A HISTORY OF THE PIANOFORTE AND PIANOFORTE PLAYERS
[Frontispiece: Portrait of Franz Liszt.]
A
HISTORY OF THE PIANOFORTE
AND
PIANOFORTE PLAYERS
TRANSLATED AND REVISED
FROM THE GERMAN OF
OSCAR BIE
BY
E. E. KELLETT, M.A.
AND
E. W. NAYLOR, M.A., MUS.D.
WITH NUMEROUS PORTRAITS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AND FACSIMILES
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON
J. M. DENT & COMPANY
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
MDCCCXCIX
_All rights reserved_
Dedicated
TO
EUGENE D’ALBERT
Editors’ Preface
This work does not profess to be so much a literal translation as a
somewhat free version of Dr Bie’s “Das Klavier.” The author, writing as
he does for a German public, naturally uses a more philosophic style
than would be generally intelligible in England. Availing themselves,
therefore, of Dr Bie’s kind permission, the Editors, with a view to
making the book more acceptable to English readers, have allowed
themselves considerable liberty both in omission and in addition. For
all portions of the text which are enclosed in square brackets they
hold themselves responsible. The footnotes, except a few which are
specially marked, have been added by Dr Naylor.
E. W. N.
E. E. K.
Contents
CHAP. PAGE
I. OLD ENGLAND--A PRELUDE 1
The Domestic Character of the Piano, p. 2. Queen Elizabeth
at the Spinet, p. 3. Shakespeare and Music, p. 5. Mediæval
Church Music, p. 7. Ecclesiastical use of Folk Songs, p.
8. Popular Contrapuntal Music, p. 9. The Folk Song and
the Instrument, p. 10. The Organ and the Lute, p. 11. The
Clavier and Secular Music, p. 12. Italian influence in
England, p. 13. Cultivation of Music in England, p. 15.
First Books of Clavier Music, p. 16. Classes of old English
Pieces, p. 17. The Virginal, p. 18. History of the Clavier,
p. 19. The Clavichord, p. 21. The Clavicymbal, p. 23.
Virginal Pieces, p. 26. Thomas Tallis, p. 27. William Bird,
p. 28. John Bull, p. 32. Other Composers, p. 38.
II. OLD FRENCH DANCE PIECES 40
England and France, p. 41. The Dance, p. 43. The Dance and
Common Life, p. 43. The Dance and the Stage, p. 45. The
_Danseuses_, p. 45. Allusions in Dance Names, p. 48. Old
Programme-Music, p. 49. The Titles, p. 51. Chambonnières,
p. 52. Couperin, p. 53. Rameau and others, p. 65.
III. SCARLATTI 68
A Preface by Scarlatti, p. 68. His Life, p. 70. His Style
and the Italian Musical Emotion, p. 71. Technique, p. 73.
Love of Adventure, p. 74. The Opera, p. 75. The position
of Music, p. 77. Chamber Music, p. 78. Clavier Pieces, p.
79. Frescobaldi and Pasquini, p. 80. Corelli, p. 82. The
Da Capo Style, p. 84. Scarlatti’s Sonatas, p. 86. Other
Italians, p. 89.
IV. BACH 91
German Music, p. 91. Kuhnau, p. 92. Bach and Musical
History, p. 93. Bach’s Life, p. 94. His Formal Principle,
p. 95. The Inventions and Symphonies, p. 97. The Toccatas,
p. 98. The Fugues, p. 100. The _Wohltemperiertes Klavier_,
p. 101. The Original Editions, p. 102. The Suites, p. 104.
The Fantasias, p. 109. Bach’s Forms, p. 111. Technique,
p. 116. The Hammer Clavier, p. 121. Bach and the Modern
Pianoforte, p. 112.
V. THE “GALANTEN” 126
The Change of Taste, p. 127. The “Professional Musician,”
p. 129. Spread of Clavier Music, p. 131. Musical
Periodicals, p. 131. Pianoforte Factories, p. 133. Stein
and Streicher, p. 134. Handel, p. 137. Philip Emanuel Bach,
p. 138. Haydn, p. 149. Mozart, p. 151.
VI. BEETHOVEN 157
Beethoven Contrasted with the old Composers of the Empire,
p. 159. Cosmopolitan Life of the Pianist, p. 161. Viennese
Pianists, p. 160. Public Contests of Pianists, p. 161.
Dussek, p. 164. The Sonata of the Time, p. 165. Beethoven’s
Nature, p. 167. Music as a _Speech_, 167. The “Development”
of Motives, p. 171. Rise of the Tragic Sonata, p. 172.
The Sportive Beethoven, p. 173. His Forms, p. 175. His
Archaism, p. 177. His tendency to the “Galant” style, p.
179. His Last Works, p. 181.
VII. THE VIRTUOSOS 183
Beethoven’s Technique, p. 183. The Clavier Schools of this
period, p. 185. The groups of Technicians, p. 189. The Life
of the Virtuoso, p. 192. Concerts and Improvisations, p.
196. Compositions, p. 197. Piano and Opera, p. 201. The
Étude, p. 203. Clementi, p. 208. Cramer, p. 210. Hummel, p.
211. Czerny, p. 216. Kalkbrenner, p. 218. Weber, p. 218.
Moscheles, p. 221.
VIII. THE ROMANTICS 224
Romance, p. 224. Franz Schubert, p. 225. Robert Schumann,
p. 231. Early Works, p. 231. Jean Paul, p. 232.
“Davidsbund,” p. 235. Private Life, p. 237. The “Neue
Zeitschrift für Musik,” p. 238. “Davidsbündler Tänze,” p.
238. “Carnival,” p. 240. F sharp minor Sonata, p. 241.
“Fantasie Stücke,” p. 242. “Études Symphoniques,” p. 242.
Bach and E. T. A. Hoffmann, p. 244. Kreisleriana, p. 245.
Op. 17, p. 246. “Novellettes,” p. 248. Mendelssohn, p. 249.
“Faschings-schwank,” and later Works, p. 254. Chopin, p.
255. His Art, p. 257. His Life, p. 258. George Sand, p.
259. Works, p. 261. Style of Playing, p. 264. Field, p.
265. Chopin’s Method, p. 266. [Sterndale Bennett], p. 268.
IX. LISZT AND THE PRESENT TIME 271
Liszt and the three Types of Artists, p. 272. Life, p.
274. Liszt and Thalberg, p. 277. A Pianist’s Creed, p.
281. Paganini and Liszt, p. 282. Liszt’s Concerts, p. 286.
Piano Works, p. 287. The Interpreters p. 292. Virtuosos
of Older Style, p. 293. Rubinstein and Bülow, p. 294.
Virtuoso and Teacher, p. 299. Tausig and d’Albert, p. 301.
Modern Virtuosos, p. 301. Risler, p. 301. The Pianist’s
Profession, p. 302. The Piano as a Social Factor, p. 303.
Piano Instruction, p. 305. The Practical and Theoretical
Schools, p. 306. The Common or “C major” keyboard compared
with the “Janko,” p. 308. Present-day Piano Factories, p.
310. Steinway and Bechstein, p. 311. The Piano as a piece
of Furniture, p. 313. Pianos _de luxe_, p. 315. The Market
for Piano Literature, p. 316. Modern Piano Works, p. 317.
Alkan, p. 317. The Post-Romantics, p. 318. The French
School, p. 319. The Russians, p. 320. The Scandinavians,
p. 321. The English and Americans, p. 322. The Germans, p.
322. Jensen, p. 322. Brahms, p. 322. Raff, p. 323. Living
Germans, p. 324. Conclusion, p. 326.
AUTHOR’S POSTSCRIPT: AND ERRATA 328
INDEX 329
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 334
[Illustration: Guido of Arezzo and his protector, Bishop Theodal,
playing on a Monochord. Vienna Hofbibliothek.]
Old England: a Prelude
[The drift of the remarks immediately following, which the author
entitles a “Prelude,” is, that Music is at the present time flourishing
more at home than in public; that the playing of chamber compositions
is more popular than the representation of huge operas; and that
therefore it is a suitable time to consider the history and scope of
the instrument which, more than all others, has made possible this
cultivation of domestic music. He begins then by contrasting the huge
performances of Wagnerian drama at Bayreuth with what he calls the
“intimate” character of a private pianoforte recital at home.]
Those were great days in which the foundation-stone was laid at
Bayreuth. Days in which the creative philosopher of the stage threw his
sceptre over the Ninth Symphony; days when choice spirits met together,
who tremblingly passed through the moment in which they saw something
never heard of become reality; days of a joyous intoxication when
Liszt and Wagner embraced each other with tears; days that Nietzsche
calls the happiest he had ever spent, when something brooded in the
air that he could trace nowhere else--something ineffable but full of
hope--those days, alas! return no more. In those days music, that music
which the million greet with cheers of rapture, stood enthroned on the
Stage, which gives to art its public hold upon the world. The living,
new-creating music has to-day once more fled to the concert hall, to
the haughty and more select rows of aristocratic amateurs who listen to
the symphonic poems of Richard Strauss. These are tender and delicate
creations beside the dramas of Wagner. They are elves, they elude us,
and there are those, who see them not. We have been driven to them as
the highest musical expressions of our time.
Since the trumpet-notes of Bayreuth died away we have conducted our
musical devotions on a smaller, more intimate scale. Already, beyond
the concert hall, we see opening the private chamber, holiest of all,
and the chamber music, which is to the music of the stage what etching
is to painting. It is the old ebb and flow. As we passed from the
single instrument to the orchestra, from Beethoven’s orchestra with its
travail for expression to Wagner’s stage with its world-embracing aims,
so we are now passing back from the stage to undiluted music first
before thousands of listeners, then before hundreds only.
And now, if I had my way, I would bring the pianoforte before a small
audience, say of ten persons, not in the concert hall but in the
home, where the artist may give his little concerts, in the fitting
hour of twilight, playing to a company every one of whom he knows.
Under such circumstances, indeed, one can implicitly trust himself to
the _intimate_ character of the pianoforte. Then stream from it the
sweet tones of the harp, then, like strings of pearls, come chains of
roses from its notes, or Titanic forces seem to escape from it, and
my soul lies wholly in the player’s finger-tips. Is it then that the
piano is a contemptible instrument compared with the violin or the
string-quartet? Do I then remember how it sings so hoarsely, and how
its scales are so broken, and how the soul of its melody is so dead
without the breath of the rising and falling tone?
Of course, if it expresses itself in the piano-concerto, on the podium
of the orchestra, or even if it trusts itself, in trio or quartet,
to the company of strings or wind, then it moves my compassion. A
foreign atmosphere envelops it even if Beethoven’s concerto in E flat
major is resounding; and a weakness haunts it, if in chamber music it
alternates with the dominating melody of the singing violin. But when
once the clang of the violin and of the Cor Anglais[1] has faded from
our ears, and all comparison has been laid aside, then, and then only,
the soul of the pianoforte rises before us. Every good thing must be
considered _per se_ apart from all comparison. Is it no good thing to
have the whole material of tone before one’s ten fingers, to penetrate
it, _truly_ to penetrate it; to feel beneath one’s nerves all the
subtleties of all music--the song, the dance, whispering, shrieking,
weeping, laughter?--all, I mean, voiced in the tone of the pianoforte,
the epic tone of this modern Cithara, which, in its own kind, embraces
the lyrical nature of the violin and the dramatic nature of the
orchestra? In such all-embracing power the piano is in the twilight
chamber a strange and dear tale-teller, a _Rhapsode_ for the _intimate_
spirit, which can express itself in it by improvisation, and an archive
for the historian to whom it unrolls the whole life of modern music in
its universal speech from a point of view which gives us the whole in
the average. Then only do I love the piano--then is it faithful, then
noble, genuine, unique.
* * * * *
Queen Elizabeth of England is sitting in the afternoon at her spinet.
She is thinking of the conversation which she has had this forenoon
with Sir James Melville--a conversation which the latter has preserved
for us in writing. He was in 1564 ambassador from Mary Stuart to
Elizabeth. Elizabeth had asked him what was Mary’s style of dress, the
colour of her hair, her figure, her way of life. “When Mary returns
from the hunt,” he answered, “she gives herself up to historical
reading or to music, for she is at home with lute and virginal.” “Does
she play well?” asked Elizabeth. “For a queen, very well,” was the
answer. And so, this afternoon, Elizabeth is sitting at the spinet, and
playing Bird’s or Dr Bull’s Variations on popular airs. She plays from
the very (or a similar) copy which to-day is marked in the Fitzwilliam
Museum at Cambridge as Queen Elizabeth’s Virginal Book. She does not
notice that Sir James and Lord Hunsdon are secretly listening. When
suddenly she sees them standing behind her she stops playing. “I am not
used,” she says, “to play before men; but when I am solitary, to shun
melancholy.”
Fifty years before, Albert Dürer had given an illustration of
Melancholy in his famous engraving. Melancholy, as dignified
Depression, is sitting in the open air, surrounded by the implements
for Manual Labour, Art and Science. It expressed the anticipated pain
of the misfortune which lurks in the good fortune of knowledge and
intelligence; the pain of the dawning Age of Wisdom, for which Erasmus,
in his Praise of Folly, had already shown a just contempt. In his St
Jerome, Dürer represents the deliverance from Melancholy. St Jerome,
in the contemporary engraving, is sitting quietly and contentedly at
home, while the sun shines through the circular panes,[2] the papers,
books and cushions being so neatly disposed around, and the lion
so wonderfully sleeping beside him. But--in the corner stands his
house-organ or spinet!
Something of the spirit of the St Jerome breathes through the
Elizabethan music--a tone of the Volkslied, or of that intimate
world-sense, alongside of the decaying mediæval counterpoint (decaying
as the Gothic architecture was decaying) like scenes of popular life
or of lyrical beauty, which display themselves chiefly in the drama,
in the midst of scenes of historic ceremonial. Everyone has observed
what a subtle sense for soft musical tones is revealed throughout
Shakespeare’s plays. The Duke in Twelfth Night loves the Volkslied, the
old song, “old and plain,” which “the spinsters and the knitters in the
sun, and the free maids that weave their thread with bones, do use to
chant: it is silly sooth, and dallies with the innocence of love like
the old age.” He heard it last night; he will hear it again to-day:
“Methought it did relieve my passion much, More than light airs and
recollected terms Of these most brisk and giddy-pacèd times.” And it is
the fool who sings it to him--that typical figure of the love-thoughts
and of the love-business of the people: the fool, who in every play
has the largest store of old popular songs, and who in this very drama
empties a very cornucopia of them. But Shakespeare’s holiest encomium
on music is sung at night, in that idyllic scene at the close of the
Merchant of Venice, between Lorenzo and Jessica. The moonlight sleeps
upon the bank; the lovers sit in silence before Portia’s house and let
the music steal upon their ears. “Soft stillness and the night become
the touches of sweet harmony.” Lorenzo endeavours to cheer Jessica with
the music. We can well believe that his impassioned words express the
feelings of the poet himself, who has marked his Shylock, his Cassius,
his Othello,[3] his Caliban, with the stain of a heedlessness of
music:--
“The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.”
Portia enters the moonlit garden and hears the gentle tones, not
knowing whence they come. She feels keenly the eternal magic of
invisible music which lies pillowed in silence and night. The whole
scene is a hymn on the infelt soul of musical self-centredness, wherein
man finds his best self.
So too, perhaps, stood Shakespeare by the spinet of his beloved, and
to his musical sense the tones and the love are blended together, his
loved one becoming transfigured into music:--
“How oft when thou, my music, music playest,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently swayest
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks[4] that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips, that should that harvest reap,
At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand.
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blessed than living lips.
Since saucy jacks[4] so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.”
It is in the Elizabethan age that the clavier begins for the first
time to play a part in the world. In the English clavier-music, as in
all English music at that time, there is a ravishing bloom, which
vanished just as quickly from the popular concerts, never to appear
again. Circumstances combined to favour it. A certain repose, a
dependence upon art came upon the London society of that day, and at
such times art penetrates easily into the privacy of the home. For
centuries had the Low Countries held the sway of music; but the art
of tone, which had made its way thither under the stars of Dufay,
Okeghem, and Josquin des Près, remained in the service of the Church.
It represented the rapid development of contrapuntal vocal harmony,
as it had slowly developed itself into music _per se_ from the
figurations, which at the end of the tenth century began to found
themselves on the _canto fermo_ of the Gregorian material. Around the
Gregorian pillars there had arisen a mathematical system of rules and
proportions; of musical vaultings, symmetries, and mouldings, in
which the ordering world-spirit seemed to have realised itself. As
yet, however, there was no melody whose contour was unifying; no
harmony whose development was to be foreseen; no singing voice
resting on the support of an accompaniment. The voices ran according
to the laws of their _tempi_, all equally important from soprano to
bass; and their harmony only aided in reducing them to an average.
The _instrument_ of this great sacred music was the human voice, at
first only the bearer of the tone, but then gradually here and there
betraying a greater depth of feeling: and yet this great function of
the voice had a value for expression which is not to be underrated.
Even in this mathematical tone-system there lay the power of
exhibiting nature as she is.
[Illustration: Orlando Gibbons. After Grignon’s engraving in Hawkins.]
If art was to escape from these rudiments into more intimate circles,
the appropriate social surroundings must be provided. _The home_ must
develop.
The public art of the Middle Ages had divided its favours between
church and hall; it was in the church that counterpoint found its
development; it was in the hall that the old popular song, without
making special advance, maintained itself. The popular song ranged
itself over against counterpoint, for it was pure melody, as we
understand melody to-day, and it was well arranged as to rhythm in
four or eight-bar “strains.”[5] In two ways, however, counterpoint
and popular song might meet: the first might absorb the second, or
_vice versa_. It is well known what took place when counterpoint
absorbed the popular song: throughout the later Middle Ages popular
songs, even the vulgarest, are taken up in masses or motets as
motives for figures; nay, more, when they alternate, while the
Gregorian _cantus_ holds its own alongside, church hymns are named
after popular songs, and we stumble everywhere upon masses named
after their underlying melody,[6] “L’homme armé,” “Malheur me bat,”
“O Venus,” and the like. But, as might be expected, these are taken
up utterly into the framework of the voice-mathematic; their peculiar
aroma disappears; they are thrown into contrapuntal form. Far from
betraying a worldly element, such as Ambrose conveyed under
allegorical paintings of old landscape in religious pictures, they
betray on the contrary a total absence of the secular sense. To them
the content of the melody is so indifferent that they never once
display it.
[Illustration: Young Scholar and his Wife. Painting by Gonzales
Coques (1614-1684), in the Royal Gallery at Cassel.]
Secondly, the popular song on its own side stands apart from
counterpoint. Since counterpoint is the recognised style of the time,
popular song has no choice but to appropriate that means of
expression. Hence arises the Madrigal, the most festive form of this
appropriation, which sets popular themes to many parts, but with the
utmost art. It exhausts all the requirements of better taste in
secular music in the sixteenth century. Societies like the
Arcadeltian[7] have resulted in an extraordinary growth of published
material, and it is no mere accident that this process has continued
in England, thanks to the exertions of a Madrigal Society, down to
our own time. Yet the popular song was too opposed to the choral
setting to feel itself at home in this form long and universally. It
tended to unison or to the total absence of words; in the latter case
it could still remain contrapuntal and became simply a tone-piece;[8]
in the former the counterpoint existed, so to speak, simply at the
pleasure of the melody, as it did in hundreds of old melodies
throughout the world. These old popular songs, of remarkable origin
in their plain melodious orderliness, became finally the precursors
of modern music. While they marked the monodic principle, and gave to
the expression the full value which it had in all early music, they
accustomed the ears to the pleasure of the fully-outlined melody, and
compelled the combination with this of an equally well-outlined
harmony. Thus the way was prepared for the great discovery of the
monodic opera, which arose in Florence about 1600.
But in that wonderful drama, which the emancipation of the secular or
popular principle in the music of the sixteenth century presents, the
instrument appears as the second agent, with its greater freedom as
contrasted with the human voice. Choral counterpoint penetrates into
the music of the future in the two ways of the one-part song and of
the instrumental polyphony, which form a quite natural whole. In
proportion as vocal music became more individual and more full of
soul, the absolute instrumental music gained in meaning. But we must
mark two impulses which necessarily condition each other. As the
one-part song was, so to speak, a victory of the logic of expression
over the metaphysic of many-parts, so the latter also was a
transference of counterpoint to the instrument.
[In the late sixteenth century, counterpoint can scarcely be said to
survive in any popular shape except that of the Catch or (endless)
canon, the performance of which, when the complete melody is once
learnt, is merely mechanical, and requires no great intelligence or
attention from the singer. But to perform continuous contrapuntal
music requires very great intelligence, and such concentrated
attention as is seldom found in its perfection amongst mere singers.
Instrumentalists therefore, as being superior in these indispensable
qualities, were naturally called upon, first to assist, and then to
displace the singers, who had allowed themselves to rest on their
physical gifts rather than on the accomplishments of the
intellect.][9] Thus it is the instrument which opens to the popular
song and to the dance of the same kind, within the contrapuntal
style, new paths of promise; and this principle of popular music,
after it had held itself for a century in the almost neglected plain
melody under the wintry covering of ecclesiastical counterpoint,
becomes, in a moment, conscious of its immeasurable powers. Still,
further, here there was the ground on which the popular song, so long
differenced from counterpoint, gradually overcame it and was able to
develop its principle freshly and clearly. In the opera we see it
suddenly break with counterpoint; but this kind of art suffered by
this suddenness, since it swung uneasily to and fro from the heights
of the stage-reformation to the depths of virtuosity. Instrumental
music escaped this sudden break, took up into itself counterpoint,
transformed it out of itself, and passed on to meet a development far
more regular and advancing with giant strides. What instrument, then,
was best for the reproduction of the contrapuntal play of the voices?
Next to choral song stood the organ, with its power of holding on its
tones. Slowly, therefore, as we might expect, the organ steps into
the contest with the church-choir. At first more clumsily, then more
gently, its voices contrast and work into counterpoint. The organ
also offers, as exchange for the sung chorus, direct transferences
from motets of Josquin and Orlando Lasso. But so soon as the organ
recollects that it is not vocal but an instrument, it begins--shall
we say?--to run off into flourishes. All kinds of adornments and
grace-notes start up, and finally the organist prides himself on
departing utterly from the composer’s or author’s intention, and
embroidering the theme at pleasure. A Prelude and a Fugue in this
style appeared to the men of that time dreadful enough to linger
over; as Hermann Finck writes, “they run sometimes by the half-hour,
up and down over the key-board, trusting thus, with God’s help, to
attain the highest, never asking where Dan Time, or Dan Accent, or
Dan Tone, or Bona Fantasia, are staying in the meanwhile.” Further,
when the organ had purified itself in the great epoch of German
church-music, it had perforce to remain in the service of the Church.
It felt the influence of the audience, which was brought into rhythm
and harmony by the secular principle of music--that influence which,
in the Protestant Choral and in the creations of Bach, made itself
felt as a brilliant reaction of the secular musical sense on the
church tradition.
Alongside of the organ came the lute, which for so long had been the
chief instrument of the home. Yet the lute, with its tones drawn from
so few strings, was unable to show itself very productive. It had
provided the accompaniment of songs, and music in many parts had very
early been arranged for it.[10] At all times, therefore, the lute had
imitated the contrapuntal style, though in simple fashion, and
occasionally certain passages had been accented with chords thrown in
arpeggio-wise. Whether the lute accompanied a voice, or whether it
took up the popular melody into itself to produce “absolute” music,
it exhibited a style of its own, conditioned by its own limitations,
even as, alongside of the organ, it had its own note-script.[11] It
was not convenient accurately to retain on the lute every separate
voice. An instrumental style was formed; men became accustomed to the
sufficiency of this simplicity of tone; dances were written for the
lute, as Hans Judenkunig in his lute-book offers a “Court-dance,
Panana[12] alla Veneziana, Rossina ein welscher Dantz” and the like.
As time went on, all well-known pieces were arranged for the lute, as
they are to-day for the piano. Encyclopædias appear--as for example
in 1603 the “Thesaurus” in ten volumes of “Besardus nec non
praestantissimorum musicorum, qui hoc seculo in diversis orbis
partibus excellunt, selectissima omnis generis cantus in testudine
(the lute) modulamina continens.” Graceful figurations arise, which
in France and Italy receive fine names, while the German lute-player
sets himself strongly against these complicated “battements,”
“tremblements,” or “flattements,” against this or that “passagio
largo,” “stretto,” “raddopiato.” But, on the whole, much as the lute
achieved, it could not suffice to compel the complete admission of
the whole musical material into the home.
The heavy _churchiness_ of the organ and the light secularity of the
lute were thus constrained to unite themselves in an instrument which
was sufficiently flexible to effect the representation of all the
voice parts at once yet more easily than in the choir, and which
could embrace the whole tonic scale so completely as to expand the
limits of the voice both above and below. It must be a light,
moveable instrument, a miniature of the organ. The clavier offered
itself for this end; and in it organ and lute met in fruitful
wedlock.
Such is the position and the meaning of the clavier in the great
struggle for freedom of the secular music-principle which fills the
sixteenth century. With this begins the history of the clavier, and
simultaneously the history of the orchestra. The orchestra flourishes
where the clavier flourishes, and _vice versa_. The combination of
single instruments in a body, and that _one_ instrument which alone
can represent that combination, are manifestations of the same
movement, namely, of the transference of the church choral
tone-practice into the sphere of the secular, where in place of the
counterpoint which ran on by the hour, an interlaced system of
harmonies, a strict organisation of melodies, gradually assumed the
mastery. The orchestra occupied itself with public representations;
the clavier with the advance of the new music in the home. Already,
in Venice, had instruments taken their share with the singers in the
church; now chamber-music also began to flourish. Later, in France,
the court-orchestra gained a special significance, and very shortly
the clavier also made its importance felt. In Naples the orchestra
appears simultaneously with the Italian opera, and shortly afterwards
arises Scarlatti with his clavier-pieces. In Old England the
orchestra was regarded with a special affection; and thus it is that
in England the clavier first flourishes.
The early development of instrumental music in Venice cannot have
been without its influence upon London, which not only cast an eye on
the social and topographical aspect of the city of the lagoons, but
also allowed itself to be consciously influenced by Italian culture.
So early as 1512 we hear of Italian masques performed in the Palace
at Greenwich; and when, in 1561, a tragedy by Lord Buckhurst[13] was
performed with introductory pantomimes and orchestral music, we
recognise the Venetian touch in the individual character of the
instruments. In Act I. the violin, in Act II. horns, in Act III.
flutes, in Act IV. oboes, in Act V. drums and pipes are set down.[14]
The orchestra of Queen Elizabeth exhibits strong features of the
mediæval physiognomy: there are sixteen trumpets (about equal to the
number of the singers in the associated chorus) and three
kettle-drums stand in close relation to them. It is the old official
festival music once more. Eight violins, one lute, one harp, one
bagpipe, two flutes, and three virginals are the relatively weaker
supplanters of the more intimate orchestral type. The respective
costliness appears from the account: the lute, £60; the violin, £20;
the bagpipes, £12. The Italian operatic orchestra started on the
opposite path, gradually getting rid of the stringed instruments and
adopting wind. It was, however, very thin, and even in France the
orchestra of the sixteenth century appears hardly more elaborate than
a Papal orchestra of the fifteenth. It is the English orchestra that
at this time stands at the head, not even the thirty instrumentalists
of Munich being equal to it. Above all there seems to be growing a
division of labour between orchestra and chamber-music, so much so
that Prätorius, when in his great musical work (1618), he mentions
such combinations of lute-choirs, calls this style of chamber-music
especially English. “Die Engelländer nennens gar apposite à consortio
ein consort,[15] wenn etliche Personen mit allerley Instrumenten, als
Klavicymbel und Gross-spinett, grosse Lyra, Doppelharff, Lauten,
Theorben, Bandorn, Penorcon, Zittern, Viol de Gamba, einer kleinen
Diskant-Geig, einer Quer-Flöt oder Bock-Flöt, bisweilen auch einer
stillen Posaun oder Racket zusammen in einer Compagny und
Gesellschaft gar still, sanfft und lieblich accordiren, und in
anmuthiger Symphonia mit einander zusammen stimmen.” Hence it appears
that the orchestra and the chamber-music of old England were the
chief things. In the former the wind prevailed, in the latter the
strings; but the clavier had its place in both kinds. For the
clavier, during many years, even when it had made good its position
as a solo instrument, still took its part in orchestral combinations.
Even in Hasse’s time the _Kapellmeister_ at Dresden sat at the
clavier.
Under such circumstances it is no wonder that the old English clavier
should have flourished, or that it was in England that it first
recognised its mission. The influence of this was great enough to
bring about a speedy development on the continent. The cultivation of
music was not only wide-spread, but also very ancient; so much so
that the old musical writer Tinctor (1434-1520) expressly ascribes
the origin of all contrapuntal music to England. The compositions of
the thirteenth century were, in grace of melody, simplicity of
rhythm, and modernity of harmony, far in advance of their age.
(Compare the canon in six parts,[16] “Sumer is icumen in” of the Monk
of Reading, before 1226.) It is noteworthy that the English possessed
of old a popular, simple, melodious tendency in music which reminds
us of Mendelssohn. This has made English music great and also small.
Great, for at a time when the whole musical world struggled with the
contrapuntal want of system in harmony and melody, the English were
capable of preparing the way, in systematic, plastic form, for the
new conquering secular principle. Small, because so soon as this
principle became universally recognised, they laid themselves to
sleep in the luxurious enjoyment of their tradition, and set up
foreign ideals, such as Mendelssohn and Handel,[17] who were endowed
with the like gifts.
[Illustration: Lady at the Clavier. Painting by Dirk Hals (?1656), in
the Rijksmuseum at Amsterdam.]
Madrigals of Elizabeth’s time are so familiar to us that Dr Ambros, of
Prague, could produce them in Prague with great success, drawing from
J. J. Maier’s German collection. That free geniality of the English
in its ancient dress, which conceals all triviality, overcomes us
even to-day. With the clavier-pieces it is the same. We are charmed
with the extreme simplicity of their musical form, and we love them
because they come before us in an archaic dress. They exhale an aroma
whose popular sweetness mingles beautifully with the slight harshness
of their naïve style. Allowing ourselves a touch of triviality, we
find ourselves wondering that these works seem to be quite outside
their own time, and in the modernness of their spirit surpass even the
renowned contemporary performances of Gabrieli and the other Venetians.
In this London, the imitator and rival of Venice, we fall upon
the first clavier-books that, as such, were ever collected in the
world. Strictly speaking, they are not the absolute first. We
read on the title-page of a collection of Chansons, Madrigals and
Dances, issued at Lyons in 1560 by S. Gorlier: “Premier Livre de
tablature d’Espinette.” We learn from Prätorius that the inscription,
“For an Instrument,” which appears so often on old works, is not
to be understood universally, but to be confined to the clavier.
Nevertheless, it is in England that we first find in any numbers
collections of expressly-marked clavier-pieces, springing from a
special impulse of musical enthusiasm. First in interest stands the
so-called Queen Elizabeth’s Virginal Book, one of the chief treasures
of the Fitzwilliam Museum, lately transcribed into our own script for
Breitkopf and Härtel. Granting that it may have been written after
the time of Elizabeth, it yet, with its three hundred pieces, goes
back to the earliest names of this school--Tallis, Bird, Farnaby,
Bull. Next, in the library of the late Rimbault, an important English
historian of music, we find, in manuscript, a Virginal Book of the
Earl of Leicester, and another of Lady Nevill. Doubtless great lords
and ladies had many manuscript collections of this kind, including
copies of the favourite pieces of the day. But soon manuscript gave
way to print. In 1611 appeared the first copper-engraved set of pieces
ever seen in England. This was “Parthenia, or the Maydenhead of the
first Musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls. Composed by
three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr John Bull, and Orl. Gibbons,
Gentilmen of His Majestie’s most illustrious Chappell.” A modern
edition of this collection was issued in 1847 by the indefatigable
London Musical Antiquarian Society. From the materials collected by
this Society Ernst Pauer, whose contributions to the history of the
clavier have achieved a great repute, formed his collected edition of
Old English Composers, which presents, in modernised form, special
pieces by Bird, Bull, Gibbons, Blow, Purcell, and even Arne, who,
though later, is not uninteresting.
[Illustration: Title-page of the first English engraved Clavier Music,
1611.]
The pieces in these collections are of three kinds. First, free
fantasias,[18] such as were also composed for organ and lute under
the name of prelude, preamble, or even toccata (here denoting simply
piece). In their essence fugal they are broken and intersected by
florid passages. In the second class, a canto fermo was taken from
a church melody, and developed after the approved fashion in fugal or
figured style. Or, finally--and this is the most usual case, and the
style most appropriate to the clavier--a number of variations, or even
groups of variations, if the theme has several sections, are formed
into a series. The theme itself is a popular song or dance. Popular
songs, as they swept uncounted through England and Scotland, are
inexhaustible. Even to-day they retain their freshness. To the whole
piece they impart their tense and melodious rhythm. The dances--in
common time called Pavans, in triple, Galliards--are frequently named
after noblemen,[19] and are in their variations adorned with the same
encomiastic flourishes as the songs.
The clavier, for which these English musicians wrote their pieces, was
of the kind called a virginal. The virginal was a peculiarly handy
kind of spinet. It is not to be assumed that, after the quibbling and
flattering fashion of the time, it was so called in compliment to the
Maiden Queen. The name is older. Possibly it is due to the fact that
the small size of the instrument made it specially suitable for young
girls. We find scarcely any pictures of _men_ sitting at the clavier.
In Italy the same name was in vogue; but we are not here concerned
with the whole history of the nomenclature of old keyed instruments.
We are only so far interested in the history of the instrument as
it forms the basis for the rise of the _literature_, i.e. _style of
composition_, which concerns us in its human aspect. The histories
of the clavier, those of Rimbault, Oskar Paul, and others, place
the history of the instrument in the foreground. Even Weitzmann has
appended to the last edition of his “History of Clavier-Playing and
Clavier-Literature,” a comprehensive chapter on this subject. But the
history of the clavier is a very complicated matter if we are tedious
on it, and a very simple matter if, without becoming inexact, we are
brief upon it.
It is a union of the harp with the mechanism of key-action. Harps, in
which the strings are plucked with the plectrum, are in some form or
other as old as music itself, and appear in the most various shapes in
the first dawn of civilisation. The mechanism of the keyboard, which
by means of an easy leverage adapted to the human fingers, gives the
player control over the sounds of pipes or strings, is not quite so
ancient, since it presumes a certain inventive capacity; but it is
old enough to be equally beyond our chronological powers. In Europe
we find keyed organs as early as the first centuries after Christ.
The application of this action to stringed instruments was completed
in the monochord. The monochord, an instrument well-known to the
earliest theoretical musicians, was a board with a string stretched
across it on which the intervals could be clearly marked and sounded
by mathematical division: the half marking the octave above the pitch
of the whole length of the string; the third part of it giving a fifth
above that octave; the quarter part giving a fourth above that fifth,
namely a note two octaves above the pitch of the whole string; the
fifth part sounding a major third above the last named note, viz., a
seventeenth above the pitch of the whole length; and so on.
The simple monochord developed itself after the tenth century in
two directions, the musical and the technical. Its development was
musical, inasmuch as three or four strings took the place of the _one_
in order to produce a chord instead of a simple arpeggio; an aim
which the church music attained by the multiplication of instruments
sounding only one note each at a time. It was technical, inasmuch as,
in place of the constant alteration of the “bridge” which divided the
string, _keys_ were introduced, which not only divided the string
at the desired spot, by a flat metal pin (called “tangent” from its
action in simply “touching” against the wire), but also caused it
to sound. With twenty keys and only a few strings, of course it was
necessary for several keys to divide the same string, and to sound
it at different points in its length; whereby the simultaneous
sounding of several notes was brought into the proper limits. Though
thus really many-stringed, the instrument still retained its name of
_mono_chord. Gradually the number of keys increased, and in increasing
proportion the number of strings, which still remained of equal
length. About the year 1450, probably, the clavier attained this, its
earliest form of the monochord. It served an educational purpose.
Virdung, Abbot of Amberg, who in 1511 published his German “Music with
Illustrations,” is our authority for the development of the monochord
up to the first true clavier-form--that of the _clavichord_--which is
nothing more nor less than the many-stringed many-keyed “monochord”
which we have just described. The self-contradictory “mono” was
rejected, and ‘_clavi_’ substituted (Lat. _clavis_, a key). The
_clavis_ is the key which in the organ admits the wind to the pipes,
in the clavier sets the strings in motion.
[Illustration: From the Weimar “Wunderbuch,” a Clavichord of about
1440. One of the oldest representations.]
[Illustration: From the Weimar “Wunderbuch,” Primitive Spinet, of
about 1440. One of the oldest representations.]
The clavichord introduced a new means of “expression,” viz., the
“Bebung” (trembling, shivering), which could be applied to any of the
notes by a gentle after-pressure of the key, a mournful, soul-moving
_vibrato_, which was only possible with the peculiar mechanism of
the clavichord, where a “tangent” both divided the string and at the
same moment instantaneously created the sound. A slight relaxation
of this pressure on the key caused a slight lowering of pitch; a
slight renewal of pressure a corresponding heightening. The German
players of the eighteenth century could scarcely find it in their
hearts to resign this delicate effect, even for the advantages of the
modern pianoforte. Here for the first time the keyboard mechanism
had succeeded in producing a modification of the tones by “touch”
alone, and the keyed instrument had gained its soul. How confined were
the old eight keys of the Hurdygurdy,[20] the favourite instrument
till the rise of the lute, where the strings were strained against a
rosined wheel turned by a crank (a sort of everlasting fiddle-bow),
while the keys divided the strings into notes--an antiquated
compromise between clavier and violin! How clumsy was the treatment of
the organ-keys so late as the fourteenth century, in which, according
to Prätorius, the keys were struck with the fist! But from this time
the art of mechanics develops quickly, and the rapid increase of the
number of keys in the clavichord shows us how speedily its supremacy
was attained. The fall of the key was shallow, the quick-sounding
tone encouraged ornamental flourishes, which were more easily played
on the clavichord than on our heavy-touched pianoforte. Yet it was
long before the number of strings became equal to that of the keys.
Not till the eighteenth century (about 1725) do we find clavichords
with a string to every key. (These are called _free_ instruments, in
contra-distinction to the old _tied_.)[21] It is obvious that the
“tied” clavichords did not admit of _all_ chords; but those which were
impossible were discords, avoided on other grounds by the older music.
To sound C and D flat together was impossible; but no one complained,
for no one, for reasons of style, wished to try it. But, on very
old clavichords, C and E are also incapable of being simultaneously
sounded--a fact which gives us many a hint for the criticism of the
oldest pieces.
In the form of a simple case, fit to be laid on the table, and later
when fitted with its own stand, frequently painted on top and sides,
or with its keys set in ivory and metal, the clavichord continues to
the beginning of the nineteenth century. Although the strings were
then duplicated, although it was possible to attain in the touch
stronger or weaker, louder or softer, expression, yet it could not,
with its far too great simplicity of tone, hold its place in the
rapidly hurrying development of music. It had taken one thousand years
to improve the monochord, five hundred more to produce a clavichord,
two hundred and fifty more were required to bring the clavicymbal[22]
form to its perfection; and yet a hundred and fifty for the
clavicymbal to emerge into a Steinway or a Bechstein.