time arranges itself almost irresistibly in the traditional three
periods, albeit in his case the philosophy of these periods has to
be rather different from that, say, of Beethoven's. "Discipline,
maturity, eccentricity," we say with sufficient accuracy in describing
Beethoven's development. The same formula for Strauss will perhaps be
tempting to those for whom the perverse element in the Salome-Elektra
period is the most striking one; but it is safer to say simply: "Music,
program music, and music drama." Born in 1864, he produced during
his student years, up to 1886, a great quantity of well-made and to
some extent personal music, obviously influenced by Mendelssohn,
Schumann, and Brahms, and comprising sonatas, quartets, concertos,
and a symphony. He himself has told how he then came under the
influence of Alexander Ritter, and through him of Wagner, Berlioz,
and Liszt; how this influence toward "the poetic, the expressive, in
music" acted upon him "like a storm wind"; and how the "Aus Italien,"
written in 1886, is the connecting link between his earlier work and
the series of symphonic poems that follows in the second period. The
chief titles and dates of this remarkable series may be itemized here:
"Macbeth," 1886-7; "Don Juan," 1888; "Tod und Verklärung," 1889; "Till
Eulenspiegel" and "Also Sprach Zarathustra," 1894; "Don Quixote,"
1897; "Ein Heldenleben," 1898; and the "Symphonia Domestica," 1903.
The period of program music, containing also, of course, other works
such as the operas "Guntram" and "Feuersnot," innumerable songs, and
a violin sonata strayed from the first period, thus lasts from his
twenty-second to his thirty-ninth year. Since then Strauss has devoted
himself chiefly to works for the stage, comprising "Salome" (1906),
"Elektra" (1908), "Der Rosenkavalier" (1911), "Ariadne auf Naxos,"
(1913), and "Josephs Legende" (1914). His latest work is again in the
province of instrumental music--an "Alpine Symphony."
This rapid survey of Strauss's creative activity shows that the
natural bent of his mind is toward the realistic and dramatic side of
his art; it was only in his youth, before he had found himself, that
he wrote self-sufficing music; and though lyrical power is shown in
many of his songs and in passages of almost all the orchestral works,
yet it is on the whole true to say that the essential Strauss is
Strauss the dramatist. And if we ask ourselves what are the qualities
of temperament requisite to a dramatist, we shall find in Strauss's
possession of them in altogether unusual measure the key to his
commanding position among the musico-dramatists of our day.
These qualities are the same for a dramatic artist who works in tones
as for one who works in words. First of all he must be a man of keen
observation, of penetrating intelligence, able to note all that passes
about him and to interpret it with something of cold scientific
precision. He must be able to seize human types and divine human
motives quite different from his own, as they are objectively. He
must resist distorting them by reading into them his own impulses and
sentiments, as a man of more subjective temperament and less critical
detachment always does. In short, he must be of the active rather than
the contemplative type, and have a good measure of that faculty of
impersonal intellectual curiosity which gives a Shakespeare his supreme
power of objective observation.
But though he must not distort others by viewing them through himself,
he must nevertheless interpret them through reference to his own
feelings, since these are the only feelings with which he is directly
acquainted. That is to say, he must be able to place himself, by
sympathetic imagination, at the points of view of those he studies.
Such sympathetic imagination is so very different a thing from
subjective distortion that without it no real understanding of one's
fellows is possible at all. The great dramatist needs, then, deep
and rich emotion, quite as much as the lyric singer--but emotion ever
guided by the sympathy which brings it into play. It is this emotion,
guided by sympathetic imagination, that gives the very aspect of life,
and its power to move us, to the creation that mere intellectual
observation alone could never vitalize.
And finally, the dramatic artist, besides observing keenly and
interpreting sympathetically, must view all that he sees with a certain
magnanimous many-sidedness, a sort of sweet and mellow wisdom, which
is hard to describe but unmistakable when encountered. We find it in
all really great creative artists, who seem to view life not only
keenly, not only sympathetically, but also wisely and as if from above,
from that vantage point of a wider insight than that of any of their
subjects, so that in their summing up of them they are able to set
them in proper relation one to another, and by so doing to get a true
and calm picture of human life as a whole. This power of philosophic
or poetic vision, this magnanimity, we instinctively demand of the
artist. It satisfies a fundamental human craving. The moral in the
fable is a naïve embodiment of it; it comes even into the uncongenial
atmosphere of the light comedy of manners in the rhymed epilogue; its
musical incarnation we find in many of the quiet codas of Brahms,
or in the thoughtful "Der Dichter spricht" at the end of Schumann's
"Kinderscenen."
The object of the present essay is to show that Strauss has, in unequal
but high degree, these qualities of the dramatist: observation,
sympathy, and magnanimity. The first he has in almost unparalleled
measure; the second somewhat fitfully, sometimes inhibited by his
ironic cynicism; the third in his most genial moods, as for instance,
in the epilogue to "Till Eulenspiegel," but not when misled by
over-realistic aims. The evidence of his possession of these qualities
that we shall especially look for will be not that afforded by his acts
or his sayings, but rather the irrefragable testimony of his musical
works themselves.
II
Since a man's temperament is what ultimately determines the peculiar
combination of qualities making up his artistic individuality--his
characteristic powers and shortcomings--the first questions we have to
ask ourselves regarding any artist we propose to study will always be:
"What is his temperament?" "To which of the two great types does it
belong, the active or the contemplative?" "Does its power lie primarily
in observation or in introspection?" "Does it impel him towards
objective characterization or toward the utterance of subjective
feeling?" Elsewhere, in studying these antitheses of temperament in
particular cases, such as those of Mendelssohn and Schumann,[5] and
of Saint-Saëns and Franck,[6] occasion has been taken to discuss in
some detail the rationale of their musical expression. At present our
interest is in finding in Strauss a rather extreme case of the active
temperament, a man of positively explosive nervous energy.
It is only necessary to assemble a few of his characteristic melodic
motives to see that this energy naturally translates itself,
melodically, into wide erratic skips and incisive abrupt rhythms. Here
are a few of them:
[Illustration: =FIGURE I.
(_a_) From "Till Eulenspiegel."=]
[Illustration:=(_b_) From "Don Juan."=]
[Illustration:=(_c_) From "Ein Heldenleben."=]
[Illustration:=(_d_) From "Also Sprach Zarathustra."=]
[Illustration:=(_e_) From the "Symphonia Domestica."=]
The chief theme of the arch mischief-maker, "Till Eulenspiegel," is
necessarily capricious, but it is doubtful if even for him anyone but
Strauss would have thought of those surprising jumps, landing each time
on an unexpected note. In the main theme of "Don Juan" we have a good
example of his rhythmic energy. Note the variety of the figures: the
sixteenth notes in the first measure, swarming up to the high E; the
still further ascending triplet; the even more incisive dotted group
leading to the emphatic half notes. In similar general style is the
chief theme of "Ein Heldenleben," depicting the hero, but less lithe,
more burly and almost awkwardly powerful. The theme of "great longing"
from "Also Sprach Zarathustra" conveys its impression through the wide
jumps, covering almost three octaves in two vigorous dashes. The theme
of "the Wife," from the "Symphonia Domestica," illustrates Strauss's
love of turning the unexpected way. Notice the downward jump of a
ninth, and the cadence transferred to a higher octave than we expect.
The same story of overflowing nervous energy is told by two other
characteristics of Strauss's melody. Like all sanguine natures he
has more rising than falling phrases. The buoyancy of (_b_), (_c_),
and (_d_) in Figure I is irrepressible; (_a_) has a falling curve,
somewhat coy; (_e_) begins in the same wheedling vein, but ends with
a rise of self-confident energy. A canvass of all the motives in the
symphonic poems would probably demonstrate that seventy-five per cent
of them rise in pitch. The second peculiarity is more subtle but even
more significant--a preference for "rising" or anacrustic rhythms,
culminating in an accented final note after several unaccented ones,
to "falling" or thetic rhythms beginning with the heavy part of the
measure. The elasticity of the rising rhythm is clearly shown in all
the excerpts of Figure I except that from "Ein Heldenleben"; that,
naturally, begins doggedly on the down beat. Only a systematic study
can show the extent of Strauss's addiction to the rising rhythm.
These considerations, to which might perhaps be added his preference
for the major to the minor mode, and for the vigorous duple to the
more subtle triple meter, afford us quite ample internal evidence
of his belonging to the temperamental type of the actives, like
Mendelssohn and Saint-Saëns (however he may differ from them musically)
rather than to that of the contemplatives,--the Schumanns and the
Francks. To these positive points we might add negative ones, dealing
with his emotional shortcomings. This, indeed, we shall have to do
later, in the interest of a just critical estimate; but for the present
it will be better worth while to examine the positive results, in
the way of keen observation and masterly characterization, of this
active-minded interest of Strauss in what lies about him.
III
Strauss's characterization is consummate. Superlatives are dangerous,
but probably no other musician has ever carried to such a point the
power of music to depict, or at least, to suggest, varieties of
character, both in human beings and in inanimate objects. Strauss's
reported remark that music was becoming so definite that we should
soon be able to portray a tablespoon so unmistakably that it could
be told from the rest of the silverware is probably an instance of
his sardonic delight in hoaxing the public; but if anyone is going
to subject the art of tones to this curious test, we are all agreed,
doubtless, that it should be Strauss himself. Meanwhile, failing a
tablespoon, we have a sufficiently varied collection of portraits in
his gallery, each sketched with a Sargent-like penetration.
We have seen, for example, in Figure I_a_, Till Eulenspiegel the arch
mischief-maker, irrepressible, incorrigible. Here, on the other hand,
is Till sentimental, making love to a village maiden, his original
insolence tamed into a simpering persuasiveness, his theme, at first so
galvanic, now languishing in its plaintive downward droopings (Figure
II, page 57). Later we see him, repulsed by the maiden, storming in
ungovernable fury.[7]
[Illustration: =FIGURE II.
"Till" in love.=]
[Illustration: =FIGURE III.
Don Quixote, the knight of the sorrowful visage.=]
Here, again, belonging to a quite other world, is Don Quixote, "the
knight of the sorrowful visage," aging and broken, yet full of
chivalrous and idealistic notions, and thus at once inspiring and
pathetic (Figure III, page 57). What a contrast is his rascal of a
servant, Sancho Panza, good-natured and irresponsible, sauntering
through life with a minimum of effort and a maximum of diversion:
[Illustration: =FIGURE IV.
Sancho Panza.=]
We find a somewhat similar principle of contrast, though between very
different types of character, in the themes of the husband and the wife
in the "Symphonia Domestica." The latter has been cited at Figure I_e_.
Its suggestion of coy graciousness and feminine charm is due in part to
the tender downward inflections of the opening figure, and partly to
the anacrustic rhythm (beginning with unaccented notes). The theme of
the husband, with which the work opens, starts out with an "inversion"
of this three-note figure of the wife: the motives complementary to
each other, so to speak, as if Strauss had wished to suggest the
reciprocal relation of marriage. Yet the rising inflection and the
falling rhythm of the husband version give it a vigor that completely
differentiates it from the other, even if we ignore for the moment the
effect of the contrasting keys of F major and B major, a matter of
which we shall have more to say presently.
The subtlety of the composer's use of rhythm for characterization
can hardly be exaggerated. It almost justifies the extreme detail
of his annotator's analyses, as for example of Mr. Wilhelm Klatte's
diagnosis of the hero's character in "Ein Heldenleben." This reads
like an old-fashioned phrenological chart. Mr. Klatte finds in his
hero "a genial nature, emotional and vibratory" (measures 1-6 and 9-12
of the opening theme), a "haughty and firm step" (measures 6-8), and
an "indomitable will" (measures 13-16). Furthermore the continuation
in B major and A flat, Mr. Klatte tells us, shows that the paragon
has "richness of fantasy, warmth and elasticity of feeling, allied
with lightness of movement--whose tendency is always toward buoyancy
and onward and upward effort, thus imparting an effect of inflexible
and well-directed determination instead of low-spirited or sullen
obstinacy." Mr. Klatte makes a considerable demand on our powers of
credence. Yet we must be reluctant to place limits to a power of
rhythmo-melodic suggestion that can give us such extremes of opposed
character as the naïve innocence of the "Childhood" motive in "Tod und
Verklärung," and the degenerate superstition and pathological fear of
Herodias, with her eerie whole-tone scale, in "Salome."
Highly characteristic of Strauss, both in its subtle use of
rhythmo-melodic characterization and in the rather malicious quality of
its humor, is the "Science" section in "Also Sprach Zarathustra." This
powerful if over-ambitious work deals with a matter that can hardly be
put into music, even by Strauss: with the opposition, namely, between
the Christian ideal of self-abnegation and Nietzsche's philosophy
of self-fulfilment. In this particular section of it Strauss is
trying to suggest the dustiness, mustiness, and inconclusiveness of
"Science" from the standpoint of the passions; this he does by making
a frightfully complicated fugue from his main theme. How slyly does he
here satirize science! How to the life does his fugue theme, starting
off boldly in C major and square-cut rhythm, and presently wandering
into chromatic harmonies and indecisive triplets, symbolize the initial
arrogance and final futility of scholastic systems!
[Illustration: =FIGURE V.
"Of Science." Fugue theme from "Also Sprach Zarathustra."=]
In the use of harmony for characterization Strauss is no less skilful
than in the more important matters of melody and rhythm. The essential
quality of his harmony is perhaps less "ultra-modern" than is sometimes
supposed. In spite of the sensational innovations of "Salome" and
"Elektra," he is so intensely German in feeling and so well founded
on the German classics that the nucleus of his harmonic system is the
diatonic scale, simple and rugged. One thinks of such powerful themes
as that of "Transfiguration" or the "Hero" as the essential Strauss.
Even "Salome" has its Jochanaan, and the "Symphonia Domestica" is
surprisingly diatonic. Strauss is more nearly related to the virile
Wagner of "Die Meistersinger" than to that other more sensuous Wagner
of "Tristan und Isolde." Of course, there are wondrously expressive
chromatic passages in Strauss, as for instance the "Grablied"
in "Zarathustra"; but on the whole his musical foundation is
tonic-and-dominant, like Mozart's, Beethoven's, and Brahms's.
[Illustration: =FIGURE VI.
Cadence from "Don Quixote."=]
It is in the boldly imaginative and unconventional arrangement of
simple material that Strauss gets his most striking harmonic effects.
Plain "triads" and "dominant sevenths," the small musical change of
hack composers, turn to gold in his hands. The touchingly expressive
cadence of Don Quixote's theme will illustrate. The material is
of the most ordinary, yet the effect is magical and its dramatic
appropriateness surprising. In the words of Mr. Arthur Kahn,[8] "These
confused harmonic windings through which the central chords of the
previously established key are reached, characterize strikingly the
well-known tendency of Don Quixote towards false conclusions. He goes
carefully out of the way of natural sequences and palpable facts, in
order not to demolish therewith his fancy structures."
Strauss has carried this principle of the close juxtaposition of
chords more or less foreign to each other, and even of different keys,
to greater and greater lengths in his more recent works, and to the
effects of "queerness" which result when these foreign tonal groups
quickly follow each other, and of more or less extreme dissonance
when they occur simultaneously, he owes much of the violently adverse
criticism to which he has been subjected. Indeed, nothing has more
retarded his general acceptance than these abrupt transitions and
unaccustomed discordancies. The matter is of sufficient importance to
intelligent appreciation of him to justify a brief digression here. For
any composer who conceives music as a number of melodies proceeding
together in greater or less amity, but preserving the measure of
independence that individuality and vigorous movement demand--and
Strauss is to a peculiar degree such a polyphonic composer--a certain
amount of physical harshness at moments when the melodies happen to
clash is not only unavoidable but positively desirable, as tending to
throw each into relief. According to the degree of his experience the
listener follows the composer in this respect: that is, he accepts with
something more than passive endurance, yes, with active pleasure, the
physically disagreeable clashes (dissonances) which by setting off the
differing contours of the melodies emphasize for him their mental and
emotional appeal; but not--and the point is of prime importance to the
would-be music-lover--not if he does not follow the melodies, that is,
not if he cannot hear consecutively as well as moment by moment--for
it is only by following the threads, so to speak, that we can untangle
the knots. Accordingly most untrained listeners dislike, probably,
music that contains many of these knots, the presence of which makes
it so interesting and exciting to the experienced ear. The woman who
confessed to her piano teacher that she did not like Bach's Two-part
Inventions because they were so "ugly" was not less cultivated but only
more frank than many who have not discovered that Bach has to be heard
"horizontally" (to borrow a figure from musical notation) rather than
"vertically."
This gift of horizontal hearing is peculiarly necessary to anyone who
would disentangle the tonal knots in which Strauss delights, working
as he does with many more than two voices and with the vast fund of
harmonic possibilities accumulated since Bach's day to draw upon.
And he is not the man to use his resources timidly, or to make any
concessions to laziness or inexperience in his listeners. Here is a
reduction of a passage from "Ein Heldenleben" to its essential elements.
[Illustration: =FIGURE VII.=]
The heavy brass gives the foundation harmonies; the strings and
woodwind have an upward-moving melody, and the eight horns blare forth
at the same time a slower-moving downward melody. If we read almost any
single chord vertically, we shall find it has its measure of harshness,
sometimes considerable. If we listen to the coherent voices, none of
these dissonances will trouble us in the least. This is a very simple
example of what Strauss is constantly doing in a far more complex
way.[9]
It is a real difficulty in the way of Strauss appreciation that while
only familiarity can enable us to follow the intricate windings of the
threads that make up his gorgeously rich fabrics, frequent hearings
of his later and more complex symphonic poems are not to be had, even
in the large cities. In the meanwhile we have no recourse but piano
arrangements, unsatisfactory for two reasons. In the first place, it
is physically impossible to play with two hands even a respectable
fraction of the melodies that Strauss delights to elaborate for two
hundred; and four-hand versions are better only in degree, not in kind.
Secondly, piano versions fail us precisely in this matter of unraveling
dissonance, since by reducing a colored pattern to monochrome they
diminish the salience of the lines we are trying to follow, and by
juxtaposing in one tone-quality tones that in the orchestra are
softened by difference of timbre they notably increase the physical
harshness of the combinations. Obviously, then, we must be exceedingly
chary of condemning Strauss, or any other composer, for orchestral
dissonance that we have either become acquainted with insufficiently,
or only through piano arrangements.
After making these subtractions, however, there undoubtedly remain many
puzzling clashes of tone in Strauss's scores, which can be accounted
for only as introduced either for color or for dramatic expression.
The use of dissonance for the sake of color enrichment is a familiar
proceeding in modern music, especially in that of impressionistic type
like Debussy's and Ravel's. Such use is essentially decorative. To a
more or less clearly defined harmonic nucleus are added softer tones,
clashing with it, and thus forming about it an aura or atmosphere
elsewhere compared to the mist which softens the outlines of the
landscape.[10] Strauss is too fond of clear outlines and solid mass to
employ these impressionistic methods habitually, or even frequently;
but when he does, it is with his usual skill and daring. The theme
of the silver rose in "Der Rosenkavalier" is the inevitable example:
the last pages of the score are crowded with those silvery, scarcely
audible triads of celesta and flutes, shifting and settling on the
stronger G major chord like snowflakes on a leaf (Figure VIII, page 70).
[Illustration: =FIGURE VIII.
The silver rose motive, from "Der Rosenkavalier."=]
Delicious as are these shimmerings, a use of dissonance on the
whole more characteristic of the masculine nature of Strauss is the
harsher, more insistent juxtaposition of clashing tones for the sake
of their potency in the expression of the tragic, the gruesome, or
the abnormal. Naturally this is pushed furthest in the treatment of
such pathological subjects as "Salome" and "Elektra," where its effect
is carefully enhanced by contrast with strong or clear consonant
harmonies--"Salome" has its Jochanaan and "Elektra" its Chrysothemis.
The close juxtaposition of foreign tone groups, either successive or
simultaneous, is carried to great lengths in these operas. The theme
of the chattering Jews in "Salome" is an example of the successive,
as is the curious succession of the chords of F minor and B minor at
Chrysothemis' entrance in "Elektra."[11]