principles on musical taste, to point out briefly how they afford also
criteria for judging composers themselves, and how, thus judged, the
six composers we are to study fall into perspective. Our principles,
in a word, will now enable us to supplement our later studies of
these composers in isolation with a somewhat rough but still helpful
sense of their interrelationship. We must relate them to the general
evolution of which they are phases; see how they differ in the power to
assimilate the work of their predecessors, to avail themselves of all
the resources, expressive and formal, of their art, and to develop new
resources for those who succeed them. It is hardly necessary to insist
on the value of some such basis of comparison. Without it we should
be like a certain member of a college geology class who, more ardent
than methodical, was wont to investigate outcrops and moraines with
great enthusiasm, but in utter ignorance of the points of the compass.
To this scatter-brained young man the instructor used always to say,
«Orient yourself first of all, Mr. Jones, orient yourself.» And so,
before examining the individual outcroppings of modern music, we shall
do well to orient ourselves in the artistic landscape.
Of all the composers with whom we are to deal, Grieg and Dvořák are the
least inclusive and catholic. Grieg, as we shall see, writes always in
the personal vein, is among musicians what Leigh Hunt and Charles Lamb
are among writers. He is intimate, charming, graceful, but never epic
or universal. He touches the great stream of musical tradition at a few
points only, and adds little to its volume. He knows how to combine a
few elements of effect with finesse, but there are limitations both
in what he has to say and in his means of saying it. He is familiar
with only one dialect in the language of tones. And if Grieg is
personal, Dvořák is at most national. He is too deep-dyed a Bohemian
to be a complete citizen of the world. Not only is his style curiously
provincial, with its uneven rhythms of folk-song, its strong dance-like
metrical schemes, and its florid coloring, but his substance is too
ornate and too sweet to be profoundly significant. He is a «natural»
musician raised to the n^{th} power, but he is not enough a scholar to
relate himself very vitally with the general growth of his art. Both
of these men have contributed much that is novel and charming to the
lighter side of music, but they are not masters of deep feeling and
wide scope.
Camille Saint-Saëns and César Franck illustrate strikingly another
sort of partiality, a partiality often met with in a less noticeable
degree. Each exemplifies only one of those contrasting phases of
feeling which we saw to underlie Dance and Song, and which in the
greatest composers are combined. Saint-Saëns' work, primarily
expressive of active feeling, is strongly metrical, derives its chief
interest and value from rhythmic qualities; Franck's, the product
of a singularly contemplative and monastic nature, is monotonous in
rhythm, but endlessly various in melodic and harmonic treatment.
In the biographical essays the antithesis will be brought out more
in detail. Here it is only necessary to suggest that, if these two
French composers are somewhat wider in scope than Grieg or Dvořák,
their curious limitations in temperament prevent them from doing
all-inclusive and universal work.
With Tschaïkowsky and Brahms we come to men of a larger caliber. These
two, different as they are--the Russian finding in music primarily a
means of expression, the German valuing more its plastic beauty--are,
nevertheless, the only two moderns who can be said to carry on worthily
the torch of Bach and Beethoven. Both were men of sufficiently wide
sympathy and scholarship to approach music with the utmost liberality,
to get into contact with all its traditions and utilize all its
technical resources. They write in that «grand style» which draws its
elements from the widest sources, the style not of one man nor of one
nation, but of the world. Again, they were men of complex temperament,
capable of a great range of feeling both active and contemplative.
Consequently the dance impulse and the song impulse are equally
operative in their work, which has a richness and variety to be found
in Bach and Beethoven, but not in Saint-Saëns or Franck. And though
they were men of the deepest emotion, they had also the intellectual
control over their work that made it not only expressive but beautiful.
In a word, the range of their learning, the many-sidedness of their
temperaments, their emotional profundity and their intellectual power,
all conspired to make them the greatest musicians of their time.
Yet even between these two great men it is possible, with the aid of
our principles, to make a distinction. We have seen that form is not
only a means of defining utterance, but that it is furthermore the
source of æsthetic delight, and, through the reverberation of that,
of an immense reinforcement to expression; and we have accordingly
concluded that in no case must form be sacrificed to any other factor
of effect whatsoever. To sacrifice form, in music, whatever may seem
at first sight the justification, is in the long run to sacrifice the
greater for the less. Now Tschaïkowsky, led away by the impetuosity
of his feeling, is often guilty of such a sacrifice. He gains for the
moment; he gains a compelling eloquence, the most exciting effects,
the wildest and most thrilling crises. But in the long run he loses.
Eventually one tires of the crises, one is left cold, and then the
waywardness, the incoherence, the lack of clear order and symmetry,
are felt as weaknesses. Too many of Tschaïkowsky's pieces are better
at a first hearing than at a fifth. With Brahms it is otherwise. All
his emotion, deep, tender and noble as it is, is controlled by the
firm will and the shaping hand of the supreme artist. However moving
his music may be, it is even more beautiful. His faculties, whether by
good fortune or merit, are more perfectly adjusted than those of any
other modern composer. He is the most profound, the most simple, the
most comprehensive of moderns, as becomes obvious when we test his work
by the principles we have laid down. Others exemplify them partially,
he most entirely; others are great in some or several effects, he is
roundedly great. He allies himself with all that was done in music
before him, and contributes indispensable elements to what will be done
in it hereafter. And so, if we arrange our six composers in a series,
determining the importance of each by means of the universal and
impersonal principles of art, we must pass from Grieg to Brahms.
II
EDVARD GRIEG
[Illustration: EDVARD GRIEG]
II
EDVARD GRIEG
To the musical amateur no contemporary composer is better known than
Grieg. Every school-girl plays his piano pieces, young violinists study
his delightfully melodious sonatas, and few concert pieces are more
widely loved than the Peer Gynt Suite. Yet from professional musicians
Grieg does not meet with such favor. Many speak of him patronizingly,
some scornfully. «Grieg?» they say. «Oh, yes, very charming, but--»
and the sentence ends with a shrug. The reason for this discrepancy
of estimate seems to be that the layman, fascinated by Grieg's lovely
melodies, unusual and piquant harmonic treatment, and contagious
rhythm, looks for no further quality; but the musician, unconsciously
referring all music to a standard based on works of greater solidity,
greater breadth and force and passion as well as wider learning and
superior skill, is too conscious of the shortcomings of this Norwegian
minstrelsy to do justice to its qualities. It is, of a truth, music
in which merit and failing are curiously mingled; its delicate beauty
is unique, its limitation extreme. It is as fair as a flower, and as
fragile. It is, in short, the effluence of a personality graceful
without strength, romantic without the sense of tragedy, highly gifted
with all gentle qualities of nature, but lacking in the more virile
powers, in broad vision, epic magnanimity, and massive force.
Of this personality, as it appears in the flesh, we get an interesting
glimpse in Tschaïkowsky's Diary.[B] «During the rehearsal of Brahms's
new trio,» writes Tschaïkowsky, «as I was taking the liberty of
making some remarks as to the skill and execution of the relative
_tempo_ 2-3--remarks which were very good-naturedly received by
the composer--there entered the room a very short, middle-aged
man, exceedingly fragile in appearance, with shoulders of unequal
height, fair hair brushed back from his forehead, and a very slight,
almost boyish beard and mustache. There was nothing very striking
about the features of this man, whose exterior at once attracted
my sympathy, for it would be impossible to call them handsome or
regular; but he had an uncommon charm, and blue eyes, not very large,
but irresistibly fascinating, recalling the glance of a charming
and candid child. I rejoiced in the depths of my heart when we were
introduced to each other, and it turned out that this personality
which was so inexplicably sympathetic to me belonged to a musician
whose warmly emotional music had long ago won my heart. He proved
to be the Norwegian composer, Edvard Grieg.» This was in 1888, when
Grieg was forty-five. We may compare with it another description,
made a year later by a Frenchman, M. Ernest Closson, when Grieg was
playing and conducting his works in Paris. «Grieg is small, thin, and
narrow-shouldered,» writes M. Closson.[C] «His body, which is like a
child's, is always in motion--the movements short, lively, singularly
jerky and angular, each step shaking the whole body and hitching the
shoulder as if he limped; a 'bundle of nerves' [«_paquet des nerfs_»],
to use a doctor's phrase of picturesque energy. The head, which looks
massive on so small a body, is intelligent and very handsome, with
long grayish hair thrown back, thin face, smooth-shaven chin, short,
thick mustache, small but full nose, and eyes!--eyes superb, green,
gray, in which one can fancy one catches a glimpse of Norway, with
its melancholy fjords and its luminous mists. His gaze is serious,
wonderfully soft, with a peculiar expression, at once worn, tentative,
and childishly naïve. The entire effect is of kindness, gentleness,
candor, a sincere modesty.»
It is thus obvious that Grieg is of the nervous, sensitive temperament,
the temperament of Keats and Stevenson, quick and ardent in feeling,
and in art notable for subjective, intimate work rather than for the
wide objective point of view. Grieg's music is of value, indeed, just
because it is the artistic expression of delicate personal feeling.
We shall find that his whole development tended toward a singularly
individual, or at most national, utterance; that his efforts toward a
complexer or more universal style, such as in poetry we call epic, were
unsuccessful; and that his real and inimitable achievement is all in
the domain of the pure lyric.
Edvard Grieg was born in Bergen, Norway, in 1843. At an early age
he showed musical talent, starting in to learn the piano and theory
at six, under his mother's direction. Gesine Grieg, born Hagerup,
descendent from a forceful Norwegian family which had produced some
famous men, was a woman of musical and poetic instinct and of strong
character. She had studied music in Hamburg and in London, and given
some concerts and many soirées in Bergen. In a word, her son could not
have found a better guide in his first studies. At nine Grieg surprised
his school-teacher by submitting in place of a literary composition a
set of original variations on a German melody, a substitution which
was not kindly received. He was told to stop such nonsense. The
artistic temperament revealed itself also in great sensitiveness to the
beauty of the somber Northern landscape, and at fifteen Grieg wished
to become a painter. Fortunately, however, his musical ability was
recognized by the famous violinist Ole Bull, at whose suggestion his
parents decided to send him to the Leipsic Conservatory, whither he
traveled in 1858. Here again the romanticism of the boy showed itself
in his fretfulness under the strict régime of his masters, Hauptmann,
Richter, Rietz, Reinecke, and Moscheles, and in his passionate devotion
to the works of Schumann and Chopin, who were then looked upon in
academic circles as somewhat dangerous revolutionaries. Except for a
vacation of some months at home, necessitated by the pulmonary trouble
which has ever since weakened Grieg's health, he spent four years in
the Conservatory, being graduated in 1862.
In his earliest compositions, produced at this period, the traits
that afterwards distinguished him are rather hampered by academic
influences and uncertainty of intention. The four Pieces, opus 1, by
no means devoid of his peculiar flavor, are yet tentative in style and
reminiscent of older masters, particularly Chopin and Mendelssohn.
Of the Poetic Tone-pictures, opus 3, the second and fourth are the
well-established type of graceful _salon_ piece. Number four, indeed,
might almost be a strayed leaf from that gentle but hackneyed work
which some modern cynic has called the «Songs without Music.» Yet the
very next piece is full-fledged Grieg. Here is the short four-measure
phrase, transposed a third and repeated, here the descending chromatic
harmonizations, here the raucous fifths as of peasant players, that
we shall presently learn to look for among the hall-marks of his
writings. But more important than any such technical details is the
general animation, producing trenchant rhythm, graceful melody, and
warm harmony, that always sparkles in Grieg's best work. In the Poetic
Tone-pictures he is already himself, though not his mature self.
Being at graduation somewhat bewildered and uncertain as to his
future course, Grieg turned his steps in 1863 to the Danish capital,
the home of a great man whom he idolized. «One day,» he writes
in an autobiographical fragment, «I had gone out with my friend
Matthison-Hansen to Klampenborg. Suddenly he nudged my arm.
«'What is it?' I said.
«'Do you see that little man with the large gray hat?'
«'I see him.'
«'Do you know who it is?' said he.
«'I haven't the least idea.'
«'That's Gade,' he said. 'Shall I introduce you?'
«And without waiting for my reply he took me up to the Professor, with
the curt announcement:
«'Professor, a Norwegian friend of mine--a good musician.'
«'Is it Nordraak?' asked Gade.
«'No, it is Grieg,' answered Matthison-Hansen.
«'Oh, that's who it is,' said Gade, scanning my insignificant and
humble self from head to foot with a searching glance, while I stood,
not without awe, face to face with the man whose works I treasured so
highly. 'Have you something to show me?'
«'No,' I answered. For the things I had finished didn't seem good
enough.
«'Then go home and write a symphony,' recommended Gade.»
It is indicative of the groping stage at which Grieg's genius still
paused that he actually tried to write a symphony, two movements of
which are preserved in the Symphonic Pieces, opus 14--Grieg, whose
talent was symphonic in about the degree that Brahms's was operatic.
Contact with the friendly little man in the large gray hat, who has
been dubbed the «Danish Mendelssohn,» was doubtless a stimulus to
the young Grieg; but other and more radical influences were needed
to awaken his personality and bring him to his own. Such influences,
however, he actually found in Copenhagen. The «Nordraak» for whom
Gade had at first taken him, a fervently patriotic Norwegian of
magnetic personality, acquainted him with Norwegian folk-songs and
fired him with an ambition to found on them a finished art. Meeting
in solemn conclave, with all the self-importance of youth, these two
enthusiasts took the oath of musical allegiance to their fatherland.
«It was as though scales fell from my eyes,» writes Grieg; «for the
first time I learned ... to understand my own nature. We abjured
the Gade-Mendelssohn insipid and diluted Scandinavianism, and bound
ourselves with enthusiasm to the new path which the northern school
is now following.» Nor did their zeal confine itself to composition.
In 1864 they founded, with their Danish friends Horneman and
Matthison-Hansen, the Euterpe Musical Society, for the performance
of Scandinavian works. This institution, which must have reacted
stimulatingly on their composition, they supported energetically up to
Grieg's departure in 1866 for Christiania. Finally, it was in these
years of his freshest vigor, in which he was conscious both of inner
power and of outer opportunities, that Grieg met the lady, Miss Nina
Hagerup, his cousin, who became in time his wife. It is not to be
wondered at that no period in his life was so fruitful as this.
His most characteristic works, accordingly, were composed between his
graduation from the conservatory and the early seventies--between his
twentieth and his thirtieth years. There are the two inimitable Sonatas
for Violin and Piano, opus 8 and 13; the Piano Sonata, opus 7; the
incidental music to Ibsen's Peer Gynt; some of the most charming of the
Lyric Pieces for piano and of the Songs, and the Piano Concerto, opus
16; the best part, certainly, of his entire musical product. It were a
hopeless as well as useless task to describe in words the qualities
of these compositions. What shall one say in words of the flavor of
an orange? It is sweet? Yes. And acid? Yes, a little. And it has a
delicate aroma, and is juicy and cool. But how much idea of an orange
has one conveyed then? And similarly with this indescribably delicate
music of Grieg; there is little that can be pertinently or serviceably
said of it. One may point out, however, its persistently lyrical
character. It is like the poetry of Mr. Henley in its exclusive concern
with moods, with personal emotions of the subtlest, most elusive sort.
It is intimate, suggestive, intangible. It voices the gentlest feelings
of the heart, or summons up the airiest visions of the imagination.
It is whimsical, too, changes its hues like the chameleon, and
often surprises us with a sudden flight to some unexpected shade of
expression. Again, its finesse is striking. The phrases are polished
like gems, the melodies charm us with their perfect proportions, the
cadences are as consummate as they are novel. Then, again, the rhythm
is most delightfully frank and straightforward; there is no maundering
or uncertainty, but always a vigorous dancing progress, as candid as
childhood. It is hard to keep one's feet still through some of the
Norwegian Dances. And though in the Lyric Pieces rhythm is idealized,
it is always definite and clear, so that they are at the opposite
pole from all that formless sentimentality which abandons accent in
order to wail. Again, we must notice the curious exotic flavor of this
music, a flavor not Oriental but northern, a half-wild, half-tender
pathos, outlandish a little, but not turgid--on the contrary, perfectly
pellucid. An example is a little waltz that figures as number two of
the Lyric Pieces, opus 12. Grieg's music, then, is lyrical, intimate,
shapely, and exotic, if such words mean anything--yes, just as the
orange is sweet, acid, and aromatic. One who would feel the quality of
these works must hear them.
On the other hand, Grieg is never large or heroic; he never wears
the buskin. He has neither the depth of passion nor the intellectual
grasp needed to make music in the grand style. Probably of all his
peculiarities the most significant is the shortness of his phrases
and his manner of repeating them almost literally, displaced a little
in pitch, but not otherwise altered. Almost all his music can be cut
up into segments two or four measures long, each segment complete
in itself, an entire musical thought. If the reader will examine the
little Waltz just mentioned, for example, he will see that it is
constructed as follows: after two introductory measures a phrase of
melody is announced, four measures in length; this is immediately
repeated, at the same pitch but slightly varied in rhythm; then enters
another phrase, two measures long, which is repeated literally a third
lower; its latter half is twice echoed, and there is a two-measure
cadence. All is then repeated. The middle part of the piece, in A
major, is built in much the same way; after it the first part is
given once more, and there is a short coda. The construction of this
charming piece, in a word, is very like that of the passages from
primers that are familiar to us all: «Is this a boy? This is a boy.
Has the boy a dog? The boy has a dog. This is the dog of the boy.»
And Grieg's coda adds meditatively, «Of the boy ... the boy ... boy.»
His thoughts complete themselves quickly; they have little span, and
they are combined, not by interfusion, but by juxtaposition. He never
weaves a tapestry; he assembles a mosaic. We have only to compare his
music with that of some great master, of wide scope and large synthetic
power, like Brahms or Beethoven, to feel precisely in what sense he is
lyrical rather than heroic, charming rather than elevated, suggestive
rather than informative. Compare, for instance, with his waltz, the
waltz of Brahms, number eight in opus 39. Here there is a sustained
flight of twelve measures, the tune poising and soaring as it were on
a rising or falling breeze, or like a kite that now dips and now is up
again, but never touches the earth. It is interesting to play the two
waltzes one after the other, noting the difference in effect between
the precise, dainty, clipped phrases of the one and the broad-spanned
arch of melody of the other. Such contrasts are at the basis of all
significant discriminations of musical form.