emotions, characters, animals, plants, landscapes, occupations,
bits from all kinds of life, which are often inscribed with the
favourite antique titles. Thus “Diana” with her broken chords leads
us into the forest, and shortly after in the second part we hear her
horns sounding; while in the “Hunt” a more romantic note is struck.
In a broad violoncello-like “Romance” the wood gods are singing
and the satyrs dance a very melodious and attractive Bourrée. The
Amazon rushes on in thirds, which bear a striking likeness to the
_leit-motif_ of Die Walküren; and Atalanta runs past in rapid figures.
Hymen and Amor sing a marriage-song, the former in the first part more
firmly, the latter in the second more delicately and tenderly. The
Bells of Cythera sound to us from the holy island, rising and falling
alternately, enlivened by glissando-passages. This motive Couperin
adopted a second time in “Les Timbres.”
The Bees hum and revolve round one point; the Butterflies flutter past
in ravishing triplets; the Fly buzzes and dances round her own melody;
the retiring Linnet hurries through restless triplets; the complaining
Grasshopper chirps in endless imitative short grace-notes; the Eel
twists itself now tightly, now loosely; the Amphibian creeps along
in legato notes, winding itself through bar-sections of Schubertian
length; the Nightingale in Love sings her piercing plaintive accents
in quick and ever quicker trills, or as Victor chants more joyfully
and triumphantly. Or, again, blooming lilies rise before us in
delicate self-enfolding figures with petal-like ornamentations; the
sedge rustles eternally to its melody; the poppy spreads abroad a
wonderful secret mysterious tune, with many slow arpeggio thirds; and
garlands twine themselves in festal guise on a canonic trelliswork.
Life unfolds itself in its entire wealth. Here we have the rolling
play of the waves, there the purling and rippling of the brooks, and
the twittering of the birds--a foretaste of the slow movement of
the Pastoral Symphony. Then again, under the name of “Bontemps ou
l’étincelante,” an appeal is made to the emotions of springtide or
fair weather; we live as it were in a small forest of enchantment.
In the second part--Les Grâces Naturelles--one of Couperin’s most
intellectual melodies breaks forth, showing all the chaste delicacy
of Mozart. There rises the blooming landscape of St Germain en Laye;
farther off we catch a sight of teeming orchards from which the music
of bagpipes sounds forth. The reapers draw nigh with cheerful song;
the buffoons--males in minor and female in major--stir their happy
limbs; the jugglers appear and ply their tricks;--we can hardly
distinguish the trick and its solution, or the rapid intermingling
of left and right hand--the knitters lace their rolling semiquavers
together right to the “falling meshes” at the end; the click-clack
of the lace-makers--tic, toc, choc, tic, toc, choc--beats joyfully
hither and thither in the broken chords of a _pièce croisée_. Even
the milk-maids of Bagnolet have their appropriate pieces. There the
gossipping wife--a reminiscence of Jannequin--beats her rapid bubbling
motive; there the short rolling courses of the famous little windmills
play their humorous part; here hobbles a cheery lame man along; there
staggers a _bizarre_, syncopated, now swift, now slow Chinese. “The
Man with the queer Body” makes his springs, in scattered notes, and
close by stands the idyll of “Dodo,” or “Love in the Cradle,” the
bass of which rocks itself to and fro in a _pièce croisée_. “Wavering
shadows” glide ghost-like in sadly-sounding movements throughout this
play of life.
The “Sentiments,” full of feeling, with their beautiful “anticipation”
notes, the long legato-movement of the “Idées Heureuses,” the
“Regrets” and “Amusements” musically darting to and fro, the
syncopated tender “L’Ame en Peine,” the wonderful “Langueurs Tendres,”
the somewhat lengthy “Charmes,” the “Agréments” with _their_
agréments, the free diatonic of the various morning melodies,[42]
the gentle toying of the “Bagatelles,” of the “Petit Rien,” of the
“Brimborions,” the rapture-like “Saillie”--these are inward reflexes
which have not quite the clear sensuousness and realism of the outer
experiences. The following are the most elaborately worked out, and
are presented in “cycle” form.
The “Earlier Ages” appear in four figures--the first exercise gives
the syncopated “Muse naissante,” the second the rocking “Enfantine,”
the third the rioting “Adolescente,” the fourth the “Délices” in
violoncello style, which is Couperin’s favourite for the attainment of
the most delightful effects.
Or the great “Shepherds’ Feast” with the twanging musettes of Taverni
or Choisy, and the lightly rocking rhythms.
Or the five-act Ballet of the “Pomp of the great and ancient
Menestrandise.”[43] Act I., the pompous entry of the Notables and
sworn probationers. Act II., a bag-pipe song of the hurdy-gurdy-men
and beggars. Act III., a joyous dance of the jugglers, clog-dancers,
and Merry-Andrews with bears and monkeys. Act IV., a duet of the
crazy and the lame. Act V., breaking up of the whole troop by the
animals--furious étude in semiquavers.
Next, the cycle of the old and young men; the former sober, the latter
happy.
[Illustration]
But, before all, that original of Schumann’s Carnival, “Les Folies
françaises ou les Dominos.” Maidenhood in invisible colours, Shame
in rose, Impetuosity in red, Hope in green, Faithfulness in blue,
Perseverance in gray, Longing in violet, Coquetry in a domino of
many colours, the old gallants in purple and gold, the cuckolds in
brown, silent Jealousy in dark gray, Rage and Desperation in black.
Externally the form is that of a great ballet of the time; internally
it is the variation of collected pieces on a single harmonic
succession, its contents are the allusions easily comprehended at the
time; the characterisation is carried through with great skill; but
its musical setting is even shorter than is usually the case with
Couperin’s clavier-pieces.
The Preludes, which Couperin appended to his “Art de Toucher
le clavecin,” he named, in accordance with their _ad libitum_
performance, the Prose of clavier-literature. These dances and
pictures were to him the poetry, rhymed and rhythmical. And it was
precisely their formal completion which was of importance for the
future of clavier-literature. We see the forms developing. In his best
pieces the Sonata is already foreshadowed. The fulness of motives,
as they occur to him in his two best compositions, the splendid
“Favorite” and the stupendous “Passacaille,” is elsewhere thematically
limited. In the recapitulation of the main theme at the beginning of
the second part of the pieces, in the rhythmic similarity between the
rondo-motive and its “couplets,” in many a thematic working-out, shown
for example in “La Trophée” with its wonderfully modern sonata-style,
lies the promise of thematically-developed music of succeeding
generations. To the same purpose is his increasing sense for the
association of several pieces. The many slow second pieces, or the
popular dances such as the Polonaise, the Sezile, the Musette, which
form the concluding parts of a group, the repetition of the first
part after the second, the divisions into slow movement, slower, and
lighter, which are specially visible in “La Triomphante,” and “Les
Bacchanales”--all these are as much the germ of the future sonata
arrangement, as the severer thematic was the germ of sonata-playing.
The charm for us lies in observing, in the springtime of art, the
natural uprising of these forms which appear to us almost laws of
nature.
His “Art de toucher le clavecin,” the first school-book specially
devoted to the clavier, was published in 1717 and dedicated to the
king. This was a noteworthy advance. There was to be no longer a
teaching of mere notation, but a teaching of technique and execution.
“The method which I here propose,” says Couperin, “is unique, and
has nothing to do with the tablature, which is only a counting of
numbers. I deal here chiefly with all that belongs to good playing. I
believe that my observations are clear enough to please connoisseurs
and to help those who are willing to be helped. As there is a great
difference between grammatical and rhetorical rules, so there is an
infinite distance between tablature and the art of good playing.” Such
a general musical “fabrication” and grammar, in spite of many advanced
ideas, had been the work of St Lambert, which appeared from 1702 to
1707, and which in its first part (called “Principes du Clavecin”)
devotes only a few lines to actual clavecin playing, and extends the
second part (called “De l’accompagnement”) also to the organ, and
other instruments. It is painful to him that his experience is treated
lightly and turned into a “school.” The parents of the pupils, he says
later, ought to place the most implicit reliance on the teacher, and
yield him the completest powers. The teacher even takes the key of the
instrument with him, and no playing should be attempted without his
supervision. The scholar sits with his fore-arm horizontal before the
clavier, elbows, hand and fingers in a line--the fingers thus lying
quite flat on the keys. He has his body turned very slightly to the
right, and the right foot a little stretched out. In order to prevent
grimacing while playing, he often places a mirror in front in which
he can watch his motions. A bar over the hands occasionally regulates
the equality of their height; for the holding of the hands high makes
the tone necessarily hard. Looking about of any kind is forbidden,
and above all, coquetting with the public as if the playing were no
trouble at all. And although, finally, everything in the performance
depends on experience, taste, and feeling, yet rules are given for
performance to which the player must conform. Couperin frequently
disregards the fingering of his predecessors, and to the examples
which he gives of his new art he adds confidently in a side-note that
he is convinced that few persons in Paris have the old rules in their
heads--Paris being the centre of all good. Step by step we have harder
and harder studies developed from a single figure, and directions
for finger exercises fill the rest of the volume. The change of
fingers on one note, the avoidance of the same finger twice in scale
passages, the first application of the thumb in passing under are his
characteristic points. These are all symptoms of the endeavour to
form a legato style suitable to the clavier; they are the external
indications of the suppression of the lute. Couperin’s abhorrence of a
vacuum runs through his whole teaching of the clavier. The adornments,
the avoidance of too long note-values, the legato finger-exercise--all
are the systematic development of the powers which arise from the
necessity of _short_ tones in the clavier. He once introduces a
charming short fugal _allemande_, in which both voice-parts work in
contrary motion in most flowing style in order to show what “sounds
well” on the clavier, and opposes to it the one-sided broken chords
of the Italian sonatas of whose light style he has on other grounds
the highest opinion. “The clavier has its peculiarities as the violin
has _its_. If its note cannot swell, if the repetitions of one tone
by striking do not suit it, it has advantages on the other side,
precision, neatness, brilliancy, and width of compass.” Perhaps
Couperin was the first who had an absolutely good ear for the clavier.
In comparison with him his elder and younger contemporaries must give
place. Dumont, le Begue, D’Anglebert, Loeilly, Marchand, Dandrieu,
and even the brilliant Rameau, composer of operas and founder of
modern musical theory, are his inferiors. It is now demonstrated
that Rameau published his first clavier-compositions in 1706, seven
years before those of Couperin. But these pieces had just as little
meaning and result as those of Marchand which appeared the year
previously. They must have differed little from the style of the
old school of Chambonnières. Rameau in later years is much freer
and more developed, like Couperin, whose work he continued with the
happiest results. He is no pioneer, but an improver of the ways. How
powerful are his _allemandes_, how dainty his _gigues_, how brilliant
the conduct of the thematic in his Cyclopes and his Trois Mains!
What a depth of invention appears in his variations on Gavottes, in
his Gigues, and in his splendid Niais de Sologne! How wonderfully
melodious is his “L’Enharmonique,” what a realism is there in his
“Hen” and in the “Call of the Birds”! How clear, how penetrating, how
rich in promise is his technique! In him there are musical conceptions
of extreme penetration and melodious harmonic turns which live for
ever in the ear. From the “twenties” to the “sixties” all kinds of new
editions of his works were produced, so popular were they, as they
would still be, if the public knew these enchanting little works.
[Illustration]
Thus the fame of the clavier is fixed in the Paris of the beginning
of the eighteenth century, and its future assured. It is a kind of
symbol of history that from the guild of violinists, founded by a
king of violin-players, which reigned throughout the seventeenth
century, should have proceeded, first the dance-masters, for reasons
of independence, and then the organists and clavierists, who actually
maintained that a musician was he only who played an instrument with
full harmony. The orchestra went its own way, the “grande bande des
violons” and the “petits violons” of Lully’s time having laid the
foundation. The clavier was again the opponent of the orchestra, and
concentrated the whole body of tone in its keys. An intimate, personal
interpreter of musical emotions, it chooses to perform its functions
in itself. Its consciousness of its own importance grows to a height.
No longer will a clavecin-player when accompanist be the Cinderella
among a company of proud sisters. “The clavierist,” cried Couperin
indignantly, “is the last to be praised for his share in a concerto.
What injustice! His accompaniment is the foundation of a building
which supports the whole, and of which no one ever speaks!”
[Illustration: Rameau, out walking. Old engraving from the
Nicolas-Manskopf collection, Frankfort.]
[33] Gaultier “the Elder” was a French lute-player,
who also published (in collaboration with his cousin
Pierre Gaultier) a collection of pieces for lute, with
instructions for playing. He flourished _temp._ Charles I.
References to him may be found _inter alia_, in Herrick,
who calls him Gotiere or Gotire.
[34] _Anglicé_, “for the sheer fun of howling.”
[35] M_a_nicordion = M_o_nocordion = a clavichord in which
_one_ string had still to provide several notes. See full
explanation elsewhere in this book.
[36] Agricola. Pupil of J. S. Bach.
[37] Galliard, in triple time, with a “leap” in every other
bar (second beat); Basse-dance also in triple time, but
“sans sauter,” all solemn sliding.
[38] For examples of these pieces, Wasielewski’s book on
sixteenth century instrumental music is invaluable. Also
see Arbeau’s “Orchésographie,” and my “Shakespeare and
Music.”
[39] This is yet a _third_ musician of the name, according
to Hawkins.
[40] Called a “knell” in England. See Shakespeare, Henry
viii., iv. ii. 77.
[41] _Prall_ means rebounding quickly, or springing back.
The Prall-triller consists of the main note, the note
_above_, and the main note again, and should be executed
_fast_.
[42] _Aubade_, English “morning music” or “hunts-up.”
[43] The “Pomp” is the “Masque,” as it would be called in
England. The “great and ancient Menestrandise” is the old
association or guild of Minstrels. The Charter of the King
of the Minstrels, granted by John of Gaunt, King of Castile
and Leon, and Duke of Lancaster, dated 1381, may be seen in
Hawkins’s History of Music. An old verse in “Robin Hood’s
Garland” alludes to the festive sports of the Minstrels in
these words, which almost reproduce the above description
of Couperin’s piece:--
“This battle was fought near Tutbury town
When the bag-pipers baited the bull,
I am king of the fiddlers, and swear ’tis a truth,
And call him that doubts it a gull;
For I saw them fighting, and fiddled the while,
And Clorinda sung Hey derry down:
The bumpkins are beaten, put up thy sword, Bob,
And now let’s dance into the town.
Before we came to it we heard a great shouting,
And all that were in it look’d madly;
For some were a’ bull-back, some dancing a morrice,
And some singing Arthur a Bradley.”
[Illustration:
Old engraving after Wagniger’s design. The true musician is climbing
up the Ladder of Contrapuntal Art ever higher and higher (see in the
engraving the words _plus ultra_) to the Concert of Angels (legitime
certantibus). From the “Basis and Fundamental Tone” the musical notes
are being carried to the Gold-furnace (various flames in which are
labelled, _e.g._ motet, canzonet, canon, etc.). The enemies are seen
up above breaking the tritone, the false fifth, and the ninth; arrows
are being shot at the Artist on the left as he writes (volenti nil
difficile, “nothing is difficult to the willing mind”), but they
are shattered on the Shield of Minerva, on which is represented the
Austrian Eagle. ]
Scarlatti
Domenico Scarlatti, perhaps the greatest clavier-player that Italy
ever had, prefaces a collection of thirty sonatas, which appeared
at Amsterdam,[44] with the following words: “Amateur or professor,
whoever thou art, seek not in these compositions for any deep feeling.
They are only a frolic of art, intended to increase thy confidence
on the clavier. I had no ambition to make a sensation; I was simply
requested to publish the pieces. Should they be not utterly unpleasing
to thee, I shall all the more willingly undertake other commissions,
in order to rejoice thee in a lighter and more varied style. Take
then these pieces rather as man than as critic; so only shalt thou
increase thine own content. To speak of the use of the two hands--D
denotes _dritta_, the right, and M _manca_, the left. Farewell!” It
is noticeable how here in a few words the whole essence of Italian
clavier-music is summed up--the fresh, cheerful disposition of the
artist; the respect for the amateur; the pleasure in mere sound and in
musical construction; the thorough working-out of intellectual motives
(in the manner of the Étude); and the stress laid upon the equal
participation of both hands as essential factors in the “concert,”
[using this word in its older sense as expressing the association of
two or more vocal or instrumental “parts”]. The word “concert” was
well understood in these early days to mean the combination of two
viols; and music of such a kind was, in form and in content, the true
precursor of clavier-music, in which the right and left hand “parts”
are strictly on an equality both in difficulty and importance.
These are the distinguishing marks of Italian clavier-art, and within
these limits it works.
But Scarlatti is especially remarkable to us in the present day, in
that he occupies the position of an early writer whose pieces still
play a part, though a small one, in modern public concerts. Liszt,
for example, was partial to him, and arranged his “Cat’s Fugue”;
while Bülow edited a representative selection from his pieces.
Czerny published (through Haslinger) two hundred of his so-called
Sonatas--though, by the way, the last of these pieces belongs really
to the father, Alessandro Scarlatti. Before that time the remains of
the master had formed no inconsiderable part of private manuscript
collections, such as those of the Abbé Santini in Rome, and others.[45]
Domenico Scarlatti, the famous son of the not less famous Alessandro,
who was a composer of operas and chief of the Neapolitan School,
exhibits in old portraits a serious, severe, even pedagogic
countenance. There is also much of the pedagogue in his pieces; yet I
think him fresher, gayer, more happy in life and mind than this face
would lead one to suppose. His “Exercises” move with vigorous strides,
and are far too full of esprit to be pedantic. His life was that of
an artist universally honoured, and rejoicing in his fame, a type of
which his contemporary Handel is the model; and his biography reveals
no less activity than his works. A pupil of his renowned father, in
the midst of the volatile, melody-loving, easily-stirred Neapolitan
world, he set out early for Rome, in order to become the scholar of
the great theorist Gasparini and of the organist and clavier-player
Pasquini. In 1709, at the age of twenty-six, he made the acquaintance
of Handel at Venice, and in sheer admiration, followed him to Rome.
There he remained ten years, and became kapellmeister of St Peter’s,
gaining a reputation by the works of his genius. In 1720 we suddenly
find him in London as clavicymbalist of the Italian opera. Here his
“Narcissus” was performed. A year later again he was in Lisbon, where
the King of Portugal made efforts to detain him, and where for a time
he gave lessons to the Princess. At this time the fame of his playing
and of his compositions reached the farthest bounds of Europe, and he
ranked thenceforward as the first executant of the age. He returned
again to Italy, and from Italy to Spain. He remained in Madrid from
1729 to his death in 1757. Here all kinds of honours were showered
upon him; he was Knight of St James, and chamber-player to the Queen,
who still retained a grateful memory of the lessons he had given her
at Lisbon when she was Princess of Asturias. To her he dedicated his
first-published pieces, prefixing to them the lively preface above
quoted.
Italian music has to French the relation which Bull has to Bird, or
the virtuoso to the poet. In Scarlatti we seek in vain for any inner
motive, nor do we feel any need of an emotional rendering on the part
of the performer; his short pieces aim only at _sound_ effects, and
are written merely from the love of brilliant clavier-passages, or to
embody delicate technical devices. They are not denizens of Paradise,
who wander, unconscious of their naked beauty, under over-arching
bowers; they are athletes, simply rejoicing in their physical
strength, and raising gymnastic to a high, self-sufficient art. We
admire them, as we admire an acrobatic troupe of strong and stout
character; we admire them--not too much, yet with a certain eager
anticipation of the next interesting and unusual feat of skill. We
wonder at their mastery of technique, and the systematic development
of their characteristic methods; we rejoice that they never, in their
desire to please, abandon the standpoint of the sober artists; but
our heart remains cold. There is an icy, virgin purity in this first
off-shoot[46] of absolute virtuosity, which kindles our sense for the
art of beautiful mechanism, for the art of technique _per se_--an art
which, after all, the historian of the clavier must not depreciate by
comparing it with that of the _inner_ music.
[Illustration: Adrian Willaert, of Venice, after the engraving
published in 1559 by Antonio Gardano, Venice.]