. And these titles themselves often are suggested by the works of authors whom he admired, or hark back to certain fanciful figures like harlequins and columbines. His second work for the pianoforte, "The Papillons," derived its inspiration from the poet, Jean Paul, who was at that time an object of his intense worship. But whoever expects to find butterflies fluttering through these Schumann pieces will be mistaken. They are rather symbols of thoughts still in the chrysalis state and waiting, like butterflies, to cast off the shell and gain air and freedom. This symbolism must be borne in mind in listening to "The Papillons." Schumann himself said, in a general way, regarding his programmatic intentions in this and other works, that the titles given to his music should be taken very much like the titles of poems, and that, as in the case of poems, the music in itself should be beautiful, irrespective of title or printed explanation. This is true of all program music that has survived. It will be found beautiful in itself; but it also is easy to discover that the titles and explanations which are calculated to place the hearer in certain receptive moods vastly add to his enjoyment. "Carnaval" and "Kreisleriana." I am always glad when a pianist elects to place the Schumann "Carnaval" on his program, because it is so characteristic of the composer's method of work and of his writing short pieces _en suite_, giving a separate name to each of his diversions yet uniting them into one composition by means of a comprehensive title. The complete title to this work is "Carnaval Scènes Mignonnes sur Quatre Notes pour Piano, Op. 9." The four notes are A S C H, and in explanation it should be said that in German S (es) is E flat, and H the B of our musical scale. Asch was the birthplace of Ernestine von Fricken, one of Schumann's early loves. Three of the divisions of the "Carnaval" are entitled Florestan, Eusebius, and March of the Davidsbündler. Schumann had founded the "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik," and he contributed to it under the noms-de-plume of Florestan, Eusebius and Raro; while his associates were denominated the Davidsbündler, it being their mission to combat and put to flight the old fogies of music, as David had the Philistines. Schumann himself is the looker-on at this carnival, a thinker wandering through the gay whirl, drawing his own conclusions, and noting down in music the varied figures as they pass, and his reflections on them. We meet Chopin and Paganini, each neatly characterized; Chiarina (the Italian diminutive of Clara) and Estrella (none other than Ernestine herself); also Harlequin, Pantalon, and Columbine. The Davidsbündler march in to the strains of the German folk-song, "Grandfather wedded my grandmother dear, So grandfather then was a bridegroom, I fear," and the whole ends in a merry uproar. He wrote another carnival suite, Opus 26, the "Faschingschwank aus Wien," in which he introduced a suggestion of the "Marseillaise," which was at that time forbidden to be played in Vienna. The title of another work which ranks among his finest productions, the "Kreisleriana," also requires explanation. This he derived from a book by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who sometimes is spoken of as the German Poe, although he lacks the exquisite art of the American author--in fact, is a Poe bound up in much heavy German philosophy and turgid introspection. The _Kreisler_ of Hoffmann's book is an exuberant sentimentalist, and is said to have had his prototype in Kapellmeister Ludwig Böhner, who, after a brilliant early career, had become addicted to drink and was reduced to maudlin memories of his former triumphs. In Hoffmann's book there is a contrast drawn between this pathetic character, whose ideals have become shadows which he vainly chases, and the prosaic views of life as set forth by another character _Kater Murr_ (literally _Tomcat Purr_). But these "Kreisleriana," of which Bie says "the joys and sorrows expressed in these pieces were never put into form with more sovereign power," should be entitled "Schumanniana," for although the title is derived from Hoffmann, the content is Schumann. Thoughts of His Clara. Concerning the work as a whole he wrote to Clara while in the throes of composition: "This music now in me, and always such beautiful melodies! Think of it, since my last letter to you I have another entire book of new things ready. I intend to call them 'Kreisleriana,' and in them you and a thought of you play the chief rôle, and I shall dedicate them to you. Yes, they belong to you as to no one else, and how sweetly you will smile when you find yourself in them! My music seems to me so wonderfully interwoven, in spite of all its simplicity, and speaking right from the heart. It has that effect upon all for whom I play these things, as I now do gladly and often." If Clara and a thought of Clara play the chief rôle, what becomes of _Kreisler_ and _Kater Murr_? Surely "Kreisleriana" are Schumanniana. Full of varied characteristics are the "Fantasie Pieces." Among these is the familiar "Warum," which one has but to hear to recognize at once that it is no ordinary Why, but a question upon the answer to which depends the happiness of a lifetime; "At Evening" (_Abends_), with its sense of perfect peace; the buoyant "Soaring" (_Aufschwung_); "Whims" (_Grillen_); "Night Scene," an echo of the legend of Hero and Leander; the fable, "Dream-Whirls" (_Traumeswirren_) and the "End of the Song," with its mingling of humor and sadness. These "Fantasie Pieces" and the aptly named "Novelettes" seem destined always to retain their popularity. And then there are the "Scenes from Childhood," to which belongs the "Träumerei"; the "Forest Scenes," the "Sonatas;" the heroic technical studies, based on the Paganini "Capriccios," and the "Études Symphoniques," and the "Fantasie," above the first movement of which he placed these lines from Schlegel: "Through every tone there passes, To him who deigns to list, In varied earthly dreaming, A tone of gentleness." Clara was the "tone," as he told her. It was largely through Madame Schumann's public playing of her husband's works that they won their way. Even so, owing to their lack of brilliancy and their introspection, they were long in coming to their own. But the best of them, including, of course, the admirable "A Minor Concerto," long will retain their hold on the modern pianist's repertoire. William Mason went to Leipzig in 1849. "Only a few years before I arrived at Leipzig," he says in his "Memories," "Schumann's genius was so little appreciated that when he entered the store of Breitkopf & Härtel with a new manuscript under his arm, the clerks would nudge one another and laugh. One of them told me that they regarded him as a crank and a failure because his pieces remained on the shelf and were in the way. * * * Shortly after my return from Germany (to New York) I went to Breusing's, then one of the principal music stores in the city,--the Schirmers are his successors,--and asking for certain compositions by Schumann, I was informed that they had his music in stock, but as there was no demand for it, it was packed away in a bundle, and kept in the basement." What a contrast now! VII LISZT, THE GIANT AMONG VIRTUOSOS It is possible, but not likely, that some pianist willing, for the moment at least, to sacrifice outward success to inward satisfaction, will, after he has played the Schumann selections on his program, essay one of Brahms's shorter pianoforte compositions. These are even more introspective than Schumann's works and combine a wealth of learning with great depth of musical feeling. It is almost necessary, however, that one should know them thoroughly in order to appreciate them, and audiences have been so slow to welcome them that they appear but infrequently on recital programs. Those of my readers, however, who are pianists yet still unacquainted with these rare and beautiful compositions, will soon find themselves under the spell of their intimate personal expression if they will get them and start to learn them. The Brahms Variations on a theme by Händel make a stupendous work, and the rare occasions on which it is played by any one capable of mastering it should be regarded as "events." Grieg, with his clear, fascinating Norwegian clang-tints, which also play through his fascinating "Concerta" in A minor; Dvorak, the Bohemian; Tschaikowsky, whose first "Concerto" in B flat minor is among the finest modern works of its kind; or some of the neo-Russians, are composers who may figure on the program of a modern pianoforte recital. But it is more likely that the virtuoso will here elect to bring his recital to a close with some work by the grandest figure in the history of pianoforte playing and one of the greatest in the history of composition--Franz Liszt. Kissed by Beethoven. Liszt was born at Raiding, near Odenburg in Hungary, in October, 1811, and he died in Bayreuth in July, 1886. From early boyhood, when he was a pianoforte prodigy, almost until his death, he occupied a unique position in the musical world. He was the Paganini of the pianoforte, the greatest pianist that ever lived, and he was a great composer; and although, as a virtuoso, he retired from public performances long before he died, his fame as a player and his still greater fame as a composer have not diminished and his influence still is potent. His father was an amateur, and began giving him instruction when he was six years old. The boy's talent was so pronounced that even without professional instruction he was able, when he was nine years old, to appear in public and play a difficult concerto by Ries. So great was his success that his father arranged for other concerts at Pressburg. After the second of these, several Hungarian noblemen agreed to provide an annual stipend of 600 florins for six years for Franz's further musical education. The family then removed to Vienna, where, for about a year and a half, the boy took pianoforte lessons from Czerny and theory with Salieri. Beethoven heard of him, and asked to see him, and at their meeting, after Franz had played, without notes and without the other instruments, Beethoven's pianoforte trio, Op. 97 (the large one in B flat major), the great master embraced and kissed him. In 1823 he was taken to Paris with a view to being placed in the Conservatoire. But although he passed his examination without difficulty, Cherubini, at that time the director of the institution and prejudiced against infant phenomena, revived a rule excluding foreigners and admission was denied him. His success as a pianist, however, was enormous and there was the greatest demand in salons and musical circles for "le petit Litz." (As some writer, whose name I cannot recall, has said, "the nearest Paris came to appreciating Liszt was to call him 'Litz.'") He was the friend of Chopin, of other musicians, and of painters and literary men, and the doors of the most exclusive drawing-rooms of the French capital were open to him. Paganini played in Paris in 1831, and his wonderful feats of technique inspired Liszt to efforts to develop the technique of the pianoforte with as much daring as Paganini had shown in developing the capacity of the violin. This was the beginning of those wonderful feats of virtuosity as well as of the remarkable technical demands made in his compositions, both of which combined have done so much to make the pianoforte what it is, and to bring out its full potentiality as regards execution and expression. Episode with Countess D'Agoult. For a time Liszt left Paris with the Countess d'Agoult, who wrote under the nom-de-plume of Daniel Stern, and who was the mother of his three children, of whom Cosima became the wife, first of Von Bülow and then of Wagner. His four years with the Countess he passed in Geneva. Twice, however, he came forth from this retirement to cross the sword of virtuosity with and vanquish his only serious rival in pianoforte playing, Sigismund Thalberg, a brilliant player and a man, like Liszt himself, of fascinating personality, but lacking the Hungarian's intellectual capacity. In 1829, he and Countess d'Agoult having separated, he began his triumphal progress through Europe, and for the following ten years the world rang with his fame. He then settled down as Court Conductor at Weimar, which became the headquarters of the new romantic movement in Germany. Hardly a person of distinction in music or any of the other arts passed through the town without a visit to the Altenburg, to pay his respects to Liszt. At Weimar, "Lohengrin" had its first performance; here Berlioz's works found a hearing; here everything new in music that also was meritorious was made welcome. Liszt's activity at Weimar continued until 1859, when he left there on account of the hostility displayed to the production of Cornelius's opera, "The Barber of Bagdad," and its resultant failure. He remained away from Weimar for eleven years, living for the most part in Rome, until 1870, when he was invited to conduct the Beethoven festival and re-established cordial relations with the Court. Thereafter he divided his year between Rome, Buda-Pest, where he had been made President of the new Hungarian Academy of Music, and Weimar. "Liszt, the artist and the man," says Baker, in his "Biographical Dictionary of Musicians," "is one of the grand figures in the history of music. Generous, kindly and liberal-minded, whole-souled in his devotion to art, superbly equipped as an interpreter of classic and romantic works alike, a composer of original conceptions and daring execution, a conductor of marvellous insight, worshipped as teacher and friend by a host of disciples, reverenced and admired by his fellow-musicians, honored by institutions of learning and by potentates as no artist before or since, his influence, spread by those whom he personally taught and swayed, will probably increase rather than diminish as time goes on." It has been said that Liszt passed through six lives in the course of his existence--only three less than a cat. As "petit Litz" he was the precocious child adored of Paris; as a youth, he plunged into the early romanticism which united the devotees of various branches of art in the French capital: next came the episode with the Countess d'Agoult; then his triumphal tours through Europe; settling at Weimar, he became the centre of the modern musical movement in Europe; finally, he revolved in a cycle through Rome, Buda-Pest and Weimar, followed from place to place by a band of devotees. Liszt's compositions for the pianoforte may be classified as follows: "Fantasies Dramatiques"; "Années de Pèlerinage"; "Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses"; the Sonata, Concertos, Études, and miscellaneous works; "Rhapsodies Hongroises"; arrangements and transcriptions from Berlioz, Beethoven, Weber, Paganini, Schubert and others. The Don Juan Fantasie. Among the "Fantasies Dramatiques," which are variations on themes from operas, not mere potpourris or transcriptions, but genuine fantasies, and usually based on one or two themes only, the best known is the "Don Juan Fantasie." It is founded upon the duet, "La ci darem la mano." Liszt utilizes a passage from the overture as an introduction, then gives the entire duet, varying it, however, not in set form, but with the effect of a brilliant fantasia, and then winds up the whole with a presto on the "Champagne Song." It is true it no longer is Mozart--but Mozart might be glad if it were. It is even possible that the time will come when "Don Giovanni" will have vanished from the operatic stage, yet be remembered by this brilliant fantasia of Liszt's. It is one of the great _tours de force_ of pianoforte music, and it is good music as well. Another of the better known "Fantasies Dramatiques" is the one Liszt made from "Norma," in which occurs a long sustained trill and a melody for the right hand, while the left plays another melody and the accompaniment to the whole. In other words, there is in this passage a trill sustained throughout, two melodies and the accompaniment, all going on at the same time, yet written with such perfect knowledge of pianoforte technique that any virtuoso worthy of the name as used in a modern sense, can compass it. A work called the "Hexameron" is included in catalogues of Liszt's compositions, although he only contributed part of it. It is the march from Bellini's "Puritani" with six variations, written by six pianists and originally played by them on six pianofortes, five of them full grands, while Chopin, whose variation was not of the bravura, kind, sat at a two-stringed semi-grand. Liszt contributed the introduction, the connecting links and the finale of the "Hexameron." The "Années de Pèlerinage" were published in three divisions, extending in point of time from 1835 to 1883. They are a series of musical impressions, as the titles indicate--"Au lac de Wallenstadt, Pastoral," "Au bord d'une source, Sposalizio" (after Raphael's picture in the Brera), "Il Penseroso" (after Michael Angelo). Many of these are adroit and elegant in the treatment of the pianoforte, and at the same time beautiful as music. The "Harmonies" are partly transcriptions of his own vocal pieces, partly musical illustrations to poems. Among them is the familiar "Cantique d'Amour," and the "Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude," of which he himself was very fond. William Mason says that at the Altenburg a copy of it always was lying on the pianoforte, "which Liszt had used so many times when playing for his guests that it became associated with memories of Berlioz, Rubinstein, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, Joachim." When Mr. Mason left Weimar he took this copy with him as a souvenir, still has it, and treasures it all the more for the marks of usage which it bears. The "Consolations," which, as Edward Dannreuther says, may be taken as corollaries to the "Harmonies," are tenderly expressive pianoforte pieces. Giant Strides in Virtuosity. The Études bear the dates 1827, 1839 and 1852, and as they are in the main progressive editions of the same pieces, they represent the history of pianoforte technique as it developed under Liszt's own fingers. In their earliest shape when issued in 1827, they were but little different from the classical Études of Czerny and Cramer. In their latest shape they form the extreme of virtuosity. Indeed, these three editions are three giant strides in the development of pianoforte technique. Von Bülow's coupling of the Étude called "Feux Follets" with the A flat study (No. 10) of Chopin already has been quoted under that composer. He considered it even more difficult. Schumann called the collection "Sturm und Graus Etuden" (Studies of Storm and Dread), and expressed the opinion that there were only ten or twelve pianists living who could play them. In the Étude called "Waldesrauschen" will be found some ingenious double counterpoint. The theme is divided into two portions, a descending and ascending one, which later on appear together, with first one and then the other uppermost. Other titles among the Études are "Paysage," "Mazeppa" (a tremendous test of endurance), "Vision," "Chasse-neige," "Harmonies de Soir" and "Gnomentanz." Through Liszt's transcriptions of some of the Paganini pieces in the form of Études, which include the famous "Bell Rondo" from one of the Paganini concertos, this piece, for example, now is far better known as a pianoforte composition than in its original form for violin. Sonata, Concertos and Rhapsodies. The "Sonata in B Minor" dedicated to Schumann is one of the few sonatas in which there is psychological unity throughout. This is due to the fact that it is one movement; although by employing various themes both in rapid and in slow time, Liszt has given it a certain aspect of division into movements. It might well serve as a model to younger composers who think they have to write sonatas. Dannreuther, it is true, says of it that it is "a curious compound of true genius and empty rhetoric," but admits that it contains enough of genuine impulse and originality in the themes of the opening section, and of suave calm in the melody of the section that stands for the slow movement, to secure the hearer's attention. Mr. Hanchett's characterization of it as one of the most masterly compositions ever put into this form--a gigantic, wholly admirable and original work--is more just. The two pianoforte concertos (in E flat and A major) are superb works. Not only are they written with all the skill which Liszt knew so well how to apply when composing for the instrument, but with this technical perfection they also unite thought and feeling. Like the sonata, they show throughout their development the psychological unity which is so essentially modern. What the pianoforte owes to Chopin and Liszt can be summed up by saying that they were poets and thinkers who took the trouble to thoroughly understand the instrument. Because their music sounds so well on it, at least one of them, Liszt, frequently is stigmatized as a trickster of virtuosity and a charlatan, as if there were some wonderful mark of genius in writing something for one instrument that sounds better on another or may not sound as well as it ought to on any. If Liszt's pianoforte music is grateful to the player and equally grateful to the listener, it is not only because he knew how to write for the pianoforte, but because, with deep thoughts and poetic feelings, he also understood how to express them clearly and pianistically. The "Rhapsodies Hongroises" are of such dazzling brilliancy and show off a pianist's technique to such good purpose and so brilliantly, that their real musical worth has been under-estimated. They are full of splendid fire, vitality and passion, and their rhythmic throb is simply irresistible. Like the Études, their history is curious. At first they were merely short transcriptions of Hungarian tunes. These were elaborated and republished and canceled, and then rewritten and published again. In all there are fifteen pieces in the set, ending with the "Rakoczy March." As "Ungarische Melodien" they began to appear in 1838; as "Melodies Hongroises" in 1846; as "Rhapsodies Hongroises" in 1854. Consider that they are over fifty years old, yet remain the greatest pieces for the display of brilliant technique and the most grateful works for which a pianist can ask, and that at the same time they are full of admirable musical content! Because they happen to be brilliant and effective they are called trashy, whereas they owe their brilliancy and effectiveness to Liszt's own transcendent virtuosity, to his knowledge of the pianoforte. In order to be great must music be "classic," heavy and dull, and badly written for the instrument on which it is to be played? How Liszt Played. In those charming reminiscences from which I already have had occasion to quote several times, William Mason's "Memories of a Musical Life," Mr. Mason says that time and again at Weimar he heard Liszt play, and that there is absolutely no doubt in his mind that Liszt was the greatest pianist of the nineteenth century, what the Germans call an _Erscheinung_, an epoch-making genius. Tausig said of him: "Liszt dwells alone upon a solitary mountain-top and none of us can approach him." Rubinstein said to Mr. William Steinway, in the year 1873 (I quote from Mason): "Put all the rest of us together and we would not make one Liszt." While Mr. Mason willingly acknowledges that there have been other great pianists, some of them now living, he adds: "But I must dissent from those writers who affirm that any of these can be placed upon a level with Liszt. Those who make this assertion are too young to have heard Liszt other than in his declining years, and it is unjust to compare the playing of one who has long since passed his prime with that of one who is still in it." Edward Dannreuther, who heard Liszt play from 1863 onward, says that there was about his playing an air of improvisation and the expression of a grand and fine personality, perfect self-possession, grace, dignity and never-failing fire; that his tone was large and penetrating, but not hard, every effect being produced naturally and easily. Dannreuther adds that he has heard performances, it may be of the same pieces, by younger men, such as Rubinstein and Tausig, but that they left an impression as of Liszt at second-hand or of Liszt past his prime. "None of his contemporaries or pupils were so spontaneous, individual and convincing in their playing; and none except Tausig so infallible with their fingers and wrists." Liszt himself paid this superb tribute to the pianoforte as an instrument: "To me my pianoforte is what to the seaman is his boat, to the Arab his horse; nay, more, it has been till now my eye, my speech, my life. Its strings have vibrated under my passions and its yielding keys have obeyed my every caprice. It may be that the secret tie which binds me to it so closely is a delusion, but I hold the pianoforte very high. In my view, it takes the first place in the hierarchy of instruments. It is the oftenest used and the widest spread. In the circumference of its seven octaves it embraces the whole range of an orchestra, and a man's ten fingers are enough to render the harmonies which in an orchestra are brought out only by the combination of hundreds of musicians. The pianoforte has on the one side the capacity of assimilation, the capacity of taking unto itself the life of all instruments; on the other hand it has its own life, its own growth, its own individual development. My highest ambition is to leave to the piano players to come after me, some useful instructions, the footprints of advanced attainment, something which may some day provide a worthy witness of the labor and study of my youth." Bear in mind that Liszt played for Beethoven, that he was a contemporary of Chopin and Schumann, that he was one of the first to throw himself heart and soul into the Wagner movement, and that death came to him while he was attending the festival performances at Bayreuth; bear in mind, I repeat, that he played for Beethoven and died at "Parsifal"; strive to appreciate the extremes of musical history and development implied by this; then remember that he remains a potent force in music--and you may be able to form some idea of his greatness. VIII WITH PADEREWSKI--A MODERN PIANIST ON TOUR Liszt never was in this country, but we can gain some idea of the success that would have been his from the triumphs of Ignace Paderewski. Other famous pianists have come to this country--Thalberg in 1856; Rubinstein in 1872; Von Bülow, Joseffy, who took up his residence here; Rosenthal, Josef Hofmann. But Paderewski's success has been greater than any of these. Americans are said to be fickle; but although Paderewski no longer is a novelty, his name still is the one with which to fill a concert hall from floor to roof. Why this is so is no secret. Hear him and you will understand the reason. To a technique which does not hesitate at anything and an industry that flinches at nothing--no one practices more assiduously than he--he adds the soul of a poet and the strength of an athlete. He looks slender and poetical enough as he sits at the piano on the concert stage; but if you watch him from near by you will be able to note the great physical power which he can bring into play when necessary--_and which he never brings into play unless it is necessary_. Therefore he combines poetry with force; and back of both is thought--intellectual capacity. In a frame on the wall of a New York trust company is a check for $171,981.89. It represents the net receipts of one virtuoso for one concert tour, and is believed to be the largest actual amount ever earned in this country by an artist, whether singer or player, in a single season. This check is drawn to the order of Ignace J. Paderewski. An opinion regarding the piano by a man who by playing it can earn so large a sum, and earn it because he is the greatest living exponent of pianoforte playing, would seem worth having. Paderewski believes that, save in one respect, the pianoforte has reached perfection and is incapable of further improvement. He does not think that anything more should be done to add to its volume of tone. If anything, he considers this too great and the instrument too loud already. Instead of more power, rather less would be satisfactory. Wherein, however, he considers the instrument still lacking, notwithstanding its wonderful development during the last century, is in its capacity for sustained tone--for holding a long-drawn-out tone with the facility of the violin, for example. He is convinced, however, that the means of imparting this capacity for sustaining tone to the pianoforte will be discovered in due time and that the invention probably will be made in this country. That increased tone-sustaining power for the instrument is a great desideratum doubtless is the opinion of many experts; but that the greatest master of the pianoforte considers it perfect in other respects is highly interesting and significant. After all, it remains the greatest of all solo instruments, because, within the smallest compass and with the simplest means of control, it has the range of an orchestra. For this reason it is the most popular of instruments and, in its manufacture, extends from the polished dry-goods box with internal organs of iron, wire and felt and with a glistening row of celluloid teeth ready to bite as soon as ever the lid is raised, to the highest-class concert grand. The "Piano Doctor." We who have our pianofortes in our own homes and are content with an occasional visit from the tuner, little dream of the care bestowed upon the instrument on which an artist like Paderewski plays. Instrument? I should have said instruments; for, when he is on tour, he has a whole suite of them, no less than four, and each is coddled as if it were a prima donna fresh from the hands of Madame Marchesi, instead of a thing of wood, metal and ivory. True, these pianos do not have their throats sprayed on the slightest possible occasion, but they are carefully protected against extremes of heat and cold, and, while the prima donna consults her physician only at intervals, a "piano doctor" is in constant attendance on these instruments. Paderewski's "piano doctor" has traveled with him for several seasons, occupying the same private car and practically living with him during the entire tour. He was with him on the tour, in fact at his table at breakfast with him, when his special train was run on to an open siding near East Syracuse and left the track, Paderewski being thrown forward on his hands against the table and straining the muscles of one arm so severely that he was obliged to cancel his remaining engagements. Up to that time, however, his net receipts from seventy-four concerts had been $137,012.50, while before this American tour began he gave thirty-six concerts in Australia with average receipts of $5,000. His record concert was at Dallas, Texas, some years ago, when the receipts were $9,000. It occurred during a Confederate reunion. While he was at the pianoforte, the various posts marched up to the hall with bands and fife-and-drum corps playing. Paderewski, however, kept right on through the blasts and shrilling. But when one of the posts let out the famous "rebel yell," the pianist leaped from his seat as if he expected a tiger to spring at his throat. Then he realized what had happened, smiled and continued amid laughter and applause. He had heard of the famous "rebel yell," but this was the first time he had heard it. Pianofortes on Their Travels. But to return to the pianofortes on tour. When Paderewski came to this country from Australia, his piano doctor met him at San Francisco with four instruments which had been selected with great care in New York and been shipped West in charge of the "doctor." One of these the virtuoso reserved for his private car, for he practices en route whenever there is a stop long enough to make it worth while. He rarely plays when the car is in motion. Of the other three instruments, the two he liked best were sent to his hotel, where during four days preceding his first concert, he practiced from seven to eight hours a day, notifying the "doctor" twenty-four hours in advance which pianoforte he would use. This instrument became, officially, No. 1; the others No. 2 and No. 3. The pianist's route took him from San Francisco to Oakland, San José, and Portland, Oregon. To make certain that he always will have a fine instrument to play on, a method of shipping ahead the instruments not in use is adopted. Thus, while he was playing on No. 1 in San Francisco and Oakland, No. 2 was sent on to San José and No. 3 to Portland. Of course, none but an expert could detect the slightest difference in these pianofortes, but a player like Paderewski is sensitive to the most delicately balanced distinctions or nuances in tone and action. One of his idiosyncrasies is that always before going on he asks the "doctor" which of the three instruments is on the stage, because, as he himself expresses it, "I don't want to meet a stranger." After each concert, at supper, this conversation invariably takes place: Paderewski: "Well, 'Doctor,' it sounded all right to-night, didn't it?" "Doctor": "Yes, sir." Paderewski: "Well, then, please pass me the bread." There never has been occasion to record what would happen if the "doctor" were to say, "No, sir." For he always has been able to answer in the affirmative, with the most scrupulous regard for veracity. Paderewski is as careful to play his best in the least important place in which he gives a concert as he is in New York. This high sense of duty toward his public accounts in part for his supremacy among pianists Paderewski is not a mere virtuoso. He is a man of fine intellectual gifts who plays the piano like a poet. Paul Potter, the playwright, who lives in Geneva, Switzerland, and occasionally has dined there with Paderewski, tells me that he has conversed with the pianist on almost every conceivable subject _except music_ and always found him remarkably well informed. His knowledge of the history of his native land, Poland, and of its literature is said to be quite wonderful. Chopin, also a Pole, he idolizes and regards as far and away the greatest composer for the piano. To the fund for the Chopin memorial at Warsaw he contributes by charging one dollar for his autograph, and two dollars for his signature and a few bars of music. From the money received as the proceeds of one season's autographs he was able to remit about $1,300 to the fund. When the amusing little dialogue at the supper table, which I have recorded, takes place, the pianoforte which the virtuoso has used at his concert already will be on the way to its next destination. For it is part of the "doctor's" duty to see it safely out of the hall and onto the train before rejoining the party on the private car. The instrument is not boxed. The legs are removed and then a carefully fitted canvas is drawn over the body and held in place by straps. The body is slid out of the hall and slowly let down onto a specially constructed eight-wheel skid, swung low, so as to be as nearly as possible on a level with the platform. This skid is part of the outfit of the tour. The record time for detaching the legs of the pianoforte, covering the body, removing the instrument from the stage and having it on the skid ready to start for the station, is seven minutes. "Thawing Out" a Pianoforte. The instruments never are set up except under the "doctor's" personal supervision. Before each concert the pianoforte on which Paderewski is to play is carefully gone over and put in perfect condition--tuned and, if necessary, regulated, and this no matter how recently he may have used it. Defects so trifling that neither an ordinary player nor the public would notice them, would jar on the sensitive ear and nerves of the virtuoso. Sometimes the instrument has been exposed to such a low temperature that frost is found to have formed not only on the lid, but even on the iron plate inside. In such cases the pianoforte is set up and, after the film of frost has been scraped off, is allowed to thaw out slowly and naturally before it is touched for tuning or regulating. There was an amusing incident in the handling of one of the Paderewski instruments at Columbus, Mississippi, where Paderewski played for seven hundred girls at the State College, although it was more exciting than diverting at the time it happened. The "doctor" relies on local help for getting the pianoforte from the skid to the stage and back again. Usually efficient helpers are obtainable, but at Columbus, where the college hall is upstairs and reached only by a narrow flight of steps, there was no aid to be had save from among the negroes lounging on the public square. The "doctor" went among them. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Nawthin'." "Want a job?" "Naw, too busy," was the usual reply. At last, however, a band of twenty "colored gentlemen" was secured in the hope that muscle and quantity would make up for lack of quality. But never before has a high-grade pianoforte been in such imminent peril. It was got upstairs well enough, in spite of the fact that the negroes walked all over each other. But the descent! The "doctor," Emil C. Fischer, stood at the top of the stairs directing; J. E. Francke, the treasurer of the tour, below. Around the latter fell a shower of fragments from the wall, the rail, the posts; and at one time it seemed as if the whole banister would give way and the pianoforte crash in splinters on the floor. There were other moments of suspense, for the pianoforte as well as for the two watchers, who drew a long breath when the instrument safely was on the skid. Fortunately such untoward incidents are forgotten in the general atmosphere of good-humor which the pianist diffuses about him. He enjoys his little joke. During the last tour he handed a photograph of himself to Mr. Francke inscribed: "To the future Governor of Hoboken." At the Auditorium hotel, Chicago, Millward Adams' brother, about leaving on a trip, asked for an autograph. Paderewski, quick as a flash, wrote: "For the brother of Mr. _Adams_ on the _Eve_ of his departure from Chicago." Paderewski travels on a special train. With him usually are his wife, his manager, the treasurer of the tour, the piano "doctor," a secretary, valet and maid. His home is a villa on Lake Geneva, where he has a beautiful garden and vinery, his dogs, his room for billiards, a game of which he is very fond, and unlimited opportunity for swimming, his favorite exercise. Apparently slender and surely most poet-looking at the piano, he is a man of iron strength as well as of iron will. HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT IX DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORCHESTRA The appreciation and consequent enjoyment of an orchestral concert will be greatly enhanced if the listener is familiar with certain details regarding the orchestra itself and some of the compositions he is apt to hear. This I have borne in mind in the chapter divisions of this portion of my book, and, as a result, I have divided the subject into the general development of the orchestra, the specific consideration of the principal orchestral instruments, a cursory commentary on certain phases of orchestral music and a chapter on Richard Strauss who represents its most advanced aspects. The first music of which we moderns take account was unaccompanied (_à capella_) singing for church service. It was composed in the old ecclesiastical modes, which are quite different from our modern scales, and the name which comes most prominently to mind in connection with this beginning of our musical history is that of Palestrina. With the influence of this old church choral music so dominant, there is little wonder that the first efforts to write music for instruments were awkward. It may be said right here that this awkwardness, or rather this lack of knowledge and appreciation of the individual capacity of various instruments, is shown throughout the school of contrapuntal composition, even by Bach. When Bach wrote for orchestral instruments he did not consider their peculiar tone quality, or their capacity for individual expression, but simply their pitch--which instrument could take up this, that or the other theme in his contrapuntal score, when he had carried it as high or as low as he could on some other instrument. This also is true of Händel, although in less degree. But just as we have seen that Domenico Scarlatti worked along original lines for the pianoforte and created the germ of the sonata form, while Bach was weaving and plaiting the counterpoint of his suites, partitas and "Well-Tempered Clavichord," so in Italy, during a large part of this contrapuntal period, a distinct kind of orchestral music was springing up. Again, just as we have seen that in Italy the pianoforte shook off the trammels of counterpoint when it began to be used as an accompaniment for dramatic recitative in opera, so the instruments in the orchestra, when composers began to use them for operatic accompaniments, were employed more with reference to their individual tone qualities and power of expression. Primitive Orchestral Efforts. Although, strictly speaking, not the first composer to use orchestral instruments in opera, and to display skill in utilizing their individual characteristics, the most important of these early men was Claudio Monteverde (1568-1643). In his "Orpheo," which he produced in 1608, he utilized, besides two harpsichords (and it may be of interest to note here that instruments of the pianoforte class were long used in orchestras as connecting links between all the other instruments), two bass viols, two tenor viols, one double harp, two little French violins, two large guitars, two wood organs, two viola di gambas, one regal, four trombones, two cornets, one octave flute, one clarion, and three trumpets with mutes--a fairly formidable array of instruments when the period is considered. Of especial interest are the "two little French violins," which probably were the same as our modern violins, now the prima donnas of the orchestra and far outnumbering any other instrument employed. It was Monteverde who in his "Tancredi e Clorinda" made use for the first time of a tremolo for stringed instruments, and it is said so to have astonished the performers that they at first refused to play it. Before Monteverde there were operatic composers like Jacopo Peri, and after him Cavalli and Alessandro Scarlatti, who did much for their day to develop the orchestra. This is a very brief summary of the early development of instrumental music, a story that easily could fill a volume--which, probably, however, very few people would take the trouble to read. Beethoven and the Modern Orchestra. The first really modern composer for the orchestra was Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), who also may be considered the father of the symphony. Born before Mozart, he also survived that composer. His music is gay and naive; while Mozart, although he had decidedly greater genius for the dramatic than Haydn, nevertheless is only a trifle more emotional in his symphonies. The three greatest of these which he composed during the summer of 1788, the E flat major, G minor and C major (known as the "Jupiter"), show a decided advance in the knowledge of orchestration, and the E flat major is notable because it is the first symphonic work in which clarinets were used. Haydn's and Mozart's symphonies--that is, the best of them--sound agreeable even to-day in a concert hall of moderate size. But because modern music with its sonorous orchestra requires large auditoriums, like Carnegie Hall in New York, these charming symphonic works of the earlier classical period are swallowed up in space and much of their naive and pretty effect is lost. Beethoven may be said to have established the modern orchestra. Very few instruments have been added to it since his time, and if an orchestra to-day sounds differently from what it did in his day, if the works of modern composers sound richer and more effective from a modern point of view than his orchestral compositions, it is not because we have added a lot of new instruments, but because our composers have acquired greater skill in bringing out their peculiar tone qualities and because the technique of orchestral players has greatly improved. It is for precisely the same reasons that Beethoven's symphonies show such a great advance upon those of his predecessors. The point is not that Beethoven added a few more instruments to the orchestra, but that, so far as his own purposes were concerned, he handled all the instruments which he included in his band with much greater skill than his predecessors had shown. Many writers affect to despise technique. But in point of fact the development of technique and the development of art go hand in hand. An artist, be he writer, painter or musician, cannot adequately express his ideas unless he has the means of doing so or the genius to create the means. How He Developed Orchestral Resources. In following Beethoven's symphonies from the First to the Ninth, we can see the modern orchestra developing under his hands from that handed over to him by Haydn and Mozart. In the First and Second Symphonies, Beethoven employs the usual strings, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets and tympani. In the Third Symphony, the "Eroica," he adds a third horn part; in the Fifth a piccolo, trombones and contrabassoon. Although employed in the finale only, these instruments here make their first bow in the symphonic orchestra. In the Ninth Symphony Beethoven introduced two additional horns, the first use of four horns in a symphony. The scoring of these symphonies is given somewhat more in detail in the chapter "How the Orchestra Grew," in Mr. W. J. Henderson's "The Orchestra and Orchestral Music," a well conceived and logically developed book, in which the full story of the orchestra and its growth is clearly and interestingly told. Beethoven not only understood to a greater degree than his predecessors the peculiar characteristics of orchestral instruments, he also compelled orchestral players to acquire a better technique by giving them more difficult music to execute. In point of greater difficulty in performance, a Beethoven symphony holds about the same relation to the symphonies of Mozart and Haydn as the Beethoven pianoforte sonatas do to the sonatas of those composers. Beethoven and Wagner. Just as Beethoven added only a few instruments to the orchestra of his predecessors, but showed greater skill in handling those instruments, so the modern musician--a Wagner or a Richard Strauss--achieves his striking instrumental effects by a still greater knowledge of instrumental resources. The Beethoven orchestra practically is the orchestra of to-day. Few, very few, instruments have been added. Modern composers steadily have asked for more and more instruments in each group; but that is quite a different thing from adding new instruments. They have required more instruments of the same kind, but have asked for very few instruments of new kinds. Let me illustrate this by two modern examples. Firm, compact and eloquent as is Beethoven's orchestra in the Fifth Symphony, it cannot for a moment be compared in richness, sonority, tone color, searching power of expression and unflagging interest, with Wagner's orchestra in "Die Meistersinger." Yet Wagner has added only one trumpet, a harp and a tuba to the very orchestra which Beethoven employed when he scored for the Fifth Symphony; while for his "Symphonie Pathétique," one of the finest of modern orchestral works, Tschaikowsky adds only a bass tuba to the orchestra used by Beethoven. The simple fact is that modern composers have studied every possible phase of tone color and expression of which each instrument is capable. Furthermore, by skillfully dividing the orchestra into groups and using these groups like separate orchestras, yet uniting them into one great orchestra, they produce wonderfully rich contrapuntal effects, and thus make the modern orchestra sound, not seventy-five years, but five hundred years more advanced than that of Beethoven, however great we gladly acknowledge Beethoven to have been. Berlioz, an Orchestral Juggler. Following Beethoven, the next great development in the handling of orchestral resources is due to Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), and it is curious here how nearly one musical epoch overlaps another. Scarlatti was composing sonatas, and thus voicing the beginning of the classical era, while Bach was bringing the contrapuntal period to a close. It was only five years after the completion of the Ninth Symphony that Berlioz's "Francs Juges" overture was played. A year later his "Symphonie Fantastique, Episode de la Vie d'un Artiste," was brought out. Yet the Berlioz orchestra sounds so utterly different from the Beethoven orchestra that it almost might be a collection of different instruments. Even more than Beethoven, Berlioz understood the individuality, the potential characteristics of each instrument. Berlioz composed on a colossal scale, so colossal that his music has been called architectural. The "Dies Irae" in his "Requiem" calls for four brass bands, in four different corners of the hall, and for fourteen kettledrums tuned to different notes, in addition to the regular orchestra, chorus and soloists. This has been dubbed "three-story music"--the orchestra on the ground floor, the chorus on the _belle étage_, while the four extra brass bands are stationed _aux troisième_. Unfortunately for Berlioz, his ambition, in so far as it related to the art of orchestration and the skill he showed in accomplishing what he wanted to with his body of instrumentalists, was far in excess of his inspiration. His knowledge of the orchestra was sufficient to have afforded him every facility for the expression of great thoughts if he had them to express. But his power of thematic invention, his gift for melody, was not equal to his genius for instrumentation. Nevertheless, through this genius for instrumentation--for his technique was so extraordinary that it amounted to genius--and through his very striving after bizarre, unusual and gigantic effects, he contributed largely toward the development of the technical resources of instrumental music. Wagner, Greatest of Orchestral Composers. Berlioz wrote a book on instrumentation, which has lately been re-edited by Richard Strauss. In it Strauss, modestly ignoring himself, says that Wagner's scores mark the only advance in orchestration worth mentioning since Berlioz. It is true, the technical possibilities of the orchestra were greatly improved, so far as the woodwind was concerned, by the introduction of keyed instruments constructed on the system invented by Theobald Böhm; while the French instrument maker, Adolphe Sax, also made important improvements by perfecting the bass clarinet and the bass tuba. But whatever aid Wagner derived from these improvements merely was incidental to the principle which is illustrated by every one of his scores--that technique merely is a means to an end. Wagner is the greatest orchestral virtuoso who ever breathed. Never, however, does he employ technique for technique's sake, but always only to enable his orchestra to convey the exact meaning he has in his mind or express the emotion he has in his heart, and he spares no pains to hit upon the best method of conveying these ideas and expressing these emotions. That is one reason why, although no one with any knowledge of music could mistake a passage by Wagner for any one else's music, each of his works has its own peculiar orchestral style. For each of his works reproduces through the orchestra the "atmosphere" of its subject. The scores of "Tannhäuser," "Lohengrin," "The Ring of the Nibelung," "Tristan," "Meistersinger" and "Parsifal" never could be mistaken for any one but Wagner's music. Yet how different they are from each other! He makes each instrument speak its own language. When, for example, the English horn speaks through Wagner, it speaks English, not broken English, and so it is with all the other instruments of the orchestra--he makes them speak without a foreign accent. If Wagner employs a large orchestra, it is not for the sake of making a noise, but in order to gain variety in expression. "He is wonderfully reserved in the use of his forces," says Richard Strauss. "He employs them as a great general would his battalions, and does not send in an army corps to pick off a skirmisher." Strauss regards "Lohengrin" as a model score for a somewhat advanced student, before proceeding to the polyphony of "Tristan" and "Meistersinger" or "the fairy region of the 'Nibelungs.'" "The handling of the wind instruments," writes Strauss, "reaches a hitherto unknown esthetic height. The so-called third woodwinds, English horn and bass clarinet, added for the first time to the woodwinds, are already employed in a variety of tone color; the voices of the second, third and fourth horn, trumpets and trombones established in an independent polyphony, the doubling of melodic voices characteristic of Wagner, carried out with such assurance and freedom and knowledge of their characteristic timbres, and worked out with an understanding of tonal beauty, that to this day evokes unstinted admiration. At the close of the second act the organ tones that Wagner lures out of the orchestra triumph over the queen of instruments itself." How Wagner Produces His Effects. The effects produced by Wagner are not due to a large orchestra, but to his manner of using the instruments in it. Among some of his special effects are the employment of full harmony with what formerly would have been merely single passing notes, and above all, the exploitation of every resource of counterpoint in combination with the well developed system of harmony inherited from Beethoven, but largely added to by himself. In fact, Wagner's greatness is due to the combination of several great gifts--his melodic inventiveness, his rich harmony and his wonderful technical skill in weaving together his themes in a still richer counterpoint. This counterpoint is not, however, dry and formal, because his themes--his leading motives--are themselves full of emotional significance and not conceived, like those of the old contrapuntists, merely: for formal treatment. Richard Strauss is such a master of orchestration that I am inclined to quote his summary of the development of the art of orchestration, from his edition of the Berlioz book, which at this writing has not yet been translated. I should like to recall to the reader's mind, however, the fact that Strauss' father was a noted French-horn player; that Strauss himself has a great love for the instrument; and that when, in summing up the causes of Wagner's primacy among orchestral writers, he finds one of them in the greater technical facility of the valve horn, it is well to take this with a grain of salt and attribute it somewhat to his own affection for the instrument. The symphonies of Haydn and Mozart, according to Strauss, are enlarged string quartets with obbligato woodwind, brass and tympani, and the occasional use of other instruments of noise to strengthen the tuttis. "Even with Beethoven, the symphony is still simply enlarged chamber music, the orchestra being treated in a pianistic spirit which unfortunately shows itself even in the orchestral work of Schumann and Brahms. Wagner owes his polyphonic string quintet not to the Beethoven orchestra, but to the last quartets of Beethoven, in which each instrument is the peer of the others. "Meanwhile, another kind of orchestral work was developing, for, from the time of Gluck on, the opera orchestra was gaining in coloring and in individual characteristics. Berlioz was not dramatic enough for opera nor symphonic enough for the concert stage, yet his efforts to write programmatic symphonies resulted in his discovering new effects, new possibilities in tone tints and in orchestral technics. Berlioz misses the polyphony that enriches Wagner's orchestra, and makes instruments like the second violins, violas, etc., second horns, etc., weave their threads or strands of melody into the woof. Wagner's primacy is due to his employment of the richest style of polyphony and counterpoint, the increased possibility of this through the invention of the valve horn, and his demand of solo virtuosity upon his orchestral players. His scores mark the only advance worth mentioning since Berlioz." X INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA An orchestra is an aggregation of many instruments which, under the baton of an able conductor, should play as one, so far as precision and expression are concerned. Separately, the instruments are like the paints on a palette, and the result of the composer's effort, like that of the painter's, depends upon what he has to express and his knowledge of how to use his materials in trying to express it. The orchestra has developed into several distinct groups, which are capable of playing independently, or in union with each other, and within these groups themselves there are various subdivisions. It is the purpose of every modern composer who amounts to anything, to get as many different quartets as possible out of his orchestra. By this is meant a grouping of instruments in such a way that as many groups as possible can play in independent harmony. It is through this system of orchestral groups that Wagner has been able to enrich orchestral tone coloring, and to say everything he wishes to say in exactly the way it should be said. We cannot, for example, imagine that the Love Motive in "Die Walküre" could be made to sound more beautiful on its first entrance in the score than it does. Nor could it. In that scene it is exactly suited to a solo violoncello, and to a solo violoncello Wagner gives it. In order, however, to produce a perfectly homogenous effect, in order that the violoncello quality of tone shall pervade not only the melody, but also the supporting harmony, he supports the melody with eight violoncellos, adding two double basses to give more sonorousness to the deepest note in the harmony. In other words he has made for the moment a complete orchestra out of nine violoncellos and two double basses, and produced a wondrously rich and thrilling effect--because, having a beautiful melody to score, he knew just the instruments for which to score it. This is an admirable example of what technique accomplishes in the hands of a genius. Another composer might have used an orchestra of a hundred instruments and not have produced the exquisite thrill that Wagner with his magical orchestral touch conjures out of this group of violoncellos, a group within a group, an orchestra of violoncellos within the string band. [Music illustration] The woodwind instruments are capable of several similar subdivisions. Flutes, oboes and bassoons, for example, may form a group capable of producing independent harmony, so can the clarinets, and the same is the case with the brass instruments. One of Wagner's most beautiful leading motives, the Walhalla Motive in the "Ring of the Nibelung," is sounded on four trombones. In brief, then, the modern composer strives to constitute his orchestra in such a way that he secures as many independent groups, and as many little orchestras, as possible, not, however, for the purpose of using them independently all the time, but merely in order to do so occasionally for special effects or to combine them whenever he sees fit in order to enrich his tone coloring or weave his polyphony. The grand divisions of the orchestra are the strings--violins, violas, violoncellos and double basses; the woodwind, consisting, broadly speaking, of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; the brass--horns, trumpets and trombones; and the instruments of percussion, or the "battery"--drums, triangles, cymbals and instruments of that kind. The Prima Donna of the Orchestra. The leading instrument of the string group, and in fact the leading instrument of the orchestra, is the violin. The first violins are the prima donnas of the orchestra, and one might say that it is almost impossible to have too many of them. The first and second violins should form about one-third of an orchestra, and better still it would be for the number to exceed that proportion. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, which has about eighty-one players, has thirty violins. Theodore Thomas's New York Festival Orchestra in 1882, consisting of three hundred and fourteen instruments, had one hundred violins. Great is the capacity of the violin. Its notes may be crisp, sharp, decisive, brilliant, or long-drawn-out and full of emotion. It has greater precision of attack than any other instrument in the orchestra. And right here it is interesting to note that while the multiplication of instruments gives greater sonority, it also gives much finer effects in soft passages. The pianissimo of one hundred violins is a very much finer pianissimo and at the same time infinitely richer and further carrying than the pianissimo of a solo violin. It is the very acme of a musical stage whisper. In this very first and most important group of the orchestra we can find examples of utilizing subdivisions of groups. Although the violin cannot be played lower than its G string, which sounds the G below the treble clef, the violin group nevertheless has been employed entirely by itself, and even subdivided within itself. The most exquisite example of this, one cited in every work on the orchestra worth reading, is the "Lohengrin" prelude. To this the violins are divided into four groups and on the highest register, with an effect that is most ethereal. [Music illustration] Modern orchestral virtuosity may be gauged by the statement that while Beethoven but once dared to score for his violins above the high F, Richard Strauss in the most casual manner carries them an octave higher. A little contrivance of wood or metal, with teeth, can be pressed down over the strings of the violin so as to deaden its vibrations. This is called the sordine, or mute. A famous example of the use of the violins _con sordini_ is the Queen Mab Scherzo in Berlioz's "Romeo et Juliette Symphonie." Another well-known use of the same effect is in Asa's Death, in Grieg's "Peer Gynt" Suite. Nothing can be more exquisite than the entrance of the muted violins after a long silence, in the last act of "Tristan und Isolde," just before _Isolde_ intones the Love Death. An unusual effect is produced by using the back of the bow instead of the horsehair. Liszt uses it in his symphonic poem, "Mazeppa," for imitating the snorting of the horse; Wagner in "Siegfried," for accompanying the mocking laugh of _Mime_; and Richard Strauss in "Feuersnot," to produce the effect of crackling flames. But, as Strauss remarks in his revision of Berlioz's work on instrumentation, it is effective only with a large orchestra. The plucking of the strings with the fingers--pizzicato--is a familiar device. Tschaikowski employed it almost throughout an entire movement, the "Pizzicato Ostinato" in his Fourth Symphony. Viola, Violoncello and Double Bass. The viola is a deeper violin, with a very beautiful and expressive tone. Méhul, the French composer, scored his one-act opera, "Uthal," without violins, employing the viola as the highest string instrument in his score. This, however, was not a success, the brilliant tone of the violin being missed more and more as the performance of the work progressed, until Grétry is said to have risen in his seat and exclaimed: "A thousand francs for an E string!" Meyerbeer, who was among the first to appreciate the beauty of the viola as a solo instrument, used a single viola for the accompaniment to _Raoul's_ romance, "Plus blanche que la blanche hermine," in the first act of "Les Huguenots." Strictly speaking, he wrote it for the viola d'amour, which is somewhat larger than the ordinary viola; but it almost always is played on the latter. Berlioz made exquisite use of it in his "Harold Symphony," practically making a _dramatis persona_ of it, for in the score a solo viola represents the melancholy wanderer; and in his "Don Quixote," Richard Strauss assigns to the instrument an equally important rôle. The violoncello is one of the most tenderly expressive of all the instruments in the orchestra. Beethoven employs it for the theme of the slow movement in his Fifth Symphony, and although the viola joins with the violoncello in playing this melody, the passage owes its beauty chiefly to the latter. One of the most exquisite melodies in all symphonic music is the theme which Schubert has given to the violoncellos in the first movement of his "Unfinished Symphony." They also are used with wonderfully expressive effect in the "Tristan Vorspiel." Rossini gives a melodious passage, in the introduction to the overture to "William Tell," to five violoncellos. But the most striking employment of the violoncellos as an independent group is in the Love Motive in the first act of "Die Walküre." Double basses first were used to simply double the violoncello part in the harmony. But through Beethoven's employment of them in the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, in the former for a remarkably effective passage in the Scherzo and in the latter for a highly dramatic recitative, their importance as independent instruments in the orchestra was established. Verdi has made very effective use of them in the scene in "Otello" as the _Moor_ approaches _Desdemona's_ bed. In the introduction to "Rheingold," Wagner has half his double basses tuned down to E flat, which is half a note deeper than the usual range of the instrument, and in the second act of "Tristan und Isolde" two basses are obliged to tune their E string down to C sharp. Dividing the String Band. I have pointed out several examples in which the groups of instruments in the string band are divided within themselves, as in the prelude to "Lohengrin" and in the first act of "Die Walküre." The entire string band can be divided and subdivided with telling effect, when done by a master. When in the second act of "Tristan" _Brangäne_ warns the lovers from her position on the watch-tower, the accompaniment stirs the soul to its depth, because it gives the listener such a weird thrill of impending danger that he almost longs to inform the lovers of their peril. In this passage Wagner divides the string band into no less than fifteen parts. In the thunder-storm in "Rheingold" the strings are divided into twenty-one parts. Richard Strauss points out how in the introduction to "Die Walküre" much of the stormy effect is produced by strings only--sixteen second violins, twelve violas, twelve violoncellos and four double basses--a storm for strings where another composer would have unleashed a whole orchestra, including cymbals and bass drum, and crashed and thrashed about without producing a tithe of Wagner's effect! He also cites the tremolo at the beginning of the second act of "Tristan" as a wonderful example of tone painting which produces the effect of whispering foliage and conveys to the audience a sense of mystery and danger. Theodore Thomas always was insistent that the various divisions of a string band should bow exactly alike. It is said that he once stopped an orchestra because he had detected something wrong with the tonal effect, and, after watching the players, had discovered that one violoncellist among sixteen was bowing differently from the others. Richard Strauss, on the other hand, never insists on the same bowing throughout each division of strings. He thinks it robs the melody of intensity and beauty if each individual is not allowed to play according to his own peculiar temperament. A Passage in "Die Walküre." In the Magic Fire Scene in the finale of "Die Walküre," Wagner wrote violin passages which not even the greatest soloist can play cleanly, yet which, when played by all the violins, simulate in _sound_ the _aspect_ of licking, circling flames. Indeed, the effects that Wagner understood how to draw from the orchestral instruments are little short of marvellous. In the "Lohengrin" prelude the tone quality of the violins is absolutely angelic in purity; while in the third act of "Siegfried," the upswinging violin passages as the young hero reaches the height where _Brünnhilde_ slumbers, depict the action with a thrilling realism. Besides the regular string band, Wagner made frequent use of the harp. It is related that at the Munich performance of "Rheingold," when the harpist Trombo protested to him that some of the passages were unplayable, the composer replied: "You don't expect me to play the harp, too, do you? You perceive the general effect I am aiming at; produce that and I shall be satisfied." Liszt, in his "Dante Symphony," uses the _glissando_ of the harp as a symbol for the rising shades of _Francesco da Rimini_ and her lover, and a very beautiful use of harmonics on the harp with their faint tinkle is to be found in the Waltz of the Sylphs in Berlioz's "Damnation de Faust." The Woodwind. Flutes, oboes and clarinets form the woodwind. One of the best known passages for flute is in the third "Leonora Overture" of Beethoven, where it is employed with conspicuous grace. Probably, however, more fun has been made of the flute than of any other orchestral instrument, and a standard musical joke runs as follows: "Are you musical?" "No, but I have a brother who plays the flute." It has also been insinuated that in Donizetti's "Lucia" the heroine goes mad, not because she has been separated from _Edgardo_, but because a flute obbligato accompanies her principal aria. The piccolo is a high flute used for shrill effects. The instruments of both the oboe and clarinet families are reed instruments, with this difference, however: the instruments of the oboe family have two vibrating reeds in the mouthpieces; those of the clarinet family, only one. The oboe family consists of the oboe proper, the English horn which is an alt oboe, and the bassoon which is the bass of this group of instruments. In Italian the bassoon is called a _fagotto_, a name derived from its supposed resemblance to a bundle of fagots. "Candor, artless grace, tender joy, or the grief of a fragile soul, are found in the oboe's accents," says Berlioz of this instrument, and those who remember the exquisite oboe melody, with which the slow movement of Schubert's C major symphony opens, will agree with the French composer. Richard Strauss, in his "Sinfonia Domestica," employs the almost obsolete oboes d'amore to represent an "innocent, dreamy, playful child." The English Horn in "Tristan." The most famous use of the English horn is found in the third act of "Tristan," where it plays the "sad lay" while _Tristan_ awaits news of the ship which is bearing _Isolde_ toward him, and changes to a joyous strain when the ship is sighted. The bassoon and contrabassoon, besides their value as the bass of the oboe family, have certain humorous qualities, which are admirably brought out in Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and in the march of the clownish artisans in Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream" music. In opera, Meyerbeer made the bassoon famous by his scoring of the dance of the _Spectre Nuns_ in "Robert le Diable" for it, and he also used it for the accompaniment to the female chorus in the second act of "Les Huguenots." The theme of the romanza, "Una fortiva lagrima," in Donizetti's "L'Elisir d'Amore," which Caruso sings so beautifully, is introduced by the bassoon, and with charming effect. The clarinets have a large compass. Usually three kinds of clarinets (in A, B flat and C because they are transposing instruments) are employed in the orchestra, besides the bass clarinet. The possibilities of the clarinet group have been enormously developed by Wagner. It is necessary only to recall the scene of _Elsa's_ bridal procession to the cathedral in the second act of "Lohengrin"; _Elisabeth's_ sad exit after her prayer in the third act of "Tannhäuser," in which the melody is played by the bass clarinet, while the accompaniment is given to three flutes and eight other clarinets; the change of scene in the first act of "Götterdämmerung," when clarinets give forth the Brünnhilde Motive; and passages in the second act of "Die Meistersinger," in the scene at nightfall; while for a generally skillful use of the woodwind the introduction to the third act of "Lohengrin" is a shining example. Brass Instruments. People usually associate the brass instruments with noise. But as a matter of fact, wonderfully rich and soft tone effects can be produced on the brass by a composer who knows how to score for it. Just as the pianissimo of many violins is a finer pianissimo than that of a solo violin, so a much more exquisitely soft effect can be produced on a large brass group than on a few brass instruments or a single one. When modern composers increase the number of instruments in the brass group, it is not for the sake of noise, but for richer effects. The trumpet is the soprano of the brass family. The fanfare in "Fidelio" when at the critical moment aid approaches; the Siegfried Motive and the Sword Motive, in the "Ring of the Nibelung," need only be cited to prove the effectiveness of the instrument in its proper place; and Richard Strauss instances the demoniacal and fateful effect of the deep trumpet tones in the introduction to the first act of Bizet's "Carmen." Although the notes of the trombone are produced by a slide, this instrument belongs to the trumpet family. For this reason, in the "Ring of the Nibelung," Wagner, in addition to the usual three tenor trombones, reintroduced the almost obsolete bass trombone. He wanted a trombone group complete in itself, and thus to be able to utilize the peculiar tone color of the instrument; as witness in the Walhalla Motive, where it is scored for the three tenor trombones and bass trombone, resulting in a wonderfully rich and velvety quality of tone. Excepting Wagner and Richard Strauss, there probably is not a composer who would not have used the bass tuba here instead of taking the trouble to revive the bass trombone. But Wagner wanted an unusually rich tone which should be solemn without a trace of sombreness, and his keen instrumental color sense informed him that he could secure it with the bass trombone, which, as it belongs to the trumpet family, has a touch of trumpet brilliancy, whereas the tone of the bass tuba is darker. [Music illustration] Mozart employed the trombone with fine effect in _Sarastro's_ solo in the "Magic Flute"; Schubert showed his genius for instrumentation by the manner in which he used them in the introduction to his C major symphony, as well as in the first movement of that symphony, in which a theme is given out by three trombones in unison; and another familiar example of good scoring for trombones is in the introduction to the third act of "Lohengrin." In the Death Prophecy scene in the second act of "Die Walküre," a trumpet melody is supported by the four trombones, another instance of Wagner's sense of homogeneity in sound, since trumpets and trombones belong to the same family. In fact, throughout the "Ring," as Strauss points out, Wagner wrote for his trombones in four parts, adding the bass trombone in order to differentiate wholly between it and the tuba, which latter he used with the horns, with which it is properly grouped. Wagner has a tremendous tuba recitative in a "Faust Overture," and in the Funeral March in the "Götterdämmerung" he introduces tenor tubas in order, again, to differentiate between the tone color of tubas and trombones and not to be obliged to employ trombones in this particular scene, the general tone color of the tuba being far more sombre than that of the trombone. Richard Strauss's Tribute to the Horn. To mention tubas and trombones before the horns is very much like putting the cart before the horse, but I have reserved the horns for the last of the brass on account of the great tribute which Richard Strauss has paid them. In the early orchestras one rarely found more than two horns. Beethoven used four in the Ninth Symphony, and now it is not at all unusual to find eight. "Of all instruments," says Richard Strauss, "the horn is perhaps the one that best can be joined with other groups. To substantiate this in all its numerous phases, I should be obliged to quote the entire 'Meistersinger' score. For I do not think I exaggerate when I maintain that the greatly developed technique of the valve horn has made it possible that a score which, with the addition of a third trumpet, a harp and a tuba, employs the same instruments as Beethoven used in his Fifth Symphony, has become with every bar something entirely different, something wholly new and unheard of. "Surely the two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets and two bassoons of Mozart have been exhausted by Wagner in every direction of their technical possibilities and plastically combined with an almost weird perception of all their tone secrets; the string quintet, through the most refined divisions into parts, and with added brilliance through the employment of the harp, produces innumerable new tone effects, and by superb polyphony is brought to a height and warmth of emotional expression such as never before was dreamed of; trumpet and trombones are made to express every phase of solemn or humorous characterization--but the main thing is the tireless participation of the horn, now for the melody, now for filling out, now as bass. The 'Meistersinger' score is the horn's hymn of praise. Through the introduction and perfection of the valve horn the greatest improvement in the technique of scoring, since Berlioz's day, has been made possible. "To illustrate exhaustively this Protean character of the horn, I should like (again!) to go through the scores of the great magician, bar by bar, beginning with 'Rheingold.' "Whether it rings through the primeval German forest with the sunny exuberance of _Siegfried's_ youthful heart and joy of living; whether in Liszt's 'Mazeppa' it dies out in the last hoarse gasp of the Cossack prince nigh unto death in the vast desert of the steppes; whether it conjures the childlike longing of _Siegfried_ for the mother he never has known; whether it hovers over the gently undulating sea which is to bring _Isolde's_ gladdening form to the dying _Tristan_, or nods _Hans Sachs'_ thanks to the faithful _'Prentice_; whether in _Erik's_ dream it causes in a few hollow accents the North Sea to break on the lonely coast; bestows upon the apples of Freia the gift of eternal youth; pokes fun at the curtain-heroes ('Meistersinger,' Act III); plies the cudgels on _Beckmesser_ with the jealous _David_ and his comrades, and is the real instigator of the riot; or sings in veiled notes of the wounds of _Tristan_--always the horn, in its place and to be relied on, responds, unique in its manifold meanings and its brilliant significance." Famous horn passages in the works of other composers are in the trio of the Scherzo in the "Eroica Symphony"; in the second movement of Schubert's C major symphony, the passage of which Schumann said that the notes of the horns just before the return of the principal subject were like the voice of an angel; in the opening of Weber's "Freischütz" overture; in the introduction to _Michaela's_ romance in "Carmen"; and in the opening theme of the slow movement of Tschaikowsky's Fifth Symphony, which is the perfection of a melodic phrase for solo horn. Instruments of Percussion. In the "battery" the instruments of prime importance are the tympani. Beethoven gave the cue to what could be accomplished with these in the scherzo of the Fifth Symphony and also in the octave thumps in the scherzo of the Ninth Symphony, while for a weirdly sombre effect there is nothing equal to the faint roll of the tympani at the beginning and end of the Funeral March in "Götterdämmerung." Cymbals are used in several ways. Besides the ordinary clash, Wagner has produced a sound somewhat like that of a gong, by the sharp stroke of a drum-stick on one cymbal, and also a roll by using a pair of drum-sticks on one cymbal. Among composers since Beethoven, Weber, Liszt, Saint-Saëns, Dvorak, Tschaikowsky, and, of course, Richard Strauss--it hardly is necessary to mention either Berlioz or Wagner again--have shown brilliant technique in orchestration. On the other hand, Schumann and Brahms do not appear to have understood or to have taken the trouble to understand the individual characteristics of orchestral instruments, and, as a result, their works for orchestra are not as effective as they should be. Their orchestration has been called "muddy." It is Richard Strauss's opinion that the next advancement in orchestration will be brought about by adding largely to certain groups of instruments which now have only comparatively few representatives in the orchestra. He instances that at the Brussels Conservatory one of the professors had Mozart's G minor symphony performed for him on twenty-two clarinets, of which four were basset horns (alto clarinets), two brass clarinets, and one contra-bass clarinet; and he suggests that it will be along such lines that the orchestra of the future will be enlarged. With an orchestra with all the family groups of instruments complete in the manner suggested by Strauss, and used by a musical genius, a genius who combines with melodic invention virtuosity of instrumentation, marvellous results are yet to be achieved. XI CONCERNING SYMPHONIES I have said that music, like all other arts, had a somewhat formless beginning, then gradually acquired form, then became too rigidly formal, and in modern times, while not discarding form, has become freer in its expression of emotion. Instrumental music, since the beginning of the classical period, has been governed largely by the symphony, which the reader should bear in mind is nothing more than a sonata for orchestra, the form having first developed on the pianoforte and having been handed over by it to the aggregation of instruments. Sir Hubert Parry, from whose book, "The Evolution of the Art of Music," I have had previous occasion to quote, has several apt paragraphs concerning the earlier development of the sonata, which of course apply with equal force to the symphony. After stating that the instinct of the composers who first sought the liberation of music from the all-predominating counterpoint, impelled them to develop movements of wider and freer range, which should admit of warm melodic expression, without degenerating into incoherent, rambling ecstasy, Sir Hubert continues: "They had the sense to see from the first that mere formal continuous melody is not the most suitable type for instrumental music. There is deep-rooted in the matter of all instrumental music the need of some rhythmic vitality. These composers then set themselves to devise a scheme in which, to begin with, the contour of connected melodic phrases, supported and defined by simple harmonic accompaniment, gave the impression of definite tonality--that is, of being decisively in some particular key and giving an unmistakable indication of it. They found out how to proceed by giving the impression of using that key and passing to another without departing from the characteristic spirit and mood of the music, as shown in the 'subjects' and figures; and how to give the impression of relative completeness, by closing in a key which is in strong contrast to the first, and so round off one-half of the design. "But this point being in apposition to the starting point, leaves the mind dissatisfied and in expectation of fresh disclosures; so they made the balance complete by resuming the subjects and melodic figures of the first part in extraneous keys, and working back to the starting point; and they made their final close with the same figures as were used to conclude the first half, but in the principal key instead of the key of contract." This is a somewhat more elaborate method of describing the sonata form than I have adopted in the division of this book relating to the pianoforte. Esthetic Purpose of the Symphony. Later on in his book, Sir Hubert, in discussing the type of sonata movement which was fairly established by the time of Haydn and Mozart, gives a simpler esthetic explanation, pointing out that the first part of the movement aims at definiteness of subject, definiteness of contrast of keys, definiteness of regular balancing groups of bars and rhythms, definiteness of progressions. By the time this first division is over the mind has had enough of such definiteness, and wants a change. The second division, therefore, represents the breaking up of the subjects into their constituent elements of figure and rhythm, the obliteration of the sense of regularity by grouping the bars irregularly; and aims, by moving constantly from key to key, to give the sense of artistic confusion; which, however, is always regulated by some inner but disguised principle of order. When the mind has gone through enough of the pleasing sense of bewilderment--the sense that has made riddles attractive to the human creature from time immemorial--the scheme is completed by resuming the orderly methods of the first division and firmly re-establishing the principal theme which has been carefully avoided since the commencement. The earlier symphonic writers usually wrote their symphonies in three movements: the first or sonata movement; a second slow movement in a simpler type of form, usually of the song, aria, or rondo type; and a final movement in lively time, also usually adapted to the rondo form. Concerning this three-movement symphony of the early writers, it was said by an old-time wit that they wrote the first movement to show what they could do, the second movement to show what they could feel, and the third movement to show how glad they were it was over--and this may be said to describe the view of the ultra-modern music-lover toward rigidity of form in general. Regarding form in music there is much prejudice one way or the other. The sonnet in poetry certainly is a rigid form; and yet those poets who have mastered it have produced extremely effective and highly artistic poems, and poems abounding in profound emotional expression. Walt Whitman, on the other hand, was quite formless, and yet he is sure to be ranked in time as one of the greatest poets of his age. Wagner's idea was that the symphonic form had reached its climax with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony; yet it is by no means incredible that if Wagner in his maturer years had undertaken to compose a symphony, the result would have disproved his own theory. Seems to Hamper Modern Composers. The symphonic form, however, or, to be more exact, the sonata form, seems to hamper every modern composer when he writes for the pianoforte, and the fact that most of Beethoven's pianoforte music was written in this form appears to be the reason for his works somewhat falling into disuse. On the other hand, the form is undoubtedly holding out better in the orchestral version of the sonata, the symphony, because the tone color of orchestral instruments gives it greater variety. Tschaikowsky, Dvorak and Brahms have worked successfully, and the two former even brilliantly, in this form; and if Brahms in his symphonies appears too continent, too classically reserved, it would seem to be not so much the form itself which is to blame, as his lack of skill in instrumentation. My own personal preference is for the freer form developed by Liszt in the symphonic poem, in which a leading motive, or possibly several motives skillfully varied dominate the whole composition and give it esthetic and psychological unity; and for the still freer development of instrumental music in the tone poem of Richard Strauss. But neither the symphonic poems of Liszt nor the tone poems of Strauss are formless music. That should be well understood, although it should be borne in mind with equal distinctness that these manifestations of the genius of two great composers show a complete liberation from the shackles of the classical symphony. In the end the test is found in the music itself. If the music of a symphonic poem which sets out to express a given title or a given motto, if the music of a tone poem which starts out to interpret a programmatic story or device, is worthy to be ranked with the great productions of the art, it not only is profoundly interesting as music, but gains immensely in interest through its incidental secondary meaning. It is the old story of art for art's sake--art for the purpose of merely gratifying the eye or the ear--or art for the purpose of conveying something besides itself to the beholder or the listener; and it seems to me that, in the history of the art, art for art's sake has always been the more primitive expression and eventually has been obliged to give way. The Naive Symphonists. At the risk of repeating what already has been said of the sonata, the symphony may be described as a work in four movements--the first movement, usually an Allegro, sometimes with a slow introduction, but more frequently without one; a second movement, ordinarily called the slow movement, and usually in Adagio or Andante; a third movement, either minuet or scherzo; and a final movement in fast time and usually in rondo form. It was Haydn who pretty definitely established these divisions of the symphony. He composed in all one hundred and twenty-five symphonies, of which only a few appear on modern concert programs, and even these but occasionally. Their music is marked by a simplicity bordering on naïveté, and the orchestration is a string quartet with a mere filling out by other instruments. Mozart was of a deeper and more dramatic nature than Haydn, and the expression of his thought was more intense. In the same way, there is a greater warmth and color in his orchestration. Nevertheless, the three finest of his forty-nine symphonies, the E flat, G minor and Jupiter, composed in 1788, seem almost childlike in their artless grace and beauty to us moderns. Beethoven's first two symphonies were written under the influence of Haydn and Mozart, but with the third he becomes distinctly epic in his musical utterance; and this symphony, both in regard to variety and depth of expression and skillful use of orchestral instruments, is as great an advance upon the work of his predecessors as, let us say, Tschaikowsky is upon Mendelssohn. Beethoven to the Fore. There are apparent in the sequences of Beethoven's symphonies certain climaxes and certain rests. Thus the Third is the climax of the first three. The Fourth is far less profound; the master relaxes. But the Fifth, with its compact, vigorous theme, which Beethoven himself is said to have described as Fate knocking at the door, and his skillful introduction of this theme in varied form in each of the movements, is by many regarded as his masterpiece--even greater than the Ninth. After this he seems to have relaxed again in the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth, in order to prepare himself for the climax of his career in his final symphonic work, the Ninth. In the slow movement of the Sixth (the "Pastoral"), in which he imitates the call of birds, he gives the direction: "_mehr Empfindung als Malerei_" (more feeling than painting), a direction which often is quoted by opponents of modern program music; notwithstanding the fact that Beethoven, in spite of his own qualifying words, straightway indulged in "painting" of the most childish description. The Seventh Symphony is an extremely brilliant work and the Eighth an exceedingly joyous one, while with the Ninth, as though he himself felt that he was going beyond the limits of orchestral music, he introduced in the last movement solo singers and a chorus, but not with as much effect as the employment of this unusual scheme might lead one to anticipate, because, unfortunately, his writing for voices is extremely awkward. Schubert's Genius. Like Beethoven, Schubert wrote nine symphonies, but the "Unfinished," which was his eighth, and the C major, his ninth, which was discovered by Schumann in the possession of Schubert's brother and sent to Mendelssohn for production at Leipzig, are the ones which seem destined to survive. They are among the most beautiful examples of orchestral music--the first movement of the "Unfinished Symphony" full of dramatic moments as well as of exquisite melody, the slow movement a veritable rose of orchestration; while as regards the C major symphony, Schumann's reference to its "heavenly length" sufficiently describes its inspiration. Mendelssohn's Italian and Scotch symphonies are his best known orchestral works. They are clear and serene, and for any one who thinks a symphony is something very abstruse and wants to be gradually familiarized with its mysteries, they form an easily taken and innocuous dose--the symphony made palatable. Of Schumann's four symphonies, the one in E flat, the "Rhenish," supposed to represent a series of impressions of the Rhine country, the fourth movement especially, to represent the exaltation which possessed his soul during a religious ceremony in the cathedral at Cologne; and the D minor, which latter really is a fantasia, deserve to rank highest. In the D minor the movements follow each other without pause; there is a certain thematic relationship between the first and the last movements, and this connection gives the work a freer and more modern effect. But Schumann was either indifferent to, or ignorant of, the advance in orchestration which had taken place since Beethoven. Practically the same thing applies to Brahms, who, however, deserves the credit for introducing into the symphony a new style of movement, the intermezzo, which takes the place of the scherzo or minuet. Rubinstein deserves "honorable mention"; but the most modern heroes of symphony are Dvorak, with his "New World," and Tschaikowsky, with his "Pathétique." Such works are life-preservers that may help keep a sinking art form afloat. But modern orchestral music is tending more and more toward the symphonic poem and the tone poem. Liszt has written two symphonies: the "Faust Symphony," consisting of three movements, which represent the three principal characters of Goethe's drama, _Faust_, _Gretchen_, and _Mephistopheles_; and a symphony to Dante's "Divina Commedia." In both these symphonies a chorus is introduced. Of his symphonic poems, the best known are "Les Préludes," and "Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo." In these symphonic poems Liszt has made use of the principle of the leitmotif in orchestral music. They are dramatic episodes for orchestra, superbly instrumentated, profoundly beautiful in thought and intention--great program music in fact, because conceived in accordance with the highest canons of the art, and infinitely more interesting than "pure" music because they mean something. By some people Liszt is regarded as a mere charlatan, by others as a great composer. Not only was he a great composer, but one of the very greatest. The Saint-Saëns symphonic poems, "Rouet d'Omphale," "Phaeton," "Danse Macabre," should be mentioned as successful works of this class, but considerably below Liszt's in genuine musical value. And then, there are the orchestral impressions of Charles Martin Loeffler, among which the symphonic poem, "La Mort de Tintagiles," is the most conspicuous. A separate chapter is devoted to Richard Strauss. Wagner is not supposed to have been a purely orchestral composer. Theoretically, he wrote for the theatre, and his orchestra was (again theoretically) only part of a triple scheme of voice, action and instrumental accompaniment. But put the instrumental part of any of his great music-drama episodes on a concert program, and with the first wave of the conductor's baton and the first chord, you forget everything else that has gone before! XII RICHARD STRAUSS AND HIS MUSIC Richard Strauss--a new name to conjure with in music! His banner is borne by a band of enthusiasts like those who, many years ago, carried the flag of Wagner to the front. "Did not Wagner put a full stop after the word 'music'?" some will ask in surprise. "Did he not strike the final note? Are the 'Ring,' 'Tristan' and 'Parsifal' not to be succeeded by an eternal pause? Is there something still to be achieved in music as in other arts and sciences?" Something new certainly has been achieved by Richard Strauss. It forms neither a continuation of Wagner nor an opposition to Wagner. It has nothing to do with Wagner, beyond that Strauss appropriates whatever in the progression of art the latest master has a right to take from his predecessors. Strauss is, in fact, one of the most original and individual of composers. He has been a student, not a copyist, of Wagner. Thus, where others who have sat at the feet of the Bayreuth master have written poor imitations of Wagner, and have therefore failed even to continue the school, giving only feeble echoes of its great master, Strauss has struck out for himself. With a mastery of every technical resource, acquired by deep and patient study, he has given wholly new value and importance to a form of art entirely different from the music-drama. The music of the average modern Wagner disciple sounds not like Wagner, but like Wagner and water. Richard Strauss sounds like Richard Strauss. One reason for this is that his art work, like Wagner's, has an independent intellectual reason for being. Let me not for one moment be understood as belittling Wagner, in order to magnify Strauss. Wagner is the one creator of an art-form who also seems destined to remain its greatest exponent. Other creators of art-forms have been mere pioneers, leaving to those who have come after them the development and rounding out of what with them were experiments. The story of the sonata form may be said to have begun with Philipp Emanuel Bach and to have been "continued in our next" to Beethoven, with "supplements" ever since. The music-drama had its tentative beginnings in "The Flying Dutchman," its consummation in "Parsifal." The years from 1843 to 1882 lay between, but the music-drama was guided ever by the same hand, the master hand of Richard Wagner. No, it would be self-defeating folly to make Wagner appear less in order to have Strauss appear more. Originator of the Tone Poem. Nor does Richard Strauss require such tactics. He has made three excursions into music-drama and he may make others. But his fame, at present, rests mainly upon what he has accomplished as an instrumental composer, and in the self-created realm of the Tone Poem. Tone poem is a new term in music. It stands for something that outstrips the symphonic poem of Liszt, something larger both in its boundaries and in its intellectual and musical scope. Strauss does not limit himself by the word symphonic. He leaves himself free to give full range to his ideas. A composer of "program music," his works are so stupendous in scope that the word symphonic would have hampered him. His "Also Sprach Zarathustra" ("Thus Spake Zarathustra") and "Ein Heldenleben" ("A Hero's Life") are not symphonic poems, but tone poems of enormous proportions. These, his last two instrumental productions, together with the growing familiarity of the musical public with his beautiful and eloquent songs, established his reputation in this country. To-day, a Strauss work on a program means as much to the musically elect as a Wagner work meant a quarter of a century ago. In fact, to advanced musicians, to those who are not content to rest upon what has been achieved, but are ready to welcome further serious effort, Strauss's works form the latest great utterance in music. Let me repeat verbatim a conversation that occurred on a recent rainy night, the date of an important concert. He: "Are you going to the concert to-night?" She: (_Looking out and seeing that it still is raining hard_) "Do they play anything by Richard Strauss?" He: "Not to-night." She: "Then I'm not going." This woman could meet the most enthusiastic admirer of Beethoven or Wagner on his own ground. But when she heard "Ein Heldenleben" under Emil Paur's baton at a concert of the New York Philharmonic Society, she heard what she had been waiting twenty years for--something new in music that also was something great; something that was not merely an imitation of what she had heard a hundred times before, but something which pointed the way to untraveled paths. It always is woman who throws the first rose at the feet of genius. Not a Juggler with the Orchestra. One first looks at Richard Strauss in mere amazement at the size of what he has produced. "Thus Spake Zarathustra" lasts thirty-three minutes, "A Hero's Life" forty-five--considerable lengths for orchestral works. This initial sense of "bigness," as such, having worn off, one becomes aware of marvellous tone combinations and orchestral effects. Listening again, one discovers that these daring instrumental combinations have not been entered into merely for the sake of juggling with the orchestra, but because the composer, being a modern of moderns, has the most modern message in music to deliver, and, in order to deliver it, has developed the modern orchestra to a state of efficiency and versatility of tonal expression beyond any of his predecessors. Richard Strauss scores, in the most casual manner, an octave higher than Beethoven dared go with the violins. Except in the "Egmont" overture, Beethoven did not carry the violins higher than F above the staff. What should have been higher he wrote an octave lower. All the strings in the Richard Strauss orchestra are scored correspondingly high. But this is not done as a mere fad. What Richard Strauss accomplishes with the strings is not merely queer or bizarre. What he seeks and obtains is genuine original musical effects. Often the highest register is used by him in a few of the strings only, because, for certain polyphonic effects--the weaving and interweaving of various themes--he divides and subdivides all the strings into numerous groups. For the same reason, he has regularly added four or five hitherto rarely used instruments to the woodwind and scores, regularly, for eight horns, besides employing from four to five trumpets. While he has increased the technical difficulties of every instrument, what he requires of them is not impossible. He does, indeed, call for first-rate artists in his orchestra; but so did Wagner as compared with Beethoven. He knows every instrument thoroughly, for he has taken lessons on all; and, therefore, when he is striving for new instrumental effects he is not putting problems which cannot be legitimately solved. His "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" makes, possibly, the greatest demand of all his works on an orchestra. But, if properly played, it is one of the most bizarre and amusing scherzos in the repertoire. In his "Don Quixote," he has gone outside the list of orchestral instruments; and in the scene where _Don Quixote_ has his tilt with the windmill, he has introduced a regular theatrical wind-machine. And why not? The effect to be produced justifies the means. There is an _à capella_ chorus by Strauss for sixteen voices. These are not divided into two double quartets, or into four quartets, but the composition actually is scored in sixteen parts. He shrinks from no musical problem. Not Mere Bulk and Noise. When "A Hero's Life" was produced in New York it was given at a public rehearsal and concert of the Philharmonic. It made such a profound impression--it was recognized as music, not as mere bulk and noise--that it had to be repeated at a following public rehearsal and concert, thus having the honor of four consecutive performances by the same society in one season. Previous performances of Strauss's works, mainly by the Chicago Orchestra, under Thomas, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, had begun to direct public attention to this composer. But the "Heldenleben" performances by the Philharmonic created something of a sensation. They made the "hit" to which the public unconsciously had been working up for several seasons. Large as are the dimensions of "A Hero's Life," Richard Strauss had chosen a subject that made a very direct appeal. Despite its wealth of polyphony and theme combination, the score told, without a word of synopsis, a clear intelligible story of a hero's material victory, followed by a greater moral one. It placed the public on a human, familiar footing with a composer whom previously they had regarded with more awe than interest. Here was music interesting as mere music, but all the more interesting because it had an intellectual message to convey. Life and Truth. What is the difference between classical and modern music? Write a chapter or a book on it, and the difference still remains just this: Classical music is the expression of beauty; modern music the expression of life and truth. Modern music seems entering upon a new era with Strauss, which does not necessarily exclude beauty. It is beginning to illustrate itself, so to speak, like the author-artist who can both write and draw. To-day, music not only expresses truth, but represents it pictorially. How long will the time be in coming when a composer will wave his bâton, the orchestra strike a chord--and we be not only listeners but also beholders, hearing the chord, and seeing at the same time its image floating above the orchestra? In his "Melomaniacs," the most remarkable collection of musical stories I have read, Mr. Huneker has a tale called "A Piper of Dreams," the most advanced piece of musical fiction I know of. This piper of dreams produces music which is _seen_. "Do you know why you like it?" Mr. Huneker asked me, when I told him how intensely I admired the story. "Because," he continued, "the hero of the story is a Richard Strauss." Of course, this brilliantly written story was a daring incursion into a seemingly impossible future. Yet it points a tendency. When shall we have music that can be seen? Considering how closely related are the laws of acoustics and optics, is a "Piper of Dreams" so visionary? Who knows but that the music of the future may be visible sound--the work of a piper of dreams? Sometimes, when listening to Strauss, I think Mr. Huneker's _Piper_ is tuning up. Richard Strauss's tone poems are large in plan. In fact they are colossal. They show him to be a man of great intellectual activity, as well as an inspired composer. The latter, of course, is the test by which a musical work stands or falls. No matter how intellectually it is planned, if it is inadequate musically it fails. But if it is musically inspired, it gains vastly in effect when it rests on a brain basis. Literally Tone Dramas. That Richard Strauss is the most significant figure in the musical world to-day seems to me too patent to admit of discussion. The only question to be considered is, how has he become so? The question is best answered by showing what a Richard Strauss tone poem is. Take "Thus Spake Zarathustra" and "A Hero's Life." Without going into an elaborate discussion I must insist that, to consider Richard Strauss as in any way a development from Berlioz or Liszt, shows a deplorable unfamiliarity with his works. Berlioz wrote program music. Liszt wrote program music. Richard Strauss writes program music. But this point of resemblance is wholly superficial. Berlioz admittedly strove to adhere to the orthodox symphonic form. Liszt aptly named his own productions "symphonic poems." They are much freer in form than Berlioz's, and possibly pointed the way to the Richard Strauss tone poem. But when we examine the musical kernel, the difference at once is apparent. Polyphony, that is, the simultaneous interweaving of many themes, was foreign to Berlioz and Liszt. Their style is mainly homophonic. Richard Strauss is a polyphonic composer second not even to Wagner, whose system of leading motives in his music-dramas made his scores such marvellous polyphonic structures. Such, too, are the scores of Richard Strauss's tone poems. None but a master of polyphony could have attempted to express in music what Richard Strauss has expressed. For are not his tone poems literally tone dramas? It was like a man of great intellectual activity, such as Richard Strauss is, to select for musical illustration the Faust of modern literature--Nietzsche's "Zarathustra." The composer became interested in Nietzsche's works in 1892, when he was writing his music-drama, "Guntram." The full fruition of his study of this philosopher's works is "Thus Spake Zarathustra." But this is not an attempt to set Nietzsche to music, not an effort to express a system of philosophy through sound. It is rather the musical portrayal of a quest--a being longing to solve the problems of life, finding at the end of his varied pilgrimage that which he had left at the beginning, Nature deep and inscrutable. Musically, the great _fortissimo_ outburst in C major, which, at the beginning of the work, greets the seeker on the mountain-top with the glories of the sunrise, is the symbol of Nature. The seeker descends the mountain. He pursues the quest amid many surroundings, among all sorts and conditions of men. He experiences joy, passion, remorse. In wisdom, perchance, lies the final solution of the problem of life. But the emptiness of "wisdom" is depicted by the composer with the keenest satire in a learned, yet dry, five-part fugue. The seeker's varied experiences form as many divisions of the tone poem. There is even a waltz theme. Unending joy! Therein he may reach the end of his quest. But hark! a sombre strophe, followed twelve times by the even fainter stroke of a bell! Then a theme winging its flight on the highest register of modern instrumentation, until it seems to rise over the orchestra and vanish into thin air. It is the soul of the seeker, his earthly quest ended; while the theme which greeted him at sunrise on the mountain-top resounds in the orchestral depths, the symbol of Nature, still mysterious, still inscrutable. An Intellectual Force in Music. Even this brief synopsis suggests that "Zarathustra" is planned on a large scale. It presupposes an intellectual grasp of the subject on the composer's part. In its choice, in the selection and rejection of details and in outlining his scheme, Richard Strauss shows that he has thoroughly assimilated Nietzsche. But, at a certain point, the musician in Richard Strauss asserts himself above the litterateur. "Thus Spake Zarathustra" was not intended for a preachment, save indirectly. From what occurs during that vain quest, from the last deep mysterious chord of the Nature theme, let the listener draw his own conclusion. In the last analysis, "Thus Spake Zarathustra" is not a philosophical treatise, but a tone poem. In the last analysis, Richard Strauss is not a philosopher, but a musician. "A Hero's Life" is another work of large plan. Like "Zarathustra," it derives its importance as an art-work from its eloquence as a musical composition. With a musical work, no matter how intellectual or dramatic its foundation, its test ever will be its value as pure music. Richard Wagner's theories would have fallen like a house of cards, had not his music been eloquent and beautiful. But as his music gained wonderfully in added eloquence and beauty by induction from its intellectual content, so does Strauss's. The fact is, music is music, while philosophies come and go. Yesterday it was Schopenhauer; to-day it is Nietzsche; to-morrow it will be another. Doubtless, Wagner thought his "Ring" was Schopenhauer's "Negation of the Will to Live" set to music. Possibly, Richard Strauss thought Nietzsche looked out between the bars of "Thus Spake Zarathustra." In point of fact, neither Wagner nor Richard Strauss incorporated their favorite philosophers in their music. Wagner may have derived his inspiration from his reading of Schopenhauer, and Richard Strauss from Nietzsche, for one mind inspires another. But the real result, both in Wagner and Strauss, was great music. This is made clear by Strauss's "A Hero's Life." Like "Zarathustra," it would be effective as music without a line of programmatic explanation. The latter simply adds to its effectiveness by giving it the further interest of "fiction" and ethical import. In "A Hero's Life" we hear (and _see_, if you like) the hero himself, his jealous adversaries, the woman whose love consoles him, the battle in which he wins his greatest worldly triumph, his mission of peace, the world's indifference and the final flight of his soul toward the empyrean. All this is depicted musically with the greatest eloquence. The battlefield scene is a stupendous massing of orchestral forces. On the other hand, the amorous episode, entitled "The Hero's Helpmate," is impassioned and charming. In the world's indifference to the hero's mission of peace, there is little doubt that Strauss was indulging in a retrospect of his own struggles for recognition. For here are heard numerous reminiscences of his earlier works--his tone poems, "Don Juan," "Death and Transfiguration," "Macbeth," "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks," "Thus Spake Zarathustra," "Don Quixote"; his music-drama, "Guntram"; and his song, "Dream During Twilight." These reminiscences give "A Hero's Life" the same autobiographical interest as attaches to Wagner's "Meistersinger." Tribute to Wagner. Strauss pays a tribute to Wagner in the one-act opera, "Feuersnot" ("Fire Famine"). According to the old legend on which this _Sing-gedicht_ (song-poem) is founded, a young maiden has offended her lover. But the lover being a magician, casts a spell over the town, causing the extinction of all fire, bringing cold and darkness upon the entire place, until the maiden relents and smiles again upon him, when the spell is lifted and the fires once more burn brightly. The young lover, _Kunrad_, in rebuking the people of the city, says: "In this house which to-day I destroy, Once lodged Richard the Master. Disgracefully did ye expel him In envy and baseness," etc., etc. Accompanying these lines, Strauss introduces themes from Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung." Undoubtedly "Richard the Master," in the above lines, is Richard Wagner. While Mr. Paur was not the first orchestral leader who has played Strauss's music in this country, he may justly be regarded as Strauss's prophet in New York at least. Not only do we owe to him the performances of "A Hero's Life," which definitely "created" Strauss here, but it was he who brought forward "Thus Spake Zarathustra," when he was conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As long ago as 1889, when Mr. Paur was conductor at Mannheim, he invited Strauss to direct his symphony in F minor there. Strauss accepted and also brought with him his just completed "Macbeth," asking to be allowed to try it over with the orchestra, as he wanted to hear it--a request which was readily granted. Afterward, at Mr. Paur's house, Strauss's piano quartet was played, with the composer himself at the piano and Mr. Paur at the violin. It is not surprising that when Mr. Paur came over here as the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he championed Richard Strauss's work, continued to do so after he became conductor of the New York Philharmonic Society, and probably still does as conductor of the Pittsburg Orchestra. Strauss has become such an important figure in the world of music that it is interesting to note what has been done to bring his work before the American public. Theodore Thomas, with the artistic liberality which he has always displayed toward every serious effort in music, produced Strauss's symphony in F minor, which bears date 1883, as early as December 13, 1884, with the New York Philharmonic Society. It was the first performance of this work anywhere. Strauss was not, however, heard again at the concerts of this organization until January, 1892, when Seidl brought out "Death and Transfiguration." After he became conductor of the Chicago Orchestra, Thomas gave many performances of Richard Strauss's works--in 1895, the prelude to "Guntram," "Death and Transfiguration" and "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks"; in 1897, "Don Juan" and "Thus Spake Zarathustra"; in 1899, "Don Quixote" and the symphonic fantasia, "Italy"; in 1900, "A Hero's Life" (the first performance in this country) and the "Serenade" for wind instruments; in 1902, "Macbeth" (first performance in this country) and the "Feuersnot" fragment. Several of these works, besides those noted, had their first performance in this country by the Chicago Orchestra, and several have had repeated performances. The Boston Symphony Orchestra also has a fine record as regards the performance of Richard Strauss's works. Nikisch, Paur, and Gericke are the conductors under whom these performances have been given. Several of the works have been played repeatedly not only in Boston, but in other cities where this famous orchestra gives concerts. Richard Straussiana. As data regarding Strauss's life, at the disposal of English readers, are both scant and scattered, it may not be amiss to tell here something of his career. He was born on June 11, 1864, in Munich, where his father, Franz Strauss, played the French-horn in the Royal Orchestra, and was noted for his remarkable proficiency on the instrument. The elder Strauss lived long enough to watch with pride his son's growing fame. Richard began to play the piano when he was four years old. At the age of six he heard some children singing around a Christmas tree. "I can compose something like that," he said, and he produced unaided a three-part song. When he went to school, his mother by chance put covers of music paper on his books. As a result, he occupied much of his time composing on this paper, and during a French lesson sketched out the scherzo of a string quartet which has been published as his Opus 2. While he was still at school, he composed a symphony in D minor. This was played by the Royal Orchestra under Levi. When, in response to calls for the composer, Richard came out, some one in the audience asked: "What has that boy to do with the symphony?" "Oh, he's only the composer," was the reply. The year before (1880), the Royal Opera prima donna, Meysenheim, had publicly sung three of his songs. During his advanced school years, his piano lessons continued, he received lessons in the violin, and went through a severe course in composition with the Royal Kapellmeister, Meyer. In 1882, he attended the University of Munich. His "Serenade" for wind instruments, composed at this time, attracted the attention of Hans von Bülow, under whom he studied for a while at Raff's conservatory in Frankfort. Bülow invited him to Meiningen as co-director of the orchestra, and when in November, 1885, Bülow resigned as conductor, Strauss became his successor, remaining there, however, only till April, 1886. His symphonic fantasia, "Italy," had its origin through a trip to Rome and Naples during this year. In August, 1886, he was appointed assistant conductor to Levi and Fischer at the Munich Opera, where he remained until July, 1889, when he became conductor at Weimar. In 1892, he almost died from an attack of pneumonia, and on his recovery took a long trip through Greece, Egypt and Sicily. It was on this tour that he wrote and composed "Guntram," which was brought out at Weimar in May, 1894. After the first performance, he announced his engagement to the singer of _Freihild_ in "Guntram," Pauline de Ahna, the daughter of a Bavarian general. The same year he returned to Munich as conductor, remaining there until 1899, when he became one of the conductors at the Berlin Opera, which position he still holds. He is one of the "star" conductors of Europe, receiving invitations to conduct concerts in many cities, including Brussels, Moscow, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, London and Paris; and his American tour was a memorable one. He is a man of untiring industry. It is said that he worked no less than half a year on "Thus Spake Zarathustra," and that the writing of his scores is a model of beauty. Strauss occupies a commanding position in the world of music. He has achieved it through a remarkable combination of musical technique and inspiration coupled with rare industry. His ideals are of the highest. His intellectual activity is great. He seems a man of calm and noble poise, of broad horizon. It would be presumption to speak of "expectations" as to one who has accomplished so much. For the great achievements already to his credit, and among these "Salome" surely must be included, are the best promise for the future. XIII A NOTE ON CHAMBER MUSIC Lovers of chamber music form an extremely refined and cultured class, and, like all highly refined and cultured people, are very conservative. They are the purists among music-lovers, the last people who would care to see the classical forms abandoned, and who would be disturbed, not to say shocked, by any great departure from the sonata form. For the string quartet is to chamber music what the symphony is to orchestra and the sonata to the pianoforte--is, in fact, a sonata for two violins, viola and violoncello, just as the symphony is a sonata for orchestra. Oddly enough, a pianoforte solo is more effective in a large hall than a string quartet, although the latter employs four times as many instruments; and the same is true of those pieces of chamber music in which the pianoforte is used, such as sonatas for pianoforte and violin or violoncello, pianoforte trios, quartets, quintets, and so on. A fine soloist on the pianoforte will be more at home in a large auditorium like Carnegie Hall or even the Metropolitan Opera House than would a string quartet or any other combination of chamber-music players. Paderewski plays in Carnegie Hall, and, I am sure, would be equally effective in the Opera House. But an organization of chamber-music players would be lost in either place. The Kneisel Quartet plays in New York in Mendelssohn Hall, a small auditorium which is just about correctly proportioned for music of this kind. Indeed, compared with the opera, the orchestra and even with the pianoforte, chamber music requires a setting like a jewel. For just as its devotees are the purists among music-lovers, so chamber music itself is something very "precious." It certainly is a most charming and intimate form of musical entertainment and the constituency of a well-established string quartet inevitably consists of the musical élite. The same opinions that have been expressed regarding the sonatas and the symphonies of the great composers apply in a general way to their chamber music. Haydn's is naive; Mozart's more emotional in expression; Beethoven's, among that of classical composers, the most dramatic. In fact, Beethoven's last quartets, in which the instruments are employed quite independently and in which rôles practically of equal importance are assigned to each, are regarded by Richard Strauss as having given the cue to Wagner for his polyphonic treatment of the orchestra, and Wagner himself spoke of them as works through which "Music first raised herself to an equal height with the poetry and painting of the greatest periods of the past." Nevertheless, there are many who hold that in his last quartets Beethoven sought to accomplish more than can be expressed with four stringed instruments, and prefer his earlier works of this class, like the three "Rasumovski" quartets, Opus 59, dedicated by the composer to Count Rasumovski, who maintained a private string quartet in which he played second violin, the others being professionals. Schubert's most famous quartet is the one in D minor with the lovely slow movement, a theme with variations, the theme being his own song, "Death and the Maiden." One of the greatest works in the whole range of chamber music is his string quintet with two violoncellos. His pianoforte trios also are noble contributions to this branch of musical art. "One glance at this trio," writes Schumann of the Schubert trio in B flat major, "and all the wretchedness of existence is put to flight and the world seems young again.... Many and beautiful as are the things Time brings forth, it will be long ere it produces another Schubert." Mendelssohn's chamber music is as polished, affable and gentlemanly as most of his other productions, and rapidly falling into the same state of unlamented desuetude. Schumann has given us his lovely pianoforte quintet in E flat. Brahms has contributed much that is noteworthy to chamber music, and, as a rule, it is less complex and more intelligently scored than his orchestral music. Dvorak in his E flat major quartet (Opus 51) introduces as the second movement a Dumka or Bohemian elegy, one of the most exquisite of his compositions. Fascinating in his national musical tints, he was genius enough for his music to be universal in its expression; and he who used the folksongs of his native Bohemia so skillfully was no less artistic in the results he accomplished when, during his residence in New York, he wrote his string quartet in F (Opus 96) on Negro themes. Tschaikowsky and neo-Russians like Arensky, and the Frenchmen, César Franck, Saint-Saëns, d'Indy and Debussy, are some of the modern names that figure on chamber-music programs. HOW TO APPRECIATE VOCAL MUSIC XIV SONGS AND SONG COMPOSERS Songs either are strophic or "_durchcomponirt_" (composed through). In the strophic song the melody and accompaniment are repeated unchanged through each stanza or strophe of the poem; while, when a song is composed through, the music, although the principal melody may be repeated more than once, is subjected to changes in accordance with the moods of the poem. Schubert is the first song composer who requires serious consideration. While not strictly the originator of the _Lied_, he is universally acknowledged to be the first great song composer and to have lifted song to its proper place of importance in music. Gluck set Klopfstock's odes to music; Haydn as a song writer is remembered by "Liebes Mädchen hör' mir Zu"; Mozart by "Das Veilchen"; and Beethoven by "Adelaide" and one or two other songs. Before Schubert's day this form of composition was regarded as something rather trivial and beneath the dignity of genius. But Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven at least did one thing through which they may possibly have contributed to the development of song-writing. By their freer writing for the pianoforte they prepared the way for the Schubert accompaniments. Where Schubert got his musical genius from is a mystery. His father was a schoolmaster, whose first wife, Schubert's mother, was a cook. The couple had fourteen children and an income of $175. If this income is somewhat disproportionate to the size of the family, it yet is fortunate that they had fourteen children instead of only thirteen. Otherwise there would have been one great name less in musical history, for Schubert was the fourteenth. He was born in Vienna in January, 1797. His thirty-one years--for this genius who so enriched music lived to be only thirty-one--were passed in poverty. His father was wretchedly poor, and his own works, when they could be disposed of at all to publishers, were sold at beggarly prices. Now they are universally recognized as masterpieces and are worth many times their weight in gold. Too Poor to Buy Music Paper. Shortly before he was twelve years old, Schubert, who had been singing soprano solos and playing violin in the parish choir, was sent to the so-called Convict, the Imperial school for training boys for the Court chapel. During his five years there his progress was so rapid that even before he was fourteen years old he was occasionally asked to substitute for the conductor of the school orchestra. Life, however, was hard. He had no money with which to buy even a few luxuries in the way of food to eke out the wretched fare of the Convict, nor music paper. Had it not been for the kindness of a fellow pupil and friend, named Spaun, he would not have been able to write down and work out his ideas. When his voice changed, the straitened family circumstances obliged him to become an assistant in his father's school. He was able to bear poverty with patience, but not the drudgery of teaching, and he is said often to have lost his temper with the boys. Altogether, he taught for three years, 1815 to 1818; and while his work was most distasteful to him, his genius was so spontaneous that during his three years he composed many songs, among them his immortal "Erlking." Finally a university student, Franz von Schober, who, having heard some of Schubert's songs, had become an enthusiastic admirer of the composer, offered him one of his rooms as a lodging, whereupon Schubert, straightway accepting the offer, gave up teaching and from that time to the end of his brief life led a Bohemian existence with a clique of friends of varied accomplishments. In this circle he was known as "Canevas," because whenever some new person joined it, his first question regarding the newcomer was "_Kann er wass?_" (Can he do anything?) Outside a small circle of acquaintances, Schubert remained practically unknown until he made the acquaintance of Johann Michael Vogl, an opera singer, to whom his devoted friend, Von Schober, introduced him. Vogl was somewhat reserved in his opinion of the songs which he tried over with Schubert at their first meeting, but they made an impression. He followed up the acquaintance and became the first professional interpreter of Schubert's lyrics. "The manner in which Vogl sings and I accompany," wrote Schubert to his brother Ferdinand, "so that we appear like _one_ on such occasions, is something new and unheard of to our listeners." Publishers, however, held aloof. Five years after the "Erlking" was composed, several of them refused to print it, although Schubert offered to forego royalties on it. Finally, some of Schubert's friends had the song published at their own expense, and its success led to the issuing of eleven other songs, Schubert unwisely accepting eight hundred florins in lieu of royalty on these and the "Erlking." Yet from one of these songs alone, "The Wanderer," the publishers received twenty-seven thousand florins between the years 1822 and 1861. How the "Erlking" was Composed. Schubert being the greatest of song composers, and the "Erlking" his greatest song, the circumstances under which it was written are of especial interest. His friend Spaun, the same who provided him with music paper at the Convict, relates that one afternoon toward the close of the year 1815 he went with the poet Mayrhofer to visit Schubert. They found the composer all aglow, reading the "Erlking" aloud to himself. He walked up and down the room several times, book in hand, then suddenly sat down and as fast as his pen could travel put the music on paper. Having no piano, the three men hurried over to the Convict, where the "Erlking" was sung the same evening and received with enthusiasm. The old Court organist, Ruziczka, afterward played it over himself without the voice, and when some of those present objected to the dissonance which occurs three times in the course of the composition and depicts the child's terror of the _Erlking_, the old organist struck these chords and explained how perfectly they reflected the spirit of the poem and how felicitously they were worked out in their musical resolution. Schubert's song is almost Wagnerian in its descriptive and dramatic quality. The coaxing voice of the _Erlking_, the terror of the child, the efforts of the father to allay his boy's fears, each has its characteristic expression, which yet is different from the narrative portions of the poem, while in the accompaniment the horse gallops along. Schubert was but eighteen years old when he set this ballad of Goethe's to music; yet there is no more thrilling climax to be found in all song literature than those dissonances which I have mentioned and which with each repeat rise to a higher interval and become each time more shrill with terror. Whoever has heard Lilli Lehmann sing this song should be able to appreciate its real greatness, as Goethe, who had remained utterly indifferent to Schubert's music, did when the "Erlking" was sung to him by Frau Schroeder-Devrient, to whom he exclaimed: "Thank you a thousand times for this great artistic achievement. When I heard this song before I did not like it at all, but sung in your way it becomes a true picture." Finck on Schubert. More than six hundred songs by Schubert have been published, and when we remember that he wrote symphonies, sonatas, shorter pianoforte pieces, chamber music and operas, the fertility of his brief life is astounding. The rapidity with which he composed, however, was not due to carelessness, but to the spontaneity of his genius and the fact that he loved to compose. "He composed as a bird sings in the spring, or as a well gushes from a mountain-side, simply because he could not help it," says Mr. Finck, in his "Songs and Song Writers." We have it on the authority of Schubert's friend, Spaun, that when he went to bed he kept his spectacles on, so that when he woke up he could go right to the table and compose without wasting time looking for his glasses. In the two years 1815-16 he wrote no less than two hundred and fifty-four songs. Six of the songs in the "Winterreise" cycle were composed in one morning, and he had eight songs to his credit in a single day. The charming "Hark, Hark, the Lark" was written at a tavern where he chanced to see the poem in a book the leaves of which he was slowly turning over. "If I only had some music paper!" he exclaimed, whereupon one of his friends promptly ruled lines on the back of his _Speise Karte_, and Schubert, with the varied noises of the tavern going on about him, jotted down the song then and there. Of course, it is impossible to touch on all the aspects of such a genius as his. In his songs clear and beautiful melody is, as a rule, combined with a descriptive accompaniment. Sometimes the description is given by means of only a few chords, like the preluding ones in "Am Meer." At other times the description runs through the entire accompaniment, like the waves that flash and dance around the melody of "Auf dem Wasser zu Singen"; the galloping horse in the "Erlking"; the veiled mist that seems to hang over the scenes in the wonderfully dramatic poem, "Die Stadt"; the flutter of the bird in "Hark, Hark, the Lark"; the brook that flows like a leitmotif through the "Maid of the Mill" cycle--these are a few of the examples that with Schubert could be cited by the dozen. And the range of his work--here again space forbids the multiplication of examples. It extends from the naive "Haiden Röslein" to the tragic "Doppelgänger"; from the whispering foliage of the "Linden Tree" to the pathetic drone of the "Hurdy-Gurdy Man"; from the "Serenade" to "Todt und das Mädchen." Schubert is the greatest genius among song composers. Compare the growing reputation of him who of all musicians was perhaps the most neglected during his life, with that of Mendelssohn, the most fêted of composers, but now rapidly dropping to the position of a minor tone poet, and who, although he wrote eighty-three songs, is as a song writer remembered outside of Germany by barely more than one _Lied_, the familiar "On the Wings of Song." Schumann's Individuality. In Schumann's songs the piano part is more closely knit and interwoven with the vocal melody than with Schubert's, and, as a result, the voice does not stand out so clearly. While his songs are not what they have been called by a German critic, "pianoforte pieces with accidental vocal accompaniments," at times, in his vocal compositions, the pianoforte gains too great an ascendancy over the voice. If asked to draw a distinction between Schubert and Schumann, I should say that there is a twofold interest in most of Schubert's songs. He reproduces the feeling of the poem in his vocal melody; then, if the poem contains a descriptive suggestion, he produces that phase of it in his accompaniment, without, however, allowing the pianoforte part to encroach on the vocal melody. The melody gives the feeling, the accompaniment the description or mood picture. Schumann, on the other hand, rarely is descriptive. Nearly always he produces a mood picture in tone, but requires both voice and pianoforte to effect his purpose. As this, however, is Schumann's method of composition, and as it is better that each composer should leave the seal of his individuality on everything he does, and not be an imitator, it is not cause for regret that while Schubert is Schubert, Schumann is Schumann. The proportion of fine songs among the two hundred and forty-five composed by Schumann is, however, much smaller than in the heritage left us by Schubert; and while Schubert, from the time he wrote his first great vocal compositions, added many equally great ones every year, Schumann's songs, on the whole, show a decided falling off after he had wooed and won Clara Wieck. It was during his courtship that he produced his best songs. Separated from her by the command of her stern father, he made love to her in music. "I am now writing nothing but songs, great and small," we find him saying in a letter to a friend in the summer of 1840. "Hardly can I tell you how delicious it is to write for voice instead of for instruments, and what a turmoil and tumult I feel within me when I sit down to it." While he was composing his song cycle, "Die Myrthen," he wrote to Clara: "Since yesterday morning I have written twenty-seven pages of music, all new, concerning which the best I can tell you is that I laughed and wept for joy while composing them." A month later he writes her, in sending her his first printed songs: "When I composed them my soul was within yours; without such a love, indeed, no one could write such music--and this I intend as a special compliment." ... "I could sing myself to death, like a nightingale," he writes to her again, on May 15th. Never was there such a musical wooing, and those who wish to participate in it can do so by singing or listening to such songs as "Dedication," "The Almond Tree," "The Lotos Flower," "In the Forest" (Waldesgespräch), "Spring Night," "He, the Noblest of the Noble," "Thou Ring upon My Finger," "'Twas in the Lovely Month of May," "Where'er My Tears Are Falling," "I'll Not Complain," and "Nightly in My Dreaming." Among his songs not inspired by love should be mentioned the "Two Grenadiers," which Plançon sings so inimitably. Phases of Franz's Genius. Robert Franz (1815-1892) had his life embittered by neglect and physical ills. His family name originally was Knauth, his father having been Christoph Knauth. But in order to distinguish him from his brother, who was engaged in the same business, he was addressed as Christoph Franz, a name which he subsequently had legalized. Yet critics insisted that Robert Franz was a pseudonym which the composer had adopted from vanity in order to indicate that he was as great as _Robert_ Schumann and _Franz_ Schubert put together. Franz was strongly influenced by Bach and Händel, many of whose scores he supplied with what are known as "additional accompaniments," filling out gaps which these composers left in their scores according to the custom of their day. His songs show this influence in their polyphony, and the German critic, Ambros, said that Franz's song, "Der Schwere Abend," looked as if Bach had sat down and composed a Franz song out of thanks for all that Franz was to do for him through his additional accompaniments. Besides their polyphony derived from Bach, Franz's songs are interesting for their modulations, which are employed not simply for the sake of showing cleverness or originality, but for their appropriateness in expressing the mood of the poem. He also was extremely careful in regard to the choice of key and decidedly objected to transpositions of his songs, in order to make them singable for higher or lower voices than could use the original key. "When I am dead," he wrote to his publisher, "I cannot prevent these transpositions, but so long as I am alive I shall fight them." Franz did not endeavor to reproduce visible things in his pianoforte parts, and the voice in his songs often is declamatory, merging into melody only in the more deeply emotional passages. He is a reflective rather than a dramatic composer, disliked opera, and himself said that any one who had penetrated deeply into his songs well knew that the dramatic element was not to be found in them, nor was it intended to be. Composers, however, have many theories regarding their music which, in practice, come to naught; and whether Franz thought his songs dramatic or not, the fact remains that when Lilli Lehmann sang his "Im Herbst" it was as thrillingly dramatic as anything could be. Self-Critical. Franz was extremely self-critical. He kept his productions in his desk for years, working over them again and again, until in many cases the song in its final shape bore slight resemblance to what it had been at first. He declared his Opus 1 to be no worse than his latest work, because it had been composed with equal care and had had the benefit of his ripening judgment and experience. He admired Wagner and dedicated one of his song volumes to him; but when some critics fancied that they discovered Wagnerian traits in several songs in his last collection, Op. 51-52, he was able to prove that these very songs were among the first he had written, and were published so late in his career simply because he had kept them back for revision. His physical disabilities were pitiable. When he was about thirty-three years old and shortly after his marriage, he was standing in the Halle railway station when a locomotive close by sounded its shrill whistle. The effect upon him was like the piercing of his ears. For several days afterward he heard nothing but confused buzzing, and from that time on his hearing became worse and worse, until finally his ears pained him even when he composed. In 1876 he became totally deaf, and a few years later his right arm was paralyzed from shoulder to thumb. He was a poor man, and right at the worst time in his life, when he was totally deaf, a small pension which he had received from the Bach Society was taken away from him. But his admirers, many of them Americans, came to his rescue and raised a fund for his support. Among his finest songs are "Widmung," "Leise Zieht durch mein Gemuht," "Bitte," "Die Lotos Blume," "Es Ragt der Alte Eborus," "Meerfahrt," "Das is ein Brausen und Heulen," "Ich Hab' in Deinem Auge," "Ich Will meine seele Taugen," and "Es Hat' Die Rose sich Beklagt." Brahms a Thinker in Music. Brahms was a profound thinker in music--not a philosopher, but a reflective poet, whose musicianship, however, was so great that he cared too little for the practical side of his art as compared with the theoretical. If what he wrote looked all right on paper he was indifferent as to whether it sounded right or not; consequently, if he started out with a certain rhythmical figuration or a certain scheme of harmonic progression, he carried it through rigidly to its logical conclusion, utterly oblivious to, or at least utterly regardless of, any tonal blemishes that might result, although by slightly altering his scheme here and there he might have obviated these. This is the reason why some people find passages in his music which to them sound repellant. But those who have not allowed this aspect of Brahms's work to prejudice them and have familiarized themselves with his music, well know that he is one of the loftiest souls that ever put pen to staff. He never is drastic, never sensational, never superficial; and the climaxes of his songs, as in his other music, are produced not by great outbursts of sound, but by sudden modulations or change of rhythm, which give a wonderful "lift" to voice and accompaniment. Among his best known songs (and each of these is a masterpiece) are: "Wie Bist du meine Königin," "Ruhe, Süss Liebschen," "Von ewiger Liebe," "Wiegenlied," "Minnelied," "Feldeinsamkeit," "Wie Melodien zeiht es mir," "Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer," "Meine Lieder," "Wir wandelten, wir Swei, zusammen." * * * * * One of the most impassioned modern lyrical outbursts is Jensen's setting of Heine's "Lehn deine Wang' an Meine Wang'," and his "Frühlingsnacht" also is a very beautiful song, although the popularity of Schumann's setting of the same poem has cast it unduly into the shade. Rubinstein will be found considerably less prolix in his songs than in his music in other branches, and those which he wrote to the Persian poems of Von Bodenstedt ("Mirza Schaffy") are fascinating in their Oriental coloring. The "Asra," and "Yellow Rolls at my Feet," (Gold Rollt mir zu Füssen) are among the best known of these; while "Es blink't der Thau," "Du Bist wie eine Blume," and "Der Traum" are among Rubinstein's songs which are or should be in the repertoire of every singer. Tschaikowsky and Dvorak are not noteworthy as song writers, but the former's setting of "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt" and the latter's "Gypsy Songs" are highly successful. Grieg's Originality. One of the most fascinating among modern song writers is the Norwegian, Grieg. He has been unusually fortunate in having a fine singer as a wife. Mr. Finck relates that Ibsen, after hearing her sing his poems as set to music by Grieg, whispered as he shook the hands of this musical couple, the one word, "Understood." Grieg's originality has not been thoroughly appreciated, because much of the beauty of his music has been attributed to what is supposed to be its Norwegian origin. Grieg is national, it is true, but not in a cramped or narrow sense. His music is the product of his individual genius, and his genius has made him so popular that what is his has come to be wrongly considered Norwegian, whereas it is Norway interpreted through the genius of Grieg. His music is not a dialect, but music of universal significance, fortunately tinged with his individuality. "I Love You," Ibsen's "The Swan," "By the Riverside," "Springtide," "Wounded Heart," "The Mother Sings" (a mother mourning her dead child), "At the Bier of a Young Woman," and "From Monte Pincio," are among his finest _Lieder_. Chopin is much too little known as a song writer. His genius as a composer for the pianoforte has overshadowed his songs, and the public is familiar with little else save "The Maiden's Wish," which is one of Madame Sembrich's favorite encores and to which she plays her own accompaniment so delightfully. But there is plenty of national color in the "Lithuanina" song, plenty of pathos in "Poland's Dirge," and plenty of lyrical passion in "My Delights." Finck says that in all music, lyric or dramatic, the thrill of a kiss has never been expressed so ecstatically as in the twelve bars of this song marked "_crescendo sempre piu accellerando_." Certainly _sempre_ (always) and _accellerando_ (faster) are capital words when applied to a kiss! Richard Wagner, when twenty-six years old, in Paris, tried to relieve his poverty by composing a few songs, among which is a very charming setting of Ronsard's "Dors mon enfant." He also set Heine's "The Two Grenadiers" to music, utilizing the "Marsellaise" in the accompaniment; but, as a whole, the Wagner version of this poem is not as effective as Schumann's. In 1862 he composed music to five poems written by Mathilde Wesendonck, among which is the famous "Träume," which utilizes the theme of the love duet that later on appeared in "Tristan." Liszt's Genius for Song. Liszt's songs are a complete musical exposition of the poems to which they are composed. Thus while, by way of comparison, Rubinstein's setting of "Du Bist wie eine Blume" gives through its simplicity a rare impression of purity, Liszt in his setting of the same poem adds to that purity the sense of sacredness with which the contemplation of a pure woman fills a man's heart and causes him to worship her. His "Lorelei" is a beautiful lyric scene. We view the flowing river, seem to hear the seductive voice of the temptress, and watch the treacherous and stormy current that hurries the ensnared boatman to his doom. And what song has more of that valuable quality we call "atmosphere" than Liszt's version of "Kennst du das Land?" As will be the case with Liszt in other branches of music, he will be recognized some day as one of the greatest of song composers. Richard Strauss's songs, from having been regarded as so bristling with difficulties as to be impossible, have become favorites in the song repertoire. When it is a genius who creates difficulties these are sure to be overcome by ambitious players and singers, and music advances technically by just so much. Strauss's "Ständchen," with its deliciously delicate accompaniment, so difficult to play with the requisite grace, was the first of Strauss's songs to become popular here, and it was the art of our great singer, Madame Nordica, that made it so. Now we hear "Die Nacht," "Traum durch die Dämmerung," "Heimliche Aufforderung," "Allerseelem," "Breit über mein Haupt Dein schwarzes Haar," and many of his other songs with growing frequency. There are few song composers with whom the pianoforte accompaniment is so entirely distinct from the melody (or so difficult to play), as often is the case with Strauss. As with Schubert, every descriptive suggestion contained in the poem is carried into the accompaniment, but the vocal part is more declamatory and more varied. Even now it seems certain that Strauss's songs are permanent acquisitions to the repertoire. It still is too soon, however, to affirm the same thing of the unfortunate Hugo Wolf's songs, although I find myself strongly attracted by "Er ists," "Frühling übers Jahr," "Fussteise," "Der König bei der Kröning," "Gesang Weyla's," "Elfenlied" and "Der Tambour." Saint-Saëns, Delibes, Godard, Massenet, Chaminade and the late Augusta Holmès are among French song writers whose work is clever, but who seem to me more concerned with manner than with matter. Gounod's rank as a song composer is much below his reputation as the composer of "Faust" and "Romeo et Juliette." Oddly enough, however, the idea that came to him of placing a melody above a prelude from Bach's "Well Tempered Clavichord" did more than anything he had accomplished up to that time to make him famous. Originally he scored it for violin with a small female chorus off stage. Then he replaced the chorus with a harmonium. Finally he seems to have been struck with the fact that the melody fitted the words of the "Ave Maria," substituted a single voice for the violin, which, however, still can supplement the vocal melody with an obbligato, did away with the harmonium, and the result was the Gounod-Bach "Ave Maria." The Bach prelude, of course, sinks to the level of a mere accompaniment, for it has to be taken much slower than Bach intended. American composers who have produced noteworthy songs are Edward A. MacDowell, G. W. Chadwick, Arthur Foote, Clayton Johns, Homer N. Bartlett, Margaret Ruthven Lang, and the late Ethelbert Nevin. XV ORATORIO Oratorio had its origin in an attempt by a sixteenth century Italian monk to make divine service more interesting--to draw to church people who might not be attracted by the opportunity to hear a sermon, but could be persuaded to come if music a trifle more entertaining to the common mind than the unaccompanied (_à capella_) ecclesiastical compositions of Palestrina and other masters of the polyphonic school, were thrown in with them. Music still is regarded as a prime drawing card in churches, and when nowadays a fine basso rises after the sermon and sings "It is enough," we can paraphrase it as meaning, "It is enough so far as the sermon is concerned, and now to make up for it you are going to have a chance to listen to some music." When the announcement is made that such-and-such a well-known singer has been engaged for a church it means that the Reverend ---- is doing just what the monk, Neri, did, about four hundred years ago--fishing for a congregation with music. As it exists to-day, however, oratorio has little to do with religious worship, and usually is practiced amid secular surroundings, with a female chorus in variegated evening attire and a male chorus in claw-hammers, the singers hanging more or less anxiously on the baton of the conductor. This living picture which, so far as this country is concerned, I have, I believe, drawn in correct perspective, is so much out of keeping with the religious subjects which usually underlie the texts of oratorios that it may account for the comparative lack of interest shown by Americans for this form of musical entertainment. It also is true, however, that in this country oratorio never has had more than half a chance. This is due to the fact that the American man is not as sensitive to music nor musically as well educated as the American woman, the result being that the male contingent of the average American oratorio chorus is less competent than the women singers. Tenors are "rare birds" in any land, and rarer here apparently than elsewhere, so that in this division of our mixed choruses there is a lack of brilliancy in tone and of precision in attack. These several circumstances combine to prevent that well-balanced ensemble necessary to a satisfactory performance. An Incongruous Art-Form. Even at its best, however, oratorio is an incongruous art-form, neither an opera nor a church service, but rather an attempt to design something that shall not shock people who consider it "wicked" to go to the opera, nor afflict with _ennui_ those who would consider an invitation to listen to sacred music during the week an imposition. It seems peculiarly adapted to the idea of entertainment which prevails in England, where apparently any diversion in order to be considered legal must be more or less of a bore. Fortunately, however, there be many men of many minds; so that while, for example, one could not well draw a gloomier picture of the hereafter for a critic like Mr. Henry T. Finck than as a place where he would be obliged to hear, let me suggest, semi-weekly performances of "The Messiah," the annual Christmas auditions of that work have been the financial salvation of oratorio in America. San Filippo Neri, who was born in Florence in 1515, and was the founder of the Congregation of the Fathers of the Oratory, was the originator of oratorio. In order to attract people to church, he instituted before and after the sermon dramatic and musical renderings of scenes from Scripture. It is not unlikely that the suggestion for the underlying dramatic text came from the old Mystery and Miracle plays, which, to say the least, were naive. In one of these, representing Noah and his family about to embark in the ark, _Mrs. Noah_ declares that she prefers to stay behind with her worldly friends, and when at last her son _Shem_ seizes and forces her into the ark, she retaliates by giving the worthy _Noah_ a box on the ear. In another play of this kind which represented the Creation, a horse, pigs with rings in their noses, and a mastiff with a brass collar were brought up to _Adam_ to name. But in one performance the mastiff spied a cow's rib-bone which had been provided for the formation of _Eve_, grabbed it and carried it off, in spite of the efforts of the _Angel_ to whistle him back, and _Eve_ had to be created without the aid of the rib. Primitive Efforts. It is not likely that any such contretemps accompanied the performances of San Filippo's primitive oratorios, and yet it is probable that they were not only sung, but also acted with some kind of scenic setting and costumes; for Emelio del Cavaliere, a Roman composer, whose oratorio, "La Rappresentazione dell' Anima e del Corpo" (The Soul and the Body), was performed in February, 1600, in the Church of Santa Maria della Vallicella, but who died before the production, left minute directions regarding the scenery and action. In this oratorio, as in some of the other early ones, there was a ballet, which, according to its composer's directions, was to enliven certain scenes "with capers" and to execute others "sedately and reverentially." It was the composer, Giovanni Carissimi, who first introduced the narrator in oratorio, this function being to continue the action with explanatory recitatives between the numbers. In his oratorio, "Jephtha," there is a solo for Jephtha's daughter, "Plorate colles, dolate montes" (Weep, ye hills; mourn, ye mountains), which has an echo for two sopranos at the end of each phrase of the melody. Alessandro Scarlatti, who developed the aria in opera, also gave more definite form to the solos in oratorio and a more dramatic accompaniment to the recitatives which related to action, leaving the narrative recitals unaccompanied. Up to this point, in fact, oratorio and opera may be said to have developed hand in hand, but now, through the influence of German composers and especially through their Passion Music, it assumed a more distinct form. "Die Auferstehung Christi" (The Resurrection), by Heinrich Schütz, produced in Dresden in 1623, and his "Sieben Worte Christi" (The Seven Words of Christ), subjects which have been reverentially set by many German composers, are regarded as pioneer works of their kind. In the development of Passion Music much use was made of church chorales, the grand sacred melodies of the German people, which have had incalculable influence in forming the stability of character that is a distinguishing mark of the race. They are conspicuous in the "Tod Jesu," a famous work by Karl Heinrich Graun, a contemporary of Bach, whose own "Passion According to St. Matthew" is regarded by advanced lovers of music as the greatest of all works in oratorio or quasi-oratorio style, although the English still cling to Händel. "However close the imitation or complicated the involutions of the several voices," says Rockstro, in writing of Händel, "we never meet with an inharmonious collision. He (Händel) seems always to have aimed at making his parts run on velvet; whereas Bach, writing on a totally different principle, evidently delighted in bringing harmony out of discord and made a point of introducing hard passing notes in order to avail himself of the pleasant effect of their ultimate resolution." The "inharmonious collisions," the "hard passing notes" are among the very things which make Bach so modern; since modern ears do not set much store by music that "runs on velvet." Bach's "Passion Music." It is interesting to note that this "Passion According to St. Matthew" is in two parts, and that, as was the case with the oratorios of San Filippo Neri, the sermon came between. The text was prepared by Christian Friedrichs Henrici, writing under the pseudonym of Picander, and is partly dramatic, partly epic in form, with an Evangelist to relate the various events in the story, but with the Lord, St. Peter and others using their own words according to the sacred text. A double chorus is employed, sometimes representing the Disciples, sometimes the infuriated populace; but always treated in dramatic fashion. At the time the "Passion" was written, the arias and certain of the choruses which contained meditations on the events narrated were called "Soliloquiæ"; and in singing the beautiful chorales, the congregation was expected to join. The recitatives assigned to the Saviour are accompanied by string orchestra only, and are, as Rockstro says, full of gentle dignity, while the choruses are marked by an amount of dramatic power which is remarkable when one considers that Bach never paid any attention to the most dramatic of all musical forms, the opera. The "Passion According to St. Matthew," by Johann Sebastian Bach, was his greatest work and one of the greatest works of all times. It was produced for the first time at the afternoon service in the Church of St. Thomas, Leipzig, where Bach was Cantor, on Good Friday, 1729, and it was one hundred years before it was heard again, when it was revived by Mendelssohn, in Berlin, on March 12th, 1829--an epoch-making performance. Strictly speaking, Passion Music is not an oratorio, but a church service, and Bach actually designed his to serve as a counter-attraction to the Mass as performed in the Roman Church. What we understand under oratorio derived its vitality from George Frederick Händel, who was born at Halle in Lower Saxony, 1685, but whose most important work was accomplished in London, where he died in 1759 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Before Händel wrote his two greatest oratorios, "Israel in Egypt" and "The Messiah," he had, through the composition of numerous operas, mastered the principles of dramatic writing, and in his oratorios he aims, whenever the text makes it permissible, at dramatic expression. It is only necessary to recall the "Plague Choruses" in "Israel in Egypt," especially the "Hail-Stone Chorus" and the chorus of rejoicing ("The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea"); or by way of contrast, the tenderly expressive melody of "As for His people, He led them forth like sheep," to realize what an adept Händel was in dramatic expression. Rockstro on Händel. Händel may in fact be called the founder of variety and freedom in writing for chorus. While I must confess that I do not share Rockstro's intense enthusiasm for Händel and for "The Messiah," nevertheless he expresses so well the general feeling in England and the feeling on the part of those in this country who crowd the annual Christmas performances of "The Messiah," toward that work, that the best means of conveying an idea of what oratorio signifies to those who like it, is to quote him. Referring to Händel's free and varied treatment of chorus writing, he says: "He bids us 'Behold the Lamb of God' and we feel that he has helped us to do so. He tells us that 'With His stripes we are healed,' and we are sensible not of the healing only, but of the cruel price at which it was purchased. And we yield him equal obedience when he calls upon us to join in his hymns of praise. Who hearing the noble subject of 'I will sing unto the Lord,' led off by the tenors and altos, does not long to reinforce their voices with his own? Who does not feel a choking in his throat before the first bar of the 'Hallelujah Chorus' is completed, though he may be listening to it for the hundredth time? Hard indeed must his heart be who can refuse to hear when Händel preaches through the voice of his chorus." The "Messiah" also contains two of Händel's most famous solos, "He shall feed His flock" and "I know that my Redeemer liveth." This work was performed for the first time on April 13, 1742, at the Music Hall, Dublin, when Händel was on a visit to the Duke of Devonshire, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The rehearsals, at which many people were present by invitation, had aroused so much enthusiasm, that those who were interested in the charitable object for which it was given, requested "as a favor that the ladies who honor this performance with their presence would be pleased to come without hoops, as it would greatly increase the charity by making room for more company." Gentlemen also were requested to come without swords, for the same reason. It is said that at the first London performance, when the "Hallelujah Chorus" rang out, the King rose in his place and, followed by the entire audience, stood during the singing of the chorus, and that thus the custom, which still is observed, originated. Following Händel, Haydn in 1798, when nearly seventy years old, wrote "The Creation," founded on passages from Milton's "Paradise Lost," and after it "The Seasons," for which Thomson's familiar poem supplied the text. In both of these there is much purely descriptive music, especially in the earlier oratorio, when the creation of various animals is related. In "The Creation," too, after the passages for muted strings, is the famous outburst of orchestra and chorus, "And there was light." Haydn was a far greater master of orchestration than Händel. He also was one of the early composers of the homophonic school, and there is a freer, more spontaneous flow of melody in his oratorios. But they undoubtedly lack the grandeur of Händel's. Mendelssohn's Oratorios. Between Haydn and Mendelssohn, in the development of oratorio, nothing need be mentioned, excepting Beethoven's "Mount of Olives" and Spohr's "The Last Judgment" (Die Letzten Dinge). Mendelssohn, in his "St. Paul," followed the example of the old passionists, and introduced chorales, but in his greater oratorio, "Elijah," which is purely an Hebraic subject, he discarded these. The dramatic quality of "Elijah" is so apparent that it has been said more than once to be capable of stage representation with scenery, costumes and action. This is especially true of the prophet himself, whose personality is so definitely developed that he stands before us almost like a character behind the footlights. This dramatic value is felt at the very beginning, when, after four solemn chords on the brass, the work, instead of opening with an overture, is ushered in by _Elijah's_ prophecy of the drought. Then comes the overture, which is descriptive of the effects of the prophecy. Next to "The Messiah," "Elijah" probably is the most popular of oratorios, and I think this is due to its dramatic value, and to the fact that its descriptive music, instead of being somewhat naive, not to say childish, as is the case with some passages in Haydn's "Creation," is extremely effective. It is necessary only to remind the reader of the descent of the fire and the destruction of the prophets of Baal; of the description of the gradual approach of the rain-storm, as _Elijah_, standing on Mount Carmel and watching for the coming of the rain, is informed of the little cloud, "out of the sea, like a man's hand"--a little cloud which we seem to see in the music, and which grows in size and blackness until it bursts like a deluge over the scene. Then there are the famous bass solo, "It is enough"; the unaccompanied "Trio of Angels"; the _Angel's_ song, "Oh, rest in the Lord"; and the tenderly expressive chorus, "He, watching over Israel." I once heard a performance of "Elijah" during which the _Angel_ carried on such a lively flirtation with the _Prophet_ that she almost missed the cue for her most important solo; in fact would have missed it, had not the conductor sharply called her attention to the fact that it was time for her to begin. I think that oratorio reached its successive climaxes with "The Messiah" and "Elijah." Gounod's "Redemption" and "Mors et Vita," in spite of passages of undeniable beauty, seem to me, as a whole, rather spineless. Edward Elgar's "Dream of Gerontius" and "The Apostles" have created much excitement in England and considerable interest here, but while it is too soon to hazard a definite opinion of this composer, he appears to be lacking in individuality--to derive from Wagner whatever is interesting in his scores, while what is original with him is unimportant. There are certain sacred, semi-sacred and even secular works that are apt to figure on the programs of oratorio and allied societies. Mr. Frank Damrosch's Society of Musical Art sings very beautifully some of the unaccompanied choruses of the early Italian polyphonic school, such as Palestrina's "Papae Marcelli Mass," "Stabat Mater" and "Requiem"; the "Miserere" of Allegri (sought to be retained exclusively by the choir of the Sistine Chapel, but which Mozart wrote out from memory after hearing it twice); and the "Stabat Mater" of Pergolesi. There are also the Bach cantatas, Mozart's "Requiem," with its tragic associations; Beethoven's "Mass in D;" Schumann's "Paradise and the Peri" and his music to Byron's "Manfred" (with recitation); Liszt's "Graner Mass," "Legend of St. Elizabeth" and "Christus"; Rubinstein's "Tower of Babel" and "Paradise Lost"; Brahms's "German Requiem," a noble but difficult work; Dvorak's "Stabat Mater"; Rossini's "Moses in Egypt" and "Stabat Mater"; Berlioz's "Requiem" and "Damnation de Faust," the American production of which latter was one of the late Dr. Leopold Damrosch's finest achievements; and Verdi's "Manzoni Requiem." XVI OPERA AND MUSIC-DRAMA Opera originated in Florence toward the close of the sixteenth century. A band of enthusiastic, intellectual composers aimed at reproducing the musical declamation which they believed to have been characteristic of the representation of Greek tragedy. The first attempt resulted in a cantata, "Il Conte Ugolino," for single voice with the accompaniment of a single instrument, and composed by Vincenzo Galileo, father of the famous astronomer. Another composer, Giulio Caccini, wrote several shorter pieces in similar style. These composers aimed at an exact oratorical rendering of the words. Consequently, their scores were neither fugal nor in any other sense polyphonic, but strictly monodic. They were not, however, melodious, but declamatory; and if Richard Wagner had wished, in the nineteenth century, to claim any historical foundation for the declamatory recitative which he introduced in his music-dramas, he might have fallen back upon these composers of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and through them back to Greek tragedy with its bands of lyres and flutes. These Italian composers, then, were the creators of recitative, so different from the polyphonic church music of the school of Palestrina. What usually is classed as the first opera, Jacopo Peri's "Dafne," was privately performed at the Palazzo Corsi, Florence, in 1597. So great was its success that Peri was commissioned, in 1600, to write a similar work for the festivities incidental to the marriage of Henry IV of France with Maria de Medici, and produced "Euridice," the first Italian opera ever performed in public. The new art-form received great stimulus from Claudio Monteverde, the Duke of Mantua's _maestro di capella_, who composed "Arianna" in honor of the marriage of Francesco Gonzaga with Margherita, Infanta of Savoy. The scene in which _Ariadne_ bewails her desertion by her lover was so dramatically written (from the standpoint of the day, of course) that it produced a sensation, and when Monteverde brought out with even greater success his opera "Orfeo," which showed a great advance in dramatic expression, as well as in the treatment of the instrumental score, the permanency of opera was assured. Monteverde's scores contained, besides recitative, suggestions of melody, but these suggestions occurred only in the instrumental ritornelles. The Venetian composer Cavalli, however, introduced melody into the vocal score in order to relieve the monotonous effect of continuous recitative, and in his airs for voice he foreshadowed the aria form which was destined to be freely developed by Alessandro Scarlatti, who is regarded as the founder of modern Italian opera in the form in which it flourished from his day to and including the earlier period of Verdi's activity. Melody, free and beautiful melody, soaring above a comparatively simple accompaniment, was the characteristic of Italian opera from Scarlatti's first opera, "L'Onesta nell' Amore," produced in Rome in 1680, to Verdi's "Trovatore," produced in the same city in 1853. The names, besides Verdi's, associated with its most brilliant successes, are: Rossini ("Il Barbiere di Siviglia," "Guillaume Tell"), Bellini ("Norma," "La Sonnambula," "I Puritani"), and Donizetti ("Lucia," "L'Elisir d'Amore," "La Fille du Regiment"). These composers possessed dramatic verve to a great degree, aimed straight for the mark, and when at their best always hit the operatic target in the bull's-eye. Reforms by Gluck. The charge most frequently laid against Italian opera is that its composers have been too subservient to the singers, and have sacrificed dramatic truth and depth of expression, as well as the musicianship which is required of a well-written and well-balanced score, as between the vocal and instrumental portions, to the vanity of those upon the stage--in brief, that Italian opera consists too much of show-pieces for its interpreters. Among the first to protest practically against this abuse was Gluck, a German, who, from copying the Italian style of operatic composition early in his career, changed his entire method as late as 1762, when he was nearly fifty years old. "Orfeo et Euridice," the oldest opera that to-day still holds a place in the operatic repertoire, and containing the favorite air, "Che faro senza Euridice" (I have lost my Eurydice), was produced by Gluck, in Vienna, in the year mentioned. There Gluck followed it up with "Alceste," then went to Paris, and scored a triumph with "Iphigenie en Aulite." But on the arrival, in Paris, of the Italian composer, Piccini, the Italian party there seized upon him as a champion to pit against Gluck, and there then ensued in the French capital a rivalry so fierce that it became a veritable musical War of the Roses until Gluck completely triumphed over Piccini with "Iphigenie en Tauride." Gluck's reform of opera lay in his abandoning all effort at claptrap effect--effect merely for its own sake--and in making his choruses as well as his soloists participants, musically and actively, in the unfolding of the dramatic story. But while he avoided senseless vocal embellishments and ceased to make a display of singers' talents the end and purpose of opera, he never hesitated to introduce beautiful melody for the voice when the action justified it. In fact, what he aimed at was dramatic truth in his music, and with this end in view he also gave greater importance to the instrumental portion of his score. Comparative Popularity of Certain Operas. These characteristics remained for many years to come the distinguishing marks of German opera. They will be discovered in Mozart's "Nozze di Figaro," "Don Giovanni" and "Zauberflöte," which differ from Gluck's operas in not being based on heroic or classical subjects, and in exhibiting the general advance made in freer musical expression, as well as Mozart's greater spontaneity of melodic invention, his keen sense of the dramatic element and his superior skill in orchestration. They also will be discovered in Beethoven's "Fidelio," which again differs from Mozart's operas in the same degree in which the individuality of one great composer differs from that of another. With Weber's "Freischütz," "Euryanthe" and "Oberon," German opera enters upon the romantic period, from which it is but a step to the "Flying Dutchman," "Tannhäuser," "Lohengrin" and the music-dramas of Richard Wagner. Meanwhile, the French had developed a style of opera of their own, which is represented by Meyerbeer's "Les Huguenots," Gounod's "Faust," apparently destined to live as long as any opera that now graces the stage, and by Bizet's absolutely unique "Carmen." In French opera the instrumental support of the voices is far richer and more delicately discriminating than in Italian opera, and the whole form is more serious. It is better thought out, shows greater intellectual effort and not such a complete abandon to absolute musical inspiration. It is true, there is much claptrap in Meyerbeer, but "Les Huguenots" still lives--and vitality is, after all, the final test of an art-work. Unquestionably, Italian operas like "Il Barbiere di Siviglia," "La Sonnambula," "Lucia," and "Trovatore" are more popular in this country than Mozart's or Weber's operatic works. In assigning reasons for this it seems generally to be forgotten that these Italian operas are far more modern. "Don Giovanni" was produced in 1787, whereas "Il Barbiere" was brought out in 1816, "La Sonnambula" in 1831, "Lucia" in 1835, "Trovatore" in 1853 and Verdi's last work in operatic style, "Aida," in 1871. "Don Giovanni" still employs the dry recitative (recitatives accompanied by simple chords on the violoncello), which is exceedingly tedious and makes the work drag at many points. In "Il Barbiere," although the recitatives are musically as uninteresting, they are humorous, and, with Italian buffos, trip lightly and vivaciously from the tongue. As regards "Fidelio" and "Der Freischütz," the amount of spoken dialogue in them is enough to keep these works off the American stage, or at least to prevent them from becoming popular here. Wagner has had far-reaching effect upon music in general, and even Italian opera, which, of all art-forms, was least like his music-dramas, has felt his influence. Boito's "Mefistofele," Ponchielli's "La Gioconda," Verdi's "Otello" and "Falstaff," are examples of the far-reaching results of Wagner's theories. Even in "Aida," Verdi's more discriminating treatment of the orchestral score and his successful effort to give genuine Oriental color to at least some portions of it, show that even then he was beginning to weary of the cheaper successes he had won with operas like "Il Trovatore," "La Traviata" and "Rigoletto," and, while by no means inclined to menace his own originality by copying Wagner or by adopting his system, was willing to profit by the more serious attitude of Wagner toward his art. Puccini, in "La Tosca," has written a first-act finale which is palpably constructed on Wagnerian lines. In his "La Bohême," in Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci" and in Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana," the distinct efforts made to have the score reflect the characteristics of the text show Wagner's influence potent in the most modern phases of Italian opera. Humperdinck's "Hänsel und Gretel" and Richard Strauss's "Feuersnot" and "Salome" represent the further working out of Wagner's art-form in Germany. Wagner's Music-Dramas. I doubt whether Wagner had either the Greek drama or the declamatory recitative of the early Italian opera composers in mind when he originated the music-drama. My opinion is that he thought it out free from any extraneous suggestion, but afterward, anticipating the attacks which in the then state of music in Germany would be made upon his theories, sought for prototypes and found them in ancient Greece and renascent Italy. His theory of dramatic music is that it should express with undeviating fidelity the words which underly it; not words in their mere outward aspect, but their deeper significance in their relation to the persons, controlling ideas, impulses and passions out of which grow the scenes, situations, climaxes and crises of the written play, the libretto, if so you choose to call it--so long as you don't say "book of the opera." For even from this brief characterization, it must be patent that a music-drama is not an opera, but what opera should be or would be had it not, through the Italian love of clearly defined melody and the Italian admiration for beautiful singing, become a string of solos, duets and other "numbers" written in set form to the detriment of the action. Opera is the glorification of the voice and the deification of the singer.--Do we not call the prima donna a _diva_? Music-drama, on the other hand, is the glorification of music in its broadest sense, instrumental and vocal combined, and the deification of dramatic truth on the musical stage. Opera, as handled by the Italian and the French, undoubtedly is a very attractive art-form, but music-drama is a higher art-form, because more serious and more searching and more elevated in its expression of emotion. Wagner was German to the core--as national as Luther, says Mr. Krehbiel most aptly, in his "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," which, like everything this critic writes, is the work of a thinker. For the dramas which Wagner created as the bases for his scores, he went back to legends which, if not always Teutonic in their origin, had become steeped in Germanism. The profound impression made by Wagner's art works may be indicated by saying that the whole folk-lore movement dates from his activity, and that so far as Germany itself is concerned, his argument for a national art work as well as his practical illustration of what he meant through his own music-dramas, gave immense impetus to the development of united Germany as manifested in the German empire. He as well as the men of blood and iron had a share in Sedan. Wagner's first successful work, "Rienzi," was an out-and-out opera in Meyerbeerian style. The "Flying Dutchman" already is legendary and more serious, while "Tannhäuser" and "Lohengrin" show immense technical progress, besides giving a clue to his system of leading motives, which is fully developed in the scores of the "Ring of the Nibelung," "Tristan und Isolde," "Die Meistersinger," and "Parsifal." That his theories met with a storm of opposition and that for many years the battle between Wagnerism and anti-Wagnerism raged with unabated vigor in the musical world, are matters of history. Whoever wishes to explore this phase of Wagner's career will find it set forth in the most interesting Wagner biography in any language, Mr. Finck's "Wagner and His Works." Wagner a Melodist. It sometimes is contended that Wagner adopted his system of leading motives because he was not a melodist. This is refuted by the melodies that abound in his earlier works; and, even as I write, I can hear the pupils in a nearby public school singing the melody of the "Pilgrim's Chorus" from "Tannhäuser." Moreover, his leading motives themselves are descriptively or soulfully melodious as the requirement may be. They are brief phrases, it is true, but none the less they are melodies. And, in certain episodes in his music-dramas, when he deemed it permissible, he introduced beautiful melodies that are complete in themselves: _Siegmund's_ "Love Song" and _Wotan's_ "Farewell," in "Die Walküre," the Love Duet at the end of "Siegfried," the love scene in "Tristan und Isolde," the Prize Song in "Die Meistersinger." The eloquence of the brief melodious phrases which we call leading motives, considered by themselves alone and without any reference to the dramatic situation, must be clear to any one who has heard the Funeral March in "Götterdämmerung," which consists entirely of a series of leading motives that have occurred earlier in the Cycle, yet give this passage an overpowering pathos without equal in absolute music and just as effective whether you know the story of the music-drama and the significance of the motives, or not. If you do know the story and the significance of these musical phrases, you will find that in this Funeral March the whole "Ring of the Nibelung" is being summed up for you, and coming as it does near the end of "Götterdämmerung," but one scene intervening between it and the final curtain, it gives a wonderful sense of unity to the whole work. Unity is, in fact, a distinguishing trait of music-drama; and the very term "unity" suggests that certain recurring salient points in the drama, whether they be personages, ideas or situations, should be treated musically with a certain similarity, and have certain recognizable characteristics. In fact, the adaptation of music to a drama would seem to suggest association of ideas through musical unity, and to presuppose the employment of something like leading motives. They had indeed been used tentatively by Berlioz in orchestral music, and by Weber in opera ("Euryanthe"), but it remained for Wagner to work up the suggestion into a complete and consistent system. [Music illustration] To illustrate his method, take the Curse Motive, in the "Ring of the Nibelung," which is heard when _Alberich_ curses the Ring, and all into whose possession it shall come. When, near the end of "Rheingold," _Fafner_ kills his brother, _Fasolt_, in wresting the Ring from him, the motive recurs with a significance which is readily understood. _Fasolt_ is the first victim of the curse. Again, in "Götterdämmerung," when _Siegfried_ lands at the entrance to the castle of _Gibichungs_, and is greeted by _Hagen_, although the greeting seems hearty enough, the motive is heard and conveys its sinister lure. [Music illustration] When, in "Die Walküre," _Brünnhilde_ predicts the birth of a son to _Sieglinde_, you hear the Siegfried Motive, signifying that the child will be none other than the young hero of the next drama. The motive is heard again when _Wotan_ promises _Brünnhilde_ to surround her with a circle of flames which none but a hero can penetrate, _Siegfried_ being that hero; and also when _Siegfried_ himself, in the music-drama "Siegfried," tells of seeing his image in the brook. [Music illustration] There are motives which are almost wholly rhythmical, like the "Nibelung" Smithy Motive, which depicts the slavery of the _Nibelungs_, eternally working in the mines of Nibelheim; and motives with strange, weird harmonies, like the motive of the Tarnhelm, which conveys a sense of mystery, the Tarnhelm giving its wearer the power to change his form. [Music illustration] Leading Motives not Mere Labels. Leading motives are not mere labels. They concern themselves with more than the superficial aspect of things and persons. With persons they express character; with things they symbolize what these stand for. The Curse Motive is weird, sinister. You feel when listening to it that it bodes evil to all who come within its dark circle. The Siegfried Motive, on the other hand, is buoyant with youth, vigor, courage; vibrates with the love of achievement; and stirs the soul with its suggestion of heroism. But when you hear it in the Funeral March in "Götterdämmerung" and it recalls by association the gay-hearted, tender yet courageous boy, who slew the dragon, awakened _Brünnhilde_ with his kiss, only to be betrayed and murdered by _Hagen_, and now is being borne over the mountain to the funeral pyre, those heroic strains have a tragic significance that almost brings tears to your eyes. The Siegfried Motive is a good example of a musical phrase the contour of which practically remains unchanged through the music-drama. The varied emotions with which we listen to it are effected by association. But many of Wagner's leading motives are extremely plastic and undergo many changes in illustrating the development of character or the special bearing of certain dramatic situations upon those concerned in the action of the drama. As a gay-hearted youth, _Siegfried_ winds his horn: [Music illustration] This horn call becomes, when, as _Brünnhilde's_ husband, he bids farewell to his bride and departs in quest of knightly adventure, the stately Motive of _Siegfried_, the Hero: [Music illustration] And when the dead _Siegfried_, stretched upon a rude bier, is borne from the scene, it voices the climax of the tragedy with overwhelming power: [Music illustration] Thus we have two derivatives from the "Siegfried" horn call, each with its own special significance, yet harking back to the original germ. Soon after the opening of "Tristan und Isolde" a sailor sings an unaccompanied song of farewell to his _Irish Maid_. The words, "The wind blows freshly toward our home," are sung to an undulating phrase which seems to represent the gentle heaving of the sea. [Music illustration: Frisch weht der Wind der Hei-mat zu: mein i-risch Kind, wo wei-lest du?] This same phrase gracefully undulates through _Brangäne's_ reply to _Isolde's_ question as to the vessel's course, changes entirely in character, and surges savagely around her wild outburst of anger when she is told that the vessel is nearing Cornwall's shore, and breaks itself in savage fury against her despairing wrath when she invokes the elements to destroy the ship and all upon it. Examples like these occur many times in the scores of Wagner's music-dramas. [Music illustration] [Music illustration] Often, when several characters are participating in a scene, or when the act or influence of one, or the principle for which he stands in the drama, is potent, though he himself is not present, Wagner with rare skill combines several motives, utilizing for this purpose all the resources of counterpoint. Elsewhere I already have described how he has done this in the Magic Fire Scene in "Die Walküre," and one could add page after page of examples of this kind. I have also spoken of his supreme mastership of instrumentation, through which he gives an endless variety of tone color to his score. Wagner was a great dramatist, but he was a far greater musician. There are many splendid scenes and climaxes in the dramas which he wrote for his music, and if he had not been a composer it is possible he would have achieved immortality as a writer of tragedy. On the other hand, however, there are in his dramas many long stretches in which the action is unconsciously delayed by talk. He believed that music and drama should go hand in hand and each be of equal interest; but his supreme musicianship has disproved his own theories, for his dramas derive the breath of life from his music. Theoretically, he is not supposed to have written absolute music--music for its own sake--but music that would be intelligible and interesting only in connection with the drama to which it was set. But the scores of the great scenes in his music-dramas, played simply as instrumental selections in concert and without the slightest clue to their meaning in their given place, constitute the greatest achievements in absolute music that history up to the present time can show. THE END * * * * * Transcriber's Note: Author's archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is mostly preserved. Author's punctuation style is preserved. Illustrations have been moved closer to their relevant paragraphs, but the original page numbers are preserved in the List of Illustrations. Illustrations may be viewed full-size by clicking on them. Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_. Passages in bold indicated by =equal signs=. Typographical problems have been changed, and are listed below. Transcriber's Changes: Page 35: Was 'Wesendonk' (as if I had it by heart," he writes from Venice to Mathilde =Wesendonck=, in relating to her the genesis of the great love) Page 139: Was 'Traümerei' (And then there are the "Scenes from Childhood," to which belongs the ="Träumerei"=; the "Forest Scenes," the "Sonatas;") Page 172: Was 'Pathètique' (while for his "Symphonie =Pathétique=," one of the finest of modern orchestral works, Tschaikowsky adds only a bass tuba) 
30560	----	by Linda Cantoni. [Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Questionable text is marked with a [Transcriber's Note]. A macron over a letter is represented by an equal sign, e.g., punct[=u]s. A caron over a letter is represented by a v, e.g., Dvo[vr]ák.] MUSIC: AN ART AND A LANGUAGE BY WALTER RAYMOND SPALDING _Price $2.50 net_ THE ARTHUR P. SCHMIDT CO. BOSTON 120 BOYLSTON STREET NEW YORK 8 WEST 40th STREET Copyright, 1920, by THE ARTHUR P. SCHMIDT CO. International Copyright Secured A.P.S. 11788 TO MY COLLEAGUES IN THE DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY WILLIAM CLIFFORD HEILMAN, EDWARD BURLINGAME HILL, ARCHIBALD THOMPSON DAVISON, EDWARD BALLANTINE SUPPLEMENTARY ILLUSTRATIONS for _MUSIC: an ART and a LANGUAGE_ Vols. I & II now ready (_Schmidt's Educational Series No. 257-a, b_) Price $1.00 each volume Preface Although "of the making of books there is no end," this book, on so human a subject as music, we believe should justify itself. A twenty-years' experience in teaching the Appreciation of Music at Harvard University and Radcliffe College has convinced the author that a knowledge of musical grammar and structure does enable us, as the saying is, to get more out of music. This conviction is further strengthened by the statement of numerous students who testify that after analyzing certain standard compositions their attitude towards music has changed and their love for it greatly increased. In the illustrations (published in a Supplementary Volume) no concessions have been made to so-called "popular taste"; people have an instinctive liking for the best when it is fairly put before them. We are not providing a musical digest, since music requires _active coöperation_ by the hearer, nor are we trying to interpret music in terms of the other arts. Music is itself. For those who may be interested in speculating as to the connection between music and art, numerous books are available--some of them excellent from their point of view. This book concerns itself with music _as_ music. It is assumed that, if anyone really loves this art, he is willing and glad to do serious work to quicken his sense of hearing, to broaden his imagination, and to strengthen his memory so that he may become intelligent in appreciation rather than merely absorbed in honeyed sounds. Music is of such power and glory that we should be ready to devote to its study as much time as to a foreign language. In the creed of the music-lover the first and last article is familiarity. When we thoroughly know a composition so that its themes sing in our memory and we feel at home in the structure, the music will speak to us directly, and all books and analytical comments will be of secondary importance--those of the present writer not excepted. Special effort has been made to select illustrations of musical worth, and upon these the real emphasis in study should be laid. The material of the book is based on lectures, often of an informal nature, in the Appreciation Course at Harvard University and lays no claim to original research. The difficulty in establishing points of approach makes it far more baffling to speak or write about music than about the other arts. Music is sufficient unto itself. Endowed with the insight of a Ruskin or a Pater, one may say something worth while about painting. But in music the line between mere statistical analysis and sentimental rhapsody must be drawn with exceeding care. If the subject matter be clearly presented and the analyses true--allowance being made for honest difference of opinion--every hope will be realized. The author's gratitude is herewith expressed to Mr. Percy Lee Atherton for his critical revision of the text and to Professor William C. Heilman for valuable assistance in selecting and preparing the musical illustrations. W.R.S. Cambridge, Massachusetts _June_, 1919 Contents I. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 1 II. THE FOLK-SONG 18 III. POLYPHONIC MUSIC; SEBASTIAN BACH, THE FUGUE 33 IV. THE MUSICAL SENTENCE 50 V. THE TWO-PART AND THREE-PART FORMS 69 VI. THE CLASSICAL AND THE MODERN SUITE 73 VII. THE RONDO FORM 81 VIII. THE VARIATION FORM 85 IX. THE SONATA-FORM AND ITS FOUNDERS--EMMANUEL BACH AND HAYDN 91 X. MOZART. THE PERFECTION OF CLASSIC STRUCTURE AND STYLE 108 XI. BEETHOVEN, THE TONE-POET 122 XII. THE ROMANTIC COMPOSERS. SCHUBERT, WEBER 160 XIII. SCHUMANN AND MENDELSSOHN 172 XIV. CHOPIN AND PIANOFORTE STYLE 188 XV. BERLIOZ AND LISZT. PROGRAM MUSIC 202 XVI. BRAHMS 228 XVII. CÉSAR FRANCK 255 XVIII. THE MODERN FRENCH SCHOOL--D'INDY AND DEBUSSY 280 XIX. NATIONAL SCHOOLS--RUSSIAN, BOHEMIAN AND SCANDINAVIAN 300 XX. THE VARIED TENDENCIES OF MODERN MUSIC 326 _Music is the universal language of mankind._ --LONGFELLOW. _Music can noble hints impart, Engender fury, kindle love; With unsuspected eloquence can move And manage all the man with secret art._ --ADDISON. _Music is the sound of the circulation in nature's veins. It is the flux which melts nature. Men dance to it, glasses ring and vibrate, and the fields seem to undulate. The healthy ear always hears it, nearer or more remote._ --THOREAU. _To strike all this life dead, Run mercury into a mold like lead, And henceforth have the plain result to show-- How we Feel hard and fast, and what we Know-- This were the prize, and is the puzzle!--which Music essays to solve._ --BROWNING. _All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments._ --WHITMAN. Music: an Art and a Language CHAPTER I PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS In approaching the study of any subject we may fairly expect that this subject shall be defined, although some one has ironically remarked that every definition is a misfortune. Music-lovers, however, will rejoice that their favorite art is spared such a misfortune, for it can not be defined. We know the factors of which music is constituted, rhythm and sound; and we can trace the historic steps by which methods of presentation and of style have been so perfected that by means of this twofold material the emotions and aspirations of human beings may be expressed and permanently recorded. We realize, and with our inborn equipment can appreciate, the moving power of music; but to define, in the usual sense of the term definition, what music really is, will be forever impossible. The fact indeed that music--like love, electricity and other elemental forces--cannot be defined is its special glory. It is a peculiar, mysterious power;[1] quite in a class by itself, although with certain aspects which it shares with the other arts. The writings of all the great poets, such as Milton, Shakespeare, Browning and Whitman, abound in eloquent tributes to the power and influence of music, but it is noticeable that no one attempts to define it. The mystery of music must be approached with reverence and music must be loved for itself with perfect sincerity. [Footnote 1: For suggestive comments on this point see the essays _Harmonie et Melodie_ by Saint-Saëns, Chapters I and II.] Some insight, however, may be gained into the nature of music by a clear recognition of what it is _not_, and by a comparison with the more definite and familiar arts. Music consists of the intangible and elusive factors of rhythm and sound; in this way differing fundamentally from the concrete static arts such as architecture, sculpture and painting. Furthermore, instrumental music, _i.e._, music freed from a dependence on words, is not an exact language like prose and poetry. It speaks to our feelings and imaginations, as it were by suggestion; reaching for this very reason depths of our being quite beyond the power of mere words. No one can define rhythm except by saying that rhythm, in the sense of motion, is the fundamental fact in the universe and in all life, both physical and human. Everything in the heavens above and in the earth beneath is in ceaseless motion and change; nothing remains the same for two consecutive seconds. Even the component parts of material--such as stone and wood, which we ordinarily speak of as concrete and stationary--are whirling about with ceaseless energy, and often in perfect rhythm. Thus we see how natural and vital is the art of music, for it is inseparably connected with life itself. As for the other factor, sound is one of the most elemental and mysterious of all physical phenomena.[2] When the air is set in motion by the vibration of certain bodies of wood, metal and other material, we know that sound waves, striking upon the tympanum of the ear, penetrate to the brain and imagination. Sound is a reciprocal phenomenon; for, even if there were systematic activity of vibrating bodies, there could be no sound without some one to hear it.[3] Good musicians are known for their power of keen and discriminating hearing; and the ear,[4] as Saint-Saëns says, is the sole avenue of approach to the musical sense. The first ambition for one who would appreciate music should be to cultivate this power of hearing. It is quite possible to be stone-deaf outwardly and yet hear most beautiful sounds within the brain. This was approximately the case with Beethoven after his thirtieth year. On the other hand, many people have a perfect outward apparatus for hearing but nothing is registered within. [Footnote 2: See Chapter II of Gurney's _Power of Sound_, a book remarkable for its insight.] [Footnote 3: It is understood that this statement is made in a subjective rather than a purely physical sense. See the _Century Dictionary_ under _Sound_.] [Footnote 4: Il y a donc, dans l'art des sons, quelque chose qui traverse l'oreille comme un portique, la raison comme un vestibule et qui va plus loin. HARMONIE ET MELODIE, CHAPTER II.] Combarieu, the French aesthetician, defines music as "the art of thinking in tones."[5] There is food for thought in this statement, but it seems to leave out one very important factor--namely, the emotional. Every great musical composition reveals a carefully planned and perfect balance between the emotional and intellectual elements. And yet the basic impulse for the creation of music is an emotional one; and, of all the arts, music makes the most direct appeal to the emotions and to those shadowy, but real portions of our being called the imagination and the soul. Emotion is as indispensable to music as love to religion. Just as there can be no really great art without passion, so we can not imagine music without all the emotions of mankind: their loves, joys, sorrows, hatreds, ideals and subtle fancies. Music, in fact, is a presentation of emotional experience, fashioned and controlled by an overruling intellectual power. [Footnote 5: _La musique, ses lois, son evolution_, by Jules Combarieu.] We can now foresee, though at first dimly, what is to be our line of approach to this mystery. One of the peculiar characteristics of music is that it is both the most natural and least artificial of the arts, and as well the most complicated and subtle. On the one hand it is the most natural and direct, because the materials of which it is constituted--that is, sound and rhythm--make an instinctive appeal to every normally equipped human being.[6] Every one likes to listen to beautiful sounds merely for their sensuous effect, just as everyone likes to look at the blue sky, the green grass and the changing hues of a sunset; so the rhythm of music, akin to the human heart-beat and to the ceaseless change and motion, which is the basic fact in all life, appeals at once to our own physical vitality. This fact may be observed at a symphony concert where so many people are wagging their heads, beating time with their hands or even tapping on the floor with their feet; a habit which shows a rudimentary love of music but which for obvious reasons is not to be commended. On the other hand, music is the most complicated of all the arts from the nature of its constituent parts--intangible, evanescent sounds and rhythms--and from the subtle grammar and structure by which these factors are used as means of personal communication. This grammar of music, _i.e._, its methods of structure and of presentation, has been worked out through centuries of free experimentation on the part of some of the best minds in the world, and thus any great musical composition is an intellectual achievement of high rank. Behind the sensuous factors, sound and rhythm, lies always the personal message of the composer, and if we are to grasp this and to make it our own, we must go with him hand in hand so that the music actually lives again in our minds and imaginations. The practical inference from this dual nature of the art we are considering is clear; everyone can derive a large amount of genuine pleasure and even spiritual exaltation, can feel himself under the influence of a strong tonic force, merely by putting himself in contact with music, by opening his ears and drinking in the sounds and rhythms in their marvellous variety. The all-sufficient reason for the lack of a complete appreciation of music is that so many people stop at this point, _i.e._ for them music is a sensuous art and nothing more. Wagner himself, in fact, is on record in a letter to Liszt as saying, in regard to the appreciation of his operas: "I require nothing from the public but healthy senses and a human heart." Although this may be particularly true of opera, which is a composite form of art, making so varied an appeal to the participant that everyone can get something from its picture of life--historical, legendary, even fictitious--as well as from the actors, the costumes and the story, the statement is certainly not applicable to what is called absolute music, where music is disassociated from the guiding help of words, and expressed by the media of orchestra, string quartet, pianoforte, and various ensemble groups. For in addition to its sensuous appeal, music is a language used as a means of personal expression; sometimes in the nature of an intimate soliloquy, but far more often as a direct means of communication between the mind and soul of the composer and of the listener. To say that we understand the message expressed in this language just because we happen to like beautiful sounds and stimulating rhythms is surely to be our own dupes. We might as well say that because we enjoy hearing Italians or Frenchmen speak their own beautiful languages we are understanding what they say. The question, therefore, faces us: how shall we learn this mysterious language so as readily to understand it? And the answer is equally inevitable: by learning something of the material of which it is composed, and above all, the fundamental principles of its structure. [Footnote 6: Just as some people are color-blind there are those who are tone-deaf--to whom, that is, music is a disagreeable noise--but they are so few as to be negligible.] In attempting to carry out this simple direction, however, we are confronted by another of the peculiar characteristics of music. Music, in distinction from the static, concrete and imitative arts, is always in motion, and to follow it requires an intensity of concentration and an accuracy of memory which can be acquired, but for which, like most good things, we have to work. We all know the adage that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and that any work of art must be recreated in the imagination of the participant. The difficulty of this process of recreation, as applied to music, is that we have, derived from our ordinary daily experiences, so little to help us. Anyone can begin, at least, to understand a work of architecture; it must have doors and windows, and should conform to practical ideas of structure. In like manner, a painting, either a portrait or a landscape, must show some correspondence with nature herself, and so we have definite standards to help our imagination. But music has worked out its own laws which are those of pure fancy, having little to do with other forms of thought; and unless we know something of the constructive principles, instead of recreating the work before us, we are simply lost--"drowned in a sea of sound"--often rudely shaken up by the rhythms, but far from understanding what the music is really saying. As the well-known critic, Santayana, wittily says, "To most people music is a drowsy revery relieved by nervous thrills." Notwithstanding, however, the peculiar nature of music and the difficulty of gaining logical impressions as the sounds and rhythms flood in upon us, there is one simple form of coöperation which solves most of the difficulties; that is, familiarity. It is the duty of the composer so to express himself, to make his meaning so clear, that we can receive it with a minimum of mental friction if we can only get to know the music. All really good music corresponds to such a standard; that is, if it is needlessly involved, abstruse, diffuse, or turgid, it is _in so far_ not music of the highest artistic worth. In this connection we must always remember that music does not "stay put," like a picture on the wall. We cannot walk through it, as is the case with a cathedral; turn back, as in a book; touch it, as with a statue. It is not the expression of more or less definite ideas, such as we find in prose and poetry. On the other hand, it rushes upon us with the impassioned spirit of an eloquent orator, and what we get from it depends almost entirely upon our own intensity of application and upon our knowledge of the themes and of the general purpose of the work. Only with increased familiarity does the architecture stand revealed. Beethoven, it is said, when once asked the meaning of a sonata of his, played it over again and replied, "It means that." Music is itself. The question for every music-lover is: can I equip myself in such a way as to feel at home in this language, to receive the message as directly as possible, and finally with perfect ease and satisfaction? This equipment demands a strong, accurate memory, a keen power of discrimination and a sympathetic, open mind. Another paradoxical characteristic of music on which it is interesting to reflect is this: Music is the oldest as well as the youngest of the arts, _i.e._, it has always[7] existed generically, and all human beings born, as they are, with a musical instrument--the voice--are _ipso facto_ musicians; and yet in boundless scope of possibilities it is just in its infancy. For who can limit the combinations of sound and rhythm, or forecast the range of the human imagination? The creative fancy of the composer is always in advance of contemporary taste and criticism. Hence, in listening to new music, we should beware of reckless assertions of personal preference. The first question, in the presence of an elaborate work of music, should never be, "Do I like it or not?" but "Do I understand it?" "Is the music conveying a logical message to me, or is it merely a sea of sound?" The first and last article in the music-lover's creed, I repeat, should be _familiarity_. When we thoroughly know a symphony, symphonic poem or sonata so that, for example, we can sing the themes to ourselves, the music will reveal itself. The difference between the trained listener and the person of merely general musical tendencies is that the former gains a definite meaning from the music often at a first hearing; whereas, to the latter, many hearings are necessary before he can make head or tail of the composition. Since the creative composer of music is a thinker in tones, our perceptions must be so trained that, as we listen, we make sense of the fabric of sounds and rhythms. [Footnote 7: From earliest times, mothers have doubtless crooned to their infants in instinctive lullabies.] It is evident from the foregoing observations that our approach to the subject is to be on the intellectual side. Music, to be sure, is an emotional art and so appeals to our emotions, but these will take care of themselves. We all have a reasonable supply of emotion and practically no human being is entirely deficient in the capacity for being moved by music. We can, however, sharpen our wits and strengthen our musical memories; for it is obvious that if we cannot recognize a theme or remember it whenever it appears, often in an amplified or even subtly disguised form, we are in no condition to follow and appreciate the logical growth and development of the themes themselves which, in a work of music, are just as real beings as the "dramatis personae" in a play. The would-be appreciator should early recognize the fact that listening to music is by no means passive, a means of light amusement or to pass the time, but demands coöperation of an active nature. Whether or not we have the emotional capacity of a creator of music may remain an open question; but by systematic mental application we _can_, as we listen to it, get from the music that sense which the composer meant to convey. Music--more than the other arts--demands, to use a happy expression of D.G. Mason, that we "mentally organize our sensations and ideas"; for the language of music has no such fixed grammar as verbal modes of expression, and the message, even when received, is suggestive rather than definite. In this way only can the composition be recreated in our imaginations. For acquiring this habit of mind, this alertness and concentration, the start, as always, is more than half the battle. Schumann's good advice to young composers may be transferred to the listener: "Be sure that you invent a thoroughly vital theme; the rest will grow of itself from this." Likewise in listening to music, one should be sure to grasp the opening theme, the fundamental motive, in order to follow it intelligently and to enjoy its subsequent growth into the complete work.[8] [Footnote 8: In this connection we cannot refrain from suggesting the improvement which should be made in the concert manners of the public. How often, at the beginning of a concert, do we see people removing their wraps, looking at their neighbors, reading the programme book, etc., instead of concentrating on the music itself; with the result that the composition is often well on its way before such people have found their bearings.] Every piece of music, with the exception of intentionally rhapsodic utterances, begins with some group of notes of distinct rhythmic and melodic interest, which is the germ--the generative force--of the whole, and which is comparable to the text of a sermon or the subject of a drama. This introductory group of notes is called, technically, a _motive_ or moving force and may be defined as _the simplest unit of imaginative life in terms of rhythm and sound_, which instantly impresses itself upon our consciousness and, when heard several times, cannot be forgotten or confused with any other motive. A musical theme--a longer sweep of thought (to be explained later)--may consist of several motives of which the first is generally the most important. Just here lies the difference between the Heaven-born themes of a truly creative composer and the bundle of notes put forth by lesser men. These living themes pierce our imaginations and sing in our memories, sometimes for years, whereas the inept and flabby tunes of certain so-called composers make no strong impression and are forgotten almost as soon as heard. Motives obviously differ from each other in regard to the intervals of the tones composing them, _i.e._, the up and down relationship in pitch, the duration of the tones and their grouping into metric schemes. But a real motive is always terse, concise, characteristic and pregnant with unrevealed meaning. The chief glory of such creative tone-poets as Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms and Franck is that their imaginations could give birth to musical offspring that live for ever and are loved like life itself. The first step, then, in the progress of the appreciator of music is the recognition of the chief motive or motives of a composition and the development of power to follow them in their organic growth. This ability is particularly necessary in modern music: for frequently all four movements of a symphony or string-quartet are based upon a motive which keeps appearing--often in altered form and in relationships which imply a dramatic or suggestive meaning. A few of such motives are cited herewith, taken from works with which, as we proceed, we shall become familiar. [Music: CÉSAR FRANCK: _Symphony in D minor_] [Music: BRAHMS: _First Symphony in C minor_] [Music: TCHAIKOWSKY: _5th Symphony_] [Music: DVO[VR]ÁK: Symphony _From the New World_] It is now necessary for the student to know something about the constructive principles by which large works of music are fashioned; not so much that he could compose these works himself, even if he had the inspiration, but to know enough, so that the reception of the music is not a haphazard activity but an intellectual achievement, second only to that of the original creator. Every genuine work of art in whatever medium, stone, color, word or tone, must exhibit _unity of general effect with variety of detail_. That is, the material must hold together, be coherent and convince the participant of the logical design of the artist; not fall apart as might a bad building, or be diffuse as a poorly written essay. And yet, with this coherence, there must always be stimulating and refreshing variety; for a too constant insistence on the main material produces intolerable monotony, such as the "damnable iteration" of a mediocre prose work or the harping away on one theme by the hack composer. In no art more than music is this dual standard of greater importance, and in no art more difficult to attain. For the raw material of music, fleeting rhythms and waves of sound, is in its very nature most incoherent. Here we are not dealing with the concrete, tangible and definite material which is available for all the other arts, but with something intangible and elusive. We know from the historical record[9] of musical development, that, only after centuries of experimentation conducted by some of the best intellects in Europe, was sufficient coherence gained so that there could be composed music which would compare with the simplest modern hymn-tune or part-song. And this was long after each of the other arts--architecture, sculpture, painting and literature--had reached points of attainment which, in many respects, have never since been equalled. [Footnote 9: Compare Parry's _Evolution of the Art of Music_, passim and D.G. Mason's _Beethoven and his Forerunners_, Chapter I.] Before carrying our inquiries further, something must be said about the two main lines of musical development which led up to music as we know it to-day. These tendencies are designated by the terms _Homophonic_ and _Polyphonic_. By homophonic,[10] from Greek words signifying a "single voice," is meant music consisting of a _single_ melodic line, as in the whole field of folk-songs (which originally were always unaccompanied) or in the unison chants of the Greeks and the Gregorian tones of the early church, in which there is _one melody_ though many voices may unite in singing it. Later we shall see what important principles for the growth of instrumental music were borrowed from the instinctive practise associated with the folk-song and folk-dance. But history makes clear that the fundamental principles of musical coherence were worked out in the field of music known as the _Polyphonic_. By this term, as the derivation implies, is meant music the fabric of which is made by the interweaving of _several_ independent melodies. For many centuries the most reliable instrument was the human voice and the only art-music, _i.e._, music which was the result of conscious mental and artistic endeavor, was vocal music for groups of unaccompanied voices in the liturgy of the church. About the tenth century, musicians tried the crude experiment,[11] called Organum, of making two groups of singers move in parallel fifths _e.g._, [Music: Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius.] but during the 13th and 14th centuries a method was worked out by which the introductory tune was made to generate its own subsequent tissue. It was found that a body of singers could announce a melody of a certain type and that, after they had proceeded so far, a second set of singers could repeat the opening melodic phrase--and so likewise often a third and a fourth set--and that all the voices could be made to blend together in a fairly harmonious whole.[12] A piece of music of this systematic structure is called a _Round_ because the singers take up the melody in _rotation_ and at regular rhythmic periods.[13] The earliest specimen of a Round is the famous one "Sumer is icumen in" circa 1225 (see Supplement of musical Examples No. 1), which shows to what a high point of perfection--considering those early days--musicians had brought their art. For, at any rate, by these systematic, imitative repetitions they had secured the first requisite of all music, coherence. This principle, once it was sanctioned by growing musical instinct, and approved by convention, was developed into such well-known types of polyphonic music as the Canon, the Invention and the Fugue; terms which will be fully explained later on. It is of more than passing interest to realize that these structural principles of music were worked out in the same locality--Northern France and the Netherlands, and by kindred intellects--as witnessed the growth of Gothic architecture; and there is a fundamental affinity between the interweavings of polyphonic or, as it is often called, _contrapuntal_[14] music and the stone traceries in medieval cathedrals. During the 13th and 14th centuries northern France, with Paris as its centre, was the most cultivated part of Europe, and the Flemish cities of Cambrai, Tournai, Louvain and Antwerp will always be renowned in the history of art, as the birthplace of Gothic architecture, of modern painting and of polyphonic music.[15] A great deal of the impetus towards the systematic repetition of the voice parts must have been caused by practical necessity (thus justifying the old adage); for, before the days of printed music, or even of a well-established tradition--when everything had to be laboriously written out or transmitted orally--whole compositions could be rendered by the singers through the simple device of remembering the introductory theme and joining in from memory whenever their turn came. Compositions in fact were often so recorded.[16] The following old English round (circa 1609) shows clearly how the voices entered in rotation. [Music: 1 Three blind mice, three blind mice 2 ran around thrice, ran around thrice; The 3 miller and his merry old wife ne'er laugh'd so much in all their life.] For a Round in strict canonic imitation by the famous English composer William Byrd (1542-1623) see the Supplement, Example No. 2. In due time singers of that period became likewise very proficient in improvising free parts about a given melody or _cantus firmus_, a practice indicated by the term "musica ficta" which was beneficial in stimulating the imagination to a genuine musical activity. [Footnote 10: In comparatively recent times the term has been widened to include music in which there is one _chief_ melody to which other portions of the musical texture are subordinate; _e.g._, the homophonic style of Chopin in whose works the chief melody, often in the upper voice, seems to float on underlying waves of sound.] [Footnote 11: For a complete account of these early attempts which finally led to part-writing see Chapter IV in the first volume of the _Oxford History of Music_.] [Footnote 12: An historical account of this development as far as it is ascertainable may be found in the fifth chapter of Pratt's _History of Music_.] [Footnote 13: Consult the article on the Round in _Grove's Dictionary_.] [Footnote 14: A rather crude English adaptation of the Latin term "Punctus contra punctum" which refers to the notes as punct[=u]s (plural) or dots which were pricked with a stylus into the medieval manuscripts. In this phrase the emphasis is on the _contra_, signifying a combination of _different_ melodies and rhythms, and calling attention to that higher importance which, everywhere in art, is caused by contrasted elements.] [Footnote 15: For an interesting account of this tripartite activity see Naumann's _History of Music_.] [Footnote 16: See the facsimile of the original manuscript of "_Sumer is icumen in_" cited in the first volume of the _Oxford History of Music_, pp. 326-332.] We can now begin to realize the importance of polyphonic music. In fact, it is not too much to assert that _systematic repetition_ in some form or other (several aspects of which we shall describe in due season) is the most important constructive principle in music, necessitated by the very nature of the material. This statement can be corroborated by a glance at almost any page of music considered merely as a _pattern_, quite regardless how the notes sound. We observe at once that some portions of the page look much or exactly like other portions. Frequently whole movements or long parts of a work are based entirely upon some terse and characteristic motive. Famous examples of this practise are the first movement of Beethoven's _Fifth Symphony in C minor_ which, with certain subsidiary themes to afford contrast, is entirely based on the motive: [Music] the Finale of Wagner's opera _The Valkyrie_ (see Supplement, Example No. 3) the chief motive of which [Music] is presented in every phase of modulatory and rhythmic development, and the middle portion of the _Reconnaissance_ from Schumann's _Carnaval_ (see Supplement, Example No. 4.) Music, just because its substance is so elusive and requires such alert attention on the part of the listener, cannot continually present new material[17] without becoming diffuse; but instead, must make its impression by varied emphasis upon the main thought. Otherwise it would become so discursive that one could not possibly follow it. From these historical facts as to the structure of music certain inferences may be drawn; the vital importance of which to the listener can hardly be exaggerated. As polyphonic treatment (the imitation and interweaving of independent melodic lines) is the foundation of any large work of music, be it symphony, symphonic poem or string quartet, so the listener must acquire what may be called a _polyphonic ear_. For with the majority of listeners, the whole difficulty and the cause of their dissatisfaction with so-called "classic music" is merely lack of equipment. Everyone can hear the tune in the soprano or upper voice, for the intensity of pitch makes it stand out with telling effect; and, as a fact, many of the best tunes in musical literature are so placed. But how about the tune when it is in the _bass_ as is the case so frequently in Beethoven's Symphonies or in Wagner's Operas? Some of the most eloquent parts of the musical message are, indeed, often in the bass, the foundation voice, and yet these are entirely ignored by the average listener. Then what of the inner voices; and what--most important of all--when there are beautiful melodies in _all parts_ of the musical fabric, often sounding simultaneously, as in such well-known works as César Franck's _Symphony in D minor_ and Wagner's _Prelude to the Mastersingers_! As we face these questions squarely the need for the listener of special training in alertness and concentration is self-evident. A very small proportion of those who attend a symphony concert begin to get their money's worth--to put the matter on a perfectly practical plane--for at least 50% of the musical structure is presented to ears without capacity for receiving it. In regard to any work of large dimensions the final test is this: can we sing all the themes and follow them in their polyphonic development? Then only are we really acquainted with the work; then only, in regard to personal like or dislike, have we any right to pass judgment upon it. The absurd attitude, far too common, of hasty, ill-considered criticism is illustrated by the fact that while Brahms is said to have worked for ten years on that Titanic creation, his _First Symphony_, yet persons will hear it _once_ and have the audacity to say they do not like it. As well stroll through Chartres Cathedral and say they did not think much of it! [Footnote 17: For a simple, charming example of persistent use of a motive see Schumann's pianoforte piece _Kind im Einschlummern_, No. 12 of the _Kinderscenen_.] We must now speak of the two other manifestations of the principle of _repetition_. Fundamentally, to be sure, they are not connected with polyphonic music; the third type, in fact,--restatement after contrast--being instinctively worked out in the Folk-Song (as will be made plain later) and definitely ratified as a structural principle by the Italian opera composer Alessandro Scarlatti in the well-known Aria da capo. These further applications of the principle of imitation are _Transposition_, _i.e._, the repetition of the melodic outline, and often of the whole harmonic fabric, by shifting it up or down the scale; and the _Restatement_ of the original melody after an intervening part in contrast, thus making a piece of music, the formula for which may be indicated by A, B, Á. Anyone at all familiar with musical literature must have observed both of these devices for securing coherence and organic unity; in fact, the principle of restatement after contrast is at the foundation of any large work, and supplies the connecting link between the structure of the Folk-Song and that of the most elaborate modern music. A convincing illustration of the use of Transposition may be found in Schumann's _Arabesque_, [Music] and in the opening theme of Beethoven's _Waldstein Sonata_, op. 53. [Music] It was a favorite device of Beethoven to impress the main theme upon the hearer by definite repetitions on various degrees of the scale.[18] For an elaborate example of Transposition nothing can surpass the opening movement of César Franck's _D Minor Symphony_, the entire first part of which consists of a literal repetition in F minor of what has been previously announced in D minor. [Footnote 18: Another well-known example is the first theme of the first movement of the _Sonata in F minor_ (_Appassionata_) op. 57. This the student can look up for himself.] Pieces of music which embody the principle of _Restatement after Contrast_ are so numerous that the question is merely one of selecting the clearest examples. In the Folk-Songs of every nation, as soon as they had passed beyond the stage of a monotonous reiteration of some phrase which pleased the fancy, _e.g._ [Music: _ad infinitum!_] we find hardly one in which there is not a similarity between the closing measures and something which had gone before. (See Supplement, Example No. 5.) For the most elementary artistic experience would establish the fact that the only way to avoid a monotonous repetition of the same theme is to change to a different one. And the next step is equally axiomatic--that, presupposing the first theme gives pleasure on its initial appearance, it will be heard with heightened pleasure at its reappearance after intervening contrast. A psychological principle is herein involved which cannot be proved but which is self-justified by its own reasonableness and is further exemplified by many experiences in daily life. Sweet things taste the sweeter after a contrast with something acid; we like to revisit old scenes and to return home after a vacation. No delight is keener than the _renewal_ of some aesthetic experience after its temporary effacement through a change of appeal.[19] This practice is associated with the inherent demand, spoken of above, for Variety in Unity. No theme is of sufficient import to bear constant repetition; in fact, the more eloquent it is, the more sated should we become if it were continued overlong. Monotony, furthermore, is less tolerable in music than in the other arts because music cuts deeper, because the ear is so sensitive an organ and because we have no way of shutting off sound. If a particular sight or scene displeases, we can close our eyelids; but the ear is entirely unprotected and the only way to escape annoying sounds is to take to flight.[20] We inevitably crave contrast, change of sensation; and nothing gives more organic unity than a return to whatever impressed us at the outset. This cyclic form of musical expression, early discovered through free experimentation, has remained the leading principle in all modern works, and--because derived directly from life and nature--must be permanent. We return whence we came; everything goes in circles. We can now understand still more the need of a strong and accurate memory; for if we do not know whether or not we have ever heard a theme, obviously the keen pleasure of welcoming it anew is lost to us. Furthermore, this principle of Restatement has in modern music some very subtle uses, and presupposes the acquisition of a real power of reminiscence. For example, Wagner's tone-drama of _Tristan and Isolde_ begins with this haunting motive [Music] which, with its dual melodic lines, typifies the passionate love of the two chief characters in the story. After three hours or more of tragic action and musical development this motive is again introduced in the very closing measures of the drama, to show that even in the presence of transfiguring death this love is still their guiding power. [Music] [Footnote 19: For some additional comments on this broad principle see the first Chapter (passim) of Parry's _Evolution of the Art of Music_.] [Footnote 20: Everyone has experienced the agony of hearing the beginner practice, in an adjoining room, the same piece for hours at a time!] For those who can appreciate the significance of such treatment, this reminiscence is one of the most sublime touches in all musical drama. The fascinating orchestral Scherzo of Richard Strauss's _Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks_ likewise begins with a characteristic motto, [Music] which says, in the language of music--I now have a story to tell you of a certain freakish character; and then we are regaled with the musical portrayal of a series of Till's pranks. As an Epilogue, Strauss improvises on this opening theme as much as to say--you have listened to my musical story, now let us indulge in some reflections as to the fate of poor Till, for after all he was a good fellow. (See Supplement, Example No. 6.) It is evident, therefore, from the foregoing examples that the basic principles of musical structure are coherence, refreshing variety and such unity of general impression as may be gained chiefly by a restatement, after contrast, of themes previously heard. Our subsequent study will simply illustrate these natural laws of music in their wider application. CHAPTER II THE FOLK-SONG In the preceding chapter we made some general inquiries into the nature of music and of those methods by which emotion and thought are expressed. We shall assume therefore that the following facts are established: that in music, by reason of the intangibility and elusiveness of the material, sound and rhythm, the principle of Unity in Variety is of paramount importance; and that the hearer, if he would grasp the message expressed by these sounds and rhythms, must make a _conscious_ effort of coöperation and not be content with mere dreamy apathy. Furthermore, that Unity and Coherence are gained in music by applying the principle of systematic Repetition or Imitation. (We shall see, as we continue, how Variety has been secured by contrasting themes, by episodical passages and by various devices of rhythmic and harmonic development.) We may now investigate the growth of musical structure and expression, as manifested in the fields of the Folk-Song and of Polyphonic music, beginning with the Folk-Song--historically the older and more elemental in its appeal. We cannot imagine the time when human beings did not use their voices in some form of emotional outpouring; and, as far back as there are any historical records, we find traces of such activity. For many centuries these rude cries of savage races were far removed from anything like artistic design, but the advance towards coherence and symmetry was always the result of free experimentation--hence vitally connected with the emotions and mental processes of all human effort. One of the most significant of the many sayings attributed to Daniel Webster is that "Sovereignty rests with the people"; and it is an interesting inquiry to see what wider application may be made of this statement in the field of art. For it is a fact that there has seldom been an important school of music, so-called--in any given place and period--which was not founded on the emotional traits, the aspirations and the ideals of the people. Surely one of the distinct by-products of the Great War is to be the emancipation of the art of music, along with that of all the other arts. Such a realization of its nature and powers will result that it shall no longer be a mere exotic amusement of the leisure and wealthy classes, but shall be brought into direct touch with the rank and file of the people; even, if you will, with the so-called "lower classes"--that part of humanity from which, indeed, it sprung and with which it really belongs--just human beings, just people. So in music also we may assert that "Sovereignty rests with the people." Although all art reflects popular sentiment to a certain extent, in no one of the arts--as painting, sculpture and architecture--is there such a vital record of the emotions and artistic instincts of humanity as we find in the realm of folk-song.[21] During the early period of Church music, while theorists and scholars were struggling with the intricate problems of polyphonic style, the people in their daily secular life were finding an outlet for their emotions, for their joys and sorrows, in song and in dance. This instinct for musical expression is universal, and just because the products of such activity were unfettered by rules, they exercised in process of time much influence upon the development of modern style. Folk-songs are characterized by a freshness and simplicity, a directness of utterance, which are seldom attained by the conscious efforts of genius. "Listen carefully to all folk-songs," says Schumann. "They are a storehouse of beautiful melody, and unfold to the mind the innate character of the different peoples." They are like wild flowers blooming unheeded by the wayside, the product of the race rather than the individual, and for centuries were only slightly known to cultivated musicians. It should be understood that words and music were inextricably bound together and that, with both, dancing was naturally associated; the very essence of a people's life being expressed by this tripartite activity. Tonal variety is a marked feature in folk-songs, many of them being in the old Gregorian modes, while others show a decided inclination to our modern major and minor scales. Great is the historical importance of Folk-music, because in it we see a dawning recognition of the principles of instrumental form, _i.e._, the need of balanced phrases, caused in the songs by the metrical structure of the words, and in the dances by the symmetrical movements of the body; a recognition above all, of the application of a definite system of tonal-centres, and of repetition after contrast. In fact, as we look back it is evident that the outlines of our most important design, that known as the Sonata Form are--in a rudimentary state--found in folk-music. Folk-melodies and rhythms play a large part in the music of Haydn, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Grieg, Tchaikowsky and Dvo[vr]ák. It seems as if modern composers were doing for music what Luther Burbank has done for plant life; for by grafting modern thought and feeling on to the parent stock of popular music, they have secured a vigor attainable in no other way. Thus some of the noblest melodies of Brahms, Grieg, and Tchaikowsky are actual folk-tunes with slight variation or original melodies conceived in a folk-song spirit.[22] [Footnote 21: For an eloquent presentation of the significance of Folk-music see the article by Henry F. Gilbert in the _Musical Quarterly_ for October, 1917.] [Footnote 22: For an able account of the important role that folk-melodies are taking in modern music see Chapter V of _La Chanson Populaire en France_ by Julian Tiersot.] As music, unlike the other arts, lacks any model in the realm of nature, it has had to work out its own laws, and its spontaneity and directness are the result. It has not become imitative, utilitarian or bound by arbitrary conventions. As Berlioz says in the _Grotesques de la Musique_: "Music exists by itself; it has no need of poetry, and if every human language were to perish, it would be none the less the most poetic, the grandest and the freest of all the arts." When we reach the centuries in which definite records are available, we find a wealth of folk-songs from the Continental nations: Irish, Scotch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, etc.[23] In these we can trace the transition from the old modes to our modern major and minor scales; the principles of tonality and of rudimentary modulation, the dividing of the musical thought into periodic lengths by means of cadential endings, the instinct for contrast and for the unity gained by restatement. No better definition of Folk-songs can be given than that of Parry in his _Evolution of the Art of Music_ where he calls them "the first essays made by man in distributing his notes so as to express his feelings in terms of design." In folk-tunes this design has been dominated by the metrical phraseology of the poetic stanzas with which they were associated; for between the structure of melody and that of poetry there is always a close correspondence. In Folk-songs, therefore, we find a growing instinct for balanced musical expression and, above all, an application of the principle of Restatement after Contrast. The following example drawn from Irish Folk-music[24]--which, for emotional depth, is justly considered the finest in the world--will make the point clear. [Music: THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS] [Footnote 23: The same statement is true of the Oriental nations, the Arabians, Persians and Greeks, who are left out of the enumeration only because their development in many respects has been along different lines from ours. For suggestive speculations as to early music among all nations see _Primitive Music_ by Richard Wallaschek.] [Footnote 24: For illuminating comments on the Folk-music of all the English-speaking peoples see Chapter XII of Ernest Walker's _History of Music in England_. The famous Petrie collection of Irish Folk-tunes should also be consulted.] The statement is sometimes made that the principles of our modern system of tonality and of modulation are derived from Folk-music. This is only partially true, for pure Folk-songs always developed under the influence of the old medieval modes, long before the establishment of our fixed major and minor scales. Furthermore, as these were single unaccompanied melodies, they showed slight connection with modulation or change of key in the modern sense of the term--which implies a system of harmonization in several voices. It is true that there was an instinctive and growing recognition of the importance of the three chief tonal centres: the Tonic or Keynote, the Dominant (a perfect fifth _above_) and the Subdominant (a perfect fifth _below_) and at times the relative minor. All these changes are illustrated in the melody just cited; _e.g._, in the fourth measure[25] there is an implication of E minor, in measures seven and eight there is a distinct modulation to D major, the Dominant, and in the ninth measure to C major, the Subdominant. This acceptance of other tonal centres--distant a fifth from the main key-note--doubtless arose from their simplicity and naturalness, and was later sanctioned by acoustical law; the interval of a perfect fifth having one of the simplest ratios (2-3), and being familiar to people as the first overtone (after the octave) struck off by any sounding body--such as a bell or an organ pipe. The Venetian composers, notably Willaert, had also quite fully developed this principle of Tonic, Dominant and Subdominant harmony in order to give homogeneity to their antiphonal choruses. Even to-day these tonal centres are still used; for they are elemental, like the primitive colors of the spectroscope. But modulation, in the modern sense of a free shifting of the centre of gravity to _any one_ of the twelve semitones of our chromatic scale, was not developed and accepted until after the acoustical reforms of Rameau, and the system of tuning keyed instruments embodied in that work called the _Well-tempered Clavichord_ of Sebastian Bach. Both these men published their discoveries about the year 1720. [Footnote 25: In counting the measures of a phrase always consider the first _complete_ measure,--_never_ a partial measure--as _one_.] As we have just used the term _modal_, and since many Folk-songs in the old modes sound peculiar or even wrong (hence the preposterous emendations of modern editors!) because our ears can listen only in terms of the fixed major and minor scales, a few words of explanation concerning the nature of the medieval modes should here be given. Their essential peculiarity is the freer relationship of tones and semitones than is found in the definite pattern of our modern scales. It is of great importance that the music-lover should train himself to think naturally in these modes; for there has been a significant return to their freedom and variety on the part of such modern composers as Brahms, Tchaikowsky, Dvo[vr]ák, d'Indy, Debussy and others, and some of their most individual effects are gained through the introduction of modal types of expression. The following modes are those most commonly employed in the formation of Folk-songs. [Music: DORIAN] [Music: PHRYGIAN] [Music: LYDIAN] [Music: MIXOLYDIAN] [Music: AEOLIAN] [Music: IONIAN] The Dorian mode, at the outset, is identical with our modern minor scale; its peculiarity lies in the _semitone_ between the 6th and 7th degrees and the _whole_ tone between the 7th and 8th. An excellent example of a modern adaptation of this mode may be found in Guilmant's March for organ (see Supplement, Example No. 7). The mysterious opening measures of Debussy's opera _Pelléas et Mélisande_ also owe their atmosphere to this mode, _e.g._ [Music] The Phrygian mode is one of the most individual to our modern ears with its first step a _semitone_ and with the _whole_ tone between the 7th and 8th degrees. Under the influence of harmonic development there was worked out a cadence, known as Phrygian, which is often found in modern music, _e.g._ [Music] The opening measures of the slow movement of Brahms's _Fourth Symphony_ are an excellent example of a melody in the Phrygian mode, _e.g._ [Music] The contrast between these measures, with their archaic flavor, and the sudden change in measure four to the modern tonality of E major, is very striking. Bach's well-known choral, _O Sacred Head now wounded_ also begins in the Phrygian mode, _e.g._ [Music] For a beautiful modern example of this Phrygian mode see the introduction to F.S. Converse's _Dramatic Poem Job_, for voices and orchestra. The Lydian mode is identical with our major scale except for the semitone between the 4th and 5th degrees. That this change, however, gives a very characteristic effect may be seen in the passage by Beethoven from his String-Quartet op. 132--_Song of Thanksgiving_ in the Lydian mode (see Supplement Ex. No. 8). The Mixolydian mode is also identical with our modern major scale except for the _whole_ tone between the 7th and 8th degrees. This mode has had very slight usage in modern music; because, with the development of harmony,[26] the instinct became so strong for a leading tone (the 7th degree)--only a semitone distant from the upper tonic--that the original whole tone has gradually disappeared. The Aeolian Mode, mainly identical with our customary minor scale, has the characteristic whole tone between the 7th and 8th degrees. Examples of this mode abound in modern literature; two excellent instances being the first theme of the Finale of Dvo[vr]ák's _New World Symphony_, _e.g._, [Music] and the following passage from the _Legend_ for à capella voices of Tchaikowsky, _e.g._ [Music] The Ionian mode corresponds exactly with our modern major scale, and the common people among all nations early showed a strong predilection for its use. The Church, in fact, because of this popularity with the people, named it the "modus lascivus" and prohibited its use in the ecclesiastical liturgy. One of the very earliest Folk-tunes extant--"Sumer is icumen in" (already referred to)--is in the Ionian mode and, according to Cecil Sharp,[27] the majority of English Folk-tunes are in this same mode. [Footnote 26: The chief reason for this leading tone, in addition to the natural tendency of singers to raise their voices as near as possible to the upper tonic, was so that the dominant chord, the third of which is always the 7th degree, might invariably be a _Major_ Triad.] [Footnote 27: For many suggestive comments on the whole subject see his book _English Folk-Song_.] We now cite a few typical folk-songs (taken from national sources) which, in their structure, show a natural instinct for balance of phrase and oftentimes for that organic unity of effect gained by restatement after contrast. [Music: THE TRUE LOVERS' FAREWELL Old English] The pattern of this song, in the Aeolian mode, is A, A, A, B. Unity is secured by the three-fold appearance of the first phrase; and a certain balance, by having the second phrase B twice as long (four measures) as A. [Music: THE SHIP IN DISTRESS Old English] The formula of this characteristic song in the Dorian mode is A, A, B, A; merely an extension, through repetition, of the simple type A, B, A which, in turn, is the basis of the fundamental structure known as the three-part form. This will later be studied in detail. It is evident to the musical sense how complete a feeling of coherence is gained by the return to A after the intervening contrast of the phrase B; evident, also, that this song is a perfect example of the principle of unity combined with variety. We further cite a few examples from Scottish, Irish, French, Hungarian and Russian sources. They all illustrate quaint melodic intervals and an instinct for balance and symmetry. [Music: WANDERING WILLIE Here awa', there awa', Wanderin' Willie, Here awa', there awa', haud awa' hame. Come to my bosom, my ain only dearie, O tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same.] This song[28] expresses that note of pathos often found in Scottish folk-music and is noteworthy also because the lyric poet, Robert Burns, wrote for it words of which we give the first stanza. [Footnote 28: The example quoted, together with others equally beautiful, may be found in the collection edited by the Scottish composer, Hamish MacCunn. See, as well, the _Cycle of Old Scotch Melodies_ arranged for four solo voices with pianoforte accompaniment by Arthur Whiting.] [Music: WOULD GOD I WERE THE TENDER APPLE BLOSSOM] This Irish tune[29] is certainly one of the most perfect that can be imagined, remarkable alike for its organic unity, gained by the frequent use of the first ascending motive, and for the manner in which the successive crises are reached. Note in particular the intensity of the final climax, in measure 13, attained by a repetition of the preceding phrase. [Footnote 29: For Irish folk-songs the best collections are the one by Villiers Stanford and a _Cycle_ by Arthur Whiting, prepared in the same way as that just cited on Scottish melodies.] [Music: EN PASSANT PAR LA LORRAINE AVEC MES SABOTS] This charming song[30] from Lorraine exemplifies that rhythmic vivacity and lightness of touch so characteristic of the French. [Footnote 30: Taken from an excellent collection of _Chansons Populaires_ edited by Julien Tiersot.] Observe the piquant effect, in the final phrase, produced by the elision of a measure; there being in the whole song 31 measures instead of the normal 32 (16 + 16). [Music: Old Hungarian Folk-song] Hungarian folk-music[31] is noted for its syncopated rhythm and its peculiar metric groupings. It is also often highly embroidered with chromatic notes; the Hungarian scale, with _two_ augmented intervals, being an intensification of our minor mode, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 31: The best popular collection of Hungarian melodies is that by Francis Korbay, the texts for which were translated and arranged by the American novelist, J.S. of Dale. It is well known what artistic use has been made of Hungarian melodies and rhythms by Schubert, Liszt and Brahms.] Russia is fortunate in her musical inheritance; for not only has she a wealth of folk-songs, but her famous composers, Balakireff, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakoff--who are men of letters as well--have published remarkable editions of these national melodies. The Russian folk-songs express, in general, a mood of sombreness or even depression--typical of the vast, bleak expanses of that country, and of its downtrodden people. These songs are usually in the minor mode--often with sudden changes of rhythm--and based on the old ecclesiastical modes, the Russian liturgy being very ancient and having an historical connection with that of the Greek church. The folk-music of no nation is more endowed with individuality and depth of emotion. Five characteristic examples are herewith cited: [Music: I] [Music: II] [Music: III Harmonized by RIMSKY-KORSAKOFF] [Music: IV] [Music: V] This last melody is of particular significance, because Tchaikowsky has used it so prominently in the Finale of his Fourth Symphony. The growing interest in folk-music in America is a tendency concerning which the progressive student should inform himself. For a national basis of creative work, our country has always been at a disadvantage in comparison with nations which, as their birthright, have much music in their blood. Moreover, with the exception of the tunes of the aboriginal Indians and the plantation melodies of the Negroes, it has been asserted that America could boast no folk-songs. Recent investigations have shown, however, that this is not entirely true. Cecil Sharp, Henry Gilbert, Arthur Farwell and other musical scholars have proved that there are several regions of our country, settled by colonists from England, Ireland and Scotland, where folk-songs exist practically in the condition in which they were first brought over. One of the best collections of such material is the set of so-called _Lonesome Tunes from the Kentucky Mountains_, taken down by Miss Lorraine Wyman and Mr. Howard Brockway directly from the mountaineers and other dwellers in that region. These melodies have great individuality, directness and no little poetic charm. It is certainly encouraging to feel that, in this industrial age, there are still places where people express their emotions and ideals in song; for a nation that has not learned to sing--or has forgotten how--can never create music that endures. CHAPTER III POLYPHONIC MUSIC; SEBASTIAN BACH We have traced, in the preceding chapter, some of the fundamental principles of design in musical expression, as they were manifested in the Folk-music of the different nations. All music of this type was homophonic, _i.e._, a single melodic line, either entirely unaccompanied or with a slight amount of instrumental support. Hence however perfect in itself, it was necessarily limited in scope and in opportunity for organic development. Before music could become an independent art, set free from reliance on poetry, and could attain to a breadth of expression commensurate with the growth in other fields of art, there had to be established some principle of development, far more extensive than could be found in Folk-music. This principle[32] of "Thematic Development"--the chief idiom of instrumental music--by which a motive or a theme is expanded into a large symphonic movement, was worked out in that type of music known as the Polyphonic or many-voiced; and Polyphonic music became, in turn, the point of departure for our modern system of harmony, with its methods of key relationship and of modulation. As we have stated in Chapter I, the principle of systematic repetition or imitation--first discovered and partially applied by the musicians[33] of the early French School and by the Netherland masters--finally culminated in the celebrated vocal works (à capella or unaccompanied) composed by Palestrina and his contemporaries for the Roman Catholic Liturgy. Up to this point the whole texture of music had been conceived in connection with voices; but with the development of the organ, so admirably suited for polyphonic style, and the perfection of the family of stringed instruments, the principles of polyphony were carried over and applied to instrumental treatment. The composer who, through his constructive genius, most fully embodied these principles[34] was John Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). We are now prepared to explain the characteristics of polyphonic music and then to analyze some typical examples from Bach and other polyphonic composers. The essential difference between homophonic and polyphonic style is implied by the terms themselves. When there is but one melody, the skill of the composer and the attention of the listener are concentrated upon this single melodic line; and even if there be an accompaniment, it is so planned that the chief melody stands out in relief against it. The pre-eminence of this chief melody is seldom usurped, although the accompaniment often has interesting features of its own. As soon as we have more than one melody (whether there be two, three or still others) all these voice-parts may be of coequal importance, and the musical fabric becomes an interwoven texture of a number of strands. The genius and skill of the composer is now expended on securing life and interest for each of these voices--soprano, alto, tenor, bass--which seem to be braided together; and thus a much more comprehensive attention is required of the listener. For instead of the single melody in the soprano, or upper voice, of the Folk-song, we now must listen consciously to the bass and to both of the inner voices.[35] Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon the recommendation that, in appreciating music, the first task is to train the ear to a wide range of listening. These differences in style are often apparent just as a pattern of design--to be seen from the following examples: [Music: Homophonic Style. Irish Folk-Song] [Music: Polyphonic Style. BACH: Fugue in C Minor] [Footnote 32: The statement might be qualified by saying that, since Beethoven, instrumental style has become a happy mixture of homophony for the chief melodies and polyphony for the supporting harmonic basis. Stress is laid in the above text on the polyphonic aspect merely to emphasize the matter under discussion.] [Footnote 33: Notable names are Léonin and Pérotin, both organists of Nôtre Dame at Paris.] [Footnote 34: Although this is not the place to set forth all the details of this development, in the interest of historical justice we should not think of Bach without gratefully acknowledging the remarkable work of such pioneers as the Dutchman, Sweelinck (1562-1621), organist at Amsterdam; the Italian, Frescobaldi (1583-1644), organist at Rome, and--greatest of all, in his stimulating influence upon Bach--the Dane, Buxtehude (1636-1707), organist at Lübeck. Sweelinck and Frescobaldi may fairly be called the founders of the genuine Fugue, and there is a romantic warmth in Buxtehude's best work which makes it thoroughly modern in sentiment.] [Footnote 35: In connection with the statement that music has developed according to natural law, it is worth noting that the four-part chorus early became the standard for both vocal and instrumental groups for the simple reason that there exist two kinds of women's voices--soprano and alto, and two of men's voices--tenor and bass. Originally, the chief voice in the ecclesiastical chorus was the tenor (teneo), because the tenors _sustained_ the melody. Below them were the basses (bassus, low); above the tenors came the altos (altus, high) and still higher the sopranos (sopra, above).] In the latter example it is evident that there is an interweaving of _three_ distinct melodic lines. The polyphonic instrumental works of Bach and his contemporaries were called by such names as Preludes, Fugues, Canons, Inventions, Toccatas and Fantasies; but since a complete account of all these forms would lead too far afield, we shall confine ourselves to a description of the Canon, the Invention and the Fugue. A Canon (from the Greek [Greek: Kanôn], meaning a strict rule or law) is a composition in which there is a _literal_ systematic imitation, carried out to the end, between two or more of the voices (often with subsidiary voices filling in), and may be considered a kind of musical dialogue in which the second, or answering, part reënforces the message previously uttered by the leading voice. This imitation may take place at any degree of separation; and Canons are in existence at the interval of the second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. The most effective Canons, however, are those in which the answering voice is an octave away from the leading one. Although the Canon is not a form employed frequently by modern composers for an entire composition, Canonic imitation appears so often in all large works for orchestra, string quartet or ensemble combinations, that the music-lover should acquire a certain ease in listening to a structure of this type. The Canon, moreover, is an integral factor in the style of César Franck, d'Indy and Brahms; and illustrations of its use abound in their works. The organ is particularly well suited to the rendition of Canons; since, by its facilities for tone-color, the two voices may be clearly contrasted. Those interested in organ literature should become acquainted with the following excellent examples: The _Canon in B-flat major_, op. 40, by Guilmant; the 4th movement of the _Fifth Organ Symphony_ by Widor; the Canon in B minor, op. 54, by Schumann; the _Canon in F-sharp major_, op. 30, by Merkel, and the set of _Ten Canonic studies_, op. 12, by G.W. Chadwick. In other fields of composition the following should be cited: The set of _Pianoforte Pieces in Canon form_, op. 35, by Jadassohn; a like set by Rheinberger, op. 180; the _Canonic Vocal Trios_, op. 156, by Reinecke and the famous Canon from the first act of Beethoven's opera _Fidelio_. There is also a beautiful bit of Canonic imitation between two of the upper voices in the introduction of Berlioz's _Carnaval Romain Overture_ for orchestra. One of the most appealing Canons in modern literature is the setting for soprano and barytone, by Henschel, of the poem _Oh that we two were Maying_ by Charles Kingsley. This example alone would sufficiently corroborate the statement that the firmness of structure inherent in the canonic form is perfectly compatible with genuine freedom and poetry of inspiration. In the first movement of César Frank's _Symphony in D minor_, at the recapitulation (page 39 of the full score) may be found a magnificent example of the intensity of effect gained by a canonic imitation of the main theme--in this instance between the lower and upper voices. Possibly the finest example of canonic writing in all literature is the Finale of César Franck's _Sonata in A major_ for Violin and Pianoforte in which, for several pages, there is an eloquent dialogue between the two contrasting instruments. The movement is too long for citation but it should certainly be procured and studied. In the Trio of the Scherzo in Beethoven's _Seventh Sonata for Violin and Pianoforte_ there is a free use of canonic imitation which will repay investigation. Lastly, the _Aria with 30 Variations_--the so-called _Goldberg Variations_ of Bach--is a perfect storehouse of every conceivable canonic device. A few standard examples are to be found in the Supplement. These should be played over and studied until they are thoroughly familiar--not only for the pleasure to be derived, but for the indispensable training afforded in polyphonic listening. Ex. No. 9 Canon by Thomas Tallys (1510-1585). Ex. No. 10 Canonic Variation by Schumann from the _Études Symphoniques_. Ex. No. 11 of Bach's _Goldberg Variations_. Ex. No. 12 Canon in B-flat minor, op. 38, Grieg. Ex. No. 13 Canon in F-sharp major, op. 35, Jadassohn. One of the most simple and direct types of polyphonic composition is the form known as the _Invention_ in which, as the term implies, the composer--through his _inventive genius_ and by means of the polyphonic devices of imitation and transposition--develops to a logical conclusion some short and characteristic motive. We are fortunate in having from Bach himself, that consummate master of polyphony, two sets of such Inventions: fifteen for two voices, and fifteen for three. These flights of fancy--in which art so subtly conceals art--though originally composed for the clavichord and harpsichord (the precursors of the pianoforte), are very effective on our modern instrument and should be in the possession of every music-student.[36] A brief analysis is now given of the first one in the set for two voices, and Nos. 4, 8 and 10 in this set are particularly recommended for study; also Nos. 2, 6 and 14 among those for three voices. The opening motive [Music] is the foundation of the entire composition and is at once imitated, canonically, in the lower voice. Then the two voices play about, with figures clearly derived from the motive, until we reach, in measures three and four, a systematic downward transposition of the material. Such transpositions or shiftings up or down in pitch are called _Sequences_. They are very frequent in all polyphonic composition, give a strong sense of unity to melodic progression and are generally carried out in groups of three, _i.e._, the original figure and two repetitions. After the sequence the music naturally works toward the most nearly related key (the dominant) and in the seventh measure reaches in that key its first objective. These Inventions of Bach, as well as the Dance forms soon to be studied, are almost invariably in what is known as _Two-part_ form, _i.e._, the music consists of two main divisions, clearly marked off by cadences[37]; the first of which modulates to the dominant or some related key while the second part, starting in this key, works back to a final close in the home key. In Inventions it early became customary in the second part to begin with the same motive as the first--but in the _opposite_ voice. Thus we see, in the Invention now being discussed, that the seventh measure begins with the original motive in the bass which, in turn, is imitated by the Soprano--a process just the reverse of that in the opening measures. [Footnote 36: The best edition is that by Busoni, published by Breitkopf and Härtel.] [Footnote 37: This technical term as well as others will later be more fully explained.] [Music] In pieces in this Two-part form the second portion is generally longer than the first; for the composer, by the time he has reached this second part, may consider the material sufficiently familiar to be expanded and varied by excursions into more remote keys, and by more intricate manipulations of the chief motive. In measure 11 we find a modulation to D minor and then, after some free treatment of the motive, we reach--in measure 15--a cadence in A minor. A long sequential passage brings us, through a modulation to the subdominant key of F major (in measures 18 and 19), to a strong closing cadence in the home key. It should be noticed that in this Invention and in some of the dance forms there is shown a strong leaning towards a tripartite division of the material as is indicated by the _three_ cadences in measures 7, 15 and 22. Since, however, the middle part is lacking in any strong _contrast_--which is such an essential factor in the fully developed three-part form--it seems better to consider this piece, and others like it, as a tendency rather than as a complete embodiment of tripartite arrangement. It is expected that the music lover will take these Inventions for what they really are and not search in them for those notes of intense subjectivity and dramatic power so prevalent in modern music. They are merely little pieces--a "tour de force" in polyphonic ingenuity; music rejoicing in its own inherent vitality. Accepted in this spirit they are invigorating and charming. The form in which polyphonic skill reaches its highest possibilities is the Fugue; and the immortal examples of this form are the Fugues of John Sebastian Bach, found in his _Well-tempered Clavichord_ and in his mighty works for the organ. The fundamental structure of a fugue is implied in the term itself (from the Latin "fuga"--flight); that is, in a fugue the main theme or subject is always announced in a single voice, and the remaining voices, appearing successively in accordance with definite principles of key-relationship, seem to chase each other about and to flee from pursuit. The several stratified entrances of the subject are relieved by intermediate passages called "Episodes." An Episode, as shown by the derivation ([Greek: ipi hodos], by the way), is something off the beaten path--a digression; and it is in these episodical portions of a fugue rather than in the formalistic portions that the genius of the composer shines forth. This is especially true of Bach, for almost any well-trained musician can invent a subject which will allow of satisfactory fugal treatment according to accepted usage; but no one save Bach has ever invented such free and fanciful episodes--so daring in scope and yet so closely connected with the main thought. The general effect of a fugue is _cumulative_: a massing and piling up of voices that lead to a carefully designed conclusion which, in some of Bach's organ fugues, is positively overwhelming. A fugue may be called a mighty crescendo, like the sound of many waters. There is a popular conception, or rather _mis_conception, that a fugue is a labored, dull or even "dry" form of composition, meant only as an exhibition of pedantic skill, and quite beyond the reach of ordinary musical appreciation. Nothing is farther from the truth, as a slight examination of musical literature will show. For we see that the fugal form has been used to express well-nigh every form of human emotion, the sublime, the tragic, the romantic; very often the humorous and the fantastic. When we recall the irresistible sparkle and dash of Mozart's _Magic Flute Overture_, of the Overture to the _Bartered Bride_ by Smetana, of the Finale of Mozart's _Jupiter Symphony_, and of many of the fugues in the _Well-tempered Clavichord_, it is evident that to call a fugue "dry" is an utter abuse of language. It is true that there are weak, artificial and dull fugues, where the composer--frankly--had nothing to say and merely filled out the form; but the same may be said of every type of composition, _i.e._, among them all are examples inspired and--less inspired. This, however, is no indictment of the fugue _per se_, against which the only thing to be said is that it requires on the part of the listener an exceeding concentration. Some of the masterpieces of the world being wholly or partially in the fugal form, it is the duty of those listening to polyphonic music to train their powers to the same seriousness of attention expected and freely given in the appreciation of an oration, a drama or a cathedral. These latter manifestations of artistic expression, to be sure, are less abstract than the fugue and more closely related to daily life. Yet no effort is more repaying than the mental and emotional energy expended in listening to the interweavings of a good fugue; for, conscious of missing the periodic divisions of the Folk-song, we have to listen to more than one melody at a time. A fugue being a composition, as the French say, of "longue haleine," our attention, in order to follow its structure, must be on the "qui vive" every moment. The fugue, in fact, is an example of the intricate and yet organic complexity found in all the higher forms of life itself; and whenever a composer has wished to dwell with emphasis on a particular theme, he almost invariably resorts to some form of fugal treatment, strict or free. The most effective media for rendering fugues are the chorus of mixed voices, the organ (by reason of its pedal key-board always making the subject in the bass stand out majestically) and the stringed orchestra which, with the "bite" of the strings, brings out--with peculiar sharpness--the different entrances of the subject. The student should become familiar with standard examples in each of these classes and should, above all, seek opportunity to hear some of the organ fugues of Bach performed on a really fine instrument. A few well-known fugues are herewith cited in order to stimulate the student to some investigation of his own. In all the Oratorios of Handel and in the choral works of Bach, such as the B minor Mass, may be found magnificent fugues--as free and vital in their rhythmic swing as the ocean itself. Particular attention should be called to the fugue in the Messiah "And by His stripes we were healed [Transcriber's Note: And with His stripes we are healed]." One of the most impressive fugues in modern literature is the à capella chorus _Urbs Syon Unica_ from H.W. Parker's _Hora Novissima_. From among the organ works of Bach everyone should know the Fugues in G minor, in A minor, in D major[38] and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor. These have all been transcribed for the pianoforte by Liszt and so are readily available; they are often played at pianoforte recitals by Paderewski and other virtuosi. In hearing one of these masterpieces no one can remain unmoved or can fail to reverence the constructive genius which fashioned such cathedrals in tone. For orchestra we have the Prelude to Puccini's opera _Madama Butterfly_, and the beginning of the Prelude to the third act of Wagner's _Mastersingers_. There are striking fugal passages in Beethoven's Symphonies, _e.g._, the first movement of the _Heroic Symphony_ and the rollicking Trio of the Scherzo in the _Fifth Symphony_. In more modern literature there is the fugal Finale to Arthur Foote's _Suite for Orchestra_ and in Chadwick's _Vagrom Ballad_ a humorous quotation of the theme from Bach's _G minor Fugue_ for organ. One of the most superb fugues in free style is the last movement of César Franck's _Prelude, Choral and Fugue in B minor_ for Pianoforte. This movement alone would refute all charges of dullness or dryness brought against the fugue by the unthinking or the unenlightened. A good fugue, in fact, is so full of vitality and demands such _active_ comprehension[39] on the part of the listener that it is not difficult to imagine where the dullness and dryness are generally found. [Footnote 38: Whenever Percy Grainger performs this fugue in his own arrangement for pianoforte, he always electrifies an audience.] [Footnote 39: It is worthy of observation that, for those who will listen to them intelligently, fugues do not merely demand such a state of mind but actually _generate_ it.] At this point by an analysis of a fugue from the _Well-tempered Clavichord_, let us explain some of the technical features in fugal structure. We shall then be in a position to understand the more subtle devices of fugal treatment and to appreciate more enthusiastically some additional comments upon Bach's style in general. FUGUE IN E-FLAT MAJOR, NO. VII, IN THE FIRST BOOK. [Music: Subject Counter-subject Answer] This fugue in three voices begins with a graceful subject, announced in the upper voice. In the third measure this is answered by an imitation of the subject in the alto; while the opening voice continues with a contrasting part called the counter-subject.[40] As the whole subsequent fabric is organically derived from these two motives, both subject and counter-subject should be played frequently and so committed to memory. Observe also the contrasts in rhythm and melodic outline between the subject and counter-subject. In measures 4 and 5 we have a short sequential passage leading, in measure 6, to the third entry of the subject in the bass. Then after another sequential passage, which includes an emphatic assertion of the subject in the soprano (measures 11 and 12), we enter upon a long episode which leads, at measure 17, to our first objective point of rest--a cadence in C minor. With the entry, in this measure, of the subject in the alto we have an interesting example of what is termed "shifted rhythm;" the subject beginning on the third beat instead of the first, as at the outset. In the middle portion of the fugue we have two appearances of the subject in the related keys of C minor (measures 17 and 18) and G minor (measures 20 and 21). Then, following two very vigorous sequences, a modulatory return is made to the subject in the home key, and with its normal rhythm at measure 26. A repetition, in more brilliant form, of one of the previous episodes, in measures 31 and 32, gives a strong impression of unity; leading in measures 34 and 35 to a last appearance of the subject, with a beautiful change in one of the intervals (E-flat-G-flat). The closing measures establish the main tonality of E-flat major, rendered still more expressive by the counterpoint associated with the last chord. As to the general structure of this fugue, it is evidently tripartite, the first part A presenting the material, the second part B affording variety by modulating into different keys, and the third part A´ reasserting the material of A and bringing the composition to a logical close in the home key. (See Supplement Ex. No. 15.) [Footnote 40: It is left to the teacher to explain to the student the key-relationship of Subject and Answer, and the difference between fugues, tonal and real; for as these points have rather more to do with composition they play but a slight part in listening to a fugue.] We should now acquaint ourselves with the more subtle devices of fugal treatment; although but one of these is employed in the fugue just studied, which is comparatively simple in structure. I. Inversion; the melodic outline is turned upside down while identity is retained by means of the rhythm, _e.g._ [Music: BACH: 3rd English Suite Theme Inversion] An excellent example from an orchestral work is the theme of the third movement of Brahms's _C minor Symphony_, the second phrase of which is an Inversion of the opening measures, _e.g._ [Music: Inversion] II. Augmentation and Diminution; the length of the notes is doubled or halved while their metrical relativity is maintained, _e.g._ [Music: BACH: Fugue No. 8, Book I Theme Augmentation] [Music: BACH: Fugue No. IX, Book II Theme Diminution] Augmentation is very frequent in modern literature when a composer, by lengthening out the phraseology of a theme, wishes to gain for it additional emphasis. Excellent examples are the closing measures of Schumann's _Arabesque_, in which the reminiscence of the original motto is most haunting, _e.g._, [Music: Motto] [Music: Motto augmented] the Finale of Liszt's _Faust Symphony_, where the love theme of the Gretchen movement is carried over and intoned by a solo baritone with impressive effect, _e.g._ [Music] [Music: In augmentation _Das ewig Weibliche_] III. Shifted Rhythm; the position of the subject in the measure is so changed that the accents fall on different beats, _e.g._ [Music: BACH: Fugue No. V, Book II Subject Shifted] IV. Stretto; (from the Italian verb "stringere," to draw close) that portion of a fugue, often the climax, where the entrances are _crowded_ together, _i.e._, the imitating voice enters before the leading voice has finished, _e.g._ [Music: _Fuga giocosa_, J.K. PAINE, op. 41 Subject] The effect is obviously one of great concentration and dramatic intensity--with a sense of impending climax--and its use is by no means limited to fugal composition; being frequently found in all large symphonic works of the classic and modern school. For a magnificent example of the climactic effect produced by a Stretto, witness the last part of Bach's Fugue in G major (see Supplement, Ex. No. 16). Although there is considerable complexity in any complete fugue, and although it requires great concentration on the part of the listener, we should avoid thinking of the form as mechanical in any derogatory sense, but rather as a means to a definite artistic end. Certainly no greater mistake can be made than that of considering Bach, the supreme master of polyphonic writing, as too austere, too involved, for the delight and edification of every-day mortals. Bach means brook, and the name[41] is most appropriate; for Bach is a never ceasing stream of musical life, the fountain-head from which spring the leading tendencies of modern music. In these days when stress is laid on the romantic element in music, on warm emotional appeal, it is well to consider the quality so prevalent in Bach of spiritual vitality. Exactly because the romantic element represents the human side of music, it is subject to the whims of fashion and is liable to change and decay. Bach carries us into the realm of universal ideas, inexhaustible and changeless in their power to exalt. Schumann says that "Music owes to Bach what a religion owes to its founder"; and it is true that a knowledge of Bach is the beginning of musical wisdom. By some, Bach is considered dry or too reserved for companionship with ordinary human beings. Others carelessly assert that he has no melody. Nothing can be further from the truth than these two misconceptions. Bach surely is not dry, because his work abounds in such vitality of rhythm. As Parry says, in his biography, "No composer ever attained to anything approaching the spontaneity, freshness, and winsomeness of his dances, such as the gavottes, bourrées, passepieds and gigues in the suites; while many of his great choruses and instrumental fugues are inspired with a force of rhythmic movement which thrills the hearer with a feeling of being swept into space out of the range of common things." The charge of a lack of melody is the same which used to be brought against Wagner. Instead of there being no melody, it is _all_ melody, so that the partially musical, who lack the power of sustained attention, are drowned in the flood of melodic outpouring. A strong claim, in fact, may be made for Bach as a _popular_ composer in the best sense of the term. Many of his colossal works, to be sure, are heard but seldom, for they require the most highly trained executive ability. But if the average music-lover will become familiar with the French and English Suites, with the Preludes and Fugues of the _Well-tempered Clavichord_, with some of the Violin Sonatas, he will find for his imagination and mental machinery a food which, once enjoyed, becomes indispensable. For his music has that greatest of qualities in art as in human relationships--it wears well and _lasts_. We all know that books which reveal everything at a first reading are soon thrown aside, and that people whose depth of character and sweetness of disposition we discern but slowly, often become our life-long friends. Music which is too easily heard is identical with that which is immediately forgotten. The first impulse created by any great work of art is our longing to know it better. Its next attribute is its power to arouse and hold our steady affection. These observations may be applied literally to Bach's music, which can be heard for a lifetime, never losing its appeal but continually unfolding new beauties. Furthermore, in Bach, we feel the force of a great character even more than the artistic skill with which the personality is revealed. In this respect Bach in music is quite on a par with Shakespeare in literature and Michael Angelo in plastic art. With many musicians, there is so disconcerting and inexplicable a discrepancy between their deeds as men and the artistic thoughts for which they seem to be the unconscious media, that it is inspiring to come into touch with one who rings true as a man whatever demands are made upon him; whose music is free from morbidity or carnal blemish, as pure as the winter wind, as elemental as the ocean, as uplifting as the stars. In Bach let us always remember the noble human traits; for the universal regard in which his work is held could never have come merely from profound skill in workmanship, but is due chiefly to the manly sincerity and emotional depth which are found therein. The revival of his works, for which the world owes to Mendelssohn such a debt, has been the single strongest factor in the development of music during the 19th century; and their influence[42] is by no means yet at an end, as may be seen from the glowing tributes paid to him by such modern composers as Franck, d'Indy and Debussy.[43] [Footnote 41: Beethoven, commenting on the name, majestically said: "He is no brook; he is the open sea!"] [Footnote 42: For a very suggestive article on this point by Philip Greeley Clapp see the Musical Quarterly for April, 1916.] [Footnote 43: Some eloquent comments on Bach's style and significance may be found in Chapter III of _The Appreciation of Music_ by Surette and Mason.] Two additional fugues are now given in the Supplement (see Nos. 17 and 18) for the consideration of the student: the _Cat-Fugue_ of Domenico Scarlatti, with its fantastic subject (said to have been suggested by the walking of a favorite cat on the key-board) and the _Fuga Giocosa_ of John Knowles Paine, (the subject of which is the well-known street-tune "Rafferty's lost his pig"). This latter example is not only a brilliant piece of fugal writing but a typical manifestation of American humor. Several eulogies of the fugue are to be found in literature; three of the most famous are herewith appended. "Hist, but a word, fair and soft! Forth and be judged, Master Hugues! Answer the question I've put you so oft: What do you mean by your mountainous fugues? See, we're alone in the loft." --Browning, _Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha_. Throughout, a most fantastic description of fugal style. "Whence the sound Of instruments, that made melodious chime, Was heard, of harp and organ; and who mov'd Their stops and chords was seen; his volant touch Instinct through all proportions, low and high, Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue." --Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book XI. "Then rose the agitation, spreading through the infinite cathedral to its agony; then was completed the passion of the mighty fugue. The golden tubes of the organ which as yet had but sobbed and muttered at intervals--gleaming amongst clouds and surges of incense--threw up, as from fountains unfathomable, columns of heart-shattering music. Choir and antichoir were filling fast with unknown voices. Thou also, Dying Trumpeter! with thy love which was victorious, and thy anguish that was finishing, didst enter the tumult; trumpet and echo--farewell love and farewell anguish--rang through the dreadful Sanctus." --From De Quincey's _Dream Fugue in the "Vision of Sudden Death_." Truly a marvellous picture of the effect of a fugue in a great medieval cathedral! CHAPTER IV THE MUSICAL SENTENCE Before passing on to an explanation of the fundamental types of musical structure, we must give some idea of the constituent parts of the _Period_ in music. Every art has its units of expression: the straight line, the curve, the arch, the poetic stanza and the prose sentence. Just as poetry and prose are a series of stanzas or sentences, so a musical composition is a succession of definitely organized portions of thought and emotion, in terms of rhythm and sound. In the heart of a composition, to be sure, we often find a great freedom in the phraseology, comparable to blank verse or to a rhapsodic kind of prose; but with few exceptions, such as a Fantasie, every composition always _begins_ with one or two periods which, in regard to subdivision, balance and directness of statement, are carefully planned and are complete in themselves. Before it is possible to follow intelligently the structure of a musical sentence we must gain a clear idea of what is meant by the frequently used terms Tonality and Modulation. Since the evolution and acceptance of our three modern scales:[44] the major, the minor and the chromatic--which gained their sanction chiefly through the investigations and compositions of Bach and Rameau--every melody and the accompanying harmony are said to be in a certain "tonality" (or "key") which takes its name from the first tone of the scale in question, _e.g._, C, E-flat, F sharp, etc. Hence this first tone is called the Tonic or chief tone and from it ascend the other tones of the scale. That is, a melody in E-flat major will employ only those tones found in the scale of E-flat major, and is said to be in that "key," or "tonality." The same would be true of the harmony involved, _i.e._, the chords would consist of combinations of the different tones of this scale. When a melody, as is often the case, employs tones _not_ found in the scale in question, these are called _chromatic_[45] changes, and may or may not effect a "modulation" or departure into another key, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 44: It is assumed that the music-lover has, as his birthright, an instinctive knowledge of the grouping of tones and semitones in our modern scales. Those who may wish to refresh their knowledge are recommended to the second Chapter in Foote and Spalding's _Harmony_, and to the chapter on Scales in Parry's _Evolution of the Art of Music_.] [Footnote 45: Color in music is brought about chiefly through their use.] The most important means of gaining unity and coherence in a composition is to have it written in a clearly defined tonality, especially at the outset. This definite tonality is the "centre of gravity," so to speak, about which the whole composition revolves. If this tonal centre were uncertain or wandering, we should have a feeling of vagueness and perplexity which, except for special dramatic effect, is never found in works of the great composers. Thus we speak of a Symphony in C minor, of a Quartet in F major and of a Sonata in B-flat minor;[46] this foundation key being comparable to the basic color-scheme of a painting. There is also a particular aesthetic effect and color-appeal associated with each key; and the listener should train himself to be sensitive to the brilliance of such keys as D major and E major, the richness of B major, the dignity of E-flat major, the almost cloying sweetness of D-flat major and of G-flat major and the tragic depth of B minor and G minor. No piece, however, should remain for long in the same key; for music cuts so deeply into the consciousness that there would result an intolerable monotony.[47] Even in the simplest folk-songs, therefore, we often find manifested an instinct for those changes of tonal centre which are technically called "Modulations." All the keys founded on the twelve semitones of the chromatic scale are related--though in varying degrees of closeness; and in modern music, no matter how complex the modulations often sound, we may be sure that the composer plans them as carefully as the painter adjusts his color-scheme. For definite acoustical[48] and harmonic reasons, however, the keys most closely related to a given tonal centre are those situated a perfect fifth above--the Dominant; a perfect fifth below--the Subdominant; and the Relative Minor, the key-note of which is a minor third below, _e.g._, A minor in relation to C major, C minor to E-flat major. The relative minors of the Dominant and Subdominant also bear a close relationship to a given tonic; and into these _five_ keys is made a large majority of the modulations in any piece of music.[49] [Music: Subdominant Tonic Dominant Relative Relative Relative Minor Minor Minor] [Footnote 46: As for example the famous one of Chopin.] [Footnote 47: Even great composers have at times made this mistake, _e.g._, Mendelssohn in the first movement of the _Scotch Symphony_, where the interminable length of the portion in A minor (of all keys!) is simply deadening in its effect. Compare also the _Prelude to the Rheingold_; where, however--for dramatic purposes--to depict the world as "without form and void" Wagner remains in the key of E-flat major for some 150 measures!] [Footnote 48: It is left to the teacher to explain, by the ratios found in the overtones of the Harmonic Series, the validity of this statement.] [Footnote 49: Some modern theorists, _e.g._, Calvacoressi (see the New Music Review for September, 1909) have thought that the dominant relationship was "overworked." It is true that the great charm of modern music is its freedom and boldness in modulation; but the dominant keys can never be entirely abandoned, for the relationship between them and a tonic is as elemental as that between the colors of the spectroscope.] Beginning with Beethoven, a modulation into what are known as the _mediant_ keys became frequent; and is, in fact, a favorite change in all modern music--the mediant keys being those situated half-way between a Tonic and Dominant or a Tonic and Subdominant, _e.g._ [Music: Sub-mediant Mediant] Anyone at all familiar with Beethoven's style will remember how often his second theme, instead of following the more conventional line of dominant relationship, is in a mediant key. Good examples may be found in the first movement of the _Waldstein Sonata_ and in the first and last movements of the 8th Symphony. A little thought will make clear that the relationships just set forth include nearly all the possible ones save those of 2nds and 7ths. Even into these apparently distant keys, _e.g._, to D-flat major or to B major from C major, modulations may easily be made by means of the "enharmonic"[50] relationship found in that frequently used modern chord--the Augmented Sixth, _e.g._ [Music: C major B major C major D-flat major] [Footnote 50: Two tones are said to be "enharmonic" when, although written differently, they sound the same on an instrument of fixed temperament like the pianoforte, or organ, _e.g._, D-sharp and E-flat, E and F-flat. A violin, however, can make a distinction between such notes and often does.] Next to rhythm, modulation is the most stimulating and enchanting element in music. No composition of any scope can be considered truly great unless it abounds in beautiful modulations. Certain composers, to be sure, have in this respect more genius than others--notably Schubert, Chopin, Wagner and Franck whose music seems to waft us along on a magic carpet of delight. But just as Unity depends upon a definite basic tonality, so Variety is gained by this very freedom of modulation. Without it is monotony; with too much modulation, an irritating restlessness. By the perfect balance in his works of these two related elements a genius may be definitely recognized. The simplest and on the whole most frequent type of musical sentence or period consists of eight measures, subdivided into two balancing phrases of four measures[51] each--the component parts plainly indicated by various cadences and endings soon to be explained. These four-measure phrases are often, though not invariably, still further subdivided into two sections of two measures each. Let us now corroborate these statements by an examination of the opening sentence of the Scherzo of Beethoven's _Second Sonata for Pianoforte_. This concise sentence is an epitome of the chief principles of organic musical expression. At the outset[52] we see the leading motive, which consists of an ascending broken chord twice repeated. We see also [Music] the first phrase of 4 measures and the second phrase[53] of similar length, alike subdivided into two sections of 2 measures each. In the third measure we find a modulation into the dominant key (indicated by the D-sharp) and in the fourth measure a cadence with a feminine ending in this key. The second--or after--phrase corresponds exactly to what has gone before: we have the same repetition of the motive in a different part of the scale; and finally, in the 8th measure, a cadence in the home key, also with feminine ending. [Footnote 51: This assertion holds for most of our Western European music; though in Hungarian and Scotch music we find a natural fondness for phrases of _three_ measures, and the Croatians are known for their phrases of _five_ measures so often used by both Haydn and Schubert. But it is true that we _tend_ to think in groups which are some multiple of 2, _i.e._, either 4, 8, 12 or 16 measures.] [Footnote 52: Always count the first _complete_ measure as _one_.] [Footnote 53: The two phrases are often designated Thesis and Antithesis.] [Music] When the sentence is played, it is evident how unsatisfactory would be the effect if a complete stop were attempted at the 4th measure; and how symmetrical and convincing is the impression when the eight measures are considered an unbroken sweep of musical thought.[54] There are, in fact, a few complete compositions in musical literature which contain but a single sentence of eight measures. As an example may be cited the song from Schumann's _Lieder Album für Jugend_, op. 79, No. 1. (See Supplement No. 19.) For purposes of practical appreciation[55] it is enough to state that a cadence is an accepted combination of chords (generally the tonic, dominant and subdominant) which indicates that some objective, either temporary or final, has been reached. When the dominant chord or any dominant harmony is immediately followed by the tonic the cadence is called perfect or final, and may be compared to a period in punctuation, _e.g._ [Music] [Music: CÉSAR FRANCK] [Footnote 54: In listening to a clock it is impossible to think of the ticks singly, or otherwise than in groups of two: an accented beat and an unaccented; although the beats are of equal strength and duration. This principle of dual balance is derived from the rhythmic pulsation of the human heart and, as we shall see, runs through all music.] [Footnote 55: Whenever this book is used in class, the teacher can easily explain, on the pianoforte and by charts, the different cadential effects. For those who have sufficient harmonic insight Chapter XIV in Foote and Spalding's _Modern Harmony_ is worth consulting.] A reversal of this order produces what is called the half-cadence, akin to the semicolon, _e.g._ [Music] The union of the subdominant and tonic chords is known as the Plagal Cadence, _e.g._, [Music] and always gives a feeling of religious dignity and impressiveness. Magnificent examples may be found in the closing measures of Wagner's Overture to the _Mastersingers_ and of Brahms' _First Symphony in C minor_. In the final cadence of Debussy's humorous piece for pianoforte, _Minstrels_, the effect is burlesqued, _e.g._ [Music] When dominant harmony is followed by some unexpected chord we have the so-called Deceptive Cadence, which is not unlike the mark of interrogation (?) or even exclamation (!) _e.g._ [Music: WAGNER: _Overture to the Mastersingers_] [Music: TCHAIKOWSKY: _5th Symphony_] This last cadence gives an effect of dramatic surprise--certainly an exclamation of great force. One of the glories of modern music is the daring novelty of cadential effect which has been achieved by such composers as Franck, Debussy and Ravel; the student should try to become more and more familiar with such harmonic combinations. A beautiful example[56] is cited from César Franck's _Sonata for Violin and Pianoforte_. [Footnote 56: See also the strikingly original cadences in Debussy's _L'Isle joyeuse_.] [Music] The two endings for phrases are classified as Masculine and Feminine and they correspond exactly to the same effects in the metre of a poetic stanza. When the second chord of the cadence, whatever it may be, coincides with a _strong_ beat, _i.e._, the first beat of the measure, the ending is Masculine, _e.g._ [Music] When the chord is carried over to a weak beat of the measure the ending is Feminine, _e.g._ [Music] We now give two more examples of the eight measure Sentence which clearly exemplify the principles just stated, _e.g._ [Music: BEETHOVEN: 3rd Sonata] In this vigorous and clear-cut sentence we find in the 4th measure an effect of surprise and suspense; for the chord on the first beat is an inverted position of the dominant chord in the dominant key. Both the endings are masculine, _i.e._, the chords which end the phrases coincide with the strong beats. [Music: BEETHOVEN: 1st Sonata] This graceful sentence is noteworthy for the clear division of the first phrase into two contrasting sections; whereas, in the second phrase, a climactic effect is gained by having no marked subdivision. In the fourth measure occurs a good example of a half-cadence. All the endings are feminine, _i.e._, the cadential chord occurs on a _weak_ beat of the measure.[57] [Footnote 57: Another interesting eight-measure sentence may be found at the beginning of the slow movement of Beethoven's Eighth Sonata, in which every section differs from any one of the others; in the opening sentence of the first movement of the Tenth Sonata--noticeable for the indefiniteness of the cadences until the final close is reached in measure 8, and in the first sentence of the Allegretto of the Sixth Sonata which is one long sweep, with only the faintest indications of subdivision.] Music, however, would be very rigid and would seem measured off with a yard-stick if the sentences were equally of eight measures. The "sing-song" effect of much so-called popular music is due to the stereotyped metrical pattern. You can always tell just where and how you are coming out. In order to gain a free and elastic phraseology, composers early began to combine three four-measure phrases into a _twelve_ measure sentence. It is obvious that with three phrases there can be more subtle effects of contrast and balance than with two, as the following chart makes plain: ____________ / \ A Contrast B Contrast C \____________/ (4 measures) (4 measures) (4 measures) balance \______________________________________/ [Music: BEETHOVEN: 6th Sonata] In this sentence it is evident that we cannot stop at the 8th measure and that our first definite conclusion is in measure 12. Let the student observe the varied melodic outline in the three phrases, and question himself as to the types of cadence and ending. MINUETTO OF BEETHOVEN'S FIRST SONATA.[58] [Footnote 58: Lack of space will prevent hereafter the citation in actual notes of the examples from Beethoven. His works are readily accessible, and it may even be assumed that every music-lover owns the Pianoforte Sonatas.] In this beautifully constructed twelve-measure sentence we have the main motive of the entire movement set forth in measures 1 and 2; then a contrasting secondary motive in measures 3 and 4. The second four-measure phrase, _i.e._, measures 5, 6, 7 and 8, repeats the material exactly, but with a modulation into the relative major. In measures 9 and 10 we find the secondary motive appearing in the alto voice (which should be brought out in performance), and in measures 11 and 12 a free ending in the relative major. The closing measures, 13 and 14, give an echo-like effect, which will be explained when we come to extended sentences. Such a sentence is not to be considered as one of 14 measures, although the literal counting gives that number; for the first complete cadence occurs in the 12th measure at the end of the third four-measure phrase; the remaining measures being supplementary.[59] [Footnote 59: Another excellent example of a 12 measure sentence with an extended cadence may be found at the beginning of the first movement of the Third Beethoven Sonata.] The last type of simple, normal sentence is that of 16 measures, divided into 4 phrases of 4 measures each. A clear distinction must be drawn between two successive sentences of 8 measures and the long sweep of a genuine 16 measure sentence. In the latter case there is no complete and satisfactory stop until we reach the cadence in the 16th measure. FIRST SENTENCE OF THE FIRST MOVEMENT OF THE TWELFTH SONATA. No difficulty will be found in following the cadences and endings of this sentence, the long-drawn out lines of which give an impression of repose and tranquillity. Two more excellent examples of 16 measure sentences may be found in the Adagio of the Fifth Sonata, and in the Scherzo of the Third; the latter movement is remarkable for the polyphonic treatment of the opening motive. Although the three types of sentence just studied, _i.e._, of 8, 12 and 16 measures are the normal ones, and would include a majority of all sentences--especially in smaller works--in large compositions there would be an unendurable monotony and rigidity were there invariably to be cadential pauses at every 4th measure. We all know the deadening effect of poetry which has too great uniformity of metric pattern; and verses of "The boy stood on the burning-deck" type are considered thoroughly "sing-song." It is obvious that elasticity may be gained, without disturbing the normal balance, by expanding a sentence through the addition of extra measures, or contracting it by the logical omission of certain measures or by the overlapping of phrases. The simplest and most common means of enlarging a sentence is by the extension, or repetition, of the final cadence--that effect which is so frequent in the chamber and symphonic music of Haydn, and which has its comic manifestation in the so-called "crescendo" of the Rossini Operatic Overture.[60] [Footnote 60: For a burlesque of this practise see the closing measures of the Scherzando movement of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony.] [Music: HAYDN: _Quartet, op. 74, No. 2_] As Haydn was an important pioneer in freeing instrumental structure from dependence on the metre of words, his periods are always clearly organized; the closing measures of this example seem, as it were, to display a flag, telling the listener that the first breathing-place is reached. Very often both the fore-phrase and the after-phrase have cadential prolongations, an example of which may be found in Haydn's Quartet, op. 71, No. 3. The two following illustrations (the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Sonata and the third movement of the Fourth) furnish remarkable examples of extended 16 measure sentences; each sentence being normal and symmetrical at the outset and then, as the fancy of the composer catches fire, expanding in a most dramatic fashion. Sometimes the additional measures, in an extended sentence, are found at the start; a clear example of this is the first sentence (with its repeated opening measure) of the Largo of the Seventh Sonata. Sentences are also often expanded by the insertion of one or more measures in the middle of the phrase, _e.g._, the beginning of the first movement of the Seventh Sonata and the corresponding place in the Fourth. In the former sentence the first phrase is perfectly regular, but as we reach our final cadence only in the tenth measure, we must account for some additional measures. The polyphonic imitation of the descending motive of measure 5 makes clear that this measure has two repetitions. In the latter case we reach the end of the sentence in the 17th measure and careful counting, and consideration of the melodic outline, will convince us that the 9th measure, emphasized by the _sf_ mark, is repeated. When an extra measure is systematically introduced into each phrase of 4 measures we have what is known as "five-bar rhythm"--so prevalent in the works of Schubert and Brahms. [Music: SCHUBERT: _Sonata in E[flat] major_] [Music: BRAHMS: _Ballade in G minor_] As everyone is familiar with the latter composition, only the melody is cited. This propulsion of the mind forward beyond the accustomed point of rest always produces a stimulating rhythmic effect.[61] [Footnote 61: Other charming examples of five-bar rhythm may be found in Schubert's Quartet in A minor, op. 29, and in the opening choral (St. Anthony) of Brahms's _Orchestral Variations_, op. 56a.] The normal phraseology of four and eight measures is altered at times by the _omission_ of certain measures. This often takes place at the beginning of the sentence, as may be seen from the structure of the so-called Anglican chant, familiar to all Protestants, _e.g._ [Music: SAVAGE] The beginning of Mozart's _Overture to Figaro_ is also well known, _e.g._ [Music] The elision of a measure often takes place in the middle of a phrase as may be seen from the theme of Mendelssohn's familiar _Spring-Song_. [Music] Just as in the case of the systematic insertion of an extra measure, which produces "five-bar rhythm," so when a measure is omitted in each phrase which would usually consist of four measures, we have "three-bar rhythm." This gives an effect of great concentration and intensity and is a prevalent feature in Scottish and Hungarian folk-music, _e.g._ [Music: Scotch] [Music: Hungarian] Additional examples of three-bar rhythm may be found in the Scherzo of Beethoven's Tenth Sonata and in the Minuet of Mozart's _G minor Symphony_--the latter, one of the most striking examples in literature. When a measure is systematically omitted from the normal structure of the 8 measure sentence we have "seven-bar rhythm"; of which beautiful examples may be found in the Scherzo of Beethoven's Sonata in B-flat major, op. 106, and in Mozart's Quartet in F major, No. 23. As these examples are readily accessible they are not quoted. The humorous effect produced, in the Beethoven example, by the unexpected elision of the 7th measure is very marked. Flexibility in the structure of a sentence is often gained by what is known as "overlapping"[62] of phrases, _i.e._, where the closing measure of a sentence, the 8th or 12th for example, is identical with the first measure of the following phrase. A clear example is this passage from the first movement of Beethoven's Third Sonata, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 62: This effect is clearly brought out in symphonic music where one portion of the orchestra, with a certain tone color, may be ending a phrase at the same moment at which another part, with a contrasting tone color, begins. An excellent example is the first theme of the Slow movement of Schumann's Second Symphony (measures 7-8).] As the principles of sentence-formation are closely involved with the general subject of rhythm, something must be known about the number of beats within the measure itself. While it is true that we Anglo-Saxons tend to think in terms of 2 and 3 or their multiples, _i.e._, our customary measures consist of 2 or 4 beats or of 3, 6, 9 and 12, in modern music--particularly that of other races (the Slavs, Hungarians, etc.)--we often find measures with 5 and 7 beats and even phrases containing a mixture of rhythms. Three excellent examples of compositions with measures of 5 beats each are the Slow Movement of Chopin's Sonata in C minor, op. 4, the F-sharp major portion of d'Indy's Symphonic Variations, _Istar_, and the second movement of Tchaikowsky Sixth Symphony, _e.g._ [Music] A delightful example of a melody with 7 beats a measure is the Andante Grazioso of Brahms's Trio in C minor, op. 101--the result undoubtedly of his well-known fondness for Hungarian music, _e.g._ [Music] The following theme from Tchaikowsky's Quartet in F major, notwithstanding the time signature, certainly gives the effect of a long, seven-beat measure, _e.g._ [Music] Those who wish to do a little investigating of their own in the field of modern music will find interesting examples of 5/4 and 7/4 metres in Ravel's _Daphnis and Chloe_, in d'Indy's Sonata for Violin and Pianoforte and in the Ballet music of Stravinsky. We even find passages where, for special effect, the usual beats are elided or extra beats inserted. Schumann was one of the most daring experimenters in this respect and such fantastic effects are frequent in his pianoforte works--notably in the _Carnaval_, op. 9, and in the _Phantasiestücke_, op. 12, _e.g._ [Music: SCHUMANN: _Carnaval_] With reference to all the foregoing principles and comments the music-lover is cautioned against the assumption that music, from the standpoint of the composer or the listener, is merely a matter of mechanical counting; or that the "swing" of music is as regular as that of a sewing-machine. But, as order is Heaven's first law, it is true that music tends to move in definite, symmetrical groups; and where departure is made from this practise the effect is one most carefully planned. The matter deserves earnest consideration, for, in what is known as the "rhythmical sense," Americans--as a people, in comparison with foreign nations--are still woefully deficient. As rhythm is the basic element in all music, there is nothing in which the listener should more definitely train his faculties than in intelligent coöperation with the freedom of the composer. CHAPTER V THE TWO-PART AND THREE-PART FORMS Now that a clear insight has been gained into the formation of the normal sentence, we are in a position to understand how sentences may be combined to make complete compositions. The simplest and most primitive structure is that which contains _two_ complete sentences; dividing itself naturally into _two_ parts and hence known as the Two-Part Form. This form by reason of its simplicity and directness is often found in the short pianoforte pieces of Schumann, Tchaikowsky, Brahms, Grieg and Debussy. For a long period there was no attempt at differentiation between vocal and instrumental style; music, in fact, during the 15th and 16th centuries was often entitled "buon da cantare ou suonare," _i.e._, equally well suited for voices or instruments. When instrumental players were in search of pieces, they simply transferred to their instruments the voice-parts of the Madrigals and Canzonas which were then so fashionable.[63] With the development of instruments--especially of the Violin family--and with the desire for an instrumental style which should be independent of words, principles of coherent design had to be evolved; and they were suggested by the definite metre in the stanzas of the Folk-song and, above all, by the symmetrical phrases of the Folk-dance, used to accompany the _rhythmical_ motions of the body. By a utilization of these principles of balanced phrases, of contrasted keys and of periodic themes, instrumental music gradually worked out a structure of its own,[64] of which we find examples in National dances and in the compositions of such pioneers of instrumental style as the Italians Corelli and Vivaldi, the Frenchmen Lully, Couperin and Rameau, and the Englishman Purcell. [Footnote 63: For a complete account of this process see Parry's _Evolution of the Art of Music_, p. 115 _seq._] [Footnote 64: This book makes no attempt to give an historical account of the development of instrumental form. The subject is set forth comprehensively in the article on Form in Grove's Dictionary (Vol. II, p. 73) and in the Fifth and Sixth Chapters of Parry's _Evolution of the Art of Music_.] [Music: Viens dans ce bocage belle Aminte, Sans contrainte L'on y forme des voeux; Viens, Viens dans ce bocage belle Aminte, Il est fait pour les plaisirs et les jeux.] In this rhythmic and sprightly dance of exactly 8 measures (an old French _Tambourin_ taken from Weckerlin's _Echos du Temps Passé_) we see clearly the influence of the metrical stanza of words and of the balanced phrases in the instrumental part, necessary to accompany the steps of the dancers. The melody of the accompaniment was played on a flute or some simple kind of pipe, and the bass on a Tambour de Basque--a rude form of drum, which repeated continually the tonic and dominant of the key; the same effect which we associate with the Bagpipe and Hurdy-gurdy. [Music: PURCELL: Jig.] In this Jig, which was a favorite type with the English peasantry--divided into three sentences of exactly 8 measures each--the dance rhythm is very sharply defined. From various dance-patterns a structural type was gradually evolved, of which the chief features will now be indicated. The music was divided into _two_ distinct halves and it became the convention to gain length by repeating each half--in the early days of the form, _literally_ (with a double bar and sign of repeat); later, as composers gained freedom, with considerable amplification. Each half presented the _same_ material (it was a _one_-theme form) but the two halves were contrasted in _tonality_, _i.e._, the first part, beginning in the home-key, would modulate to some related key--generally the dominant; the second part, starting out in this key, gradually modulated back to a final cadence in the original key, and often--especially in Haydn and Mozart--repeated the entire main sentence of the first part. The general effect of such a form has been wittily described[65] as resembling the actions of "the King of France who, with twenty thousand men, marched up the hill and then marched down again"--but he surely had no exciting adventures in between! It is evident that this form, while favorable to coherence and unity, is lacking in scope and in opportunity for variety and contrast. It did, however, emphasize the principle of recapitulation; in fact it became the convention (as we shall see in the dances of the Suite) for the closing measures of the second part to be an exact duplicate in the home-key of that which had been presented at the end of part one. We shall observe, as we continue our studies, that the trend of musical composition gradually swung over to the Three-part form, the essential feature of which is restatement after _intervening contrast_. [Footnote 65: See _The Appreciation of Music_ by Surette and Mason, p. 36.] For illustrations of the Two-part Form see the Supplement Nos. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24. Only in such comparatively simple examples as those just cited is found this perfect balance in the length of the two parts. We often observe extended sentences in the first part; and it became the custom for the second part to be considerably lengthened, to include modulations into more remote keys and even to display certain developments of the main material. For a striking example of a movement which, although definitely in Two-part form, (_i.e._, it is in two clear divisions and has but _one_ theme) is yet of considerable scope and variety, see the Allegretto of Beethoven's Fourth Sonata. It was, in fact, this instinct for contrasting variety in the second part[66] which (as can be shown from historical examples)[67] gradually led to the developing and establishment of the Three-part form. [Footnote 66: As an illustration of this tendency see the Scherzo of Beethoven's Second Sonata, the second part of which has a new theme of its own, although the movement as a whole is clearly in Two-part form.] [Footnote 67: See _The Sonata Form_ by W.H. Hadow, Chapter III.] The essentials of this structure, so frequent in all pianoforte literature, are the existence of _three_ distinct _parts_--hence the name: a clause of assertion in the home-key; a second clause, affording a genuine _contrast_ to the first part in regard to key, melodic outline and general treatment, and a third clause of reassertion, which shall repeat--either literally or in varied form--the material of part one.[68] In the Three-part form, as employed in the classic Minuet and Scherzo, each of the three parts _taken by itself_ is in complete Two-part form; and as the third part was generally a literal repetition of part one, it was not written out, but at the end of the middle part (called the Trio, because it was originally written in three-voiced harmony) we find the direction "Minuet or Scherzo da capo," meaning a return to the first part. A coda or tail-piece is often added to round out the form. As the student will become thoroughly familiar with the Three-part form, in connection with the classic Symphonies soon to be studied (each Minuet, Scherzo or Trio being an example), our illustrations show the use of this form in independent pieces and are chiefly taken from modern literature; the object being so to interest the student in the beauty of these compositions as to convince him that in all good music content and design go hand is hand. For examples[69] see Supplement Nos. 25, 26, 27. [Footnote 68: The three-part form is derived partly from the Italian "da Capo Aria" and partly from the fundamental instinct for restatement which we have seen in the Folk-song.] [Footnote 69: Additional illustrations, which will repay study are the following: the Allegretto of Beethoven's Sixth Sonata; the Schubert Impromptu, op. 90, No. 4; Brahms's Intermezzo, op. 117, No. 1 and the Ballade in G minor, op. 118, No. 3, and for orchestra--in extended treatment--Debussy's _Prélude à l'après-midi d'un Faune_.] CHAPTER VI THE CLASSICAL AND THE MODERN SUITE No sooner had the Two-and Three-part forms become accepted as definite means of instrumental expression, than composers were eager to try their skill in combining dance-movements in such forms into larger groups. These compositions--known in France as Ordres, in Germany as Suites and Partitas and in England as Lessons--though all the movements were in the _same key_, yet showed considerable variety by reason of the contrast in the dance rhythms. They were, moreover, simple, direct and easily understood of the people.[70] This development was furthered by the perfecting of two groups of instruments: The violins, by the great Italian masters; and those precursors of our modern pianoforte, the harpsichord, clavichord and spinet. We find, consequently, the Italians--of whom Corelli was most prominent--combining these dances into groups called Sonate da Ballo: and the French composers Couperin and Rameau, developing the possibilities of keyed stringed instruments in graceful pieces to which fantastic titles, such as _La Poule_, _Le Rappel des Oiseaux_, etc., were often given. The greatest master of instrumental style in these early days was the Italian, Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757). He was famous both as composer and performer--the first, in fact, of the long line of key-board virtuosi--and in his compositions in dance form and in those of a more abstract type there is a sparkling fancy and an adjustment of the thought to his instrument, which will keep them forever immortal.[71] [Footnote 70: For an interesting and comprehensive account of this development see Grove's Dictionary, Volume IV, article on the Suite.] [Footnote 71: For extensive comments on Scarlatti's style see _The History of the Pianoforte and Pianoforte Players_ by Oscar Bie, pp. 68-90.] The grouping together of dance forms reached its highest development through the genius of Sebastian Bach in the so-called _French and English Suites_.[72] In these compositions--in the Partitas and in the orchestral Suite in D major, which contains the well-known Aria, often played in transcription for Violin solo--the dance-forms are not employed literally but are made a vehicle for the expression of varied types of human emotion and sentiment. Nor should we overlook the twelve _Harpsichord Lessons_ of Handel--especially the superb Fugue in E minor in the Fourth Suite--which are noteworthy for their vigor, though, in freshness and delicacy of invention, not to be compared with Bach's. [Footnote 72: These titles, according to Parry (see his life of Bach, Chapters IV and XII passim), were not given by Bach himself but were assigned, in the case of the French Suites, to denote the delicacy of treatment found therein, and in the English, a certain massive style.] We now give a tabulated list of the customary dance forms, both as found in the Classic and the modern Suite or used as independent pieces; and we shall then analyze those which have the most characteristic rhythmic pattern. LIST OF DANCES _______________________________________________________________________________ NAME | ORIGIN | METER | FORM | CHARACTER ___________|______________|__________|____________|____________________________ Allemande | Suabian | 4/4 | Two-part | Moderately quick; | | | | flowing, with a rather | | | | rich harmonic texture. | | | | {Courante | French | 3/4, 3/2 | Two-part | Running, lively; the 2/2 {Corrente | Italian | | | type always with a change | | | | of meter at the cadences. | | | | Sarabande | Spanish | 3/2, 3/4 | Two-part | Stately, dignified; often | | | | noble and even | | | | dramatically pathetic. | | | | Hornpipe | English | 4/4 | Two-part | Rapid, merry, energetic. | | | | {Gigue | Italian | 6/8, | Two-part | Very lively, rollicking, {Jig | giga, an | 12/8, | | even jocose. | early violin | 4/8 | | | | | | Gavotte | French | 4/4, 2/2 | Two-part | Moderately fast; | | | | well-marked rhythm, | | | | often stately. | | | | Bourrée | French | 4/4 | Two-part | Lively, vigorous. | | | | Minuet | French | 3/4, 3/8 | Two-part | Moderately fast; dainty, | | | | graceful, courtly. | | | | Passepied | French | 3/4 | Two-part | Light, delicately animated. | | | | Loure | French | 6/4, 4/4 | Two-part | Rather slow, stately. | | | | Pavane | Italian | 2/4 | Two-part | Solemn, impressive. | | | | Galliard | Italian | 3/2, 2/2 | Two-part | Lively, merry. | | | | {Branle | French | 4/4, 3/4 | Two-part | Lively, with great abandon. {Brawl | English | | | | | | | Polonaise | Polish | 3/4 | Varied | Dignified and courtly, but | | | | with life. | | | | Mazurka | Polish | 3/4 | Varied | Great range of speed and | | | | effect; at times sustained | | | | and pathetic, often | | | | bright and lively. | | | | Polka | Bohemian | 2/4 | Generally | Merry, animated. | | | three-part | | | | | Furiant | Bohemian | 3/4 | Varied | Very lively, even frenzied. | | | | Waltz | German | 3/4 | Two-part | Graceful; varied in effect; | | | or | at times lively, often | | | three-part | slow. | | | | Boléro | Spanish | 3/4 | Three-part | Brisk, well-marked rhythm. | | | | Tarantella | Italian | 6/8 | Varied | Very lively, impassioned. | | | | Saltarello | Italian | 6/8, 3/4 | Varied | With quick, jumping | | | | rhythm. | | | | Rigaudon | French | 2/4, 4/4 | Varied | Lively, gay. | | | | March | Found in | 4/4 | Varied | Stately, with marked | every nation | | | rhythm. | | | | Csárdás | Hungarian | 3/4, 2/4 | Varied | Impassioned; with great | | | | variety of effect. | | | | Halling | Scandinavian | 2/4 | Varied | Fresh, vigorous, | | | | out-of-doors atmosphere. | | | | Tango | Mexican | Varied | Varied | With reckless abandon. | | | | Habañera | Spanish | 2/4 | Varied | Graceful; with | | | | characteristic rhythm. | | | | Seguidilla | Spanish | 3/4, 3/8 | Varied | Fantastic; sometimes | | | | stately, sometimes gay | | | | and lively. | | | | {Jota, | Spanish | 3/4 | Free | A kind of waltz, but with {often | | | | more freedom in the {Jota | | | | dancing, and of a vigorous {Aragonesa | | | | and fiery nature. | | | | | | | | Malagueña | Spanish | 3/8 | In couplet | A dance of moderate | | | form | movement, accompanied by | | | | guitar and castanets; | | | | languorous and sensual in | | | | mood. | | | | Siciliano | Sicilian | 6/8, | Two-part, | Graceful; of a Pastorale | | 12/8 | three-part,| nature. | | | often a | | | | Rondo | ___________|______________|__________|____________|____________________________ The four indispensable movements of the classic or 18th century Suite were the Allemande, the Courante, the Sarabande and the Gigue; and, between the last two, it became customary to insert an optional number of other dances--the most usual being the Gavotte, Bourrée, Minuet and Passepied. In effect, the Suite was a kind of "international Potpourri" of the dances most in vogue, and affords us a vivid reflection of the manners and customs of the period. Many of the English Suites begin with an elaborate polyphonic Prelude. We shall not give a detailed analysis of all these dance movements; for the main characteristics the tabulated list will suffice, and in the book of Supplementary examples (see No. 35) will be found the 6th French Suite complete. It will be more useful to center attention on those dances which, in rhythmic pattern, are especially typical and are most frequently employed in modern music; and we shall select, as examples drawn from various sources, those dances which make a direct appeal. The most characteristic of the dances are the Sarabande, the Gavotte, the Minuet and the Gigue; and with the last, as exemplifying the same spirit, may be grouped the Rigaudon, Furiant, Tarantella and Saltarello. The Sarabande is a slow, stately dance; always in triple meter indicated by 3/2 or 3/4. Its striking features are the frequent occurrence of the rhythmic pattern [Music] or [Music] in which it is evident that there is a strong accent on the weak beats; and the prevalence of feminine endings in the cadences. The Sarabande always displays great depth of emotion--often of a tragic and impassioned kind; and, in the Suite, seems to have served the composer for the same outpouring of feeling which we associate with the slow movement in the later Sonata or Symphony. The example cited in the Supplement (See No. 28)--taken from one of Bach's Sonatas for 'cello--is considered one of the most beautiful in existence. Other eloquent Sarabandes may be found in the Second and Third English Suites and in Handel's noble Air "Lascia ch'io pianga" from the opera of _Rinaldo_. Two fine modern examples of this dance are the second number in Paderewski's _Humoresques de Concert_, op. 14, and the second number in the set of pieces by Debussy, _Pour le Piano_--_Prélude_, _Sarabande_, _Toccata_. Composers sometimes employ the Sarabande rhythm for its inherent beauty, or for dramatic purposes without indication of the fact. Examples are the theme for variations in Beethoven's Sonata, op. 109, and the opening measures of the _Egmont Overture_ where, by means of the characteristic Spanish dance-rhythm, an atmosphere of oppression and dejection is established, _e.g._ [Music] The Gavotte is an energetic yet dignified dance in duple rhythm (it is almost always played too fast)--the characteristics of which are its beginning on the half-measure and its strongly marked cadences. One of the most stirring examples is that cited from the Third English Suite (See Supplement No. 29) which, with its subdued middle portion, La Musette,[73] is an early example of tripartite arrangement. Other gavottes[74] are the favorite one from the Fifth French Suite, that from Handel's opera _Ottone_ (so often played in organ or pianoforte transcriptions) and, from modern literature, the charming one in d'Albert's _Suite for Pianoforte_, op. 1. [Footnote 73: So-called because it is written on a sustained bass note or pedal point; a feature of the Musette (the French name for Bagpipe) being its persistent drone bass on the tonic and the dominant.] [Footnote 74: An interesting example may also be found in Grieg's _Holberg Suite for Pianoforte_.] The Minuet is of particular interest, not alone because of the many beautiful examples of its use but because it is the only dance which, carried over from the Suite, has remained an integral movement of Symphonic compositions. The Minuet, in its older form, was a stately dance; the derivation of the term (French menu) referring to the dainty steps of the dancers, always in 3/8 or 3/4 metre and beginning on the first beat of the measure. By Haydn the character of the Minuet was considerably changed; the tempo becomes much faster, the music begins on the third beat of the measure instead of the first and the mood is one of playful humor--at times even of downright jollity. In the Minuets of Mozart the peculiar characteristics are grace and tenderness rather than rollicking fun, _e.g._, the charming examples in the E-flat major and G minor Symphonies. Concerning the transformation by Beethoven of the Minuet into the Scherzo, with its fantastic and freakish atmosphere, we shall speak more fully in connection with his Symphonies. Of the examples cited in the Supplement (see Nos. 30 and 31) the former, from the first Finale of Mozart's opera _Don Giovanni_, remains one of the most famous minuets in existence; and the two from Rameau's opera, _Castor and Pollux_, are of inimitable spontaneity and rhythmic grace. They are grouped in contrasting, tripartite arrangement. In modern literature every one knows of the melodious example for Pianoforte by Paderewski (No. 1 of the _Humoresques de Concert_) and the _Menuet Italien_ by Mrs. Beach; that in the last scene of Verdi's _Falstaff_ is also well worth acquaintance. The last of the particularly characteristic dances is the Gigue with its counterparts mentioned above. This is a rapid, animated dance in 6/8, 3/8, 12/8, 12/16 (sometimes 4/4) with marked rhythm; the term being derived from giga (German, geige)--an early name for fiddle--on account of the power of accent associated with the violin family. The Gigue is always the closing number of Bach's Suites, in order to give a final impression of irrepressible vitality and gaiety, and is treated with considerable polyphonic complexity; in fact, his gigues often begin like a complete Fugue. They are all in clear-cut Two-part form; and it became the convention for the second part to treat the motive in _inverted_ form. The example cited from Bach's Fifth French Suite (see Supplement No. 32) is unsurpassed for rhythmic energy; the closing measures sound as if all the bells of heaven were ringing. The example of Mozart (see Supplement No. 33) is noteworthy for its daring use of the dissonant element and for its free modulations. Of the counterparts of the gigue the following are excellent examples: The Rigaudon--the Finale of Grieg's _Holberg Suite_, the vigorous one from Rameau's opera _Dardanus_, and MacDowell's independent piece in this form, op. 49, No. 2; the Furiant--the Finale of Dvo[vr]ák's _Suite for Small Orchestra_, op. 30 (accessible in an effective pianoforte arrangement for four hands); the _Tarantelle_--Chopin's independent piece in this rhythm, op. 43, and the brilliant Finale of Rheinberger's Pianoforte Sonata for four hands, op. 122; the Saltarello--the last movement of Mendelssohn's _Italian Symphony_ and the main portion of Berlioz's _Carnaval Romain Overture_. One additional example is cited (see Supplement No. 34), a Courante by D. Scarlatti, to give an example of his pianoforte style. In connection with these dances, especially the Sarabande, Gavotte, Loure, Pavane, Polonaise and Tarantelle, there should be read the articles treating of each dance in Grove's Dictionary; for these dances are so closely connected with human activity that a knowledge of their development broadens our horizon in many matters pertaining to social life and civilization in general. As to specific examples of the less usual dances, many of the quaintest are found in the works of the early English composers: Byrd, Bull, etc., in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, _e.g._, _The Lord of Salisbury his Pavan_. An excellent example of the Loure is the well-known arrangement from Bach's third 'Cello sonata. Chopin, in his works, has glorified both the Polonaise and the Mazurka; Bizet, in his opera Carmen, has used the Habañera and the Seguidilla, and there is a wonderful use of the Habañera rhythm in Debussy's descriptive piece _Soirée dans Grenade_. The French composer Ravel in his pianoforte piece _Pavane pour un enfant defunt_ has used with remarkable effect the stately rhythm of that dance. The Spanish composers, Albeniz and Granados, frequently employ national dance rhythms in their pieces. The French composer Chabrier's _Bourrée Fantasque_ is a dazzling modernization of the old form; and his _España_ for full orchestra fairly intoxicates us with its dashing rhythms based upon the Jota and the Malagueña.[75] Debussy's well-known piece _Hommage à Rameau_ is in the style of the Sarabande. The allusions in literature to these dances are so frequent that only a few can be cited. The very spirit of the Jig is given in Pope's line "Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heaven." In speaking of the antics of Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, Shakespeare remarks--"I did think by the excellent constitution of thy leg that it was formed under the star of a Galliard." One of the most remarkable works of the English composer John Dowland (born 1562) is entitled _Lachrymae, or Seven Teares, figured in seven passionate Pavans_. [Footnote 75: For a vivid description of these dances see Chabrier's _Lettres à Nanette_, Paris, 1910.] The Suite, by reason of its freedom in combining different rhythms and moods, has appealed vividly to modern composers; and the literature of our times contains a number of Suites which should be known to the music-lover. In these modern Suites no attempt is made to conform to the old conventional grouping of dances. The movements are in different keys, are often based on rhythms of an exotic or ultra-nationalistic type--as in Tchaikowsky and Dvo[vr]ák, or may employ any material suggested by the fantastic imagination of the composer--as in Debussy and Ravel. Among the most attractive modern Suites may be cited: The _Peer Gynt_ (put together from incidental music to Ibsen's play) and the _Holberg_ by Grieg; the two _L'Arlésienne Suites_ by Bizet (written to illustrate Daudet's romantic story)--the first, with its dainty Minuet and brilliant Carillons (Peal of bells); Dvo[vr]ák's _Suite for Small Orchestra_, op. 39, with its sprightly Polka and impassioned Furiant; Tchaikowsky's five Orchestral Suites of which the best known are the _Casse-Noisette_ with its exotic rhythms and novel orchestral effects, the _Mozartiana_ and the third which closes with a brilliant Polonaise; Brahms's _Serenades_ for orchestra; Charpentier's _Impressions of Italy_ in which there is an effective use of Italian rhythm and color; MacDowell's _Indian Suite_, with several of the themes based on native tunes; the fascinating orchestral Suite _Adventures in a Perambulator_ by John Alden Carpenter; Arthur Whiting's _Suite Moderne_ for pianoforte; _Stevensoniana_, (based on stanzas from Stevenson's _Child's Garden of Verses_) an orchestral Suite in four movements by Edward B. Hill; Debussy's _Suite Bergamasque_ in which is found the oft-played _Clair de Lune_; Ravel's[76] _Mother Goose_, a delightful work--and by the same composer the _Daphnis and Chloe_ Suite, the material drawn from an opera of the same name. In modern literature easily the most celebrated and brilliant example of this type is the _Scheherazade Suite_ (based on the Arabian Nights) for full orchestra by Rimsky-Korsakoff. This work in the genuine poetic quality of its themes, in its marvellous descriptive power and in the boldness of its orchestral effect remains unsurpassed. [Footnote 76: See also _Le Tombeau de Couperin_ in which is a very novel Rigaudon.] CHAPTER VII THE OLDER RONDO FORM One of the earliest instrumental forms to be worked out[77] was the Rondo, which is merely an extension of the _three-part_ principle of "restatement after contrast" and which, by reason of its logical appeal, has retained its place to this day. Originally the Rondo was a combination of dance and song; that is, the performers sang and danced in a circle--holding one another's hands. The music would begin with a chorus in which all joined, one of the dancers would then sing a solo, after which all would dance about and repeat the chorus; other solos would follow, the chorus being repeated after each. The characteristic feature, then, of this structure is the _continual recurrence_ to a principal motive after intervening contrasts--hence the name Rondo (French, Rondeau); exemplifying a principle found not only in primitive folk-songs and dances but in literature, _e.g._, many of the songs of Burns and the Rondeaux of Austin Dobson. For it is obvious that the form answers to the simplest requirements of unity and contrast. Frequent examples of the Rondo are found in all early instrumental composers: Bach, _e.g._, the charming one in C minor in his third Partita; Couperin, Rameau, Haydn and Mozart. It is found also in vocal works, _e.g._, Purcell's well-known song "I Attempt from Love's Sickness to Fly." From the standpoint of modern taste, however, Beethoven was--with few exceptions--the first to treat the form with real genius; and so our illustrations are taken chiefly from his works and from those of his successors. Although there need be no arbitrary limit to the alternation of the chief part with the subsidiary portions--in fact, Beethoven's humorous _Rondo Capriccio, On a Lost Farthing_ has as many as _eleven_ sections--it gradually became conventional for the form to consist of _five parts_: a first presentation and two repetitions of the main theme together with two contrasting portions called _Episodes_, to which a free Coda was often added. The form would then be A, b, A´, c, A´´, Coda--A´ and A´´ indicating that the repetition need not be _literal_, but often varied rhythmically and harmonically; not, however, so as to obliterate the original outline. For in a well-constructed Rondo the main theme must be one of such direct appeal that we _look forward_ to hearing it _again_; and the successive repetitions must be so planned that we can easily enjoy this pleasure of reminiscence. It also became customary not to block off the sections with rigid cadences but often to insert modulatory passages, thus securing a continuous flow of thought. This practise we see particularly in Beethoven and Schumann. The form which we are discussing is the so-called Older Rondo Form, clearly derived from the dance described above. Beginning[78] with Beethoven, however, we find numerous examples of a different kind of rondo treatment which developed in connection with the Sonata Form--to be explained later. The Rondo-Sonata Form, as it is generally called, is in fact a hybrid type, with certain features derived from rondo structure and certain from the pure sonata form. The Finales to Beethoven's Sonatas, when entitled Rondos, are--with few exceptions--of this Rondo-Sonata type. An excellent example, which should be well known, is the Finale of the Sonata Pathétique. Although there are many cases of _free_ treatment of the rondo principle, they are all based on one or the other of these two fundamental types. Schumann was extremely fond of this Older Rondo Form, as may be seen from his frequent practice of writing two Trios to the Scherzos of his Symphonies. A moment's thought will make clear that a Scherzo with two Trios and the customary repetitions will conform exactly to the pattern given above, _i.e._, A, b, A´, c, A´´ Coda, _e.g._, Scherzo, First Trio = First Episode, First return, Second Trio = Second Episode, Final return and Coda--five portions in all, or six when there is a Coda. For convincing examples see the Scherzos of the First and Second Symphonies. Schumann's well-known _Arabesque_ for pianoforte, op. 18, is a beautiful, clear-cut example of the form; with an interpolated modulatory passage between the first episode and first return, and a poetic Coda which has, for its closing measures, the chief motive in augmentation (already referred to on p. 45). To show Schumann's partiality for this form the student may be referred to Nos. 2 and 8 of the _Kreisleriana_ (op. 16) and to Nos. 1, 2 and 3 of the "Nachtstücke" (op. 23). The third of the _Romances_ (op. 28)--a remarkably free example in the grouping of the material and in the key-relationship--is cited in the Supplement (No. 37). An excellent example (readily accessible), popular by reason of its freedom of treatment, as well as for its inherent sparkle and dash, is the Finale of Weber's Sonata in C major, op. 24--the so-called _Moto Perpetuo_. The most famous example of this form in classical literature is undoubtedly the Finale of Beethoven's _Waldstein Sonata_, op. 53, with its melodious and easily remembered first subject, _e.g._ [Music] [Music] its two episodes in A minor and C minor (which afford most dramatic contrasts to the lyric quality of the main subject) and its glorious, long-extended Coda of about three pages.[79] [Footnote 77: For a complete account of the historical development see the article on Form in Grove's Dictionary Vol. II and Hadow's _Sonata Form_, Chapter IX.] [Footnote 78: There is an early example in the Rondo of Mozart's Sonata for Pianoforte in B-flat major.] [Footnote 79: For a complete detailed analysis of the movement see Prout, _Applied Forms_, pp. 120-121.] As stated above, the Older Rondo-Form has not become obsolete; indeed, by reason of its possibilities for emphasis and contrast it has commended itself to modern composers. Striking examples may be found in the Finale of Brahms's Pianoforte Sonata in F minor, in the Finale of Tchaikowsky's Fourth Symphony and, above all, in the Symphonic Poems of Strauss, _Don Juan_ and _Till Eulenspiegel_, in which the form is admirably adapted to the dramatic needs of these descriptive works. Additional examples, which can be readily procured, are the Slow Movement of the _Sonata Pathétique_, op. 13, Beethoven's well-known _Andante in F major_--remarkable for its brilliant Coda--and his Rondo, already cited, _On the Lost Farthing_. (See Supplement No. 38). Although there is a certain stiffness in this form these examples afford the student excellent rudimentary practise in ease of listening. CHAPTER VIII THE VARIATION FORM Monotony, as previously suggested, is more unendurable in music than in any of the other arts. We should therefore expect to find musicians inventing new devices to vary their thoughts so that the interest of the hearer might be continually sustained and refreshed. Thus there gradually grew up the form known as the Varied Air--a term meaning the presentation of the same musical material under different aspects. As far back as we can trace the development of instrumental structure, there appears this instinct for varying a simple tune by embellishments of a rhythmical and melodic nature. Examples abound in the works of the early Italian masters, in the harpsichord pieces of the English composers Byrd and Bull[80] and in the music of Couperin and Rameau. But all these Variations, however interesting from a historical point[81] of view, are very labored and lack any real poetic growth. They are, moreover, often prolonged to an interminable length--one example, as late as Handel, consisting of an Air with sixty-two Variations; prolixity or "damnable iteration" being as bad a blemish in music as in any of the other arts. In the early days of instrumental composition, about all that composers could do was "to put the theme through its paces." That is, there was no unfolding of the poetic possibilities of the melody. The successive variations were all in the same key; the harmonic basis was practically unchanged and the treatment consisted of dressing up the theme with stereotyped embellishment-figures and of systematic rhythmic animation--produced by the addition of more and more notes to each time unit. A standard illustration of this type of Variations is the so-called _Harmonious Blacksmith_ of Handel from his _Suite in E Major_. This piece owes whatever popularity it may have preserved to the sturdy swing of the main theme and to the fact that it makes no demand on the attention of the most untrained listener. In fairness we should state that on the harpsichord--with its contrasting stops and key-boards--for which the piece was composed, there is possible more variety of effect than on the modern pianoforte. [Footnote 80: We would cite the piece entitled _Les Buffons_ by Bull, and Byrd's variations to the popular tune the _Carman's Whistle_, which latter have considerable archaic charm and distinction; for Byrd was a real genius. These are readily accessible in popular editions.] [Footnote 81: Consult the comprehensive article on Variations in Grove's Dictionary, Vol. V.] Three collateral early forms deserve a passing mention because, notwithstanding a certain rigidity of structure, they have been used by the great masters for the expression of sublime thoughts. These are the Ground Bass (or, as it is sometimes called, the Basso Ostinato), the Chaconne and the Passacaglia[82] which, in modern literature, is well represented by the magnificent "tour de force" that serves as the Finale to Brahms's _Fourth Symphony_. By a Ground Bass is meant a theme, continually repeated, in the lowest voice, each time with varied upper parts. An excellent example (see Supplement No. 39) is the Aria "When I am laid in earth" from Purcell's Opera _Dido and Aeneas_. It is evident that the persistent iteration of a striking phrase in the bass gives an effect of dramatic intensity, as may be seen in the sublime "Crucifixion" of Bach's _Mass in B minor_.[83] The Chaconne and Passacaglia are old dance forms (examples of the former being found in Gluck's Ballet Music) and are closely related to the Ground Bass; since, in the majority of cases, we find the same procedure in the announcement of the theme and in its subsequent treatment. Two examples of the Chaconne from standard literature are the famous one of Bach in D minor for solo violin and Beethoven's thirty-two Variations in C minor for Pianoforte. The Passacaglia is of importance as shown by the striking example for organ in C minor by Bach on the following theme: [Music] Whoever has heard this majestic theme, which seems to bear the sorrows of the world on its shoulders, announced on the deep-sounding pedals will gain a lasting impression of the grandeur of Bach's style. [Footnote 82: For the derivation of the term consult the interesting article in Grove's Dictionary, Vol. IV.] [Footnote 83: A work before which Schumann said every musician should prostrate himself in adoration.] By the time of Haydn, the technical skill of composers had improved sufficiently so that we find in his works some genuinely interesting examples of the Variation form, _e.g._, the set on the well-known Austrian hymn from the _Kaiser Quartet in C major_--in which each of the five variations has a real individuality--and the _Variations in F minor for Pianoforte_: remarkable as an early example of the varied treatment of _two_ themes. Most of Mozart's Variations are based upon popular themes and, in general, may be considered as virtuoso pieces to show off the agility of the performer. We find occasional examples, as in the Clarinet Quintette and in the Sonata in D major, which are of more intrinsic worth. The genius of Beethoven first revealed the full possibilities of the form. In fact, so remarkable was his work that such creative composers as César Franck and d'Indy consider the basic principles for our modern development of music to be found in the Fugue of Bach and the Varied Air of Beethoven. For, deadly dull as is the Variation form when treated in a stereotyped manner, by very reason of its freedom from arbitrary rules it may be a most elastic medium for the expression of poetic genius. The composer has but to invent a striking characteristic theme, rich in potential development, and then to let it develop for as long as he can retain the interest of his hearers. Likewise for a great orator the simple rule is to state a theme on which something worth while may be said and then by presenting it in new lights and with copious illustrations to drive the truth home. The principal and significant changes which we owe to Beethoven are the following: complete freedom in variety of key, so that at times (as in his op. 34) each variation is in a new key; a frequent omission of the rigid stops at the end of each variation, _e.g._, the Slow movement of the _Fifth Symphony_ and the third movement of the _Trio_, op. 96, so that a continuous flow of thought is preserved; the practice, so often followed in modern literature, of founding variations on a double theme--of which the Finale of the _Heroic Symphony_ is a striking example. But the chief advance in Beethoven is the entirely new conception of what variations should be; not, according to him, mere mechanical manipulations of the subject matter, but vital products of the imagination, as varied as the members of a human family having the same mother. Beethoven's variations, in fact, often seem like a series of character-pieces, each with its own individuality and yet retaining an organic relationship to the main thought. His fondness for the form and his mastery over it is seen by the frequency of its use in the last Sonatas and String-Quartets. Every composer since Beethoven has written one or more works in the Variation form; but we can mention only the most beautiful examples and then pass on to the daring conceptions of the modern school. The Variations by Schubert in his String-Quartet in D minor on the Song, _Death and the Maiden_, will amply repay study, and so will the _Variations Sérieuses_, op. 54, for the pianoforte by Mendelssohn. As for Schumann, he was very happy in the use of this form, and his _Symphonic Études_, op. 13--in wealth of fancy and freedom of treatment--are quite unparalleled. His Variations for two pianofortes, op. 46, deserve also to be known. Among the finest examples since Beethoven are the numerous sets by Brahms, remarkable alike for emotional power, for free and yet logical treatment of the material and for solidity of workmanship. They include the _Variations on a theme from Handel_ for pianoforte, op. 24; the set for orchestra, op. 56a, on the _St. Anthony Choral_ of Haydn; and the two sets, op. 35, on themes from Paganini--universally conceded to be the most brilliant examples for the pianoforte in recent literature. To speak now particularly of the modern school, there are five compositions in this form which, for their daring novelty and sustained eloquence, should be familiar to every music-lover and heard as often as possible. For they are elaborate works which must be thoroughly known to be understood and loved. (1), There is the set in Tchaikowsky's Pianoforte Trio in A minor, op. 50; noteworthy for freedom of modulation and for the striking individuality given to the different transformations of the theme--two of the changes being to a Waltz and a Mazurka. (2), _The Symphonic Variations_ for Pianoforte and Orchestra of César Franck, based on two contrasting themes, one in the minor mode and one with modulations to the major. The variations are not numbered and there are no rigid stops; throughout the work Franck's marvellous power of modulation and rich harmonic texture are eloquently manifested. (3), The _Istar_ Variations for orchestra by d'Indy is one of the most original works in the whole field; in that, for dramatic reasons connected with the subject, the usual order is _reversed_ and the variations come _first_, gradually becoming more and more simple until we reach the theme itself, pure and unadorned. (4), The Symphonic Poem, _Don Quixote_, of R. Strauss, a complex set of Variations on _three_ themes which typify respectively the characters of Cervantes' story; the Knight, his attendant, Sancho Panza and Dulcinea. The variations are not confined to a merely abstract or formal treatment of the material but set before us a picture of the attributes of the characters and a description of some of their spectacular adventures. (5), Lastly the _Enigma Variations_ for orchestra by Elgar, so-called because the identity of the basic theme is not revealed. The variations are character-pieces which for individuality and charm are a lasting glory to the genius of the composer.[84] [Footnote 84: For a detailed account see the third volume of D.G. Mason's _Appreciation of Music_ series.] We shall now analyze, with suggestive comments, two[85] of the well-known sets of Beethoven: the first movement of the Sonata, op. 26, and the _Six Variations on an original theme_, op. 34. The variations from the Sonata are an early work; but, although definitely sectionalized and with only one change of tonality, they clearly reveal Beethoven's freedom of conception and his aversion to stereotyped treatment. The theme itself is a suave, appealing melody, already cited as an example of a sixteen-measure sentence, and admirably suited for variation purposes, since it arouses at once the expectation of the listener.[86] The first variation is a kind of shadowy, mysterious outline of the theme just presented, as if the composer were musing upon the latent possibilities of his material. There is a quickening of interest in the second variation which, with the theme in the bass, may be likened to a 'cello solo of a mildly bravura nature. (Note the fantastic accents on weak beats in measures 18, 22, 23, and 24.) In the third variation comes a complete contrast in mood; the key is changed to A-flat minor and the theme is transformed into an elegy, all its joy crushed out. The movement abounds in impassioned dissonances, always emphasized by _sf_ marks, and the throbbing pulsations of the bass--in the second phrase--give a tragic intensity of feeling. With the fourth variation there enters that spirit of playfulness so characteristic of Beethoven--the movement being, in fact, a miniature Scherzo. The fifth and last variation is an idyllic revery in which the composer reviews and amplifies the many beautiful fancies which his imagination has conceived, and closes with a coda, based on the motive of the main theme, of tranquillity and satisfaction. [Footnote 85: These compositions are not printed in the Supplement, as it may be assumed that the student can readily procure them. They are published in a number of editions.] [Footnote 86: For some illuminating comments on the whole Sonata see Baxter Perry's _Descriptive Analysis of Pianoforte Works_. (The Theodore Presser Co.)] The set in F major, op. 34, is a striking illustration of Beethoven's fondness for mediant relationship, since no two variations are in the same key; the tonic of each being a _third_ below that of the preceding. The Key-scheme is F, D, B-flat, G, E-flat, C minor; and then, through the descent of a fifth, back to the home-key, or in actual notes: [Music] The first variation is a highly embellished treatment of the opening theme; the melodic outline being merely hinted at in unimportant parts of the phraseology, _e.g._ [Music: original theme] [Music: 1st Variation] Written in the old ornate style, it is of interest chiefly for the pianistic effect. In the second Variation we have a change both of time and key; the impression being that of a distant march for men's voices or for soft trombones. The third Variation, again with change of time and key, illustrates Beethoven's fondness for a subtle outlining of the theme. In the fourth Variation the theme is transformed into a Minuet of graceful swing; and in the next Variation a strong contrast is afforded by the Funeral March, the minor mode being used for the first time. The last Variation--in the home-key--gives a brilliant summing up of the characteristic features of the theme. Note especially the reminiscent effect of the closing measures. CHAPTER IX THE SONATA-FORM AND ITS FOUNDERS, EMMANUEL BACH AND HAYDN We have now set forth, with representative illustrations, all the fundamental forms of instrumental music, _i.e._, the Canon, Fugue and Invention, the Two and Three-part forms, the Rondo and the Varied Air. Through the perfecting of these means of expression music became a living language of communication, ready for that development which, through the genius of the Classic and Romantic masters, it was destined to show. The essential feature of all the above forms is the emphasis laid on _one theme_. This is strictly true of the polyphonic forms, the Canon, Fugue[87] and Invention and of the Two-part form; and although in the Three-part form we have a second theme, this is merely for contrast and is often of rather slight import. The same comment holds true of the Rondo where, notwithstanding the new contrasting themes of the episodes, the centre of attraction is the _single main theme_, to which constant recurrence is made. Obviously the Varied Air is the expansion of a single theme. But the principal characteristic of the Sonata-Form, now to be studied, is that we find therein _two themes_ of coequal importance, which may well be compared to the hero and heroine of a novel or the two leading characters in a drama. It is true that a composer will often in the creations of his imagination show a marked preference for one theme over the other; just as, in the family group to which the child owes its life, either the man or the woman is likely to be the stronger character. But as there can be no child without two parents, so the organism of the Sonata-Form derives its vitality from the presence and interaction of two living musical personalities, the first and second themes. The first theme is so called because it is the one first presented and because it generally furnishes the prevailing rhythmic pulse of the movement. Yet the second theme,--exactly as important in its own way, is often of a greater beauty; its title of "second theme" implying nothing of a secondary nature, but merely its position in order of appearance. No greater step was ever taken in the growth of musical structure than this introduction of a second coequal theme; for the principle of duality, of action and reaction between two forces, runs throughout nature both human and physical, as is seen from the import of the terms: man and woman, active and passive, positive and negative, heat and cold, light and darkness. The first theme, in fact, often resembles, in its vigor and directness, a masculine personality; while the second theme, in grace and tenderness, resembles the feminine. As long as music confined itself to the presentation of but one main theme it was hampered by the same limitations which beset the early Greek tragedians, in whose primitive plays[88] we find but one chief actor. The introduction of a second theme can not be attributed to _any single man_; indeed it resulted from a tendency of the times, the demand of which was for more homophonic melodies rather than for an elaborate polyphonic treatment of a single one. Embryonic traces of a second theme we find in D. Scarlatti (see Supplement No. 40) and in Sebastian Bach himself.[89] Scarlatti,[90] in fact, was often hovering close to the Sonata-Form and in the example just cited actually achieved it. The systematic employment of the second-theme principle, however, is commonly attributed to Emmanuel Bach (1714-1788), although an undue amount of praise, by certain German scholars, has been given his achievements to the exclusion of musicians from other nations who were working along the same lines. Any fair historical account of the development of the Sonata-Form should recognize the Italians, Sammartini and Galuppi; the gifted Belgian Gossec, who exercised such a marked influence in Paris, and above all, the Bohemian Johann Stamitz (1717-1757), the leader of the famous Mannheim Orchestra, of whom we shall speak further when we come to the orchestra as a medium. In many of Stamitz's Symphonies we find the essential first-movement structure (_i.e._, tripartite grouping with a clear second theme) and, as Riemann says in his _Handbuch der Musikgeschichte_, "Their sincere phraseology, their boldness of conception and the masterly _thematic development_ give Stamitz's works lasting value. Haydn and Mozart rest absolutely upon his shoulders."[91] [Footnote 87: Except in the comparatively rare cases where we have a Fugue on two subjects.] [Footnote 88: Illuminating comments on this point will be found in _Outlines of Musical Form_ from W.H. Hadow's _Studies in Modern Music_ (2nd Series).] [Footnote 89: See the prelude in D major of the second book of the _Well-tempered Clavichord_.] [Footnote 90: For further information consult the first chapter of J.S. Shedlock's _The Pianoforte Sonata_.] [Footnote 91: For an extended account of this development see the second chapter, Vol. II, of _The Art of Music_ (The National Society of Music, N.Y.). See also Chapter XIX of Pratt's _History of Music_.] The other marked characteristic of the Sonata-Form is the _second_ part which is known as the Development Section; for, as we shall soon explain, the structure as a whole is tripartite. In this portion of the movement the composer has an opportunity to improvise, as it were, with his material, using one theme or both as already presented. Dry and labored development sections may, of course, be found in certain Sonatas and Symphonies, but in the great works of such masters as Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikowsky and d'Indy the development is the most exciting part of the movement. The hearer is conducted through a musical excursion; every device of rhythmic variety, of modulatory change and polyphonic imitation being employed to enhance the beauty of the themes and to reveal their latent possibilities. Before going further, it is well to point out a confusion which often arises between the terms Sonata and Sonata-Form. When we speak of Sonata-_Form_ we mean invariably the structural treatment as to number of themes, key-relationship, etc., of _any single_ movement within a series.[92] By the term Sonata is meant a composition generally in three or four movements, _e.g._, First Movement, Slow Movement, Minuet or Scherzo and Finale; of which, in most examples of the classic school, the First Movement--and often the last--were in Sonata-Form. An alternative name, indeed, for Sonata-Form is First Movement Form. Beginning with Beethoven, however, composers began to exhibit great freedom in the application of the Sonata-Form. We find Sonatas of Beethoven, notably the set op. 31, in which every movement (even the Scherzo) is in Sonata Form or a modification thereof; on the other hand, there are compositions, entitled Sonatas, in which not a single movement is in pure Sonata-Form, _e.g._, Beethoven's Twelfth Sonata, op. 26. These comments apply equally to many other large instrumental works. For a symphony is merely a Sonata for Orchestra, a String-Quartet a composition--of the same general type--for four solo instruments[93] and there is, furthermore, a large group of ensemble compositions: Sonatas for Violin (or any solo-instrument) and Pianoforte; Trios, often for unusual combinations, _e.g._, Brahms's _Trio for Violin, Horn and Pianoforte_; Quintets and even Septets--in all of which the distinction must be made between the terms Sonata and Sonata-Form. Nor is there any rigid rule in regard to number of movements or the moods expressed therein. The classic Sonata, Symphony or Quartet, as we have stated above, generally contained three or four movements, of which the first would be direct and vigorous in nature--a summons to attention--cast in sonata-form, with a wealth of material organically treated, and requiring from the listener concentrated attention. The second movement was generally much simpler in form, affording relief after the tension of the preceding movement--its themes of a lyric nature, often with great depth of emotion, sometimes even of tragic import. The third movement, Minuet or Scherzo, would portray the light, humorous side of life; and the Finale, joyful and optimistic--its themes often bearing strongly the sense of finality--would close the work with a general feeling of satisfaction. It was Beethoven who first modified these principles to suit his own poetic needs. Thus we find some of his Sonatas with only two movements; some have three, some have four. One of Schumann's Symphonies contains five movements and Rubinstein's _Ocean Symphony_ seven! When we reach the modern school, we shall see further freedom as to number, order and type of movements. [Footnote 92: The form is also sometimes used independently, as in Brahms's _Rhapsody in G minor_ and often, of course, in the Overture.] [Footnote 93: _I.e._, 1st Violin, 2d Violin, Viola and Violoncello.] We are now prepared to sum up the essential characteristics of the Sonata-Form; for there is no structure in which it is more important for the music-lover to acquire the art of listening easily, naturally and with a minimum of friction. The Sonata-Form is the instrumental form "par excellence"--the Gothic Cathedral[94] of music--and has retained its place, not because of any slavish regard for form as such, but because it has been worked out, perfected and utilized by the greatest of the composers. Any form with a beginning, a middle and an ending, _i.e._, presenting material worthy of consideration, which allows this material to grow and realize its inherent possibilities and then sums the matter up in a convincing, objective close; which, furthermore, exemplifies the great principle of Duality, _i.e._, reveals _two_ musical personalities, has as little need for argumentative sanction as a tree or a human being. The Sonata-Form--often, to be sure, with free modifications--predominates in all the large instrumental compositions of the Classic, Romantic and Modern Composers, notably of such men as Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, César Franck, Tchaikowsky, d'Indy and Sibelius. Anyone unable readily to follow movements in this form, if he thinks he is receiving the complete message of the music, is his own dupe. It would be as logical to expect to enjoy the beauties of architecture without perceiving the difference between a nave and a bowling-alley. The obvious way to understand the meaning of a language is to know something of the principles of structure and expression in that language. Music is in very truth a language; and far too many people get from it nothing save the appeal which comes from its emotional power. This exciting experience is important, we may frankly acknowledge, but there are no reasons, save apathy and indifference, why the hearer should not have all this and more too. There is no conflict between warm emotions and an intelligent, well-trained mind. They should go hand in hand; and in any complete artistic appreciation each is indispensable.[95] [Footnote 94: See the eloquent comments on this analogy by d'Indy in his _Course in Composition_, Vol. II, Chap. 5.] [Footnote 95: "Art is not more a riot of the passions than it is a debauch of the senses; it contains, no doubt, sensuous and emotional elements, the importance of which there is no need to undervalue, but it is only artistic if it subordinate them to the paramount claims of reason." W.H. Hadow, _Studies in Modern Music_ (second series), preface.] The three main divisions of the Sonata-Form, with their essential features, are the following: (1) the Exposition, in which two themes in different tonalities are announced for the consideration--and, as the composer hopes, the pleasure--of the hearer. In the works of Haydn and Mozart this contrast of key was invariably that of Tonic and Dominant, _e.g._, C major and G major, or of major and relative minor, _e.g._, A-flat major and F minor. Beginning, however, with Beethoven great emphasis has been laid on _mediant_ relationship, _e.g._, C major and E major or C major and A-flat major; and in modern composers[96] this more stimulating change has largely superseded the former tonic and dominant grouping, _e.g._, Brahms's _Third Symphony_. We thus see that the harmonic feature of the Exposition is _Duality_ of Key-relationship. Between these two main themes there is always a modulatory connection or Bridge Passage which, in the time of Haydn, was generally of a very perfunctory, stereotyped character. Wagner once sarcastically remarked that Haydn's transitions reminded him of the clatter of dishes between courses at a royal feast. In Mozart we find the bridge-passage more deftly planned, more organically connected with what precedes and follows; but it was Beethoven who, in this portion of the movement, first revealed its possibilities. Throughout his works the bridge-passage is never a mere mechanical modulation or a floundering about until the introduction of the second theme, but is so conceived that the interest of the hearer is increasingly aroused until, at the entrance of the second theme, he is in the highest state of expectancy.[97] A bridge-passage of this kind often has a subsidiary theme of its own, or even several melodic phrases, and is planned as carefully as the action by which a dramatist leads up to the entrance of his heroine. After the second theme we generally find a closing theme to round out the Exposition as a whole. This practice dates from Haydn and has been much expanded by modern composers. Witness the glorious climactic effect in César Franck's _Symphony_ and in Brahms's _D major Symphony_ of the closing themes in the Expositions of the first movements. For many years it was the invariable custom to repeat the Exposition, and in Classic Symphonies we always find a double bar with marks of repeat and two endings. This practice was not an integral part of the form but was adopted so that the hearer, by going over the themes of the Exposition twice, might follow more intelligently their growth in the Development. With the advance in public appreciation this repeating of the Exposition has been largely abandoned; for there is no doubt that to begin all over again, when a certain objective point has been reached, breaks the continuous flow of the movement.[98] [Footnote 96: Some composers have also experimented with still freer key-relationships.] [Footnote 97: For striking examples see the Expositions of the first movements of Beethoven's _Third Symphony_ and of Tchaikowsky's _Sixth Symphony_.] [Footnote 98: The ultra-conservative attitude of Brahms is shown by his retention of the double bar and repeat, although this is often ignored by modern conductors.] (2) The Development, for which the Germans have the happy name of "Freie Phantasie," or free phantasy; the composer thus giving rein to his imagination and doing whatever he pleases, so long as he holds the interest of his hearers and neither becomes verbose nor indulges in mere mechanical manipulation. There are, alas! developments in which the composer exhausts his themes and his hearers too;[99] but on work of this kind, since it is not real development but labored jugglery, no powder need be wasted. Beethoven began the practice, in his Developments, of not confining himself to the themes of the Exposition but of introducing an entirely new theme, whenever the main material had fulfilled its purpose. The single most exciting factor in a good development is the freedom and wealth of modulation revealed by the daring genius of the creator; the effect being Plurality of Key-relationship, in distinction from the two closely related keys of the Exposition. It would often seem as if we were taken up into high mountains or borne away to distant seas. For illustrations of this "free phantasy" note the end of the Development in the first movement of Beethoven's _Second Symphony_ where, after great stress has been laid in the Exposition on the two basic keys of D major and A major, we are left in the distant tonality of C-sharp major and are then whirled back, by a dramatic change, into the home-key of the third part. One of the most interesting studies in the workings of a great mind is to observe how Beethoven, in his developments, allows the excitement to subside and yet never entirely die out, and how deftly he leads the hearer onward to the summing up of the main themes of the exposition. [Footnote 99: It was probably a development of this kind which called forth the characteristic comment from Debussy who once remarked to a friend at a concert, "Let us flee! he is going to develop."] (3) The Recapitulation or Résumé, in which both the themes of the Exposition are reasserted, each in the home key--a strong final emphasis thus being laid on _Unity_ of Tonality. The bridge-passage has to be correspondingly changed, for now the modulation is between two themes _both_ in the _same key_. To achieve such a modulation is quite a "tour de force" as every musician knows, and often taxed the ingenuity even of the great Beethoven. The skill by which he always made the second theme sound fresh and vital is astounding. For a case of "academic fumbling"--mere treading of water--in this adjustment of key relationship, see the Recapitulation of the first movement of Brahms's Second Symphony. To secure unbroken continuity and to avoid vain repetitions[100] there is no portion of the Sonata-Form which has been more modified by the inventive genius of modern composers and by the tendency exemplified in the Symphonic Poem (to be explained in due season). The general validity of Restatement, as shown in the Recapitulation of the Sonata-Form, cannot be questioned; for that depends, as so often pointed out, upon the human craving to enjoy once more, after intervening contrast, something which has originally given pleasure. Furthermore this sound psychological principle finds an analogy in our own life: with its early years of striving, its middle period of development and its closing years of climactic retrospect and satisfaction. There is a corresponding structural treatment in the dénoûment of a drama. In the classic composers, the Recapitulation is almost always a literal repetition of the Exposition, although Beethoven began to be freer, _e.g._, in the climax of the Coriolanus overture, where he modifies the form to meet the dramatic needs of the subject.[101] Modern composers, however, have felt that much of this repetition was superfluous; and when they do repeat both themes, one or the other is freely varied and made still more eloquent. For examples, see the résumé of the first movements of Franck's _Symphony_, of Brahms's _First Symphony_ and of Tchaikowsky's _Sixth_. The Recapitulation is often abridged by omitting the first theme altogether and dwelling exclusively on the second; as for example, in the Finale of Schumann's _Fourth Symphony_ and in Sinigaglia's Overture, _Le Baruffe Chiozzotte_.[102] [Footnote 100: See Grétry's amusing comments on the Sonata-Form cited by Romain Rolland in the essays _Musicians of Former Days_.] [Footnote 101: See also Wagner's comments on the _Third Leonora Overture_, cited by Ernest Newman in his _Musical Studies_, pp. 134-135.] [Footnote 102: Additional illustrations of this treatment may be found in Chabrier's Overture to _Gwendoline_ and in the first movement of F.S. Converse's _String Quartet_.] It remains to speak of the beginning and end of the Sonata-Form. With Haydn it became the custom, not necessarily invariable, to introduce the body of the movement by a Prelude which, in early days, was of slight texture and import--often a mere preliminary "flourish of trumpets," a presenting of arms. In Mozart we find some examples of more artistic treatment, notably in the Overture to the _Magic Flute_ and in the prelude to the C major Quartet with its stimulating dissonances. But in this case, as in so many others, it was Beethoven who first showed what a Prelude should be: a subtle means of arousing the interest and expectancy of the hearer; the effect as carefully planned as the portico leading to a temple. To usher in the theme of the Exposition in a truly exciting manner every means of modulation and rhythm is employed; famous illustrations being the introductions to the first movements of the Second, Fourth and Seventh symphonies; and, in modern literature, those of the first movements of Brahms's _First Symphony_ and of Tchaikowsky's _Fifth_. It also became customary to prolong the end of the movement by what is termed a Coda; the same tendency being operative that is found in the peroration to a speech or in the spire of a cathedral, _i.e._, the human instinct to end whatever we attempt as impressively and completely as possible. This Coda, which, in Haydn and Mozart, was often a mere iteration of trite chords--a ceasing to go--was so expanded by Beethoven that it was the real glory of the whole movement. In fact so many eloquent treatments of the main material were reserved for the Coda that it often became a _second_ development; and such was its scope that the form may be considered to have _four_ parts instead of three, _i.e._, 1, Exposition, 2, Development, 3, Recapitulation, 4, Coda; parts 4 and 2 balancing each other in the same way as 3 and 1. For two of the most famous examples in all Beethoven literature see the Codas to the First movement of the _Third Symphony_ and to the Finale of the _Eighth_. We now present a tabular view of the Sonata-Form summing up the features just commented upon. THE SONATA-FORM OR FIRST-MOVEMENT FORM ___________________________________________________________________________ A | B | A´ Exposition | Development | Recapitulation __________________________|___________________________|____________________ | | Introduction (optional) | Free treatment and | First Theme, First Theme | expansion, especially | connecting passage Modulatory bridge-passage | modulatory and rhythmic, | leading to Second Theme | of the themes already | Second Theme (often Closing Theme | presented | in home-key, but (Duality of | Sometimes new material | not always) Key-relationship) | introduced | Closing Theme | (Plurality of Key) | Coda | | (Special stress | | laid on the main | | tonality. Unity of | | Key) __________________________|___________________________|____________________ For actual musical examples it seems best to begin with the works of Haydn. This exclusion of Philip Emmanuel Bach is not meant to minimize what we owe him for his preliminary efforts in formulating the tripartite Sonata structure, with its two themes and its Development portion. Haydn is on record as saying that it was his study of six Sonatas of Emmanuel Bach which laid the foundations for his own instrumental style. But on the whole, the compositions of Emmanuel Bach are of interest rather from a historical point of view than from one purely artistic. The object of this book, furthermore, is not to give a complete account of the evolution[103] of the Sonata-Form; but, accepting the existence of standard works which employ this form, to enable the student to gain a more complete appreciation of those works. P.E. Bach wrote in the so-called "galant style"[104] of the period which has, for our modern ears, too much embellishment and too many meaningless, rhapsodic passages. He made a sincere effort to invent pure instrumental melody, _i.e._, musical expression suited to various instruments that should be unhampered by the too definite balance of the dance forms, by polyphonic complexities or by the conventional artifices of operatic style. But though he wrote skilfully for his instrument and though his style has a certain quaint charm, on the whole it is lacking in genuine melodic warmth and feeling. These qualities alone keep works immortal.[105] [Footnote 103: Those interested in this development should consult _The Pianoforte Sonata_ by J.S. Shedlock, and above all, d'Indy's _Course of Musical Composition_, Part III.] [Footnote 104: This, according to d'Indy, was so-called because pleasing to the ladies who played an important part in the elaborate court ceremonial of that day.] [Footnote 105: Six of P.E. Bach's Sonatas edited by von Bülow are readily accessible and some excellent comments upon the most significant ones may be found in Shedlock (see above).] In Josef Haydn (1782-1809) we are face to face with a musician of a different type. Haydn is popularly known as the father of the Sonata, the Symphony and the String-Quartet; but, according to Edward Dickinson,[106] this estimate is something of an exaggeration, for "it overlooks the fact that a large number of composers were struggling with the same problem and working along similar lines. Haydn was simply the greatest in _genius_ of the instrumental writers of his day. His works have lived by virtue of the superiority, _i.e._, the greater spontaneity and vitality, of their contents. He should be called the 'foster-father,' rather than the father of the symphony and quartet for he raised them from feebleness to strength and authority." To him must be given the honor of establishing the types of instrumental composition which became the foundations of modern music. Haydn, moreover, was the first musician since Sebastian Bach who had a real personality which may be felt in his works. To speak of a piece of music as "Haydnish" conveys as distinct a meaning as to refer to a poetic stanza as "Miltonic." When Haydn arrived on the scene, music--through the labors of many earnest workers--had become a language of definite expression, with a logical grammar and with principles of structure. The time was ripe for the use of this language in a more artistic way, _i.e._, for a more intense personal expression and for more subtle treatment of the material. The composer could count upon the public following his points; and with Haydn, whose heart beat in sympathy with the common people, music begins to be a truly popular art. [Footnote 106: See his _Study of the History of Music_, p. 154.] The striking features in Haydn's works are three: (1) The wealth of spontaneous and sparkling melodies, for he was born with this lyric gift and never had to cudgel his wits for a tune. That instrumental melody could make such sudden progress as we find between the dryness of Emmanuel Bach and the freshness of Haydn, was long a puzzle to scholars, and only recently has the proof been submitted that Haydn was largely of Croatian ancestry. Now the Croatians of Southern Austria are one of the most musical races in the world, with a wealth of folk-songs and dances. Haydn therefore did not have to "invent" melodies in the ordinary sense of the term; they were his birthright. Many of his melodies are adaptations of actual folk-songs[107] or original melodies coming from an imagination saturated with the folk-song spirit.[108] For this reason they seem like wild flowers in their perennial freshness and charm. (2) The precision and clarity with which his ideas are presented. These qualities were due to his well-balanced and logical intellect that impressed everyone with whom he came in contact. His style, moreover, was the result of indefatigable labor, for he was largely self-taught. If the balance of his phrases and the general symmetry of his style seem to our modern taste a bit excessive, we must remember that he was a pioneer and could run no risks in the way of non-acceptance of his message through puzzling complexities. Everything must be so clear that the ordinary mind could at once accept it. Nor is the "sing-song," "square-toed" element so prevalent in Haydn as is commonly supposed. In his melody a distinct feature--no doubt of racial origin--is his fondness for odd rhythms of three, five and seven measures, of which examples abound in the Quartets. In his Minuets and Finales there is a rollicking effect of high spirits which could never have been attained by mere labored pedantry. In his mature works we find a pervading spontaneity which is one of the outstanding examples in all literature of "art concealing art." Never do these works smell of the lamp, and let us remember it is far easier to criticize them than to create them.[109] [Footnote 107: See for example the _Salomon Symphony in E-flat_, every movement of which is founded on a Croatian folk-song.] [Footnote 108: For a comprehensive account of this whole subject consult the _Oxford History of Music_, Vol. V, Chapter VIII, and Mason's _Beethoven and His Forerunners_, essay on Haydn.] [Footnote 109: Witness for example, the attitude taken by Wallace in his _Threshold of Music_, pp. 148-153.] (3) The skillful and eloquent manner in which Haydn adapted his ideas to his favorite media of expression: the orchestra and the string-quartet. Although he wrote a number of pianoforte sonatas, these works, on the whole, do not represent his best thought. For they were composed in the transitional period between the waning influence of the harpsichord and the advent of the pianoforte, not yet come to its own. But as for the orchestra, Haydn established[110] the grouping of the three so-called choirs of strings, wood-wind and brass; to which were gradually added the instruments of percussion. In his works we begin to enjoy orchestral effect for its own sake: the dashing vivacity of the strings, the mellowness of the wood-wind, the sonority and grandeur of the brass. Instrumental works had formerly been composed in black and white, but now we have the interplay of orchestral colors. No less paramount was Haydn's influence in the handling of the four solo instruments known as the String Quartet. In his Quartets the voices are so highly individualized that it seems as if four intelligent and witty persons were holding a musical conversation. Such melodic and rhythmic freedom were hitherto unknown and his style became the point of departure for modern practice.[111] Both Mozart and Beethoven, those great masters of the String-Quartet, acknowledged their debt of gratitude to Haydn. His success in establishing the formation of the orchestra and the string-quartet was chiefly due to the inestimable advantage he enjoyed of being, for so many years, chapel-master to those celebrated patrons of music the Princes Paul and Nicholas Esterhazy, at whose country-seat of Esterhaz he had at his disposal, for free experimentation, a fine body of players.[112] Here Haydn worked from 1762 until 1790; and, to quote his own words, "could, as conductor of an orchestra, make experiments, observe what produced an effect and be as bold as I pleased. I was cut off from the world, there was no one to confuse or torment me and I was forced to become original."[113] [Footnote 110: For the early and significant achievements in orchestral effect of the Mannheim Orchestra under its famous leader Stamitz, see _The Art of Music_, Vol. 8, Chapter II.] [Footnote 111: For interesting comments on the String Quartets see Hadden's _Life of Haydn_, pp. 174-175.] [Footnote 112: _The Oxford History of Music_, Vol. V, Chapter I, and _The Present State of Music in Germany_ by Burney present a vivid picture of the times and of the results of 18th century patronage.] [Footnote 113: For an entertaining account of the two London visits, which took place during the latter part of his career, see the essay _Haydn in London_ by Krehbiel in his _Music and Manners_.] As to the formal side of Haydn's work, he is responsible for several distinct improvements. The different divisions of the movement are more clearly defined--sometimes perhaps, as we look back, a bit rigidly--but no more so than was necessary for a public just beginning to follow easily the main outlines of the form. Haydn leads up to his objective points in a clear-cut, logical way and there is little of "running off into the sand" or of those otherwise aimless passages so prevalent in Emmanuel Bach. In his best works, notably in many of the Quartets, there is also more individuality secured for the second theme;[114] although for highly personified and moving second themes we have to await the greater genius of Mozart and Beethoven. Whenever we are inclined to call Haydn's style old-fashioned we must remember that he wrote before the note of intense personal expression--the so-called subjective element, prominent in Beethoven--had come to the fore. The time just prior to Haydn had been called the "Pig-tail period" (Zopf-Periode) in reference to the stiff and precise dress and manners which had their counterpart in formality of artistic expression. Only towards the end of his career do we feel that breath of freedom in life and art which was generated by the French Revolution (beginning in 1791) and by the many political and social changes of that stirring period. From Haydn on, much more attention should be paid to the content and meaning of the music than to the formal handling of the material. In all worthy music, in fact, the chief point of interest is the _music itself_ which speaks to us in its own language of sound and rhythm. A knowledge of form is but a means to an end: for the composer, that he may express himself clearly and convincingly, and for the listener, that he may readily receive the message set forth. In Haydn's music we find the expression of a real personality--though of an artless, child-like type, without great depth of emotion or the tragic intensity of a Beethoven. Haydn was not a philosopher, or a man of broad vision. During his epoch, artists hardly dared to be introspective. His imagination gave birth to music, simple though it was, as freely as the earth puts forth flowers; but, although he wore a wig, he had a heart which was in good working operation even in his sixty-fourth year when, during his London visit, he fell in love with a charming widow, Madame Schroeter, whom he would have married had not his wife been still alive. [Footnote 114: In many cases Haydn's second theme is merely a varied version of the first.] We should acquire the catholic taste to enjoy every composer for what he really was and not criticise him for what he was not--a state which would imply necessarily different conditions. In criticism there is no worse error, or one more often made, than that of blaming Haydn because he was not Beethoven; or, in our times, Tchaikowsky because his music does not resemble that of Brahms. Blasé pedants often call Haydn's music "tame"; we might as well apply that adjective to the antics of a sportive kitten. As for the "amiable prattle" of his style we do not speak in a derogatory way of the fresh, innocent voices of children, though we need not listen to them continually. Haydn, in short, is Haydn,[115] and the vitality and sincerity of his works will always keep them immortal. In these feverish days we may dwell upon the simplicity of "Papa Haydn," as he was affectionately called; who would kneel down before beginning work, and who inscribed his scores "In nomine Domini." His modest estimate of his own powers cannot fail to touch our hearts. "I know," he said, "that God has bestowed a talent upon me, and I thank him for it. I think I have done my duty, and been of use in my generation by my works; let others do the same." [Footnote 115: Haydn's life is of great interest in showing the traits which are reflected in his music. Everyone should read the biography in Grove's Dictionary, Vol. II, p. 348, and the excellent life by M. Brenet in _Les Maîtres de la Musique_.] We shall now make a few comments on the illustrations in the Supplement (see Exs. No. 41 and 42): the Finale of the _Sonata for Pianoforte in E-flat major_ and the first movement of the so-called _Surprise Symphony in G major_. Haydn, of all composers, needs little verbal elucidation; his music speaks for itself and everyone must be sensitive to its vitality and charm. We regret that it is not practical to give examples from the Quartets which, in many respects--especially in the Minuets with their inexhaustible invention[116] and their bubbling spirits--represent Haydn at his best. But the real effect of his Quartets is so bound up with idiomatic treatment of the strings that in any transcription for pianoforte the music suffers grievously. It is through the score, however, that everyone should become familiar, with the contents of the Quartets in C major, op. 76, and D major, op. 64; the Finale of the latter being one of the supreme examples in all chamber literature[117] of rhythmic vitality. [Footnote 116: Haydn himself used to speak of his melodic invention as "a stream which bursts forth from an overflowing reservoir."] [Footnote 117: In every large city there are, of course, frequent opportunities to hear the Quartets of Haydn played by such famous organizations as the Flonzaley Quartet etc. The student is urged to take advantage of these occasions.] The Finale of the E-flat sonata, in strict Sonata-form, begins with a lively eight-measure phrase which is at once repeated a tone higher. The extension of the sentence shows Haydn's freedom in phraseology; for, beginning with measure 17, we should have to count the measures 1, 2, 3, 3a, 4, 5, 6, 6a, 7, 7a, 8, 8a. In the second theme, which begins in the 44th measure, note the piquant dissonances[118] coupled with sforzando accents. Haydn surely liked spice as well as anyone! The rest of the Exposition is taken up with closing passages which accentuate the tonality of the second theme--B-flat major. The Development needs no comment, as the correspondence between the original material and Haydn's treatment is perfectly clear. The Recapitulation is a literal repetition of the Exposition, with the two themes as usual in the tonic key. The movement may be considered an example of Sonata-form in its clearest manifestation, hence an excellent one for preliminary analytical study. [Footnote 118: Those who erroneously think that there is nothing of the dissonant element in Haydn should examine the Prelude to _The Creation_--a real anticipation, in its use of the chromatic element, of _Tristan and Isolde_.] In the first movement of the _Surprise Symphony_, before the body of the work begins, we have an early example of the Prelude. This slow Prelude, short though it be, is most carefully planned; with its crescendo from _pp_ to a _sf_ forte and its free modulation it arouses a genuine feeling of expectancy. The first theme of the Exposition (Vivace Assai) is a happy illustration of Haydn's sparkling rhythm, and as tossed off by the violins is of irresistible gaiety. The reader is asked to remember that the comments on this symphony--and on all subsequent symphonic works--are based upon the orchestral score; also that the composition, when separated from its orchestral dress, necessarily loses much of its real eloquence. Thus the first theme, of a folk-dance character, is a typical violin melody; only strings--with their incisiveness and power of subtle phrasing--can fully express its piquancy. For private study or for class-room work, a practical version is that for four hands; or better still, when possible, the arrangement for two pianofortes.[119] The second phrase of the first theme is considerably expanded by repetition, as if unable to stop from sheer exuberance, but finally reaches a cadence in the dominant key in the 32nd measure. We are at once taken back, however, to the home-key of G major; and, in measure 40, the first theme is repeated, this time delicately embellished with phrases on the flute. From now on, by reason of the emphasis laid on the key of D major, it is evident that we are in the transitional passage and are heading towards the announcement of the second theme. It must be said that Haydn does not drive very straight at his mark; though it is a pleasant touch of variety in measures 55-57 to introduce the main theme in the minor mode, and though the fiery violin passages in the following measures give an air of considerable excitement. What stands for the second theme begins in measure 67. This portion of the movement has no theme with genuine individuality, but consists of running passages--based exclusively on tonic and dominant harmonies in the new key, and of little import save one of general vivacity. It is, however, decidedly alive--not stagnant or flabby--and in the orchestra it all "comes off." We are rewarded, finally, by a clear-cut closing theme of jaunty rhythm, _e.g._, [Music] which Haydn liked so much that it is presented twice, the second time slightly embellished. The Exposition closes with the conventional insistence upon a strong cadence in the key of the second theme. The Development begins with some rather fragmentary treatment of the first theme; then, after some fugitive modulation into flat keys, contents itself with running passages and a series of iterated notes. Of organic and sustained development, such as Haydn indeed sometimes attained, there is little trace. Even so we must be chary of sweeping condemnation; for there are well-planned dynamic contrasts and the instruments are used in such a natural way--especially the figure in the double basses (measures 149-153)--that the scene is one of animation, though perhaps no more than one of aimless gambols. There is sufficient modulation, so that the principle of Plurality of key is carried out. We are suddenly but gracefully led back, in measure 155, to the repetition of the first theme, thus beginning the Recapitulation. This portion, with certain abbreviations, is an almost exact duplication of the first part and emphasizes the main tonality of G major. That Haydn was not forced to this literal repetition through any lack of fancy is shown by the skilful amplification of the first theme, in measures 177-184. The whole movement sparkles with sunshine; and those ponderous "heavy-weights" who criticise it because it is not deep or "soulful" are looking for qualities which the music does not pretend to contain. It is the work of a wholesome, cheerful-hearted man expressing through his favorite language his joy in life. In listening to the music we have the same delight as in wandering by the side of a rippling brook. The three remaining movements of the Symphony require little comment; being readily accessible they are not given in the Supplement. The second movement, a set of stereotyped variations, contains the explosive chord which gave to the work its descriptive title. Needless to say that this chord does not "surprise" _our_ modern ears to any great extent. The Minuet is one of Haydn's best--full of queer antics in rhythm and modulation. The Finale (Allegro di molto), in the Rondo Sonata form, is the acme of Haydn's vivacity and is a "tour de force" of brilliant writing for the strings. In many passages they seem fairly to burn. [Footnote 119: All symphonic scores give a much better effect when performed on two pianofortes than in a four-hand arrangement for a single instrument. The freedom in control of both pedals possessed by each player secures a greater richness and sonority of tone and it is much easier to make prominent voices stand out in relief.] Haydn's position in the development of music is of the first importance. Whatever his works may "mean," they contain a rhythmic vitality which will keep them alive for ever, and their "child-like cheerfulness and drollery" will charm away care and sorrow as long as the world shall last. CHAPTER X MOZART. THE PERFECTION OF CLASSIC STRUCTURE AND STYLE Although Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus[120] (1756-1791), was, in regard to art problems, no more of a broad thinker than Haydn (Mozart and Schubert being pre-eminently men whose whole nature centered in music), yet on hearing his works we are aware that aspects of form and content have certainly changed for the better. In the first place he was more highly gifted than Haydn; he had from his infancy the advantage of a broad cosmopolitan experience, and he was dimly conscious of the expanding possibilities of musical expression. It is a perfectly fair distinction to consider Haydn an able, even brilliant prose-writer, and Mozart a poet. Haydn we can account for, but Mozart is the genius "born, not made"--defying classification--and his inspired works seem to fall straight from the blue of Heaven. Whereas Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert were all of very lowly parentage[121] (their mothers being cooks--a blessing on their heads!), Mozart's father and mother were people of considerable general cultivation, and in particular the father, Leopold Mozart, was an educated man and somewhat of a composer himself, who since 1743 had been in the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg, as director of his private orchestra. An excellent violinist, he had written and published a treatise on violin playing, which for many years was the standard work on the subject. Both parents were noted for their good looks, were, moreover, of strong character and highly respectable in every way. Among their several children two early exhibited unusual precocity--Maria Anna, born in 1751, and Wolfgang, still more highly gifted. The stories of the boy's skill and general delicacy of perception may be exaggerated, but we have sufficient valid evidence to convince us that he was a phenomenon absolutely "sui generis." Thus, he began to improvise between three and four, actually to compose little pieces (which we have), when he was five, and to perform in public when he was six! In that very year and continuing for nineteen years (until Mozart had reached the age of twenty-five) began the memorable series of concert tours--eleven in all--comprising Vienna, all the chief cities of Italy and Germany, even Paris and London. These tours the father planned and carried through with the utmost solicitude and self-sacrifice--not to exploit the talented children, but to give them a comprehensive education and artistic experience, and eventually to secure for his son some distinguished post worthy his abilities. It is quite impossible to rehearse all the details of these trips. For one who wishes to investigate for himself they truly make fascinating reading. A single incident, however, will show how clearly defined were the two personalities which made up the complete Mozart; and of which one or the other was in the ascendant throughout his life. As a man, Mozart was light-hearted, witty--even volatile--fond of society, dancing, and a good time generally; not of the strongest intellectual power, judged by modern standards, but, as shown by his marvellous dramatic insight, by no means the debonair light-weight he is often represented. Yet whenever music was under consideration he was a changed being; he became instantly serious, and would suffer no disrespect to himself or to his art. During the last sad years of his career in Vienna, when he was in actual want for the bare necessities of life, a publisher once said to him, "Write in a more popular style, or I will not print a note of your music or give you a kreutzer." "Then, my good sir," replied Mozart, "I have only to resign myself and die of hunger." [Footnote 120: Amadeus (the beloved of God).] [Footnote 121: We may appropriately state that in regard to ancestry and environment all four of the so-called Viennese masters, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert are distinct refutations of the claims so persistently made by German scholars that everything good in music we owe to the Teutons. Haydn was largely Croatian; Mozart was strongly influenced by non-Teutonic folk-music (Tyrolese melodies frequently peep out in his works); Schubert's forebears came from Moravia and Silesia; and Beethoven was partly Dutch. If there be any _single_ race to which the world owes the art of music it is the Italians, for they invented most of the instruments and hinted at all the vocal and instrumental forms. We may be grateful to the Germans for their persevering appropriation of what others had begun; only let them not claim _all_ the credit.] In Mozart's works, in distinction from the unconscious, naïve folk-song type of Haydn, we find highly wrought instrumental melodies; although such was his inborn spontaneity of expression that we are never aware of the labor expended. His works are quite as clear as those of Haydn, but they show a more conscious individuality of style. They are not so artless, and the phraseology is more elastic--less cut and dried. There is a higher imaginative vitality; trite, mechanical repetitions are in general avoided, climaxes are led up to in a more subtle manner, and a great gain is made in real organic development. For Mozart, as a master of polyphonic treatment, is second only to Bach. The most striking single feature in his work is the ceaseless flow of expressive melody, notably those wondrous tunes found in his operas, such as "Voi che sapete," "Batti, batti" and numerous others. He had travelled so widely, so keen was his power of assimilation that his melodic style embodied and enhanced the best qualities of contemporary Italian, French and German practice. And yet his innate genius was of sufficient strength to achieve this result without lapsing into formal eclecticism. Whatever suggestions he took he made wholly his own; and his music is nothing if not individual in its inimitable charm and freshness. Whereas Haydn's music often smacks too prominently of the soil, with Mozart we have the fine flower of a broad artistic culture. In his best symphonies and string quartets the art of music made a distinct advance and began to be capable of expressing the universal emotions and aspirations of mankind. The reactive influence--each upon the other--of Haydn (1732-1809) and Mozart (1756-1791) is a most interesting feature of the period.[122] By the time Mozart was ripe for his best work Haydn had formulated and exemplified the main lines of instrumental structure. From this preparatory work Mozart reaped such an advantage that in his last compositions there is a spontaneous flowering of genius--a union of individual content with perfect clarity of style--which has kept them alive to this day. Haydn's last symphonies, the two Salomon sets composed for his London tours, show in their turn abundant signs of the stimulating influence of the younger man. The perennial importance of form and style cannot be better understood than by recognizing the fact that both Tchaikowsky and Richard Strauss, two of the most fearlessly independent of modern composers, have considered Mozart as their ideal. But even if in Mozart's best works we are not beyond the preponderating influence of form over substance, they must be judged on their own intrinsic merits and not with reference to progress made since--of which, nevertheless, they were an important foundation. His technique was quite sufficient to express what he had to say. We seldom feel that the contents are bursting through the form, that the spirit is too great for the body. Purity of conception and faultlessness of workmanship were still the desiderata of music. The world had to wait for a Beethoven before the hearer should be shaken out of himself by a spiritual power, of which the music at best was often an inadequate expression. This statement is meant to contain no disparagement. Because Beethoven was more elemental we must never belittle the genius of his predecessor. Any familiarity with Mozart's works will convince us of the gratitude we owe him for his original harmonies, for the stimulating contrapuntal texture and for the perfect finish and care for detail found therein. Could we be forever content with "abstract music"--that which justifies itself by a fulfilment of its own inherent laws--Mozart's music would remain the acme of the art. His fame to-day rests upon his string quartets, his three principal symphonies, and--above all--the operas, of which Don Giovanni and the Marriage of Figaro are noted examples. For consummate character-drawing (so that, as Rubinstein remarks, "Each acting personage has become an immortal type"), for interest sustained by unflagging musical vitality, for a combination of humor and seriousness and for ingenious and characteristic handling of the orchestral forces, these works were unequalled until the advent of Wagner and even to-day in their own field remain unsurpassed. The real charm of Mozart--that sunny radiance, at times shot through with a haunting pathos--eludes verbal description. As well attempt to put into words the fragrance and charm of a violet. Hazlitt's fine phrase, apropos of performance, says much in a few words. "Mozart's music seems to come from the air and should return to it," and the ecstatic eulogy of Goethe, to whom genius meant Mozart, should be familiar to all. "What else is genius than that productive power through which deeds arise, worthy of standing in the presence of God and of Nature, and which, for this reason, bear results and are lasting? All the creations of Mozart are of this class; within them there is a generative force which is transplanted from age to age, and is not likely soon to be exhausted or devoured." [Footnote 122: For extended comment, see the _Oxford History of Music_, Vol. V, p. 246, _seq._] In studying Mozart's works the special points to be noticed are these: the wider sweep and freer rhythmic variety of the melodic curve; the more organic fusion of the different portions of a movement--Mozart's lines of demarcation being perfectly clear but not so rigid as in Haydn; the much greater richness of the whole musical fabric, due to Mozart's marvellous skill in polyphony. The time had not yet come when the composer could pique the fancy of the hearer by unexpected structural devices or even lead him off on a false trail as was so often done by Beethoven. Both Haydn and Mozart are homophonic composers, _i.e._, the outpouring of individual melodies is the chief factor in their works; but whereas in Haydn the tune is almost invariably in the upper voice, in Mozart we find the melody appearing in any one of the voices and often accompanied with fascinating imitations. See, in corroboration, any of the first three movements of the _G minor Symphony_ or the slow movement of the _E-flat major Symphony_. In the structure of music Mozart made slight changes; the forms were still fresh--having just been established by Haydn--and Mozart with his genius filled them to overflowing. His one important contribution to the development of instrumental form was the Pianoforte Concerto; but, as a consideration of this would lead us too far afield, the student is referred to the life of Mozart in Grove's Dictionary and to the Oxford History, Vol. V. The literature[123] about Mozart and his works is voluminous. Our chief attention nevertheless should be centered on the works themselves rather than on what anyone else writes about them. Certain of these criticisms, however, are so suggestive and illuminating that the student should become familiar with them. [Footnote 123: We recommend especially the refreshing essay by Philip Hale in _Famous Composers and Their Works_; the chapter on Mozart in _Beethoven and His Forerunners_ by D.G. Mason; and, as throwing light on aspects of his personality which are little known, "_Mozart Revealed in his Own Words_" by Kerst-Krehbiel (see especially the chapter on Mozart's religious nature, p. 142 and passim); the fascinating _Reminiscences of Michael Kelly_, a personal friend of the composer; and, above all, the monumental life of Mozart, unhappily as yet incomplete, by Wyzewa and St. Foix. The third chapter of Vol. II of _The Art of Music_ is also well worth reading; and in _Mozart's Operas, a Critical Study_ by E.J. Dent are found valuable comments on his dramatic style, so prominent a feature in many of his instrumental works.] As illustrations[124] for comment we select the _F major Sonata for Pianoforte_, the _G minor Symphony_, the _Magic Flute Overture for Orchestra_ and the little known but most characteristic _Adagio in B minor for Pianoforte_. Here again, as in the case of Haydn, we must regret that it is impracticable to give examples from the chamber music: the String Quartets, the Quintet in G minor or from the entrancing Clarinet Quintet. Any familiarity with Mozart's genius is very incomplete which does not comprise the C major Quartet, especially its heavenly Andante Cantabile; likewise the E-flat major Quartet in the slow movement of which are the following poignant dissonances--a striking anticipation of _Tristan and Isolde_. [Music] [Footnote 124: The first three compositions are not given in the Supplement, because readily available in several standard editions. The same recommendations, as given in connection with Haydn, apply to the performance of the _G minor Symphony_.] The F major Sonata is selected to illustrate Mozart's pianoforte style because it bubbles over with typical Mozartian melody and because the Sonata-form is the basis of all three movements; in the first and last strictly employed and in the slow movement somewhat modified. The structure, while just as clear and easy to follow as that of Haydn, represents an advance in the sustained interest of the transitional passages and in the organic treatment of the Development--this being particularly true of the Finale--the middle portion of the first movement being not so significant. The Sonata, without prelude, begins with a soaring, lyric melody in which the customary eight measure formation is expanded to twelve measures. This expansion is brought about by an imitative treatment of the fifth measure and is a convincing example of the flexible phraseology so prominent a feature in Mozart's style. A balancing sentence of eight measures, with an extended cadence, brings us to the transition which is to introduce the second theme. Observe the increasing animation of the rhythm and how the fresh entry of the second theme (in C major) is enhanced by the insistence on the contrasting tonality of C minor. In measure 41 there begins the second theme, a graceful melody that is repeated with heightened fervour and then expanded by means of various modulatory and rhythmic devices--the interest, for a number of measures, being in the bass. In measure 71 we have a piquant closing theme which ends in the "good old way" with some rather formal groups of cadential chords. The Development is short and, save for the dynamic contrasts in the middle part, not of particular import. But though a bit naïve it is neither labored nor dull. The Recapitulation with the necessary adjustments of key (both themes appearing in F major) corresponds exactly to the Exposition. In the opening melody of the Slow movement--a dreamy, sustained Adagio--we see the beautiful use Mozart made of the "turn," _e.g._, [Music] employing it not as meaningless embroidery or to cover up deficiencies in the instrument but as an integral factor in the melodic line, thus anticipating Chopin and Wagner with his "essential turn." The movement is in abridged[125] Sonata-form, _i.e._, there is a regular Exposition with two themes in the tonic and dominant and a corresponding Recapitulation, but the Development is entirely omitted and in its place we find merely two modulatory measures which take us back to the third part. Such a form arose from the feeling that the Slow Movement should be one of direct melodic and emotional appeal and should not concern itself with protracted discussion of the material. The two closing measures are of a wondrous serenity, peculiar to Mozart. The Finale, Allegro assai, in complete and elaborate Sonata-form, is one of superb vigor and dash, the happiest example possible of Mozart's "joie de vivre." It begins with a brilliant running theme in free phraseology, and then, after a cadence in measure 14, is at once followed by an out and out Waltz tune of a very seductive swing.[126] This is developed to a brilliant climax and then closes _pp_ in a delicate, wistful manner. The transition, with some canonic imitations and stimulating sequences, leads us to the second theme at measure 50. This--one of Mozart's loveliest melodies--is rather exceptionally in the dominant minor (_i.e._, C minor) and with its mood of pathetic revery affords a wonderful contrast to the headlong dash of the first theme. This melody alone would prove that Mozart had his moments of deep emotion. In measure 65 begins a long closing portion which resumes the exuberant mood characteristic of the Exposition as a whole. The Development at first is based upon modulatory changes in the first theme; and then, towards the middle, occurs a passage which seems to be a counterpart of the second theme, save that it is in the major mode. We are now carried onward through a series of passages, with pungent dissonances and imitative phrases, to a fortissimo dominant chord; thence through a descending cadenza-like passage we are whirled back to the Recapitulation. In material and treatment this corresponds exactly to the Exposition and has the same pianissimo ending. Such an effect was a touch of genuine originality and was a delightful contrast to the conventional flourish of trumpets with which the Finale of the period was expected to end. Music is often most impressive when most subdued. [Footnote 125: This modification became a favorite with Beethoven, notable examples being the Slow movement of the Fifth Sonata, where the Development is represented by a single chord; the Slow movement of the D minor Sonata, op. 31; and, above all, the Allegretto Scherzando of the Eighth Symphony, where a series of contrasted accents keeps the interest alive and leads most deftly to the Recapitulation.] [Footnote 126: In measures 20 and 21 may be found some striking syncopations--an anticipation of what now-a-days is known as "rag-time."] The G minor Symphony is universally acknowledged to be the highest achievement of 18th century instrumental music and is also premonitory of that subjective spirit peculiar to the 19th century. It will remain immortal so long as human beings are capable of being touched by a sincere revelation of emotion combined with a perfection of utterance which seems fairly Divine. This delicate treatment and this exquisite finish are two prominent characteristics of Mozart's style. Truly the Symphony is the quintessence of Mozart in terms of sound and rhythm, and we need but to listen to his message and receive it with grateful appreciation. The work contains the four customary movements, all of them (save the three-part Minuet and Trio) in complete Sonata-form. The first movement begins at once with a gracefully poised theme sung by the violins, a theme which may be likened in its outlines to the purity of a Greek statue. The entrancing effect of this melody cannot be realized except on the orchestra, for it seems to float on the gently pulsating chords of the violas like a beautiful flower. Everyone who hears the work is at once arrested by this highly original treatment, _e.g._ [Music] The transition is short but leads us in a happy state of expectancy through a change of rhythm from the graceful outlines of the first theme to the vigorous phrase [Music] and by a bold run, thrice repeated, to the entrance of the second theme in measure 43. This theme, in the customary relative major (B-flat), illustrates Mozart's fondness for the chromatic element which gives to many of his melodies such a haunting appeal. The closing portion, beginning at measure 71, is an example of Mozart's spontaneous skill in polyphonic writing. It is based entirely on the motive of the main theme in delightful imitations tossed about by different sections of the orchestra. The second part is a genuine Development, since the musical life never flags in its contrapuntal vitality; the theme appears in all parts of the texture--upper, inner and lower voices--and we are carried vigorously onward by the daring modulations. Just at the close of the Development we see Mozart's constructive skill in the fusion of this part with the subsequent Recapitulation. A series of drifting chromatic chords in the flutes and oboes, like light fleecy clouds, keeps us in a state of suspended wonder when quietly there emerges the first theme and the return home has begun. It is one of the truly poetic touches in musical literature and has been often imitated--especially by Tchaikowsky in his _Fifth_ and _Sixth Symphonies_.[127] The Recapitulation corresponds exactly with the Exposition, but an added pathos is given to the second theme by its appearance in the tonic key of G minor. Observe the impassioned intensity of the climax in measures 13-19 (counting back from the end). The mood of dreamy contemplation with which the Slow Movement begins cannot be translated into words; why attempt it? We have the music which, coming from the divinely gifted imagination of the composer, reveals in its own language a message of pathetic longing and ideal aspiration. The movement is very concise but in complete Sonata-form, and with an orchestration felicitous in the treatment of the horns and the wood-wind instruments. The Minuet, noteworthy for the three-measure rhythm of the opening phrase, [Music] shows clearly the new life which Mozart infused into the old form by his remarkable polyphonic skill. Note at the outset of the second part the vigorous effect of the theme in the bass and the frequency of biting dissonances. The charming grace and simplicity of the Trio are indescribable; here again we find an eloquent use of the wood-wind group. The Finale, in complete Sonata-form, begins with a perfectly balanced periodic theme, presented in Two-part form, _i.e._, two sentences of eight measures, each repeated. If from our present standpoint we feel that the tone of this movement is a bit light to follow the serious thoughts of the preceding movements, let us remember that it was composed when the Finale was meant merely to "top off" a work; and that, if it radiated a general atmosphere of sunshine and satisfaction, its purpose was fulfilled. For the Finale, which, like the glorious splendor of an autumn day, is the crowning objective towards which the other movements have been striving, we must wait for Beethoven and his modern successors. In fact we may express the general trend of a Haydn or a Mozart Symphony by a decrescendo, thus [decrescendo symbol] _i.e._, the real genius of the composer is shown in the first three movements; whereas, beginning with Beethoven, we find an organic climactic effect[128] from the first movement to the last, thus [crescendo symbol]. But to carry such criticisms too far is ungracious and unjust. Mozart's themes, both the first and the second (beginning in measure 55), with their tripping contredance rhythms, fill our hearts with life and carry us irresistibly onward. And the Development has some surprises in store, for now the dramatic genius of Mozart asserts itself. Note the bold leaps and daring modulations of the opening measures. Nothing trite or formal here! The strong polyphonic treatment of the first theme, beginning in measure 120 and sustained with unflagging energy for seventy measures, makes this one of the most stimulating developments in symphonic literature, not excepting Beethoven himself. The Recapitulation, in subject matter, is an exact duplication of the Exposition and allows us to recover gradually from our excitement and to return to the ordinary world of men and events. The presentation of the second theme, however, shows Mozart's mastery of melodic variation. The substance is the same, but the import of the melody is intensified, _e.g._ [Music: Exposition] [Music: Recapitulation] [Footnote 127: See the Waltz movement of the _Fifth Symphony_ and the second movement of the _Sixth_.] [Footnote 128: This expanding of interest is distinctly felt in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, in Brahms's First, in Tchaikowsky's Fifth and in that by César Franck.] The Overtures to Mozart's three operas: The _Marriage of Figaro_, _Don Giovanni_ and the _Magic Flute_ are of particular interest, not only for the beauty of their contents but because they are our earliest examples of the Overture fashioned in complete Sonata form. Originally the Overture had been a prelude to the opening of a play, a prelude of the lightest and most meagre nature. Examples, beginning with Monteverde, abound in all the early Italian opera composers.[129] Lully of the French school and Alessandro Scarlatti of the Italian were the first to amplify these beginnings and to establish a definite standard of structure. In both schools this standard represented an application of the Three-part form principle; the French arranging their contrasts, slow, fast, slow (the so-called French overture--of which we have an example in Handel's Messiah) and the Italians, fast, slow, fast (the so-called Italian Overture). Although Gluck (1714-1787) did much to establish a more dramatic connection between the overture and the play, even the best of his Overtures, Iphigenia in Aulis, is a rather loosely expanded tripartite structure with a good many meaningless passages. But Mozart, coming after Haydn's definite establishment of the Sonata-form and with the growing interest of the public in instrumental music for its own sake as an incentive, could take advantage of these circumstances to display his genius and to delight his hearers with a piece of genuine music. This he did and his operatic overtures are of such distinct import and self-sufficiency that they are often detached from the opera itself and played as concert numbers. The Magic Flute Overture is also noteworthy because of the polyphonic treatment of the first theme which is a definite fugal presentation in four voices. The second theme, beginning in measure 64, and soon repeated, is light and winning, meant to supplement rather than to contrast strongly with the first theme, which indeed keeps up at the same time, in the inner voices, its rhythmic impetuosity. The Exposition ends with a graceful closing phrase, _e.g._, [Music] and the usual cadence in the dominant key. It is considered that the Adagio chords for the trombones, interpolated between the Exposition and the Development, are suggestive of the religious element in the play that is to follow. The Development is remarkable for the spirited imitative treatment of the first theme, for the bold way in which the voices cut into each other and for the fusion of its closing measures with the Recapitulation. The chief feature in this brilliant passage is a piling up of the theme in stretto form (see measures 148-153). The Recapitulation is somewhat shortened and the melodic outline of the second theme is slightly changed; otherwise it corresponds with the Exposition. After the closing phrase we have some pungent dissonances, _e.g._ [Music] Rossini, it is said, was never tired of eulogizing this Overture and certainly for spontaneity and vigor it is unrivalled.[130] [Footnote 129: For a complete account of this development see Grove's Dict. Vol. III under _Overture_ and the Oxford History, Vol. IV, page 286, _seq._] [Footnote 130: Its companion in modern literature is the Overture to the _Bartered Bride_ (by the Bohemian composer Smetana), which also begins with a brilliant fugal treatment of the theme.] The last illustration from Mozart is his _Adagio in B minor_ (see Supplement No. 43) an independent piece, far too little known, in complete Sonata-form. The haunting pathos in the theme, the exquisite loveliness in the whole fabric instantly reach the hearer's heart. Analytical comment seems quite unnecessary; a child can "follow" the music, but only he with a ripe knowledge of human life can begin to fathom its deep mystery.[131] When we see such modern passages as the following, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 131: For some illuminating comments on this subtle character of Mozart's creations see the Stanford-Forsyth History of Music, p. 254.] Tchaikowsky's love for Mozart's music is readily understood. Indeed, we cannot refrain from urging everyone to cultivate such a love himself; for in the works of Mozart are found a purity, a sanity and a delight in creation which keep them alive and make them in very truth "things of beauty and a joy forever." CHAPTER XI BEETHOVEN, THE TONE-POET As Beethoven was such an intensely subjective composer, a knowledge of his personality and environment is indispensable for a complete appreciation of his works.[132] [Footnote 132: Hence is given a more extended biographical account than in the case of former composers.] Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770-1827), born at Bonn on the Rhine, though his active career is associated with Vienna, may be called the first thinker in music; for at last the art is brought into correlation with man's other powers and becomes a living reflex of the tendencies and activities of the period. Notwithstanding the prodigious vitality of Bach's work, we feel that his musical sense operated abstractly like a law of Nature and that he was an unconscious embodiment, as it were, of the deep religious sentiment of his time and of the sturdy independence of his race. At any period and in any place Bach would have been Bach. Beethoven's music, however, in its intense personality and as a vivid expression of the ideals of his fellow men, was different from any the world had heard before. There were three paramount advantages in his equipment: first, Beethoven was a strong character who only happened to find in music his most suitable means of self-expression. The full import of his works cannot be understood unless he is recognized, great creative artist that he was, as first and foremost a unique personality. Had he not written a note of music we should have sufficient historical evidence to assure ourselves of the vigor of his intellect and the elevation of his ideals. Whereas Haydn and Mozart are to be judged purely as musicians, in Beethoven it is always something underlying the musical symbols which claims our allegiance. Furthermore he had the inestimable advantage of finding the mechanical structure of instrumental music carefully formulated by his predecessors. The stone had been quarried, the rough cutting done and the blocks lay ready for a genius to use in the erection of his own poetically conceived edifice. And these forms were still fresh and vigorous; they had not yet hardened into formalism. In Beethoven's works we rarely find form employed for its own sake, as a mere "tour de force" of skilful workmanship, rather is it made to adapt itself to the individual needs of the composer. Finally Beethoven's career coincided with momentous changes and upheavals in the social, political and artistic world. He is the embodiment of that spirit of individualism, of human freedom and self-respect which found its expression in the French Revolution, in our American War of Independence and in the entire alteration of social standards. Beethoven at all costs resolved to be himself. With him music ceases to be a mere "concourse of sweet sounds"; it must always bring some message to the brooding human soul, and be something more than a skilful example of abstract ingenuity. These personal tendencies of Beethoven were fostered by the spirit of the times, and his music became in turn a vital expression of revolt against existing conditions and of passionate aspiration towards something better. He was the first musician to free himself from the enervating influence of having to write exclusively for aristocratic patronage. Such was the social emancipation of the period that he could address himself at first hand to a musical public eagerly receptive and constantly growing. His representative works could never have been composed in the time of Haydn and Mozart; for though in formal structure the logical development of preceding methods--Beethoven being no reckless iconoclast--in individual content they reveal a freedom of utterance which took its rise in tendencies hitherto unknown. Beethoven's mighty personality and far-reaching influence can not be stated in a few formulae. An extensive library covering his life and times is accessible to the interested layman, and a thorough appreciation of his masterpieces is a spiritual possession which everyone must gain individually. Since Beethoven's works compel a man to think for himself, the constructive power of the creator must be met with an analogous activity on the part of the receptive hearer. The symphonies, for example, are more than cunningly contrived works of musical art; they are human documents of undying power to quicken and exalt the soul which will submit itself to their influence. Beethoven's great instrumental compositions are few in number in comparison with the voluminous and uneven output of his predecessors. Thus from Haydn we have 125 symphonies, from Mozart about 40, from Beethoven 9. Of Haydn's symphonies possibly a half dozen have permanent vitality; of Mozart's four; of Beethoven's all, with the possible exception of the experimental first. Condensation of subject matter, conciseness of style, a ceaseless exaltation of quality above quantity are the prominent features in Beethoven's work. All adipose tissue is relentlessly excised, and the finished creation resembles a human being in perfect physical condition--the outward mechanical organism subservient to the spirit within. Beethoven's life is of supreme interest and importance, for his music is the direct expression of himself, of his joys and sorrows. His ancestry raises many perplexing questions as to the influence of heredity and the sources of genius. In the first place Beethoven was not a pure-blooded German, but partly Flemish on his father's side. His paternal grandfather, Ludwig van[133] Beethoven, was a man of strong character and of a certain musical aptitude, who had migrated from the neighborhood of Antwerp to Bonn where he served as court musician to the Elector of Cologne. The paternal grandmother early developed a passion for drink and ended her days confined in a convent. The son of this couple, Johann (the father of the composer) was a tenor singer in the court chapel at Bonn and soon became a confirmed drunkard. He seems to be a mere intermediary between grandfather and grandson. In 1767 he married a young widow, Maria Keverich, a woman of warm affections and depth of sentiment, whose life was bound up in the care of her gifted son. The tender love between Beethoven and his mother was a bright spot in his early years, in many ways so sordid and unhappy. Unfortunately she was delicate, of consumptive tendencies, and died when Ludwig was but seventeen. "She has been to me a good and loving mother," he writes, "and my best friend." As we ponder on such facts and then consider for what Beethoven stands, we can only exclaim, "God works in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform." It was early seen that the young Beethoven had unusual ability, and so the shiftless father, with the example of Mozart's precocity before him, submitted the boy to a deal of enforced drudgery in the way of harpsichord and violin practice. He had one good teacher however, Neefe, who records that the boy of thirteen played the harpsichord with energetic skill and had mastered the Preludes and Fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavichord. Beethoven's general education was sadly neglected, and when he was thirteen practically ceased. These deficiencies were a source of mortification all his life. He spelled atrociously, was never sure of his addition and subtraction and so was often involved in altercations with landlords and washerwomen. By nature Beethoven was of strong, eager intellect. He became an omnivorous reader, and later in life acquired a working facility in Latin, French, Italian and English. The first period of his life ends with his departure in 1792 for Vienna, whither he was sent by the Elector to study with Haydn. In summing up its special incidents we are struck first by the vivid and lasting impression which Beethoven, in spite of his lowly origin and deficiencies in education and cultivation, made upon wealthy and refined people of distinction, simply through his extraordinary personality and unmistakable sincerity. Two of these friends were the von Breuning family, including the charming daughter Eleanore--one of Beethoven's early loves--and the cultivated and influential Count Waldstein, in whose companionship he became acquainted with the German poets and with the dramas of Shakespeare. For a vivid picture of these boyish years the student is recommended to the Romance, _Jean Christophe_ (by Romain Rolland) which, though somewhat idealized, is mainly on a historical basis. Two of Beethoven's most unique characteristics date from this period. First, his constant habit of drawing inspiration directly from Nature, of which he was a passionate and persistent lover. He says of himself "No one can love the country as I love it. Here alone can I learn wisdom. Every tree exclaims to me 'Holy, Holy, Holy.'" In long walks through wood and field he would allow his thoughts to germinate, giving himself up utterly to creative emotion. When in this state of mind Madame von Breuning used to say that he was in his "raptus." Consequently, in comparison with the works of previous composers, which often have a note of primness and artificial restraint--they smell a bit of the lamp and the study--those of Beethoven have the elemental power of Nature herself, especially shown in the vigor and variety of the rhythm. Second, he would always carry sketch books in which to jot down ideas as they came to him. These he would polish and improve--sometimes for years--before they took final shape. Many of these sketch books[134] have been preserved and edited, and they illustrate, most vividly, Beethoven's method of composing: slow, cautious, but invincible in its final effect; an idea frequently being altered as many as twenty times. At the age of twenty-two he was chiefly known as a pianist with wonderful facility in improvisation; his compositions had been insignificant. The next eight years--up to 1800, when Beethoven was thirty--were spent in acquainting himself with the Viennese aristocracy and in building up a public clientèle. Then follows the marvellous period until 1815 in which his power of inspiration was at its height, and which gave to the world a body of work for magnitude and variety never surpassed: all the symphonies except the Ninth, the first twenty-seven pianoforte Sonatas, five concertos for pianoforte and orchestra, the opera of Fidelio, several Overtures, numerous string quartets and ensemble chamber music. We realize even more vividly the heroic and sublime character of Beethoven when we learn that, as early as 1798, there began the signs of that deafness which altered his whole life. By nature he was hypersensitive, proud and high-strung, and these qualities were so aggravated by his malady that he became suspicious, at times morose, and his subsequent career was checkered with the violent altercations, and equally spasmodic renewals of friendship, which took place between him and his best friends. His courage was extraordinary. Thus we find him writing: "Though at times I shall be the most miserable of God's creatures, I will grapple with Fate, it shall never pull me down." On the artistic side this affliction had its compensations in that it isolated the composer from outer distractions, and allowed him to lay entire stress on the spiritual inner side of his art; certainly this is one of the strongest notes in his music--the pure fancy manifested therein. As a deaf musician he is comparable to the blind seer who penetrates more deeply into the mysteries of life than those whose physical eyesight is perfect. Beethoven's closing years form a period of manifold complications, caused by the care of his scapegrace nephew, by his settled deafness and precarious financial position. Yet he grimly continued to compose, his last works being of titanic dimensions such as the Choral symphony, the Mass in D and the last Quartets and Pianoforte Sonatas. Beethoven died on March 26, 1827; nature most appropriately giving a dramatic setting to the event by a terrific storm of hail and snow, lightning and thunder. It would take too long to dwell on the many characteristics of the man Beethoven. Power, individuality and sincerity were stamped upon him, and his music is just what we should expect from his nature. He embodied all the longings, the joys and sorrows of humanity, and gave them such burning utterance that the world has listened ever since. [Footnote 133: The prefix van is not a symbol of nobility.] [Footnote 134: See the two _Beethoveniana_ by Nottebohm.] To touch now upon a few of the formal aspects of Beethoven's work, as far as verbal analysis can help, it may be asserted that he is the acknowledged master of the Sonata Form as Bach was of the Fugue, and in his hands this form, and also the Air with Variations, were raised to a potency the influence of which is felt even to-day. From beginning to end every portion of the Sonata Form was made over and vitalized. Instead of the perfunctory "flourish of trumpets" which served previous composers for an introduction, this portion with Beethoven deftly leads on the hearer to a contemplation of the main work, and is as carefully planned as the porch of a great Cathedral. For examples, witness the continually growing excitement generated in the introductions to the Second and Seventh Symphonies, the breathless suspense of the introduction to the Fourth, and the primeval, mysterious beginning of the Ninth. And then what a difference in the character and emotional suggestiveness of the themes, that with Beethoven are actual human voices, dramatic characters, which once met can never be forgotten. As Lavoix says of the Fifth Symphony, "Is not this a drama in its purity, where passion is no longer the attribute of a theatrical work, but the expression of our own individual feelings?" No longer are the transitions mere mechanical connections, but a portion of the structure which, though subsidiary, is yet organically developed from that which precedes and inevitably related to that which follows. In the development section we find the real Beethoven. Here his marvellous freshness of invention found full play. Such inexhaustible fancy, such coherence of structure, such subtlety of transformation were unknown in former times, when development was often as lifeless as the perfunctory motions of an automaton. Beethoven's developments are no mere juggling with tones; they are vast tonal edifices, examples of what the imagination of man controlled by intellect can achieve. Possibly Beethoven's greatest skill as a musical architect was shown in his treatment of the Coda, which became the crowning climax of a movement, a last driving home with all possible eloquence of the message heretofore presented. The end of previous compositions had too often been a mere ceasing to go, a running down, but in Beethoven there is usually a strong objective point towards which everything converges. Fully conscious as he was of the throbbing human message it was his mission to reveal, we may be sure that Beethoven spared no effort to enhance the expressive capabilities of music as a language. Certain aspects of his style in this respect are strikingly noticeable in every one of his representative works. First, the marvellous rhythmic vitality. Note the absence of the former sing-song rhythm of Haydn; in its stead we hear the heart-beat, now fast, now slow, of a living human being. No longer can the hearer in dreamy apathy beat time with his foot. Second, his use of the fiercest dissonances to express the heights and depths of our stormy human existence. In listening to contemporary works nothing should persuade us more strongly to a sympathetic tolerance, or at any rate to a suspension of judgment, than the fact that many of Beethoven's most individual cries (surely in his case the outward expression of what he heard within, those very outbursts which to-day ring longest in our consciousness) were considered at the time of their creation as the ravings of a mad-man. Dissonances, both acoustically and psychologically, are a vital principle in music. In no respect was his music more original than in his Promethean boldness in their use. One of his favorite conceptions was that music should strike fire from the soul of man; it was not meant to lull the hearer into a drowsy revery, but to awaken his spiritual consciousness with a shock at times positively galvanic. A third feature is his subtlety in expression, as is shown by the minute indications in which every page of his work abounds. The crescendos, often leading to a sudden drop to pianissimo, the long stretches of hushed suspense, the violent sforzandos on unimportant beats, the plasticity of periodic formation, all these workings of a rich imagination first gave music its place as the supreme art of human expression. A word must be spoken concerning two forms which we owe to Beethoven's constructive genius. In place of the former naïve Minuet, so characteristic of the formal manners of its time, he substituted a movement with a characteristic name--the Scherzo, which opened up entirely new possibilities. No mere literary distinction between wit and humor[135] can explain the power of Beethoven's Scherzos; only through his own experience of life can the hearer fathom their secrets. The expression of real humor, akin to that spirit which is found in Cervantes, Swift, Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln, was a genuine contribution of Beethoven. Deep thinkers alone are capable of humor which, to quote a recent writer, is "that faculty of imagination so humane and sympathetic in its nature that it can perceive at the same time serious and jocose things. It can feel the pathos of a scene on life's stage and yet have an eye for the incongruities of the actors. It is imagination, the feel of kinship with the universal human soul." Beethoven's Scherzos are as varied as life itself. Who can forget the boisterous vitality of this movement in the Eroica, which quite sweeps us off our feet, the haunting mystery of the Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony, or listen unmoved to the grim seriousness, alternating with touching pathos, in the Scherzo of the Ninth? Secondly, his conception of the Air and Variations was so different from anything previously known that he may fairly be called its creator. With him variations became poetic transformations, and the notable works in this form of Brahms, Tchaikowsky, Franck and d'Indy are only freer manifestations of Beethoven's method. Upon two last features, his use of titles and his individualizing of the orchestral instruments, we cannot dwell in detail. Although program music in its literal sense dates back several centuries, Beethoven--far more than was customary before--used external suggestions or incidents, often intimate subjective experiences, as the quickening impulse to his imagination. We know from his own words that, while composing, he generally had some mental picture before him. Very often we are not given the clue to his thoughts, but the titles, familiar to every one, which he did use, such as the _Heroic_ and _Pastoral_ Symphonies, the _Coriolanus_ and _Egmont_ Overtures, those to several of the Sonatas, are full of import and show clearly that he was engaged in no mere abstract music making for its own sake. These works are the point of departure for the significant development of modern music along this path. With Beethoven the orchestra began to assume its present importance, and the instruments are no longer treated as mere producers of sound and rhythm, but often as living beings. How eloquent is the message of the Horns in the Trio to the Scherzo of the _Heroic_! Berlioz compares the double basses in the Fifth Symphony to the gambols of sportive elephants, and instances might be multiplied. But words are futile in describing the wonders of Beethoven. A striking tribute is that of Professor John K. Paine. "In instrumental music Beethoven is pre-eminent, from all points of view, formally, aesthetically and spiritually. Like Shakespeare's, his creations are distinguished by great diversity of character; each is a type by itself. Beethoven is the least of a mannerist of all composers. His compositions are genuine poems, which tell their meaning to the true listener clearly and unmistakably in the language of tones, a language however which cannot be translated into mere words." [Footnote 135: The derivation of the word is worthy of note; it means moisture, juice, something not dry. Humor is certainly the juice of human nature.] We are now in a position to approach intelligently, enthusiastically and reverently the mighty works of Beethoven which, though built upon the foundations of Haydn and Mozart, yet take us into an entirely new world of power and fancy. For illustrations we select the first movement of the _Third_ or _Heroic_ Symphony; the _Seventh Sonata in D major_ for Pianoforte; the _Fifth Symphony in C minor_ (entire) and the _Coriolanus_ Overture. In regard to the symphonies it is understood that the emphasis on certain ones and the omission of others implies no ultra-critical attitude. Each of Beethoven's symphonies has its characteristic attributes and each is the work of a genius. But just as in Nature some mountains are more majestic than others, so concerning the nine symphonies we may say that their order of excellence as endorsed by the consensus of mankind would be as follows. The First Symphony is somewhat experimental, composed when Beethoven was working out his technique of expression. It is closely modeled on the style of Haydn and, though showing certain daring touches and though perfectly direct and sincere, is not of marked individuality. In the Second Symphony a long advance is made, for we find numerous traits which are thoroughly distinctive of the genius of Beethoven: the exciting Prelude to the first movement; the heavenly Larghetto, one of the first slow movements of real emotional power; the rollicking Scherzo (note the fantastic touches in the Trio) and the splendor of the last pages of the Finale, which can only be compared to a sunset with its slowly fading colors and its last burst of glory. The general style of the Second Symphony however is that of Haydn and Mozart, though raised to the highest pitch of eloquence. In the Third Symphony the complete Beethoven steps forth. It was his declaration of independence, and in this work, as he himself said, he began a completely new line of activity; it was also his own favorite among the symphonies.[136] Heretofore there had been no such impassioned utterance as is revealed in the first movement of this Third Symphony and there have been few, if any, to equal it since. The Fourth Symphony is an entrancing work and shows Beethoven's inexhaustible variety of mood; since, save for the "grand manner" peculiar to all his works, it differs strikingly from the Third and the Fifth. It was composed during the happiest period of Beethoven's life and is related in its whole character to his emotions and aspirations at that time.[137] The slow movement is the most sublime love-song in music. The Fifth Symphony is undoubtedly the most popular of them all, in the true sense of the term.[138] The reason for this verdict is the unparalleled combination in a single work of the emotional intensity found in the first movement, the touching appeal of the slow movement, the mystery, followed by the reckless display of spirit, in the Scherzo and the paean of rejoicing which rings through the Finale. The Sixth or Pastoral, Beethoven's one excursion into the realm of tone-painting based on natural phenomena, is of interest more as a point of departure for the work of his successors than for its intrinsic message. The conception of the possibilities of musical description has so widened since Beethoven, and the facilities for orchestral color so increased, that this symphony, though it has many characteristic beauties, sounds a bit old-fashioned. The Seventh is one of the most original of them all, incomparable for its rhythmic vitality--the Apotheosis of the Dance, as Wagner called it.[139] If rhythm be the basis of music and of life itself, this symphony is thoroughly alive from start to finish, hence immortal. The Eighth is the embodiment of Beethoven's (possibly) most individual trait--his abounding humor. Never before had symphonic music played such pranks as are found here, especially in the Finale. The Symphony is in fact a prolonged Scherzo[140]--the third movement (a Minuetto) being merely for contrast. The Ninth Symphony, composed in the philosophic period of Beethoven's life, when he was attempting still greater heights, is a vast work, the first three movements purely instrumental, and the Finale, for the first time in symphonic literature, a union of solo voices and chorus with the instrumental forces. The text was taken from Schiller's "Ode to Joy." The spirit of the poem made a strong appeal to Beethoven's humanitarian and democratic aspirations and there is no question of the grandeur of his conception. But it is not carping criticism to say that his thoughts were too heaven-soaring for a perfect realization through any earthly means. Beethoven moreover was seldom happy in writing for the human voice--he thought in terms of the instruments--and it is not to be denied that there are several passages in the Finale which consist of mere boisterous shouting. No one save believers in plenary inspiration can give to this Finale the whole-hearted admiration that is paid to the three instrumental movements which are pure gold; especially the seraphic Adagio and the Gargantuan Scherzo with its demoniacal rhythmic energy. To sum up the foregoing estimates, if the student is forced to select and cannot become equally familiar with all of the nine symphonies, a reasonable order of study would be the following: the Fifth, the Third, the Seventh, the Eighth, the Fourth, the Ninth, the Second, the Sixth and the First. See Supplement No. 44. [Footnote 136: See Beethoven, Kerst-Krehbiel, p. 45.] [Footnote 137: Read the appropriate essay in _Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies_ by Sir George Grove.] [Footnote 138: Vox populi, vox Dei.] [Footnote 139: D'Indy, however, in his _Beethoven_ (p. 61, English translation) dissents from this view; not at all convincingly, it would seem to us. For the basic rhythm of each movement is on a definite dance metre and the theme of the first movement is a regular Irish jig (Beethoven at one time being very much interested in Irish folk-dances) with its typical three final notes, _e.g._ [Music]] [Footnote 140: It was written, to use Beethoven's own words, in an "aufgeknöpft" (unbuttoned) condition, _i.e._, free, untramelled, rather than straight-laced, swaddled in conventions.] We shall now make a few comments[141] on the first movement of the _Third_ or _Heroic Symphony_, merely to stimulate the hearer's interest, for the music may be trusted to make its own direct appeal. After two short, sonorous chords, which summon us to attention, the first theme, allegro con brio, with its elemental, swinging rhythm, is announced by the 'cellos. It is often glibly asserted that these notes of the tonic triad are the whole of the first theme. This is a great misconception, for although the motive in the first four measures is the generative basis for the entire movement, the arresting, dramatic note of the theme is the C-sharp in measure five. This theme in fact is a typical example of Beethoven's broad sweeps of thought; for prolonged with secondary melodic phrases in the first violins and flutes, its real close does not come until the 13th measure, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 141: These are based in this work and in all Symphonic compositions on the full orchestral score (in the Peters edition); the student is therefore recommended to adopt this practise. For in Beethoven and all orchestral writers the thought and expression are so integrally bound up with the tone color and idiom of the various instruments that when their works are reduced to another medium much of the eloquence is lost. For those who cannot handle an orchestral score there are adequate arrangements for 2 hands, 4 hands and for 2 pianofortes in several standard editions. Those who have an advanced pianoforte technique should certainly become familiar with the virtuoso-transcriptions of the Beethoven Symphonies by Franz Liszt.] After a varied repetition of the first motive of the theme, there occurs a passage (measures 23-33)[142] which illustrates one of the most characteristic features in all Beethoven's work, _i.e._, those sharp dislocations of the rhythm, indicated by the sforzando accents (_sf_) on beats usually _unaccented_ and often coupled with strong dissonances. Although the basic rhythm is triple, the beats for several measures are in groups of two quarter notes or their equivalent, one half note, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 142: It is an excellent practise to number the measures of a score in groups of _10_.] No longer can we drift along in dreamy apathy; our vitality is quickened as by the gusts of a tornado. There have been those who for the first time in their lives were jarred from the even tenor of their way by these impassioned onslaughts. When Beethoven's Symphonies were first played in Paris, it is reported that the operatic composer Boieldieu was much disconcerted, because, as he said, he liked "musique qui me berce." The transition (measures 43-81) is a remarkable example of Beethoven's power of creating ever more and more excitement and expectancy. It contains _three_ subsidiary melodic phrases, each of increasing rhythmic animation, _e.g._, [Music] and fairly whirls us into the beautiful contemplative theme at measure 81. This theme embodies some entrancing modulations into remote keys, and then, after one of Beethoven's typical passages of hushed pianissimo (beginning in measure 97) we are led through a series of sforzandos, crescendos and titanic ejaculations to the overpowering dissonances in measure 145, which with the tonic chord close the Exposition in the dominant key. The Development (measures 164-396) is extremely long and varied, but a perfect manifestation of spontaneous, organic treatment--each portion growing inevitably from what has preceded and marching irresistibly onward to its objective goal. Every modulatory, rhythmic and polyphonic device is employed to vary and intensify the message; yet, notwithstanding the diversity of the material, we are held spellbound by the directness and coherence of the thought. Such is Beethoven's passionate insistence on the right to speak out just what he felt that in one stupendous passage (measures 246-277) it seems as if the very Heavens were falling about our heads. At measure 282 a theme of ideal repose is interpolated--just the contrast needed after the preceding cataclysm. The Development proper is renewed in measure 298 and after a repetition of the interpolated theme in measures 320-335 the rhythm of the first theme asserts itself in all its majesty, carrying us upward to a veritable table-land of sublimity. From this we are brought down through a series of decrescendo, modulatory chords, like drifting mists, to an almost complete cessation of musical life--nothing but a pianissimo tremolo on the strings. From this hush there floats in upon us the rhythmic motive of the first theme; then, with a _ff_ chord of the dominant, we are suddenly brought back into the sunshine of the main theme, and the Recapitulation has begun. This portion with certain happy changes in modulation--note the beautiful variant on the horn in measures 406-414, _e.g._, [Music] --preserves the customary emphasis on the main tonality of E-flat major, ending in measures 549-550 with the same dissonances which closed the Exposition. Then are declaimed by the full orchestra those two dramatic outbursts which usher in the Coda and which may be likened to "Stop! Listen! the best is yet to come." The blunt, intentional disjunction of the harmony adds weight to the assertion, _e.g._ [Music] Here we have a convincing illustration of Beethoven's individual conception that the Coda should be a second and final development; special points of interest and treatment being held in store, so that it becomes a truly crowning piece of eloquence. Observe how the reappearance of the interpolated theme balances the Coda with the Development proper and how the various rhythms of the Exposition are concentrated in the last page. Finally a series of bold, vibrato leaps in the first violins--based on the dominant chord--brings this impassioned movement to a close. A lack of space prevents the inclusion in the Supplement of the rest of the Symphony, but the student is urged to make himself familiar with the three remaining movements: the Marcia Funèbre, the Scherzo and the Finale. The Funeral March is justly ranked with that of Chopin in his B-flat minor Sonata and that of Wagner in the last act of the _Götterdämmerung_ as one of the most eloquent in existence, and contains melodies so touching that they could have come only from the very soul of Beethoven. Especially noteworthy is the aspiring melody of the middle, contrasting portion (Maggiore) where the spirit, freed from earthly dross, seems to mount to the skies in a chariot of fire. The third part, where the minor mode is resumed, abounds in dramatic touches; especially that fugal passage, where the ecclesiastical tone, combined with pealing trumpets, brings before us some funeral pageant in a vast, medieval cathedral. The Coda, beginning in A-flat major, with an impressive mood of resignation, illustrates at its close a psychological use of programmistic effect; for the first theme, treated as a real person, disintegrates before our very eyes--becoming, as it were, a disembodied spirit. Nothing can show more clearly than this passage the widening of the expressive powers of music which we owe to the genius of Beethoven. The same effect with a slightly different dramatic purpose is found at the end of the _Coriolanus_ Overture. The Scherzo, allegro vivace, in triple time, but marked _one_ beat a measure = 116 (almost two measures per second!), is unsurpassed for sustained brilliancy and daring rhythmic changes. It is so idiomatically conceived for orchestra that only the barest idea can be gained from a pianoforte transcription. The prevailing background is a mass of shimmering strings, marked by Beethoven "_sempre pp e staccato_" and against this stands out a buoyant, folk-song type of melody on the oboe. After some mysterious and fantastic modulations a _ff_ climax is reached which leads to the famous syncopated passage where the orchestra seems to hurl itself headlong into space, _e.g._ [Music] The Trio, with its three hunting horns, gives a fresh, woodland note typifying Beethoven's love of nature. Some mysterious modulations lead us back from the dim recesses of the forest to the sparkling animation of the Scherzo. In this part of the movement Beethoven plays one of his characteristic practical jokes; for, just where we expect the same syncopated effect as before, the time is changed from 3/4 to 2/2, the duration of the measure remaining the same, _e.g._ [Music] This effect may be likened to the uproarious guffaws of a giant. The Coda has a clear reminiscence of the dramatic C-sharp in the main theme of the first movement, _e.g._ [Music][143] [Footnote 143: D-flat being the enharmonic equivalent of C-sharp. [Transcriber's Note: The music notation contains a D-flat.]] Such an organic connection between movements begins to be very frequent in Beethoven's works. The Finale, Allegro molto, has caused considerable difficulty to the commentators for reasons known only to themselves. Different forms are assigned to it by different critics; one regrets the falling off of inspiration, another asserts that the movement "does not fulfill the requirements which the human mind makes of art; it leaves us confused." Poor Beethoven! But why all this pother? If the inner evidence of the music itself be any justification for structural classification, this wonderful, inspired Finale is a series of free Variations[144] on a double theme of which the parts are related to each other as Soprano and Bass, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 144: The variations are not numbered and the demarcations indicated only by certain cadential objective points.] By beginning the first two variations with the less important of the two melodies (_i.e._, the _bass_) Beethoven is simply indulging in his fondness for piquing the fancy of the hearer by starting him on a false trail--not giving away, as it were, his real purpose too soon. Yet from the first announcement of the leading melody in the Third Variation it assumes increasing importance, through successive appearances in E-flat major, B minor, D major and C major, until after a long fugal development we reach the inspired passage (Poco Andante con espressione), _e.g._, [Music] in which the main theme is stated first in its noble simplicity and then enhanced by an obligato melody on the oboe. It is one of the most eloquent passages in all symphonic literature. At its last appearance the real theme comes fully to its own--for the _first_ time in the _bass_, that fundamental voice--where it is declaimed _ff_ in gorgeous splendor by all the lower instruments of the orchestra. It is evident that not even the most inspired genius can sustain such a flight for ever, and after this magnificent paean the workings of Beethoven's imagination resemble those of Nature herself. Following a tranquil intermediary passage in A-flat major we enter upon one of those long, mysterious periods of hushed suspense which may be compared to a long expanse of open country or to the fading lights on the sea at sunset. The last page, beginning with the Presto, is sheer orchestral jubilation of the most intoxicating kind. We may picture an enthusiastic gathering, with hats thrown aloft and shouts of triumph ringing from every throat. It is of historical interest to know that the theme of this Finale must have been a favorite with Beethoven, for he had used it in three former works: a _Contre-dance_, as the basis for a set of _Pianoforte Variations_ and in the _Ballet Music to Prometheus_. It may not be too fanciful to trace a dramatic relationship between its use in portraying the daring spirit who first stole fire from Heaven and as the crowning message of a work meant to glorify all heroic endeavor. A thorough familiarity with this movement will repay the student not only as exemplifying Beethoven's freedom of expression but indeed as a point of departure for so many modern works in free variation form. See Supplement No. 45. To illustrate Beethoven's Pianoforte compositions we shall now analyze the _Seventh Sonata in D major_, op. 10, No. 3. Only wholesale hero-worshipers consider all of the thirty-two Sonatas of equal significance. It is true that, taken as a whole, they are a storehouse of creative vitality and that in each there is something, somewhere, which strikes a spark; for everything which Beethoven wrote was stamped with his dominating personality. But the fire of genius burns more steadily in some of the Sonatas than in others. It is the very essence of genius to have its transcendent moments; only mediocrity preserves a dead level. It is therefore no spirit of fault finding which leads us to centre our attention upon those Sonatas which have best stood the test of time and which never fail to convince us of their "raison d'être": the _Appassionata_, the _Waldstein_, the _C-sharp minor_, the _Pathétique_, the _Sonata in G major_, op. 14, No. 2, and _all_ the last five, especially the glorious one in _A-flat major_, op. 119. It is futile to deny that some of the early sonatas are experimental and that certain others do not represent Beethoven at his best, being more the result of his constructive power than of an impelling message which had to be expressed. The D major Sonata has been selected for study because, though composed in Beethoven's first period, it is thoroughly characteristic, and because its performance is within the powers of the average intelligent amateur. The full beauty of the later Sonatas can be realized only by great virtuosi who devote to them years of study. The work is in four movements: the first, complete Sonata-form; the second, modified Sonata-form; the third, Three-part; the Finale, a freely treated Rondo-Sonata-form. The first movement, Presto, begins with a vigorous presentation of the main theme which ends in measure 22 with the last of three _ff_ octaves. The unusually long transition, containing a subsidiary theme in B minor, is remarkable for its onrushing excitement and for the playful false leads which usher in the second theme. After a brilliant cadence in the dominant key, one would suppose this theme might be announced in measure 53, but not so; after three measures of cantabile melody, progress is interrupted by a group of descending octave leaps. A second attempt is now made, this time in A minor, only to be thwarted by a still more capricious octave descent. This time, however, after a dramatic pause, we are rewarded with a clear-cut, periodic melody beginning in measure 66, against which the rhythm of the first theme keeps up a gentle undercurrent. Some interesting modulations develop into a series of descending octaves which, accompanied by _sf_ chords, lead to the closing portion. This brilliant passage accentuates the dominant key of the second theme. After a short tranquillo phrase and some free imitations of the main theme we repeat the Exposition, or go on to the Development ushered in by a bold change to the mediant key of B-flat major. After several appearances of the main theme in the bass, Beethoven takes a leaf out of D. Scarlatti's book and revels in some crossing of the hands and some wide leaps. The Recapitulation corresponds exactly with the first part until we reach the Coda in measure 298, which affords a striking example of Beethoven's power of climax. After a long period of suspense an imitative treatment of the first theme, with kettle-drum effect in the bass, leads to a stringendo ascending passage which closes with two crashing dissonances and two peculiarly grouped chords, _e.g._ [Music] They have a hard, cutting brilliance all their own and give just the touch of color needed to finish this dazzling movement.[145] [Footnote 145: By Beethoven everything is carefully planned. Note in performance the contrast of mood suggested by these final chords and the sombre register of the opening chords of the Slow Movement.] In the Slow Movement, Largo e Mesto, there is a depth of emotion quite unparalleled in the early history of music.[146] Certainly no composer since Bach had uttered such a message. As soon as the movement begins we are convinced that it represents the outpouring of a soul capable of deep meditations upon life and its mysteries, and with the eloquence at its command to impress these thoughts upon the hearer. The number of themes and their key relationship are those of Sonata-form, but instead of the usual development we have a new contrasting theme of great pathos in the major mode. Observe the poignancy of the dissonances, _e.g._, [Music] in the second theme of the Exposition which begins in measure 17, and the passionate outcries in measures 35 and 37 of the middle portion. Just before the Recapitulation, in measures 41-43, is an early example of Beethoven's fondness for instrumental recitative--music speaking with a more intimate appeal than words. The movement ends with an impassioned Coda which, beginning with the main theme in the bass and working up, more and more agitato, to a powerful climax, dies away with mysterious fragments of the opening measures. The dissonant element so characteristic of the whole movement is retained to the end, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 146: According to d'Indy it is more truly pathetic than the entire so-called _Pathetic Sonata_.] The growing importance of dissonance may be seen from a comparison of this movement with the average slow movements of Haydn and Mozart These, although they have serenity and grace, beauty and finish of form, and are sincere manifestations of the genius of their creators, are yet lacking in passion. This placid mood and amiability of style is shown by the comparatively slight employment of dissonances. By unthinking and uncultivated persons dissonances[147] are often considered as something harsh, repellant--hence to be avoided. But dissonances contain the real life and progress of music. They arouse, even take by storm our imaginations and shake us out of our equanimity. Consonant chords represent stability, satisfaction and, when over-used, inertia. The genius of the composer is shown in establishing just the _right proportion_ between these two elements; but if there is to be any disproportion let us have _too much_ rather than too little dissonance, for then, at any rate, the music is _alive_. Since Beethoven the whole development of music as a human language shows the preponderating stress laid on dissonance; to this fact a knowledge of the works of Schumann, Chopin, Wagner, Debussy and Franck will amply testify.[148] The same analogy holds equally in all realms of life, human and physical. The truest development of character depends on the warring elements of good and evil. Honest discontent is the first step to progress. Dissonance is the yeast of music and should be welcomed for its invigorating influence. [Footnote 147: A frequent confusion of thought is shown in the use of the words "discord" and "dissonance." A discord is an unrelated noise, as when one bangs with both fists on the key-board. A dissonance is a logical introduction of intervals or chords made up of jarring factors for their stimulating effect upon the imagination.] [Footnote 148: Two of the greatest innovators in this direction, Scryabin and Stravinsky, have been working in our own day, and there is no doubt that by their daring experiments they have enlarged the expressive powers of music. While it is obvious that the dramatic effect of to-day stimulates the experimentation of tomorrow, contrariwise, the immediate contribution of each innovator is to render more clear the work of his predecessor, up to that moment the confessed iconoclast.] The third movement, Minuetto, may be taken as a reply to Haydn's well-known wish "Oh! that some one would write us a new Minuet." Well, here it is--with all the grace and charm of the 18th century type and yet with more import, especially in the Coda with its haunting retrospect. The rhythmic formation of the opening sentence would be clearer if two measures had been thrown into _one_, for the swing is clearly that of a 6/4 measure. The Trio, with its Scarlatti-like crossing of the hands, is a playful bit of badinage, affording a delightful contrast to the Minuetto. Such genuine variety in mood makes the Three-part Form of lasting worth. The Finale, Allegro, with its capricious fortissimo outbursts and unexpected sforzandos is a characteristic example of Beethoven's freedom of utterance. Any cast-iron conception of form was entirely foreign to his nature; instead, he made form the servant of the freest flights of fancy. The movement begins as if it were to be worked out in the so-called Rondo Sonata-form--a hybrid, tripartite structure related to the Sonata-form in that it has _two_ themes in the first and last portions, and to the Rondo in that the middle portion is a free Episode instead of the customary development of former material. The salient feature by which this form may always be recognized is that the Exposition closes with a _definite return_ to the first theme--thus emphasizing the Rondo aspect--instead of with an expanded cadence based upon the second theme. As we have stated before (see Chapter IX), many of Beethoven's Finales are in this mixed form, clear examples of which may be found in the last movements of the Fourth, Eighth and Twelfth Sonatas. The Finale of the Twelfth Sonata has been included in the Supplement in order to make this important form familiar to the student. To return now to the Finale of the sonata we are studying. Its first two portions correspond exactly to the usual practice in the Rondo-Sonata form just explained; _i.e._, we find in the Exposition a first theme, a modulatory transition, a second theme (beginning in measure 17) and a definite repetition of the first theme, in measures 25-32. Then, after two measures of bold modulation, begins the middle, episodical passage which, closing with a whimsical cadenza-like passage, leads back to the beginning of the third part. After a complete, slightly varied appearance of the first theme, Beethoven does not repeat the second theme, as we should expect, but allows his fancy to indulge in a series of brilliant passages, exciting modulations and dynamic contrasts. All this freedom is held together by insistence on the fundamental rhythmic motive (measures 72-83). A final embellished statement of the first theme ushers in the fiery Coda, in measure 92, which ends with a long running passage; beneath, we hear reminiscences of the main theme. It is often stated that Beethoven's Sonatas are lacking in pianistic effect, and it is true that his pianoforte works do not bring out the possibilities of color and sonority as we find them, for example, in Chopin and Debussy--the orchestra and the string-quartet being indeed his favorite media of expression. Yet during his entire early career Beethoven was famous as a performer and improviser on the pianoforte and some, at any rate, of his deepest thoughts have been confided to that instrument. That he was not at all insensible to the beauty of pianistic effect for its own sake is shown by the syncopated, shadowy chords in measures 101-105, the whole justification for which lies in their enchanting sound.[149] [Footnote 149: For a very clear tabular view of the structure of this Sonata see d'Indy's _Cours de Composition Musicale_, Book II, p. 332.] SYMPHONY NO. 5[150] [Footnote 150: This is not given in the Supplement. See preceding remarks apropos of the Third Symphony. The comments are based, as usual, on the full orchestral score.] The _Fifth Symphony in C minor_, op. 67, is deservedly popular because it is so human; a translation, in fact, of life itself into the glowing language of music. Beethoven's emotional power was so deep and true that, in expressing himself, he spoke, like every great philosopher, poet or artist, for all mankind. Which one of us in his own experience, has not felt the same protests against relentless Fate that find such uncontrollable utterance in the first movement? Who, again, is untouched by that angelic message, set before us in the second movement, of hope and aspiration, of heroic and even _warlike_[151] resolution, mingled with the resignation which only great souls know? The third movement (Allegro)--in reality a Scherzo of the most fantastic type, though not so marked--might well typify the riddle of the Universe. We indeed "see through a glass darkly," and yet there is no note of despair. Amid the sinister mutterings of the basses there ring out, on the horns and trumpets, clarion calls to action. While we are in this world we must live its life; a living death is unendurable. The Finale, Allegro maestoso, is a majestic declaration of unconquerable faith and optimism--the intense expression of Beethoven's own words, "I will grapple with Fate, it shall never pull me down"--to be compared only with Browning's "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world," and the peroration to Whitman's _Mystic Trumpeter_, "Joy, joy, over all joy!" No adequate attempt could be made to translate the music into words. The Symphony is extremely subjective; indeed, autobiographic. For all historical details as to its composition, the reader is referred to the Grove essay,[152] and for eulogistic rhapsodies nothing can surpass the essay of Berlioz, that prince of critics. We shall content ourselves with a few comments of a structural nature and then trust the student to seek a performance of the work by a good orchestra. Of the first movement (Allegro con brio)[153] the dominant characteristics, especially in comparison with the wealth of material in the _Heroic_, are conciseness and intensity. It starts at once, without prelude, with the motive--one of the tersest in music--from which is developed, polyphonically, the first theme, _e.g._ [Music[A]] [Footnote 151: This interpretation of d'Indy is based upon the prevalence in the movement of the conventional martial rhythm [Music] and carries, we must acknowledge, considerable weight. It is, however, distinctly subjective and prevents no one from gaining quite a different impression. We should be more inclined to accept the views of the noted French scholar had he not been so wide of the mark, while speaking of the Seventh Symphony, as to deny any appearance of dance-rhythm in the first movement But the Irish composer, Villiers Stanford, has shown conclusively that the theme is based upon the rhythm of an Irish Hornpipe. Thus do the wise ones disagree! Meanwhile, we others have the _music itself_.] [Footnote 152: _Beethoven and his Nine Symphonies_ by Sir George Grove.] [Footnote 153: Beethoven's favorite mark of tempo and expression.] [Footnote A: There are also some _p_ holding notes on the bassoons.] Everything is concentrated in the highest degree and the assault upon our consciousness is of corresponding power. A tempestuous transition leads to two short _sf_ chords and then in measure 59, announced _ff_ by the horns, appears the first phrase of the second theme, based on the same motive as the first, but in the relative major (E-flat), _e.g._ [Music] It is answered by a second phrase of marked simplicity and loveliness--a mood, indeed, of resignation. This is only momentary, however, for the relentless rhythm of the chief motive continues to assert itself in the basses until, as it gathers headway after a short closing phrase (95-99), it is thundered out _ff_ by the full orchestra in a series of descending groups. The Development continues the same resistless impetuosity. Note the grim effect of the empty fifths and fourths in measures 126-127. Once only is there a slackening of the titanic, elemental drive--in the mysterious passage (212-239) where the pent-up fury of the composer seems to have exhausted itself. It is only, however, a lull in the storm which breaks forth with renewed energy in the Recapitulation and Coda. Observe the pathetic commentary which the solo oboe makes upon the main theme at the outset of the third part (268)--a flower growing out of the débris of the avalanche. The Coda begins, at measure 374, with a passionate insistence upon the fundamental rhythm, driven home with sharp hammer-blows and, as in all Beethoven's symphonic movements, furnishes an overpowering climax, not a mere perfunctory close. The second Movement, in A-flat major, is a series of free[154] Variations (five in number) based on a theme, Andante con moto,[155] of great rhythmic vitality, peculiarly rich and suave--announced, as it is, by 'celli and violas in unison, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 154: Free, in that they are not numbered and are not separated by rigid cadences; in that episodical passages--often of a rhapsodic nature--are interpolated.] [Footnote 155: The tempo is often taken by conductors too slowly, thus losing much of its buoyancy.] The first two presentations of the theme are in each case followed by a passage of martial character which bursts triumphantly into C major. There is an orchestral touch of great beauty and originality in the first and second variations (beginning in measures 49 and 98 respectively), where a solo clarinet--later a flute, oboe and bassoon--prolongs a single tone which seems to float above the melody like a guiding star.[156] A passage of special significance is that in measures 123-146, where Beethoven indulges in a touching soliloquy upon his main theme. It is mysteriously introduced by the repetition, eight times, _pp_, of the dominant chord (the simplest medium of suspense) which seems to say "Hush, I have something most intimate reveal." The Coda (Più Moto) begins with a mood of wistful reverie, but the clouds are soon dispelled and the movement ends in radiant sunshine. [Footnote 156: While listening to this passage one is instinctively reminded of Keats's "Bright and steadfast star, hung aloft the night."] The salient structural feature in the last two movements[157] is that they are merged together; there is no pause after the Scherzo; and the movements are further interlocked by an interpolation, in the middle of the Finale, of a portion of the preceding Scherzo--a kind of inter-quotation or cross reference. This composite movement is a striking example of the organic relationship which Beethoven succeeded in establishing--between the different movements of the symphony. Prior to him, it is fair to say--to use a homely simile--that a sonata or a symphony resembled a train of different cars merely linked together, one after the other; whereas the modern work, as foreshadowed by Beethoven, is a vestibuled train: one indivisible whole from beginning to end.[158] But before the Fifth Symphony there had been no such systematic unification; for it is not too much to say that the whole work is based upon the persistent iteration of a single note in varied rhythmic groups. Thus in the first movement we find continually the rhythm [Music]; in the second, in several places [Music]; in the Scherzo [Music]; and in the Finale [Music]. Furthermore a C, repeated by the kettle-drums for fifty measures, is the chief factor in the connecting link between the Scherzo and the Finale. We shall observe this tendency to interconnection still further developed by Schumann in his Fourth Symphony, by Liszt in the Symphonic Poem[159] (to be treated later), and a climax of attainment reached in such highly unified works as César Franck's D minor Symphony and Tchaikowsky's Fifth. To return to the Scherzo, well worthy of note is the Trio, in free fugal form (its theme announced by the ponderous double basses), because it is such a convincing illustration of the humorous possibilities inherent in fugal style. The way in which the voices chase each other about--compared by Berlioz[160] with the gambols of a delighted elephant--and their spasmodic attempts at assertion, produce an effect irresistibly droll. The humour is as broad as that of Aristophanes or Rabelais. Words are powerless to describe the thrill of the last fifty measures which launch us into the Finale. We may merely observe that this long passage, _pp_ throughout until the last molto crescendo, and with the rhythmic element reduced to a minimum, makes more of an impact upon our imagination than that of the loudest orchestral forces ever conceived. We are reminded of the effect of the "still, small voice" after the thunders on Sinai. The Finale, with its majestic opening theme in fanfare, contains a wealth of material and is conceived throughout in the utmost spirit of optimistic joy and freedom.[161] The Exposition has a subsidiary theme of its own, beginning at measure 26, which reappears with rhythmic modification (diminution), and most eloquently announced by the bassoons, in the first section of the final Coda. After the brilliant second theme (45-63) there is an impressive closing theme (with some biting _fp_ dissonances) which forms the basis of the Presto portion of the Coda. The Development is a marvellous treatment of the second theme, in imitation, modulation and climactic growth; the rhythm [Music], so vitally connected with the whole work, persisting with stupendous energy. In the final measures it would seem as if Beethoven were storming the very heavens. Here occurs the quotation from the preceding Scherzo which binds the movements together and serves as a point of departure for a still greater climax. It seems unreasonable to expect a higher flight, but the genius of Beethoven is equal to the effort. If, before, we have reached the heavens, now we pierce them. The brilliant Coda--note the ascending runs for the piccolo--is in three sections, the first based on the subsidiary theme, _e.g._, [Music] the second on the closing theme in quickened tempo, _e.g._, [Music[B]] and the third, a canonic treatment of the opening fanfare, _e.g._, [Music] in which the orchestra seems to tumble head over heels in a paroxysm of delight. The movement closes with prolonged shouts of victory and exultation.[162] [Footnote 157: Taken separately, the movements are perfectly normal; the Scherzo in the usual Three-part form and the Finale in complete Sonata-form.] [Footnote 158: There are traces of this striving for organic unity in several of the early Sonatas, notably in the _Sonata Pathétique_, where the motive of the first theme of the Finale is identical with that of the second theme of the opening movement _e.g._ [Music: 1st Movement] [Music: Finale] Also in the C-sharp minor Sonata, op. 27, we find a case of melodic relationship between a phase in the introductory meditation and the main theme of the Minuet.] [Footnote 159: A Symphonic Poem is a descriptive composition for orchestra which incorporates many of the customary symphonic moods; but the form is free, largely dependent on the poetic basis, and the structure is without stops, being one continuous whole.] [Footnote 160: His exact words are--"Le milieu (the trio) ressemble assez aux ébats d'un éléphant en gaieté--mais le monstre s'éloigne et le bruit de sa folle course se perd graduellement."] [Footnote 161: Its motto might well be Browning's famous lines: "How good is man's life, how fit to employ all the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy."] [Footnote B: This pianoforte figure being a very inadequate substitute for the restless tremolo of the violas, _i.e._, [Music].] [Footnote 162: For suggestive comments by the noted critic E.T.A. Hoffmann, one of the first to realize the genius of Beethoven, and for a complete translation of his essay on the Fifth Symphony see the article by A.W. Locke in the Musical Quarterly for January, 1917.] THE CORIOLANUS OVERTURE This dramatic work is of great importance, not only for its emotional power and eloquence, but because it represents a type of Program music, _i.e._, music with a suggestive title, which Beethoven was the first to conceive and to establish. From the inherent connection between the materials of music (sound and rhythm) and certain natural phenomena (the sound and rhythm of wind, wave and storm, the call of birds, etc.) it is evident that the possibility for Program--or descriptive--music has always existed.[163] That is, the imagination of musicians has continually been influenced by external sights, sounds and events; and to their translation into music suggestive titles have been given, as a guide to the hearer. Thus we find Jannequin, a French composer of the 16th century, writing two pieces--for _voices_!--entitled "_Les cris de Paris_" and "_La Bataille--défaite des Suisses à la journée de Marignan_;" in the former of which are introduced the varied cries of street venders and in the latter, imitations of fifes, drums, cannon and all the bustle and noises of war. In the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book there is a Fantasie by John Mundy of the English school, in which such natural phenomena as thunder, lightning and fair weather are delineated. There is a curious similarity between the musical portrayal of lightning in this piece[164] of Mundy and that of Wagner in the _Valkyrie_. In the _Bible Sonatas_ of the German composer Kuhnau (1660-1722) we have a musical description of the combat between David and Goliath. Anyone at all familiar with the music of Couperin and Rameau will recall the variety of fantastic titles assigned to their charming pieces for the claveçin--almost always drawn from the field of nature: birds, bees, butterflies, hens, windmills, even an eel! It is but fair to state that we also find attempts at character drawing, even in those early days, as is indicated by such titles as _La Prude_, _La Diligente_, _La Séduisante_.[165] Haydn's portrayal of Chaos, in the Prelude to the _Creation_, is a remarkable mood-picture and shows a trend in quite a different direction. All these instances corroborate the statement that, in general, composers were influenced by external phenomena and that their program music was of an imitative and often frankly literal kind. From what we know of Beethoven's nature and genius, however, we should imagine that he would be far more interested in the emotions and struggles of the soul and we find that such indeed is the case. With the exception of the _Pastoral Symphony_ with its bird-calls and thunderstorm and the _Egmont_ Overture with its graphic description of a returning victorious army, his program music invariably aims at the description of character and the manner in which it is influenced by events--_not_, be it understood, at a musical portrayal of the events themselves. This difference in type is generally indicated by the terms _subjective_ and _objective_, _i.e._, program music is subjective, when it deals with the emotions and moods of real or historical persons; objective, when it is based upon incidents or objects of the actual world. It is evident that in subjective program music an adjustment must be made, for the dramatic needs of the subject are to be considered as well as the inherent laws of music itself. We may state that the widening of the conception of form, so marked in modern music, has been caused by the need of such an adjustment; for as composers became more cultivated, more in touch with life and of more richly endowed imagination, the arbitrary conventions of strict form had perforce to yield to the demands of dramatic treatment. This implies not that program music is without a definite structure, only that the _form_ is _different_--modified by the needs of the subject. As there is no other point in aesthetics which has caused more loose thinking, a few further comments may be pertinent. Some critics go so far as to deny the right of existence to all program music.[166] Of course there is good as well as bad program music, but to condemn it _per se_ is simply to fly in the face of facts, for a large proportion of the music since Beethoven is on a poetic basis and has descriptive titles. Others claim that they cannot understand it. But that is their loss, not the fault of the music; the composer writes it and it is for us to acquire the state of mind to appreciate it. Another misleading allegation, often heard, is that a piece of program music should be so clear and self-sufficient that the hearer needs to know nothing of the title to derive the fullest enjoyment. But this simply begs the question. As well say that in listening to a song we need to know nothing of the meaning of the text. It is true that in listening to Beethoven's _Coriolanus_, for example, any sensitive hearer will be impressed by the vitality of the rhythm and the sheer beauty of orchestral sound. But to hold that such a hearer gets as much from the work as he who knows the underlying drama and can follow sympathetically the correspondence between the characters and their musical treatment is to indulge in reckless assertion. The true relationship between composer and hearer is this: when works are entitled _Coriolanus_, _Melpomene_, _Francesca da Rimini_, _Sakuntala_, _L'après-midi d'un Faune_, _The Mystic Trumpeter_, _L'apprenti Sorcier_, and the composers reveal therein the influence such subjects have had upon their imagination, they are paying a tacit compliment to the hearer whose breadth of intelligence and cultivation they expect to be on a par with their own. If such be not the case, the fault is not the composer's; the burden of proof is on the listener.[167] Let us now trace certain relationships between the drama of _Coriolanus_ and the musical characterization of Beethoven. The Overture was composed as an introduction to a tragedy by the German playwright von Collin, but as the play is obsolete and as both von Collin and Shakespeare went to Plutarch for their sources, a familiarity--which should be taken for granted[168]--with the English drama will furnish sufficient background for an appreciation of the music. The scene before the city gates is evidently that in which Volumnia and Virgilia plead with the victorious warrior to refrain from his fell purpose of destruction. The work is in Sonata-form, since the great Sonata principle of _duality_ of _theme_ exactly harmonizes with the two main influences of the drama--the masculine and the feminine. It is of particular interest to observe how the usual methods of Sonata-form procedure are modified to suit the dramatic logic of the subject. The work begins Allegro con brio, with three sustained Cs--as if someone were stamping with heavy foot--followed by a series of assertive _ff_ chords for full orchestra (note the piercing dissonance in the 7th measure), which at once establishes an atmosphere of headstrong defiance. The first theme, beginning in measure 15 with its restless rhythm, is not meant to be beautiful in the ordinary sense of the term--"a concourse of sweet sounds"; rather is it a dramatic characterization, a picture in terms of music, of the reckless energy and the fierce threats which we naturally associate with Coriolanus. The theme is repeated and then the transition develops this masculine mood in an impassioned manner--observe the frequency of _sf_ accents and the crashing dissonances[169]--until a sustained note on the violins, followed by a descending cantabile phrase, brings us to the second theme, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 163: A complete account of this development may be found in the first two chapters of Niecks's _Programme Music_.] [Footnote 164: For an excellent description of this piece, as well as others of the period, see the volume by Krehbiel _The Pianoforte and Its Music_.] [Footnote 165: A comprehensive and invaluable description of the works and style of Couperin and Rameau may be found in the _History of the Pianoforte and its Players_ by Oscar Bie. For an early example of what is now called "poetic atmosphere" everyone should know Couperin's piece _Les Barricades Mystérieuses_ which is more suggestive when played on the claveçin with its delicate tone.] [Footnote 166: A favorite term of opprobrium is that the program is a "crutch."] [Footnote 167: There are several essays which will help the student toward clear thinking on this important subject: the valuable essay _Program Music_ in Newman's _Musical Studies_, the article on the subject in Grove's Dictionary, and the exhaustive volume by Niecks; some of his views, however, are extreme and must be accepted with caution. Above all should be read Wagner's interpretation of Coriolanus in his essay on the Overture (English translation by W.A. Ellis).] [Footnote 168: Twenty-five years' experience as a college teacher, however, has proved that _too much_ may be taken for granted!] [Footnote 169: It is unfortunate that the diminished seventh chord does not sound so fierce to our modern ears as it undoubtedly did in Beethoven's time, but that is simply because we have become accustomed to more strident effects.] This theme, in distinction from the first, typifies the appeal for mercy made by the women in the drama. No contrast could be stronger than that between these two themes--the first, impulsive, staccato, of sweeping range, and in the minor; the second, suave, legato, restrained and in the major. They show indeed how powerfully Beethoven's imagination was impressed by the subject. After an eloquent expansion of the second theme there follow several stormy measures (the deprecations of the women are at first of no avail) that lead through a crescendo to a closing theme, at measure 83, in which the mood of defiant assertion is strongly marked. The exposition closes in this mood, in measure 100, and the following Development accentuates it through several successions of restless, crescendo passages until a _ff_ descent sweeps us back to the Recapitulation, in measure 151. It is now evident that the furious intentions of the warrior have raged themselves out, for not only is the theme which represents him much shortened but it loses somewhat of its former fiery intensity. From here on, the trend of the music is largely modified by the dramatic demands of the subject. That the appeals of the women are beginning to prevail is evident from the emphasis laid on the second theme, which gives its message no less than _three_ times, instead of the single appearance which we should expect in the usual Recapitulation. The third appeal, in measures 247-253, is rendered most pathetic by being expressed in the minor mode. In the Coda there are fitful flare-ups of the relentless purpose, but that the stubborn will has been softened is evident from the slowing down of the rhythm, in measures 285-294. Finally, in the wonderful closing passage, we have a picture of broken resolves and ruined hopes. The theme disintegrates and fades away--a lifeless vision. Although much of the structure in this overture is identical with that which prevails in absolute music--for, after all, the composer must be true to the laws of his medium of expression--there is enough _purely dramatic_ treatment to justify the foregoing analysis. Beethoven, at any rate, called the overture Coriolanus, and we may be sure he meant it to _represent_ Coriolanus and to be something more than a skillful combination of sounds and rhythms. We now add a few last words on the quality of Beethoven's themes in his moments of supreme inspiration. The unshaken hold which his music has upon the affections of mankind is due chiefly to two striking characteristics: first, the way in which he dramatized everything--themes, instruments, even _single_ notes, _i.e._, treating them as actual factors in life itself rather than as artistic abstractions; second, the spirituality and sublimity in his immortal message. The first quality is exemplified in a number of passages, notably in the first movement of the Violin Concerto and in the Finale of the Eighth Symphony. In the opening measures of the Concerto the use of the single note D-sharp, and the entry _pp_ of the F natural in the following passage--in each case, entirely disconnected from the normal rules of musical grammar--are most dramatic, _e.g._ [Music] At the mysterious entrance of the F natural in this passage it would seem as if some mighty spirit were suddenly looking over our shoulder. In the Finale of the Eighth Symphony what can be more startling than the sudden explosive entrance of the unrelated C-sharp--before the orchestra continues its mad career--which can be compared only to the uproarious laughter of Rabelais himself, _e.g._ [Music] There are numerous examples in Beethoven showing his dramatic use of such orchestral instruments as the bassoons, horns, kettle-drums and double basses. Possibly the most striking[170] is the Slow Movement of the G major Pianoforte Concerto--that inspired dialogue, as it has been eloquently called, "between Destiny and the human soul," in which the touching appeals of the solo instrument are constantly interrupted by the sinister mutterings and forebodings of the strings. Observe especially the closing measures where the basses, alone are heard _pp_, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 170: See, however, the octave leaps of the kettle-drums in the Scherzo of the Ninth Symphony.] A spiritual quality escapes verbal definition; but just as we can feel it in certain characters, and just as we recognize the sublime in nature and in such works of art as a cathedral or a Shakespearian Drama, so we may find it in the following specific examples from his works: the Trio of the second movement of the Seventh Symphony; the Slow Movement theme of the B-flat major Trio and the Slow Movement of the Sonata op. 109. (See Supplement Nos. 47, 48, 49.) Anyone who allows these themes to sink into his consciousness is carried into a realm of ideality where he begins to recognize the truth that "the things which are unseen are eternal." Music of this transporting power is far above that which merely excites, amuses or even fascinates; and of such music Beethoven is the poet for all time. We have referred above to the voluminous literature extant concerning Beethoven. Several scholars, in fact--notably Alexander Thayer and Sir George Grove--have devoted a large part of their lives to finding out all there is to be known about his life and works. Obviously the layman cannot be expected to become familiar with this entire mass of historical and critical writing. The following books, however, may be considered indispensable aids to those who would become cultivated appreciators of Beethoven's masterpieces: the _Life of Beethoven_ by Alexander Thayer--a great glory to American scholarship; the life in Grove's Dictionary; the illuminating Biography by d'Indy (in French and in English); _Beethoven and his Nine Symphonies_ by Grove; the _Oxford History of Music_, Vol. V; and the essay by Mason in his _Beethoven and his Forerunners_.[171] We cite, in closing, a eulogy[172] by Dannreuther--in our opinion the most eloquent ever written on Beethoven's genius: "While listening," says Mr. Dannreuther, "to such works as the Overture to Leonora, the Sinfonia Eroica, or the Ninth Symphony, we feel that we are in the presence of something far wider and higher than the mere development of musical themes. The execution in detail of each movement and each succeeding work is modified more and more by the prevailing sentiment. A religious passion and elevation are present in the utterances. The mental and moral horizon of the music grows upon us with each renewed hearing. The different movements--like the different particles of each movement--have as close a connection with one another as the acts of a tragedy, and a characteristic significance to be understood only in relation to the whole; each work is in the full sense of the word a revelation. Beethoven speaks a language no one has spoken before, and treats of things no one has dreamt of before: yet it seems as though he were speaking of matters long familiar, in one's mother tongue; as though he touched upon emotions one had lived through in some former existence.... The warmth and depth of his ethical sentiment is now felt all the world over, and it will ere long be universally recognised that he has leavened and widened the sphere of men's emotions in a manner akin to that in which the conceptions of great philosophers and poets have widened the sphere of men's intellectual activity." [Footnote 171: Suggestive comments from a literary point of view may also be found in these works: _Studies in the Seven Arts_, Symonds; _Beethoven_ by Romain Rolland--with an interesting though ultra-subjective introduction by Carpenter; _The Development of Symphonic Music_ by T.W. Surette; _Beethoven_ by Walker; _Beethoven_ by Chantavoine in the series _Les Maîtres de la Musique_. As to the three successive "styles" under which Beethoven's works are generally classified there is an excellent account in Pratt's _History of Music_, p. 419.] [Footnote 172: This passage is to be found in the Life in Grove's Dictionary.] CHAPTER XII THE ROMANTIC COMPOSERS. SCHUBERT AND WEBER During the latter part of Beethoven's life--he died in 1827--new currents were setting in, which were to influence profoundly the trend of modern music. Two important, though in some respects unconscious, representatives of these tendencies were actually working contemporaneously with Beethoven, von Weber (1786-1826) and Schubert (1797-1828). Beethoven himself is felt to be a dual personality in that he summed up and ratified all that was best in his predecessors, and pointed the way for most of the tendencies operative since his time. For the designation of these two contrasting, though not exclusive, ideals, the currently accepted terms are Classic and Romantic. So many shades of meaning have unfortunately been associated with the word Romantic that confusion of thought has arisen. It is also true that the so-called Romanticists, including poets and painters as well as musicians, in their endeavors to break loose from the formality of the Classic period, have indulged in many irritating idiosyncracies. We are beginning to see clearly that a too violent expression of individuality destroys a most vital factor in music--universality of appeal. Yet the Romantic School cannot be ignored. To its representatives we owe many of our finest works, and they were the prime movers in those strivings toward freedom and ideality which have made the modern world what it is. The term Romantic is perfectly clear in its application to literature, from which music borrowed it. It refers to the movement begun about the year 1796 among such German poets as Tieck, the two Schlegels and Novalis, to restore the poetic legends of the middle ages, written in the Romance dialects, and to embody in their own works the fantastic spirit of this medieval poetry.[173] In reference to music, however, the terms Classic and Romantic are often vague and misleading, and have had extreme interpretations put upon them.[174] Thus, to many, "romantic" implies ultra-sentimental, mawkish or grotesque, while everything "classic" is dry, uninspired and academic. How often we hear the expression, "I am not up to classic music; let me hear something modern and romantic." Many scholars show little respect for the terms and some would abolish them altogether. Everything, however, hinges upon a reasonable definition. Pater's well-known saying that "Romanticism is the addition of strangeness to beauty" is fair; and yet, since strangeness in art can result only from imaginative conception, it amounts to nothing more than the truism that romantic art is imbued with personality. Hence Stendhal is right in saying that "All good art was Romantic in its day"; _i.e._, it exhibited as much warmth and individuality as the spirit of its times would allow. Surely Bach, Haydn and Mozart were real characters, notwithstanding the restraint which the artificialities of the period often put upon their utterance. On the other hand, work at first pronounced to be romantic establishes, by a universal recognition of its merit, the claim to be considered classic, or set apart; what is romantic to-day thus growing to be classic[175] tomorrow. It is evident, therefore, that the terms interlock and are not mutually exclusive. It is a mistaken attitude to set one school off against the other, or to prove that one style is greater than the other; they are simply different. Compositions of lasting worth always manifest such a happy union of qualities that, in a broad sense, they may be called both romantic and classic, _i.e._, they combine personal emotion and imagination with breadth of meaning and solidity of structure. [Footnote 173: For a more complete historical account see the article "Romantic" in Grove's Dictionary and the introduction to Vol. VI of _The Oxford History of Music_. _Rousseau and Romanticism_ by Professor Irving Babbitt presents the latest investigations in this important field.] [Footnote 174: Some very sane comments may be found in Pratt's _History of Music_, pp. 427, 501, 502.] [Footnote 175: "A _classic_ is properly a book"--and the same would be true of a musical composition--"which maintains itself by that happy coalescence of matter and style, that innate and requisite sympathy between the thought that gives life and the form that consents to every mood of grace and dignity, and which is something neither ancient nor modern, always new and incapable of growing old." Lowell, _Among My Books_.] Beginning, however, with Schubert and Weber--the two first representatives of the romantic group--there is a marked novelty of content and style; and if we drop the terms and confine ourselves to the inner evidence of the music itself, we note a difference which may be felt and to a certain extent formulated. To take extreme types for the sake of vivid contrast, let us compare the compositions of Haydn and Mozart with those of Berlioz and Liszt. In the former there is repose, restraint and a perfect finish in the structural presentation; a feeling of serenity comes over us as we listen. In the latter, a peculiar intensity of expression, an attempt to fascinate the listener by the most intimate kinds of appeal, especially to the senses and fancy, regardless of any liberties taken with former modes of treatment. The purely classical composer is always master of his subject, whereas the romanticist is often carried away by it. Classical works are objectively beautiful, commending themselves to everyone like works of nature, or, let us say, like decorative patterns in pure design. Romantic works are subjective, charged with individuality and demand a sensitive and sympathetic appreciation on the part of the hearer. It is evident that many of these tendencies are found clearly outlined in the works of Beethoven. In fact, as has been said, he was not only the climax of the classical school, but the founder of the new era--opening a door, as it were, into the possibilities of a more intense, specialized form of emotional utterance and a freer conception of form. These special characteristics were so fully developed by Beethoven's successors, Schubert, Weber, Schumann, Chopin, etc. that they are always grouped together as the Romantic School. A striking feature in this whole Romantic group is the early flowering of their genius and the shortness of their lives--Weber, forty years, Schubert, thirty-one, Schumann, forty-six, Mendelssohn, thirty-eight, Chopin, forty. In the case of all the composers we have hitherto studied, with the exception of Mozart, their masterpieces have been the result of long years of patient, technical study and hence show that finish and maturity of style which come only with time. But the precocity of the Romanticists is astounding! Many of Schubert's famous pieces were composed in his earliest manhood; Mendelssohn's _Midsummer Night's Dream_ Overture dates from his sixteenth year; Schumann's best pianoforte works were composed before he was thirty. The irresistible spontaneity and vigor of all these works largely atone for any blemishes in treatment. We feel somewhat the same in the case of Keats and Shelley in comparison with Milton, and are reminded of Wordsworth's lines, "Bliss was it in that hour to be alive, but to be young was very Heaven."[176] Why expect senatorial wisdom and the fancy of youth in any one person! [Footnote 176: Compare also the definition of genius by Masters in the _Spoon River Anthology_: "In youth my wings were strong and tireless, But I did not know the mountains. In age I knew the mountains But my weary wings could not follow my vision-- Genius is wisdom and youth."] A most important distinction between a classical and a romantic composer is the knowledge and love of literature shown by the latter. Although Haydn kept a note-book on his London tours, and although we have a fair number of letters from Mozart, in neither of these men do we find any appreciation of general currents of thought and life. In many of Beethoven's works we have seen how close was the connection between literature and musical expression. All the Romantic composers, with the exception of Schubert, were broadly cultivated, and several could express themselves artistically in words as well as in notes. They may not have been on this account any better composers, as far as sheer creative vitality is concerned, but it is evident that their imaginations were nourished in quite a different way and hence a novel product was to be expected. Romantic music has been defined as a reflex of poetry expressed in musical terms, at times fairly trembling on the verge of speech. Music can not, to be sure, describe matters of fact, but the Romantic composers have brought it to a high degree of poetical suggestiveness. Thus the horn-calls of Weber and Schubert remind us of "the horns of Elfland faintly blowing" and much romantic music arouses our imaginations and enchants our senses in the same way as the lines of Keats where he tells of "Magic casements opening on the foam of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn," the chief glory of which is not any precise intellectual idea they convey, but the fascinating picture which carries us from the land of hard and fast events into the realm of fancy. Schumann claimed that his object in writing music was so to influence the imagination of the listeners that they could go on dreaming for themselves. A second characteristic is the freedom of form. Considering that a free rein to their fancy was incompatible with strict adherence to traditional rules, the Romantic spirits refused to be bound by forms felt to be inadequate. Although this attitude sometimes resulted in diffuseness and obscurity, on the whole (as Goethe says of romantic literature) "a wider and more varied subject matter and a freer form has been attained." The chief aim of romantic art being to arouse the imagination, we find a predilection for the use of solo wood-wind instruments, which are capable of such warmth and variety of tone-color. Whereas in the classical masters, and even generally in Beethoven, the melodies are likely to be the upper voice of a harmonic mass, or assigned to groups of instruments, Weber and Schubert in particular showed the eloquence to be gained by the use of such warm-blooded _solo_ instruments as the horn, the oboe and the clarinet. Schubert fairly conjures with the horn, often holding us spellbound with its haunting appeal, _e.g._, in the well-known second movement of the C major Symphony, the calls of which, as Schumann said, "seem to come from another world." Schubert was anything but a thinker, and reflected unconsciously the tendencies which were in the air; but his wonderful gift of lyric melody was thoroughly in keeping with the individual expression for which Romanticism stood. He said himself that his compositions were the direct result of his inmost sorrows. He was steeped in romantic poetry and the glowing fancy in his best work leads us to condone the occasional prolixity referred to by Schumann as "heavenly length." Schubert was well named by Liszt the most poetic of musicians, _i.e._, a creator of pure beauty which enthralls the imagination of the hearer. Why expect the work of any one composer to manifest all possible merits? If we crave dynamic power of emotion or sublimity of thought we may have recourse to Bach and Beethoven; but the spontaneous charm of Schubert never grows old; and it is not without interest to note that his music fulfils the definition of one of the most poetic composers of our time, Debussy, who claims that music is chiefly meant "to give pleasure." We note these same tendencies in Weber as shown in the overtures to his three Romantic operas, _Der Freischütz_, _Euryanthe_ and _Oberon_, which are the foundations of the modern art of dramatic orchestration, _i.e._, the intensification of certain ideas and situations by the special tone color and register of solo-instruments or by a novel use of customary means, _e.g._, the divided violins in the mysterious passage of the _Euryanthe_ overture. Another favorite means of arresting the attention was by modulation; not used in a constructive sense, simply to pass from one point to another, or to connect themes in different keys, but to furnish the ear with a purely sensuous delight, corresponding to that which the eye derives from the kaleidoscopic colors of a sunset. The works of Schubert, Chopin and to a lesser degree of Schumann abound in these shifting harmonies by which we seem to be wafted along on a magic carpet. A final characteristic, shared by all the Romantic composers, is the prevalence of titles--the logical result of the close connection between music, literature and the world of outward events,--thus Mendelssohn's Overture to the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ with its romantic opening chords, his _Hebrides_ Overture, the musical record of a trip to Scotland, and Schumann's _Manfred_, from Byron. Liszt even went so far as to draw inspiration from a painting, as in his _Battle of the Huns_, and again from a beautiful vase in _Orpheus_. We shall now make a few specific comments on the style of Schubert and Weber and then analyze some of their representative works. Schubert was a born composer of songs, and though his works for Pianoforte, String quartet and Orchestra were of marked significance and have proved of lasting value, the instinct for highly individualized, lyric melody predominates, and all his instrumental compositions may fairly be called "Songs without words."[177] It is evident that the solo-song, unencumbered by structural considerations, is one of the best media for expressing the Romantic spirit, and many of its fairest fruits are found in this field. Schubert's songs are often tone-dramas in which the expressive powers of music are most eloquently employed.[178] Note the poetic touches of character-drawing and of description in the _Young Nun_ (see Supplement No. 50). Schubert's pianoforte compositions are miniature tone-poems, mood-pictures--their titles: _Impromptus_ and _Moments Musicaux_, speak for themselves--making no pretense to the scope and elaborate structure of movements in Sonata-form,[179] yet of great import not only for their intrinsic beauty but as the prototypes of the numerous lyric and descriptive pieces of Schumann, Brahms, Grieg, Debussy and others. Their charm lies in the heart-felt melodies and surprising modulations. While neither sublime nor deeply introspective, they make the simple, direct appeal of a lovely flower. In the development of music they are as important as the modern short story in the field of literature; which, in distinction to the old "three-decker" novel, often really _says more_ and says it so concisely that our interest never flags. This tendency to the short, independent piece had been begun by Beethoven in his _Bagatelles_ (French "trifles"); but these, as has been aptly said, were "mere chips from the work-shop" whereas in a short piece of Schubert we find the quintessence of his genius. He was a prolific composer in the field of chamber music, and the Trios for Violin, 'Cello and Pianoforte, the A minor Quartet, the C major Quintet and, above all, the posthumous Quartet in D minor, which contains the entrancing Variations on the song _Death and the Maiden_, are still as fresh as when they were composed. In these works we do not look for architectonic power--we must admit, in fact, at the risk of seeming ungracious, that Schubert is diffuse at times--but our senses are so enthralled by the imaginative freedom and by the splendor of color, that all purely intellectual judgment is suspended. The magician works his wonders; it is for us to enjoy. We have from Schubert seven complete Symphonies and the so-called _Unfinished in B minor_, _i.e._, the first two movements and the fragment of a Scherzo. Of these the _Fourth_ (_Tragic_), composed in 1816, foreshadows the real Schubert and is occasionally heard to-day. But the immortal ones are the B minor and the C major, the latter composed in 1828 (the last year of his life) and never heard by its author.[180] Of this work Schumann said that "a tenth Muse had been added to the nine of Beethoven." This symphony is specially characterized by the incorporation of Hungarian types of melody, particularly in the first and in the last movement. It is indeed a storehouse of beauty, but the "high moments" are in the last two movements--the fairly intoxicating Trio of the Scherzo, which seems as if Nature herself were singing to us, and the gorgeous Finale with its throbbing rhythms. The first movement is laid out on a vast scale and holds the attention throughout, but the second movement, notwithstanding its wondrous theme, suffers from a lack of concentration; the sweetness is so long-drawn out that we become sated. [Footnote 177: Schubert was of incredible versatility and fecundity; he literally tried his hand at everything: operas, church-music, ensemble combinations. Since, however, he exercised little power of selection or revision much of this music has become obsolete. The joke is well-known that he could set a theatre notice to music, and his rule for composing was "When I have finished one song I begin another."] [Footnote 178: For an original, though at times rhapsodic, study of Schubert's vocal style see H.T. Finck's _Songs and Song Writers_, and the last chapter of the Fifth Volume of the Oxford History.] [Footnote 179: Schubert did compose a number of Pianoforte Sonatas in the conventional form, but with the exception of the one in A minor they seem diffuse and do not represent him at his best; they certainly have not held their own in modern appeal.] [Footnote 180: For the account of its exciting discovery in Vienna by Schumann in 1838, after a neglect of ten years, see the life of Schubert in Grove's Dictionary.] As examples[181] for analytical comment we select the Menuetto in B minor from the Fantasia for Pianoforte, op. 78; the fourth Impromptu in A-flat major from the set, op. 90, and the B minor Symphony for orchestra. The Menuetto, though one of Schubert's simpler pieces--the first part in an idealized Mozartian vein--yet exemplifies in the Trio one of the composer's most characteristic traits, the predilection for those bewitching alternations,[182] like sunlight and shadow, between the major and the minor mode. [Footnote 181: For lack of space no one of these compositions is cited in the Supplement, but they are all readily available.] [Footnote 182: This tendency is prevalent in folk-music, especially that of the Russians and Scandinavians. Schubert, however, was the _first_ to make such systematic and artistic use of the effect. For a beautiful modern example see the Spanish folk-dance by Granados, _e.g._, [Music]] The Impromptu in A-flat major, one of several equally fine ones, is notable for the wealth of its iridescent modulations and for the note of genuine pathos and passion in the middle portion in the minor mode. Schubert might well say that his most inspired music came from his sorrows. The _Unfinished Symphony_ requires less comment and elucidation than perhaps any other symphonic composition. The two movements are in definite Sonata-form--the first, strict, the second, with modifications; but the quality of the themes is quite different from that to which we have been accustomed in classical treatment. Instead of the terse, characteristic motive which, often at first uncompromisingly bare, impresses us as its latent possibilities are revealed, we have a series of lyric, periodic melodies which make their instant appeal. In Schubert everything sings; thus in the first part of the Exposition of the Allegro we have _three_ distinct melodies: the introductory phrase, the accompaniment figure which has a melodic line of its own, and the first theme proper. In any consideration of this work from a pianoforte version we must always remember how much the beauty and eloquence of the themes depend upon the solo instruments to which they are assigned. For Schubert was one of the first, as well as one of the greatest, of "Colorists." By the use of this pictorial term in music we mean that the tone-quality of certain instruments--the mellow, far-echoing effect of the horn, the tang of the oboe, the passionate warmth of the clarinet[183]--appeals to our sense of hearing in the same way in which beautiful colors--the green grass, the blue sky, the hues of a sunset--delight our sight. A striking example of Schubert's genius in utilizing tone-color to suit structural needs is found in the transition beginning at measure 38. This is a single tone on the horn (with a modulatory ending) announced _forte_ and then allowed to die away, _i.e._, _sf_ [decrescendo symbol]. So powerful is the horn in evoking a spirit of suspense and revery that this tone introduces the beautiful, swaying second theme more impressively than a whole series of routine modulations. The Development speaks for itself. Though there is little polyphonic treatment, it holds our interest by reason of the harmonic variety and the dramatic touches of orchestration. In Schubert we do not look for the development of a complicated plot but give ourselves up unreservedly to the enjoyment of pure melodic line, couched in terms of sensuously delightful tone-color. The transitional passage of the Recapitulation (measures 231-253) illustrates Schubert's fondness for modulation just for its own sake; we care not what the objective point of the music may be--enthralled, as we are, by the magical shifts of scene. In the Second Movement, likewise, the chief beauty--especially of the second theme--consists in the lyric quality, in the color of the solo instruments, the oboe, clarinet and horn, and in the enharmonic changes, _e.g._, where, in measures 80-95, the theme modulates from C-sharp minor to D-flat major. Note in the orchestral score the charming dialogue in this passage between the clarinet, oboe and flute. The Development, based upon the second theme, with some effective canonic treatment, shows that Schubert was by no means entirely lacking in polyphonic skill. At any rate he can work wonders with the horn, for at the close of the Development (measures 134-142) by the simple device of an octave leap, _ppp_, he veritably transports the listener, _e.g._ [Music] The Coda has a dream-like quality all its own. [Footnote 183: So appropriately called by Berlioz the "heroine of the orchestra."] Weber's permanent contribution to musical literature has proved to be his operas--a form of art not treated in this book. But the whole nature of his genius was so closely related to the Romantic spirit, as shown in the intimate connection between literature and music, in his descriptive powers and his development of the orchestra, that for the sake of comprehensiveness some familiarity should be gained with the essential features of his style. Of Weber it may be said with conviction that there is hardly a composer of acknowledged rank in whom style, _i.e._, the way and the medium by which musical thought is presented, so prevails over the substance of the thought itself. There are few if any of Weber's melodies which are notable for creative power, and as a harmonist he was lamentably weak. It has been scathingly said, though with considerable truth, that all his melodies are based upon an alternation of tonic and dominant chords![184] But when we consider what his themes are meant to describe, the pictures they evoke and their orchestral dress, we must acknowledge in Weber the touch of real poetic genius. To quote Runciman[185]-- "If you look, and look rightly, for the right thing in Weber's music, disappointment is impossible, though I admit that the man who professes to find there the great qualities he finds in Mozart, Beethoven, or any of the giants, must be in a very sad case. Grandeur, pure beauty, and high expressiveness are alike wanting. Weber's claim to a place amongst the composers is supported in a lesser degree by the gifts which he shared, even if his share was small, with the greater masters of music, than by his miraculous power of vividly drawing and painting in music the things that kindled his imagination. Being a factor of the Romantic movement, that mighty rebellion against the tyranny of a world of footrules and ledgers, he lived in a world where two and two might make five or seven or any number you pleased, and where footrules were unknown; he took small interest in drama taken out of the lives of ordinary men and enacted amidst every-day surroundings; his imagination lit up only when he thought of haunted glens and ghouls and evil spirits, the fantastic world and life that goes on underneath the ocean, or of men or women held by ghastly spells." [Footnote 184: A striking illustration of this progression (surely Weber's most characteristic mannerism) is naïvely supplied by Weingartner; when, in his own orchestral arrangement of Weber's _Invitation to the Dance_, for the final climax he assembles all the leading themes in combination--an effect made possible only by their common harmonic basis.] [Footnote 185: This whole article is well worth reading and may be found in that breezy though somewhat erratic volume called _Old Scores and New Readings_.] Weber's present-day fame rests upon the Overtures to his three operas of _Der Freischütz_, _Euryanthe_ and _Oberon_, which are often played in detached concert form and hold their own for their romantic glow and for the brilliancy of orchestral effect. By employing for his thematic material the leading melodies of the operas themselves Weber has created what may be called epitomized dramas which, if we have any knowledge of what the titles imply, present us with realistic pictures. For the use of special tone-color to enhance the dramatic situation Weber is the precursor of that type of orchestration which has reached such heights in Wagner and other moderns. From the above comments it is evident that only the barest idea of the Overtures can be gained from a pianoforte version; we have selected _Oberon_[186] because it suffers less than either of the others. Everyone, however, should become familiar with the mysterious, boding passage in the introduction to _Der Freischütz_ (taken from the scene in the Wolf's Glen) and the Intermezzo from _Euryanthe_ for muted, divided strings,[187] which accompanies the apparition of the ghost. This is _genuine_ descriptive music for it really _sounds ghostly_. (See Supplement No. 51.) [Footnote 186: Not given in the Supplement since good arrangements for two and four hands are numerous. To gain the real effect the student is strongly advised to consult the orchestral score.] [Footnote 187: The genesis of so many similar effects in modern music, notably in Wagner.] The _Oberon Overture in D major_, begins with the intoning of the motto of Oberon's magic horn, and then follows a passage for muted strings (piano e adagio sostenuto) and for delicate combinations of the wood-wind instruments, which gives us a picture of the moonlit glens of fairyland, peopled with airy spirits. The vision is dispelled by a sudden _ff_ chord for full orchestra which, from its setting, is one of the loudest effects in music, thoroughly characteristic of Weber's penchant for dramatic contrast. The main body of the work (allegro con fuoco) opens with a dashing theme for the strings of great brilliancy, most typical of Weber. Though we may feel that it has little substance (note the tonic and dominant foundation of the harmony) we cannot be insensible to its abounding vigor. It is not alone the ponderous things which should move our imaginations; even a soap-bubble is a wonderful phenomenon. The theme is expanded to a climax, in measure 28 (counting from the allegro), of great sonority and considerable harmonic boldness. After some reminiscent appearances of the introductory horn-call, a long-sustained dominant note introduces the second theme which seems a bit cloying, to be sure, but is just suited to the melting tone-color of the clarinet. The closing theme borders on triviality; the Exposition ends, however, with some exceedingly brilliant improvisations on the rhythmic figure of the main theme. The following Development is rather flimsy and we need expend upon it no critical powder. Weber was a great colorist but not a great architect. These qualities are united only too seldom. In the Recapitulation, which is shortened by the omission of the second theme--rather overworked in the Development--he is once more on his own ground of rhythmic life and dazzling orchestral color. At the close we are convinced that the overture has accomplished its purpose of graphically depicting the revels of Fairy-land. Although they are seldom[188] played to-day, no account of Weber would be complete which entirely passed over his compositions for the Pianoforte, _i.e._, the four Sonatas, the concert piece in F minor and the originally conceived _Invitation to the Dance_, often played in the orchestral version of Berlioz which is so much better than the inflated, bombastic one by Weingartner. Weber is classed as one of the founders of the "brilliant school" of pianoforte playing which, chiefly through the genius of Franz Liszt, has done so much to enlarge the sonorous and coloristic possibilities of the instrument. Here again Weber's fame rests more upon his influence than upon lasting achievement; as to the importance of this influence, however, there can be no doubt. [Footnote 188: Perhaps the whirligig of time may restore them; who can say?] The student will be repaid for informing[189] himself as fully as possible concerning Weber's career and artistic ideals, for he was a genuine though early exponent of Romantic tendencies. Of marked versatility, of no mean literary skill and of such social magnetism and charm that he might properly be considered a man of the world, as well as an artist, Weber was thus enabled to do pioneer work in raising the standard of musicianship and in bringing the art of music and ordinary, daily life into closer touch. [Footnote 189: The life in Grove's Dictionary is well worth while; there are essays by Krehbiel and others and, above all, the biographical and critical accounts in the two French series: _Les Musiciens Célèbres_, and _Les Maîtres de la Musique_.] CHAPTER XIII SCHUMANN AND MENDELSSOHN In distinction from pioneers like Schubert, slightly tinged with Romanticism, and Weber who, though versatile, was somewhat lacking in creative vigor, Schumann (1810-1856) stands forth as the definite, conscious spokesman of the Romantic movement in German art just as Berlioz was for art in France. He was endowed with literary gifts of a high order, had a keen critical and historical sense and wrote freely and convincingly in support of his own views and in generous recognition of the ideals of his contemporaries. Many of his swans, to be sure, proved later to be geese, and it is debatable how much good was done by his rhapsodic praise to young Brahms; whether in fact he did not set before the youngster a chimerical ideal impossible of attainment. Schumann early came under the influence of Jean Paul Richter, that incarnation of German Romanticism, whom he placed on the same high plane as Shakespeare and Beethoven. An intimate appreciation of much that is fantastic and whimsical in Schumann is possible only through acquaintance with the work of this Jean Paul. Schumann's first compositions were for the pianoforte--in fact his original ambition[190] was to be a pianoforte virtuoso--and to-day his permanent significance depends on the spontaneity in conception and the freedom of form manifested in these pianoforte works and in his romantic songs. Here we have the "ipsissimus Schumann," as von Bülow so well remarks. Schumann's pianoforte style is compounded of two factors: first, his intensely subjective and varied imagination which, nourished by the love of Romantic literature, craved an individual mode of expression; second, a power of concentration and of organic structure which was largely derived from a study of Bach and of the later works of Beethoven. Schumann saw that the regularity of abstract form, found in the purely classical writers, was not suited to the full expression of his moods and so he worked out a style of his own, although in many cases this was simply a logical amplification or modification of former practice. In his pianoforte compositions, then, we find a striking freedom in the choice of subject, which is generally indicated by some poetically descriptive title, _e.g._, _Waldscenen_, _Nachtstücke_, _Fantasiestücke_, _Novelletten_, _Kreisleriana_, _Humoreske_, etc. The danger in this form of subject matter is that it often degenerates into sentimentality coupled with a corresponding spinelessness of structure. This danger Schumann avoids by a style noticeable for terseness and structural solidity. His effort was to give significance to every note; all verbiage, meaningless scale passages and monotonous arpeggios were swept away, while the imagination was aroused by the bold use of dissonances and by the variety of tone-color. A thoroughly novel feature was the flexibility of the rhythm, which breaks from the old "sing-song" metres and abounds in syncopations, in contrasted accents, and in subtle combinations of metrical groups; every effort being made to avoid the tyranny of the bar-line. [Footnote 190: Because of an unfortunate accident to one of his fingers this ambition, however, had to be abandoned. The world thereby gained a great composer.] Schumann's career was peculiar in that, beginning as a pianoforte composer, he tried successively every other form as well--the song, chamber music, works for orchestra, and for orchestra with solo voices and chorus--and won distinction to a greater or less degree in every field save that of the opera. Notwithstanding the beauty of poetic inspiration enshrined in the four symphonies, a grave defect is the quality of orchestral tone which greets the ear, especially the modern ear accustomed to the many-hued sonority of Wagner, Tchaikowsky, Debussy and others. These symphonies have been called "huge pieces for four hands" which were afterwards orchestrated, and the allegation is not without truth, as real orchestral glow and brilliancy is so often lacking. Each one, however, has notable features, _e.g._, the sublime Adagio of the 2d, and the touching Romanza of the 4th, and each is worthy of study; for Schumann in certain aspects furnishes the best avenue of approach to the modern school. In the Fourth Symphony he obliterates the pauses between the movements and fuses them all together; calling it a Symphony "in einem Satze" and anticipating the very same procedure that Schönberg follows in his String Quartet which has had recent vogue. Schumann's chief contribution to the development of the German Song lay in the pianoforte part, which with Schubert and Mendelssohn might properly be called an accompaniment, however rich and varied. But in Schumann the pianoforte attains to a real independence of style, intensifying in the most subtle and delicate way every shade of poetic feeling in the text. In fact, it is often used to reveal some deep meaning beyond the expressive power of words. This is seen in the closing measures of "Moonlight" where the voice ceases in suspense, and the instrument completes the eloquence of the message. Schumann's great achievement as a literary man was his founding, in 1834, of the _Neue Zeitschrift für Musik_, to which he himself contributed many stimulating and suggestive essays, opposing with might and main the Philistinism which so pervaded the music of his time. He even established an imaginary club, called the Davidsbund, to storm the citadel of Philistia. The best eulogy of Schumann is the recognition that many of the tendencies in modern music, which we now take for granted, date from him: the exaltation of freedom and fancy over mere formal presentation, the union of broad culture with musical technique, and the recognition of music as the art closest in touch with the aspirations of humanity. He was an idealist with such perseverance and clearness of aim that his more characteristic work can never die. DES ABENDS. The _Fantasiestücke_[191], op. 12, of which this piece is the first, amply justify their title, for they abound in soaring thoughts, in fantastic, whimsical imaginings and in novel modes of utterance and structure. Every number of the set is a gem, _In der Nacht_ being perhaps the most poetic of Schumann's short pieces for the pianoforte. They are thoroughly pianistic and evoke from the instrument all its possibilities of sonority and color. In point of texture they illustrate that happy combination, which Schumann worked out, of lyric melodies on a firmly knit polyphonic basis. They are also programmistic in so far as Schumann believed in music of that type. There is no attempt to tell a detailed story or to have the music correspond literally to definite incidents. The titles merely afford a verbal clue to the general import and atmosphere of the music. Thus in regard to the piece under consideration, the mere mention of eventide is supposed to be enough to stimulate thought in any one with a sensitive imagination, and the music is a suggestive expression of Schumann's own intimate reveries. The piece is in extended two-part form--each part repeated--and rounded out with an eloquent Coda. The rhythmic scheme is of particular significance for it illustrates not only the composer's fondness for inventing new combinations, but, as well, suggests most delicately the mood of the piece. It would evidently be false art to write a piece, entitled Evening, in a vigorous, arousing rhythm, such as might be associated with a noon-day sun, when we often see the heat-waves dancing over the fields. On the other hand Schumann, by a subtle blending of triple time in the main upper melody and duple time in the lower, suggests that hazy indefiniteness appropriate to the time of day when the life of Nature seems momentarily subsiding and everything sinking to rest, _e.g._ [Music] In many measures of the second part (_i.e._, 21-24) the accent is so disguised that it seems as if we were in a twilight revery, quite apart from matters of time and space. [Footnote 191: As the music is readily procurable the student should make himself familiar with the entire set.] WARUM? This piece is a happy illustration of the intensity of meaning and the conciseness of structure which Schumann gained by the application of polyphonic imitation. It is difficult to say exactly what _Warum_ signifies. It was characteristic of the Romantic unrest of the German mind to question everything--especially "Why am I not more happy in love?" The motto may be considered a Carlyle-like "everlasting why." At any rate the composition is an example of music speaking more plainly than words; for no one can fail to recognize the haunting appeal in the theme with its long-drawn out final note after the upward leap. It is a real musical question, _e.g._ [Music] _Grillen_, the next piece in the set, deserves careful study. It is too long to present as a whole, but we cite the middle part (See Supplement No. 52) as it is such a convincing example of syncopated effect (_i.e._, the persistent placing of the accent on weak beats), and of elasticity in the metric scheme. _Novellette in E major._ This piece illustrates the vigor and massiveness of Schumann's pianoforte style. Note the sonority gained by the use of widely spaced chords. For the brilliant effect demanded, there should be a liberal use of the damper pedal.[192] We likewise find, beginning with the third brace, some characteristic polyphonic imitations which give to the movement a remarkable concentration. In the middle contrasting portion it seems as if Schumann had taken a leaf out of Chopin's book--a beautiful, lyric melody floating on an undercurrent of sonorous, arpeggio chords. The theme is presented in dialogue form, first in the upper voice, next in an inner voice and finally in the bass. (See Supplement No. 53.) [Footnote 192: A beautiful contrast may be made by playing the section in F major with the "una corda" pedal throughout.] SONG, _Mondnacht_. No estimate of Schumann would be fair or comprehensive without some mention of his songs; upon which, together with his pianoforte compositions, his immortality tends more and more to rest. Notwithstanding the many poetic and dramatic touches in Schubert's accompaniments, those of Schumann are on the whole more finely wrought; for he had the advantage of Schubert in being, himself, a pianist of high attainment, thoroughly versed in pianistic effects. His imagination was also more sensitive to subtle shades of meaning in the text and he was inspired by the wonderful lyrics of Heine, Eichendorff and Chamisso who in Schubert's day had written very little. Special features of Schumann's songs are the instrumental preludes and postludes, the prelude establishing just the right setting for the import of the words and the postlude commenting on the beautiful message which the voice has just delivered. In _Mondnacht_, for example, (as previously mentioned), note how the voice stops in suspense and in what an eloquent revery the accompaniment completes the picture. (See Supplement No. 54.) OVERTURE TO _Manfred_. This Overture, the first of a set of incidental numbers which Schumann composed to illustrate Byron's dramatic poem, represents some of his most typical inspiration, and so is well worthy of our study. The music is labored at times, especially in the Development, and the orchestration is often dry and stereotyped. But the conception was a powerful one, and there is a genuine correspondence between the nature of the music and the spirit of the poem. It is evident that the subject made a deep impression on Schumann, whose own imagination, addicted to mysterious and even morbid broodings, was strongly akin to that of Byron's fictitious character. The composition is program music of the subjective order, comparable to Beethoven's _Coriolanus_, _i.e._, the themes are dramatic characterizations: the first typifying the stormy nature of Manfred; the second, with its note of pleading, the mysterious influence over the recluse of the spirit of Astarte. As in all works of this kind the music cannot be readily appreciated without a knowledge of the poem which it illustrates.[193] As for the structure, Schumann clings too closely to the Sonata-form. The music is eloquent just in proportion as he gives his fancy free rein; where he tries to force the themes into an arbitrary mould, the result is unsatisfactory--especially the development, which is neither very dramatic nor interesting from a purely musical point of view. The work opens with three spasmodic syncopated[194] chords, and then follow twenty-four measures (lento and at first pianissimo) of a preludial nature with suggestions of the Manfred theme. The movement becomes gradually faster and more impassioned until, in measure 26, we reach the presentation of the first theme (allegro agitato) which, with its frequent syncopations, is characteristic of Manfred's restless nature. The transition begins in measure 39; at first with a repetition of the main theme, which soon modulates to F-sharp minor, in which key the second theme enters, in measure 51. This theme--in three portions--seems to embody different aspects of the feminine influence of Astarte. The first portion, measures 51-61, with its undulating, chromatic outline, may be said to typify the haunting apparition so real to Manfred's imagination and yet so intangible; the second, 62-67, contains a note of impassioned protest, and the third, 68-77, is a love message of tender consolation. If this interpretation seem too subjective, a careful reading of the drama where Astarte appears (pp. 284-285 in the Everyman's Edition) will, we believe, corroborate it. The rest of the Exposition consists in a treatment of the Astarte motive, primarily of a musical nature; though there is a real dramatic intensity in measures 96-103, which are an expansion of the love message with its characteristic "appoggiatura." The Development, beginning in measure 132, is a striking example of how difficult it was--even for an exponent of freedom in musical expression like Schumann--to break loose from the shackles of arbitrary form. The musical thought is kept in motion, to be sure, but that is about all; for the treatment is often very labored, and nothing is added to the dramatic picture. The world had to await the work of Tchaikowsky, and Strauss for a satisfactory adjustment[195] between the demands of dramatic fitness and the needs of musical structure. In the Coda, beginning measure 258, Schumann--now that he is free from considerations of structure--gains a dramatic effect of truly impressive power. The horns, supported by trumpets and trombones, intone a funeral dirge of touching solemnity (evidently suggested by the closing death scene of the drama) while, above, hover portions of the Astarte motive, as if even in his death her influence was paramount in Manfred's imagination, _e.g._ [Music] Notwithstanding certain blemishes, this Overture at the time of its composition was a landmark in the development of program music, and if to our modern tastes it seems a bit antiquated, this is largely because of the great progress which has since been made.[196] [Footnote 193: The poem is easily procured in a volume of Everyman's Library.] [Footnote 194: These chords are an amusing example of a "paper effect," for unless you watch the conductor's beat, it is impossible to feel the syncopation. There being no first beat proper, the chords are syncopated against the air!] [Footnote 195: For pertinent comments on this point see Newman's essay on Program Music, pp. 134-135, in his _Musical Studies_.] [Footnote 196: In studying this work consult, if possible, the orchestral score. For those who need a condensed two-hand arrangement, the Litolff edition is to be recommended.] SYMPHONY IN D MINOR. This Symphony is selected from Schumann's four, both for the peculiar romantic beauty of its themes and because the form in which it is cast makes it an important connecting link between the freedom of structure, instituted by Beethoven, and the Symphonic Poem of Liszt and other modern composers. All of Schumann's symphonies contain genuine beauties and should be familiar to the cultivated musician. Perhaps the first in B-flat major is the most sustained, and it has a freshness and buoyancy summed up in its title, the _Spring_, by which it is popularly known. The exuberance of the Finale is pure Schumann and is expressed with an orchestral eloquence in which he was frequently lacking.[197] The Second Symphony is notable for its sublime Adagio, Schumann's love-song--comparable to the slow movement of Beethoven's Fourth. At some future day, conductors will have the courage to play this movement by itself like a magnificent Torso, for indubitably the other movements have aged beyond recall. The Third Symphony, known as the _Rhenish_ (composed when Schumann was living at Düsseldorf on the Rhine) is significant for its incorporation of popular melodies from the Rhineland, and for the movement, scored chiefly for trombones and other brass instruments, which gives a picture of some ceremonial occasion in the Cologne Cathedral. [Footnote 197: It is more than a matter of mere chronology to realise that the D minor Symphony was composed in the same year as the B-flat major. It was afterwards revised and published as No. 4, but the vitality and spontaneity of its themes come from the first gush of Schumann's inspiration.] The Fourth Symphony is an uneven work, for there are many places where Schumann's constructive power was unequal to his ideal conceptions. We often can see the joints, and the structure--in places--resembles a rag-carpet rather than the organic texture of an oriental rug. But the spontaneous outpouring of melody touches our emotions and well-nigh disarms criticism. Schumann had constantly been striving for a closer relationship[198] between the conventional movements of the symphony; and his purpose, in the structural treatment adopted, is indicated by the statement published in the full score--"Introduction, Allegro, Romanze, Scherzo und Finale _in einem Satze_" _i.e._, the work is to be considered as a _continuous whole_ and not broken up into arbitrary movements with rigid pauses between. The long drawn-out Introduction,[199] with its mysterious harmonies, leads us into the land of romance, and a portion of this introduction is happily carried over and repeated in the Romanze. The First movement proper, from _Lebhaft_, seems at first as if it were to be in the customary Sonata-form; the Exposition beginning with two themes in the normal relationship of minor and relative major, though to be sure the second theme is more of a supplementary expansion of the first than one which provides a strong contrast. But after the double bar and repeat, this first theme is developed in a free preludial manner as if it were continually leading up to a climax. We are finally rewarded by a new theme of great warmth which amply makes up for any lack of individuality in the second theme proper, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 198: We find traces of this tendency in the First Symphony, where the Slow Movement and the Scherzo are linked together, likewise in the Second, where the motto of the first movement is repeated at the end of the Scherzo.] [Footnote 199: The analysis is based, as usual, on the orchestral score; for class-room study there are excellent editions for two and four hands.] The rest of the movement consists of additional improvisations, rather too rigidly sectionalized, on the first theme and a second appearance of the interpolated theme. This theme, with rhythmic modifications, serves also as the basis for the brilliant Coda; for there is no Recapitulation proper, and it is evident that the movement is an extended prelude for what is to come--a first portion of the work as a whole. After a dramatic pause,[200] which enhances the feeling of expectancy (so prominent in the first movement) followed by a sustained modulatory chord, the Romanze begins with a plaintive theme in A minor. The mood is that of an idealized serenade, and in the original score the accompaniment for the oboe melody was given to the guitar[201] to secure the appropriate atmosphere. After the first statement of the theme there is an interpolated quotation of the characteristic passage from the introduction, which serves to bind the movements together both in structure and in relationship of mood. The movement is in clear-cut three-part form and the middle contrasting section in the major mode reveals a sustained descending melody played by the body of strings, which is delicately embellished by an obligato variant given to a solo violin, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 200: Concert-goers may well be reminded that there should be _no_ applause between the movements of this work. One of the most pernicious ideas of the public is that as soon as the music ceases, handclapping should begin; whereas a complete silence is often the very means the composer employs for intensifying what has been said and preparing for what is to come. Let us ponder the cryptic remark attributed to Mozart that "the rests in music are more important than the notes."] [Footnote 201: This was afterwards withdrawn as impracticable. What a pity that Schumann wrote before the harp as a member of the orchestra had come into its own. For the mood which he was trying to establish compare the scoring of this Romanza with that in the Slow movement of Franck's Symphony.] At first the 'cellos, also, re-enforce this melody. [Music] The effect is that of an ethereal voice commenting on the beauty of the main theme. This obligato part is of special significance, since with rhythmic change it forms the chief theme of the Trio in the following movement. The Romanze closes with a simple return to the plaintive oboe melody, this time in D minor. The tonality is purposely indefinite to accentuate the wistful feeling of the movement--the last chords having the suspense of a dominant ending. After a short pause we are at once whirled into the dashing Scherzo which seems to represent the playful badinage of a Romantic lover. The Trio affords a delightful reminiscence of the Romanze and, from a structural point of view, is an early example of the principle of "transformation of theme"[202] which plays so important a role in the works of Liszt, Franck, Tchaikowsky and Dvo[vr]ák. For the melody, _e.g._, [Music] is a rhythmic variant of the former obligato of the solo violin, and has this characteristic, which gives a peculiar note of surprise, that it always begins on the third beat of the measure. Following a repetition of the Scherzo the movement ends eloquently with a coda-like return to the Trio which, after some modulatory changes, is broken up into detached fragments, seeming to vanish into thin air. There is no pause between the end of the Scherzo and the introduction, based on the theme of the first movement, which ushers in the Finale. This movement is in Sonata-form with a modified Recapitulation--_i.e._, the first theme is not repeated--and with a passionate closing theme, _e.g._, [Music] which atones for the intentional incompleteness with which the first movement ends. The main theme is a compound of a vigorous march-like motive, closely related to one of the subsidiary phrases of the first movement, and a running figure in the bass--the derivation of which is obvious. After a rather labored transition[203]--surely the most mechanical passage in the whole work--we are rewarded by a melody of great buoyancy and rhythmic life, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 202: In Brahms, who was something of a conservative as to freedom of form, there is a striking example in the connection between the second movement and the Finale of the Third Symphony.] [Footnote 203: Schumann was a true poet in the spontaneity of his themes, but often an unsuccessful architect when connecting them.] The free Fantasie begins with a contrapuntal working-out of a figure taken from the first theme, but it suffers from a persistent emphasis on what, after all, is an uninteresting rhythm [Music]; there is, furthermore, a rigid grouping of the phrases in twos and fours. Schumann's instinct was a wise one in omitting the main theme of the Recapitulation and in leading, as soon as possible, to the repetition of the delightful second theme--the gem of the movement--which now makes its orthodox appearance in the tonic. After some ejaculatory measures, which remind us of the beginning of the Development, we have the impassioned closing theme, referred to above, which ushers in the free and brilliant Coda, worked up contrapuntally with ever increasing speed. The movement ends with Schumannesque syncopations. The D minor Symphony, thus, although not a perfect work of art, is a significant one and repays intimate study. A long life may safely be predicted for it by reason of the fervor and charm of its melodies. An important historical status it will always hold, for it is the honorable ancestor of such great symphonies as César Franck's in D minor and Tchaikowsky's in E minor, in which we find the same freedom of form and the same fusion of material attempted by Schumann's daring spirit.[204] [Footnote 204: For a detailed and illuminating study of this symphony and of Schumann's style in general see the last essay in _Preludes and Studies_ by W.J. Henderson. Another excellent essay may be found in _Studies in Modern Music_ by W.H. Hadow.] Closely connected with Schumann, chronologically and also by certain executive associations, _e.g._, the Leipsic Conservatory, is the career of Mendelssohn (1809-1847). There was much in common between the two; they both were extremely versatile, of strong literary bent and naturally drawn to the same media of expression: pianoforte, solo voices and orchestra. And yet, so dissimilar were the underlying strains in their temperaments that their compositions, as an expression of their personalities, show little in common. Schumann, as we have seen, was fantastic, mystical, a bold, independent thinker, the quintessence of the Romantic spirit. Mendelssohn, on the other hand, though not lacking in poetic fancy and warmth, was cautious--a born conservative; and his early classical training, together with the opulent circumstances of his life, served as a natural check upon the freedom of genius. His dazzling precocity--witness the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ Overture, composed while he was in his seventeenth year--and a great popular success were surely not the best stimuli to make him delve into the depths of his imagination. Undoubtedly he did a valuable service, in his day, in uniting the leading tendencies of the two schools: the exuberant fancy of the Romantic, and the reserve and finish of the Classic. He has been aptly called a "Romanticist with a classical equipment." If any appraisement be necessary to the detriment of one or the other, it must be conceded that Schumann was the greater genius. A just estimate of Mendelssohn's work is difficult, for his career was so meteoric and in his life he was so overvalued that now, with the opposite swing of the pendulum, he is as often underrated. He was assuredly a great artist, for what he had to say was beautifully expressed; the question hinges on the actual worth of the message. With perfect finish there often goes a lack of power and objective energy; somewhat the same difference that we feel between skillful gardening and the free vitality of Nature. Although Mendelssohn's music delights and charms there is a prevailing lack of that deep emotion which alone can move the soul. And yet a composer whom Wagner called "the greatest of landscape painters" and whose best works have stood the test of time can by no means be scorned. His descriptive Overtures for orchestra: the _Hebrides_, the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ and the _Fair Melusine_; his _Variations Sérieuses_ for Pianoforte and some of the _Songs without Words_[205] contain a genuinely poetic message, flawlessly expressed. As for the pianoforte music, when the _Songs without Words_ are called "hackneyed" we must remember that only compositions of truly popular appeal ever have sufficient vogue to warrant the application of this opprobrious term. In the pianoforte _Scherzos_ and in the _Rondo Capriccioso in E major_ there is without doubt a vitality and a play of fancy easier to criticize than to create. The prevalent mood in Mendelssohn's music is one of sunny-hearted lightness and emotional satisfaction; and if this be a one-sided presentation of life, it is no more so, as Pratt well says in his _History of Music_, than the picture of gloom and sorrow which certain other composers continually emphasize. The fact that his descriptive Overtures, just mentioned, have been surpassed--owing to the recent expansion in orchestral possibilities of tone-color--must not blind us to the beauty of their content, or make us forget the impetus they have given to modern composers. No one could possibly find in the _Hebrides_ Overture that subtle descriptive fancy or that wealth of orchestral coloring which exists in Debussy's marvellous _Sea Pieces_; and yet the Mendelssohn composition is a genuine reflection of nature in terms of music and can still be heard with sustained attention. Wagner[206] praises highly its orchestral effects; and a modern scholar, Cecil Forsyth,[207] considers the tone-painting quite irresistible. A sincere tribute of admiration should also be paid to Mendelssohn's _Concerto for Violin and Orchestra_. Written in the most idiomatic style for the solo instrument and containing real _violin melodies_ it is still one of the few great works in its class. Any final critical estimate of Mendelssohn--no matter how earnest the effort to be absolutely fair--is inevitably involved with personal prejudices. If his music appeals to any one, it is liked extremely and no one need be ashamed of enjoying it, for it is sincerely felt and beautifully expressed. Mendelssohn, himself, doubtless knew perfectly well that he was not Bach, Beethoven or Schubert. For those whose natures crave a more robust message, more fire and a deeper passion, there are the works of those other composers to which they may turn. [Footnote 205: Several of these were constantly played by both Paderewski and De Pachman, two of the greatest virtuosi of our day: surely a convincing tribute!] [Footnote 206: See the _Oxford History of Music_, Vol. VI, pp. 80-84. Anyone who cares to see what Wagner owed to Mendelssohn may compare the opening theme, and its treatment, of the _Fair Melusine_ Overture with the music of the Rhine Maidens in the _Rheingold_.] [Footnote 207: See his treatise on Orchestration, p. 194.] Let us now analyze the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ Overture,[208] "his first and highest flight" to quote Schumann. In this work we do not find a characterization by musical means of the emotions of the dramatis personae, as in the _Coriolanus_ Overture; and there is little specific correspondence between the type of theme and definite incidents, except possibly at the beginning of the Recapitulation, where the low tones of the Bass Tuba[209] may be thought to represent the snores of Bottom, as the fairies hover about him. Anyone familiar with Shakespeare's play--and such a knowledge is indispensible for a complete enjoyment of the music--will see that Mendelssohn's object was to give a broad, general picture of the fairy world and to intensify, by his music, the fancy and humor found in the play. The introductory sustained chords, pianissimo, are a happy illustration of his deftness in tone-painting; for, assigned to the ethereal flutes and clarinets, they constitute, as Niecks ingeniously expresses it, a "magic formula" which ushers us into the moonlit realm of fairyland. The first theme in E minor (Allegro di molto: throughout _pp_ and staccato), announced by the strings, is a graphic representation of the playful antics of the nimble elves and fairies. Its course is twice interrupted by a peculiar, prolonged chord which seems to say, "Hush! you are listening to the activities of beings not of this every-day, humdrum world." The first theme has a second part in E major (beginning at measure 62) of a pompous, march-like nature, which may be thought to represent the dignity of Duke Theseus and his train. The Overture being in complete Sonata-form, there occurs at this point a short transition based on the rhythm of the first theme; followed by a lovely cantabile melody--the second theme proper--that typifies the romantic love pervading the play. This theme also is expanded into several sections; the first of which may portray the clownish Athenian tradespeople, and the second, the brays of Bottom after he has been transformed into an ass, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 208: This is exceptionally effective in the four-hand version--in fact, it was often played as a pianoforte duet by his sister Fanny and himself--although the real poetic effect is inseparably connected with the orchestral treatment.] [Footnote 209: Originally these tones were played by the Ophicleide or Serpent (now obsolete).] The free fantasia, an improvisation on the first theme--although containing a few perfunctory manipulations--sustains interest, as a whole, by its modulations and by the suggestive orchestral effects. The closing measures, where the pizzicato 'cellos and double basses seem to imitate the light, tripping footsteps of the elves, is genuinely realistic. The Recapitulation, which begins with the same chords as the Introduction, is an illustration of bondage to classic practise; for here they have no dramatic significance and are merely a concession to routine procedure.[210] The first theme and the transition, however, are effectively abridged so that the second theme, by far the most appealing in the whole work, stands out in greater prominence. Then follows a brilliant expansion of the closing portions of the second theme, until we reach the Coda. This begins with a reminiscence of the first theme which fades away into a modified presentation of the Duke Theseus theme, followed by four long-drawn out Amens.[211] These may signify the blessing which, in the play, the elves bestow upon the Ducal house. The Introductory chords dissolve the dream which the music has evoked, and we are back once more in the world of reality. [Footnote 210: This, after all, is a rather subtle point for a boy of seventeen to be called upon to consider. Perhaps if he had been that kind of a boy he might not have written the Overture at all!] [Footnote 211: The ecclesiastical formula for an Amen being the so-called Plagal cadence of subdominant and tonic chords.] To suggest the attitude which we of to-day should take towards Mendelssohn--he may justly be admired as a musician of great natural gifts, of high ideals and of unusually finished technique in many branches of composition. It is ungracious to censure him because he lacks the gripping emotional power of a Beethoven or a Wagner. Those who indulge in such narrow criticism condemn only themselves. CHAPTER XIV CHOPIN AND PIANOFORTE STYLE Although Chopin (1809-1849) was less aggressively romantic than others of the group we have been considering, in many respects his music represents the romantic spirit in its fairest bloom. Not even yet has full justice been done him--although his fame is growing--since he is often considered as a composer of mere "salon-pieces" which, though captivating, are too gossamer-like to merit serious attention. Chopin was a life-long student of Bach; and much of his music, in its closeness of texture, shows unmistakably the influence of that master. Together with Schumann, he broke away from the strict formality of the old classic forms and instituted the reign of freely conceived tone-poems for the pianoforte: the form being conditioned by the poetic feelings of the composer. As far as fundamental principles of architecture are concerned, his pieces are generally simple, modeled as they are on the two and three-part form and that of the rondo. When he attempted works of large scope, where varied material had to be held together, he was lamentably deficient, _e.g._, in his Sonatas. In fact, even in such pieces as the Études and Scherzos, in the presentation of the material we find occasional blemishes. But there are so many other wonderful qualities that this weakness may be overlooked. In spite of a certain deficiency in form, Chopin is indisputably a great genius. Far too much stress has been laid on the delicacy of his style to the exclusion of the intensity and bold dramatic power that characterize much of his music to a marked degree. Though of frail physique,[212] and though living in an environment which tended to overdevelop his fastidious nature, Chopin had a fiery soul, which would assert itself with unmistakable force. His music by no means consists solely of melting moods or languorous sighs; he had a keen instinct for the dissonant element (witness passages in the G minor Ballade); he was a daring harmonic innovator; and much of his music is surcharged with tragic significance. A born stylist, he nevertheless did not avoid incessant labor to secure the acme of finish. So perfect in his works is the balance between substance and treatment, that they make a direct appeal to music-lovers of every nation. In listening to Chopin we are never conscious of turgidity, of diffuseness, of labored treatment of material. All is direct, pellucid; poetic thoughts are presented in a convincingly beautiful manner. He was a great colorist as well, and in his work we must recognize the fact that color in music is as distinct an achievement of the imagination as profound thought or beauty of line. Chopin's position in regard to program music is an interesting subject for speculation. Few of his works bear specifically descriptive titles; and it is well known that he had little sympathy with the extreme tendencies of Berlioz and Liszt. Yet there is, in general, something more than an abstract presentation of musical material, however beautiful. The varied moods aroused by the Ballades and Nocturnes, the actual pictures we see in the Polonaises, must have had their counterpart in definite subjective experiences in the life of the composer, and so from a broad psychological standpoint--even in the absence of explanatory titles--we may call Chopin a thoroughly romantic tone-poet; indeed, as Balzac says, "a soul which rendered itself audible." [Footnote 212: He was born of a Polish mother and a French father, and these mixed strains of blood account fundamentally for the leading characteristics of his music. From the former strain came the impassioned, romantic and at times chivalrous moods, prominent in all Polish life and art; and from the latter the grace, charm and finish which we rightly associate with the French nature. For side-lights on Chopin's intimacy with George Sand see the well-known essays by Henry James and René Doumic.] As Chopin composed so idiomatically for his chosen instrument, the pianoforte, to which he devoted himself exclusively,[213] no understanding or adequate appreciation of the subtleties of his style is possible without some knowledge of the nature and attributes of this instrument which, in our time, has become the universal medium for the rendering of music. All of Chopin's works were not only published for the pianoforte but were conceived in _terms_ of the pianoforte; his style in this respect being quite unique in the history of musical art. For there are noble and poetically inspired thoughts of many composers which may be satisfactorily presented through a number of media: pianoforte, organ, string-quartet or voices. This fact has been the cause of many so-called transcriptions of orchestral or string-quartet music for the organ. A composer, furthermore, often publishes a work for a certain instrument when the inner evidence shows that, during the period of creation, he actually had some other medium in mind. Beethoven's Sonatas abound[214] in effects which, for their complete realization, require an orchestra; so that, notwithstanding the beauty of the thought, his style is often anything but pianistic. In certain of César Franck's pianoforte works we are conscious of his predilection for the organ, as the spirit of the music demands a sustained volume of sound which the organ, with its powerful lungs, alone can give. But if the full beauty of Chopin's conception is to be gained, his music must be played on the pianoforte and on nothing else. The pianoforte has, to be sure, several limitations; it is not per se a loud instrument in comparison with a trumpet or an organ, and the whole nature of its tone is evanescent--that is, as soon as the tone is produced, it begins to fade away, [decrescendo symbol]. This latter apparent limitation, however, is in fact one of its most suggestive beauties; for nothing is more stimulating to the imagination than the dying away of a beautiful sound, as may be felt in the striking of a clear-toned bell, or in the wonderful diminuendo of the horn. This effect, inherent in pianoforte tone, should be more utilized rather than deplored, especially since dwelling on a delightful harmony or a single dramatic note is a definite characteristic of "tempo rubato"--that peculiar feature of Chopin's rhythm. The pianoforte can neither steadily sustain a tone [sustaining symbol] nor increase it [crescendo symbol]; achievements for which the strings and the wind instruments are so valued. On the other hand, the instrument has the merits of great sonority and marvellous coloristic possibilities; and when music is composed for the pianoforte by one who understands its secrets and, furthermore, when it is properly played, it is quite the finest[215] instrument ever yet brought under the control of a single performer. Again, the pianoforte is not meant for great rapidity of utterance, such as, for instance, we associate with the violin, the flute or the clarinet. It is, in fact, often played _too fast_, sounding like a pianola or a machine rather than an instrument with a soul. If there be no lingering over the notes, beautiful effects have no opportunity to be heard. Rapidity and brilliance on the pianoforte do not depend on so many notes per second but on vitality and precision of accent. These admirable qualities of the instrument are due to the great number of vibrating metal strings (in a modern concert-grand, about two hundred and thirty, _i.e._, three strings to each of the twelve notes of the seven octaves, save for a few of the lowest bass notes); to the large sounding board (about twenty-four square feet, on the largest model), and above all to the damper pedal which Rubinstein--so appropriately--calls the soul of the pianoforte. The very term Pianoforte implies a wealth of meaning; for a special glory of the instrument is its power of shading, its flexibility of utterance, from piano to forte or vice versa. The limits themselves, to be sure, are not so striking as in certain other instruments, _e.g._, the pianoforte cannot produce the almost ghostly whisper of which the clarinet is capable, nor can it equal the trumpet or the trombone in intensity or volume. But it can produce a very beautiful pianissimo; and if a sense of relativity be kept, and soft effects begun quietly enough, it can be made to sound with remarkable brilliancy. The pianoforte should always be played with a keen regard for this power of shading, of nuance; the tones should undulate like the winds or the waves. Anything like the steady sostenuto level for which the organ shows itself so fitted is, except for special effects, entirely foreign to the nature of the pianoforte. Nor should we ever attempt to make it, per se, a loud, overpowering instrument. Its forte and its brilliancy are purely relative; and, when forced to do something unsuited to its real nature, it protests with a hard, unmelodious tone. [Footnote 213: The few exceptions being the Polish Songs, the Trio for Violin, 'Cello and Pianoforte and the orchestral accompaniment to the two Concertos.] [Footnote 214: There will occur to every one numerous passages in which the pianoforte is expected to be a kettle-drum, or where the figuration is far better suited to the violin than to the hand in connection with keys.] [Footnote 215: This by reason of its combined powers in melody, harmony and rhythm. Some of these qualities it shares, to be sure, with the organ; but the organ is inherently lacking in rhythm, and its solid, block-like tones do not exercise the same fascination upon the imagination as do the fleeting sounds of the pianoforte. It is, of course, possible and desirable to enjoy both instruments--each in its own proper sphere, and each for its characteristic effects.] Likewise the two pedals,[216] when their technical names are understood, imply their own meaning, just as their popular designations hint at the way in which they are often abused. The pedal employed by the _right_ foot, properly called the "damper pedal," is so named because, by its action, _all_ the dampers of the key-board may be raised simultaneously. This allows the strings to vibrate together and to send forth great waves of colored sound like those produced by an Aeolian harp; an effect similar to that heard when a sea-shell is held to the ear. The pianoforte, in fact, has aptly been called "a harp laid on its back" to which the action of keys has been applied. Accordingly an open, flowing style (arpeggio) is one of the idioms best suited to its nature. To secure proper contrast, a massive, chordal style is sometimes employed by such composers as Schumann, Brahms and Franck--even at times by Chopin himself; but that the extended arpeggio (often merely two voices, with the body of tone secured by the pedal) is the norm may be seen from almost any page of Chopin's compositions. The resonance and carrying power of these waves are intensified by raising the lid[217] of the pianoforte; for then they are brought to a focus and projected into space. The effect produced by raising the dampers is appropriate and beautiful, not alone with consonant chords but, at times, equally with chords that are unrelated; which, were they sustained for long by an organ, would be intolerably harsh. But the tone of the pianoforte is so fleeting that such a mixture ensures great brilliance and warmth without undue jargon, and is thus akin to the blending of strange colors by modern painters. Many people, in fact, play the pianoforte with too _little_, rather than too _much_, pedal; or with too much pedal used the wrong way! A definite attempt should be made to cultivate a feeling for color and warmth of tone; a hard, colorless tone on the pianoforte being a great blemish as it is so unnecessary. The following passage illustrates the above points. [Footnote 216: It is understood that all the comments are based on the action of a concert-grand pianoforte, since on an upright or a square--because of mechanical limitations of space--the effects are quite different.] [Footnote 217: In this connection, even at the risk of seeming to preach, let the advice be given that _nothing_ should ever be put on top of a grand pianoforte: neither flowers, afternoon tea-sets, bird-cages, books, nor even an aquarium! For the lid is not merely a cover, but an additional sounding-board, and must always be in readiness to be so used. The pianoforte as a coloristic instrument, in short, is completely itself _only_ when played with the lid raised.] [Music: CHOPIN: _Barcarolle_] There is really no such thing on the pianoforte as a "pure" single tone. It is an acoustical law that no tone exists by itself, but always generates a whole series of overtones[218] or "upper partials," as they are called, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 218: An instrument designed to reinforce these upper tones, so that they may be clearly heard, is to be found in any Physical Laboratory. That these tones really vibrate "sympathetically" may be proved by striking _ff_ [Transcriber's Note: Music example indicates _sf_] this note [Music: C2 With damper pedal] and then pressing down _very lightly_ the keys of G and E just above middle C, thus removing the individual dampers of these notes. In a quiet room the tones are distinctly audible. For another rewarding experiment of the same nature, see the Introduction to the first volume of Arthur Whiting's _Pedal Studies_ and the well-known treatise of Helmholtz.] Even what we call the perfectly consonant chord of C major, _e.g._, [Music] would be slightly qualified and colored by the B-flat, and this effect has actually been utilized by Chopin in the final cadence of his Prelude in F major, No. 23, _e.g._ [Music] In this example the E-flat must be very delicately accented and _both_ pedals freely used. Let it be clearly understood, therefore, that the damper pedal--popularly but erroneously called the "loud pedal"--has nothing to do with "noise" as such. Its purpose is to amplify and color the waves of sound and these waves may vary all the way from _pp_ to _ff_. The dynamic gradation of pianoforte tone is caused by the amount of force with which the hammer strikes the wires; and this power is applied by the attack and pressure of the fingers. The damper pedal will, to be sure, reinforce fortissimo effects, but logically it is only a _means_ of _reinforcement_ and should never be used so that a mere "roar of sound" is produced. The normal pianoforte tone, however, is that brought forth in connection with the damper pedal, and only to gain an effect of intentional coolness and dryness do we see in pianoforte literature the direction "senza pedal"; passages so marked being often most appropriate as a strong contrast to highly colored ones.[219] [Footnote 219: For a complete and illuminating treatise on the pedals and their artistic use, see the aforesaid two volumes of _Pedal Studies_ by Arthur Whiting (G. Schirmer, New York).] An important adjunct of the instrument, though even less intelligently used, is the pedal employed by the left foot; that popularly known as the "soft pedal," but of which the technical name is the "una corda" pedal. By this device on a grand pianoforte the whole key-board is shifted from left to right, so that the hammers strike but _two_ wires in each group of three, and the third wire of the set is left free to vibrate sympathetically. Thus a very etherial, magical quality of tone is produced, especially in the upper ranges of the instrument. In the middle register, passages played forte or fortissimo will have a richness comparable to the G string of a violin. The effect is analogous to that of a viol d'amour which has, as is well known (stretched underneath the strings, which produce the actual tone) a set of additional strings, freely vibrating. Although this "una corda"[220] pedal may be used in a dynamic sense to reduce, as it were, the size of the instrument, its chief purpose is coloristic, _i.e._, to make possible a _special quality_ of tone. This statement is proved by directions in pianoforte literature as far back as Beethoven, in whose Sonatas we find the dynamic marks of _f_ and _ff_ coupled with the proscribed use of the una corda pedal. In any case, this left-foot pedal should not be abused; for, just because the tone quality produced thereby is so beautiful and characteristic, it soon becomes, if constantly employed, rather cloying. The dynamic gradation of tone is primarily a matter for the control of the fingers, _i.e._, the touch. The damper pedal is for sonority and color; the una corda for special shades, and all three factors--touch and the two pedals--are combined in pianistic effects which only a trained technique and artistic judgment can regulate.[221] [Footnote 220: The term dates from the period when this pedal controlled three shifts: una corda, due corde and tre corde; the hammer striking respectively one, two or three strings. The whole mechanism is well implied in the German word _Verschiebung_, _i.e._, the shoving along--so frequent in Schumann's works, _e.g._, the middle part of his _Vogel als Prophet_ from the _Waldscenen_, op. 82, No. 7.] [Footnote 221: American pianofortes also have a middle pedal called the "sustaining pedal," by which tones in the lower register may be prolonged. It has not proved to be of great value, though there are occasional passages, _e.g._, the closing measures of the second movement of César Franck's _Violin Sonata_, where it may be effectively employed.] Even a slight analysis of Chopin's style proves that it is based upon logical inferences, drawn from the series of overtones as they are generated and reinforced by the very nature of the pianoforte. From the wide spacing of the lower tones of the series Chopin derived the extended grouping of his arpeggios, _e.g._, [Music] [Music: Prelude, No. 19] so that the _chord_ of the _10th_, instead of the former grouping within the octave, may be considered the basis of his harmonic scheme. By this means a great gain was made in richness and sonority. Another striking feature of Chopin's style is found in those groups of spray-like, superadded notes with which the melody is embellished. It is evident, in many cases at least, that these tones are not merely embroidery in the ordinary sense. Rather do they represent a reinforcement of the overtones, ideally or actually present, in connection with bass tones and chords used in the lower part of the musical fabric. As a striking example[222] see the long series of descending non-harmonic tones in the Coda of the _B major Nocturne_, op. 9, No. 3, and note the delicate colors in the closing arpeggio chord (to be played with a free use of both pedals). [Footnote 222: For a commentary on this passage see D.G. Mason's essay on Chopin in _The Romantic Composers_.] [Music] In general, Chopin's style is homophonic--wondrous lyric melodies which seem to float on waves of richly colored sound. But there is also much subtly used polyphony, _i.e._, delightful phrases in inner voices and imitative effects between the different parts. In comparison, however, with Schumann's style (which is largely on a polyphonic basis) Chopin is a decidedly homophonic composer.[223] A great deal of interesting and instructive reading on Chopin is available and the following works are especially recommended: _Chopin, the Man and his Music_ by Huneker; the _Life of Chopin_ by Niecks; the essay on Chopin in Mason's _Romantic Composers_ and in Hadow's _Studies in Modern Music_; the volume on Chopin by Elié Poirée in the series _Les Musiciens Célèbres_; and the same by Louis Laloy in the series _Les Maîtres de la Musique_; the _Life_ by Liszt (well known and most valuable as coming from a contemporary and brother musician); finally a somewhat rhapsodic essay by H.T. Finck in _Chopin and Other Essays_. [Footnote 223: For a detailed analysis of many special features of style see the volume by Edgar Stillman Kelly, _Chopin the Composer_.] We select, as being thoroughly representative, the following works for comment: the first Prelude, the A-flat major Étude, the F-sharp minor Mazurka, the E-flat minor Polonaise, the Barcarolle and the C-sharp minor Scherzo.[224] [Footnote 224: To save space, no one of these pieces except the Barcarolle is given in the Supplement, since they are readily accessible. The _Barcarolle_, however, is given in order to make it better known; for although it is one of the most inspired and beautifully expressed of all Chopin's works, it is heard comparatively seldom. The best editions of the works are those of Kullak, Mikuli and Klindworth.] PRELUDE IN C MAJOR, OP. 28, NO. 1. This Prelude, the first of the set of 24, is an excellent example of the sonority Chopin gained from widely extended chords in the bass; by the use--characteristically bold--of dissonances (measures 13-20), and by the sensuous richness of the closing measures, in which a wonderful wave of sound is produced through the damper pedal, in connection with the blending of the tonic, dominant and subdominant chords. The prelude is a kind of intensified Bach and may well be compared with that prelude in the same key which begins the immortal well-tempered Clavichord. All the Preludes, for their poetic import, finished style and pianistic effect, are masterpieces of the first rank. Schumann well says of them: "They are sketches, eagle's feathers, all strangely intermingled. But in every piece we recognize the hand of Frédéric Chopin; he is the boldest, the proudest poet-soul of his time." ÉTUDE IN A-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 25, NO. 1. This étude, deservedly popular, may be considered the example _par excellence_ of Chopin's style. The lyric beauty of the melody, the fascinating modulations, the shades of color alike justify the following rhapsodic comments of Schumann, "Imagine that an Aeolian harp possessed all the musical scales, and that the hand of an artist were to cause them to intermingle in all sorts of fantastic embellishments, yet in such a way as to leave everywhere audible a deep fundamental tone and a soft, continuously singing upper voice, and you will get about the right idea. But it would be an error to think that Chopin, in playing this étude, 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 by the pedal. Throughout 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. After the étude a feeling came over one as of having seen in a dream a beatific picture which, when already half awake, one would gladly once more recall." MAZURKA IN F-SHARP MINOR, OP. 6, NO. 1. As Franz Liszt says in his life of Chopin, "The Mazurka is not only a dance, it is a national poem, and like all poems of conquered nations, is shaped so as to let the blazing flames of patriotic feeling shimmer out through the transparent veil of popular melody." The chief peculiarity of the Mazurka (which is always in triple rhythm, with a latitude in speed from Presto to Mesto) is the scheme of accentuation--the normal accent on the first beat being systematically transferred to the second and third beats. We also find in the Mazurka frequent indications for the use of the so-called "tempo rubato," a proper conception of which is so essential in the performance of Chopin's music. Tempo rubato--so often abused!--literally meaning borrowed time, is simply free rhythm emancipated from rigid, scholastic bonds. As Huneker well says, "Chopin must be played in curves" with emotional freedom; just as the heart, when excited, increases the speed of its pulsations, and in moments of calm and depression slows down. The jerky, really unrhythmical playing of certain performers reminds us of a person suffering from _palpitation_ of the heart. Liszt's description of the rubato is most suggestive: "A wind plays in the leaves, life unfolds and develops beneath them, but the tree remains the same." In Chopin, accordingly, the ground rhythm should always be preserved, though varied with subtle, and yet logical fluctuations. POLONAISE IN E-FLAT MINOR, OP. 26, NO. 11. The Polonaise[225] is the great national dance of the Poles; an impassioned and yet stately pageant in which, as Liszt says, "The noblest traditional feelings of ancient Poland are represented." This dance--or rather, processional march--is always in triple rhythm and based on a definite rhythmic formula: either [Music] or [Music]. The frequent feminine endings are also a characteristic feature, _e.g._, the cadence in the well known military Polonaise in A major: [Music] To return to the example being considered,--it is in Three-part form (A, B, A, with Coda) the first part in the minor mode; the second part beautifully contrasted by being in B major--introduced by the implied enharmonic change from E-flat to D-sharp. This first part, remarkable for its passionate, headlong impetuosity, should dispel any idea that Chopin was a weak sentimentalist. Although of a delicate constitution he certainly had a fiery soul. The second part, sotto voce--note the feminine endings--reminds us of the muffled music of a military band as it passes by. [Footnote 225: For an account of its origin see the chapter in Huneker's book and the article on the Polonaise in Grove's Dictionary.] BARCAROLLE IN F-SHARP MAJOR, OP. 60. This composition, in many ways the most wonderful single piece we have from Chopin, is the quintessence of his genius. It seems, in fact, to contain everything: appealing melodies, wealth of harmony, bold dissonances (note in particular the 6th and 7th measures of the Coda), brilliant embellishments; and withal, it is written in a pianistic style which, for richness and warmth of color, is quite unsurpassed. It is also most sincerely conceived, intensifying the suggestiveness of the descriptive title. Would that objective program music were always so true to life and to the real nature of music! It is in free three-part form, the first part of a calm nature in which we are rocked on gently undulating waves; a more rhythmic second part where, as Kullak says, the bass seems to suggest the monotonous steadiness of oar-strokes; an interlude, marked "dolce sfogato," introduced by some delightful modulations, as if in a quiet nook the poet were dreaming of the beauties of love and nature; an impassioned return to the chief subject, together with a partial presentation of the middle portion; and finally a long and brilliant coda. The composition is unique in romantic literature for its power to arouse the imagination, or, as Schumann so well says, "to set people romancing for themselves." SCHERZO IN C-SHARP MINOR, OP. 39. The four Scherzos, for passion and eloquence, rank among Chopin's most characteristic works, though it seems impossible to trace a logical correspondence between the former classic meaning of the term "Scherzo" and the contents revealed to us in these poems; save that they are all in triple rhythm, hence on a dance-form basis. As Niecks well says, "There is in them neither frolicsomeness nor humor"--such, for example, as we find in Beethoven's Scherzos--and he suggests that "Capriccio" might be a less misleading designation. But, however inexplicable the title which Huneker thinks Chopin may have applied in serious jest, there is no doubt of the uncompromising dignity of the utterance, and there is often a grim irony, a wayward scorn, which a liberal interpretation might well consider attributes of humor. These were marked traits in Chopin's nature, and the Scherzos are their revelation in terms of music. Schumann's well-known comment is apropos--"How is gravity to clothe itself if jest goes about in dark veils?" This Scherzo (Presto con fuoco) is in extended three-part form; the dominant note of the first part being one of feverish agitation, which expresses itself in spasmodic outbursts. The second part, with its broad cantabile melody of a hymn-like character, reveals a calmer mood. The last note of each phrase is adorned throughout with lovely coloristic embellishments. After a return to the first theme, the second part is also repeated; this time with striking modulatory changes which strongly resemble the mood of Wotan's Farewell, in the third Act of Wagner's _Valkyrie_. A long and fiery coda of new thematic material closes the work. The major ending is like a shaft of light dispelling storm-tossed clouds. Chopin's works are so instinct with genius and have proved to be so immortal that they may well be considered as ideal witnesses to the triumph of quality over mere quantity or sensational display. To-day, when we suffer from musical bombast, their refined message is of special significance. CHAPTER XV BERLIOZ AND LISZT. PROGRAMME MUSIC There is no doubt that Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), however varied the appeal of his music to different temperaments, is an artistic personality to be reckoned with; one not to be ticketed and laid on the shelf. Although a century and more has elapsed since his birth the permanent value of his music is still debated, often amusingly enough, by those who seem unaware that, whatever the theoretical rights of the case, in practice his principles are the reigning ones in modern music. As Berlioz stands as the foremost representative of program music and never wrote anything without a title, it is certain that before his music or influence can be appreciated, the mind must be cleared of prejudice and we must recognize that modern program music is a condition--an artistic fact, not a theory--and that the tendency towards specific, subjective expression (whether manifested in song, opera or symphonic poem) is a dominant one among present day composers. It is true that all music is the expression in tones of the imagination of the composer; true, also, that music must fulfil certain conditions of its own being. But imaginations differ. That of Berlioz, for example, was quite a new phenomenon; and as for the working principles of musical composition, they are as much subject to modification as any other form of human experimentation. Berlioz, himself, says that he never intended to subvert the laws of music, only to make a new and individual use of them. As he was no abstract maker of music, his autobiography--one of the most fascinating in the history of art, only to be compared with that of Benvenuto Cellini--should be familiar to all who would penetrate the secrets of his style. Berlioz's compositions, in fact, are more specifically autobiographic than those of any other notable musician. Both in his music and his literary works are the same notes of passionate insistence on his own point of view, of radical dislike for accepting conditions as they were (he says of himself that he loved to make the barriers crack) and of fondness for brilliant outward effect. In considering Berlioz, one is always reminded of Matthew Arnold's lines on Byron, who resembles Berlioz so closely. "He taught us little; but our soul Had felt him, like the thunder's roll. With shivering heart the strife we saw Of passion with eternal law; And yet with reverential awe We watch'd the fount of fiery life Which served for that Titanic strife." Only realize that Berlioz's _Fantastic Symphony_ was composed but twenty-one years after Haydn's death, and compare the simple, self-centered Haydn with the restless, wide-visioned Berlioz, of a mentality positively omnivorous; who, in addition to his musical achievements, was a brilliant critic and _littérateur_, a man of travel and wide acquaintance with the world. Then indeed you will appreciate what an enormous change had come over music. A mere mention of the authors from whom Berlioz drew his subjects: Shakespeare, Goethe, Byron, Scott, Virgil, Hugo, shows the wide range of his reading and the difference in output which would inevitably result. The previous impersonal attitude towards music is shown by the very names of compositions which, broadly speaking (till the beginning of the 19th century) were seldom more than Symphony, Sonata, or Quartet, No. so and so; while the movements, in an equally mechanical way, were known by the designations of tempo: allegro, adagio, andante, etc.--those "senseless terms," as Beethoven himself says. Beginning pre-eminently with Berlioz, composers have had more highly cultivated imaginations, much more to say; and the wider range of emotion resulting therefrom has necessitated differences of form and treatment. A frequent misconception on the part of the layman is that worthy music should be so constructed that the hearer be spared all mental exertion. As long as it was certain that a composer would present just so many themes in a prescribed order and treated in the routine fashion, listening to music was a comparatively easy task. Since Berlioz, music has made ever greater demands on the hearer; who only when his receptivity is of an equal degree of cultivation with the creative power of the composer, can grasp the full meaning of the music. The first step, therefore, toward an appreciation of Berlioz is to recognize the peculiar, picturesque power of his imagination, which was of an entirely new order, and may be called musico-poetic in distinction from purely musical activity. This form of double consciousness is equally necessary on the part of the hearer. As Debussy, the modern French composer, so well says, people often do not understand or enjoy new music because it differs from "une musique" _i.e._, from a conventional and unvarying type which they have in their mind. The real effect of Berlioz's "_Carnaval Romain_" Overture, to take a simple example, is to complement and intensify the mental picture which any well-read person--or better still, any one who has actually visited Rome--will have of this characteristic incident in Italian life. If the work be considered merely as abstract music, notwithstanding the stimulation and delight caused by the rhythmic vitality and by the orchestral effects, the real poetic purpose of the composer remains unfulfilled. This peculiar quality of Berlioz was partly the result of his fiery excitable temperament and partly the reactive effect of the environment in which he found himself. What an amazing group in Paris (beginning about 1830) was that with which he was associated! De Musset, de Vigny, Liszt, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Balzac, Dumas, Chopin, Heine, Delacroix, Géricault: young men representing every art and several nationalities, all under the lead of Hugo, that prince of Romanticists; their object being--revolt from conventional standards and a complete expression of their own personalities. Hugo, as he says in the famous preface to Cromwell, was tearing down the plaster which hides the facade of the fair temple of art; Dumas had just demolished Racine; Géricault and Delacroix, by their daring conceptions, were founding our modern school of painting. Into this maelstrom of revolution, Berlioz--he of the flaming locks, "that hairy Romantic" as Thackeray calls him--flung himself with temperamental ardor; for he was a born fighter and always in opposition to someone. The audacity and dramatic energy of his compositions are but the natural result of the tendencies of the period. Berlioz's early career is of extreme interest to us English-speaking people, because the first strong stimulus to his imagination came from his acquaintance with the dramas of Shakespeare. In 1827, some of the dramas, (such as Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet) were played in Paris by an English company, and their effect upon Berlioz was overwhelming. He would wander about the streets raving of Shakespeare; he promptly fell in love with the most beautiful actress in the troupe--Henrietta Smithson, whom he later married[226]--and then began the frenzied period of composing and concert giving, which came to a climax in the _Fantastic Symphony_ first performed in 1830. Berlioz's courage and perseverance are shown by his winning the Prix de Rome, after four failures! His two years in Italy (his picture may still be seen at the Villa Medici), replete with amusing and thrilling incidents, were, on the whole the happiest period of his stormy life. [Footnote 226: For a convincing account of this tragic marriage see the volume of _Recollections_ by Ernest Legouvé.] But we must pass to some brief comments upon the characteristics, pro and con, of his style. In the first place it was extremely original; showed little or no connection with former composers; has had no imitators, and cannot be parodied. Berlioz likewise possessed great range of emotion--though he rarely touched the sublime; a power of laying out works on a vast scale, and, in general, of achieving with unerring certainty the effects desired. The poet Heine said that much of Berlioz's music reminded him of "primeval monsters and fabulous empires." And what a master he was of rhythm!--one of the greatest in music! Prior to his work, and that of Schumann among the Germans, the classic rhythms were becoming rather stereotyped; and the vigorous elasticity introduced by these two composers has widened incalculably the range of dramatic effect. But his indisputable claim to lasting recognition is his genius in the treatment of the orchestra. Berlioz had an inborn instinct for sensuous tonal effect for its own sake, and not as the clothing of an abstract idea. With him the art of making that composite instrument, the orchestra, give forth the greatest beauty and variety of sound became an end in itself; and from his ingenious and innovating effects has been evolved the orchestra as we hear it to-day. Berlioz thought, so to speak, in terms of orchestral color. In his melodies we do not feel that the drawing, the contour of the pure line, is the chief thing; but that the assignment of the melody to just the right instrument, and the color-effect thereby produced, are integral parts of the conception. Notwithstanding the fact that some of his effects are extravagant or at times bizarre, he must be credited with revealing possibilities in orchestral shading and color which, still further developed by Wagner, Strauss and Tchaikowsky, have become conventional means of expression. Some of his most celebrated and satisfying works, in addition to those mentioned, are the _Harold in Italy_ Symphony, with its personification by a solo viola of the chief character; the _Romeo and Juliet_ Symphony, for both vocal and instrumental forces (of which the ball-scene with its wondrous love-melody and the _Queen Mab_ Scherzo--unequalled for daintiness--represent his highest attainments as a tone-poet) and, most popular of all, the _Damnation of Faust_ based on scenes from Goethe's poem. The bewitching incidental pieces for orchestra alone, such as the _Ballet of Sylphs_ and the _Rakoczy March_, are often played at symphony concerts, and are familiar to everyone. Certain blemishes in Berlioz's music are obvious and need not be over-emphasized. There is often more style and outward effect than real substance. His works excite, but how seldom do they exalt! For he was frequently deficient in depth of emotion and in latent warmth--qualities quite different from the hectic glow and the feverish passion which his French admirers, Tiersot and Boschot, claim to be genuine attributes of musical inspiration, of power to compel universal attention. We of other nations can only firmly dissent. Without question his work has never succeeded in calling forth the spontaneous love of a large body of admirers.[227] In an eloquent passage the conductor and critic Weingartner sums up the case: "Berlioz will always represent a milestone in the development of music, for he is the real founder of the modern school. He did not approach that ethical depth, that ideal purity which surround Beethoven's name with such unspeakable glory, but no composer since Beethoven, except Wagner, has enriched music with so many new means of expression as this great Frenchman. Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner are the heroes of the last half of the 19th century, just as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber and Schubert were of the first." [Footnote 227: It is understood that this is merely a personal opinion of the writer and might well have been prefaced by the Socratic "it seems to me." Too much criticism reminds us of wine-tasting--Mr. So-and-So likes port, Mr. So-and-So sherry. The object of fair-minded appreciation is to understand clearly just what each composer set out to do, _i.e._, what was the natural tendency of his individual genius; then the only question is: did or did he not do this well? It is futile to blame him because he was not someone else or did not achieve what he never set out to do.] As Berlioz is, if possible, even more idiomatic for the orchestra than Chopin for the pianoforte, no conception of the real quality of his message can be gained from transcriptions, however good. His works[228] must be studied at first hand in the orchestral score and then heard in performance by an excellent orchestra. Some preliminary acquaintance and appreciation, however, of characteristic features in his style is possible from arrangements and so we select for comment the following works and movements: The _Fantastic Symphony_, the _Carnaval Romain_ Overture, the _Ballet des Sylphes_ and the _Feux Follets_ from the _Damnation of Faust_, the _Pilgrim's March_ from the _Childe Harold_ Symphony and the Slow Movement from the _Romeo and Juliet_ Symphony.[229] There is much valuable and stimulating reading[230] about Berlioz and his influence; for, as Théophile Gautier acutely remarks, "S'il fut un grand génie, on peut le discuter encore, le monde est livré aux controverses; mais nul ne penserait à nier qu'il fut un grand caractère." The _Symphonie_[231] _fantastique_, op. 14, _épisode de la vie d'un artiste_, in five movements is significant for being the first manifestation of Berlioz's conviction that music should be yet more specifically expressive, since it is founded on a characteristic theme, called l'idée fixe which typifies the heroine, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 228: The best edition is the complete one, beautifully engraved and with critical comments, by Malherbe and Weingartner. This is expensive, but should be found in any large library.] [Footnote 229: The only citations possible in the Supplement are the Overture and portions of a few of the others.] [Footnote 230: Particularly to be recommended are the following: the essay in _Musical Studies_ by Newman; that by R. Rolland in _Musiciens d'aujourd'hui_ (in French and in English); _Berlioz et la société de son temps_ by J. Tiersot; the essay in _Studies in Modern Music_ by Hadow; Berlioz's own _Mémoires_ (in French and in English) and his entertaining essays, _A Travers Chants_, _Grotesques de la Musique_ and _Soirées d'Orchestre_; the excellent résumé of Berlioz's writings in the _Amateur Series_ by W.F. Apthorp; the _Symphony since Beethoven_ by Weingartner; and, above all, the monumental work by Boschot in three parts--_La Jeunesse d'un Romantique_, _Un Romantique sous Louis Philippe_, _Le Crépuscule d'un Romantique_. There is an amusing but far from convincing assault against Berlioz as a programme composer and, to a certain extent, against Romanticism in general, in the _New Laocoön_ by Professor Irving Babbitt.] [Footnote 231: On the title page of the autograph copy of the full score is inscribed the following quotation from King Lear: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods; they kill us for their sport."] This theme, with modifications appropriate to the changes in the character and the environment, is repeated in each movement. As for the theme itself, frankly it does not amount to much; it certainly fails to take our emotions by storm or sing itself into our hearts. Berlioz's harmonization is very bald, and as to his attempts at development,[232] the less said the better. Of course whatever Berlioz writes for the orchestra _sounds_ well; of that there is no doubt. But this is not enough; any more than we are convinced by a person's statements or arguments merely because he happens to have a beautiful speaking voice. This dramatization of a musical theme was, after all, nothing iconoclastically new and Berlioz is perfectly right in claiming that he was merely extending the possibilities of that same type of theme as is found in Beethoven himself, _e.g._, in the _Coriolanus_ Overture and to a certain extent in the Fifth Symphony. If, furthermore, we look back from the dramatic and highly personified use made of themes in modern music, in the works of Strauss, Tchaikowsky, Franck and even Brahms (_e.g._, his First Symphony with its motto-theme) we can see that this symphony of Berlioz is an important link in a perfectly logical chain of development. This melody, then, l'idée fixe, appears in each of the five movements; undergoing, however, but slight purely thematic development, being introduced and modified primarily for dramatic purposes. In the second movement,[233] _Un Bal_, two phrases drawn from it are sung _pp_ by the clarinet as an indication that, amid the gaieties of the dance, the vision of the beloved one is ever present. In the _Scène aux Champs_ it is modified and eloquently declaimed by the flute and oboe, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 232: Dannreuther, in his essay in the Sixth Volume of the _Oxford History of Music_, speaks of the peculiar process of "rabbeting" which serves Berlioz in the place of counterpoint, and the criticism, though caustic, holds much truth.] [Footnote 233: This movement is also of interest as an early example of the Waltz among the conventional symphonic moods. The example has been followed by Tchaikowsky in the third movement of his Fifth Symphony.] At the close of the movement occurs one of Berlioz's most novel and realistic effects--the imitation of the rumbles of distant thunder produced by four kettle-drums tuned in a very peculiar way (see page 75 of the orchestral score, Breitkopf and Härtel edition). In the fourth movement, _Marche au Supplice_, four measures of l'idée fixe are introduced just at the moment when the head of the hero is to be chopped off. This is done for purely theatric purposes and certainly makes our flesh creep--as Berlioz no doubt intended. The most spectacular effect, however, is in the last movement, _Songe d'une Nuit du Sabbat_, where the theme is parodied to typify the degraded appearance which the beloved one takes in the distorted dreams of her lover, _e.g._ [Music] The impression made by the Symphony depends largely upon the attitude of the hearer. In this work we are not to look for the sublimity and emotional depth of a Bach or Beethoven any more than we expect a whimsical comedy of Aristophanes to resemble an epic poem of Milton. But for daring imagination, for rhythmic vitality and certainty of orchestral effect, it was and remains a work[234] of genius. [Footnote 234: For further comments on this Symphony see Mr. Mason's essay in the _Romantic Composers_, an essay which, while thoughtful, strikes the writer as somewhat biased.] THE CARNAVAL ROMAIN OVERTURE (SEE SUPPLEMENT NO. 57) This work is one of Berlioz's most brilliant pieces, with an orchestral life and color all its own. The material is taken from his opera _Benvenuto Cellini_;[235] the checquered career of this artist having made an irresistible appeal to Berlioz's love of the unusual and the spectacular. The body of the work is based on the Italian national dance, the Saltarello; and with this rhythm as a steadying background Berlioz achieves a continuity sometimes lacking in his work. The mere thought of the sights, sounds and colors of that important event in the life of Rome would be enough to inflame his susceptible imagination, and so here we have Berlioz at his very best. The overture begins, allegro assai con fuoco, with a partial announcement of the saltarello theme by the violins and violas, freely imitated by the wood-wind instruments, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 235: For an entertaining account of the subject matter of the opera see Chapter VII of Boschot's _Un Romantique sous Louis Philippe_.] After a sudden prolonged silence and some crescendo trills the first periodic melody is introduced, sung by the English horn--the tune taken from an aria of Benvenuto in the first act. The melody is soon repeated in the dominant key by the violas and then, treated canonically, by the 'cellos and violins. The canon really tells and shows that Berlioz, as is often alleged, was not _altogether_ lacking in polyphonic skill. The rhythm is now gradually quickened and leads to the main body of the work, in 6/8 time, based on the Italian folk-dance--the Saltarello which, as its name implies, is of a "skipping" nature. The music is freely developed from the two following themes; there is no second theme proper, _e.g._ [Music: (_a_)] [Music: (_b_)] Toward the close there is a return to the introductory melody which is treated contrapuntally by the bassoons and other wind-instruments. The saltarello resumes its sway and is worked up to a fiery ending; especially brilliant are the closing chords scored for full brass with trills on the cornets. Two of Berlioz's most poetically conceived descriptive pieces are the _Menuet des Feux-Follets_ and the _Ballet des Sylphes_, incidental orchestral numbers from the _Damnation of Faust_; for they illustrate convincingly what one means by the claim that Berlioz thought in terms of orchestral color and suggestion. To give a musical picture of such airy and fantastic imaginings by the mere repetition of conventional formulae would obviously be of no avail. Berlioz's genius is equal to the situation; and as we listen to the music we can really see the flickering of the Will o' the Wisps and feel the graceful swaying of the Sylphs as they hover about the sleeping Faust. To suggest the Feux-Follets Berlioz ingeniously gives the theme to two piccolos in thirds, which are supported by a rich but subdued mass of wind instruments, horns and trumpets, _e.g._ [Music] With equal felicity does he create the picture of the delicate, graceful Sylphs. Any boisterous rhythmic activity would be quite out of place; and so, above a sustained ground tone on muted 'cellos and basses (which continues through the piece), and the slightest suspicion of motion on the second violins and violas, there floats in the first violins one of the most perfectly rounded and exquisite melodies in existence, _e.g._ [Music] In the closing measures there is a charming shadowy dialogue between kettle-drums (struck with sponge-headed sticks) and harps, in harmonics, carrying out Berlioz's stage directions--"Les esprits de l'air se balancent quelque temps autour de Faust endormi et disparaissent peu à peu." The piece ends with a chord barely whispered on the clarinets, _pppp_, which, as Hadow aptly suggests, reminds us of vanishing soap bubbles. Berlioz's most sustained and perfect work, both in content and treatment, is universally acknowledged to be the _Harold en Italie_ Symphony[236] in four movements for full orchestra and solo viola. There is little actual correspondence between the scenes of Byron's poem and the musical portrayal; and in fact, as Liszt says, "The title clearly shows that the composer wished to render the impression which the magnificent nature of Italy could not fail to make on a soul such as that of Harold languishing in sorrow." The significant features of the work are the melody for solo viola, recurring[237] in each movement, which typifies Harold--that "melancholy dreamer," _e.g._, [Music] and the dazzling sensationalism of the Finale (Orgy of Brigands) which, when it was once played "con amore" by a fine orchestra, called forth from Berlioz the following eulogy,--"Sublime! I thank you, gentlemen, and I wonder at you; you are perfect brigands." The finale is also notable in that the opening portion is a reminiscence, a passing in review, of the chief themes of the preceding movements. Berlioz, we may surmise, was following the precedent established by Beethoven in the finale of the _Ninth Symphony_, and, although his treatment is rather mechanical and lacking in any such dramatic logic as justified Beethoven, a certain organic connection between the movements is undoubtedly secured. A portion of the second movement, _March of Pilgrims_ singing the evening prayer, is cited in the Supplement (See No. 58) chiefly because it is one of Berlioz's noblest inspirations, giving an eloquent picture of a procession approaching, passing by and losing itself in the distance--a long crescendo and diminuendo. At every eighth measure the March melody is interrupted by the muffled chant of the pilgrims, very effectively scored for brass instruments, pianissimo. In the middle of the piece a contrast is gained by the introduction of a religious chant. The closing measures of this movement are of haunting beauty--a mysterious effect being produced by an intentional mixture of tonalities (the sustained B in the flute and oboe being answered by a C on the horns and harp, while beneath are heard fragments of the March theme in the main key on the pizzicato double basses).[238] Berlioz's most pretentious orchestral composition is that called in the full title "Romeo and Juliet, dramatic symphony, with choruses, vocal solos, and a prologue in choral recitative, composed after Shakespeare's tragedy." Notwithstanding many touches of genius, it is a very uneven work and is too much a conglomerate of styles--narrative, lyrical, dramatic, theatric and symphonic--for the constructive ability of the author to weld into a living whole. There are several portions which, however noble and glorious may have been Berlioz's conception,[239] and however inspired by Shakespeare's genius, do not "come off." Two of the numbers, on the other hand, are worthy of the highest praise--the _Love Scene_ and the _Queen Mab Scherzo_. Of the latter Saint-Saëns writes--"The famous Scherzo is worth even more than its reputation. It is a miracle of lightness and gracefulness. Beside such delicacies and transparencies the _finesses_ of Mendelssohn in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ seem heavy." The main theme is fascinating in its daintiness and sparkle, _e.g._ [Music] Berlioz considered the _Love Scene_ his finest inspiration and there are few pieces comparable with it for passionate utterance. The orchestration is wonderful for richness and variety.[240] [Footnote 236: For an extended analysis of the work and also for an account of the alleged connection of the virtuoso Paganini with its composition, see the essay in Niecks' _Program Music_. There are, in addition, interesting comments in _Stories of Symphonic Music_ by Lawrence Gilman.] [Footnote 237: An early example of the modern principle of transformation and transference by theme.] [Footnote 238: A striking illustration of "association of ideas" may be gained from a comparison of the end of this movement with the closing measures of Strauss's _Thus Spake Zarathustra_; it seems incredible that Strauss did not have Berlioz's effect in his mind.] [Footnote 239: See the _Mémoires_ for a rhapsodic account of his state of mind at this time--"basking in the warm rays of Shakespeare's imagination and believing it in his power to arrive at the marvellous island where rises the temple of pure Art."] [Footnote 240: For extended comments and a long citation of the actual music see the Sixth Volume of the _Oxford History of Music_.] After a careful study of the foregoing examples the reader, we hope, is in a position to make a fair estimate of Berlioz's power and to realize his great significance. It should be understood that this music is intensely subjective and so requires a sympathetic and cultivated attitude on the part of the listener. To the writer at least, there remains one vital lack in Berlioz's music,--that of the _dissonant element_. It often seems as if his conceptions could not be fully realized for want of sheer musical equipment, largely due to insufficient early training. For what is music without dissonance? Surely "flat, stale and unprofitable" even if, in Berlioz's case, this deficiency is offset by great rhythmic vitality and gorgeous color. Yet in his best works[241] there is such a strong note of individuality, indeed such real character, that they are deserving of sincere respect and admiration, although by everybody they may not be deeply loved. We should, furthermore, always remember that, if Berlioz's poverty of harmonic effect is sometimes annoying, he never falls into the humdrum ruts of those who have had a stereotyped academic training. His genius was unhampered by any conventional harmonic vocabulary, and hence it could always express itself freely. That he was a real genius no one can fairly doubt. [Footnote 241: For valuable analytical comments on Berlioz's orchestral style see Vol. VIII, Chapter X, of the _Art of Music_ (César Saerchinger, N.Y.), and for biographical details and matters of general import, Vol. II, Chap. IX.] All the qualities which have been enumerated as typical of the romantic temperament: warmth of sentiment, broad culture, love of color and the sensuous side of music, freedom of form, and stress laid on the orchestra as the most eloquent means of expression, reach their climax in Franz Liszt (1811-1886). Born near Vienna of a Hungarian father and a German mother, but chiefly associated with Paris, Weimar, Budapest and Rome, he is certainly the most picturesque and versatile figure in the music of the 19th century; for he worked and won fame as a pianoforte virtuoso--probably the greatest the world has known--as a prolific composer for pianoforte, orchestra and voice, as a teacher, conductor and man of letters, and withal spent a large part of his time, strength and fortune in helping young artists and in producing works which otherwise might never have seen the light. His life is of constant and varied interest, so spectacular at times that it seems like a fairy tale.[242] As a mere boy he began to receive adulation for his precocity; at the height of his career he was loaded with honors and wealth; in his old age he was a favorite with everyone of distinction and influence in France, Germany, England and Italy. Nevertheless he preserved, throughout, the integrity of his character and the nobility of his disposition. Whatever may be the final estimate of his powers as a creative artist, as a man he has earned nothing but eulogy;[243] for seldom has any one been freer from the faults of vanity, petty jealousy and envy which so often mar the artistic temperament. Liszt's generous encouragement and financial support of Wagner in the struggling days of his unpopularity have never been surpassed in the brotherhood of art. [Footnote 242: The best biographies in English are the one by Huneker and that in Vol. 2 of Grove's Dictionary.] [Footnote 243: For a lively description of his influence as a pianoforte teacher see _Music Study in Germany_ by Amy Fay.] Liszt is akin to Berlioz in many respects; we feel the same natural tendency to derive musical inspiration from external sources, poetic, pictorial or from the realm of Nature. Purely as a musician, however, Liszt was far greater, with a wider vocabulary and more power in thematic development. His work also is somewhat uneven; moments of real beauty alternating with passages which are trivial, bombastic or mere lifeless padding. When we bear in mind Liszt's unparalleled versatility, his output in quantity and variety is so amazing--there being well over 1,000 works of about every kind--that it is unfair to expect the style to be as finely wrought as the original conception is noble. A serious and unbiased study of his best compositions will convince one that Liszt is entitled to high rank as a musician of genuine poetic inspiration. The average music-lover is prone to dwell upon him as the composer of _Les Préludes_, the _Hungarian Rhapsodies_, and as the somewhat flashy transcriber of operatic potpourris, such as the _Rigoletto Fantasie_. But _Les Préludes_, notwithstanding a certain charm and the clever manner in which the music (without becoming minutely descriptive) supplements the poem of Lamartine, is yet barred from the first rank by its mawkishness of sentiment and by its cloying harmonies. The most significant among the symphonic poems are _Orpheus_ with its characteristic crescendos and diminuendos; _Tasso_ of great nobility and pathos, and _Mazeppa_, a veritable tour de force of descriptive writing. To hear any one of these masterpieces can not fail to alter the opinion of those who may have considered Liszt as exclusively given over to sensational effects. As for the _Hungarian Rhapsodies_, which Liszt intended as a kind of national ballade and so, for the basic themes and rhythms, drew largely on Hungarian Folk music, here again the public, with its fondness for being dazzled, has laid exclusive stress on the flashy ones to the detriment of those containing much that is noble and of enduring worth. In his transcriptions of standard songs Liszt did as valuable a public service as any popularizer, and has thereby made familiar the melodies of Schubert and Schumann to hundreds who otherwise would know nothing of them. In considering Liszt's pianoforte works we must remember that he was a born virtuoso with a natural fondness for exploiting the possibilities of his instrument, and with an amazing technique as a performer. When the sincerity of a composer is in question there is a great difference as to what should be the standard of judgment, whether the work be for orchestra or for pianoforte. In writing for orchestra the composer naturally centres himself on the pure ideas and their treatment, as the execution is something entirely external to himself. In works for pianoforte, however, the composer who is also a virtuoso will often, and quite justifiably, introduce passages of purely pianistic effect which in other circumstances would amount to a confession of deficient imagination. That Liszt at times abused his facility in decoration need not be gainsaid, and yet how poetic and eloquent are his best pianoforte compositions!--the _Études_, the _Waldesrauschen_, the _Ballade_ and, above all, the _Sonata in B minor_.[244] Much unjust criticism has been expended upon Liszt for treating the pianoforte like an orchestra. As a matter of fact he widened, in a perfectly legitimate way, the possibilities of the instrument as to sonority, wealth and variety of color-effect. According to the testimony of contemporary colleagues, Rubinstein, Taussig and von Bülow who, had they not been convinced of his supremacy, might well have been jealous, Liszt was incontestably the greatest interpreter of Bach, Beethoven and Chopin; and his power as a Beethoven scholar is attested by the poetically annotated edition of the Sonatas. It is often asserted that Liszt lacked spontaneous melodic invention. This is a hard saying unless taken in a relative sense. We may grant that Liszt was neither a Schubert nor a Mozart, and yet recognize in his works some extremely haunting melodies. His creative power was acknowledged by Wagner and in a very practical manner. In fact, after a comparative study of their works, one is amazed at the number of melodies which Wagner borrowed from Liszt and at the generous complaisance of the latter. The reactive influence of Liszt and Wagner, each upon the other, is an interesting chapter in the development of modern art. Liszt was undoubtedly encouraged in his revolutionary aims by Wagner's fiery courage. Wagner, on his side, owed much to Liszt's unselfish generosity; and with his more powerful constructive gifts worked up into enduring form motives which, internal evidence clearly shows, came from Liszt himself. [Footnote 244: For a most entertaining description of this work see the Huneker Biography, pp. 64-70.] Just a few closing words as to Liszt's specific contributions to the expansion of musical structure. He was an advanced leader in the "program school," being endowed with considerably more constructive power than Berlioz, who often fell between two stools: in that while his subject demanded the freest treatment, he lacked the vigor to break away from the formal routine of his classic models. In Liszt's orchestral works, however, the term "Symphonic Poem"--one of his own invention--is fully justified, _i.e._, they are _symphonic_ in that they have organic unity, although this is not attained by preserving the classic number and arrangement of themes; and they are also _poetic_, being not a presentation of abstract tone patterns, but illustrative of some external idea which shapes the course of the music entirely to its own needs.[245] The distinguishing quality of the Symphonic Poem is its unbroken continuity. Although objective points are reached, and while there are broad lines of demarcation with reference to the varied moods of the poem to be illustrated, there are _no rigid stops_--everything is fused together into a continuous whole. Liszt was an advocate of persistent development, _i.e._, the music going out into space like a straight line instead of returning on itself. Inner evidence shows, however, that although he avoided many needless and conventional repetitions, he could not entirely throw overboard the cyclical law of restatement; for there is not one of his _Symphonic Poems_ which does not repeat, at the end, thematic material already heard. Liszt carried the principle of theme transformation still further than Berlioz; and, as a German, tended to lay stress rather on the psychological aspects of character than on those outward theatric events which appeal to French taste. The difference is well shown by a comparison of the _Damnation of Faust_ with Liszt's _Faust_ Symphony, considered his most inspired orchestral work. Liszt must not be forgotten as a song-writer, especially for his settings to Goethe's poems; which, as Huneker says, are masterpieces and contain, in essence, all the dramatic lyricism of modern writers, Strauss included. In these songs the instrumental part is of special import; Liszt in pianistic treatment anticipating Hugo Wolf with his "Songs for Voice and Pianoforte," _i.e._, the voice and the instrument are treated as coequal factors. [Footnote 245: For stimulating comments see _The Symphony since Beethoven_ by Weingartner, pp. 71-86.] The works of Liszt selected for analytical comment are the Symphonic Poem _Orpheus_, the _Faust_ Symphony and the Pianoforte Étude, _Waldesrauschen_. The student, however, should become familiar with several others[246] of the Symphonic Poems, notably _Tasso_, _Les Préludes_ and _Mazeppa_; with the Pianoforte Sonata in B minor in one movement, in which Liszt works on the same plan as Schumann in the Fourth Symphony; with the descriptive pianoforte pieces and études; and with the songs, of which _Kennst du das Land_, _Die Lorelei_ and _Du bist wie eine Blume_ are beautiful examples. [Footnote 246: An enlightening and comprehensive account of each of these may be found in Niecks's _Programme Music_ already referred to. See also Chapter VII, pp. 141-155 in Vol. VI of the _Oxford History_ for what is perhaps a rather biased point of view. There is an excellent tabulation of the themes from _Les Préludes_ in Mason's _Romantic Composers_.] SYMPHONIC POEM, ORPHEUS In this work, as must always be the case in poetically suggestive music, the composer trusts to the general intelligence and insight of the listener. For a mere mention of the name Orpheus may well call up the vision of a majestic, godlike youth proclaiming his message of joy and peace to soften the unruly passions of men and animals. It is said that Liszt's imagination was kindled by a beautiful representation of Orpheus playing on the lyre, which decorates an Etruscan vase in the Louvre. The aim of the music was thus to intensify and supplement the visual effect. The Poem begins with soft, sustained calls on the horns, creating a mood of expectancy, interspersed with modulatory arpeggios on the harp serving to complete the legendary picture. In these Symphonic Poems, we must always observe how closely the nature of the themes and the whole import of the music are involved with the orchestral dress. For Liszt, though not perhaps so brilliant and sensational as Berlioz, was equally a great master of orchestral coloring and poetic suggestion by means of appropriate instruments; often, too, more delicate and refined. In measure 15 begins for sustained strings the stately march which typifies the gradual approach of Orpheus. The second phrase of the march, beginning in measure 38, has received the compliment of being appropriated, almost literally, by Wagner in the second act of the _Valkyrie_ for the march motive with which Wotan is ushered in. Some beautiful modulatory developments of the march theme, with which the original horn calls are united, lead to the impassioned theme in E major, sung by an English horn, which is the message of Orpheus to the sons of men, _e.g._ [Music] The theme is expanded by means of striking modulations until, in measure 102, it is presented by the full orchestra. Some rather meaningless repetitions, in detached phrases, of the Orpheus theme bring us, in measure 130, to a return of the original march which is finally proclaimed _ff_ with great power and sonority. It seems to typify the triumphant justification of Orpheus's appearance. The dissonant modulations in the following passage, beginning measure 155, (in which the double basses take a dramatic part) have been thought by some to represent realistically the uncouth roars of forest monsters. These outcries finally subside and in the Coda, beginning at measure 180, we have first a beautiful reminiscence of Orpheus's message and then a last announcement of the march theme, which is now presented in the form of a long diminuendo, as if the God-like apparition were slowly withdrawing from our sight. A series of shifting modulations (adagio and pianissimo) seems to bring a cloud before our enraptured senses, and the work closes with a long sustained chord in C major, _ppp_, giving an elemental idea of peace and satisfaction. From the standpoint of musical structure the work is a crescendo followed by a diminuendo and, poetically considered, is a convincing picture in terms of music of the effect made upon Liszt's imagination by the legend of Orpheus. Observe that, although the composition is free in form, it is _not_ formless.[247] The main lines are the familiar ones of statement, contrast and restatement, _i.e._, three-part form, and the key-relationship is clear and carefully planned. [Footnote 247: An allegation often brought against Liszt's work by those whose conception of "form" is that of a cast-iron mould.] THE FAUST SYMPHONY This work, although embodying Liszt's favorite ideas of dramatic characterization and transformation of theme as found in the Symphonic Poems, more nearly resembles the ordinary symphony in that it is in three distinct movements--with pauses between--which stand, respectively, for the three chief characters in Goethe's drama: Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles. In the _Faust_ Symphony the principle of transformation or metamorphosis of themes is of such importance that it may be defined as their rhythmic, melodic and harmonic modification for the purpose of changing the meaning to correspond with a modification in the characters for which they stand. The first movement sets before us five themes illustrative of the most prominent traits in the complex nature of Faust; the three most important being (_a_) typical of brooding, speculative inquiry, (_b_) the longing of love, (_c_) the enthusiasm and chivalry of Faust, _e.g._ [Music: (_a_)] [Music: (_b_)] [Music: (_c_)] The development of these themes is entirely free, the musical texture being held together by a general application of the principle of contrast and by a logical key-scheme. The second movement has two main themes, _e.g._ [Music: (_a_)] [Music: (_b_)] which portray eloquently the sweetness and dreamy ecstacy of Gretchen's nature. In the course of this portrayal there appear several themes from the first movement showing, by their transformation, the effect upon the introspective Faust of the awakening influence of love. Thus the love theme appears as-- [Music] and also later in this form-- [Music] Towards the close of the movement there is a subtle reference to the chivalrous theme, as follows-- [Music] Much of the appeal of the music depends upon the orchestration which throughout is of remarkable beauty. In the final movement, entitled Mephistopheles, there are a few independent themes which portray the malign influence of the spirit of Evil--the movement is marked Allegro vivace ironico!--but most of the material is a transformation of the Faust themes which are here burlesqued, parodied; as if all the noble aspirations of Faust were being mocked and set at naught. This treatment is a perfectly logical result of the correspondence, for which Liszt was striving, between the music and the spirit of the underlying drama. As for the final impressiveness of his artistic message, the composer may well have felt that the effect would be indefinite without the specific meaning which words alone can give. For the style is very subjective throughout; that is, if the hearer is in a responsive condition, an effect is produced on his imagination--otherwise, not. To close the work, therefore, in the most moving and dignified manner, Liszt, with unerring instinct and following the precedent of Beethoven in the Ninth Symphony, introduces a chorus of men's voices--marked Andante Mistico--which intones the famous stanza "Alles Vergängliche"[248] at the close of the second part of Faust; while, above this chorus, a solo tenor proclaims the motto of the redeeming love of woman, "Das ewig Weibliche"--a sentiment so dear to the German[249] mind and one that plays such an important part in the music dramas of Wagner. A dramatic and musical connection between the movements is established by using, for this solo part, the melody (intensified by augmentation) which in the second movement typified the love and charm of Gretchen, _e.g._ [Music: Das ewig Weibliche] [Footnote 248: Translated as follows by Bayard Taylor:-- Chorus Misticus All things transitory But as symbols are sent; Earth's insufficiency Here grows to Event; The Indescribable, Here it is done: The Woman-Soul leadeth us Upward and on!] [Footnote 249: The way in which the Germans in the recent war have applied this doctrine raises, we must say, many searching questions.] Notwithstanding the ultra sensationalism in some of Liszt's works there is no doubt that, in the closing pages of Faust, he has produced an effect of genuine power and of inspired musical beauty.[250] _Faust_, in fact, may be called a great work because of the character of its leading melodies, its freedom of structure and expression and its wealth of appropriate orchestral color. For these merits we may overlook certain dreary passages where it would surely seem as if the imagination of the composer were not able to translate into tones all the phases of Goethe's stupendous drama.[251] [Footnote 250: That this is the verdict of the public is shown by the fact that, whenever of late years _Faust_ has been given by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, it has had to be repeated by popular request.] [Footnote 251: For further comments on the work see Huneker's _Franz Liszt_, pp. 141-146 and the third part (on Program Music) of Finck's _R. Strauss, The Man and His Works_. Also Chap. VII passim in Vol. VI of the Oxford History.] In a book such as this, chiefly concerned with broad principles of structure and style, it would be out of place to attempt a detailed account of Liszt's numerous and varied pianoforte compositions. But they can by no means be left out of consideration by anyone who wishes to gain a comprehensive estimate of his influence. For although the fundamental principles of pianoforte style, both in writing for the instrument and in playing upon it, are derived from Chopin and Schumann,[252] Liszt so amplified the work of these men and added so many novel features of his own in pianistic effect and especially in execution that he is rightly considered a genius of the instrument. He certainly brought out of the pianoforte a sonority and wealth of color which heretofore had been associated only with the orchestra. The chief groups of the pianoforte works are (1) the transcriptions of songs, notably of Schubert and Schumann, and of operas, particularly of Wagner. In this group should also be included the remarkable arrangement for solo-pianoforte of all the Beethoven Symphonies. (2) The Études, especially the set entitled "_Études d'exécution transcendante_"--a description which clearly shows the idea Liszt set before himself and indubitably attained; of this set the one in F minor is particularly fine. (3) The world-famed _Hungarian Rhapsodies_, fifteen in number, based on national melodies and rhythms. In these Liszt aspired to be the poet of his nation, and they are still among the most important manifestations of the national spirit so prominent in our modern music. Perhaps the most eloquent and celebrated are the 2d, the 12th and the 14th. Even if at times they are overencrusted with effects meant primarily for display, the rhythmic vitality and color of the melodies cannot be withstood. [Footnote 252: Weber and Schubert had, of course, done valuable pioneer work.] CONCERT ÉTUDE, _Waldesrauschen_ (SEE SUPPLEMENT NO. 59) This composition begins with a swaying, cantabile theme for the left hand very characteristic of Liszt, which stands out in relief against some beautifully placed arabesque figures in the upper register of the instrument--the whole to be played una corda, dolce con grazia. It really is a poetic picture, in terms of music, of the delicious murmur of the woods. In the 15th measure the theme is transferred to the right hand, in octaves, over sonorous, widely extended groups below. The theme is expanded through a series of striking modulations and then returns, in measure 30, to the left hand in a single melodic line. This middle portion, measures 30-50, is very beautiful in its genuine atmospheric treatment. Towards its close, however, Liszt's fondness for sensational effect rather runs away with him and there is a good deal, in measures 50-60 (marked martellato, strepitoso and _fff_), which is rather difficult to reconcile with the poetic subject. Perhaps a mighty wind is roaring through the trees! In measure 61 the theme is once more presented in amplified form by the right hand, più mosso and molto appassionata, and worked up to a brilliant climax--ending with an interlocking trill and a long, descending passage of delightful sensuous effect. The closing measures, una corda and dolcissimo, afford a reminiscence of the haunting appeal of the chief melody. All in all, in spite of a certain admixture of alloy, here is a poetic composition, a real tone-picture of the woods and of the effects implied by the title. Certainly a piece which, in its picturesque suggestiveness and pianistic treatment, may fairly be called the ancestor of much that is beautiful in such modern composers as Debussy and Ravel. As a final estimate of Liszt and as a suggestion for the student's attitude we cite from Niecks the following quotation, since, in our opinion, it is true and forcibly expressed: "Liszt's works are too full of originality and striking expressiveness to deserve permanently the neglect that has been their lot. Be, however, the ultimate fate of these works what it may, there will always remain to Liszt the fame of a daring striver, a fruitful originator and a wide-ranging quickener." CHAPTER XVI BRAHMS After the novel and brilliant work of the Romanticists had reached its height in the compositions just studied, it seemed as if there were nothing more for music to do. Wagner, with his special dramatic aims and gorgeous coloring, loomed so large on the horizon that for a time all other music was dwarfed. It is, therefore of real significance that just in this interregnum two men, born in the early years of the 19th century, were quietly laying the foundations for eloquent works in absolute or symphonic music. These men were Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and César Franck (1822-1890). Following a few preliminary remarks about the significance of symphonic style in general, the next chapters will be devoted to an account of their works and influence. A striking feature in the development of music since 1850 is the number of symphonies produced by the representative composers of the various nations; and the manner in which these works embody certain phases of style and manifest national tendencies is a subject of great interest. Ever since Beethoven, there has been a universal feeling that the symphony is the form in which a composer should express his highest thoughts. If Wagner and Richard Strauss seem to be exceptions, we must remember that their work for orchestra is thoroughly symphonic both in material and in scope. The difference is chiefly one of terms. Wagner claimed that he merely applied to dramatic purposes Beethoven's thematic development; and the tone-poems of Strauss are symphonies in essence though on a free poetic basis. Every composer has taken up the writing of a symphony with a serious purpose and often comparatively late in life. To be sure, Beethoven's first Symphony, op. 21, was composed in his thirtieth year; but for the works which manifest most strongly his personality, such as the Third, Fifth and Ninth, we have to wait until a later period. Schumann essayed symphonic composition only after his technique had been developed in every other field. Brahms's first Symphony, on which he is said to have worked ten years, is op. 68. César Franck looked forward to a Symphony as the climax of his career. The day has passed when a composer could dash off symphonies by the dozen; quality and genuine personality in each work are the modern requirements. Thus from Brahms we have four symphonies, from Tchaikowsky six, from Bruckner nine--a dangerously large number!--from Sibelius five, from Elgar two, from d'Indy three; and, even if a composer write but a single really inspired and noble symphony--as for example, César Franck--he is in so far immortal. For the symphonic form is the product of too much intense striving (think of Beethoven's agonies of conception!) to be treated lightly. Beginning with the operatic overture of Lully and Scarlatti, called "Sinfonia avanti l'opera," down through the labors of Stamitz, Gossec, Emmanuel Bach, Haydn and Mozart, this form, as we know it to-day, is the result of at least a century and a half of sustained, constructive work. A musician who wishes to compose a symphony is brought face to face with the formidable question, "Have I a real message to utter and the technical skill to present it in communicable form?" There are no accessory appeals to the other senses in the way of a dramatic story, scenic effect, dancing and costumes--as in opera--to cloak poverty of invention and to mollify the judgment of the listener. I grant that the composition of an original opera is a high achievement, but we know how many composers have won success in the operatic field from whom we should never expect a symphony. From comparatively few have we great works in both forms. Consider, furthermore, how complicated a tool is the present orchestra, _as_ a tool, to say nothing of the invention of ideas. Many years of study are required to attain a certainty of calculation in sonority and _nuance_, and the mere writing out the score of a symphony requires unremitting toil. We all pay homage to life: human life in men, women and children, and the life of nature in animals, birds, trees and flowers. Let us ever remember that the imagination also has its products and the themes of a symphony may certainly be considered _its_ children. The public often seems to have slight idea of the sanctity and mystery of a musical idea. Composers are considered people with a kind of "knack" in writing down notes. In reality, a musical idea is as wonderful a thing as we can conceive--a miracle of life and yet intangible, ethereal. The composer apparently creates something out of nothing, pure fancy being wrought into terms of communication. Since the close of the Romantic period proper, the Symphonic composers of universal recognition have been Brahms, Franck, Tchaikowsky, d'Indy, Sibelius, Bruckner, Mahler, Dvo[vr]ák, Elgar, and a few lesser men of the Russian and French schools. Their works carry still further the principles which can be traced from Beethoven down through the Romantic School, _i.e._, the chief themes are of a highly subjective nature, often in fact being treated like actual characters in a drama; and great freedom is shown in regard to mood and order of the usual symphonic movements--this being particularly true of Mahler and Bruckner. A distinct feature of interest in the work of Tchaikowsky, Dvo[vr]ák and Sibelius is the introduction of exotic types of melody and rhythm, drawn from national sources. Thus Tchaikowsky, who said that he wished all his instrumental music to sound like a glorified Russian folk-song, uses rhythms of 5 and (in his chamber music) 7 beats a measure, with frequent touches of old modal harmony. Dvo[vr]ák founds his harmony and modulations on the exceedingly chromatic scale of the Bohemians; and his piquant and dashing rhythms could come only from a nation which has no less than forty national dances. In listening to Sibelius, we are conscious of the wild sweep of the wind, of unchained forces of nature; and there are the same traits of virile strength and grim dignity which have made the Kalevala, Finland's national poem, one of the great epics of the world. Although Brahms never lets us forget that he is a Teuton, there are frequent traces in his compositions of the Hungarian element--so dear to all the Viennese composers--as well as of German folk-songs; and the most artistic treatment we have of Hungarian rhythms is found in his two sets of Hungarian dances. It is manifestly beyond the scope of a single book to treat comprehensively each of the symphonists in the list just cited, so I shall dwell chiefly upon the characteristics of Brahms, Franck, Tchaikowsky and d'Indy as probably the greatest, and touch only incidentally upon the others, as of somewhat lesser import; though if anyone take issue with this preference in regard to Mahler and Bruckner I shall not combat him. For I believe Mahler to be a real genius; feeling, however, that his wonderful conceptions are sometimes not expressed in the most convincing manner. There is no doubt that Mahler has not yet received his bigger part in due valuation, but his time will surely come. As for Bruckner, we have from him some of the most elemental and powerful ideas in modern music--witness the dirge in the _Seventh Symphony_ with its impressive scoring for trombones and Bayreuth tubas, a movement Beethoven might have signed; although with the virgin gold there is mixed, it must be confessed, a large amount of crude alloy, and there are dreary stretches of waste sand. Johannes Brahms, like Beethoven, with whom his style has many affinities, was a North-German, born in 1833 in the historic seaport town of Hamburg.[253] Brahms came of lowly though respectable and intelligent parents, his father being a double-bass player in one of the theatre orchestras. That the positiveness of character, so conspicuous in his famous son, was an inherited trait may be seen from the following anecdote. The director of the theatre orchestra once asked father Brahms not to play so loud; whereupon he replied with dignity, "Herr Kapellmeister, this is my double-bass, I want you to understand, and I shall play it as loud as I please." The music of Brahms in its bracing vigor has been appropriately compared to a mixture of sea air and the timbre of this instrument. [Footnote 253: Noted as being the original centre of national German opera and for its associations with the early career of Handel.] Brahms's mother was a deeply religious woman who imbued her son with a seriousness of purpose which runs through all his work. From his earliest years he was trained for music, as a matter of course, and showed marked precocity as a pianist, though it soon became evident that he also was endowed with rare creative gifts. The young student made such progress under Marxsen, a famous teacher of the period, that at the age of fifteen he gave a public concert, on the program of which stood some original pieces of his own. The next few years were spent in diligent study and in the composition of some of his early works, of which the Scherzo op. 4 is the most significant. Brahms was extraordinarily precocious and during these formative years manifested a trait which is noticeable throughout his career--that of knowing exactly what end he had in view and of setting to work quickly and steadily to attain it. Finally in 1853, when he was twenty, he was invited to participate in the memorable concert-tour with the Hungarian Violinist Remenyi, which was the cause of his being brought before the public under the auspices of three such sponsors as Schumann, Liszt and Joachim. It seems that, at one of the concerts in a small town, the pianoforte was a semitone too low, whereupon young Brahms transposed at sight a difficult Beethoven Sonata into the requisite higher key. This remarkable feat of musicianship so impressed Joachim, who was in the audience, that he gave Brahms two letters of introduction--one to Liszt at Weimar and one to Schumann at Düsseldorf on the Rhine. Following up these letters, Brahms now spent six weeks at Weimar with Liszt, assimilating important points of method and style. Although the two natures were somewhat unsympathetic, Liszt was so impressed with the creative power and character of Brahms's first compositions, that he tried to adopt him as an adherent of the advanced school of modern music; while Brahms was led, as some would claim, through Liszt's influence to an appreciation of the artistic effects to be found in Hungarian music. Brahms's visit to Schumann in the autumn of 1853 was in its consequences a significant incident. After hearing Brahms's music, Schumann wrote for the "Neue Zeitschrift" an article entitled "Neue Bahnen" ("New Paths") in which the young composer was heralded as the master for whom the world had been waiting, the successor of Beethoven in the symphonic style. Through Schumann's influence, the publishers Breitkopf and Härtel at once brought out Brahms's first works, which were by no means received by the public with general favor; in fact they provoked as bitter discussion as those of Wagner, and made headway slowly. For four years--from 1854 to 1858--Brahms was in the service of the Prince of Lippe-Detmold, a small principality near Hanover, where the court was a quiet one, thus affording ample time for composition and private study. Brahms's strength of purpose and unusual power of self-criticism are shown by the way in which this period was spent. Although he had made a brilliant début, Brahms now imposed upon himself a course of rigorous technical training, appeared seldom before the public and published no compositions; his object being to free himself from a narrow subjectivity and to give scope to his wide human sympathies and to his passion for perfection of utterance. It seemed to him that a plausible originality might degenerate into mere idiosyncrasy, and that universality of appeal should be a musician's highest goal. When he resigned his post and came before the public with his first large work, a concerto for pianoforte and orchestra, the gain made in increased power and resources was evident. The greatest tribute which can be paid Brahms is that he has summed up and united the classic principles of clearness and solidity of workmanship with the warmth and spontaneity of the Romantic School. In 1862 Brahms settled in Vienna where, for thirty-five years, his career was entirely free from external incidents of note; his time spent in quiet steady work and in the attainment of artistic ideals. His slow logical development is like that of Beethoven, due to the fact that his works were far from numerous, but finished with the greatest care. The standard of creative quality is also very high; comparatively few of Brahms's works are not altogether alive. Matthew Arnold's beautiful lines on labor are applicable to Brahms. "Work which in lasting fruit outgrows far noisier schemes; accomplished in repose; too great for haste; too high for rivalry." Brahms thus described to Mr. Henschel, a former conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, his ideals concerning composing: "There is no real creating without hard work; that which you call invention is simply an inspiration from above, for which I am not responsible, which is no merit of mine." And again, "Whether a composition is beautiful is one consideration, but perfect it must be." The few of his compositions which show connection with outward events are the _Deutsches Requiem_, his best-known choral work (in commemoration of his mother's death) and the _Academic Overture_, composed in place of the conventional thesis, when--in 1880--the University of Breslau conferred on him a doctor's degree. This Overture, based on several convivial student songs, is on the whole his most genial composition for orchestra and has won a deserved popularity the world over.[254] For sustained fancy his most beautiful work for chorus and orchestra is the _Schicksalslied_ (_Song of Destiny_). Symphonic composition, as has been said, came in the latter part of Brahms's career, his first work in that form being op. 68. After that, within a few years, three other symphonies were composed. His last works include the significant pianoforte pieces called _Intermezzi_--not all equally inspired, but many representing the finest flower of Brahms's genius; four serious songs for bass voice, and one posthumous work, _Eleven Choral Preludes for Organ_. Brahms died in 1897 and lies buried in Vienna not far from Beethoven and Schubert. [Footnote 254: Another very fine work in this class is the _Tragic Overture_, worthy of the deepest study.] From Brahms we have beautiful works in every branch of composition save the opera and symphonic poem. (He once said he would risk neither an opera nor getting married!) Very few of his works have titles, and in this respect he stood somewhat aloof from that strong tendency in modern times--the connection between music and poetic and literary sources of inspiration. But he had a right to choose his own line of effort; it is for us to become familiar with his works as they are. They comprise about two hundred songs, three pianoforte sonatas and many lesser pieces, two concertos for pianoforte and orchestra, a wonderfully fine violin concerto, four symphonies--each with a character of its own--and a large group of chamber compositions: string quartets, sonatas for violin and pianoforte, trios, and a number of works for unusual ensemble combinations--the Trio for Violin, Horn and Pianoforte being the best known. As to the nature of Brahms's music the following comments are submitted for consideration. He was not a colorist or a stylist in the broad sense of those terms, _i.e._, color and style were not the prime ingredients in his music. There is light and shade in Brahms but seldom that rich and varied glow found, for example, in Rimsky-Korsakoff--that supreme master of orchestral coloring. As for style, it may be said that his work fulfils Matthew Arnold's definition of that desirable quality, "To have something to say and to say it in the most simple and direct manner possible." We sometimes feel, however, that he is thinking more of what he has to say than of outward eloquence of expression. But when there are so many composers[255] in whom there is far more style than substance, we should not carp at Brahms for the "stuff" in his work. The matter might be put in a nut-shell by saying that Brahms is Brahms; you accept him or leave him, as you see fit. The bulk of his music not only has stood the test of time but becomes more potent each year; surely this is the highest possible endorsement. He is rightly considered a great master of pure melodic line and a consummate architect, especially in the conciseness and concentration of certain compositions, _e.g._, the Third Symphony, and in his superb mastery of the Variation form which is the basis of some of his most famous works for orchestra and for pianoforte. His texture is of marked richness and variety; seldom do we find verbiage or lifeless padding. He has been called the Browning of music--a deep thinker in tones. Genuine appreciation of Brahms presupposes work on the part of the music-lover; and the recognition should be more general that the imaginative stimulation gained only through work is one of the blessings music has to bestow. [Footnote 255: We cite Saint-Saëns, as one instance.] It is often alleged, indeed, that to enjoy Brahms one _has_ to work. Of course, but what repaying work! This may be said equally of Shakespeare, of Dante, of Browning, of Bach and of every poet with a serious message. The vitality of Brahms's creative power, like that of Beethoven, is seen in his rhythm. He had a highly developed rhythmic sense, and in his fondness for syncopations, for contrasted accents and for complicated metric groups he is the logical successor of Schumann. One of his favorite devices is the altered grouping of the notes in a measure, so that there is a contrast between duple and triple rhythm, _e.g._, the following passage in the Second Symphony, where an effect of great vigor is produced. [Music] There are never in Brahms weak or conventional rhythms. He is also one of the great modern song-composers, representing with Strauss, Wolf and Mahler the culmination of the German Lied. In his songs there is a warmth and depth of sentiment as yet unsurpassed, and the accompaniment is always a highly wrought factor in the work. In estimating the value of Brahms's compositions as a whole, it is difficult to hold the balance true. Those to whom he is sympathetic through an affinity of temperament revere him as one of the great geniuses for all time, while to others his message is not of such convincing power. The effect of inborn temperament in the personal appeal made by any composer is vividly shown by the estimate which Tchaikowsky and Brahms had for one another. Each felt respect for the sincerity and artistic skill of his contemporary, at the same time regretfully acknowledging that the essence of the music meant little to him. To Tchaikowsky Brahms seemed cold and lacking in melodic spontaneity; to Brahms, on the other hand, Tchaikowsky seemed superficial, sensational. The gist of the matter is that Brahms was a Teuton and wrote with characteristic Teutonic reserve and dignity. Tchaikowsky, being a Slav, wrote with the impassioned lack of restraint and volatility of mood associated with that people. How could it be otherwise? Each was a genuine artist, expressing his natural feelings with clearness and conviction; and each should be respected for what he did: _not_ one at the expense of the other. In Brahms, however, the question does arise of facility of expression versus worthiness of expression. He had an unparalleled technique in the manipulation of notes but whether there was always an emotional impulse behind what he wrote is debatable. For there are these two contrasting types in every art: works which come from the heart (remember Beethoven's significant inscription at the end of his Mass),[256] and those which come from the head. This brings us face to face with the perplexing question as to the essence of music. To some it is a record of intellectual activity tinged with emotion; to others, an emotional outpouring controlled by intellect. These two types of music will always exist, being the natural expression of the corresponding classes in human nature. [Footnote 256: "From the heart it has come, to the heart it shall go."] Brahms's music is sometimes called dry, but this is a misuse of terms. To draw an analogy from another sense, we might rejoin that the best champagne is "sec," all the superfluous, cloying sugar being removed. There is plenty of saccharine music in the world for those who like it. In Brahms, however, we find a potential energy and a manly tenderness which cannot be ignored even by those who are not profoundly thrilled by his message. He was a sincere idealist and composed to please his own high standards, never thinking of outward effect nor testing the pulse of the fickle public. As a man there is no doubt that he was warm-hearted and vigorous, but his was not the nature to come forward with captivating geniality. On the contrary he expects the hearer to come to him, and is too reserved to meet you more than half-way. That this austerity has proved a bar in the way of a wide-spread fame, while to be regretted, is unavoidable; remove these characteristics from Brahms and he ceases to be Brahms. Those, however, who may think that Brahms is always austere and grim, holding himself aloof from broad human emotion, should remember that he has done more than any other modern composer to idealize the Waltz; and, if the atmosphere of his symphonic style be too rarified, they may well begin their effort in appreciation with those charming Waltzes op. 39 (both for solo pianoforte and for a four-hand arrangement); the _Hungarian Dances_, and--most beautiful of all--the _Liebeslieder Walzer_ for chorus and pianoforte (four-hands). Anyone who knows these works cannot fail to become a genuine lover of Brahms. To be of the earth and yet to strike the note of sublimity is a paradox. For, in Brahms at his best, we surely find more of the sublime, of true exalted aspiration, than in any other modern composer save César Franck. To strike this note of sublimity is the highest achievement of music--its proper function; a return, as it were, to the abode whence it came. Such music is far beyond that which is merely sensuous, brilliantly descriptive, or even dramatically characteristic. Much of present day music excites and thrills but does not exalt. Brahms, in his great moments, lifts us high above the earth. His universal acceptance is alike hindered by a deficiency which, though as natural as his reserve, may yet justly be cited against him--the occasional monotony of his color scheme. In the symphonies, notwithstanding the dignity and sincerity of thought, we find pages in the style of an engraving which would be more effective as a glowing canvas, _e.g._, in the slow movement of the Second Symphony and in the last two movements of the Fourth. Many consider, however, that Brahms's orchestral treatment is exactly suited to the seriousness of his ideas; so it comes down to a question of individual taste. That he had his own delicate feeling for color and sensuous effect is shown in many pages of the chamber music, especially in those works for unusual combinations, _e.g._, the Clarinet Quintet, and the Trio for Violin, Horn and Pianoforte. No one in modern times has used more eloquently that romantic instrument, the horn. See, for example, the Coda to the first movement of the D major Symphony and the slow movement of the Third Symphony. We must gratefully acknowledge the lasting quality of his music--without question it wears well. In fact, difficult though it be to comprehend at a first hearing, the more it is heard, the more it is enjoyed. Brahms's[257] music is steadily growing in popularity. His orchestral works and chamber music are applauded to-day, although twenty-five years ago they were received with apathy and scornful indifference. [Footnote 257: For literature on Brahms the following works are recommended: the comprehensive _Life_ by Fuller-Maitland; the essay in Hadow's _Studies in Modern Music_; that in Mason's _From Grieg to Brahms_; that by Spitta in _Studies in Music_ by Robin Grey; the first essay in _Mezzotints in Modern Music_ by Huneker; the biographical and critical article in Grove's Dictionary; Chapter IX in Volume 8 of the _Art of Music_, and Chapter XIII in Volume 2. There are also some stimulating remarks on Brahms's style in general, and on the attitude of a past generation towards his work, in those delightful essays, in 2 volumes, _By the Way, About Music_ by the late well-known critic, W.F. Apthorp.] As a representative work in each of the four fields in which Brahms created such masterpieces we have selected, for detailed analysis, the _First Symphony_, the _Sonata for Violin and Pianoforte in A major_, the _Ballade in G minor_ and the _Song_, _Meine Liebe ist grün wie der Fliederbusch_. All four of Brahms's symphonies may justly be considered great, each in its own way. For Brahms is not a man with a single message and has not written one large symphony in different sections, as, in a broad sense, may be said of Tchaikowsky. The Second, on account of the spontaneity and direct appeal of its themes, is undoubtedly the most popular. It contains a first movement of a quasi-Mendelssohnian suavity and lyric charm; a slow movement which is a meditation of the profundity of Bach himself; a third movement, allegretto, based on a delightful waltz of the Viennese Ländler type and a Finale of a Mozartian freshness and vigor--the second theme being specially notable for its broad sweep. The whole work is a convincing example of Brahms's vitality and "joie de vivre." The Third symphony is a marvel of conciseness and virile life. The Fourth, though not in all respects so inspired as the others, is famous for its beautiful slow movement--with an impressive introduction in the Phrygian mode (Brahms often showing a marked fondness for old modal harmony)--and for the Finale, which is an illustration of his polyphonic skill in modernizing the variation form, the Passacaglia or ground bass. But the First,[258] it seems to us, is the greatest, in scope, in wealth of material, in its remarkable combination of dramatic, epic and lyric elements and in an intensity of feeling and sublimity of thought peculiar to Brahms. It is extremely subjective, of deep ethical value, and sets forth a message of optimism and undying hope. The structural basis is a motto, often recurring in the work, which (whatever it may mean) is evidently--like the theme of the C minor symphony--some fierce protest against fate. The symphony, as a whole, represents a triumphant progress from darkness to light; and this meaning is made evident by the ever-brightening mood of the successive movements, the tone of which is strengthened by the scheme of key-relationship--based on an ascending series of major thirds, _e.g._ [Music: C Minor, E major, A-flat major, C major.] [Footnote 258: The eloquence of the work is so integrally involved with its orchestral dress that it should always be studied, if possible, in the full score. For class-room work excellent editions are available for two and four hands.] The work is somewhat uneven--never weak--but at times a bit labored; as if the composer were consciously wrestling with great thoughts. This, however, is nothing against it, because equally true of large works in other fields of art, _e.g._, the Agamemnon of Aeschylus or Wagner's Tetralogy. It cannot be understood, much less appreciated, without close attention and earnest thought, for it presents the struggles and aspirations of mankind and is not meant solely to delight or entertain. When the hearer has made it his own it is a priceless possession for all time. The Prelude to the first movement, un poco sostenuto, is of impressive solemnity, developed from the motto, and based on the almost persistent iteration of the pedal notes C and G--the tonic and dominant. It proclaims that a serious meaning is to be revealed, and this meaning is accentuated by the orchestration which with its stratified grouping of melodic lines has a grim strength characteristic of Brahms. [Music] The first movement proper, Allegro, in complete sonata-form, begins with a _ff_ announcement of the impassioned, chromatic motto, _e.g._ [Music] Note the cutting effect of the dissonant tones F-sharp and A-flat! From this motto grows the melodic part of the first theme in two balancing phrases, _e.g._ [Music] Then follow some stormy measures of dissonant chords and warring rhythms until the theme rages itself out, in measure 52. The transition begins with some sharp staccato chords, as if summoning to further attention. It gradually cools down through a series of beautiful modulations and, in measure 84, the second theme--introduced by calls on the horn and sung by the oboe--enters in the relative major key of E-flat. This also is based on the ascending, chromatic line of the _motto_; still further organic unity being gained by the bass, which has the same melodic figure as the second phrase of the first theme, _e.g._ [Music] Much of the previous fierceness, however, has abated and the remainder of the second theme is of a rare loveliness, with mysterious answering calls between oboes, clarinets and horns. The _pp_ dominant ninth chords at the beginning of the closing portion (measures 120-122) give a positively shuddering effect and then the combat of clashing rhythms is renewed. The development begins with a series of shifting harmonies, at first _ff_ and then _pp_--a lull before the storm--as if preparing the way for a still more terrific assault upon our emotions. It is tempestuous throughout; based at first on material taken from the preceding codetta and ending with an extended presentation of the motto over an iterated pedal note on the dominant, _e.g._ [Music] The fusion of the development with the recapitulation is skillfully handled, and the motto is proclaimed, beginning at measure 298, in a series of ascending strata, with overwhelming force. The third part, with slight abridgment and necessary adjustment of key-relationship, conforms exactly to the exposition. There is the same agitato closing portion as before, and then the Coda proper, beginning at measure 421, emphasizes with fiery accents the mood of storm and stress characteristic of the movement as a whole. After the fury has subsided, the dramatic motto asserts itself in the closing measures, poco sostenuto; the problem is still unsolved and the last C major chord is but a ray of light cast on troubled waters. The second movement, andante sostenuto--in three-part form--begins with a tender melody expressing a mood of deep resignation and religious hope. No sooner has it started, however, than there creeps in the sinister motto, as if to remind us that life is undeniably stern and grim, _e.g._ [Music] In measure 17 there enters a closing theme, sung by the oboe, of ineffable beauty which is used in the third part as the climax of the movement. It surely seems to come from another world and is one of the most sublime melodies by Brahms or any one else. Its climax is impressively united with the main theme in the bass, _e.g._ [Music] The middle portion, beginning in measure 38, is a meditation--in dialogue form--for solo oboe and clarinet, worked up to an eloquent climax in the key of the relative minor, C-sharp. The third part, beginning measure 66, with the addition of some lovely modulatory changes, corresponds to part one; save that the melody is varied by Brahms's favorite device of three notes to a beat in one voice against two in another. Beginning in measure 90, the wondrous closing theme of the first part is sung by a solo violin, reinforced by oboe and horn. It is finally entrusted, in the home key, to the horn alone, above which the solo violin soars in ecstacy, _e.g._ [Music] Some diminuendo, descending passages lead to a reminiscent portion of the first theme and then, in measure 116, the grim motto enters, but this time without prevailing; for, in measures 122-124, it is finally exorcised and the movement closes with the seraphic calm of a soft, rich chord in E major, above which is heard a star-like note on the solo violin. The third movement is an Allegretto; it being Brahms's custom in each[259] of his symphonies to substitute a movement of this type in place of the conventional Scherzo or Minuet. This movement clearly in three-part form, is thrown in to furnish relief after the emotional tension of the movement preceding. It has no obvious organic connection with the other movements, but is just the right thing in its surroundings, with a note of vitality which does much to brighten the scene and to prepare the way for the Finale. The opening theme in A-flat major is in two phrases of _five_ measures each--a favorite rhythm with Brahms--given out by the clarinet over a pizzicato bass in the 'cellos. The melodic formation is unusual in that the latter phrase is an inversion of the first, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 259: The only slight exception is the third movement of the Fourth Symphony which, being marked Allegro giocoso, partakes somewhat of the nature of a Scherzo.] After some descending passages in thirds and sixths--one of the characteristic[260] effects in Brahms's style--the theme is repeated in the violins with richer scoring. The descending passage returns and this time leads to the entrance of a subsidiary theme in F minor. In measures 50-51 occurs one of those cases of melodic germination which entitles Brahms to be called a genuine _creative_ artist. The melody with its dashing, Hungarian zest sounds like something brand-new and yet is logically derived from the main theme by diminution, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 260: "Those eternal sixths and thirds." Weingartner later publicly recanted and became a whole-souled convert to Brahms. (See _The Symphony since Beethoven_, latest edition.)] This is real poetic creation, it being the prime object of a poet to create in music something out of apparent nothing. After these vivacious developments the first part ends with a slight repetition of the main theme. The middle part, beginning measure 71, in 6/8 time and in the enharmonic key of B major (E-flat = D-sharp) is noteworthy for its rhythmic swing, bold syncopations and contrasted accents; see especially measures 97-107. At the beginning of the third part there is an effective blending of the rhythm which has just prevailed with the graceful lines of the first theme. The fabric is made up of effective changes, modulatory and rhythmic, in the material from the first part. At the Coda, più tranquillo, there is a delightful reminiscence of the rhythm of the middle portion carried out to the very end by the double basses.[261] [Footnote 261: A similar effect may be found in the closing measures of the first movement of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony.] The Finale is one of the most thrilling perorations in music; not a perfunctory close, but a veritable Apotheosis of victorious aspiration, giving an irresistible contrast to the first movement. Whereas, before, there was nothing but conflict, now all is triumphant joy. This movement is laid out on a vast scale, with a wealth of material, including a long Prelude with a distinct theme of its own and an extended Coda. The body of the movement is in abridged sonata form, _i.e._, there is a complete Exposition with first, second and closing themes, and the usual Recapitulation, but _no_ Development proper. This lack is made good by considerable variation and expansion in the first part of the Résumé. The Prelude begins Adagio with some strains which, like smouldering embers, remind us of the sinister motto of the first movement--note the same dissonant tones A-flat and F-sharp. The following measures are of indefinite nature, beginning piano and pizzicato as if a great body were gathering headway slowly. The pace gradually quickens and we are led through a series of impetuous stringendo runs to a _ff_ chord which, accompanied by a _ff_ roll on the kettle-drums, sounds like a clap of thunder and which, as the reverberations die away, ushers in a most moving theme[262]--given out forte and sempre passionato on the horn over a _pp_ muted tremolo on the strings with a background of _pp_ trombones, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 262: There is a striking analogy between the intervals of this theme and those of a well-known peal in a cathedral chime, _e.g._ [Music] In both the same elemental effect is produced by using the natural tones of the harmonic series (see page 193).] This inspired passage[263] has been eloquently described by W.F. Apthorp as follows: "Amid hushed, tremulous harmonies in the strings, the horn and afterward the flute pour forth an utterly original melody, the character of which ranges from passionate pleading to a sort of wild exultation according to the instrument that plays it. The coloring is enriched by the solemn tones of the trombones, which appear for the first time in this movement. It is ticklish work trying to dive down into a composer's brain, and surmise what special outside source his inspiration may have had; but one cannot help feeling that this whole wonderful episode may have been suggested to Brahms by the tones of the Alpine horn, as it awakens the echoes from mountain after mountain on some of the high passes in the Bernese Oberland. This is certainly what the episode recalls to any one who has ever heard those poetic tones and their echoes. A short, solemn, even ecclesiastical interruption by the trombones and bassoons is of more thematic importance. As the horn-tones gradually die away, and the cloud-like harmonies in the strings sink lower and lower--like mist veiling the landscape--an impressive pause ushers in the Allegro." [Footnote 263: See also a similar eulogy by Weingartner in his _The Symphony since Beethoven_.] After the flute has repeated this theme there is an interpolation of an important choral-like phrase (referred to above), _e.g._ [Music] for it is later used as the climax of the Finale--in fact, of the whole work--and its tone of religious fervor, accentuated by the scoring for trombones and bassoons, is a clear indication of the ideal message which Brahms meant to convey. The body of the movement, Allegro non troppo ma con brio, begins with a majestic, sweeping theme[264] of great rhythmic vitality and elasticity announced by the strings, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 264: There is a statement in many books that this is a reminiscence of the theme in the Finale of the Ninth Symphony. How such a legend started it is difficult to say; it must be due to what the late W.F. Apthorp called "purblind criticism." For my part I see a resemblance in only one measure--save that both melodies are in quadruple rhythm--between the theme of Brahms and the following:-- [Music]] It is at once repeated with richer scoring and then some exciting transitional passages lead, after a slight phrase taken from the chief theme of the prelude, to the second theme, animato, in G major, _e.g._ [Music] This has some rhythmical expansion and then a quieter part, dolce e piano, beginning measure 71. Some rushing _ff_ passages bring us, in measure 107, to the brilliant closing theme with its staccato, triplet rhythm. The Exposition ends in E minor, in measure 122, after a series of forte, staccato chords. The Recapitulation begins at once after two modulatory chords, and though sufficient stress is laid on the _first theme_, there is so much development of previous material that it serves for both the customary second and third parts. A good deal of adverse criticism has been expended on this portion of the movement and it is possible that Brahms's remarkable technique in handling his material ran away with him. But the music is always striving toward some goal, and even if it has to plough through desperate seas, there is no weakness or faltering. This part of the work is not beautiful in the popular sense of the term, but no one can fail to be impressed with its character. A climax is finally reached, in measure 224, with a fortissimo statement of the chief theme of the prelude, and then, after this has cooled down, diminuendo e calando, the second theme enters in the home key. The rest of the recapitulation corresponds closely with the exposition. The Coda begins, in measure 306, with a shadowy outline of modulatory chords, as if slumbering forces were slowly awakening; and, becoming more crescendo and stringendo, reveals its full glory at the Più Allegro. This portion, based on quickened phrases of the first theme, seems charged with superhuman energy, and mounting higher and higher culminates in a majestic proclamation of the choral-like motto of the prelude, _e.g._ [Music] On hearing this it always seems as if the heavens above us really opened. The rest of the Coda is a scene of jubilation with ever more life and light. The dissonant tones of F-sharp and A-flat try to lift their heads but this time are crushed forever by the triumphant fundamental chords of C major, _e.g._ [Music] The movement, in keeping with its serious message, ends with a prolonged and brilliant Plagal Cadence in which the double basses and the trombone surge upward with elemental power. SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANOFORTE Of Brahms's three Sonatas for violin and pianoforte, respectively, in D minor, A major and G major, that in A major has been selected to give some idea of his chamber music, on account of the spontaneous appeal of its melodies and because its performance is possible for fairly well equipped executants. In many respects the D minor Sonata is the greatest of the three, but it is a work exceedingly difficult of execution and interpretation. The A major Sonata needs few comments, as the music speaks for itself. The work is in three movements, the first in complete sonata-form with the two customary themes, each of distinct lyric charm and hence eminently suited to the singing qualities of the violin; the second movement a fusion of the two normal middle ones, and the Finale a Rondo, freely treated. The first movement, Allegro amabile, begins with a suave theme, _e.g._, [Music] the first interval of which, a descending leap from the third to the leading tone, always seems to make a distinct appeal.[265] After the customary transition appears the second theme, announced by the pianoforte in measure 50, _e.g._, [Music] showing Brahms's fondness for contrasted rhythms--three notes to a beat in one hand against two in the other. After a repetition by the violin there is a spirited closing theme in measure 75, of great importance later. The Development, one of Brahms's best, manifests real organic growth; there is nothing labored or perfunctory. It is based on the first theme and the closing theme of the Exposition, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 265: It is used at the beginning of three other well-known melodies, _e.g._, the slow movement of Beethoven's _Ninth Symphony_, in the middle part of Schumann's _Aufschwung_ and in the first phrase of Wagner's _Preislied_.] The Reprise beginning in measure 158, shows the usual treatment. The Coda, from measure 219, is long and, like codas of Beethoven, has features of a second development. The movement ends with brilliant arpeggios in the pianoforte against octaves and double stops in the violin. In the second movement, Andante tranquillo, in F major, Brahms fuses[266] together the moods usually associated with the slow movement and the scherzo, playing one off against the other; the slow theme appearing three times--at its final appearance with eloquent modulations--and the rapid one twice, with contrast gained the second time through pizzicato effects on the violin. The two themes are as follows:-- [Music] [Music] [Footnote 266: This practice he has adopted in several other works and it is also the structural feature in the slow movement of César Franck's D minor Symphony.] The short, dashing Coda is based on the vivace theme, with sonorous chords on the violin, both pizzicato and arco. The Finale, Allegretto grazioso, is a convincing example of how such a rigid form as the Older Rondo can be freshened up and revitalized by the hand of a master, for the main theme, _e.g._ [Music] has such genuine melodic life that we always recur to it with pleasure and yet at each appearance it is so deftly varied that no monotony is felt. The two episodes afford stimulating contrasts and need no comment. The main theme at its third appearance is in the subdominant key, with effective rhythmic modifications. The movement is a remarkable illustration of idiomatic style for each of the instruments: the violin part, sustained and cantabile; the pianoforte part, broken up and of remarkable color and sonority. The last page of the Coda, almost exclusively in double stops for the violin, brings a rousing close to a masterpiece. BALLADE IN G MINOR FOR PIANOFORTE (SEE SUPPLEMENT NO. 60) Although the most important factor in Brahms's pianoforte pieces is Brahms himself, a careful examination of his works in this field shows that his style is fashioned from an intelligent, and by no means slavish assimilation of important features in the works of his great predecessors. Thus we find the same melodic warmth as in Schubert, the rhythmic vitality and massive harmony so prominent in Schumann and the extended arpeggios and chords, the color and richness, peculiar to Chopin. From among the numerous and beautiful compositions of Brahms for solo pianoforte we have selected the Ballade in G minor because it represents a somewhat unusual and hence seldom recognized side of his genius--the specifically dramatic. When a composer calls his piece a Ballade, as in the case of compositions so entitled by Chopin and Liszt, we may assume that there is some dramatic or subjective meaning behind the notes; and the hearer is at liberty to give play to his own imagination and to receive the message as something more than music in the ordinary abstract or absolute sense. From the inner evidence of this Ballade of Brahms it seems to the writer[267] not too fanciful to consider it a picture of a knight-errant in medieval times setting out on his adventures. Observe the vigorous swing of the opening theme in that five-measure rhythm so dear to Brahms. But in the middle portion, in the romantic key of B major,[268] the woman appears--perhaps some maiden imprisoned in a tower--and she sings to the knight a song of such sweetness that he would fain forsake duty, battle, everything! The contrast of opposing wills[269] is dramatically indicated by an interpolation, after the maiden's first appeal, of the martial theme of the knight, as if he felt he should be off instead of lingering, enchanted by her song. Notwithstanding a still more impassioned repetition of the song, the Knight is firm, tears himself away and continues on his course; how great the wrench, being clearly indicated by the unusual modulations in measures 72-76. The enchanting song, however, still lingers with him and he dwells with fond regret upon bygone scenes and dreams which were unattainable. In this piece is seen Brahms's aristocratic distinction in the treatment of program music. The subject is portrayed broadly--there are no petty details--and the music itself, to anyone with a sensitive imagination, tells the story clearly. Hence a detailed poetic interpretation is out of place, since only to the suggester would it have meaning. [Footnote 267: It is to be understood that this is a purely personal interpretation and if any one wishes to consider the piece merely as absolute music with a strong masculine theme in the minor, a lyric melody in the major for the natural contrast, and a coda referring in a general way to the first theme, there is no way to disprove the contention. That Brahms, however, was not entirely averse to out and out programmistic treatment is seen from his two pieces on specific poetic texts, _i.e._, the first number in op. 10 on the _Scottish Ballads of Edward_ and the _Lullaby_ in op. 117 on the Scottish Folk-song _Sleep Soft, My Child_.] [Footnote 268: The same key that Wagner uses for the end of _Tristan and Isolde_ and César Franck for the gorgeous Finale of the _Prelude, Chorale and Fugue_.] [Footnote 269: The subject is the same as the story of the Sirens in the _Odyssey_ or of the _Lorelei_ in German Legend.] So many of Brahms's pianoforte compositions are of great beauty and significance that, although space is lacking for further comment on definite examples, we urge the music-lover to study the following: the second Intermezzo[270] in B-flat minor of op. 117, perhaps the most beautiful single piece Brahms has written--remarkable for its rhythmic texture and for the equalization of both hands, which was one of his chief contributions to pianoforte style; the second Intermezzo of op. 119, the middle part of which is significant for the extended arpeggio grouping for the left hand (Brahms following Chopin's lead in this respect); the sixth Intermezzo of op. 118, a superb piece for sonority and color; the third Intermezzo in op. 119, (grazioso e giocoso) and the B minor Capriccio op. 76--both in Brahms's happiest vein of exuberant vitality; the sixth Intermezzo in op. 116, a beautiful example, in its polyphonic texture, of modernized Schumann; and, above all, the mighty Rhapsodies in E-flat major, op. 112 No. 4 and the one in G minor op. 79--this latter, one of Brahms's most dramatic conceptions, and an example, as well, of complete sonata-form used for an independent composition. [Footnote 270: For further comments on the phraseology see _The Rhythm of Modern Music_ by Abdy Williams, pp. 75-77. We may add that the pieces called _Intermezzi_, are generally of a meditative, somber nature; whereas the _Capriccios_ are more sprightly, even whimsical in spirit.] SONG--_Meine Liebe ist grün wie der Fliederbusch_ (SEE SUPPLEMENT NO. 61) Whatever Brahms is or is not, he is universally recognized as an inspired song-composer and those who do not know his songs are cut off from one of the greatest joys music has to offer. As Huneker so well says, "Although his topmost peaks are tremendously remote, and glitter and gleam in an atmosphere almost too thin for dwellers of the plains, in his songs he was as simple, as manly, as tender as Robert Burns." In Brahms's songs we cannot say which is the most significant factor: the words, the vocal part or the accompaniment; all go together to make up a perfect whole. Brahms had discernment in the selection of texts suited to inspire poetic creation. His melodies are always appropriate to the spirit of the words, yet truly lyric and singable, and the accompaniment catches and intensifies every subtle shade of meaning. If any one factor is of special beauty, however, it is the instrumental part; for here Brahms's great genius in pianoforte style came to the fore and in utilizing every resource of the instrument to glorify the spirit of the text, he is a worthy successor of Schubert, Schumann and Franz. Note how in this song the passionate glow of the poem is reflected in the gorgeous modulations and sonority of the pianoforte part. Especially remarkable is the interlude between the stanzas, with its wealth of dissonances and waves of flashing color. After this surely no one can say that Brahms had no feeling for sensuous effect, at any rate on the pianoforte. Other famous songs of Brahms which should be familiar to the student are the following: _Wie Melodien zieht es mir_, _Feldeinsamkeit_, _Minnelied_, _Von ewiger Liebe_, _Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer_, _Sapphische Ode_, _Vergebliches Ständchen_. An excellent essay on Brahms as a song composer will be found in the preface to the _Forty Songs of Brahms_ in the Musician's Library (The Oliver Ditson Company). The foregoing illustrations have made clear, we trust, the inspiration and power of Brahms's varied message. His music, therefore, must be approached reverently, sympathetically and with an earnest desire for a better understanding, for Brahms is veritably a giant. CHAPTER XVII CÉSAR FRANCK Before an appreciation of the significant works and influence of César Franck can be gained, it is necessary to have a broad historical perspective of what had been the trend and the limitations of French music prior to his career. Since the time of Couperin and Rameau, musical composition in France had been devoted almost exclusively to opera--with its two types of grand opera and opéra-comique--and in this field there had been some French musicians of real, though possibly rather slight, genius: Philidor, Méhul, Grétry, Boieldieu, Hérold and Auber. One searches in vain through French literature for great symphonies, string-quartets, violin sonatas or pianoforte compositions of significance. Berlioz, as we have seen, had composed a number of orchestral works; but, from the standpoint of absolute music, even these rather beg the question as they are so extremely programmistic, dramatic or even theatric. This one-sided development of French music was chiefly caused by the people's innate fondness for the drama, and by the national genius for acting, mimicry and dancing. Prior to the advent of Franck there were two important pioneers in the broadening tendency which finally became noticeable, Saint-Saëns and Lalo. For great assimilative power, for versatility, for clarity of expression and a finish and finesse peculiarly French, Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-still living) is certainly one of the most remarkable musicians of the nineteenth century. His works are numerous, always "well-made" and, though lacking in emotional depth, by no means without charm and grace. They comprise ensemble works: trios, etc., several concertos and symphonies and four symphonic poems. Of these, the third concerto for pianoforte, with its Bach-like introduction, the third violin concerto, the two symphonic poems, _Le Rouet d'Omphale_ and _Phaëton_ and, in particular, the third symphony in C minor, still hold their own. Whatever Saint-Saëns has to say is well said; and if the French have modified their previous opinion that the only vehicle for musical expression was the opera, it is largely through the influence of his compositions. This C minor symphony, first performed in London in 1886, shares with Lalo's symphony in G minor (1887) the claim to be, in all French literature, the first instrumental work of large scope free from programmistic tendencies. Saint-Saëns[271] and Lalo fairly popularized the Sonata form and their works are worthy of great respect; since, through them, the public became accustomed to symphonic style and was prepared for the subsequent greater works of Franck, d'Indy and Chausson. Although not so versatile as Saint-Saëns nor so varied in output, Eduard Lalo (1823-1892) should decidedly not be overlooked. He was of Spanish origin and this racial strain is noticeable in the vivacity of his rhythm, in the piquant individuality of his melodies and in his brilliant and picturesque orchestration. His characteristic work is represented by a series of Concertos and Rhapsodies in which he employs Spanish, Russian and Norwegian themes. He did not escape the French predilection for operatic fame and his best work is probably the well-known opera _Le Roi d'Ys_, from which the dramatic overture is often played separately. His G minor symphony, however, will always be considered an important landmark in the development of French instrumental music.[272] [Footnote 271: For further comments on the style and influence of Saint-Saëns see the essay Mason's _From Grieg to Brahms_; the article by Professor E.B. Hill in the third volume of the _Art of Music_; and, for some pungent and witty remarks, the Program Book of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (edited by Philip Hale) for Nov. 22, 1918.] [Footnote 272: For a comprehensive and discriminating account of his style see the Boston Symphony Orchestra Program Book, for January 17, 1919.] César Franck (1822-1890) was a composer of such innate spirituality that to analyze and classify him in a formal manner seems well-nigh irreverent. His music once heard is never forgotten, and when thoroughly known is loved for all time. Nor is an elaborate biographical account necessary; for Franck, more than any other modern composer, has been fortunate in that his life and works have been sympathetically presented to the world by a distinguished contemporary, his most famous pupil d'Indy--himself a gifted composer and a man of rare literary powers. His biography of César Franck (in French and in English) should certainly be read by all who would keep abreast of modern tendencies. Franck's message, however, is so remarkable and his style so individual, that a few definite comments may be made concerning the structural features of his work and the essential attributes, thereby expressed, of his inspiring personality. Franck was a Belgian born at Liège--one of that long line of musicians who, though born elsewhere, have become thoroughly identified with French thought and standards; and there is much in his music which finds a parallel in the literary qualities of another Belgian artist, Maeterlinck, for in both is that same haunting indefiniteness, that same symbolic aspiration. Nothing in Franck is rigid, square-toed; his music is suggestive of a mystic idealism, the full expression of which, from its very nature is unattainable. Franck's outward life was simple, without excitement or diversion of any kind. When he was not giving lessons or composing, he was active in the service of the Roman Catholic Church, in which he was a devout believer. For a number of years he was organist at Sainte Clotilde, and his style thereby was influenced strongly. A distinct note of religious exaltation runs through much of his music; for Franck was a fine character, of spotless purity of life and of such generosity and elevation of soul that his pupils looked upon him as a real father and always called him "Pater Seraphicus." He was universally acknowledged to be the greatest improviser on the organ since Bach himself. Even Liszt, who heard him in 1866, left the church, lost in amazement; evoking the name of the great Sebastian as the only possible comparison. Franck's services to the development of music are twofold: 1st, as an inspired composer of varied works, which are more and more becoming understood and loved; 2d, as a truly great teacher, among his notable pupils being d'Indy, Chausson, Duparc, Ropartz, and the gifted but short-lived Lekeu. In Franck's music, fully as remarkable as the content--the worthy expression of his poetic nature--is its organic structure. He was the first composer of the French School to use adequately the great forms of symphonic and chamber music which had been worked out hitherto by the Germans: Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc. If during the last thirty years, composers of the modern French School have put forth a number of instrumental works of large dimensions (chamber music, symphonies, symphonic poems and pianoforte sonatas), it is to Franck more than to any other man, by reason of his own achievements in these fields and his stimulating influence on others, that this significant fact is due. A striking feature of Franck's music is the individual harmonic scheme, fascinating because so elusive. He was a daring innovator in modulations and in chromatic effect; and has, perhaps, added more genuinely new words to our vocabulary than any one since Wagner. The basis of Franck's harmony is the novel use of the so-called augmented harmonies which, in their derivation, are chromatically altered chords. These are resolved by Franck in a manner remarkably free, and are often submitted to still further chromatic change. In revealing new possibilities he has, in fact, done for these chords what Wagner did for the chord of the ninth. Any page of Franck's music will exemplify this statement, and as an illustration we have cited, in the Supplement, the first part of the Prelude in E major. A life-long student of Bach and Beethoven, Franck believed--as a cardinal principle--that great ideas were not enough; they must be welded together with inexorable logic. And so his chief glory as a musical architect is the free use he makes of such organic forms as the Canon, the Fugue and the Varied Air. Franck was likewise a pioneer in establishing in a sonata or symphony a new conception as to the relationship of the movements. This he effected by the use of what may be called "generative motives" which, announced in the first movement of a work, are found with organic growth, modulatory and rhythmic, in all the succeeding portions. Such a method of gaining unity had been hinted at by Beethoven in his Fifth Symphony, was further developed by Schumann and Liszt and, since the example of Franck, has become a recognized principle in all large cyclic works. The following estimate of his music by F. Baldensperger is worthy of citation. "The contemplative character of Franck's music which explains his entire technique is rare at the epoch in which his life was cast, an epoch of realism, generally inspired by a taste for the picturesque and the dramatic. Posterity will place César Franck in a niche similar to that of Puvis de Chavannes, whose inspiration, indifferent to all worldly solicitations, flowed willingly, like that of Franck, into the paths of reverie, and pursued its way like a beautiful river of quiet waters, undisturbed by waves or rapids, and reflecting the eternal calm of the sky." As representative works[273] we have chosen, for analytical comments the _D minor Symphony_ (Franck's only work in this field), the _Sonata_ for violin and pianoforte and the _Symphonic Variations_ for pianoforte and orchestra. Franck has also composed a very beautiful Quintet for strings and pianoforte--considered by some the most sublime chamber work of recent times; a String Quartet, notable for its interrelationship of themes and movements; two elaborate compositions for pianoforte solo, the _Prelude, Chorale and Fugue_ (the fugue showing a masterly combination of strict fugal style and free form) and the _Prelude, Aria and Finale_; a wealth of organ works--the three _Chorales_ being of special beauty--and several Symphonic Poems of lesser importance. His purely vocal works, oratorios and church music lie outside the province of this book. [Footnote 273: On account of the length of these works it is impossible to include any of them in the Supplement.] The Symphony[274] in D minor is in three movements; the first in complete and elaborate sonata-form, the second a fusion of the two customary middle movements, and the Finale (though fundamentally on a sonata-form basis) an organic summing-up of the chief themes of the entire work. The first movement begins, Lento, with the main theme proper (thesis) the motive[275] of which is the foundation of the whole work, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 274: Study, if possible, the orchestral score. For class-room work there is an excellent four-hand arrangement by the composer, and one for two hands by Ernest Alder.] [Footnote 275: This terse phrase is identical with motives from several other works, _e.g._, the beginning of Liszt's _Les Préludes_, the motive "Muss es sein?" in Beethoven's quartet, opus 135, and the Fate motive in Wagner's _Valkyrie_.] The phraseology of the theme is noticeable for its flexibility; since the first phrase is expanded to five measures and the second phrase (antithesis), with a descending motive, to seven, _e.g._ [Music] The harmony of this second phrase illustrates a striking feature in Franck's style, namely the fact that his resolutions seldom come out as expected but, instead, drift imperceptibly into other channels. In measure 13 there begins a long series of modulatory developments of the main theme--of a preludial nature--but _not_ a mere prelude in the ordinary sense. That this entire opening portion is the _main body_ of the work is seen by a comparison with what takes place at the beginning of the recapitulation. In measure 29, allegro non troppo, we begin with a presentation of the motive in the usual first-movement mood. The answering phrase, antithesis, is now quite different; and, in measure 48, is developed--with some new contrapuntal voices--to a half cadence in F minor. This whole portion, both the Lento and the Allegro, is now repeated almost literally (the one slight change being in measures 56-57) in this new key, a minor third higher than the original. To begin a first movement in this way, _i.e._, with such a strong contrast of moods is very novel and striking, but as Franck was a devoted student of Beethoven, it would seem that, by presenting his theme in different strata, he was simply expanding the practise[276] of that master in order to impress his message upon the listener's memory. The repetition of the Allegro part now leads through some rich modulations to the entrance of the second theme, in measure 99. This lovely melody, characteristic of Franck's tenderness, [Music] is noteworthy for the imitations between the violins and the 'cellos and basses. It shows, furthermore, that peculiar quality in Franck's style which comes from his elusive modulations. In measures 109-110 we are at a loss to tell just what direction the music will take when almost miraculously, in measure 111, we find ourselves in D-flat major--in which key the whole theme is now repeated. Some stimulating modulations bring us, in measure 129, to a most energetic and aspiring melody, considered by some another part of the second theme, but which certainly has the note of a closing theme and also the structural position of a closing theme, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 276: See for example the opening measures of the _Waldstein_ and of the _Appassionata_ Sonata.] It is developed with great brilliancy through a series of mediant modulations, in which the originality of Franck's harmonic scheme is very apparent. The exposition ends with some dreamy, pianissimo reminiscences of the closing theme in the mediant keys of F, D and B major, delicately scored for the wood-wind instruments and horns. The development begins, in measure 191, with the motive of the closing theme which, combined with other phrases from the exposition, is used persistently in the bass for a number of measures. The material is developed climactically until, in measure 229, we find an impressive treatment of the second descending phrase of the first theme--originally in augmentation and later in diminution, _e.g._ [Music] and [Music] The rest of the development is clearly derivable from material already presented. After a final _ff_ climax there begins, in measure 287, a series of beautiful entries _pp_ of the closing theme for the clarinet, oboe and flute. This is the spot in a sonata-form movement where appears the hand of the master; for the excitement of the free fantasy must cool down without entirely dying out, and there must also be a fresh crescendo of energy for the restatement of themes in the part following. Franck handles the situation with convincing skill; and some climactic measures, in which the main theme hints at the return, lead us, in measure 333, to the recapitulation. This is one of the most powerful and eloquent parts of the movement, for the whole first theme is presented canonically--the announcement in the trombones, tuba and basses being answered, a half measure later, by trumpets and cornets. The rest of the recapitulation, with necessary modulations and slight expansion, corresponds closely to the first portion. The coda, beginning after the same echo-effects heard at the close of the exposition, is founded on one of the counterpoints of the first subject, _e.g._ [Music] Gathering headway it leads to an imposing assertion _fff_, in canon form, of the main motto which concludes, with a widely spaced chord, in the brilliant[277] orchestral key of D major. [Footnote 277: Brilliant by reason of the fact that the four principal tones in D major, D, A, G, E are _open_ strings on the violin.] The second movement begins with a series of subdued, pizzicato chords (for strings and harp) which establish the mood and later furnish the harmonic background for the main theme. This haunting melody, announced--in measure 16--by the English horn and afterwards strengthened by the clarinet and flute, is clearly derived from the motto of the first movement, _e.g._ [Music] and is a notable example of the free phraseology and long sweep peculiar to Franck. Although extending 32 measures it never loses its continuity, for every measure grows inevitably from what has preceded. It begins with two identical eight-measure phrases; the second of which, with a different harmonic ending, is varied by a cantabile counter theme in the violas--causing thereby, with the upper voice, some delightful dissonant effects. The last eight-measure phrase, also varied by a counterpoint in the 'cellos, ends with a characteristic, Franckian modulation; keeping us in suspense until the last moment, and then debouching unexpectedly into B-flat major. In this key there follows a long-breathed, cantabile melody--at first for strings alone, but scored with increasing richness. It abounds in modulatory changes and expresses, throughout, the note of mystical exaltation so prominent in Franck's nature. It ends in measures 81-86 with an eloquent cadence, largamente and pianissimo, in B-flat major and is followed by a partial restatement of the first theme; thus giving, to this portion of the movement, a feeling of three-part form. Then, after some preliminary phrases, begins the piquant theme in G minor, in triplet rhythm, which takes the place of the conventional Scherzo, _e.g._, [Music] for, as we have stated, the structural feature of this movement is the fusion of the two customary middle movements. This theme, mostly _pp_ (con sordini and vibrato)--daintily scored for strings and light wood-wind chords--closes, in measures 131-134, with a cadence in G minor. The following portion, beginning in E-flat major, but often modulating--its graceful theme sung by the clarinets, dolce espressivo, answered by flutes and oboes--_e.g._, [Music] evidently takes the place of a trio and is one of the most poetic parts of the movement. After some effective development there is a return, in measure 175, to the G minor scherzo-theme in the strings; soon joined, in measure 183, by the slow theme on the English horn--the structural union of the two moods being thus established, _e.g._ [Music] The rest of the movement is a free but perfectly organic improvisation on the chief melodies already presented. It is richly scored, with dialogue effects between the several orchestral choirs; especially beautiful are the two passages in B major, poco più lento, scored _pp_ for the complete wood-wind group and horns. The closing measures have lovely echoes between wood-wind and strings, and the final cadence is one of the most magical in all Franck; holding us off to the very last from our goal and finally reaching it in a chord of unforgettable peace and satisfaction, _e.g._ [Music] The Finale in D major, allegro non troppo, is a remarkable example in modern literature of that tendency, growing since Beethoven, not to treat the last movement as an unrelated independent portion but, instead, as an organic summing up of all the leading themes. This cyclic use of themes--transferring them from one movement to another--is one of Franck's important contributions to musical architecture. The movement has two themes of its own, _e.g._ [Music: 1st theme] [Music: 2d theme] and at first proceeds along regular sonata-form lines, _i.e._, with an exposition, development and recapitulation. After vigorous summons to attention the first theme is given out by the 'cellos and bassoons. It is expanded at some length, repeated _ff_ by the full orchestra, and then after bold modulations leads, in measure 72, to the second theme in B major, happily called by Ropartz the "theme of triumph."[278] After a quieter portion of sombre tone in B minor we reach, in measure 124, an interpolation of the slow movement theme, _e.g._, [Music] sung by the English horn against a triplet accompaniment in the strings; the fundamental beat--the time now changed from 2/2 to 3/4--preserving the same value. Now we begin to foresee that this theme is to be the climax of the whole work. In measure 140 the development proper is resumed; based, at first, on some modulatory and imitative treatment of the first theme and followed by two _ff_ sostenuto announcements of the jubilant second theme. After these have subsided there are a number of measures (più lento) of a shadowy outline, developed from preceding melodic phrases. The pace gradually quickens, the volume of sound increases and we are brought, through a series of pungent dissonances and stimulating syncopations, to a brilliant assertion of the first theme in D major. This again waxes more and more eloquent until it bursts into a truly apocalyptic proclamation of the slow movement theme for full orchestra which, closing in D major, is the real climax of the movement and indeed of the work. Franck, however, still wishes to impress upon us some of his other thoughts--they are really too lovely not to be heard once more--and so, after an intermediary passage consisting entirely of successive ninth chords,[279] there is a reminiscence of the whole closing theme of the first movement now for low strings alone--the violins playing on the G string--later for the wood-wind and finally echoed by the high strings _ppp_. As this fades away we reach one of the most inspired passages of the whole work--in its mood of mysterious suggestion truly indescribable. Over a slow elemental kind of _basso ostinato_ there appear first the dramatic motto and then other portions of preceding themes, as if struggling to come to the light. A long exciting crescendo leads to a complete statement of the main theme of the Finale, with a canonic treatment of which the work ends, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 278: The scoring of this theme for trumpets, cornets and trombones has been severely criticized and it is true that the cornet is an instrument to be employed and played with discretion. The writer, however, has heard performances of this work in which the cornets seemed to give just that ringing note evidently desired by Franck.] [Footnote 279: The harmony of this passage is most characteristic of Franck and should be carefully studied.] That both the first and last movements end with canons is indeed noteworthy; Franck thus clearly showing his belief that in no other way than by polyphonic imitation could such intensity of utterance be gained. SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANOFORTE IN A MAJOR This Sonata ranks with those of Brahms as being among the great works in its class. Some of its lovers, in fact, would risk an unqualified superlative and call it the greatest. It certainly is remarkable for its inspired themes, its bold harmonies, its free and yet organic structure and for that sublime fervor which was the basis of Franck's genius. It is, in two respects, at least, a highly original work: in the unusual moods of the several movements, and in the relationship between the two instruments. For although it is a violin sonata, the emphasis in many respects is laid on the pianoforte part which requires great virtuoso power of performance,--the violin, at times, having the nature more of an obligato. There are four movements, the first in abridged sonata form, _i.e._, there is no development; the second in complete and elaborate sonata form; the third, a kind of free rhapsody, supplying an intermezzo between the third and fourth movements and organically connected with the Finale. This, in free rondo-form, with a main theme of its own treated canonically, sums up the chief themes which have preceded. The work exemplifies Franck's practise of generative themes; for d'Indy claims[280] that the whole structure is based on three motives, _e.g._, [Music] the rising and falling inflexion of which he typifies by what is called a "torculus" ([torculus symbol])! Whether such minute analysis is necessary for the listener may be open to question; but it is true that in hearing the work one is struck by the homogeneity of the material. The first movement is an impassioned kind of revery--in a mood more often associated with the slow movement, in character somewhat like the beginning of Beethoven's C-sharp minor Sonata. After some preludial ninth chords the dreamy first theme is given out, molto dolce, by the violin, supported by rich harmonies on the pianoforte, the use of the augmented chords being prominent, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 280: See his _Course in Composition_, book II, pp. 423-426.] Some natural expansion and development lead, in measure 31, to the broad and vigorous second theme, sempre forte e largamente, announced by the pianoforte, _e.g._ [Music] This ends in F-sharp minor and is at once followed by a closing portion, _i.e._, a repetition of the second theme with an elaborate arpeggio accompaniment and some fragmentary phrases of the first theme on the violin. Its last measures[281] are striking for the bold use of augmented chords and for the wide spacing which gives an organ-like sonority. The recapitulation, beginning in measure 63 with still richer harmonization, is almost identical with the exposition; the second theme appearing logically in the home key. The closing measures of the coda, which starts in measure 97, illustrate Franck's genius in the chromatic alteration of chords. [Footnote 281: Note the correspondence between these measures in the first part and the measures just before the end in the second part.] The second movement, in a structural sense the most normal of the four, speaks for itself. It is stormy and dramatic, with a number of passages marked passionato and molto fuoco, and presents a rather unusual side of Franck's quiet nature. The two themes are strong and well contrasted: the first for the pianoforte, the second for the violin, _e.g._ [Music: 1st theme] [Music: 2d theme] The development begins at the quasi lento, measure 80, with the second (_b_) of the generative motives which is to play an important role in the Fantasia and the Finale. It is rather broken up into sections, but holds the interest through its unflagging rhythmic vigor and daring dissonances. Franck's contrapuntal skill is shown here in the closing measures (130-134) where a phrase from the second theme on the violin, dolcissimo espressivo, is united with a phrase of the first theme on the pianoforte, hinting at the return. The recapitulation, beginning in measure 138, is perfectly normal and leads to a coda which, becoming more and more animated, ends with brilliant bravura effects for each instrument. The third movement, entitled _Recitative-Fantasia_, is notable for its long declamations for the violin alone, and for its introduction of a theme from the preceding movement and of one to be repeated in the Finale. Thus the organic relationship between the various movements is shown and is still further emphasized in the Finale. The mood is often very impassioned (once _fff_) and dramatic, with several passages specifically marked. This music alone, which sounds like nothing before or since, would stamp Franck as an absolutely original genius. In measure 53 appears a long pianissimo meditation by the violin on a phrase--the second generative motive (_b_)--from the preceding movement, supported by beautifully spaced arpeggio chords on the pianoforte, _e.g._ [Music] In measure 71 occurs the first appearance of the bold theme which is to be twice used for episodes in the Finale, _e.g._ [Music] The closing cadence[282] of the movement, one of the most original and truly beautiful in all literature as it seems to the writer, furnishes a marvellous contrast to the stormy measures immediately preceding. [Footnote 282: Already cited on page 57, Chapter IV.] The Finale is perhaps the most spontaneous canon in existence, an imitative dialogue between the two instruments; this form (which is often rigid and mechanical) being used so easily that it seems as if each instrument were naturally commenting upon the message of the other. Observe also the sonorous background provided for the violin melody by the widely spaced chords on the pianoforte, _e.g._ [Music] The first episode, beginning in F-sharp minor at measure 38, is based on the third generative phrase (_c_) brought over from the Fantasia and embroidered by running passages (delicato) on the violin. This leads to a return of the canonic first theme which, with an interchange of statement and answer and with free modulations, is developed to a brilliant climax--the canon still persisting--in the dominant key of E major. Some transitional modulations, in which the excitement cools down, bring us to the second episode, in B-flat minor. This at first develops the phrase (_b_) from the middle part of the second movement, _e.g._ [Music] and later, also in the bass, a phrase from the main theme, _e.g._ [Music] It is soon followed by a bold entrance of the dramatic theme from the Fantasia which, twice presented--the second time grandioso--leads to a thrilling cadence in C major. The third and last refrain is a complete restatement of the original canon and closes in A major with a still more brilliant imitative treatment of the passage formerly in the dominant. The last measures--with the high trill on the violin and cutting dissonances on the pianoforte--are far too exciting for mere verbal description. SYMPHONIC VARIATIONS FOR PIANOFORTE AND ORCHESTRA This is one of Franck's most significant works, containing all his individual characteristics: melodic intensity, novel chromatic harmony and freedom of form combined with coherence. Franck always claimed that the variation form, rightly treated, was a perfect medium for free, imaginative expression; surely this work is a manifestation of his belief. A careful study will justify the statement that his style is founded on that of Bach and Beethoven; for the naturalness of these melodic variations can be compared only with the _Passacaglia in C minor_, and the general structure of the work finds its prototype in the Finale of the _Heroic Symphony_. It is a set of free variations, or rather organic transformations of two themes; the first sombre, entirely in the minor, the second brighter, with some passing emphasis on the major. The variations are not numbered and there are no rigid stops; though, of course, when objective points are reached, there is natural punctuation. The two themes, as follows--a striking example of Franck's peculiar harmonic scheme--should be carefully studied, _e.g._ [Music: 1st theme] [Music: 2d theme] The work opens with a series of restless dotted notes for the strings _ff_ which diminish and retard to an entrance of the first theme, più lento, for the pianoforte; the two phrases of which are interrupted by a passage, somewhat modified, from the introduction. Some preludial measures, expanding the material presented, bring us at B[283] to a premonitory statement of the second theme _pp_ (in wood-wind and pizzicato strings) over a muffled roll of the kettle-drums on C-sharp, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 283: The indication by letters is the same in the full score as in the version for two pianofortes.] Then follows a long rhapsodic presentation of the first theme for pianoforte solo--the melody in octaves and the accompaniment in the widest arpeggios possible. This passage is one of great sonority and reveals clearly the influence of the organ upon Franck's style. Some further measures of general development, containing at E a reminiscence of the first theme, bring us (after an elaborate half-cadence on the dominant of F-sharp minor) to the entrance of the second theme. Now that all the melodic material has been presented, Franck allows it to grow and blossom. In the first variation at F we have phrases of the second theme broken up into a dialogue between strings, wood-wind and pianoforte; and in the second at G the violas and 'cellos sing the whole second theme accompanied by some ingenious figuration on the pianoforte. This is followed at H by a brilliant amplification for the solo instrument, lightly accompanied on the orchestra, of phrases already heard and leads at I to a fortissimo orchestral tutti in D major--the next variation--which proclaims a portion of the second theme. This is developed with great power on both instruments and is combined, nine measures after J, with a variant of the first theme. At K there is a bold treatment of the second theme (sostenuto) for oboes and clarinets against rushing octaves on the pianoforte. At L we have some further development of the second theme, the melody being in the strings with a background of broken triplet chords on the pianoforte. We now reach at M--molto più lento--the most poetic variation of the work. All the 'cellos, dolce e sostenuto, sing the second theme in the rich key of F-sharp major, the closing phrases answered by the wood-wind; while the pianoforte supports them with coloristic, arabesque-like broken chords containing a melodic pattern of their own. At N the 'cellos continue with phrases from the first theme, the accompaniment being in extended arpeggios against a background of sustained strings (_ppp_ con sordino). A climax is gradually reached which ends, smorzando, with a descending chromatic run on the pianoforte, followed by a long trill on C-sharp which ushers in the closing portion of the work. The structure, as a whole, is divided into three main portions: the first preludial, the second sombre and often meditative--largely in the minor--the third entirely in the major and of extraordinary brilliance and vivacity. At the Allegro non troppo after the trill, we find a variant of the first theme for the 'cellos and basses in F-sharp major, _e.g._, [Music] accompanied by broken chords on the pianoforte and wood-wind. This is followed at P by a free treatment for pianoforte, con fuoco, of the first theme which develops at Q into a most pianistic presentation (in the upper register of the instrument) of the phrase just announced by the 'cellos. In the fifth measure after R the basses begin, pizzicato but forte, a modified statement of the second theme, accompanied by a new counter melody on the pianoforte, dolce ma marcato, _e.g._ [Music] This leads into a brilliant climax for orchestra alone based on the first theme which, at the very end, modulates to E-flat major. Then follows an episodical portion of unusual beauty--a long, dreamy passage, dolce rubato, for solo pianoforte, in which the first theme is merely hinted at in shadowy outlines, _e.g._ [Music] Abounding in fascinating modulations and coloristic effects it shows Franck's genius equally for real melodic germination with an avoidance of all perfunctory manipulation of his material. This leads, four measures after T, to an entrance _pp_ in the wood-wind, of a variant of the first theme. Due to the effect of contrasted accents the passage is most exciting--two rhythms being treated at once. A climax for full orchestra brings us at V to a repetition of the former pianoforte presentation of the first theme, followed as before, at W by the counter-melody against the second theme, forte, in the basses. The first theme, now in complete control, is here proclaimed most eloquently in antiphonal form between the full orchestra and pianoforte, _e.g._ [Music] The work ends with a rapid iteration, molto crescendo, of the first motive--in diminution. Now that we have reviewed the entire composition, there is one feature worthy of special emphasis. The structure as a whole (as we have stated) is clearly divided into three main parts; but when we examine the third part by itself, we find that it follows the lines of the sonata-form. For there is a first portion, with a main theme in F-sharp major, and a second theme--the new melody--in D major; the passage for pianoforte in E-flats major stands for the development, and the movement concludes with a distinct third portion, both first and second theme being in the home key. Thus the structure represents a carefully planned union of the variation form and the sonata-form which were special favorites of Franck. The work, which, after earnest study, will surely be enjoyed and loved, ranks with the _Istar Symphonic Variations_ by d'Indy and the two sets on themes from Paganini by Brahms as the acme of what the variation form may indeed be when treated by a master. CHAPTER XVIII THE MODERN FRENCH SCHOOL--D'INDY AND DEBUSSY Not only as the most distinguished of César Franck's pupils, but by reason of his undoubted musicianship and marked versatility--his works being in well nigh every form--Vincent d'Indy (1851-still living) is rightly considered to be the most representative composer of his branch of the modern French school.[284] Whether history will accord to him the rank of an inspired genius it is as yet too early to decide; but for the sincerity and nobility of his ideas, for his finished workmanship and the influence he has exerted, through his many-sided personality, in elevating public taste and in the education of young musicians, he is worthy of our gratitude. D'Indy is a patriotic Frenchman believing profoundly that French music has an important _rôle_ to bear; who has incarnated this belief in a series of works of such distinction that, if not unqualifiedly loved, they at least compel recognition. If he swings a bit too far in his insistence upon the exclusive glories of French genius, let us remember that the modern Germans[285] have been just as one-sided from their point of view--and with even less tangible proof of attainment. For it seems incontestable that, since the era of Wagner and Brahms, the modern French and Russian Schools have contributed to the development of music more than all the other nations combined. It is for us in America who, free from national prejudice, can stand off and take an impartial view, to appreciate the good points in _all_ schools. A detailed account of d'Indy's life and works will not be necessary, for the subject has been admirably and comprehensively treated by D.G. Mason in his set of _Essays on Contemporary Composers_ and in the article by E.B. Hill in the _Art of Music_, Vol. 3. [Footnote 284: This school may be said to contain two groups: one, the pupils of César Franck--d'Indy, Chausson, Duparc, Rousseau, Augusta Holmès and Ropartz, the chief feature in whose style is a modernization of classic practice; a second consisting of Debussy, Ravel, Dukas and Florent Schmitt, whose works manifest more extreme individualistic tendencies.] [Footnote 285: The well-known German scholar and editor Max Friedländer, who visited this country in 1910, acknowledged--in a conversation with the writer--that he had never even heard of Chabrier!] D'Indy's compositions, as in the case of Franck, are not numerous, but finely wrought and of distinct and varied individuality. His chief instrumental[286] works comprise a _Wallenstein Trilogy_ (three symphonic poems based on Schiller's drama) notable for descriptive power and orchestral effect; a Symphony for orchestra and pianoforte on a mountain air[287]--one of his best works, because the folk-song basis furnishes a melodic warmth which elsewhere is sometimes lacking; a set of Symphonic Variations on the Assyrian legend of Istar; a remarkable Sonata for violin and pianoforte; a String-Quartet, all the movements of which are based on a motto of four notes, and lastly the Symphony in B-flat major--considered his masterpiece--in which the same process of development from generative motives is followed as in César Franck. All these works contain certain salient characteristics proceeding directly from d'Indy's imagination and intellect. There is always an ideal and noble purpose, a stoutly knit musical fabric and melodies--d'Indy's own melodies, sincerely felt and beautifully presented. Whether they have abounding power to move the heart of the listener is, indeed, the point at issue. Since d'Indy is on record as saying, "There is in art, truly, nothing but the heart that can produce beauty," it is evident that he believes in the emotional element in music. That there is a difference of opinion however, as to what makes emotional power is shown by his estimate of Brahms (set forth in his _Cours de Composition Musicale_, pp. 415-416) in the statement that, though Brahms is a fine workman, his music lacks the power to touch the heart (faire vibrer le coeur). There is no doubt that, in any question of Brahms versus d'Indy, such has not been the verdict of outside opinion. D'Indy is admired and respected, whereas Brahms has won the love of those who know him; and the truth in the saying, "Securus judicat orbis terrarum" is surely difficult to contravene. D'Indy's melodies can always be minutely analysed[288] and they justify the test; but we submit that the great melodies of the world speak to us in more direct fashion. For there is, in his music, a seriousness which at times becomes somewhat austere. He seems so afraid of writing pretty tunes or ear-tickling music, that we often miss a sensuous, emotional warmth. He hates the commonplace, cultivating the ideal and religion of beauty. Bruneau, himself a noted French critic and composer, says, "No one will deny his surprising technique or his unsurpassed gifts as an orchestral writer, but we might easily wish him more spontaneity and less dryness." We cannot, however, miss the dignity and elevation of style found in d'Indy's works or fail to be impressed by their wonderfully planned musical architecture. His music demands study and familiarity and well repays such effort. D'Indy's work, as a teacher, centres about the "Schola Cantorum" so-called, in which several talented American students from Harvard and other Universities have already worked. Here all schools of composition are thoroughly studied, and the rigid and formal methods of the Conservatoire abandoned. D'Indy believes that the materials for the structure of modern music are to be found in the Fugue of Bach, and in the cyclical Sonata Form and the free Air with Variations of Beethoven--these forms, by reason of their inherent logic and simplicity, allowing scope for infinite freedom of treatment. D'Indy is also a thoroughly modern composer in that he is an artist in words as well as in notes. His life of César Franck is a model of biographical style, and he has recently published a life of Beethoven refreshingly different from the stock narratives. In fine, d'Indy is a genius, in whom the intellectual aspects of the art, rather than purely emotional appeal, are clearly in the ascendant. [Footnote 286: D'Indy's significant contributions to operatic and choral literature, such as _Fervaal_, _L'étranger_, _Le Chant de la Cloche_ and _La Légende de St. Christophe_, lie without our province.] [Footnote 287: From the Cévennes region whence d'Indy's family originally came.] [Footnote 288: See the elaborate analysis by Mr. Mason in the essay above referred to.] We shall now comment briefly on one, only, of d'Indy's compositions, the Symphonic Poem, _Istar_, which is a set of variations[289] treated in a manner as novel as it is convincing; the work beginning with variations which gradually become less elaborate until finally only the theme itself is heard in its simple beauty. This reversal of customary treatment is sanctioned by the nature of the subject, and the correspondence between dramatic logic and musical procedure is admirably planned. The story of the work is that portion of the Assyrian epic Izdubar which describes, to quote Apthorp's translation of the French version, "how Istar, daughter of Sin, bent her steps toward the immutable land, towards the abode of the dead, towards the seven-gated abode where He entered, toward the abode whence there is no return." Then follows a description of the raiment and the jewels of which she is stripped at the entrance to each of the gates. "Istar went into the immutable land, she took and received the waters of life. She presented the sublime Waters, and thus, in the presence of all, set free the Son of Life, her young lover." The structural novelty of the work is that, beginning with complexity--typifying the gorgeously robed Istar--the theme discloses itself little by little, as she is stripped of her jewels, until at last, when she stands forth in the full splendor of nudity, the theme is heard unaccompanied, like Isis unveiled or, to change the figure, like a scientific law which has been disclosed. The work is based on three generative themes; the second, derived from the first and of subsidiary importance, called by d'Indy the motif d'appel. It plays its part, however, since it introduces the work and serves as a connection between the variations, seven in all. These themes are as follows: 1. Principal theme: [Music] 2. Motif d'appel. [Music] 3. Subsidiary theme, in form of a march. [Music] [Footnote 289: For a detailed analysis the student is referred to the account by the composer himself in his _Cours de Composition Musicale_, part II, pp. 484-486; to Gilman's _Studies in Symphonic Music_ and to Vol. 3 of Mason's _Short Studies of Great Masterpieces_.] By following the poem the imaginative listener can readily appreciate the picturesque suggestiveness of the composer. The work opens with a mysterious intoning, by a muted horn, of the motif d'appel, and then follows a triple presentation of the march theme in F minor, scored for wood-wind and low strings--the melody sung at first by the violas and clarinets and later by the bass clarinet and 'cellos. This original scoring establishes just the appropriate atmosphere for an entrance to the abode of captivity. [Music] The first variation, in F major, employing all the tone-color of the full orchestra, is a gorgeous picture of the Oriental splendor of Istar. It is noteworthy that each variation contains a modulation to a key a semitone higher, thus affording a factor of unity amid the elaborate flowerings of the musical thought. The second variation, in E major scored for strings and wood-wind, is significant for the way in which the original theme is expanded into a flowing melody. The logical derivation of the fabric from the first intervals of the main theme is obvious, _e.g._ [Music] The fourth variation, in F-sharp major, scored for pizzicato strings and staccato wood-wind, with light touches on horns, trumpets, cymbals, triangle and harps, introduces the scherzo mood into the work and with its persistent 5/4 rhythm is of fascinating effect. [Music] The loveliest variation for warmth and emotional appeal is the sixth, in A-flat major (at O in the orchestral score) for strings with the gradual addition of the wood-wind and harps. Its climax certainly does much to atone for any dryness found in d'Indy's other works. [Music] In the next variation, at P, the trend of the work becomes increasingly manifest for it is written in only two voices, scored for flute and violins and is a dramatic preparation for the announcement of the complete main theme which is now proclaimed in unison by the full orchestra. The work closes with a transformation of the opening march into F major, its majestic rhythm symbolizing the successful result of Istar's quest (See Supplement No. 62.) Debussy, Claude Achille, (1862-1918) is certainly the embodiment, as a composer, of Pater's saying that "Romanticism[290] is the addition of strangeness to beauty"; for when we listen to his music we are conscious of material and of forms of treatment which we have never heard before. Debussy has listened to the promptings of his own subtle imagination and has evolved a style as novel as it is beautiful. As with all real originators, Debussy at the outset was fiercely challenged, and his music even to-day calls forth intolerant remarks on the part of those who are suspicious of all artistic progress and evolution. In this connection it is worthy of note that the French, notwithstanding their national doctrine of liberty, have been chary of applying this to composers who were departing from the beaten path. Berlioz, whom now they acclaim as one of their greatest artists, was welcomed as he deserved only after his fame had been established among the Germans. Bizet was but slightly appreciated during his life. Franck met with fierce opposition from the routine members of the profession; and Debussy, although the work by which he won the "Prix de Rome" in 1884 was acknowledged to be one of the most interesting which had been heard at the Institute for years, was afterwards severely criticized for the setting made in Rome to Rossetti's _Blessed Damozel_ because, forsooth, he had strayed too far from established and revered tradition. We Americans may have a distinct feeling of pride in the knowledge that the music of Debussy, the strongest note of which is personal freedom--the inherent right of the artist to express in his own way the promptings of his imagination--was widely studied and appreciated in this land of the free before it had begun to have anything like a universal acceptance among the French themselves. [Footnote 290: From this comparison we should not wish it to be understood that Debussy is merely an addition to the standard Romantic group of Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, etc.; his style, however, is surely Romantic in the broad sense of the term, _i.e._, highly imaginative and individual.] But can any connection with the past be traced in the style of this remarkable[291] composer, and can we discover any sources, in the world of nature, from which he has derived the materials for his novel and fascinating harmonies? When we definitely analyze Debussy's harmonic scheme, we see that he looks both forward and back. Much of his original tone coloring is derived from the old church modes such as the Lydian, the Dorian and the Phrygian; for example, the mysterious opening chords of his opera, and the following passage from _La Cathédrale engloutie_. [Footnote 291: The _très exceptionnel, très curieux, très solitaire Claude Debussy_ as he has been aptly characterized.] [Music] He is also extremely fond of a scale of whole tones, which had been somewhat anticipated by Liszt and members of the Russian[292] school. In this the normal perfect 4th and 5th and the major 6th become augmented, thus producing a very peculiar but alluring harmonic basis. [Music] [Footnote 292: The first authentic use being probably by Dargomijsky in his opera the _Stone Guest_.] [Music] [Music: _Reflets dans l'eau_] Modern composers have been feeling for some time that harmonic scope was needlessly limited by clinging too closely to the major and minor diatonic scales; and Brahms, Tchaikowsky and Franck have all introduced the old modes for special contrasts of color. But no one has used them so subtly as Debussy. In his music they often take the place of our customary scales with their deep-rooted harmonic tendencies and perpetual suggestion of traditional cadences. This return to the greater flexibility and variety of the old modes is a significant feature in modern music and Debussy's example in this respect has been highly beneficial. As to his alleged use of new material, an astute French critic has observed that "a revolution is merely an evolution rendered apparent." By no means all of music can be found in nature, but the basis is there, and it remains for the artistic imagination to select and to amplify. Already many years ago the scientist Helmholtz said, "Our system of scales and of harmonic tissues does not rest upon unalterable natural laws, but is partly at least the result of aesthetic principles of selection, which have already changed, and will change still further with the progressive development of humanity."[293] In other words the limits of receptivity of the human ear cannot be foreseen nor can the workings of the artistic imagination be prescribed. The so-called Chord of Nature,[294] consisting of the overtones struck off by any sounding body, and re-enforced on the pianoforte with its large sounding board, contains in epitome this basic material of music; and the several octaves represent in a striking manner the harmonic combinations used at different periods of development. Thus during the early centuries nothing but triads were in use; only gradually were 7th chords--those of four factors--introduced. Wagner was the first to realize the possibilities of chords of the 9th, 11th, and 13th. In Debussy these combinations are used as freely as triads, _e.g._ [Music: _Pelléas et Mélisande_] [Music: _La fille aux cheveux de lin_] [Music: _Reflets dans l'eau_] and he has gone far beyond anything known before in a subtle use of the extreme dissonant elements, his sensitive imagination evidently hearing sounds hitherto unrealized. This surmise is corroborated by Debussy's own statement that, while serving as a young man on garrison duty, he took great delight in listening to the overtones of bugles and of the bells from a nearby convent. This chromatic style had been anticipated by Chopin whose use of the harmonic series in those prismatic, spray-like groups of superadded tones is such a striking feature in his pianoforte works. There is, therefore, nothing outré or bizarre in Debussy's idiom; it is but a logical continuation of former tendencies. His works show great variety and comprise pianoforte pieces, many songs, a remarkable string quartet, some daringly original tone-poems for full orchestra, several cantatas, and--most unique of all--his opera of _Pelléas et Mélisande_, based on the well-known play by Maeterlinck. A few comments may profitably be made on each of these types. With few exceptions all his pianoforte pieces have suggestive titles, _e.g._, _Reflets dans l'eau_, _Jardins sous la pluie_, _La soirée dans Grenade_, _Poissons d'or_, _Voiles_, _Le vent dans la plaine_, _Bruyères_. They are mood-pictures in which the composer has tried to imprison certain elusive states of mind--or the impressions made on his susceptible imagination by the phenomena of Nature: the subtly blended hues of a sunset, the changing rhythm of drifting clouds, the indefinite murmur of the sea, the dripping of rain. For Debussy, like Beethoven before him, is a passionate lover of Nature. To quote his own words, he finds his great object lessons of artistic liberty in "the unfolding of the leaves in Spring, in the wavering winds and changing clouds." Again, "It benefits me more to watch a sunrise than to listen to a symphony. Go not to others for advice, but take counsel from the passing breezes, which relate the history of the world to those who listen." Thus we see that Debussy submits himself to the spells of Nature and tries to transmute them into sound. The only analogies to use in a verbal description of his music must be drawn from nature, for in each are the same shadowy pictures, the same melting outlines.[295] Debussy has a close affinity with that school of painters known as impressionists or symbolists--Manet, Monet, Dégas, Whistler--and is doing with novel combinations of sound, with delicate effects of light and shade, what they have done for modern freedom in color. His music has been called a "sonorous impressionism." It might equally well be phrased "rhythmic sound." To those conservatives who find it difficult to think in terms of musical color, and wish _their_ imagination rather than that of genius to be the standard, the retort of the artist Whistler is applicable: To a lady who viewing one of his sunsets remarked, "But, Mr. Whistler, I have never seen a sunset like that" came the reply "Yes, Madam, but don't you wish you had?" In his songs Debussy has been most fastidious as to choice of texts, his favorite poets being Verlaine, Baudelaire and Mallarmé, called "symbolists," since the aim of their art is to resemble music and to leave for the reader a wide margin for symbolic interpretation. His songs throughout are imaginative and fanciful in the highest degree, and the instrumental part a beautiful background of color. Of Debussy's compositions for orchestra the one to win--and possibly to deserve--the most lasting popularity is _L'après-midi d'un Faune_, which is an extraordinary translation into music of the veiled visions and the shadowy beings of an eclogue of Mallarmé in which, as Edmund Gosse says, "Words are used in harmonious combinations merely to suggest moods or conditions, never to state them definitely."[296] By perfect rhythmic freedom, and by delicately-colored waves of sound Debussy has expressed in a manner most felicitous just the atmosphere of remoteness, and of primeval simplicity. By many this work is considered the most hypnotic composition in existence, and the writer trusts that his readers have heard a poetic interpretation of it by a fine orchestra. The salient features of Debussy's style are found in _Pelléas et Mélisande_--by far the most important operatic work since Wagner. Maeterlinck's play deals with legendary, mysterious, symbolic beings, and the entire subject-matter was admirably suited to Debussy's genius. As Maeterlinck says, "The theatre should be the reflex of life, not this external life of outward show, but the true inner life which is entirely one of contemplation." This opera is quite different from any previously written, in that the characters sing throughout in _recitative_ now calm, now impassioned, but never in set, periodic arias. In fact, here we have at last a true musical _speech_, which is indeed another thing from music set to words. Debussy has defended this peculiar style in the following words: "Melody is, if I may say so, almost anti-lyric, and powerless to express the constant change of emotion or life. Melody is suitable only for the song (_chanson_), which confirms a fixed sentiment. I have never been willing that my music should hinder, through technical exigencies, the changes of sentiment and passion felt by my characters. It is effaced as soon as it is necessary that these should have perfect liberty in their gestures as in their cries, in their joy as in their sorrow." [Footnote 293: For an enlightening amplification of this point see the first chapter of Wallace's _The Threshold of Music_.] [Footnote 294: See page 193.] [Footnote 295: For further suggestive comments on Debussy's style consult the _Essay on Pelléas et Mélisande_ by Lawrence Gilman (G. Schirmer, New York) and in particular an article by the same author in the Century Magazine for August, 1918.] [Footnote 296: Gosse also calls it a _famous miracle of intelligibility_.] Now that we may look forward to no more compositions from Debussy[297]--he died in March, 1918--it is certainly fitting to attempt a forecast as to the permanent worth of his achievements and his influence upon future development. Like all music his compositions may be judged from several points of view: the worth of the content, the perfection or inadequacy of style and the manner in which the media of presentation are used. To begin with the last characteristic--there is no doubt that Debussy has enlarged the resources of our two chief modern instruments, the pianoforte and the orchestra. By him the pianoforte is always treated according to its true nature, _i.e._, as an intimate, coloristic instrument and, in amplifying all its resources of tone-color, flexible rhythm and descriptive power he is the worthy successor of Chopin. In his orchestral compositions such as the _Nocturnes_ (_Clouds_, _Festivals_ and _Sirens_), the _Sea Pieces_ and _Images_, of which the _Rondes de Printemps_ and _Ibéria_ are the most significant, there is a union of warmth and delicacy as individual as it is rare. _Ibéria_, in fact, for vitality of imagination and flawless workmanship may be considered the acme of Debussy's orchestral style. The great resources of the modern orchestra are often abused. Compositions are rich and gorgeous but at the same time inflated, turgid and bombastic. Certain works of Richard Strauss and Mahler are examples in point. Debussy's treatment, however, of the varied modern orchestra is remarkable for its economy. The melodic lines stand out clearly, there is always a rich supporting background and we are convinced that everything sounds just as the composer meant. As to the structure and style of his music, these are more subtle matters to estimate. We may acknowledge at once that Debussy's style is free and individual, for he has written his music his own way, with slight regard for academic models. But a thorough examination of his works shows no evidence of carelessness or uncertainty of aim. There is, to be sure, nothing of that routine development of musical material which we associate with classic practice--instead a free, imaginative growth. But there is always a definite structural foundation to support the freedom of expression. This coherence is sometimes gained by a single dominating note about which everything is grouped, as, in the _Soirée dans Grenade_, the C-sharp and in the _Reflets dans l'eau_, an F. Most of Debussy's compositions imply the principles, albeit freely used, of Two- and Three-part form and the fundamental laws of key-relationship and of artistic contrast. [Footnote 297: The best books yet written on Debussy and his style are those by Mrs. Liebich and Louis Laloy. Consult also the comprehensive essay by E.B. Hill in Vol. III of the _Art of Music_.] In considering the value of Debussy's message, _i.e._, the content of his music, the animus and predilection of the hearer have to be taken into account. For his music is so intensely subjective and intimate that you like it or not, as the case may be. Many persons, however, become very fond of it, when they have accustomed themselves to its peculiar idiom. The charge that there is in Debussy no melody of a purely musical nature, as some critics have asserted,[298] seems to the writer too sweeping and not supported by the inner evidence. It may be granted that Debussy's melodic line is very fluid and elastic, like Wagner's "continuous melody," not definitely sectionalized by balanced phrases or set cadences. But it surely has its own right to existence--music being pre-eminently the art of freedom--and let us remember that Nature herself has melting outlines, shadowy vistas and subtle rhythms. Debussy, in fact, is the poet of the "indefinite" and the "suggestive" and his music has had a great influence in freeing expression from scholastic bonds. Even from the standpoint of the popular conception of "tune" it is difficult to see what objection can be made to the following melodies: [Music: _L'isle joyeuse_] [Music: _Poissons d'or_] [Music: _Cortège_] [Footnote 298: See the 2d volume of _Great Composers_ by D.G. Mason and also the essay on Debussy in _Contemporary Composers_ by the same author.] It cannot be denied that such an individual style as Debussy's is liable to manneristic treatment, though whether he should be called "the prince of mannerists"[299] is decidedly open to debate. Some critics feel that he has over-used the whole-tone scale and it must be confessed, he has a rather affected fondness for a formula of block-like chords, _e.g._ [Music: _Danse sacrée_] [Footnote 299: According to Ernest Newman in a well-known article in the Musical Times (London).] But these, after all, are but "spots on the sun." To sum up our conclusions: the following merits in Debussy's music, it seems to me, cannot be gainsaid. He has widened incalculably the vocabulary of music and has expressed in poetic and convincing fashion moods which never before had been attempted. In his work are new revelations of the power of the imagination. As Lawrence Gilman keenly remarks, "He has known how to find music (in _Pelléas et Mélisande_) for the sublime reflection of Arkel, 'If I were God, I should pity the hearts of men.'" Debussy was also gifted with rare critical ability and many of his observations are worthy of deep consideration. For example--"Music should be cleared of all scientific apparatus. Music should seek humbly to give pleasure; great beauty is possible between these limits. Extreme complexity is the opposite of art. Beauty should be perceptible; it should impose itself on us, or insinuate itself, without any effort on our part to grasp it. Look at Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart! These are great artists." No account of modern French music would be satisfactory which omitted to mention several composers who, though of somewhat lesser importance than d'Indy and Debussy, have nevertheless achieved works of distinction and charm. These are Chabrier, Fauré, Duparc, Chausson and Ravel. Chabrier (1841-1894) is noted for a bold exuberance and vividness of expression, for a sense of humor and for a power of orchestral color and brilliance which have not been duplicated. His style is entirely his own and he is a veritable incarnation of "vis Gallica." Born in the South of France, the hot blood of that magic land seems to throb in his music. We have from him several pianoforte compositions of marked originality, in particular the _Bourrée Fantasque_, some inimitable songs, _e.g._, _Les Cigales_ and _La Villanelle des petits Canards_ and, most famous of all, his Rhapsody for orchestra entitled _España_, based on Spanish themes. This work has proved to be a landmark in descriptive power and shares with Rimsky-Korsakoff's _Scheherazade_ the claim of being the most brilliant piece of orchestral writing in modern times. Some of Chabrier's best work is in his opera of _Gwendoline_, especially the Prelude to the second act which is often played by itself. Although Fauré (1845-still living) is more versatile and prolific than Chabrier, his fame rests upon his achievements in two fields--the song and pianoforte composition. Some of his pianoforte pieces are, to be sure, of a light, _salon_ type; yet in many we find a true, poetic sentiment and they are all written in a thoroughly pianistic idiom. In fact, prior to Debussy Fauré was the only Frenchman worthy to compare in mastery of pianoforte style with Chopin, Schumann and Liszt. As a song composer Fauré ranks with the highest in modern times. The exotic charm and finesse of workmanship in such songs as _Clair de Lune_, _Les Roses d'Ispahan_ cannot be denied and the instrumental part is always worthy of the composer's genius for pianoforte style, _e.g._, the accompaniment to _Nell_ being a model in its free polyphony and richness of effect. Fauré has been fastidious in his selection of texts and he is fortunate to have been able to avail himself of the genius of such lyric poets as Leconte de Lisle, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Sully-Prudhomme and others. Indeed as a song-composer Fauré may fairly be grouped with the great German masters. His songs are not German songs, but they are just as subtle in expressing all that is fine in French spirit as those of Schumann and Brahms in their Teutonic sentiment. For this reason alone Fauré is a commanding figure in modern French music. He is also the author of a violin sonata which has enjoyed a popularity second only to that of Franck and a Quintet for pianoforte and strings of distinct originality. Duparc (1848-still living) one of the earliest of César Franck's pupils--though working in practically but a single field and though by reason of ill health he has written nothing since 1885--will always hold high rank for the beauty and breadth of his songs, especially _L'invitation au Voyage_, _Extase_ and _Phydilé_. This last is considered by the writer the most exquisite song in modern literature; its melody, its modulations, its accompaniment alike are flawless.[300] [Footnote 300: An excellent collection of modern French songs may be found in the two volumes published by the Oliver Ditson Co. in the Musicians Library.] Chausson (1855-1899) the most gifted of Franck's pupils, though without d'Indy's strength of character, was killed by an unfortunate accident[301] just as he was ready for an adequate self-expression. He had a sensitive imagination, an individual harmonic style; and in those works which he has left--notably several songs, a Quartet for pianoforte and strings and the Symphony in B-flat major, op. 20--there is found a spirit of genuine romantic inspiration. [Footnote 301: While he was riding a bicycle.] Although Ravel (1875-still living) cannot claim to be a pioneer like Debussy--since in his music there are frequent traces of the exuberance of Chabrier, the suavity of Fauré, the atmosphere and impressionistic tendencies of Debussy and the exoticism of the Neo-Russians--yet he is indeed no empty reflection of these men, for he has his own bold, fantastic style and has been a daring experimenter in freedom of harmony and structure. One finds a power of ironic brilliance and of unexpected harmonic transformations certainly new in modern literature. Ravel[302] is one of the most versatile and prolific of all the younger Frenchmen having composed significant works in at least four fields: songs, particularly the set entitled _Histoires Naturelles_, which reveal an unusual instinct for delicate description; and pianoforte pieces of which _Miroirs_, the dazzling tour de force _Jeux d'eau_, the _Valses nobles et sentimentales_, the _Sonatine_, the _Pavane_ and, above all, the Poems, _Gaspard de la Nuit_ (_Ondine_, _Le Gibbet_[303] and _Scarbo_) are conspicuous examples of his style. Furthermore in the field of chamber music are found a String Quartet, remarkable for inspiration and for certainty of workmanship, and a Trio (for pianoforte, violin and 'cello) which is one of the most brilliant modern works, of convincing originality in its freedom of rhythm, _e.g._, the opening measures of the first movement. [Music] [Footnote 302: The best account of his works and style is to be found in the volume _Maurice Ravel et son oeuvre_ by Roland Manuel.] [Footnote 303: _Le Gibbet_ is without doubt the most realistic piece of musical description in our time.] Finally, for orchestra his _Spanish Rhapsody_ ranks with Chabrier's _España_ and Debussy's _Ibéria_ as the acme of descriptive power and of orchestral color. His _Mother Goose Suite_ (originally a set of four-hand pieces but since orchestrated with incomparable finesse) illustrates his humor and play of fancy. It has become a truly popular concert number. Ravel's chef d'oeuvre the "choreographic symphony" _Daphnis et Chloé_ displays an extraordinary synthetic grasp, for all the factors--plot, action, the musical fabric, a large orchestra and a chorus of mixed voices behind the scenes--are held together with a master hand. This work ranks with Debussy's _Pelléas et Mélisande_ as the most significant dramatic work of recent years. It is evident, we trust, from the foregoing somewhat condensed estimates that the modern French school is very much alive, that it has to its credit numerous distinct achievements and that it contains the promise of still further growth. The French nature, which is highly emotional and yet, at its best, always controlled[304] by a regard for fitness and clarity of thought, is particularly suited to express itself worthily in music, for in no other form of artistic endeavor is this balance more requisite. Music without emotion is, to be sure, like "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal" and dies in short order. On the other hand, music which is a mere display of crude emotion soon palls. The works of modern French composers deserve enthusiastic study for their charm, their finish and their refined emotional power. [Footnote 304: Witness the wonderful manifestation of these qualities by the French in the recent war.] CHAPTER XIX NATIONAL SCHOOLS--RUSSIAN, BOHEMIAN AND SCANDINAVIAN Before beginning an account of Tchaikowsky, the most noted though not necessarily the greatest of the Russian composers, a few words may be said concerning nationalism in music, the chief representatives of which are the Russians, the Bohemians, the Scandinavians and the Hungarians. Of these, however, the present-day Russian School is the most active and contributes constantly new factors to musical evolution. This grafting of forms of expression derived from the outlying nations on to the parent-stock of music--which for some three hundred years had been in the exclusive control of Italy, Germany and France--has been a stimulating factor in the development of the last half-century. For the idiom of music was becoming somewhat stereotyped, and it has been noticeably revitalized by the incorporation of certain "exotic" traits, of which there run through all national music these three: (1) the use, in their folk-songs, of other forms of scale and mode than are habitual with ourselves; (2) the preference given to the minor mode and the free commingling of major and minor; (3) the great rhythmic variety and especially the use of groups foreign to our musical sense, such as measures of 5 and 7 beats, and the intentional placing of the accent on parts of the measure which with us are ordinarily unaccented. Every country has its folk-songs--the product of national rather than individual genius--but Russia, in the number and variety of these original melodies is most exceptional. The Russian expresses himself spontaneously in song, and so we find appropriate music for every activity or incident in daily life: planting songs, reaping songs, boating songs, wedding songs, funeral songs; Russian soldiers sing on the march and even enter upon a desperate charge with songs on their lips. In certain battles of the Crimean War this fact caused much comment from the English officers. For many centuries the bulk of the Russian people has been downtrodden; and the country, with its endless steppes and gloomy climate, is hardly such as to call forth the sparkling vivacity found in the Scandinavian and Hungarian songs. The prevalent mood in Russian folk-songs is one of melancholy or of brooding, wistful tenderness--very often in the old Greek modes, the Aeolian, Dorian and Phrygian. From this we see the close connection existing between the Russian and Greek Churches. The Russian liturgy is exceedingly old, and Russian church music, always unaccompanied, has long been celebrated for its dignified character, especially those portions rendered by men's voices, which are capable of unusually low notes,[305] as majestic as those of an organ. [Footnote 305: In Grove's Dictionary, under Bass, occurs this statement: This voice, found, or at least cultivated, only in Russia is by special training made to descend to FF [Music].] During the entire 18th century the development of music in Russia was in the hands of imported Italians; the beginnings of a national type being first made in the works of Glinka, born 1804. By the middle of the 19th century two schools had arisen, the Neo-Russian group of Balakireff, Borodin, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakoff and Moussorgsky, who believed in the extreme development of national traits in melody, rhythm and color; and a second group which was more cosmopolitan in its tastes and believed that Russian music, without abandoning its national flavor, could be written in a style of universal appeal. The chief members of this group were Rubinstein and Tchaikowsky, and distinguished pupils of the latter, in particular Rachmaninoff and Glazounoff. To the world at large Tchaikowsky, of them all, has made the strongest appeal; though he himself said that Rimsky-Korsakoff as an orchestral colorist was more able, and certainly Moussorgsky has a more strongly marked individuality. Tchaikowsky (1840-1893) like so many of the Russian composers, began as a cultivated amateur who showed no special musical gifts, save a sensitive nature and a general fondness for the art. He studied in the school of jurisprudence and won a post in the Ministry of Justice. In 1861, however, his musical nature awaking with a bound, he gave up all official work and for the sake of art faced a life of poverty. Under the teaching of Nicholas Rubinstein at the Petrograd Conservatory he made such amazing progress that in five years he himself was Professor of Harmony at Moscow and had begun his long series of compositions--at first operas of merely local fame. There now followed years of great activity spent in teaching and composing--well-known works being the first String Quartet and the Pianoforte Concerto in B-flat minor, first performed by von Bülow at Boston in '88. At this period his health completely broke down, the immediate cause being an unhappy marriage. He finally rallied but had to travel abroad for a year, and for the rest of his life his temper, never bright, was overcast with gloom. There now entered Tchaikowsky's life Frau von Meck, the woman who played the part of fairy godmother. She greatly admired his music, was wealthy and generous and, that he might have entire leisure for composition, settled upon him a liberal annuity. Their relationship is one of the most remarkable in the annals of art; for, fearing that the ideal would be shattered, they met but once, quite by accident, and Tchaikowsky was "acutely embarrassed." We have a lengthy and impassioned correspondence, and Tchaikowsky's 4th Symphony, dedicated "à mon meilleur ami," is the result of this friendship. In 1891, invited to New York for the dedication of Carnegie Hall, he made his memorable American tour. His success was genuine, and was the beginning of the popularity his music has always enjoyed in this country. For several years Tchaikowsky had been working at his Sixth Symphony, to which he himself gave the distinctive title "Pathetic." This work ends with one of the saddest dirges in all literature, although Tchaikowsky, during its composition, as we know from his letters, had never been in a happier state of mind or worked more passionately and freely. He himself says, "I consider it the best, especially the most open-hearted of all my works." When, however, he suddenly died in 1893, there were rumors of suicide, but it is now definitely settled that his death was caused by cholera.[306] [Footnote 306: The writer had this statement from the lips of Tchaikowsky's own brother, Modeste.] To turn now to his achievements, it may be asserted that Tchaikowsky was marvellously versatile, composing in every form save for the organ; for productiveness, only Mozart, Schubert and Liszt can be compared with him. His works comprise eight operas, six symphonies, six symphonic poems, three overtures, four orchestral suites, two pianoforte concertos, a violin concerto, three string quartets, a wonderful trio, about one hundred songs and a large number of pianoforte pieces. In addition he made several settings of the Russian liturgy and edited many volumes of church music. Whatever may be the final estimate of his music, it assuredly has great vogue at present, for it is an intense expression of that mental and spiritual unrest so characteristic of our times. As Byron was said to have but one subject, himself, so all Tchaikowsky's music is the message of his highly emotional and feverish sensibility. He is invariably eloquent in the presentation of his material, although the thoughts are often slight and the impression made not lasting. He pours out his emotions with the impulsiveness and abandon so characteristic of his race, and this lack of serenity, of restraint, is surely his gravest weakness. We are reminded by his music of a fire which either glows fitfully or bursts forth into a fierce uncontrolled blaze, but where a steady white heat is too often missing. His style has been concisely described as fiery exultation on a basis of languid melancholy. To all this we may retort that what he lacks in profundity and firm control, he makes up in spontaneity, wealth of imagination and, above all, warmth of color. It is illogical to expect his music to be different from what it is. He expressed himself sincerely and his style is the direct outcome of his own temperament plus his nationality. Tchaikowsky was widely read in modern literature--Dickens and Thackeray being favorite authors--and had travelled much. The breadth of his cultivation is shown in the subjects of his symphonic poems and the texts of his songs, which are from Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe and Bryon. However much estimates may differ as to the import of Tchaikowsky's message, he is universally recognized as a superb "colorist," one of the masters of modern orchestral treatment; who, by his subtle feeling for richness and variety of tone, has enlarged the means of musical expression. This is especially shown in the characteristic use he makes of the orchestra in its lower ranges. As Brahms, for depth of thought, was compared with Browning, so Tchaikowsky may well be likened to such poets as Shelley and Swinburne, so exquisite is his instinct for tonal beauty and for delicacy of shading. At times, to be sure, he fairly riots in gorgeous colors--this being the result of his Slavic blood--but few composers have been able to achieve such brilliancy without becoming vulgar. As to the charge of pessimism often made against Tchaikowsky, he was a thinker, an explorer into the mysteries of human aspiration and disappointment,[307] and his music seems weighted down with the riddle of the universe. This introspective dejection, however, is a natural result of his temperament and his nationality. If to us of a more hopeful outlook upon life it seems morbid, we should simply remember that our conditions have been different. A distinction must likewise be made between the expression of such feelings in art and their influence in actual life. As a man Tchaikowsky was practical, conscientious, and did not in the least allow his feelings to emasculate him. He was a prodigious worker and throughout his career, in the face of ill health and many adverse circumstances, showed immense courage. His creed was no ignoble one--"To regret the past, to hope in the future, and never to be satisfied with the present; this is my life." And to a gushing patroness of art who asked him what were his ideals, his simple reply was "My ideal is to become a good composer." Certain English critics in their fault-finding have been particularly boresome, because, forsooth, Tchaikowsky's music does not show the serenity of Brahms or the solidity or stolidity of their own composers. To the well-fed and prosperous Briton "God's in his Heaven, all's right with the world" is hardly an expression of faith, but a certainty of existence. Not so with the Russian, upon whom the oppression of centuries has left its stamp. This same note of gloomy or even morbid introspection is found in some of the great literature of the world--in the Bible, the Greek Tragedies and in Shakespeare. Granted that optimism is the only working creed for every-day life, until the millenium arrives a sincere and artistic expression of the sorrows of humanity will always strike a note in oppressed souls. [Footnote 307: See the passage from his diary (quoted on page 504 of the _Biography_ by his brother) in which he writes--"What touching love and compassion for mankind lie in these words: 'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden!' In comparison with these simple words all the Psalms of David are as nothing."] Each of Tchaikowsky's last three symphonies is a remarkable work. The Fourth is most characteristically Russian and certainly the most striking in its uncompromising directness of expression. The first movement announces a recurrent, intensely subjective motto typical of that impending Fate which would not allow Tchaikowsky happiness.[308] The slow movement is based upon a Russian folk song of a melancholy beauty, sung by the oboe, and another, already cited (see Chapter II, p. 33), is incorporated in the Finale. The Scherzo is unique as an orchestral _tour de force_; for, with the exception of a short middle portion for wood-wind and brass, it is for the string orchestra playing pizzicato throughout. The effect is extremely fantastic and resembles that of ghosts flitting about in their stocking-feet or of sleep-chasings, to use Whitman's expression.[309] The Finale is a riot of natural, primitive joy, a picture--as the composer says--of a popular festivity. "When you find no joy within you, go among the people, see how fully they give themselves up to joyous feelings." Fate sounds its warning, but in vain; nothing can repress the exultation of the composer. "Enjoy the joy of others and--you still can live." The work is sensational, even trivial in places; but it reveals sincerity and elemental life. The composer lays himself bare and we see a real man--not a masked hypocrite--with all his joys and sorrows, caught, as Henley would say, "in the fell clutch of circumstance," bludgeoned by Fate. [Footnote 308: See the detailed program by the composer himself, cited in Nieck's _Program Music_.] [Footnote 309: For this simile I am indebted to Mr. Philip Hale.] The Sixth Symphony, the Pathetic, is the most popular and, on the whole, Tchaikowsky's most sustained work. It owes its hold upon public esteem to the eloquent way in which it presents that "maladie du siècle" which, in all modern art,[310] is such a prominent note. The mood may be a morbid one but we cannot mistake the conviction with which it is treated. The work is likewise significant because of the novel grouping of movements. The first is in complete sonata form and for finished architecture will stand comparison with any use of that form. The themes are eloquent, well contrasted and organically developed. The orchestration is a masterpiece.[311] The second movement is the one famous for its use of five beats a measure throughout; and its trio, on a persistent pedal note D, is a striking example of the Russian tendency to become fairly obsessed with one rhythm. It is an intentional, artistic use of monotony and may be compared to the limitless Russian Steppes. If it seem strange to Western Europeans, it should be remembered that the music is Russian and portrays a mood perfectly natural to that people. The third movement is a combination of a scherzo and a march--of a most unbridled fury. The Finale is a threnody, one of overpowering grief, the motto of which might be "vanity of vanities, all is vanity." It abounds in soul-stirring orchestral eloquence and invariably makes a deep impression. [Footnote 310: For further comment see the Life of Tchaikowsky by Rosa Newmarch.] [Footnote 311: As may be seen by the number of illustrations from it in text books!] For special comment we have selected Tchaikowsky's[312] Fifth Symphony in E minor since, being a union of Russian and Italian characteristics, it reveals that eclecticism so prominent in his style. It is also an admirable example of organic relationship between the movements. This symphony, like the Fourth, contains a recurrent motto of sombre nature in the minor mode which, appearing in the first three movements with some dramatic implication, is changed in the Finale to the major and used as the basis for a march of rejoicing. The first and last movements are in elaborate sonata-form; the second and third in three-part form. The Finale is one of the most striking examples in modern literature of a _résumé_ of preceding themes and hence a convincing proof of the composer's constructive power. The symphony begins with a long prelude announcing the motto. Scored for clarinets, bassoons and low strings it shows vividly that peculiar impression which Tchaikowsky secured by using the lower ranges of the orchestra. [Footnote 312: The authoritative work on Tchaikowsky is _The Life and Letters_ by his brother Modeste; the abridged biography by Rosa Newmarch should also be read. There are excellent essays in _Mezzotints in Modern Music_ by Huneker; in Streatfield's volume _Modern Composers_ and in Mason's _From Grieg to Brahms_.] [Music] The melody itself seldom moves above middle C, and its effect is enhanced by the quality of the clarinets in their chalumeau register. The first theme of the movement proper (beginning at the Allegro con anima), on the same harmonic basis as the motto and derived from it rhythmically, is given out _pp_ by a solo clarinet and solo bassoon, accompanied by very light detached chords in the strings, _e.g._ [Music] This is elaborately and brilliantly developed until, in measure 79 (counting from the Allegro), we reach a transitional, subsidiary theme in B minor. This is followed by some striking sequences, exquisitely scored, and then (at un pochettino più animato) there is a quickened presentation of the transitional theme, interspersed by syncopated calls--on the horns and wood-wind--a presentation which introduces the second theme in D major, marked molto più tranquillo. This melody, sung by the violins against an obbligato in the wood-wind, is clearly Italian in its grace and suavity and establishes that wonderful contrast so prominent in Tchaikowsky--the warmth and exuberance of the South set against the grim austerity of the North. [Music] This theme, expanded (stringendo and crescendo) into a series of exciting climaxes _fff_ leads, after some modulatory phrases derived from the transitional theme, to the Development which begins in B-flat major. Throughout this is a fine piece of work--with real thematic growth, bold modulations and no "padding." It should refute completely any erroneous opinion that Tchaikowsky was lacking in power of organic treatment. The connection between the Development and the Recapitulation is skilfully managed and the third part does not bore us but is welcomed as something we would gladly hear again. There is a long and stormy Coda--a second development in true Beethoven style--which finally ends _ppp_ in the lowest depths of the orchestra, in the same mood as the opening measures. The second movement, Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza, with its melting theme on the solo horn, _e.g._, [Music] --accompanied later by answering phrases on the clarinet--might seem a bit too "luscious" were it not for the beauty and finish of the orchestration. The movement is in rather loose three-part form--as the title would imply--the joints being somewhat obvious in certain places, _e.g._, measures 39-45. The themes, however, have that intensity peculiar to Tchaikowsky, and the original orchestral treatment, especially in the use of the horns, enhances their effect. The middle contrasting portion, starting in F-sharp minor, shows some very effective polyphonic imitations based on the following theme: [Music] At the climax of its development the motto is proclaimed _fff_ in a most arresting manner--its effect being due to the unusual pedal point which makes a chord of the second with the upper voices, _e.g._, [Music] The third part with slight expansions corresponds to the first. At its close, just before the Coda, we have a second appearance of the motto--this time, on account of the fierce dissonances, with even more sinister effect.[313] The closing measures are of great beauty by reason of the imitations on the strings and the dreamy, reminiscent phrase on the clarinets, _e.g._ [Music] [Footnote 313: The passage has already been cited in Chapter IV as an example of a deceptive cadence.] The third movement, a Waltz, with a graceful theme, in clear-cut three-part form, needs little comment. If any one considers it too light or even trivial for a place in a symphony he might study the individual orchestration and then try to compose one like it! The second and third parts are ingeniously fused together--Tchaikowsky following the practise of Mozart, his favorite master, in the first movement of the G minor Symphony. In the Russian philosophy of life, however, there is no such thing as perpetual joy; so, even amid scenes of festivity, the motto obtrudes itself as if to ask "What right have you to be dancing when life is so stern and grim?" See measures 23-28 from end of movement. [Music] The Finale, in complete sonata-form and laid out on a large scale, for several reasons is of distinct significance. It is a carefully planned _résumé_ of preceding themes; it contains several examples of those periods of depression or exultation (especially on a pedal-point) so characteristic of the Slav, and lastly, there are pages of extreme brilliancy. In fact, the orchestration throughout is of such convincing power that it refutes any charge of sensationalism or mere bombast. If to us the music seem unrestrained, unbridled, we are to remember that the Russian temperament is prone to a reckless display of emotion just as in their churches they like to "lay the colors on thick." The movement begins with an extended prelude in which the original sombre motto is transformed into a stately, march-like theme. This is presented twice with continually richer scoring and more rhythmic animation. The closing measures of the prelude are a specific instance of that protracted mood of depression spoken of above. The movement proper begins at the Allegro vivace with a fierce, impassioned theme, [Music] which leads, in measure 25, to a subsidiary theme treated at first in free double counterpoint[314] and later canonically. [Music] [Footnote 314: By double counterpoint is meant such a grouping of the voices that they may be inverted (the upper voice becoming the lower and vice versa) and sound equally well. For further comments, together with illustrative examples, consult Chapter IX of Spalding's _Tonal Counterpoint_.] [Music] This is developed with more and more animation until the announcement, in measure 71, of the second theme in D major. Here we see the first instance of that organic relationship for which the movement is noted; for this theme [Music] is evidently derived by rhythmic modification from that of the preceding slow movement. It is brilliantly expanded and leads directly--there being no double bar and repeat--to the development in measure 115. This part of the movement evades description; it is throughout most eloquent and exciting. In measures 153-160 all the bells of Russia seem to be pealing! With measure 177 begins (marcato largamente) an impressive treatment in the bass of the second theme, answered shortly after in the upper voice. This is developed to a climax which, in turn, is followed by one of those long periods of "cooling down" which prepare us for the Recapitulation in measure 239. This corresponds exactly with the Exposition, ending with two passages (poco meno mosso and molto vivace),--based upon the rhythm of the motto--which usher in the long, elaborate Coda. This begins, maestoso, with an impressive statement of the march theme, scored in brilliant fashion, with rushing figures in the wood-wind instruments. It seems to portray some ceremonial in a vast cathedral with trumpets blaring and banners flying. A still more gorgeous treatment (marziale, energico, con tutta forza) leads to the Presto based on the subsidiary theme (cited on page 312), which fairly carries us off our feet. The last portion of the Coda (molto meno mosso) is an animated yet dignified proclamation of the main theme of the first movement--the work thus concluding with an unmistakable effect of unity. [Music] The subject of Russian music[315] is too vast for any adequate treatment within the limits of a single book, but there are several other composers in addition to Tchaikowsky of such individuality and remarkable achievement as to warrant some notice. These men, Balakireff, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakoff and Moussorgsky, have done for the free expression of the Russian temperament in music what Pushkin, Gogol and Dostoyevsky represent in literature. "To understand fully the tendencies of Neo-Russian music, and above all to sympathize with the spirit in which this music is written, the incredible history of Holy Russia, the history of its rulers and people--the mad caprices and horrid deeds of the Romanoffs, who, in centuries gone by, surpassed in restless melancholy and atrocity the insane Caesars, and were more to be pitied, as well as detested, than Tiberius or Nero--the nature of the landscape, the waste of steppes, the dreariness of winter, and the loneliness of summer--the barbaric extravagance of aristocratic life--the red tape, extortion, and cruelty of officers--the sublime patience of the common people--the devotion of the enduring, starving multitude to the Tsar--all this should be as familiar as a twice-told tale. There should also be a knowledge of Russian literature, from the passion of Pushkin and the irony of Gogol, to Turgenieff's tales of life among the serfs, and the novels of Tolstoi, in which mysticism and realism are strangely blended. Inasmuch as Neo-Russian music is founded upon the folk-songs of that country, one should know first of all the conditions that made such songs possible, and one should breathe the atmosphere in which musicians who have used such songs have worked."[316] [Footnote 315: The most authoritative work in English is the _History of Russian Music_ by Montagu-Nathan; in French there are the Essays _Musiques de Russie_ by Bruneau.] [Footnote 316: Quoted from the chapter on Russian music in _Famous Composers and Their Works_ (2d series).] The first real leader after the wholesome beginnings made by Glinka (with his operas, _A Life for the Czar_ and _Ludmilla_) was Balakireff (1837-1910) who finding his country almost entirely under the dominion of Italian and German music, proclaimed the doctrine that Russia, with its wealth of folk-songs and its undoubted emotional power should create its own music. Like many of the Russians Balakireff was an amateur, but in the true sense of that term, _i.e._, he loved music for its own sake. He therefore set to work vigorously to combat foreign influences and to manifest in original works a spirit true to his own genius and to the tendencies of his native land. Though educated as a lawyer he had acquired through a study of Mozart, Berlioz and Liszt a thorough technique and so was equipped to put into practise his watchword which was individual liberty. "I believe in the subjective, not in the objective power of music," he said to his pupils. "Objective music may strike us with its brilliancy, but its achievement remains the handiwork of a mediocre talent. Mediocre or merely talented musicians are eager to produce effects, but the ideal of a genius is to reproduce his very self, in unison with the object of his art. There is no doubt that art requires technique, but it must be absolutely unconscious and individual.... Often the greatest pieces of art are rather rude technically, but they grip the soul and command attention for intrinsic values. This is apparent in the works of Michelangelo, of Shakespeare, of Turgenieff, and of Mozart. The beauty that fascinates us most is that which is most individual. I regard technique as a necessary but subservient element. It may, however, become dangerous and kill individuality as it has done with those favorites of our public, whose virtuosity I despise more than mere crudities." Balakireff's actual works are few in number since he spent most of his time in organizing schools of music and in teaching others; but in those works which we have[317] there is a strong note of freedom not to be missed. His Symphonic Poem _Tamara_ and his fantasy for pianoforte _Islamey_ are remarkable for that semi-oriental exotic spirit so prevalent in Russian music. Many of his songs also are of genuine beauty. [Footnote 317: Towards the end of his life he destroyed many of his compositions.] Borodin (1834-1887) is the ne plus ultra example of that versatility in which the modern Russian School is unique. As a surgeon and doctor he enjoyed a high position; as a chemist he made original researches and wrote treatises which were recognized as distinct contributions to science; he was one of the earliest scholars in the world to advocate that women should have the same education as men and was one of the founders (about 1870) of a medical school for women in Petrograd. So tireless was he in these varied activities, it seems a miracle that he could also become one of the best pianists of his time (he played well also the violin and the flute) and according to Liszt,[318] one of the most able orchestral masters of the nineteenth century. But as evidence of this amazing fact are his works, comprising two symphonies (the second in B minor often heard in this country) two string quartets, the first strikingly original, thematically, harmonically and in idiomatic use of the instruments; a small Suite for pianoforte, of which the Serenade is cited in the Supplement; an opera, _Le Prince Igor_--remarkable for its picturesque description and Oriental coloring, of which the composer himself said "Prince Igor is essentially a national opera, which can be of interest only to us Russians who love to refresh our patriotism at the sources of our history and to see the origins of our nationality live again upon the stage;" a symphonic poem _Dans les Steppes de l'Asie centrale_ and--showing some of his most characteristic work--the _Paraphrases_ written in collaboration with Korsakoff, Liadoff and Cui as a kind of musical joke. This composition,[319] a set of twenty-four variations founded on the tune popularly known as "chop-sticks" is dedicated "to little pianists capable of executing the theme with a finger of each hand." For the paraphrases themselves a player of considerable technique is required. In Borodin's style we always find a glowing color-scheme of Slavic and Oriental elements. As a modern Russian composer says, "It is individually descriptive and extremely modern--so modern that the audience of to-day will not be able to grasp all its intrinsic beauties." [Footnote 318: For a delightful account of the friendship of these two composers consult the volume _Borodin and Liszt_ by Alfred Habets (translated by Rosa Newmarch).] [Footnote 319: According to Liszt "a compendium of musical science in the form of a jest."] The most widely known and in many respects the most gifted of the Neo-Russian group is Rimsky-Korsakoff (1844-1908). He has been aptly characterized as the Dégas or Whistler of music, and for his marvellous powers of description, especially of the sea, and for his command of orchestral tone-painting he is considered the storyteller par excellence in modern music. As in the case of Borodin we are filled with amazement at the power of work and the versatility in Korsakoff's nature. For many years he was an officer in the Russian navy and throughout his life was involved with official duties. Yet he found time for a number of compositions of originality and finished workmanship. These comprise the symphonic poems _Antar_, _Sadko_ and _Scheherazade_;[320] a _Spanish Caprice_ for full orchestra; twelve operas of which the best known in this country is the fascinating _Le Coq d'Or_; a concerto for pianoforte and orchestra; a large number of songs and many choruses for men's and women's voices. His treatises on harmony and orchestration are standard works, the latter being the authority in modern treatment of the orchestra. His _Scheherazade_ is undoubtedly the most brilliant descriptive work in modern literature, for an account of which we quote the eloquent words of Philip Hale. [Footnote 320: This work in structure is a Suite, _i.e._, there are four distinct, separated movements.] "_Scheherazade_ (Op. 35) is a suite inspired by the Arabian Nights. The Sultan, persuaded of the falseness and faithlessness of woman, had sworn to put every one of his wives to death in turn after the first night. But Scheherazade saved her life by interesting him in the stories she told him for a thousand and one nights. Many marvels were told by her in Rimsky-Korsakoff's fantastic poem,--marvels and tales of adventure: 'The Sea and Sinbad's Ship'; 'The Story of the Three Kalandars'; 'The Young Prince and the Young Princess'; 'The Festival at Bagdad'; 'The Ship that went to pieces against a rock surmounted by a bronze warrior.' As in Berlioz's _Fantastic Symphony_, so in this suite, there is a theme which keeps appearing in all four movements. For the most part it is given to a solo violin. It is a free melodic phrase in Oriental bravura, gently ending in a free cadenza. There is no development of themes in this strange work. There is constant repetition in different tonalities; there is an exceedingly skillful blending of timbres; there is a keen sense of possible orchestral effects. A glance at the score shows how sadly the pedagogue might go astray in judgment of the work, without a hearing of it, and furthermore, the imagination of the hearer must be in sympathy with the imagination of the composer, if he would know full enjoyment: for this symphonic poem provokes swooning thoughts, such as come to the partakers of leaves and flowers of hemp; there are the stupefying perfumes of charred frankincense and grated sandal-root. The music comes to the listener of western birth and mind, as the Malay who knocked among English mountains at De Quincey's door. You learn of Sinbad, the explorer, who is nearer to us than Nansen; of the Kalandar Prince who spent a mad evening with the porter and the three ladies of Bagdad, and told of his incredible adventures; and Scheherazade, the narrator, she too is merely a shape in a dream; she fades away, and her soul dies on the high note exhaled by the wondering violin. "The melody of this Russian is wild, melancholy, exotic; a droning such as falls from the lips of white-bearded, turbaned, venerable men, garrulous in the sun; and then again, there is the reckless chatter of the babbler in the market-place, heated with unmixed wine." The most boldly individual of all Russian composers is Moussorgsky[321] (1831-1881). Although of intense inspiration and of uncompromising ideals his musical education was so incomplete that his technique was inadequate for the expression of his message. As the French critic, Arthur Pougin well says, "His works bizarre though they be, formless as they often are, have in them a force of expression and a dramatic accent of which no one can deny the intensity. It would be unjust to pretend that he spoke for the purpose of saying nothing; unfortunately he is too often satisfied with merely stammering." As Moussorgsky himself says: "Art is a means of talking with men; it is not an end. Starting with the principle that human speech is subject to musical laws, I see in music, not only the expression of sentiment by means of sound, but especially the notation of a human language." In fact the dominant idea of his music was to bring it into closer relation with actual life. [Footnote 321: For biographical information consult the volume by Montagu-Nathan.] "In order to understand Moussorgsky's work and his attitude towards art, it is necessary to realise the social conditions under which he lived. He was a true child of the sixties, of that period of moral and intellectual ferment which followed the accession of Alexander II and the emancipation of the serfs. Of the little group of composers then striving to give musical expression to their newly awakened nationality, none was so entirely carried away by the literary and political movements of the time as Moussorgsky. Every man was asking himself and his comrades the question posed by the most popular novel of the day: 'What shall we do?' The answer was: 'Throw aside social and artistic conventions. Make art the hand-maiden of humanity. Seek not for beauty but for truth. Go to the people. Hold out the hand of fellowship to the liberated masses and learn from them the true purpose of life.' To this democratic and utilitarian spirit, to this deep compassion for the people, to this contempt for the dandyism and dilettantism of an earlier generation Moussorgsky strove to give expression in his music, as Perov expressed it in painting, as Tchernichevsky, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoi expressed it in fiction. We may disagree with his aesthetic principles, but we must confess that he carried out with logical sequence and conviction a considerable portion of his programme. In his sincere efforts to attain great ends he undoubtedly overlooked the means. He could never submit to the discipline of a thorough musical training as Tchaikowsky and Rimsky-Korsakoff. He preserved his originality intact, but at a heavy cost. The weakness of his technique has been exaggerated by those who put down all his peculiarities to ignorance; but in some respects--particularly as regards orchestration--his craftsmanship was certainly unequal to the demands of his inspiration, for his aims were very lofty. Had this been otherwise, Moussorgsky's name would have been more closely linked with those of Berlioz and Richard Strauss."[322] [Footnote 322: Quoted from the article in Grove's Dictionary.] His acknowledged masterpieces are first, the songs, especially the series the _Nursery_ and the _Songs and Dances of Death_, in which we see mirrored with extraordinary fidelity the complex nature of the Russian people. Rosa Newmarch has called him the Juvenal of musicians. Second, his national music drama, _Boris Godounoff_--dealing with one of the most sensational episodes in Russian history--which, for the gripping vividness of its descriptions, is quite unparalleled. "_Boris Godounoff_, finished in 1870, was performed four years later in the Imperial Opera House. The libretto of this opera he took from the poetic drama of Pushkin, but he changed it, eliminating much and adding new scenes here and there, so that as a whole it is his own creation. In this work Moussorgsky went against the foreign classic opera in conception as well as in construction. It is a typically Russian music-drama, with all the richness of Slavic colors, true Byzantine atmosphere and characters of the medieval ages. Based on Russian history of about the middle of the seventeenth century, when an adventurous regent ascends the throne and when the court is full of intrigues, its theme stands apart from all other operas. The music is more or less, like many of Moussorgsky's songs, written in imitation of the old folk-songs, folk dances, ceremonial chants, and festival tunes. Foreign critics have considered the opera as a piece constructed of folk melodies. But this is not the case. There is not a single folk melody in Boris Godounoff, every phrase is the original creation of Moussorgsky."[323] [Footnote 323: Quoted from the _Art of Music_, Vol. III.] In concluding this account of Russian music let the statement be repeated that only by a thorough knowledge of the life and character of this strange yet gifted people can their music be understood. It is necessary therefore to become acquainted with Russian literature and pictorial art--with the works of Gogol, Tolstoi and Dostoyevsky and the paintings of Perov and Veretschagin. In this way only will be made clear what is otherwise inexplicable--the depth and sincerity of the Russian soul. The other two prominent national schools in modern times are the Bohemian and Scandinavian. Although from neither of these have we products at all comparable in breadth; or depth of meaning with those of the Russian school, yet each has its note of exotic individuality and hence deserves recognition. The Bohemian School centres about the achievements of Fibich, Smetana[324] and Dvo[vr]ák, and its prevalent characteristics are the variety of dance rhythms (Bohemia having no less than forty national dances) together with the peculiarly novel harmonic and modulatory scheme. The dances best known outside of Bohemia are the _Polka_[325] and the _Furiant_; the former being used so frequently by Smetana and Dvo[vr]ák that it has attained an international status. The first of the above group, Fibich (1850-1900), was a composer of marked versatility--there being extant over seven hundred works in every form--and no little originality. Many of his pianoforte pieces have distinct charm and atmosphere and should be better known. Fibich was strongly influenced by Schumann, and there is found in his music the same note of fantastic freedom prominent in the German master. But the first impression of Bohemian music upon the world in general was made by Smetana (1824-1884). An ardent follower of Liszt, he definitely succeeded in the incorporation of Bohemian traits with the current musical idiom just as Liszt had done with Hungarian folk-music. Smetana's style is thoroughly original, his form is free yet coherent and he has a color sense and power of orchestral description peculiar to his race. Bohemia is one of the most picturesque countries in the world and the spirit of its woodlands, streams and mountains is always plainly felt in Bohemian music. The Bohemians are an out-of-door people with an inborn instinct for music (with its basic factors of rhythm and sound) by which they express the vigorous exuberance of their temperament.[326] Smetana's significant work lies in his numerous operas, his symphonic poems and in the remarkable String Quartet in E minor entitled "Aus meinem Leben." The operas deal with subjects so strongly national that they can have but little vogue outside their own country. However, _Prodana Nevesta_--_The Bartered Bride_--has been universally recognized as one of the genuine comic operas in modern times and its spirited Overture (the first theme on a fugal basis) is played the world over. His six Symphonic Poems, comprised under the title _Mein Vaterland_, are works of considerable power and brilliant orchestral treatment. Perhaps the finest sections are _Vltava_ (Moldau), celebrating the beauties of Bohemia's sacred river, and _Vy[vs]ehrad_, a realistic description of the national fortress at Prague.[327] The Quartet in E minor, noted for its freedom and intimacy of style, has become a classic. Whenever it was performed Smetana wished the sub-title "Aus Meinem Leben" to be printed on the program; for, as he says in a letter to a friend, "My quartet is no mere juggling with tones; instead I have wished to present the hearer with pictures of my life. I have studied theory; I know what style means and I am master of it. But I prefer to have circumstances determine form and so have written this quartet in the form which it itself demanded." In the first and last of the four movements there is a long sustained high E, symbolic of the buzzing sound which the composer constantly heard as his congenital deafness increased. This malady finally affected his mind and was the cause of his tragic death in an asylum at Prague. [Footnote 324: His surname is to be accented on the first syllable--a fact which may be remembered from the story attributed to Liszt who, once asking Smetana how his name was to be pronounced received this reply: My name is always [Music: _Overture to Fidelio_ Smétana, Smétana, Smétana] but never [Music: _Overture to Leonora, No. 3_ Friedrich Smetána Friedrich Smetána.]] [Footnote 325: For example in the second movement of Smetana's Quartet and in Dvo[vr]ák's Suite for small orchestra, op. 39.] [Footnote 326: For a graphic description of the country and the customs of its people consult the essay on Dvo[vr]ák in Hadow's _Studies in Modern Music_.] [Footnote 327: A detailed account of these works may be found in the article on Smetana in _Famous Composers and their Works_ (2d series).] Although in some respects not so characteristic as Smetana, Dvo[vr]ák[328] (1841-1904), by reason of his greater breadth and more cosmopolitan style, is considered the representative Bohemian composer. Dvo[vr]ák's music in its simplicity and in its spontaneity of treatment is a reincarnation of Schubert's spirit; we feel the same overflowing musical life and we must make the same allowances for looseness of structure. Dvo[vr]ák, however, has made one contribution thoroughly his own--his skill in handling the orchestra. He was a born colorist and his scores in their clarity, in the subtle distinctions between richness and delicacy, are recognized masterpieces. As a sensuous delight to the ear they may be compared to the fine glow of certain Dutch canvases--those for example of Vermeer. Dvo[vr]ák's compositions are varied and fairly numerous (some 111 opus numbers) comprising operas, cantatas, chamber music, symphonies, overtures, pianoforte pieces and songs. From 1892 to 1895 he was in this country as director of the National Conservatory in New York. Three works composed during this period, a _Quartet_, a _Quintet_ and _The New World Symphony_, are of special interest to us since they were meant as a compliment to the possibilities of American music and also reflect Dvo[vr]ák's attitude toward the sources of musical inspiration. A true child of the people, and the embodiment of folk-music, he naturally searched for native material when he wished to compose something characteristically American. But folk-music in our country, as has been stated in Chapter II, is (or was at Dvo[vr]ák's time) practically limited to that of the Indians and the Negroes. It is often stated, in fact, that the New World Symphony is founded upon Negro tunes. This, however, is a sweeping assertion. There is no doubt that Dvo[vr]ák found a strong affinity between certain of the Southern plantation melodies and the songs of his native land, _e.g._, the following melody (the second theme of the first movement) which is similar to "Swing low, sweet chariot." [Music] [Footnote 328: For his biography, consult the Hadow essay (referred to above) and the chapter on Dvo[vr]ák in Mason's _From Grieg to Brahms_.] But the individual tone of the melodies could come only from a Bohemian and if they seem both Negro and Bohemian it simply proves the common bond existing in all folk-music.[329] This _New World Symphony_ has had a great vogue and by reason of the warmth of its melodies and the rich, colorful scoring is indisputably a work full of charm.[330] Two prevalent traits of Dvo[vr]ák's music are noticeable in this symphony--the unexpectedness of the modulations and the unusual harmonic scheme.[331] The structure is at times rather loose, particularly in the Finale where the joints often crack wide open. But, as an offset, there is great rhythmic vitality--observe in particular the swing of the Trio from the Scherzo--and that sensuous tone-color peculiar to the composer. In fact, the scoring of the slow movement with its magical theme for English horn would alone compensate for many structural blemishes. This movement closes with a mysterious chord for divided double basses (four solo instruments) which is one of many touches in individual treatment. The Finale, in accordance with modern practise, although containing themes of its own, finally becomes a _résumé_ of preceding material. The two main themes are striking and well contrasted; but Dvo[vr]ák was a mediocre architect and the movement, in comparison with the Finales of Franck and Tchaikowsky, is more of a potpourri than a firmly knit organic whole. The final page is stimulating in its bold use of dissonances. But we must take Dvo[vr]ák as he is. There is no question of his genius, for his music is spontaneous, never labored, and he has expressed with convincing artistic skill the emotions and ideals of his gifted race. [Footnote 329: The author has heard this symphony played in Prague and other continental cities under Bohemian conductors. It is always welcomed as being thoroughly characteristic of Bohemia.] [Footnote 330: For detailed analytical comment consult Vol. III of _Short Studies in Great Masterpieces_ by D.G. Mason.] [Footnote 331: Note for example the chords at the opening of the slow movement.] Scandinavian music, ethnologically considered, would comprise that of the three related nations, the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians; some would include even the Finns, with their eloquent spokesman Sibelius. Although the Danes have considerable folk-music, and as a people love music, they have produced no composer of distinction save Niels Gade (1817-1890), who was so encrusted with German habits of thought that his music is neither one thing or the other--certainly it is not characteristically Danish. The best known of the Swedish composers is Sjögren from whom we have some poetic songs. He also attempted the larger instrumental forms but without notable success. Scandinavian music, as far as the outside world is concerned, practically centres about the Norwegian composer Grieg[332] (1843-1907) just as its dramatic art centres about Ibsen. The names, however, of four other Norwegian composers deserve mention: the pioneers Kjerulf (1815-1868) noted for his melodious songs; Svendsen (1840-1911) endowed with a fine sense for orchestral color; and Nordraak (1842-1866) the first self-conscious representative of the Norwegian spirit: a talented musician who exerted a marked influence upon Grieg--his promise cut short by an early death. In modern times the mantle of Grieg has fallen upon Sinding (1856-still living) whose songs and poetic pieces for the pianoforte have become household favorites. In Norwegian music we find the exuberant rhythmic vitality typical of a people living in the bold and highly colored scenery of that sun-lit land.[333] Grieg, a born lyric poet saturated with folk-music, has embodied this spirit in his works. His fame rests upon his songs and descriptive pianoforte pieces; though in his Pianoforte Concerto, in his Peer Gynt Suite, in the Violin Sonatas and String Quartet he proved that he was not lacking in power to handle larger forms. But most of his work is in miniature--the expression, like the music of Schubert and Chopin,[334] of moods short and intense. While Grieg's music is patterned upon Norwegian folk-dances and folk-melodies it is something far more. He has evoked from the characteristics of his native land a bold, original harmony and a power of color and description thoroughly his own. He might say with de Musset "Mon verre n'est pas grand, mais je bois dans mon verre." In his music we feel the sparkling sunshine and the breezes of the North. In fact, Grieg was the first popular impressionist and for his influence in humanizing music and freeing it from academic routine his fame will endure. We have cited in the Supplement (Nos. 68, 69) one of his most original songs--the melody of which was used also for the work _Im Frühling_ for string orchestra--and a pianoforte piece which illustrates his rhythmic life and also in certain measures that melodic line typical of all Norwegian music: the descent from the leading tone, _i.e._, G, F-sharp, D. [Footnote 332: The best biography in English is that by H.T. Finck; the work, however, is somewhat marred by fulsome praise.] [Footnote 333: During the summer solstice it is dark for only a few hours; and further north, in the land, so-called, of the Midnight Sun, for a few weeks there is perpetual daylight.] [Footnote 334: He was called by Bülow the Chopin of the North.] For a complete appreciation therefore of national music, we must always take into consideration the traits and environment of the people from which it sprung. Music, to be sure, is a universal language, but each nation has used this language in its own way. The most striking fact in present-day music is the variety gained from a free expression of nationalism[335] without infringing upon universality of appeal. [Footnote 335: An admirable treatment of the whole subject may be found in Vol. III of _The Art of Music_.] CHAPTER XX THE VARIED TENDENCIES OF MODERN MUSIC Modern music--broadly speaking, music since the beginning of the twentieth century--is certainly manifesting the characteristics which the preceding survey has shown to be inherent in its nature: that is, it has grown by a course of free experimentation, it is the youngest of the arts, and it is a human language as well as a fine art. Hence we find that modern composers are making daring experiments in dissonance, in rhythmic variety, in subtle blends of color and, above all, in the treatment of the orchestra. In comparison with achievements in the other arts music often seems in its infancy; being limited by no practical or utilitarian considerations, and employing the boundless possibilities of sound and rhythm, there is so much still before it. The truth contained in the saying, that music is the youngest as well as the oldest of the arts, becomes more apparent year by year; for although a work which originally had imaginative life can never die, yet many former works have passed out of recognition simply because they have been superseded by more inspired ones, composed since their day. We can no longer listen with whole-hearted enthusiasm to many of the older symphonies, songs and pianoforte pieces, because Brahms, Franck, Debussy and d'Indy have given us better ones. These experiments, just referred to, have been particularly notable on the part of two composers of the neo-Russian group, Stravinsky and Scryabin. Stravinsky,[336] in his brilliant pantomime ballets, _L'Oiseau du Feu_, _Petroushka_, and _Le Sacre du Printemps_, has proved incontestably that he is a genius--it being of the essence of genius to create something absolutely new. These works, in their expressive melody, harmonic originality and picturesque orchestration, have widened the bounds of musical characterization. Scryabin[337] (1871-1915) is noted for his esoteric harmonic scheme, shown in a series of pianoforte preludes, sonatas and, above all, in his orchestral works, the _Divine Poem_, the _Poem of Ecstacy_ and _Prometheus_ or _Poem of Fire_. The effect of Scryabin's harmonies is one of great power, and, as previously said of Debussy in his earlier days, his imagination has undoubtedly heard sounds hitherto unrealized. The sensational style of _Prometheus_ is augmented by the use of a color machine which flashes upon a screen hues supposed to supplement the various moods of the music. How many of these experiments will be incorporated into the accepted idiom of music, time alone will tell; but they prove conclusively that modern music is thoroughly awake and is proving true to that spirit of freedom which is the breath of its being. [Footnote 336: For a detailed account of his life and works consult the essay in _Contemporary Russian Composers_ by Montagu-Nathan and Vol. III of _The Art of Music_.] [Footnote 337: For a comprehensive estimate of his style and achievements the following works will prove useful: the _Biography_, by Eaglefield Hull; the Essay, by Montagu-Nathan in the volume referred to, and an article by W.H. Hadow in the Musical Quarterly for Jan. 1915.] Music is, furthermore, not only a fine art in which have worked and are working some of the best intellects of our race, but is inevitably becoming a universal language. We see this clearly in the rapid growth of music among peoples and nations which, comparatively a short time ago, were thought to be quite outside the pale of modern artistic development. No longer is music confined exclusively to the Italians, French and Germans. A national spokesman for the Finns is the gifted Sibelius, the composer of five symphonies, several Symphonic poems, numerous songs and pianoforte pieces; his second Symphony in E minor being a work of haunting beauty, and the Fourth noted for its bold use of the dissonant element. The Roumanians have come to the fore in Enesco, who has written several characteristic works for orchestra. The Spaniards are endeavoring to restore their former glories--for we must not forget that, in past centuries, the Spanish composers Morales and Vittoria ranked with the great painters which that nation has produced. Three Spanish composers, indeed, are worthy of distinct recognition: Albeniz for his pianoforte pieces, _tangos_, _malagueñas_, etc., in which there is such a fascinating treatment of national dance rhythms; Granados,[338] with several operas to his credit, and Laparra, the composer of a fantastic suite recently played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Spanish rhythms, melodies and local color have been frequently incorporated in the works of other composers, _e.g._, by Bizet in _Carmen_, by Debussy in _Ibéria_, and in the pianoforte piece _Soirée dans Granade_, by Chabrier in _España_, by Lalo in several works, and by the Russians, Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakoff, in brilliant orchestral works. The Spanish influence,[339] in fact, may be called one of the most potent in modern music. [Footnote 338: Who lost his life on the Sussex when it was torpedoed by the Germans.] [Footnote 339: For a comprehensive account, historical and critical, of this influence consult the volume by Carl Van Vechten _The Music of Spain_.] Although there is no doubt of the strong musical instinct inherent in the Hungarians--witness the prevalence of Hungarian rhythms in Schubert, Liszt, Brahms and others--their country has always been so torn with political dissensions that the lack of a national artistic culture is not to be wondered at. Recently however three Hungarian composers, Dohnányi, Moor and Béla Bartok, have produced works embodying racial tendencies and yet of such significant content and sound workmanship as to attract the attention of the world outside. Italy, also, is awakening from a long sleep, and there is now a group of young men representing New Italy (of whom Malipiero and Casella are the best known) which should accomplish results worthy of the glorious musical traditions of that country. England is shaking off her subserviency[340] to the influence of Handel and Mendelssohn, and at last has made a promising start toward the achievement of works which shall rank with her glories in poetry, in fiction and in painting. Among the older group we have such names as Sullivan, with his inimitable series of operas, the _Mikado_, _Gondoliers_, _Iolanthe_, etc.; Parry, with some notable choral works, and Stanford--a most versatile man--Irish by birth, and with the humor and spontaneity natural to his race; his _Irish Symphony_ and his opera _Shamus O'Brien_ would give lustre to any period. The only genius of the first rank however which England has produced since the days of Purcell is Edward Elgar (1857-still living). Practically self-educated and spending his early life in his native country he escaped the influences of German training which so deadened the efforts of former composers, such as Pierson and Bennett. Elgar's music is thoroughly English in its sturdy vigor[341] and wholesome emotion. With something first-hand to say he has acquired such a technique in musical expression that his compositions rank in workmanship with those of the great continental masters. In his use of the modern orchestra Elgar need be considered second to none. His overtures _In the South_ and _Cockaigne_, his two Symphonies and his _Enigma Variations_ are universally acknowledged to be models of richly-colored and varied scoring. Although his music is English it is never parochial but has that note of universal import always found in the work of a real genius. Among the younger men there are Wallace, both composer and writer on musical subjects (his Threshold of music being particularly stimulating), Holbrook, Vaughan Williams, Roger Quilter, Arthur Hinton, Balfour Gardiner and John Ireland, a composer of genuine individuality, as is evident from his Violin Sonata in D Minor. [Footnote 340: Some pithy remarks on the habitual English attitude toward music may be found in the history of Stanford and Forsyth, page 313, _seq._] [Footnote 341: See for example the broad theme in the middle portion of the March, _Pomp and Circumstance_.] Even such outlying parts of the world as Australia and South America have contributed executive artists of great ability though, to our knowledge, as yet no composer. What, now, in this connection can be said of America? This much at least: when we consider that, beyond the most rudimentary attempts, music in our land is not yet a century old, a start has been made which promises great things. Such pioneers as Paine, Chadwick, MacDowell, Foote, Parker, Osgood, Whiting and Mrs. H.H.A. Beach have written works, often in the larger forms, showing genuine inspiration and fine workmanship, many of which have won permanent recognition outside of their own country. Of late years a younger group has arisen, the chief members[342] of which are Converse, Carpenter, Gilbert, Hadley, Hill, Mason, Atherton, Stanley Smith, Brockway, Blair Fairchild, Heilman, Shepherd, Clapp, John Powell, Margaret Ruthven Lang, Gena Branscombe and Mabel Daniels. These composers all have strong natural gifts, have been broadly educated, and, above all, in their music is reflected a freedom, a humor and an individuality which may fairly be called American; that is, it is not music which slavishly follows the "made-in-Germany" model.[343] The composer of greatest genius and scope in America is undoubtedly Charles Martin Loeffler; but, although he has become a loyal American, and although his best works have been composed in this country, we can hardly claim him as an American composer, for his music vividly reflects French taste and ideals. His inspired works--in particular _La Mort de Tintagiles_, _The Pagan Poem_ and a Symphony (in one movement)--are of peculiar importance for their connection with works of literature and for consummate power in orchestration. Not even Debussy has expressed more subtly the tragic spirit of Maeterlinck than has Loeffler in _La Mort de Tintagiles_; and _The Pagan Poem_, founded on an Eclogue of Virgil portrays most eloquently the romance of those pastoral days. Loeffler's latest work, a String Quartet[344] dedicated to the memory of Victor Chapman, the Harvard aviator, is remarkable for the heart-felt beauty of its themes and for advanced technique in treating the four solo instruments. [Footnote 342: This valuation of American composers is made solely on the basis of published compositions.] [Footnote 343: For additional comments on this point see an article by the author in the Musical Quarterly for January, 1918.] [Footnote 344: Performed recently several times by the Flonzaley Quartet.] Let us now indulge in a few closing remarks of advice to the young student faced with all this perplexing novelty. Our studies should have made plain two definite facts: first, that the real message of music is contained in its melody--that part of the fabric which we can carry with us and sing to ourselves. Harmony and color are factors closely involved with melodic inspiration, but their impression is more fleeting; and in general, no work lacking in melody, however colorful or filled with daring harmonic effects, can long endure. But we must be judicious and fair in estimating exactly what constitutes a real melody. The genius is always ahead of his time; if he thought just as other men, he would be no genius. New types of melody are continually being worked out; all we can say is that the creative composer hears sounds in his imagination, the result of his emotional and spiritual experiences and of his sympathy with the world. He recreates these sounds in terms of notation, hoping that, as they mean so much to him, they may be a delight and inspiration to his fellowmen. If enough people like these works for a long enough time, they _are_; that is, they live--no matter how much they differ from _a priori_ standards as to what music should be. The second fact concerns the structure of music; that is, the way in which the thought is presented. We have seen that music always has a carefully planned architecture--that being necessary by reason of the indefiniteness of the material. But let us always remember that without abandoning the fundamental principles of all organic life, form may be--and should be--free and elastic. Every work which lives reveals a perfect balance between the emotional and imaginative factors and their logical presentation. If we are puzzled by the structure of a new work the assumption should be, not that it is formless but that, when we know the work, it will be seen to employ simply a new use of old and accepted principles; for the works analyzed must have convinced us that the principles of unity, contrast, balance and symmetry are eternal; and, however modified, can never be abandoned. The normal imagination must express itself logically, and can no more put forth incoherent works than the human body would give birth to misshapen offspring. Musical compositions, which after study prove to be incoherent, diffuse and flabby, are to be considered exceptional and not worth condemning; they are only to be pitied. The chief aim of the music-lover should be to become an intelligent and enthusiastic appreciator of the great works already composed, and to train himself liberally for the welcome of new works. Towards such an end we hope that this book may offer a helpful contribution. Index A _Academic Overture_ of Brahms, 233. Aeolian mode, 24. Aeschylus, compared with Brahms, 239. Albeniz, pianoforte pieces, 327. answer (to a fugue), 42. Apthorp, W.F., comments on Brahms, 238; eulogy on Brahms's _First Symphony_, 246; comments on _Istar_, 283. arabesque, 83. Aristophanes, his humor compared with Beethoven's, 150. Arnold, Matthew, lines on Byron apropos of Berlioz, 203; stanza applicable to Brahms, 233; definition of style, 234. Atherton, Percy Lee, 329. Auber, 255. augmentation, definition of, 44. B Babbitt, Irving, book on Romanticism, 161; _The New Laocoön_, 207. Bach, Emmanuel, use of two themes, 93; contributions to the Sonata-form, 100. Bach, J.S., _Well-tempered Clavichord_, 23; choral (Phrygian mode), 25; polyphonic style, 34; _Goldberg Variations_, 37; celebrated organ fugues, 41; analysis of _Fugue in E-flat major_, 42-43. _Bagatelles_, of Beethoven, 166. Balakireff, works and features of style, 315-316. Baldensperger, F., eulogy of Franck, 258. Ballet music to _Prometheus_, 140. Balzac, comment on Chopin, 189. _Barcarolle_, of Chopin, color effect therein, 193; analysis of, 200-201. _Bartered Bride Overture_, 121, 322. basso ostinato, 86. Baudelaire, 293. Beach, Mrs., _Menuet Italien_, 78, 329. Beethoven, 2, 5, 8: motive of _Fifth Symphony_, 12; _Waldstein Sonata_, 15; String Quartet (Lydian mode), 26; fugal passages in symphonies, 41; sentences from sonatas, 58-61; _Egmont Overture_, 77; _Rondo Capriccio_, 82; sets of Variations, 88; biography, 122-126; love of Nature, 125; features of style, 126-129; development of the Sonata-form, 126-127; treatment of the Coda, 127; variety of rhythm, 127-128; use of dissonances, 128; humor, 128-129; development of Program music, 129; development of varied air, 129; characterization of the Symphonies, 130-132; estimate of the Pianoforte Sonatas, 140; pianistic effect in Sonatas, 145; as a programmistic composer, 153-154; quality of themes, 156; dramatic use of single notes, 156-157; theme of _Ninth Symphony_ compared with theme from Brahms's _First Symphony_, 247. Béla Bartok, 328. Berlioz, quotation from _Grotesques de la Musique_, 21; canon in _Carnaval Romain_ Overture, 37; comment on Trio of _Fifth Symphony_, 150; biography, 202-205; names of his Parisian friends, 204; features of style, 205-206; _Fantastic Symphony_, analysis of, 207-211; _Carnaval Romain_ Overture, analysis of, 211-212; _Damnation of Faust_, instrumental numbers from, 213-214; _Harold in Italy_ Symphony, analysis of, 214-215; _Romeo and Juliet_ Symphony, comments on, 215-216. Bie, Oscar, 74; on the style of Couperin and Rameau, 152. Bizet, _L'Arlésienne Suites_, 80. Bohemian School, 320-321. Boieldieu, comment on Beethoven, 134, 255. _bolero_, 75. Boris Godounoff, description of, 320. Borodin, works and features of style, 316-317. Boschot, work, in three parts, on Berlioz, 207. _bourrée_, 75. Brahms, _First Symphony_, 8, 14, 21, 44; modal expression in works, 23; _Fourth Symphony_ (Phrygian mode), 25; canonic style, 36; _C minor Trio_, 67; sets of variations, 88; biography, 231-233; features of style, 233-238; analysis of _First Symphony_, 239-249; of _Violin Sonata_, 250-252; of _G minor Ballade for Pianoforte_, 252-253; attitude toward program music, 253; the nature of his _Intermezzi_, 253; of the _Capriccios_, 253; his _Rhapsodies_, 254; analysis of song _Meine Liebe ist grün_, 254; other songs, 255. branle (brawl), 75. Branscombe, Gena, 329. Brenet, M., _Life of Haydn_, 104. Brockway, H., on American folk-songs, 33, 329. Browning, 1; quotation apropos of the fugue, 49; quotations apropos of the _Fifth Symphony_, 146, 150. Bruckner, movement from _Seventh Symphony_, 231. Bruneau, _History of Russian Music_, 314. Bull, John, 79, 85. Bülow, _Sonatas_ of E. Bach, 100; comment on Grieg, 325. Burney, on the 18th Century, 103. Buxtehude, 34. Byrd, William, 12, 79, 85. Byron, influence on Schumann's style, 177. C _C minor Symphony_ (Beethoven), analysis of, 145-151. _C minor Symphony_ (Brahms), analysis of, 239-249. cadences, 55-57. Calvacoressi, on dominant relationship, 52. canon, 11; account of, 36-37. canzona, 69. _Carnaval Romain_ Overture, analysis of, 211-212. Carpenter, John Alden, _Adventures in a Perambulator_, 80, 329. Casella, 328. _Casse-Noisette Suite_, 80. Cellini, Benvenuto, compared with Berlioz, 202; opera by Berlioz, 211. Chabrier, _Bourrée Fantasque_, 80, 297; _España_, 80, 297; Overture to _Gwendoline_, 99, 297; account of style, 297. _chaconne_, 86; Bach's for violin solo, 87. Chadwick, _Canonic Studies_, 36; fugal passage in _Vagrom Ballad_, 41, 329. Chamisso, texts for Schumann's songs, 170. Chantavoine, Life of Beethoven, 159. Charpentier, _Impressions of Italy_, 80. Chausson, Ernest, account of style, 298. Chavannes, Puvis de, compared with Franck, 258. Chopin, type of melody, 10, 21; _Sonata in C minor_, 67; biography and features of style, 188-189; analysis of _Prelude in C major_, 198; _Étude in A-flat major_, 199; _Mazurka in F-sharp minor_, 199; analysis of _Polonaise in E-flat minor_, 200; of _Barcarolle_, 200-201; of _Scherzo in C-sharp minor_, 201. chromatic changes, 51. Clapp, P.G., 48, 329. coda, definition and examples of, 99. color, in different keys, 51. Combarieu, Jules, 2. Converse, F.S., Dramatic Poem, _Job_ (Phrygian mode), 26; _String Quartet_, 99, 329. Corelli, 70, 74. _Coriolanus_ Overture, analysis of, 152-156. counterpoint, definition of, 11. counter-subject (of a fugue), 42. Couperin, 70, 74, 81, 85; descriptive pieces, 152, 255. _courante_ (_corrente_), 75. Croatian Folk-songs (in Haydn), 101-102. _csárdás_, 76. D _D major Sonata_ of Beethoven, analysis of, 140-145. _D Minor Symphony_ of Schumann, 179-184. d'Albert, _Suite for Pianoforte_, 78. _Damnation of Faust_, instrumental numbers from, 213-214. Daniels, Mabel, 329. Dannreuther, eulogy on Beethoven, 159; comment on Berlioz's counterpoint, 209. Dargomijsky, use of whole-tone scale, 289. Debussy, modal expression in works, 23, 288-289; _Pelléas et Mélisande_ (Dorian mode), 24; comments upon, 294; _Minstrels_ (cadence in), 55-56; _Sarabande_ for pianoforte, 77; comment on development, 97; compared with Mendelssohn, 185; apropos of new music, 204; features of style, 287-297; whole-tone scale, 289-290; titles of pianoforte pieces, 292-293; on his pianoforte style, 295-296. de Musset, quotation apropos of Grieg, 325. deceptive cadence, 56. Dent, E.J., _Mozart's Operas_, 112. De Pachman, playing of Mendelssohn's pieces, 185. De Quincey, quotation from the _Dream Fugue_, 49. _Deutsches Requiem_, 233. development section of Sonata-form, 93-94, 97-98. Dickinson, Edward, estimate of Haydn, 101. diminution, definition of, 44. d'Indy, modal expression in works, 23; canonic style, 36; Symphonic Variations, _Istar_, 67; comments on the Sonata-form, 95, 100; comment on Beethoven's _Seventh Symphony_, 131; comment on _Sonata Pathétique_, 142; comments on D major Sonata, 145; comments on _Fifth Symphony_, 145; Life of Beethoven, 159; comments on Franck's themes, 268; biography and features of style, 280-282; _Istar_, analysis of, 283-287. dissonance, discord, distinction between terms, 143. Dohnányi, 328. Dominant, acoustical and harmonic importance of, 22-23, 52. _Don Giovanni_, 111, 119. _Don Juan_, 85. _Don Quixote_, 89. Dorian mode, 24. Dostoyevsky, 314, 319, 320. Doumic, René, essay on George Sand, 189. Dowland, John, his _Pavans_, 80. Duparc, Henri, account of his style, 298. Dvo[vr]ák, _New World Symphony_, 9, 21; modal expression in works, 23; _New World Symphony_ (Aeolian mode), 26; _Suite for Orchestra_, 79; works and features of style, 322-324. E Eichendorff, texts for Schumann's songs, 176. _Eighth Symphony_ of Beethoven, Finale, 157. Elgar, Edward, works and features of style, 328-329. Ellis, W.A., translation of Wagner's Essays, 154. Enesco, 327. enharmonic, modulation, 52-53. episode, definition of, 39-40. exposition of Sonata-form, 96. extended cadences, 62-63. F _F major Sonata_ of Mozart, analysis of, 113-115. Fairchild, Blair, 329. _Fantastic Symphony_, analysis of, 207-211; quotation from, 207-209. Farwell, Arthur, on folk-music, 33. Fauré, Gabriel, account of style, 297-298. _Faust_ Symphony, analysis of, 223-226. Fay, Amy, account of Liszt, 217. feminine ending, 57. Fibich, 321. Finck, H.T., _Songs and Song Writers_, 265; _Chopin and Other Essays_, 198; comments on Program Music, 226; biography of Grieg, 324. Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, 79, 152. five-bar rhythm, 63-64. Flonzaley Quartet, 105. folk-songs, principle of restatement in, 16; origin and importance of, 19-33. Foote, Arthur, fugal Finale to _Suite_, 41, 329. Forsyth, Cecil, eulogy of Mendelssohn, 185. _Francesca da Rimini_, 154. Franck, _Symphony_, 8, 15; polyphonic structure, 13; canonic style, 36; canon in _Symphony_, 37; in _Violin Sonata_, 37; _Fugue in B minor for Pianoforte_, 41; comparison of his scoring with that of Schumann, 181; limitations of his pianoforte style, 190; his fusion of movements compared with that of Brahms, 251; biography, 256-257; features of style, 257-258; analysis of _D minor Symphony_, 259-268; of _Sonata for Violin_, 268-274; use of generative themes, 268; _Symphonic Variations_, 274-280; comparison of his style with that of Bach and Beethoven, 274; his group of pupils, 280. French folk-song, 29. French Overture, 119. Frescobaldi, 34. Friedländer, Max, apropos of Chabrier, 281. fugue, 11; definition of, 39. Fuller-Maitland, life of Brahms, 238. _furiant_, 75, 321. G _G major Pianoforte Concerto_ of Beethoven, 152-158. _G minor Symphony_, analysis of, 115-119. Gade, Neils, 324. _galliard_, 75, 80. Galuppi, as a pioneer in Sonata-form, 93. Gardiner, Balfour, 329. Gautier, Théophile, eulogy of Berlioz, 207. _gavotte_, 75; account of, and examples, 78-79. Gilbert, H.F., on folk-songs, 20, 33, 329. Gilman, Lawrence, essay on Berlioz, 214; comments on _Istar_, 283; essay on Debussy, 293; comments on _Pelléas el Mélisande_, 297. Glinka, 301, 315. Gluck, Ballet music, 87; Operatic Overtures, 119. Goethe, eulogy on Mozart, 112. Gogol, 314, 320. Gosse, Edmund, comment on Mallarmé's eclogue, 293. Gossec, as a pioneer in Sonata-form, 93. Granados, Spanish folk-dance, 167; works, 327. Gregorian Chant, 10. Gregorian modes in folk-songs, 20. Grétry, comments on Sonata-form, 98, 255. Grieg, 21; Canon for Pianoforte, 37; _Peer Gynt Suite_, 80; _Holberg Suite_, 80; works and features of style, 324-325. ground bass, 86; from Bach's Mass, 86. Grove, _Beethoven and his Nine Symphonies_, 130. Grove's _Dictionary_, 70, 73, 79, 81, 86, 104, 119, 154, 161, 172, 200, 217, 238. Guilmant, March in Dorian Mode, 24; Canon for Organ, 36. Gurney, _The Power of Sound_, 2. H _habañera_, 76. Habets, Alfred, account of Borodin and Liszt, 316. Hadley, Henry, 329. Hadow, W.H., 72, 81, 92, 96; _Studies in Modern Music_, 184, 198, 207, 238; essay on Dvo[vr]ák, 321; article on Scryabin, 326. Hale, Philip, comments on Saint-Saëns, 256; comments on Lalo, 256; essay on Mozart, 112; comments on _Scheherazade_, 317-318. _halling_, 76. Handel, fugue from the Messiah, 41; _Harpsichord Lessons_, 74; Air in Sarabande rhythm, 77; _Harmonious Blacksmith_, 86; Overture to _Messiah_, 119. Harmonic Series, 51. _Harold in Italy_ Symphony, analysis of, 214-215. Haydn, 21, 81, 87; ancestry, 101; features of style, 101-105; his freedom of rhythm, 102; development of the String-Quartet and the Orchestra, 102-103; _Sonata in E-Flat major_, 105-106; _Surprise Symphony_, 106-108; comment on Minuet, 144; Prelude to the _Creation_, 152. Hazlitt, comment on Mozart, 111. _Hebrides_ Overture of Mendelssohn, 185. Heilman, William C., 329. Heine, texts for songs of Schubert and Schumann, 176; comment on Berlioz's music, 205. Helmholtz, 193, 291. Henderson, W.J., _Preludes and Studies_, 184. Henschel, vocal canon, 37; conversation with Brahms, 233. _Heroic Symphony_, analysis of, 132-140. Hérold, 255. Hill, Edward Burlingame, _Stevensoniana_, 80; comments on Saint-Saëns, 256; essay on d'Indy, 281, 329. Hinton, Arthur, 329. Hoffman, E.T.A., Essay on _Fifth Symphony_, 151. _Holberg Suite_, 80. Holbrook, 329. Holmès, Augusta, 280. homophonic, 10. hornpipe, 75. Hull, Eaglefield, Biography of Scryabin, 326. Huneker, Life of Chopin, 198; on the playing of Chopin, 199; comment on Chopin's Scherzo, 201; Life of Liszt, 217; comment on Liszt's Songs, 220; essay on Brahms, 238; essay on Tchaikowsky, 306. Hungarian folk-song, 30, 328. _Hungarian Rhapsodies_, 227. Hungarian rhythms in Schubert, Liszt and Brahms, 30; in Schubert's Symphonies, 166; in Brahms's First Symphony, 244. I _Impromptus_ of Schubert, 165-166. _Indian Suite_, 80. invention, 11. _Invention in C major_, analysis of, 38-89. inversion, definition of, 43-44. Ionian mode, 24. Ireland, John, 329. Irish Folk-song, 29, 35. _Istar_, Symphonic Poem of d'Indy, as example of a varied air, 89; analysis of, 283-287. Italian Overture, 119. J Jadassohn, Canonic Pieces, 37. James, Henry, essay on George Sand, 189. Jannequin, descriptive pieces for voices, 152. _jota_ (_aragonesa_), 76. K _Kaiser Quartet_, 87. Keats, quotation apropos of _Fifth Symphony_, 148; quotation from, 163. Kelly, E.S., _Chopin the Composer_, 198. Kelly, Michael, _Reminiscences of Mozart_, 112. _King Lear_, quotation from by Berlioz, 207. Kjerulf, 324. Korbay, F., _Hungarian Melodies_, 30. Krehbiel, essay on Haydn, 103; _The Pianoforte and its Music_, 152. _Kreisleriana_, 83. Kuhnau, _Bible Sonatas_, 152. L Lalo, Eduard, works and features of style, 256. Laloy, Louis, Life of Chopin, 198; essay on Debussy, 294. Laparra, 327. _L'apprenti Sorcier_, 154. _L'après-midi d'un Faune_, 154, 293-294. Lavoix, estimate of the _Fifth Symphony_, 127. Legouvé, _Recollections_ of Berlioz, 205. Lekeu, 257. _L'idée fixe_, 207-210. Liebich, Mrs., essay on Debussy, 294. Liszt, 4, 21; characterization of Schubert, 164; _Faust_ Symphony (theme in augmentation), 45; Life of Chopin, 198; biography, 217-218; features of style, 218-219; analysis of Symphonic Poem, _Orpheus_, 221-222; of _Faust_ Symphony, 223-226; pianoforte compositions, 226-227; alleged influence on Brahms, 232; use of whole-tone scale, 289. Locke, A.W., article in _Musical Quarterly_, 151. Loeffler, Charles Martin, works and features of style, 329-330. _Lonesome Tunes_, 33. _loure_, 75; example of, from Bach, 79. Lowell, J.R., definition of a classic, 161. Lully, 70, 119. Lydian mode, 24. M MacCunn, Hamish, _Scottish Melodies_, 28. MacDowell, _Rigaudon_, 79; _Indian Suite_, 80, 329. madrigal, 69. Maeterlinck, compared with Franck, 257; comment on the theatre, 294; influence on Loeffler, 330. _Magic Flute_ Overture, analysis of, 119-121. Mahler, comments on his style, 231. _malagueña_, 76. Mallarmé, 293. Malipiero, 328. _Manfred_ Overture, 177-179. Mannheim Orchestra, 102. Manuel, Roland, life of Ravel, 299. march, 75. _Marriage of Figaro_, 111. masculine ending, 57. Mason, D.G., 7, 9; essay on Haydn, 102; on Mozart, 112; comment on Chopin's style, 196; essay on Berlioz, 211; on Saint-Saëns, 256; on d'Indy, 281; comments on _Istar_, 283; essay on Debussy, 295; on Tchaikowsky, 306; on Dvo[vr]ák, 322; as composer, 329. _mazurka_, 75. mediant relationship, 52, 96. Méhul, 255. _Melpomene_ Overture, 154. _Melusine_ Overture of Mendelssohn, 185. Mendelssohn, 89; biography and features of style, 184-186; Violin Concerto, comments on, 185-186. Merkel, canon for organ, 36. _Midsummer Night's Dream_ Overture, analysis of, 186-187. Milton, quotation from _Paradise Lost_, 49. minuet, 75; account of, and examples, 78. Mixolydian mode, 24. modal, chart of modes, 23-24. modulation, 51-52. _Moments Musicaux_ of Schubert, 165-166. Montagu-Nathan, _History of Russian Music_, 314, 326. Monteverde, 119. Morales, 327. Moor, 328. _Mother Goose Suite_, 81. Moussorgsky, works and features of style, 318-320. Mozart, _Magic Flute_ Overture, 40; Finale of _Jupiter_ Symphony, 40, 81; biography, 108-110; features of style, 110-112; Mozart and Haydn, reactive influence, 110-111; polyphonic skill, 110, 112; dramatic power, 111; examples from works, 113-121. Mundy, John, descriptive pianoforte piece, 152. _musette_, 78. _Mystic Trumpeter_, 154. N National Music, distinctive features of, 300-301. Neefe, Beethoven's teacher, 124. _Neue Zeitschrift für Musik_, founded by Schumann, 174. _New World Symphony_, critical comments on, 323-324. Newman, _Musical Studies_, 154, 178, 207; comment on Debussy, 296. Newmarch, Rosa, _Life of Tchaikovsky_, 305. Niecks, _Programme Music_, 152, 214, 221, 305; _Life of Chopin_, 198; eulogy of Liszt, 228. Nordraak, 324. O Organ, the, its tone compared with that of pianoforte, 191. organum, 10. _Orpheus_, Symphonic Poem, analysis of, 221-222. Osgood, George L., 329. overtones, chart of, 193. _Oxford History of Music_, 10, 12, 102, 103, 110, 119, 161, 165, 185, 216, 221, 226. P Paderewski, 77; Minuet of, 78; playing of Mendelssohn's pieces, 185. Paganini, connection with Berlioz, 214. Paine, J.K., _Fuga Giocosa_, 46, 49; tribute to Beethoven, 129, 329. Palestrina, 34. Parker, H.W., fugue from _Hora Novissima_, 41, 329. Parry, _Evolution of the Art of Music_, 9, 16, 21, 69, 70; choral works, 328. _Passacaglia_, 86; of Brahms, 86; of Bach for organ, 87. _passepied_, 75. Pater, Walter, remark on Romanticism, 161. _pavane_, 75; example from Ravel, 79. pedals of the pianoforte, the damper and the una corda, 192-195. _Peer Gynt_ Suite, 80. period, definition of, 50. Pérotin, 34. Perry, Baxter, 90. _Phaëton_, 256. Philidor, 255. Phrygian cadence, 24-25. Phrygian mode, 23; Brahms's use of, 239. pianoforte, the, account of its characteristics, 189-195. plagal cadence, 55. _polka_, 75, 321. _polonaise_, 75. polyphonic, 10. polyphonic music, complete account of, 33-49. Poirée, Elié, Life of Chopin, 198. Pope, apropos of the jig, 80. Pougin, Arthur, comments on Moussorgsky, 318-319. Powell, John, 329. Pratt, _History of Music_, 10, 93, 159, 161. prelude (to Sonata-form), 99. _Prix de Rome_, won by Berlioz, 205; by Debussy, 288. Prout, 85. Puccini, fugal prelude to _Madama Butterfly_, 41. Purcell, 70; his Jig, 71. Pushkin, 314. Q Quilter, Roger, 329. R Rabelais, his humor compared with Beethoven's, 150, 157. Rameau, acoustical reforms of, 23, 70, 74, 81, 85; descriptive pieces, 152, 255. Ravel, _Daphnis and Chloe_, 68; his Pavane, 79; _Mother Goose Suite_, 81; works and account of style, 299-300. recapitulation (or _résumé_), 98-99. Reinecke, Canonic Vocal Trios, 37. Remenyi, Brahms's tour with, 232. repetition, importance of, 12, 13; types of, 14-18. Rheinberger, _Canonic Pieces_, 87; _Tarantelle_ for Pianoforte, 79. rhythmic variety (five and seven beats a measure), 66-68. Richter, Jean Paul, influence on Schumann, 172. Riemann, 93. _rigaudon_, 75; examples of, from Grieg, Rameau and MacDowell, 79, 81. Rimsky-Korsakoff, works and features of style, 317. _Roi d'Ys, Le_, 256. Rolland, Romain, account of Beethoven in _Jean Christophe_, 125; _Life of Beethoven_, 159; essay on Berlioz, 207. Romanticism and Romantic School, account of, 160-165. _Romeo and Juliet_ Symphony, comments on, 215-216. rondo, account of, 81-85. rondo-sonata form, 144. Ropartz, 257; characterization of a theme in Franck's Symphony, 266. Rossetti, _Blessed Damozel_, set by Debussy, 288. Rossini, "crescendo" in Overtures, 62; eulogy of Mozart, 121. _Rouet d'Omphale, Le_, 256. round, 11; _Old English Rounds_, 12. rubato (tempo), definition of, 199. Rubinstein, movements in _Ocean Symphony_, 95; estimate of Mozart, 111; characterization of the damper pedal, 191. Runciman, quotation apropos of Weber from _Old Scores and New Readings_, 169-170. Russian folk-songs, 30-33. Russian music, general tendencies of, 314-315. S Saint-Saëns, 1, 2; comment on Berlioz's _Romeo and Juliet Symphony_, 216; account of works and style, 255-256. _Sakuntala_, 154. _saltarello_, 75; Berlioz's use of the rhythm, 211. Sammartini, as a pioneer in Sonata-form, 93. Santayana, 5. _sarabande_, 75, 76, 77. Scandinavian Music, 324. Scarlatti, Alessandro, Aria da capo, 14; operatic overture, 119. Scarlatti, D., the _Cat-Fugue_, 48; as virtuoso, 74; anticipation of Sonata-form, 93; _Courante_ for pianoforte, 79; crossing of hands in Beethoven, 141, 144. Schumann, 7; motive from the _Carnaval_, 13; from the _Kinderscenen_, 13; _Arabesque_, 14: saying about folk-songs, 20; Canon for organ, 36; Canonic Variations, 37; _Carnaval_, 68; _Phantasiestücke_, 68; his use of the Rondo, 82-83; Variations, 88; comment on Schubert, 166; biography and features of style, 172-174; analysis of _Des Abends_, 174-175; of _Warum_, 175-176; of _Novellette in E major_, 176; of Song, _Mondnacht_, 176-177; of _Manfred_ Overture, 177-179; characterization of the four Symphonies, 179; _Symphony in D minor_, analysis of, 179-184; eulogy of Brahms in the _Neue Zeitschrift_, 232. Schola Cantorum, account of, 282. Scottish folk-tune, 28. Scryabin, as harmonic innovator, 143; works and features of style, 327. _seguidilla_, 76, 79. sentence, complete analysis of, 53, 54. sequence, definition of, 38. _Scheherazade Suite_, 81. scherzo, of Beethoven, 128-129. Schmitt, Florent, 280. Schubert, 21; Variations, 88; account of style and works, 162-169; character of songs, 165; symphonic style, 166; chamber music, 166; pianoforte style, 167; as great colorist, 167-168; analysis of _Unfinished Symphony_, 167-169. seven-bar rhythm, 66. Shakespeare, 1; apropos of the galliard, 80. Sharp, Cecil, _English Folk-Song_, 27; on American folk-songs, 33. Shepherd, Arthur, 329. Shedlock, J.S., 93, 100. shifted rhythm, 46. Sibelius, features of his style, 230, 324, 327. _siciliano_, 76. Sinding, 325. Sinigaglia, Overture, 99. Sjögren, 324. Smetana, _Bartered Bride Overture_, 40, 121; works and features of style, 321-322. Smith, Stanley, 329. Smithson, Henrietta, her life with Berlioz, 204-205. sonata and sonata-form, distinction between, 94-95. sonata-form, account of 91-100; tabular view, 100. _Song of Destiny_, Brahms, 233. _Songs without Words_, Mendelssohn, 185. Spanish music, its influence in modern times, 327-328. Spitta, essay on Brahms, 238. Stamitz, J., influence on Sonata-form, 93. Stanford, Villiers, Irish folk-songs, 29; features of style, 328. Stanford-Forsyth history, 121, 328. Stendhal, remark on Romanticism, 161. _Stevensoniana_, 80. Strauss, R., motive from _Till's Merry Pranks_, 18; _Don Juan_, 85; _Till Eulenspiegel_, 85; estimate of Mozart, 111. Stravinsky, as harmonic innovator, 143; works and features of style, 326-327. Streatfield, essay on Tchaikowsky, 306. stretto, 46. string-quartet, definition of, 94. subdominant, acoustical and harmonic importance, 22-23, 52. subject (of a fugue), 42-43. suite, the classical, 73-80; the modern, 80-81. _Suites, French and English_, 74. Sullivan, Arthur, operas, 328. _Sumer is icumen in_ (Ionian mode) 27. Surette, T.W., comments on Bach's style, 48, 72; _Development of Symphonic Music_, 159. _Surprise Symphony_, analysis of, 106-108. Svendsen, 324. Sweelinck, 34. Symonds, Arthur, _Studies in the Seven Arts_, 159. _Symphonic Études_, 88. symphonic poem, definition of, 149, 220. symphonic style, development of, 228-231. T Tallys, Thomas, vocal canon, 37. _tambourin_, 71. _tango_, 76. _tarantella_, 75. Taylor, Bayard, translation of stanza from _Faust_, 225. Tchaikowsky, Modeste, biography of his brother, 306. Tchaikowsky, P., _Fifth Symphony_, 8, 21; analysis of, 306-314; modal expression in works, 23; _Legend_ (Aeolian mode), 26; _Fourth Symphony_, finale of, 33; analysis of, 305; _Sixth Symphony_, 67; analysis of, 305-306; _Quartet in F major_, 67-68; variations from Trio, 89; estimate of Mozart, 111, 121; biography, 302-303; features of style, 303-305. Thackeray, W.M., characterization of Berlioz, 204. Thayer, Alexander, _Life of Beethoven_, 159. thematic development, 34. three-bar rhythm, 65-66. three-part form, complete account of, 72-73; examples of, 73. Tiersot, J., on folk-melodies, 21; _Chansons Populaires_, 30; work on Berlioz, 207. _Till Eulenspiegel_, 85. Tolstoi, 315, 319, 320. tonality, principles of, 50-51. tonic, acoustical and harmonic importance of, 22-23. _Tragic Overture_, Brahms, 233. transformation of theme, its use in Schumann, 182. Turgenieff, 315. two-part form, definition of, 38; complete account of, 69-72. V Van Vechten, book on Spanish music, 328. variation form, account of, 85-91. _Variations, in F minor_ of Haydn, 87; on _Death and the Maiden_, 88; _Sérieuses_, 88; _on a Theme from Handel_, 88; on the _St. Anthony Choral_, 88; (_Enigma_) by Elgar, 89; _Symphoniques_, 89. Verdi, Minuet from _Falstaff_, 78. Veretschagin, 320. Verlaine, 293. _Violin Concerto_ of Beethoven, 156-157. Vittoria, 327. Vivaldi, 70. von Breuning family, 125. W Wagner, comment on operas, 4; quality of themes, 8; motive from the _Valkyrie_, 12; polyphonic structure of operas, 13; motive from _Tristan and Isolde_, 17; fugal Prelude to third act of the _Mastersingers_, 41; comments on _Leonore_ Overture, 98; eulogy of Mendelssohn, 185. _Waldesrauschen_, Étude of Lizst, 227. Waldstein, friendship with Beethoven, 125. _Waldstein_ Sonata, 83. Walker, E., on English folk-music, 22. Wallace, estimate of Haydn, 102; _Threshold of Music_, 291, 329. Wallaschek, R., on primitive music, 21. _Wallenstein Trilogy_ (d'Indy), 281. _waltz_, 75. Weber, _Moto Perpetuo_, 83; orchestral treatment in his Overtures, 164-165; account of style, 169-172; _Invitation to the Dance_, arrangement by Weingartner, 169; compared with that by Berlioz, 171; _Oberon_ Overture, analysis of, 170-171; compositions for pianoforte, 171. Weckerlin, example from _Echos du Temps Passé_, 71. Weingartner, eulogy of Berlioz, 206; comments on the Symphonic Poem, 220; comments on Brahms's _First Symphony_, 244, 246. Whistler, compared with Debussy, 293. Whiting, Arthur, _Scottish Melodies_, 28; _Irish Melodies_, 29; _Suite Moderne_, 80; _Pedal Studies_, 193, 194, 329. Whitman, 1; quotation from _Mystic Trumpeter_, 146. Widor, canon for organ, 36. Willaert, harmonic basis of choruses, 23. Williams, Abdy, on Brahms's rhythm, 253. Williams, Vaughan, 329. Wordsworth, quotation from, 163. Wyman, Loraine, 33. LIST OF COMPOSITIONS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK I. _Sumer is icumen in._ Old English Round. II. _To the Green Wood._ Round by Byrd. III. Finale of Wagner's _Valkyrie_. IV. _Reconnaissance_ from Schumann's _Carnaval_. V. Irish Folk Song. VI. Epilogue of Strauss's _Till's Merry Pranks_. VII. _March in Dorian Mode._ Guilmant. VIII. _Movement in Lydian Mode._ Beethoven. IX. _Canon._ Thomas Tallys. X. _Canon_ from _Études Symphoniques_. Schumann. XI. No. VI of the _Goldberg Variations_. J.S. Bach. XII. _Canon for Pianoforte._ Grieg. XIII. _Canon for Pianoforte._ Jadassohn. XIV. _Two-voiced Invention in C major._ J.S. Bach. XV. _Three-voiced Fugue in E-flat major._ J.S. Bach. XVI. Final portion of _Organ Fugue in G major_. J.S. Bach. XVII. _Cat Fugue for Pianoforte._ D. Scarlatti. XVIII. _Fuga Giocosa for Pianoforte._ J.K. Paine. XIX. Song, _The Evening Star_. Schumann. XX. _Gavotte in F major._ Corelli. XXI. _Waltz in A-flat major._ Schubert. XXII. _Träumerei._ Schumann. XXIII. _Prelude in A major._ Chopin. XXIV. _Lyric Piece in E-flat major._ Grieg. XXV. _Nocturne in F major._ Chopin. XXVI. _Berceuse in G major._ Grieg. XXVII. _Intermezzo in E-flat minor._ Heilman. XXVIII. _Sarabande in D major._ J.S. Bach. XXIX. Gavotte from _Third English Suite_. J.S. Bach. XXX. Minuet from _Don Giovanni_. Mozart. XXXI. Two Minuets from _Castor and Pollux_. Rameau. XXXII. _Gigue in G major._ J.S. Bach. XXXIII. _Gigue in G major._ Mozart. XXXIV. _Courante in F minor._ D. Scarlatti. XXXV. _French Suite in E major._ J.S. Bach. XXXVI. _Soeur Monique._ Rondo by Couperin. XXXVII. _Romance in E major._ Rondo by Schumann. XXXVIII. _Rondo à Capriccio in G major._ Beethoven. XXXIX. Aria from _Dido and Aeneas_ (Ground bass). Purcell. XL. _Sonata in C major._ D. Scarlatti. XLI. Finale from _Sonata in E-flat major_. Haydn. XLII. First Movement from the _Surprise Symphony_. Haydn. XLIII. _Adagio in B minor._ Mozart. XLIV. First Movement from the _Heroic Symphony_. Beethoven. XLV. _Sonata in D Major._ Beethoven. XLVI. Finale from _Sonata in A-flat major_. Beethoven. XLVII. Portion of Slow Movement of _Seventh Symphony_. Beethoven. XLVIII. Slow Movement of _Trio in B-flat major_. Beethoven. XLIX. Theme of Slow Movement from _Sonata in E major_, Op. 109. Beethoven. L. _The Young Nun_. Song by Schubert. LI. Intermezzo from the _Euryanthe Overture_. Weber. LII. Portion of Fantasy Piece, _Grillen_. Schumann. LIII. _Novellette in E major._ Schumann. LIV. _Moonlight._ Song by Schumann. LV. _Venetian Boat Song._ Mendelssohn. LVI. _Barcarolle._ Chopin. LVII. _The Carnaval Romain Overture._ Berlioz. LVIII. _March of the Pilgrims_ from the _Harold in Italy Symphony_. Berlioz. LIX. _Forest Murmurs._ Étude by Liszt. LX. _Ballade in G minor._ Brahms. LXI. _My Love is Green as the Alder Bush._ Song by Brahms. LXII. Finale of Symphonic Poem, _Istar_. D'Indy. LXIII. _Chanson triste_ for Pianoforte. Tchaikowsky. LXIV. _Invocation to Sleep._ Song by Tchaikowsky. LXV. _Serenade._ Borodin. LXVI. _Cradle Song of the Poor._ Moussorgsky. LXVII. _Silhouette._ Dvo[vr]ák. LXVIII. _Spring Song._ Grieg. LXIX. _Dance of Spring._ Grieg. CRITICAL and HISTORICAL ESSAYS _By Edward MacDowell_ (_Lectures Delivered at Columbia University_) Especially valuable to that circle of readers who desire to secure the essential elements of a liberal culture in music. 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