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 Buelow 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 Walkuere," the
so-called Magic Fire Scene. _Wotan_ has said farewell to _Bruennhilde_;
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 _Bruennhilde_ 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. Haendel, 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, bourrees, 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 (_agrements_) 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.