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._]