by almost whispering the words to himself, as if afraid of betraying
the secret: "The play's the thing...." Who could say of the one or
the other interpretation "This is right," or "This is wrong"? In this
case the same result is arrived at by different means. On the other
hand, I remember a little story my father told me when I was a boy,
of a man who had been made very angry by a letter from his son at
the University asking him for money. In that mood he is met by an
old friend who asks him, "What's the matter? Why are you thus out of
sorts?" "Well," says the other, "look at this impertinent letter I've
just got from my son, 'Father, please send me money!'"--reading out the
words in a quick, impatient, commanding voice. "Of course," he adds, "I
shan't do anything of the kind."
"Let me see the letter," the benevolent friend asks--he was very
fond of the boy--and, reading the words with a gentle, pleading,
affectionate inflexion of the voice, he says, "Why, my dear fellow,
it's a very charming letter. He writes, 'Father, _please_ send me
money.'" "Ah," says the father, "if he writes like that, he shall have
it!" Here, without doubt, the different interpretation had a different
result. Certainly the son will have thought so.
Varieties such as just quoted are, however, quite impossible in music.
Here we are faced by absolute orders given by the composer who says:
"This is to be _forte_, this _piano_; here you must increase, there
decrease; here hurry, there retard." But this apparent clipping of
the interpreter's wings is only a blessing in disguise, for it makes
it possible for even a singer of inferior intelligence to render by
artistic representation or performance, _i.e._, to interpret a song; so
that, whilst we would not listen to a representation of the character
of Hamlet by a stupid or uneducated man, we may thoroughly enjoy the
rendering of a song by a singer with a fine voice, even if he be a most
uninteresting, commonplace person otherwise, _as long as he masters
the technique of his art and loyally and conscientiously follows the
directions given by the composer_.
A loyal, reverent attitude to the author is a thing on which too
great stress cannot be laid. A work deemed worth performing should be
rendered as the author wrote it. By this I do, of course, not mean that
an orchestral work or an organ fugue or a string quartet should not be
played on the pianoforte. Quite the contrary. Skilful transcriptions
and arrangements are indeed as great a boon as are reproductions
of the famous masterpieces of painting or sculpture, without which
our knowledge of the art would be lamentably defective. There have
also been cases where one great master has thought it desirable to
complement the work of another, either by writing accompaniments to
originally unaccompanied instrumental works, as Schumann did to Bach,
or by strengthening the accompanying orchestra in a choral work, as
Mozart did to Handel's _Messiah_. As far as I know the original text
has in all such cases been allowed to remain intact; and works thus
treated being obtainable in the original as well as in the complemented
version, the choice is left to the personal taste of the musicians
responsible for the performance. What I mean is that the _text_ of the
composer should not be tampered with. There have now and then attempts
been made at improving Beethoven's scores on the plea that some
instruments employed by the master--like, for instance, the flute--have
been developed so as to allow notes to be played on them now which
were impossible at the time Beethoven wrote, and that very likely, had
these notes been at the master's disposal, he would have made use
of them. This may or may not be so, but it seems to me a dangerous
theory to work upon, for once you commence meddling with a master work
it would be difficult to know where to draw the line, and there is
no saying whither it would lead. Besides, every great period in the
history of art has its own characteristics. A so-called full orchestra
in Beethoven's time was a very different thing from what we are
accustomed to consider one to-day, when woodwind, brass, percussion,
harps, and what not often alone outnumber the entire personnel of a
grand orchestra a century ago. Moreover, if you leave Beethoven's
scores untouched, his mastery of orchestration becomes all the more
wonderful. There are instances--just think of that glorious climax in
the Third _Leonora_ Overture, or the end of that to _Egmont_--where,
even considering only the mere physical power of sound, he gets results
from his orchestration that no modern writer has as yet surpassed.
It is hardly credible that, arrogant enough as such attempts at
improving Beethoven's orchestration are, there exist people who go
further still and actually alter a great composer's directions as
to expression. Most of us know how particularly fond Beethoven was
of interrupting a seemingly increasing _fortissimo_ by a sudden
_pianissimo_. You will recall that splendid _scherzo_ in the "Seventh
Symphony," where he commences with an exultant _fortissimo_, evidently
meaning to continue in that vein, when all of a sudden the _ft_ on the
last crotchet of the second bar is followed by a _pp_ on the first
crotchet of the third, the result is simply marvellous.
Well, some years ago I had to conduct that symphony as a deputy for
the regular conductor, who was prevented from being at his post on
that occasion. Can you imagine my surprise and disgust when, at the
rehearsal, commencing with the Scherzo, and looking forward to that
sudden _pp_ on the first note of the third bar, that _pp_ appeared
already on the last note of the second bar, which should have still
been _ft_. Stopping the orchestra indignantly, I asked, "What on earth
are you doing, gentlemen?"
"We have got it so in our parts," was the answer. "Impossible," I said.
"Let me see!" The leader handed me the part, and there, to be sure, I
was flabbergasted to find the mark of _pp_ on the first note of the
third bar actually transferred in blue pencil to the preceding note,
thus not only completely spoiling Beethoven's fun, but altering and
weakening the subject, which, as anybody might see, commences with
the down, not the up beat. I wonder if one should envy a man or pity
him for a degree of self-estimation which could render him capable of
blue-pencilling Beethoven!
He certainly has arrived at what a witty American friend of mine would
call the "Shoehorn stage." To my enquiries about a mutual acquaintance,
that gentleman answered, "He? Why, he's that big now he has to _use a
shoehorn to put on his hat_!"
But this is by no means an isolated example of the lamentable lack of
reverence in this country toward the works of the great masters of
music. However much one might be horrified at the utterly mistaken
_tempi_ one often has to listen to in the rendering of the classics,
especially Mozart and Beethoven, that, after all, sad and deplorable
as it is, may only be the consequence of ignorance or the result of
insufficient musical training on the part of the performer. It is
the wanton, deliberate tampering with the _text_ of a great composer
which is unpardonable. No one among the classics was more explicit
or exacting as to the way he wished his works to be rendered than
Beethoven. Take once more that surpassingly beautiful _Leonora_
Overture No. III. Who has not been thrilled to the innermost depths
of his soul by those distant trumpet-calls, each ending with a long
pause on the last note, and followed immediately, _i.e._, _without
any further pause and whilst that last note still lingers in one's
ears_, by one of the most divinely inspired phrases ever penned by
even that great master? After the first call the orchestra plays it,
in a mysterious _pianissimo_, in the same key as the call itself--B
flat; after the second, more impressive still, a third lower, in G
flat. Well, at a recent performance of that great work the conductor,
according to the papers an "acknowledged authority" on Beethoven,
coolly added a "general pause" on to each of those two pauses on the
last note of the trumpet-call; that after the second call lasting
for fully ten seconds. No words can express my disappointment, my
indignation, for, of course, the sublime beauty of that low G flat with
which the double-basses and 'celli enter _whilst the high B flat of the
trumpet-call is slowly dying away_ in the distance was lost completely.
Indeed it would have mattered little now in _what_ key the orchestra
had come in--the thing was irretrievably spoiled.
Anywhere on the Continent the audience would have given unmistakable
signs of their disapproval, and the Press been unanimous in the
condemnation of such practices on the part of the conductor. Here
that gentleman was vociferously applauded by the audience and--with,
I think, one solitary exception--lauded to the skies by the Press,
the one or two papers which were bold enough to timidly admit his
"occasionally taking liberties with Beethoven" declaring such liberties
to be those of "an intimate, an adept."
Intimate indeed! If a hundred years ago an intimate of Beethoven's
had dared to do such a thing in Beethoven's presence, the master, as
we know him from his letters, would have flung the score at his head,
thundering, "Knave, canst thou not read? Dost thou think if I had
wanted those two general pauses, I did not know how to put them in my
score?"
What are we coming to? Irreverence, contempt of traditions, breaking
with a glorious past, disregard of law, of form--are they also in the
realm of music a sign of the times, a sort of Bolshevism?
Fancy an actor, tired of that everlasting "To be or not to be," and
thinking it too hackneyed, surprising the audience by commencing the
great monologue for a change with "To exist or not to exist"; or
another, going one better, and considering the absence of rhyme in that
monologue rather a mistake of Shakespeare's, hitting on the happy and
original idea of correcting it into something like:
To be or not to be--
That is what staggers me.
And yet that would not be one whit less of a sacrilege.
And take a song or an aria; how often does one not hear even good
singers change a note into a higher one, with the object of showing the
voice to better advantage, or of making a phrase, generally the final
cadence, more effective, so as to get a few more handfuls of applause,
or perhaps even an additional recall at the end?
"That's villainous," says Hamlet, "and shows a most pitiful ambition."
This altering of notes brings me upon a question which has ever been
the subject of much controversy among musicians: Are there any rules as
to the singing of recitatives or, rather, to the substituting now and
then, in the singing of recitatives of notes other than those written
by the composer? Should, for instance, the phrase in the _Messiah_
[Illustration: Music]
My answer as regards the first of these two examples is as decided a
"No" as my "Yes" is in regard to the second. This may, perhaps, be
considered somewhat arbitrary and entirely a matter of taste, but I
venture to hope that after what I have to say on the subject it will
be found to be only partly a matter of taste, and of arbitrariness not
at all. I base my objection to the alteration in the first, and my
approval of that in the second example on a theory which seems to me to
commend itself by its simplicity, and may be explained in the shape of
a rule something like this:
Take the note as to the changing of which into a higher or lower you
are in doubt, and look first at the note _preceding_ and then at the
note _following_ that doubtful note. Then see if the note you wish to
substitute for the printed note lies on the way from the preceding to
the following note. If it does, you are justified in making the change;
if not, leave it alone. Here is our first example:
[Illustration: Music]
The doubtful note is the C on "shep," the preceding one is the G below,
the following is the C. Now, does the D you wish to substitute for the
C on "shep" lie between that "G" and that "C" on the second syllable of
shepherd? No, let the phrase therefore remain as written. In the second
example:
[Illustration: Music]
The questionable note is the A on "Da" and _does_ lie on the way from
the C sharp to the A on the second syllable of David; it is, therefore,
not only perfectly legitimate, but even good to make the change, and
the phrase should be sung:
[Illustration: Music]
The question of taste enters when it comes to the exception to the
rule. According to that it would be legitimate, taking yet a third
example from the _Messiah_:
[Illustration: Music]
In this case, however, it would be decidedly better to leave the phrase
unchanged, for we have had four B flats already in that short sentence,
and the A, coming pat on the F major chord, is rather relieving and
refreshing. Here, as in many other cases, "let your own discretion
be your tutor." Of an exception to the rule as regards the first of
these three examples being either justifiable or advisable I know no
instance. Of course, all I have said on this subject refers to the
slow, deliberate, serious recitative in oratorio and other sacred music
only, and not at all to what is called "secco" recitative in opera,
which is practically no more than speech somewhat rapidly delivered in
specified musical terms. There you should change the doubtful note into
one above or below it at every opportunity, for by doing so you impart
a certain spontaneity and freedom to the sentences, emphasising their
resemblance to the spoken word. Here is an example in the style of
Mozart:
[Illustration: Music]
But I am reaching the limit of the space allowed for this article and
fear my chat has been on "kindred topics" rather than on the alleged
main theme of interpretation. But surely none of my readers expected
me to answer the question "How to Interpret"? If so, I should be as
truly sorry for having disappointed them as I was some years ago to
have been obliged to disillusion the organist of the little Parish
Church of Alvie. I don't mean myself, for I only officiated there in
that capacity during the summer months, when I was at home. I mean the
regular, appointed, salaried, real organist. She was a young girl of
sixteen, a native of the parish, who, fond of music, like all Scots
people, could strum two or three tunes on the piano, and to whom I
had given a few lessons in the managing of the American organ in the
church. At the request of my old friend, the Rev. James Anderson, our
late and much lamented minister, I had introduced the playing of a
voluntary during collection, always, of course, improvising on the
Psalm or hymn tunes of the day's service, or on whatever came into my
head. Well, a week after I had left Alvie for London, the first year of
that innovation, I received a letter from the young lady, consisting of
the following five lines: "Dear Mr. Henschel--Mr. Anderson wishes me to
play voluntaries during collection, just as you did. Would you please
let me know how you do it?"
I was touched by so much faith and innocence. The playing of an
instrument--and singing, as such, is but playing on the vocal
instrument in our throats--may be taught and, with patience and
perseverance, brought to as near a degree of perfection as humanly
possible; that is a matter of craft, of physical, I may say muscular,
skill. The mystery of what is best, imperishable in any art, lies in
the soul and in the brain. If dormant, it may be awakened and fostered;
if absent, it cannot be acquired by teaching. Interpretation, though
but recreative, certainly is an art, or at least part of one. And art
is long and life is short, and of learning there is no end.
To have a chance of becoming an artist in the true sense of the word,
the student, fortunate in the possession of the heavenly gift of
talent, should from the outset resolve to strive for none but the
highest ideals, refuse to be satisfied, both in taking and giving, with
anything but the best and purest, and last, though by no means least,
resist the temptations which the prospect of popularity and its worldly
advantages, frequently the result of lowering that high standard, may
place in his way.
ROBERT BRIDGES'S LYRICAL POEMS[41]
[41] _October and Other Poems_. By Robert Bridges.
Heinemann. 1920. 5_s._ net. Poetical_ Works, Excluding
the Eight Dramas_. By Robert Bridges. 1912. Oxford
University Press. For other works see "Bibliography"
in current issue.
By J. C. SQUIRE
I
Mr. Bridges's new volume of poems (the first that he has published
since he became Poet Laureate) must be read for what it is, the work
of a man seventy-five years of age. This statement is not made as
an excuse: there are weak--occasional and patriotic--poems in the
book, but some also which are beautiful additions to his canon. But
some of his critics, so inadequate is still the recognition of what
he has done, have treated the book as though his claim to be a great
poet rested partly upon it, failing to read it, as they should, in
the light of all that has gone before it. Properly regarded, it
awakes not disappointment, but wonder that a poet so old should still
sometimes have the genuine impulse, should still keep his spirit fresh,
and should still be capable of ingenious and fruitful experiments
in technique--experiments moreover in which the content is never
subordinated to the form, however exacting and interesting the form may
be. _October_, _Noel_, _Our Lady_, _Flycatchers_, _The West Front_,
_Trafalgar Square_, and _Fortunatus Nimium_ are all poems that any man
might be proud to write in his prime; and beyond these there is the
delicious invention of _The Flowering Tree_:
What Fairy fann'd my dreams
while I slept in the sun?
As if a flowering tree
were standing over me:
Its young stem strong and lithe
went branching overhead,
And willowy sprays around
fell tasselling to the ground
All with wild blossom gay
as is the cherry in May ...
The sunlight was enmesh'd
in the shifting splendour
And I saw through on high
to soft lakes of blue sky:...
So I slept enchanted
under my loving tree
Till from his late resting
the sweet songster of night,
Rousing, awakened me:
Then! this--the birdis note--
Was the voice of thy throat
which thou gav'st me to kiss.
The occasion may suitably be seized to make a few notes on Mr.
Bridges's shorter--never mind the title and the word "lyrical"--poems
as a whole.
II
Mr. Bridges is often written of as though he were primarily a
technician. He has always taken a keen interest in prosody; he has
written books, and formulated theories, about it; his experiments
in classical metres and his notions about English spelling have, to
those who have not troubled to discover the intellectual strength and
the strong common sense which commonly marks his linguistic writings,
given him something of the air of a pedant. But the theoriser and the
innovator of the "shorter poems" has nothing to do with pedantry. There
are poems in which the scrutinous eye may detect very elaborate pains.
_April_ 1885 is a fabric of internal rhyme, assonance, and alliteration
which it would be hard to parallel in English:
Wanton with long delay the gay Spring leaping cometh;
The blackthorn starreth now his bough on the eve of May:
All day in the sweet box-tree the bee for pleasure hummeth:
The cuckoo sends afloat his note on the air all day.
Now dewy nights again and rain in gentle shower
At root of tree and flower have quenched the winter's drouth:
On high the hot sun smiles, and banks of cloud uptower
In bulging heads that crowd for miles the dazzling south.
That may be called a _tour-de-force_; as a rule, though Mr. Bridges's
variety of stanza and rhythm is immense, the craftsman never intrudes.
His ingenuities merely serve their purpose; his music cannot be
separated from his sense; his rhythms are sought, and found, as the
only suitable rhythms for the words and the scenes that are being
expressed and described. How otherwise than in the beautiful movement
used can we imagine the picture of _A Passer By_?--the fresh blue day,
the crowded sail, the vision of a queenly progress across the world to
a far harbour in the south? It is one of fifty such feats, triumphs of
fastidious art, never completely understood until the poems are read
aloud. His power of music has developed steadily throughout his career,
but scarcely a poem of any period can be quoted without illustrating
his surpassing technical gifts. We shall come to many presently; here,
when we are thinking primarily of the skill with which he weaves a
close-fitting garment of sound for his thought, we may take as a single
example, _London Snow_:
When men were all asleep the snow came flying,
In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town
Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:
Silently sifting and veiling road, roof, and railing;
Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.
All night it fell, and when full inches seven
It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven....
The accuracy of the description is extraordinary and continues as the
town awakes, and boys go snowballing to school, a few carts creak
along, and the pale sun rises to awake the noisier day. But the
observation, the accuracy, the response of the heart to the beauty of
the scene, might have been found elsewhere: the astonishing management
of the rhythms, which, even when divorced from the meaning of the
words, translate the steady falling, the wayward criss-crossing,
the lightness and crispness, and soothing persistence of snow in an
almost windless air, is peculiar to Mr. Bridges. Words and music are
with him always inseparable: he is at the opposite pole from the man,
often not unintelligent in other ways, who forces his material into a
strait-jacket of jingle. In this respect his taste is as flawless, his
subtlety as unfailing, as any in the records of literature.
III
It is possible, and it has often been stated, that Mr. Bridges will
chiefly live as a poet of the English landscape. Certainly he would
live if only his landscape poetry were preserved. It may seem a large
assertion, but no Englishman has written so large a body of good
landscape poetry. There are two obvious things to be said about it.
The first is that his landscape is the landscape of the South of
England, more particularly of the Thames Valley and the downs by the
sea--two regions which he significantly chooses as typical, when,
in _The Voice of Nature_, he wishes to point an argument. He never
describes foreign or remote scenes; and--it may be regarded as symbolic
of his attitude to the more violent things of life--he never leaves
the land for the sea. Even British territorial waters he never sails;
there is much of the sea in his work, but it is the sea as seen from
the shore, blue and smiling and dancing, or whipped by the wind, caught
in a narrow peep between shoulders of the downs or watched from a hill
through a telescope:
There many an hour I have sat to watch; nay, now
The brazen disk is cold against my brow,
And in my sight a circle of the sea
Enlarged to swiftness, where the salt waves flee,
And ships in stately motion pass so near
That what I see is speaking to my ear.