purity in all things. In the representative arts certain styles were
long seen to predominate, which for limited periods were indifferently
transferred to all objects without respect to matter or aim.
Renaissance, Gothic, antique, exhibit their churches, their tombs,
their doors, their tables, their cupboards, their keys, whether they
are bosses or reliefs, marbles or bronzes. In our century technique
begins to speak its first word: a chair is to be a chair; a carpet
shall be constructed with a view to the aim of carpets; a vase must
speak in accordance with the material of vases; and painting must
in the first instance be painting. A cupboard is not an entrance to
a temple; a table leg not a statue. These are intrusions which art
has not often experienced in its history. With music the case was
not dissimilar. The fugal style ruled once so mightily that it drew
church, dance, salon, fantasia, tune, all indifferently, under its
sway. The good fugue was a good tune, and the best tune could only
be expressed in contrapuntal form. Now, however, the emancipation
had taken place. The organ no longer worked necessarily along with
the piano, nor the song with the violin; and the orchestra became
conscious of its power as a totality. What the Venetians had once
timidly begun was now carried into actual fact; and the artistic
form of the étude was the seal of this individualising process. The
much-praised Paganini had no longer, like Corelli, to prompt the
piano, as far as its content was concerned, from the violin outwardly.
Paganini-études, by Schumann, were strict piano-pieces, which as far
as form went borrowed nothing from Paganini, and in matter only a
groundwork of notes. They strive towards the brilliancy of Paganini’s
execution--that astonishing, spiritual technique, which aroused so
wonderfully the emulation of a Liszt. And in turn there passed from
the piano the brilliancy of a technique which inspired the orchestra
to its own special triumphs. The “Queen Mab,” the “Mephistopheles,”
the “Feuer-Zauber,” and the “Valkyries’ Ride” did not need to envy the
piano. Yet without the fame of the Étude they would never have been so
brilliant.
[Illustration: Clementi. Engraved by Neidl after Hardy.]
We are now coming nearer the personalities themselves. It is no
long stride from the virtuosos to the romantic writers; the latter
are only to be explained by reference to the former. We pass slowly
from the domain of pure virtuosity to that of compositions of deeper
meaning; from the realm of the teacher to that of the poet; from piano
purism to the longing after poetic interdependence; from the noise of
concerts to the intimate retirement of the home.
In Clementi these signs appeared first. What he had to say was
little; but what he had to teach was only the more in consequence. He
collected, he tested, he drew out his experiences, and never willingly
abandoned the historical attitude. This was the first recoil on the
classical period. Clementi’s Studies were so fruitful that even a
Beethoven was not unmoved by them; although of course there were many
who opposed themselves to his speciality, the passages in thirds and
sixths for one hand. Mozart hated this unrest; he aimed at a graceful
and easy style. But the growth of technique soon shook off this
old-fashioned rococo method; it aimed at universal conquest.
As Clementi still lives in what we may call his “_grand-pupils_,” so
his Gradus ad Parnassum has remained the father of all Étude-works,
often reprinted, often re-edited. It is easy to recognise in it its
antiquated constituent parts. No principle of distinction is adopted
between the fingering of diatonic and chromatic scales. In his
directions Clementi begins his chromatics with _E_. The Études move in
a peculiar middle region between compositions and exercises. Single
Études, like the splendid Presto in F sharp minor, reach the heights
of a Cramer (Simrock, 24). He even provides genuine fugues in order
that the fugal style may also be practised. In one Étude (Simrock, 38)
cantabile and triplets are mingled as exercises. Often again three
pieces appear together as a suite--a patriarchal retention of old
customs. Others again are mere dry and insipid instruction-exercises.
We follow with pleasure the process by which fixed technical problems
gained in content as time went on. For example, the change of finger
on one key is in Clementi a mere tedious motive with three notes only
(Simrock, 20). In Cramer (Pauer, 41 ff) is already perceived the charm
which short held notes may introduce into this monotonous exercise;
and the drollery which a change of fingers as the characteristic
motive carries concealed in itself, gives the character to the piece.
Chopin, in his well-known C major study (Op. 10, 7), gives us a good
example of this scheme of fingering, which is carried out strictly,
the alternation of thumb and first finger never being interfered
with, even on the black keys, in spite of the various awkward chords
that occur. Thus he gives perfect freedom to the piquant turns and
droll character of the piece without to any extent spoiling its
effectiveness as an Étude.
Over against the Gradus of Clementi, as a remarkable collection of the
most varied pieces, stand certain smaller studies of a more defined
physiognomy. The well-known “Préludes et Exercices” are written in
all the keys, and keep on the whole to the scale-motive. The “Méthode
du Pianoforte,” with its fifty lessons, collects all kinds of airs
and old pieces, provided with marks of fingering--which, however, are
very much behind those of Czerny. The book is noteworthy as one of
the first important attempts to make use of already existing pieces,
not the work of the collector, as material for studies. Very soon
the sonatas of Beethoven appear in these collections, where they are
arranged according to their difficulty. Here are Handel, Corelli,
Mozart, Couperin, Scarlatti, Pleyel, Dussek, Haydn, Paradies, and the
Bachs.
Clementi sowed his wild oats in a series of preludes and cadenzas
which he published (Op. 19) under the title of “Characteristic
Music.” These were written in the styles of certain masters and
other famous clavier-teachers, such as Haydn, Kozeluch, Vanhall,
Mozart, Sterkel, and Clementi himself. It was half a jest, and a very
moderately successful one; but it is worth noticing as a sign of an
interpretative and compiling tendency.
Among the hundred sonatas and sonatinas, for one or two players, which
Clementi left behind, there is not a single one without interest
or utility from the standpoint of instruction; but from that of
content there is at most only one which can to-day attract us by its
originality or genius. This is the so-called Dido sonata, dedicated
to Cherubini; and even in it the genius is cold. In the other sonatas
we see the body of a Beethoven without the soul. It is Scarlatti once
again--trivial and soul-less; but unlike Scarlatti, who cut short what
had a short life, it is pretentious in its eternal repetitions. It is
a manufacture of music, nourished by the didactic spirit: compared
with the full effects of Hummel it is an empty style.
[Illustration: J. N. Hummel.
Engraved by Fr. Wrenk (1766-1830), after the portrait by Catherine von
Escherich (beginning of 19th century)]
The index to Cramer’s works does not look promising. The Variations,
Impromptus, Rondos, Divertissements; the Victory of Kutusoff; the
Two Styles, ancient and modern; the Rendezvous à la Chasse; un
jour de Printemps; Hors d’œuvre, grande sonate dans le style de
Clementi; or the combined composition, in the fashion of the time,
by Cramer, Hummel, Kalkbrenner and Moscheles, of variations on Rule
Britannia--all these are equally unattractive. The hundred and
five sonatas are almost unknown. Cramer’s importance lies entirely
in his Études, which have been frequently reprinted and arranged.
Of the various editions the finest is Pauer’s English “édition de
luxe,” which is adorned with a fine engraving of Cramer. Here he is
all genius and sensibility. The somewhat highly-coloured nose, on
which he himself used to jest, attracts no notice in the portrait.
“It was Bacchus who put his thumb there,” he would say; “ce diable
de Bacchus!” The whole delicate spirit of Cramer breathes in these
Études, which to-day are unforgotten and unsurpassed in their kind.
Their instructive value lies in the isolation of the technical
exercise, which is made less exacting by skilful introduction of
contrary motion at the proper point, while the most noble musical
forms mount up from them. They are pieces full of character, and
without titles, to be heartily reverenced. On the other hand “Cramer’s
Pianoforte School,” which went through countless editions in his own
time, has now become useless. The most noteworthy thing we find in it
is a preface on preludes and codas, which, unlike Clementi’s, does
not simply copy the approved models, but sets forth theoretically a
series of “styles” in such improvisations, from the simplest chords
to melodic development. In the period of public improvisations such
instructions were not without their use. Preluding is still a “style”
with us; codas we excuse ourselves. But in those days a player saw
nothing out of place in the direct connection of such free inventions
with the piece before him. And Cramer was still old-fashioned enough
not to object to interweave with pieces of Mozart all kinds of
flourishes--often, as Moscheles assures us, trivial indeed.
Over against Clementi, the genius of teaching, and Cramer, the
genius of technique, stands Hummel as the inventor of the modern
piano-exercise. Dussek had already, by his unusually full collection
of exercises, accustomed the public ear to the new state of things;
but Hummel brought the charm of the pianoforte and the effects of the
seven octaves within the reach of all. What our amateurs, from the
days of Chopin, know so well, that full and satisfying tone, that
blazing colouration, is all in Hummel.
In his huge Piano School a combination in Hummel of the old master
and the modern player is very visible. He systematises fingering into
the following divisions: (1) advancing with simple finger-order in
easy figure-successions; (2) passing the thumb under other fingers or
other fingers over the thumb; (3) leaving out one or more fingers;
(4) changing a finger with another on the same key; (5) stretches
and leaps; (6) thumb and fourth finger on the black notes; (7) the
passing of a long finger over a shorter, or of a short under a long;
(8) change of different fingers on a key, with repeated or not
repeated touch, and often the repeated use of the same finger on
several keys; (9) alternation, interweaving, or crossing of the hands;
and, finally (10), the legato style. A stupendous work indeed; and
for every head of the fingering, for every technical possibility, a
number of examples are introduced, with the completest calculation
of permutations ever seen. There are in all two thousand two hundred
examples, and more than a hundred exercises develop the possibilities
of playing between C and G. Before every exercise stand the harmonic
ground-chords. And thus comes to pass the great miracle, that by
means of the utmost conceivable combinations, by means of the hundred
chromatic subtleties, musical figures are formed which no composer
had previously invented, and which lead on to sound-effects never
before suspected. In the examples of an exercise-book lay undreamed-of
novelties in piano-composition.
Hummel himself had a very modest opinion of his own compositions.
He knew that he had made no advance in the path of Beethoven; and
that no greatness was possible outside of it. “It was a serious
moment for me,” he said once at Weimar to Ferdinand Hiller, “when
Beethoven appeared. Was I to try to follow in the footsteps of such
a genius? For a while I did not know what I stood on; but finally I
said to myself that it was best to remain true to myself and my own
nature.” With this determination Hummel founded the new, rich school
of piano-playing, delighting in sound, and revelling in execution,
in which even seriousness and passion are expressed with pomp and
circumstance. Brilliancy has expelled grace, and the pompous the
lightness of the dance.
Like most of his contemporaries he composed at the piano, making
pencil-notes the while. But he heard it as though he were his own
audience. “When I sit at the piano,” he said, “I am standing at the
same time in yonder corner as a listener, and what does not appeal
to me there is not written.” This was not Beethoven’s method. Such
a conscious striving after effect was not consistent with absolute
sincerity. The concerto was the mainspring of Hummel’s creativeness.
The innumerable concertos and concert-fantasias take the first rank
among Hummel’s works. They appeared also with quartet-accompaniment,
and also with a second piano, or arranged for one piano. He wrote,
unlike Clementi, far more concerto-pieces than sonatas. All kinds
of Variations, Rondos, Capriccios, and “Amusements,” gratified his
publishers. He wrote dances in the profusion characteristic of the
time. The Sonata in A flat for two pianos is precisely in harmony with
the age. It is only in the second half of the century that original
works of this kind begin to lose vogue, while the duet confines itself
to the drawing-room. The Duet attained its highest point in Schubert.
[Illustration: Hummel in his later years. From a steel engraving by C.
Mayer.]
Hummel’s works bristle with sound-effects. We observe many full
chords, as in the orchestra, when all the groups of single instruments
are employed in full harmony. The treble of the instrument is for the
first time properly used in the grand style, a noble contrast to the
melodic, burlesque, dæmonic, firework style of Steibelt and the rest.
We meet the genuine pianoforte charm of sharp chromatic successions,
where a Bacchanalian tumult of colour appears to sound a rattling
fire of sensuous effects. Even modulations are conceived from the
side of technical effectiveness; and chromatic insertions or sudden
third-passages, charming us in the vigorous voice of the piano, are
of common occurrence. The various registers of the piano, the bass,
the middle, and the treble, are applied to surprising effects; a note
of one register suddenly thrown into the other gives a colour of its
own. Passages rapidly gliding through the various registers give a
glittering spectrum. Take, for example, such a development as that
of the second solo conclusion in the last movement of the A minor
concerto. Here, starting at the _con dolcezza_, we find the pianoforte
bringing into play most of the effective methods of the concerto
style. The simply-harmonised cantabile, for the solo instrument alone;
the repetition of the melodic phrases by the clarinet, etc., with an
arpeggio accompaniment on the pianoforte; the ornamentation of the
phrase by delicate scale-passages; the closing lines of bravura for
the right hand; the showy chromatic scales, accented by superimposed
thirds on the first of every group of four semiquavers; the sequences
of semiquavers descending chromatically; the string of shakes for both
hands which introduce the final _point d’orgue_ (four bars in strict
tempo); all these are commonplaces of Hummel’s style, and are of
interest as an illustration of the fashionable music of the time.
[Illustration: A Canonic Impromptu, by J. N. Hummel, from the original
edition of his Pianoforte School.]
The concerto pieces of Hummel stand in respect of intrinsic value
below the solo pieces. His great concerto fantasia, “Oberon’s Magic
Horn,” is a banal piece of bravura with artistic references to Oberon.
The part of it demanding most execution is the great storm with its
thunder and lightning on the piano--a somewhat different performance
from the tame storm in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. But the solo
pieces also are of unequal merit. Fashionable compositions, like the
Polonaise “La Bella Capricciosa,” which was then eagerly heard, are no
longer tolerated. Hummel at his best, as we know him in his immortal
Sextet, lives in certain delicate turns, such as are common enough in
Wagner’s earlier operas, but were then a style of the time, making use
of the melody both of Mozart and of modern days. The better Hummel
is also seen in certain Schumann-like movements, full of fire and
feeling, such as the fresh pulsating Scherzo “all’antico” of Sonata
Op. 106, or the concluding movement of Fantasia Op. 18. Perhaps the
Bagatelles (Op. 107) are his most interesting clavier-piece. Even
to-day they show no sign of age; there is not a dead note in them.
In them the pupil of Mozart is seen in the dainty melodic lines, such
as an Audran has revived in our day; but the forerunner of Liszt is
equally visible. In the last Bagatelle, the “Rondo all’Ongarese,”
he stands precisely between the two epochs. The true spirit of
nationality, as Dussek so happily applied it in his sonatas, mingles
with classical reminiscences, as the concluding phrase clearly
shows. Fugato episodes, derived from tradition, are interwoven with
surprising anticipations of that method of variation which works
by diatonic movement--a method very familiar to us from Liszt’s
Rhapsodies. Hummel then is a kind of Janus.
[Illustration: Czerny. Lithograph by Kriehuber, 1833.]
Much more simple was Czerny, king among teachers, whose life and
work were taken up with the enforcement of one great principle.
Every piece must be played in that manner which is most natural and
applicable to the case in hand, and which is fixed partly by the notes
before us and partly by the execution. His genius for teaching was
so cultivated that in a moment he could devise the right study for
a student who exhibited any defect. How precisely he worked in such
matters a glance at his “Higher Steps in Virtuosity” will show. The
themes of the Études in the third volume are called: (1) seven notes
against two or three; (2) five against three; (3) five against three
in another manner; (4) passing of the fingers over the thumb; (5)
passing under of the thumb with a quick alternation of the stretching
and retraction of the fingers; (6) motion of certain fingers while the
others remain stationary; (7) broken octaves legato. This is not the
grammar of Hummel with its theoretical chess-play of possibilities;
it is the method of Toussaint-Langenscheidt, which invents its
exercises from the data of experience. In the great Piano School the
exercises are always continued in the course of the instruction.
The scales are recommended for daily preliminary practice, and
duet-playing is drawn into the circle of regular exercise. It is, of
course, impossible to review the whole enormous crowd of his works.
In addition to the numerous general practice-pieces, which appeared
in manifold combinations, there are the special pieces also: the
school of velocity, of legato and staccato, of ornaments, of the
left hand, of fugue-playing, of virtuoso-performance; the art of
preluding, the introduction to fantasia playing, octave-studies, the
practice of the full common chord and of the chord of the seventh
in broken figures; and everything besides. It is a mighty arsenal
of mechanical appliances. His works are numbered up to Op. 856;
but all except the Studies are lost in oblivion; they are mere
hack-work. Even the greater Studies are, in musical value, inferior
to Cramer’s. Czerny’s great collections from previous masters are
the work of a practical historian. Such are the arrangement of the
Wohltemperiertes Klavier, the edition of Scarlatti, the arrangements
of Beethoven, Mozart, or Mendelssohn for two or four hands; and
the innumerable selections of the most brilliant passages from the
works of masters from Scarlatti and Bach to Thalberg and Liszt. His
practical History of Piano-playing--the first that ever appeared--was
thrown into a didactic form and appended to the great “Art of
Execution.” Every composer is treated from the point of view of
playing, under six heads. Clementi is to be played with a steady
hand, firm touch and tone, distinct and flowing execution, precise
declamation; Cramer and Dussek _cantabilmente_, without glaring
effects, with gentle legato and the due use of the pedal; Mozart with
less pedal, clearly, staccato, with spirit and vigour; Beethoven and
Ries characteristically, passionately, melodiously, with a view to
the _tout ensemble_; Hummel, Meyerbeer, and Moscheles brilliantly,
rapidly, and gracefully, with definition in the proper parts, and
intelligent but elegant declamation. Thalberg, Liszt, and Chopin, the
great innovators, form a class apart. Czerny’s astonishing genius for
instruction embraces the whole field of the clavier, with a many-sided
capacity that seems almost more than human. A greater teacher there
never was than he. He gathers all into his net, even the works of his
own pupils; he practises everything, even setting it for three or
four pianos; he arranges everything, even isolated passages of great
masters; he composes everything, even penny variations and Chinese
rondos.
In Kalkbrenner we see the lowest type of the time. Externally a fine
gentleman and artistic man of the world, he is inwardly hollow and
vapid. It is hard even to give an idea of this extreme emptiness; but
it is well illustrated in such a piece as the “Charmes de Berlin.”
This great virtuoso won his triumphs in the worst kinds of salon-music
as well as with all sorts of Études, Concertos, and Sonatas. Le Rêve,
Le Fou, La Solitude, Dernières Pensées Musicales, La Mélancolie et La
Gaité, La Brigantine, are some of these detestable compositions. But
his opera fantasias touch the very nadir. Here a sort of sanction is
given to an utter want of taste. After largo introductions, full of
feeling, he slices favourite melodies into passages, till the contour
of the air is utterly destroyed, and the commonest cadenzas are flung
higgledy-piggledy into their artistic forms, and so we rush off into
a sweep-dance. The fantasia, once the freest outcome of the musical
soul, becomes a wretched conglomeration of fragments of Études.
Kalkbrenner once remarked, as Ferdinand Hiller tells us, “Ze Tance is
a tream, a referie; it begins with lofe, _passion_, despair, and it
ends wid a military march.” The story is true enough.
[Illustration: Lithograph by Eichens, after Vogel, 1825.]