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 Maedchen hoer' 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 Roeslein" to the tragic
"Doppelgaenger"; from the whispering foliage of the "Linden Tree" to
the pathetic drone of the "Hurdy-Gurdy Man"; from the "Serenade" to
"Todt und das Maedchen." 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 feted 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" (Waldesgespraech), "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 Plancon 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 Haendel, 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 Koenigin," "Ruhe, Suess 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
"Fruehlingsnacht" 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 Fuessen) 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
"Traeume," 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 "Staendchen," 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 Daemmerung,"
"Heimliche Aufforderung," "Allerseelem," "Breit ueber 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," "Fruehling uebers Jahr," "Fussteise," "Der Koenig
bei der Kroening," "Gesang Weyla's," "Elfenlied" and "Der Tambour."
Saint-Saens, Delibes, Godard, Massenet, Chaminade and the late Augusta
Holmes 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.