IMITATORS AND NATIONALISTS
Inevitable results of Schumann, Chopin and Liszt--Heller,
Raff, Jensen, Scharwenka, Moszkowski, and other German
composers--The influence of national characteristics: Grieg,
his style and his compositions; Christian Sinding--The
Russians: Balakireff, Rubinstein, Tschaikowsky, Arensky,
Glazounoff, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, and others--Spanish
traits; I. Albéniz; pianoforte composers in England and the
United States.
It is scarcely to be wondered at that the work of Chopin, Schumann,
and Liszt has eclipsed that of most of their contemporaries, nor
that three such remarkable composers should have left a standard for
pianoforte music by which little else for the piano since that day can
afford to be measured. One feels that the German Romantic spirit could
find no expression more complete than that which Schumann gave it; that
the beauties of sound in the pianoforte could not be again put into
such emotional form as Chopin put them; that the instrument itself
could not be made to do more than Liszt had made it do. These things
are nearly true. One cannot therefore expect to find in the music of
their obscure contemporaries such superlative greatness as has made
theirs known to the whole world. One expects to find, and does find,
in the music of their successors imitations of their method, style, or
technique. The literature for the piano has been stuffed to overflowing
with music of this kind. Only now and then may a little of it be
distinguished by a touch of originality, either of personal, or, more
frequently, of national or local idiom.
STEPHEN HELLER AND JOACHIM RAFF
I
In Germany the romanticism of Schumann, combined with the technique
of Liszt, has about run its course. With the exception of Brahms, no
composer of high order has there given his attention to the pianoforte.
Starting with Stephen Heller (1814-88), the most lovable contemporary
and friend of Chopin, the list of composers for the pianoforte touches
upon Joachim Raff (1822-82), Adolf Jensen (1837-79), Philipp and Xaver
Scharwenka, Maurice Moszkowski, Friedrich Gernsheim, for an instant on
Richard Strauss and longer upon Max Reger.
One protests against the obscurity into which Stephen Heller’s music
is rapidly falling. It is too charming to be let go. Yet it has too
little strength to stand much longer against the fate that has already
pushed Mendelssohn aside. Heller published over one hundred and fifty
pieces or rather sets of pieces for the piano. Nearly all of these are
in short forms; many of them are not more than a page long. Many of the
sets are given fanciful titles. One finds several sets--opus 86, opus
128, and opus 136--of Woodland Sketches (_Im Walde_); two _Promenades
d’un solitaire_, _Nuits Blanches_, _Reise um mein Zimmer_, and Thorn,
Fruit and Flower pieces, after Jean Paul Richter. Besides these there
are many sets of short studies, the most melodious simple studies that
have ever been written, for which both student and teacher should still
feel grateful; and there are numerous Preludes, Tarantelles and Dances.
Heller’s thoughts are fresh and winning, his style is remarkably clear
and well adapted to the keyboard. Among the preludes in all keys, opus
81, the second, third, fifteenth, eighteenth, and twenty-second are
far more effective than the majority of Mendelssohn’s ‘Songs Without
Words.’ The Tarantelles, and one or two of the _Promenades_, are
even brilliant. We mention these because they are before us. But on
the whole Heller’s pianoforte style is not distinguished by anything
except clearness. The parts for the left hand are monotonous, the
accompaniment figures rarely more than commonplace. Perhaps these
things are evident only by comparison of his music with Chopin or
Schumann.
Unhappily there is another weakness besides these. His rhythms are
unvaried, and his structures of phrases desperately regular. Here, we
think, lies the secret of its softness, its lack of virility and power
to stand against time. Heller repeats himself. He cannot take one step
without (in most cases) going back to take it over again. The process
is all the more distressing to the listener because Heller’s steps, or
his strides, are so invariably of the same length, and so inexorably
deliberate. His harmonies are very like Mendelssohn’s, and his melodies
are often sweet.
In a way the world has dealt more hardly with Joachim Raff than with
Heller; because not more than twenty-five years ago Raff was one of
the most played of all composers. Not only his pianoforte works. His
symphonies, especially _Im Walde_ and _Leonore_, held quite as high and
strong a place in the public favor as the symphonies of Tschaikowsky do
at the present day. And now even his pianoforte works are discarded.
There is a great number of them, including all sorts of salon music,
a concerto, and numberless transcriptions. His style is exceedingly
brilliant, showing markedly the influence of Liszt, with whom Raff was
on various occasions closely associated; but his ideas are almost never
more than commonplace. Oskar Bie speaks of the unfortunate _Polka de
la reine_. It is perhaps typical of Raff at his worst, yet there is
elsewhere in his music suggestion enough of what this worst can be. It
is hard to believe that the man who wrote eleven symphonies could have
written the romance opus 126, No. 2.
On the other hand, a piece like that called _La fileuse_ is in every
way acceptable. It is beautifully scored for the piano, worthy of Liszt
himself in that regard; and the treatment of the short motive which
lies at the base of it all, like the harmonies and modulations, is all
fresh and welcome to the ear. Among the shorter pieces there are many
that are clean-cut in style and that have a sort of sturdy charm even
today. Parts of a minuet in opus 126, and the gavotte in opus 125,
prove that he could write rhythmical music much better than the _Polka
de la reine_. On the whole one thinks of Raff as writing too easily for
his own good. Of this sort of vain facility Heller’s music is quite
free, and also of the false shine which in Raff’s music is so often the
result.
Adolf Jensen was a man of far more sensitive cast than Raff. His
music is finer, especially his songs. As a melodist he stands between
Schumann and Robert Franz, and indeed must be considered as one of
the best results of German romanticism in music. The influence of
Schumann is perhaps strongest in his work; but that of Chopin, and even
more that of Wagner in the later songs, can be detected. His style is
not distinctive, but it is expressive. It is strange to read in the
dedication prefixed to the _Romantische Studien_, a plea for fantastic,
emotional and mysterious life in pianoforte music. The best of his
keyboard music is the Wedding Music, opus 45, written for four hands.
Other works are the _Wanderbilder_, opus 17, the _Idyllen_, opus 43,
and the _Eroticon_, opus 44. There are besides these a sonata, opus 25,
and a German suite, opus 36.
Xaver Scharwenka and Maurice Moszkowski are among the successful
composers for the pianoforte of the last fifteen years or more.
Scharwenka’s first concerto, opus 35, in B-flat minor has been highly
praised. The second, third, and fourth have not made quite so good
an impression. Moszkowski is master of a most brilliant and facile
style on the keyboard. His waltzes, especially those in E major and
that in A major, his concert-studies, especially the _Etincelles_, and
the finished and brilliant Barcarolle have been played far and wide
with delight to both pianist and audience. Yet neither Scharwenka nor
Moszkowski has advanced pianoforte technique, nor has either of them
been the discoverer of new effects. There are some charming pieces by
Friedrich Gernsheim. One series, called _Symbole_, has just a touch of
that impressionism which has given the music of the French composers
its great charm.
The celebrated pianist Eugen d’Albert has composed pieces in almost
severely classic style, which have a manly, vigorous ring. A few early
works of Richard Strauss for the piano are hardly sufficient to suggest
that he might have done for that instrument what he came to do for the
orchestra. One looks in vain through the many pianoforte works of Max
Reger for any new treatment of the instrument. His pieces are descended
from Bach and Brahms, descended thence and passed through the shaping
medium of a remarkable mathematical mind.
Here, perhaps, among the Germans mention may be made of Arnold
Schönberg. He has written two sets of pianoforte pieces, the second of
which is the more remarkable. His genius is polyphonic, therefore his
music of this kind does not bring out the subtle qualities of the piano
which appealed to Chopin and which Debussy has further revealed. His
pianoforte compositions may be considered as a household arrangement
and presentation of his extraordinary theories, hardly as music
suggested by the instrument itself.
Evidently the Romantic movement in Germany, having expressed itself
almost thoroughly in pianoforte music through Schumann, passed on to a
new expression through Wagner, whose powerful genius, flying wide of
the keyboard, has since presided over and shaped the future of German
music. Only with Brahms, then, has the piano spoken a new word in its
own tongue.
II
After the middle of the nineteenth century an effort becomes noticeable
in many nations to inject some freshness or newness into music by
employing harmonies, turns of melodies and odd rhythms of a distinctly
local or national flavor. Awaiting the advent of a new genius of
international significance who should revolutionize music, or resurrect
it from a stagnation little better than death, such an effort toward
national expression was the most successful safeguard against imitation
and subservience. Moreover, it was productive of enthusiasm, which is a
quality of youth in music. Accepting forms and technique as matters of
course, composers threw themselves with joy into the expression of the
spirit of their beloved land.
Naturally in those countries which had inherited from the ages a store
of folk-music the new movement was the most striking. Scandinavia and
Russia were especially rich in such an endowment. Their folk-songs were
strongly marked and individual, and in so far as their composers drew
upon them the new music was differentiated from music founded upon the
classical German examples. In both Scandinavia and Russia composers
were divided. Some regarded this folk-material with disdain and adhered
to a faith in the inexhaustibleness of traditional inspiration. Others
threw themselves heart and soul into the music of their nation, with a
flaming ambition to reveal its unique beauties and power to the world.
Among the Scandinavians Niels Gade (1817-1890) first claims
attention as a composer for the pianoforte. And yet only for a
moment. His pianoforte pieces, including several sets of short
pieces--_Frühlingsblumen_, opus 2, _Aquarellen_, opus 19, and
_Volkstänze_, opus 31, one _Arabesque_, opus 27, and a sonata, opus
28--have but the faintest touch of the music of Denmark. Even the
_Volkstänze_ are urbane and refined. It was against this subservience
to Mendelssohn that Edvard Grieg rebelled. Grieg, therefore, who had
no more skill than Gade, and perhaps was fundamentally no more richly
gifted, stands out somewhat brilliantly among the composers for the
pianoforte since the time of Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt. His music
is sharply defined by national idioms. Whatever the value of his own
personality may be, his music is thus given a definite shape and an
independence, those signs of character which are unfortunately but very
feebly displayed in the music of most of the German post-romanticists.
The proof that this definiteness was acceptable to the world is to be
found in the persistent popularity of Grieg’s pianoforte compositions.
Most of these are in short forms and are relatively easy to play;
which facts must also be held in some measure responsible for their
popularity. There are several sets of ‘Lyrical Pieces,’ the best of
which are _opera_ 12, 38, 43, and 47. The later sets, _opera_ 54,
57, 62, 65, and 68, show a falling off which is noticeable in all of
Grieg’s work after middle life. There is a set of ‘Humoresques,’ some
Northern Dances, and some ‘Album Leaves.’
It may be said of these in general that they are neatly composed,
clearly phrased and balanced, sometimes polished; and that they are
well-written for the keyboard. The spice of all is in the national
idiosyncrasies of Norwegian music: the peculiar melodic avoidance of
the sixth and second notes of the scale and the harmonies which result
from such omissions; persistent rhythms emphasized by empty fifths in
the bass, or by repetitions of short phrases with almost a barbaric
effect; an interchanging of groups of two and three notes; finally a
general harmonic boldness in which the bodily shifting of the music
from one degree of the scale to another is prominent, and a host of odd
accents.
There are several longer works in which these national characteristics
are not less obvious, but in which they are so expanded and interwoven
as to make less strikingly folk-music. Among these must be mentioned
the sonata in E minor, opus 7, the concerto in A minor, opus 16, the
Ballade, opus 24, and the suite, _Aus Holberg’s Zeit_, opus 40. The
sonata is well written, and the classical form is well sustained in
the first movement. One does not find organic development, but, on
the other hand, one finds no empty service music. The themes and the
transitional passages are full of life, and strongly Norwegian. There
is, unhappily, a dreary passage in 6/8 time in the development section
which makes a dull use in the bass of the second phrase of the first
theme. The coda is in brilliant pianoforte style. The poetic slow
movement is also well-scored. The minuet is a Norwegian dance and the
finale is stormy.
The concerto may be taken as the finest of Grieg’s pianoforte works.
It is a treasured addition to the stock of concertos, valued not
only for the piquancy of Norwegian rhythms and harmonies, but for
a successful handling of the form, a brilliant and yet a poetical
treatment of both pianoforte and orchestra. Norway speaks in all the
themes and in very nearly all the figures as well, but she speaks
through a man who shows himself here a sensitive poet and a skillful
artist. There seems to be a touch of Schumann in the first part of the
first movement.
The Ballade is in the form of variations on a Norwegian theme. It
is in many respects the best of his works for the piano, though the
treatment of the keyboard nowhere shows originality. The influence
of the _Variations sérieuses_ of Mendelssohn is strikingly evident.
The theme itself, for all its plaintive Norwegian character, is so
near the type of the theme in the Mendelssohn variations as perhaps
to suggest to Grieg the same treatment of it. The sixth, seventh,
eighth and ninth variations are especially _à la_ Mendelssohn, as
far as treatment is concerned. After these, however, he seems to
have forsaken the _Variations sérieuses_ for Schumann’s ‘Symphonic
Variations.’ Nevertheless, the work as a whole is Grieg, and only the
external features suggest the home from which some of its glory may
have trailed. The last variations are broad in style and fiery, hardly
suggestive of the miniature perfection of the earlier shorter pieces.
From the Holberg suite one picks out the prelude as a fine piece of
pianoforte music. The other movements are effective and pleasing, but
the prelude is worthiest of Holberg. The suite as a whole reminds one
of a classic temple, flying the flag of Norway.
No other Norwegian composer has been so widely popular as Grieg. It is
true that already amateur and professional alike have discovered the
sameness of his mannerisms and his procedure; but such compositions as
the concerto and the ballade are strong enough to bear the music above
these heavy shackles. They are fairly to be considered as contributions
to the literature of the instrument of unusual worth.
Christian Sinding enjoys a popularity second among Norwegian composers
only to that of Grieg. He has more cosmopolitan predilections, and
he has worked in broader forms. Perhaps for those reasons he is less
distinctive. However, most of his pianoforte music has been cast in
short forms--usually a little more developed than those of Grieg. There
are numerous sets of three or of six pieces, of studies, of interludes,
of odd little caprices, dances and scherzos. The set opus 32 contains
the _Marche grotesque_ and the _Frühlingsrauschen_, among the best
known of his compositions. All the _Mélodies mignonnes_, opus 52, and
several of the caprices among the fifteen published as opus 54, are
interesting. He shows an understanding of keyboard effects, usually in
the broad style, with sharp accents, wide-flowing runs, and chords;
but there is a sameness about his music which seems to spring from a
lack of ingenuity in rhythm and in phrase building. He is technically
far more skillful than Grieg, but his pianoforte music lacks the
individuality which Grieg’s invariably has. Sinding’s concerto in
D-flat, opus 6, is a big and brilliant work, ingeniously wrought upon a
single idea, but it lacks the highly colored spirit and life of Grieg’s.
III
The Russian composers of the last half century have almost without
exception written something for the pianoforte; but their national
characteristics have found a more vivid expression in orchestral music
and music for the theatre than in keyboard music. Their technique has
been the technique of Liszt and Chopin, and a great part of them have
written in the style of Schumann. The national fervor did not kindle
all to the same intensity. Rubinstein and Tschaikowsky represent almost
two nationalities, and yet even Tschaikowsky held himself aloof from
the enthusiasms of the great Five.
From the pen of Glinka, the leader of the Russians, their first
pioneer, there was no pianoforte music. But his friend, the equally
famous Dargomyzhsky, wrote a Tarantella, for three hands,[38] which
Liszt transcribed. Thus enter the Russians into the history of
pianoforte music, at a time when Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt had about
exhausted the possibilities of expression on the keyboard in terms of
music as it was then, and was for fifty years more to be understood.
Nevertheless each of the great five, Balakireff, Borodine, Moussorgsky,
Rimsky-Korsakoff, and César Cui, has contributed more or less to the
keyboard. The ‘Islamey Fantasy’ of Balakireff is perhaps the most
brilliant and the most significant work of the lot. The themes are
original, but they have the strong Oriental coloring which has given to
much of Russian music its splendor. This fantasy has a sort of barbaric
power. The first section is built up out of countless repetitions of a
short motive, most brilliantly scored, which whirls and whirls like the
dervishes until we are mad as they. And this is resumed again, after a
somewhat more tranquil section, and whirled more and more madly, until
the time seems to break, and give way to a stamping. It is the work of
a lover of folk-music as well as a man who knew the piano almost as
well as Liszt did.
Balakireff’s pianoforte transcription of Glinka’s ‘A Life for the Czar’
is a masterpiece of its kind, and there are transcriptions of Glinka’s
songs as well. There are two scherzos, of which the second--in B-flat
minor--is remarkable; a Concert Waltz dedicated to d’Albert, and a
wonderful ‘Dumka.’
The others of this group were far less able pianists, and their
contribution to the literature of the instrument was small. There is
a set of variations by Rimsky-Korsakoff, and also a group of short
pieces, opus 11, in the style of Schumann; and Moussorgsky wrote a
_Kinderscherz_ and an _Intermezzo_. There is a touch of Russian in
these. The works of César Cui are even more cosmopolitan. They include
a set of preludes, two suites, one dedicated to Liszt, the other
to Leschetizsky, and a number of simple pieces, among them twelve
_Miniatures_. But the _Dumka_ and the _Islamey_ of Balakireff stand far
above all the other pianoforte music written by the five, not only from
the point of view of style, but as an expression of national spirit.
Anton Rubinstein (1830-1894) desired to be known as a composer rather
than as a virtuoso, but his once often-heard compositions, works for
the pianoforte, overtures, symphonies, and operas, are rapidly losing
their hold on the public, and it seems likely that they will not be
remembered even so long as his playing will. The distinctively Russian
element in them is well-nigh concealed beneath the many strands of
western influence, and indeed he was himself so much in doubt and so
easily influenced that hardly his own personality finds a consistent
or thorough expression in his music. Some of the études in opus 23 may
continue to be cherished by the pianist as excellent practice pieces.
The concert music of other kinds, even the once greatly popular suite
of dance pieces, _Le Bal_, with its brilliant polka, mazurka, waltz,
and galop, is already less and less performed. The two Barcarolles,
opus 30, No. 1, and opus 50, No. 3, still enjoy some favor. The
_Kammenoi-Ostrow_ and the Melody in F will keep his memory green in
many a family circle so long as they are included in family music
books. Of the five concertos, that in D minor, No. 4, is by general
consent by far the best, and seems at present the only one of his
works, excepting one or two of the songs, that will be able to retain
much longer the respect of musicians or pianists.
It is far different with Tschaikowsky. He wrote only moderately
well for the keyboard, but the emotional fire of his music is of
the kind that burns long. The short pieces, of which there are some
half dozen sets, are not of any great significance, though many of
them, specifically the vigorous _Troïka_, op. 37, No. 11, and the
_Humoresque_ in G, op. 10, No. 2, are full of charm. The sonata in
G major, opus 37, is a difficult and a fiery work. There are three
concertos for pianoforte and orchestra: one in B-flat minor, opus 23,
one in G major, opus 44, and one in E-flat major, opus 75. Of these the
first is by far the best, and is indeed the most significant of all his
compositions for the instrument.
The form of the concerto is classical, but the spirit is
Russian in spite of it. One feels it in the character of the themes,
particularly of the chief theme of the last movement, with its barbaric
rhythm and its savage repetitions of short motives. The piano is
handled in a more or less grandiose way, yet never in some respects
was it handled more grandly. The chords of the introduction are almost
unique in their splendor. There are bold and difficult passages in
octaves, and great climaxes which demand unusual physical endurance. On
the other hand, there are passages of extremely effective finger work,
even though the figuration as a whole can hardly be called original or
distinguished. The cadenza in the first movement, the variations and
trills in the slow movement, and, most of all perhaps, the fleet runs
just before the coda of the last movement, these are all remarkable
accomplishments for a composer who called himself no pianist. The
whole was a favorite of von Bülow’s, who played it for the first
time in public, by the way, at a concert in Boston. Among other of
Tschaikowsky’s pianoforte compositions von Bülow had also an admiration
for the Theme and Variations, which is the sixth of the six pieces,
opus 19. The second and third concertos are weakly constructed and
ineffective; but by reason of the first, Tschaikowsky’s name will live
for long in pianoforte music.
[Illustration]
Anton Rubinstein’s Hand.
_Photographed from a plaster cast_.
The compositions of the younger school of Russian composers are far
too numerous to be passed in review. In no country has there been a
more active or a more fruitful musical life; and nearly all of the
many composers have written sometimes much, sometimes little, for the
pianoforte. In general these composers may be divided into two groups,
one of which is clearly still guided by the musical ideals of Western
Europe, still more or less dependent on Schumann and Chopin; the other
drawing its enthusiasm and its inspiration from the great Five.
The most prominent in the former group is Anton Arensky (b. 1861), who
is master of a smooth, flowing pianoforte style, and who has the art
of writing melody for the pianoforte. Among his short pieces Walter
Niemann[39] mentions three published as opus 42, the Esquisses, opus
24, twenty-four pieces, opus 36, and the well-known _Basso ostinato_ in
which he finds no trace of German influence. To these may be added the
little piece, _Près de la mer_, from opus 52, and the effect concert
study, opus 36, No. 13. With Arensky Niemann also reckons Genari
Karganoff and Paul Juon.
Alexander Glazounoff (b. 1865) has more fire than Arensky, but in
spite of his pronounced loyalty to Russian ideals in music, the
influences of Schumann and Chopin are evident in his pianoforte style.
Apart from several short pieces, he has written a Theme and Variations,
opus 72, and two sonatas, one in B-flat, opus 74, and one in E, opus
75, both of which are more distinguished by fluent writing than by
characteristically Russian ideas. The Prelude and Fugue, opus 62, is
the most unusual and the most profound of his works for pianoforte.
The pianoforte works of Serge Rachmaninoff are essentially Russian, in
many ways a fulfillment of the promise given by Balakireff’s. The style
is brilliant and always effective. Melodies, harmonies are unusual, and
his rhythms are bold and full of at times a savage life. He may be said
to have won attention as a composer for the pianoforte by the Prelude
in C-sharp minor; of which it must be said that endlessly as it has
been played it still remains a piece of profound meaning and effect.
He has published at least twenty-three preludes, of which this still
remains the best-known, with the possible exception of that in G minor.
Here again there is a spirit not common to Western Europe; one hears
it in the steady powerful rhythm, the outbursts of sound, the strange
intensity of the melody of the middle section.
The two sonatas, opus 28 in D minor, and opus 36 in B-flat minor, seem
on the whole less powerful and vigorous than the three concertos, of
which the third, opus 30, in D minor, is truly a gorgeous work. There
are, besides these big works and the preludes, some études, opus 33,
some variations on a theme of Chopin, opus 22, and a few salon pieces,
mostly in brilliant style.
Anatole Liadoff (b. 1855) and Nicholas de Stcherbatcheff (b. 1853)
also draw generously upon their native music. The former is more of
a painter in music, fond of color; the latter is fond of short forms
and is master of a dainty style. More intensely national than these,
though, strictly speaking, not Russian, is the Lett Joseph Wihtol (b.
1863). He has interested himself deeply in the folk-songs of his own
province, which are more like Swedish than Russian folk-songs; and his
most considerable work is a set of variations, opus 6, on a Lettish
theme. Niemann[40] likens them to the Ballade of Grieg.
Finally, among the most interesting of all the Russian composers,
although in some respects the least Russian among them, is to be
reckoned the late Alexander Scriabin. His works for the pianoforte
comprise a great many sets of short pieces, some études, a concerto,
and ten sonatas. On the whole they give a very distinct impression that
Scriabin is not a creative genius of the highest order; and he has
given over the fresh, albeit humble, life of the music of his native
land only at first to imitate Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms; and later
to devise a sort of music which is unusual without wholly justifying
itself.
Most of these works are brilliantly written for the keyboard, but
until in the later works he has begun to develop a new harmonic system
they offer no difficulties but those of Chopin and Liszt. The études,
opus 12 and opus 42, are an epitome of his technical equipment. His
many experiments in rhythms and in harmonies never seem to ring quite
true; and almost instinctively one takes them to be a substitute for
musical expression. The first set--opus 12--is not very startling.
Already in these pieces he shows the influence of Brahms. The second
deals with triplet groups of octaves and single notes for both hands,
one group containing two octaves with a single note between, the next
two single notes with an octave between, thus progressing alternately
through the piece. The complexity is in many ways a rhythmical one,
for two groups in sequence will seem to be divided into three beats,
each accented by an octave. The third is a study in the movement of
the arm such as is required in many of Brahms’ pieces. The sixth, a
study in sixths, is perhaps more after the manner of Chopin, though it
lacks entirely the grace and inner melodiousness which is above all
else characteristic of Chopin’s music. The tenth is by all means the
most difficult, a truly brilliant study in double notes for the right
hand. One finds in several of the studies of this set that the initial
direction of the left hand accompaniment figures is downward. This is a
characteristic feature in Scriabin’s style, and in part accounts for a
strange ethereal, not to say pale, quality in his pianoforte music. His
harmonies instead of being solidly founded in the bass, seem to drift
downward from the upper part.
The difficulties of the second set of studies, opus 42, are almost
exclusively rhythmical, and may be taken as a further development or
an expansion of the rhythmical processes to be found in many of the
Brahms variations on a theme of Paganini. In the first study the left
hand is phrased into five groups against triplets in the right, and in
the eighth there is a combination of a rhythm of five beats with one of
nine. There is no doubt that the rhythmical systems of European music
are restricted and unvaried, and that there is a vast field in the
future of music for the development of more subtle and complex systems.
Therefore Scriabin’s experiments point forward. If only he had a
little more spontaneous sense of melody and harmony to make of these
rhythmical studies something more than experiments! In this series the
falling of the accompaniment figures is even more noticeable than in
the earlier one.
The harmonies in both series tend to be most unusual without being
self-sufficient. They run parallel to the system of earlier masters
without seeming related to it. The meaning of this statement will
perhaps be clear by a reference to two of the short studies in opus 65.
In the first of these the right hand plays continuously in ninths, in
the second it plays in sevenths--major, not minor. The effect of both
is presumably melodic; that is, we are to listen to a melody, played
not in octaves, but in ninths or sevenths, the latter of which may be
said to be almost the harshest interval in music. Now this is not so
much an expansion of harmony as it is a concentration on a particular
interval, which is, as it were, extracted from all relation to our
harmonic system and given an isolated independence. Then it is made
to stalk alongside the general progression of the music. This is no
hour to speak of forced effects in music. Music is expanding about us
and touching notes we never dreamed of, and we may hardly venture to
criticize without running the risk of finding in the end that we had a
cloddish ear, insensitive to a nascent beauty since grown resplendent.
Yet in all open-mindedness it is hard not to find Scriabin’s harmonic
procedures arbitrary and often dry as dust.
Few of his short pieces are genial. There is a sort of stiffness in
them and they are strangely barren. Leaving aside the early ones
which are close to Schumann and Chopin, one comes upon a _Satanische
Dichtung_, opus 36, which is lineally descended from Liszt’s Mephisto
waltz, then upon two short pieces, opus 57, the one called _Désir_, the
other _Caresse dansée_; a Poem and a Prelude, opus 59; and Two Poems,
opus 63, the first called _Masque_, the second _Etrangeté_. These last
seem to us the best.
There are ten sonatas, of which we have examined the fifth, seventh,
ninth, and tenth. The fifth seems to owe its origin to that _Poëme
de l’extase_ which inspired one of his orchestral pieces. There is
enormous dramatic fire, but it is a fire that has little heat. The
seventh shows throughout that arbitrary selection of the harsh seventh
we have noted in the study opus 65, No. 2; but the second theme has
a rich beauty. Scriabin has directed that it be played now with a
celestial voluptuousness, now very purely, with profound tenderness
(_douceur_). The ninth and tenth seem very fine music. The former is
touched with morbidness. Scriabin intended it to be expressive of
some most extraordinary shades of mood or feeling, if we may judge by
his indications here and there. We may well ask what is a _langueur
naissante_, or again how we may express in music _une douceur de
plus en plus caressante et empoisonée_. In the tenth we have to do
with a _volupté douloureuse_, and many other remarkable phrases of
intellectualized emotion; but the sonata is a powerful and a moving
work, suggesting kinship with the symphonic poems of Richard Strauss.
Scriabin’s style is always finished. In general he demands more
of the pianist than the piano, that is he has not called forth the
intimate and finest qualities of the instrument but has treated it
as an orchestra. There are pronounced mannerisms, such as a fondness
for descending chromatic motives, and that downward dropping of
accompaniment figures before noticed. All in all, his pianoforte music
is likely to shine more and more brilliantly, as a highly specialized
but isolated achievement.
IV
The Russian and Scandinavian composers, especially Balakireff and
Rachmaninoff, and Edvard Grieg, have been the most successful in
introducing some freshness and youth into pianoforte music by means of
national idioms of melody, harmony, and rhythm. Among the Poles, Ignace
Paderewski has shown himself, on the whole, too cosmopolitan in manner,
though many of his works, especially the brilliant concerto in A minor,
contain Polish matter. Dvořák was too little a pianist to enrich the
literature of pianoforte music with more than a few slight dances
and Humoresques of Bohemian character. Recently Ernst von Dohnányi,
a most brilliant pianist, has done more. Two concertos in splendidly
brilliant style and two sonatas are among the most significant of
his publications. The Italian Giovanni Sgambati (b. 1843) has shown
himself wholly classical in his interests and natural tendencies,
drawing his technique, however, considerably from Chopin. From Spain,
however, a breath of freshness has come into pianoforte music. The
works of Isaac Albéniz are among the most brilliant and most effective
of all compositions for the instrument. The most considerable are
the four sets of pieces called _Iberia_, and of these the second and
third contain the best. All are so thoroughly saturated with Spanish
harmonies, rhythms and melodies that taken as a whole this brilliant
collection suffers from too much sameness. Yet there is some variety
of mood. There is melancholy in the lovely melodies of the _Almeria_,
a certain fineness in both the _Triana_ and the _El Albaicin_, an
incredible coarseness in _Lavapies_. Albéniz’s treatment of the piano
is astonishing, considering the directness with which his music appeals
to the senses. One would not believe, to hear the music played, into
what desperate intricacies the pianist has had to cut his way. And
all to hang a garland on a tune, but a tune that heats with the very
heart of Spain, and a garland that is a cloak of all the colors ever
seen at a bull-fight. Grieg is an expatriate beside Albéniz. Never has
such intensity of national life, joy, passion, pride, and melancholy
threatened to burst the very limits of sound.
Composers in England have not written a great deal for the pianoforte.
Sir A. C. Mackenzie’s Scottish Concerto is an outstanding work, and
recently Cyril Scott and Percy Grainger have added works to piano
literature which have charm and interest. Scott experiments with modern
systems of harmony, but Grainger has chosen to make use of the uniquely
beautiful songs and dances of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His
arrangements of many of these are effective; and as music they have the
perennial freshness of the melodies about which they are woven.
In the United States but one name stands out prominently among the
composers for the pianoforte. This is Edward MacDowell, who wrote
numerous short pieces, études and concert pieces, as well as three big
sonatas and two concertos. MacDowell’s treatment of the keyboard can
hardly be said to be original, but the concertos, and among the shorter
pieces the _Hexentanz_ prove to be highly effective. Many of the short
pieces, which are grouped together in sets, are charming. On the whole
there is little suggestion of a new spirit in the work of this composer
of a new land. Now and then he uses negro rhythms, as in the ‘Uncle
Remus,’ sometimes he uses Indian motives, as in the ‘Indian Lodge’ of
the ‘Woodland Sketches.’ His forms and his style are perhaps more akin
to those of Grieg, with whom, indeed, his music will be often compared,
than to the earlier Romantics. Unfortunately, however, instead of in a
national idiom, he speaks in an intensely personal one. Short phrases
and rhythms which are seldom varied seem almost to hamper his music,
almost to clog its movement. On the other hand, as in some of the ‘Sea
Pieces,’ he writes sometimes in a broad and open style, seeming to
shake off the fetters of too intense a mannerism.
Ethelbert Nevin wrote several sets of short pieces, ‘In Arcady,’
‘Venezia,’ and others, which have at least the charm of simple, sweet
melody.
Mr. Arthur Foote and Mrs. H. H. A. Beach have shown themselves masters
of an effective pianoforte style, a mastery that has on the whole been
rare in this country.[41]
FOOTNOTES:
[38] The third hand part was written for one who did not know how to
play the piano, and has but one and the same note throughout the piece.
[39] _Die Neurussische Klaviermusik._ In _Die Musik_, 1903, No. 8.
[40] _Op. cit._
[41] For a detailed discussion of American composers the reader is
referred to Volume IV of this series.