Up to the time of Beethoven, music for the pianoforte consisted
mainly of programme music of the purely descriptive order, that
is to say, it was generally imitative of natural or artificial
externals. To be sure, if we go back to the old clavecinists,
and examine the sonatas of Kuhnau, sundry pieces by Couperin,
Rameau, and the Germans, Froberger, C.P.E. Bach and others,
we find the beginnings of that higher order of programme music
which deals directly with the emotions; and not only that,
but which aims at causing the hearer to go beyond the actual
sounds heard, in pursuance of a train of thought primarily
suggested by this music.
To find this art of programme music, as we may call it, brought
to a full flower, we must seek in the mystic utterances
of Robert Schumann. It is wise to keep in mind, however,
that although Schumann's piano music certainly answers to
our definition of the higher programme music, it also marks
the dividing line between emotional programme music without a
well-defined object and that dramatically emotional art which
we have every reason to believe was aimed at by Beethoven in
many of his sonatas, and which, in its logical development
and broadened out by orchestral colours and other resources,
is championed by Richard Strauss at the present day.
We have already learned that C.P.E. Bach had entirely broken
with the contrapuntal style of his father and his age in
order to gain freer utterance, and that the word "colour"
began to be used in his time in connection with music for
even one instrument. It is, perhaps, needless to say that the
vastly enlarged possibilities, both technical and tonal, of
the newly invented _forte-piano_ were largely the outcome of
this seeking for colour in music. In addition to this, the new
art of harmonic dissonances was already beginning to stretch
out in the direction of new and strange tonal combinations,
thus giving to the music written for the instrument many new
possibilities in the way of causing and depicting emotions. That
the first experiments were puerile, we know, as, for example,
Haydn's attempts, in one of his pianoforte sonatas, to suggest
the conversion of an obdurate sinner.
When we consider Mozart, it is impossible to forget the
fact that in his piano works he was first and foremost
a piano virtuoso, a child prodigy, of whom filigree work
was expected by the public for which he wrote his sonatas.
(We cannot call this orientalism, for it was more or less of
German pattern, traced from the fioriture of the Italian opera
singer.) Therefore, emotional utterance or even new or poetic
colouring was not to be expected of him.
As has been said before, it remained for Beethoven to
weld these new words and strange colours into poems, which,
notwithstanding the many barnacles hanging to them (remnants of
a past of timid adhesion to forms and fashions), are, in truth,
the first lofty and dignified musical utterances with an object
which we possess. I mean by this statement that his art was the
first to cast aside the iron fetters of what then formed the
canons of art. The latter may be described (even in reference
to modern days) as constituting the shadow of a great man. And,
although this is a digression, I may add that all students of
piano music no doubt realize the weighty shadow that Beethoven
cast over the first half of the nineteenth century, just as
Wagner is doing at the present time.
Our purists are unable to realize that the shadows are the
least vital part of the great men who cast them. We remember
that the only wish expressed by Diogenes when Alexander came
to see him was that the king should stand aside so that he
could enjoy the light of the sun.
To return: We find that Beethoven was the first exponent of
our modern art. Every revolution is bound to bring with it a
reaction which seeks to consolidate and put in safe keeping,
as it were, results attained by it. Certainly Beethoven alone
can hardly be said to have furthered this end; for his revolt
led him into still more remote and involved trains of thought,
as in his later sonatas and quartets. Even the Ninth Symphony,
hampered as it is by actual words for which declamation and a
more or less well-defined form of musical speech are necessary,
suffers from the same involved utterance that characterizes
his last period.
Schubert, in his instrumental work, was too ardent a seeker
and lover of the purely beautiful to build upon the forms of
past generations, and thus his piano music, neither restrained
nor supported by poetic declamation, was never held within
the bounds of formalism.
It was Mendelssohn who first invested old and seemingly worn-out
forms of instrumental music (especially for the pianoforte)
with the new poetic license of speech, which was essentially
the spirit of the age of revolution in which he lived.
In holding up Mendelssohn as a formalist against Beethoven,
and at the same time presenting him as the composer directly
responsible for our modern symphonic poem, there is a
seeming contradiction, which, however, is more apparent than
real. While Beethoven never hesitated to overturn form (harmonic
or otherwise) to suit the exigencies of his inspiration,
Mendelssohn cast all his pictures into well-defined and orthodox
forms. Thus his symphonic poems, for example, the overtures to
"The Lovely Melusina," "Fingal's Cave," "Ruy Blas," etc., are
really overtures in form; whereas, the so-called "Moonlight"
sonata of Beethoven, as well as many others, are sonatas only
in name. The emotional and problematic significance given by
Mendelssohn to many of his shorter piano pieces, including even
such works as preludes and fugues, is familiar to us all. These
works, however, but rarely departed from the orthodox forms
represented by their names. His "Songs without Words" have
been so often quoted as constituting a new art form that it
is well to remember that they are practically all cast in
the same mould, that of the most simple song form, with one,
and sometimes two more or less similar verses, preceded by a
short introduction and ending with a coda.
We may say then, broadly, that Beethoven invested instrumental
music with a wonderful poignancy and power of expression,
elevating it to the point of being the medium of expressing
some of the greatest thoughts we possess. In so doing, however,
he shattered many of the great idols of formalism by the sheer
violence of his expression.
Schubert, let me say again, seemed indifferent to symmetry, or
never thought of it in his piano music. Mendelssohn, possibly
influenced by his early severe training with Zelter, accepted
symmetry of form as the cornerstone of his musical edifice;
although he was one of the first in the realms of avowed
programme music, he never carried it beyond the boundary of
good form. And, as in speaking a moment ago of the so-called
canons of musical art, we compared them with the shadows that
great men have cast upon their times, it may be as well to
remember that just this formalism of Mendelssohn overshadowed
and still overshadows England to the present day. On the other
hand, Beethoven's last style still shows itself in Brahms,
and even in Richard Strauss. Schumann was different from
these three. His music is not avowed programme music; neither
is it, as is much of Schubert's, pure delight in beautiful
melodies and sounds. It did not break through formalism by
sheer violence of emotion, as did Beethoven's; least of all
has it Mendelssohn's orthodox dress. It represents, as well as
I can put it, the rhapsodical reverie of a great poet to whom
nothing seems strange, and who has the faculty of relating
his visions, never attempting to give them coherence, until,
perhaps, when awakened from his dream, he naively wonders what
they may have meant. It will be remembered that Schumann added
titles to his music after it was composed.
To all of this new, strange music, Liszt and Chopin added the
wonderful tracery of orientalism. As I have said before, the
difference between these two is that with Chopin this tracery
enveloped poetic thought as with a thin gauze; whereas with
Liszt, the embellishment itself made the starting point for
almost a new art in tonal combination, the effects of which are
seen on every hand to-day. To realize its influence, one need
only compare the graceful arabesques of the most simple piano
piece of to-day with the awkward and gargoyle-like figuration
of Beethoven and his predecessors. We may justly attribute this
to Liszt rather than to Chopin, whose nocturne embellishments
are but first cousins to those of the Englishman, John Field,
though naturally Chopin's Polish temperament gave his work that
grace and profusion of design which we have called orientalism.