We must expect that the music of newer nations will be national. It goes

without saying; for the music comes fresh from the soil; it is not the

result of long refined culture. There is the strain and burst of a

burden of racial feeling to utter itself in the most pliant and eloquent

of all the languages of emotion. It is the first and noblest sentiment

of every nation conscious of its own worth, and it has its counterpart

in the individual. Before the utterance has been found by a people,

before it has felt this sense of its own quality, no other message can

come. So the most glorious period in the history of every country (even

in the eyes of other nations) is the struggle for independence, whether

successful or not.

All on a new plane is this northernmost symphony, with a crooning note

almost of savage, and sudden, fitful bursts from languorous to fiery

mood. The harmony, the turn of tune have a national quality, delicious

and original, though the Oriental tinge appears, as in Slav and Magyar

music, both in bold and in melancholy humor. Though full of strange and

warm colors, the harmonic scheme is simple; rather is the work a tissue

of lyric rhapsody than the close-woven plot of tonal epic. A certain

trace of revery does find a vent in the traditional art of contrary

melodies. But a constant singing in pairs is less art than ancient

folk-manner, like primal music in the love or dance songs of savages.

The symphony begins with a quiet rhapsody of solo clarinet in wistful

minor, clear without chords, though there is a straying into major.

There is no accompaniment save a soft roll of drum, and that soon dies

away.

[Music: _Andante, ma non troppo_

_espress._

(Clarinet)]

The rhapsody seems too vague for melody; yet there are motives, one in

chief, winding to a pause; here is a new appealing phrase; the ending is

in a

[Music]

return to the first. Over the whole symphony is cast the hue of this

rhapsody, both in mood and in the literal tone.

All opposite, with sudden spring of buoyant strings, strikes the

Allegro tune ending in a quick, dancing trip. The first voice is

immediately pursued by another

[Music: _Allegro energico_

(2d violins)

_Piu forte_

(Violins with higher 8ve.)

(Cellos with higher 8ve. in violas)]

in similar phase, like a gentler shadow, and soon rises to a passionate

chord that is the main idiom of the movement.

[Music: (Strings, wood and horns)]

A second theme in clear-marked tones of reed and horns, as of stern

chant, is taken up in higher wood and grows to graceful melody in

flowing strings.

[Music: _marcato_]

There is a series of flights to an ever higher perch of harmony until

the first Allegro motive rings out in fullest chorus, again with the

companion tune and the cadence of poignant dissonance.

A new episode comes with shimmering of harp and strings, where rare and

dainty is the sense of primal

[Music: _marcato_

(Flutes)

(Strings with chord of harp)]

harmony that lends a pervading charm to the symphony. Here the high

wood has a song in constant thirds, right from the heart of the

rhapsody, all bedecked as melody with a new rhythm and answer. Soon this

simple lay is woven in a skein of pairs of voices, meeting or diverging.

But quickly we are back in the trance of lyric song, over palpitating

strings, with the refrain very like the former companion phrase that

somehow leads or grows to a

[Music: _Tranquillo_

(Oboe, with other wood)

(Strings with higher E)]

rhythmic verse of the first strain of the rhapsody. Here begins a long

mystic phase of straying voices (of the wood) in the crossing figures of

the song, in continuous fantasy that somehow has merged into the line of

second Allegro theme, winging towards a brilliant height where the

strings ring out the strain amid sharp cries of the brass in startling

hues of harmony and electric calls from the first rhapsody.

From out the maze and turmoil the shadowy melody rises in appealing

beauty like heavenly vision and lo! is but a guise of the first strain

of rhapsody. It rises amid flashes of fiery brass in bewildering blare

of main theme, then sinks again to the depth of brooding, though the

revery of the appealing phrase has a climactic height of its own, with

the strange, palpitating harmonies.

In a new meditation on bits of the first Allegro theme sounds suddenly a

fitful burst of the second, that presently emerges in triumphant,

sovereign song. Again, on a series of flights the main theme is reached

and leaps once more to impassioned height.

But this is followed by a still greater climax of moving pathos whence

we descend once more to lyric meditation (over trembling strings).

Follows a final tempest and climax of the phrase of second theme.

The movement thus ends, not in joyous exultation, but in a fierce

triumph of sombre minor.

The Andante is purest folk-melody, and it is strange how we know this,

though we do not know the special theme. We cannot decry the

race-element as a rich fount of melody. While older nations strive and

strain, it pours forth by some mystery in prodigal flow with less

tutored peoples who are singing their first big song to the world. Only,

the ultimate goal for each racial inspiration must be a greater

universal celebration.

The lyric mood is regnant here, in a melody that, springing from distant

soil, speaks straight to every heart, above all with the concluding

refrain. It is of the purest vein, of the primal fount, deeper than mere

racial turn or trait. Moreover, with a whole coronet of gems of modern

harmony, it has a broad swing and curve that gives the soothing sense of

fireside;

[Music: _Andante ma non troppo lento_

(Muted violins)

(Sustained horns and basses with lower 8ve.; constant stroke of harp)

(Clarinets)]

it bears a burden of elemental, all-contenting emotion. In the main, the

whole movement is one lyric flight. But there come the moods of musing

and rhapsodic rapture. In a brief fugal vein is a mystic harking back to

the earlier prelude. In these lesser phrases are the foil or

counter-figures for the bursts of the melody.

It is the first motive of the main tune that is the refrain in ever

higher and more fervent exclamation, or in close pressing chase of

voices. Then follows a melting episode,--some golden piece of the melody

in plaintive cellos, 'neath tremulous wood or delicate choirs of

strings.

But there is a second tune, hardly less moving, in dulcet group of

horns amid shimmering strings and harp, with a light bucolic answer in

playful reed.

[Music: _Molto tranquillo_

(Violins)

_dolce_ (Horns)

(With arpeggic harp)]

And it has a glowing climax, too, with fiery trumpet, and dashing

strings and clashing wood.

Gorgeous in the warm depth of horns sound now the returning tones of the

first noble melody, with playful trill of the wood, in antiphonal song

of trumpets and strings. And there are revels of new turns of the tune

(where the stirring harmony seems the best of all) that will rise to a

frenzy of tintinnabulation. A quicker counter-theme lends life and

motion to all this play and plot.

A big, solemn stride of the middle strain (of main melody) precedes the

last returning verse, with all the tender pathos of the beginning.

The Scherzo is wild race-feeling let loose--national music that has not

yet found a melody. Significantly the drums begin the tune, to a dancing

strain of _pizzicato_ strings. The tune is so elemental that the

[Music: _Allegro_

(Violins)

(_Pizz._ cellos double above in violas)]

drums can really play it; the answer is equally rude,--an arpeggic

motive of strings against quick runs of the higher wood. Out of it grows

a tinge of tune with a fresh spring of dance,--whence returns the first

savage motive. This is suddenly changed to the guise of a fugal theme,

with new close, that starts a maze of disputation.

Right from the full fire of the rough dance, sad-stressed chords plunge

into a moving plaint with much sweetness of melody and higher

counter-melody. Then returns again the original wild rhythm.

[Music: _Lento ma non troppo_]

In the last movement the composer confesses the "Fantasy" in the title.

It begins with a broad sweep of the returning rhapsody, the prologue of

the symphony, though without the former conclusion. Now it sings in a

strong unison of the strings _largamente ed appassionato_, and with

clang of chord in lower brass. The appealing middle phrase is all

disguised in strum as of dance. The various strains sing freely in

thirds, with sharp punctuating chords. Throughout is a balance of the

pungent vigor of harmonies with dulcet melody.

In sudden rapid pace the strumming figure dances in the lower reed, then

yields to the play (in the strings) of a lively (almost comic) tune of a

strong national tinge,--a kind that seems native to northern countries

and is not unlike a strain that crept into

[Music: _Allegro molto_]

American song. A tempest of pranks is suddenly halted before the

entrance of a broad melody, with underlying harmonies of latent passion.

The feeling of fantasy is in the further flow, with free singing chords

of harp. But ever between the lines creeps in the strumming phrase, from

the first prelude, returned to its earlier mood.

[Music: _Andante assai_

(Violins) _cantabile ed espressivo_

(Horns)

(Clarinets)

(_Tremolo_ cellos, with lower C in basses)]

With baffling mystery anon come other appealing phrases from the

beginning, that show the whole to be the woof almost of a single figure,

or at least to lie within the poetic scope of the prologue. A fugal

revel of the comic phrase with the quick strum as counter-theme ends in

a new carnival,--here a dashing march, there a mad chase of strident

harmonies. Now sings the full romance and passion of the melody through

the whole gamut from pathos to rapture. It ends with poignant stress of

the essence of the song, with sheerest grating of straining harmonies.

In the midst, too, is again the mystic symbol from the heart of the

prelude. Then with a springing recoil comes a last jubilation, though

still in the prevailing minor, with a final coursing of the quick theme.

The whole is a broad alternation of moods, of wild abandon and of tender

feeling,--the natural dual quality of primal music. So, at least in the

Finale, this is a Finnish fantasy, on the very lines of other national

rhapsody.

CHAPTER XIII

BOHEMIAN SYMPHONIES

In the music of modern Bohemia is one of the most vital utterances of

the folk-spirit. The critic may not force a correspondence of politics

and art to support his theory. Yet a cause may here be found as in

Russia and Finland. (Poland and Hungary had their earlier song). There

is a sincerity, an unpremeditated quality in Bohemian music that is not

found among its western neighbors. The spirit is its own best proof,

without a conscious stress of a national note. Indeed, Bohemian music is

striking, not at all in a separate tonal character, like Hungarian, but

rather in a subtle emotional intensity, which again differs from the

wild abandon of the Magyars. An expression it must be of a national

feeling that has for ages been struggling against absorption. Since

ancient times Bohemia has been part of a Teutonic empire. The story of

its purely native kings is not much more than legendary. Nor has it

shared the harder fate of other small nations; for the Teuton rule at

least respected its separate unity.

But the long association with the German people has nearly worn away the

racial signs and hall-marks of its folk-song. A Bohemian tune thus has a

taste much like the native German. Yet a quality of its own lies in the

emotional vitality, shown in a school of national drama and, of late, in

symphony. It is not necessary to seek in this modern culmination a

correspondence with an impending danger of political suppression. Art

does not follow history with so instant a reflection.

The intensity of this national feeling appears when Smetana himself, the

minstrel of the people, is charged at home with yielding to the foreign

influence. Here again is the hardship of the true national poet who

feels that for the best utterance of his message he needs the grounding

upon a broader art; here is the narrow Chauvinism that has confined the

music of many lands within the primitive forms.

Two types we have in Bohemian music of later times: one, Smetana, of

pure national celebration; a second, Dvôrák, who with a profound

absorption of the German masters, never escaped the thrall of the

folk-element and theme.

_SMETANA. SYMPHONIC POEM, "THE MOLDAU RIVER"_[A]

[Footnote A: Friedrich Smetana, 1824-1884, foremost among Bohemian

dramatic composers, wrote a cycle of symphonic poems under the general

title "My Country." Of these the present work is the second.]

Simplicity is uppermost in these scores; yet the true essence is almost

hidden to the mere reader. With all primitive quality they are more

difficult than many a classic symphony. The latent charm of folk humor

and sentiment depends more on tradition and sympathy than on notation.

The naïvely graphic impulse (that we find throughout the choral works of

Bach) that merely starts a chance themal line, as here of the first

branch of the Moldau, does not disturb the emotional expression. And

while the feeling is sustained, the art is there, not to stifle but to

utter and set free the native spring of song.

It must be yielded that the design is not profound; it smacks of the

village fair rather than of grand tragedy. Song is ever supreme, and

with all abundance of contrapuntal art does not become sophisticated.

The charm is not of complexity, but of a more child-like, sensuous kind.

It must all be approached in a different way from other symphonic music.

The minstrel is not even the peasant in court costume, as Dvôrák once

was called. He is the peasant in his own village dress, resplendent with

color and proud of his rank.

We cannot enjoy the music with furrowed brow. It is a case where music

touches Mother Earth and rejuvenates herself. Like fairy lore and

proverbs, its virtue lies in some other element than profound design.

For any form of song or verse that enshrines the spirit of a people and

is tried in the forge of ages of tradition, lives on more surely than

the fairest art of individual poet.

The stream is the great figure, rising from small sources in playful

flutes, with light spray of harp and

[Music: _Allegro commodo non agitato_

_lusingando_

(Flute with chord of _pizz._ strings)]

strings. The first brook is joined by another (in clarinets) from a new

direction. Soon grows the number and the rustle of confluent waters. The

motion of the strings is wavelike, of a broader flow, though underneath

we scan the several lesser currents. Above floats now the simple, happy

song, that expands

[Music: _dolce_

(Reeds and horns with waving strings and stroke of triangle)]

with the stream and at last reaches a glad, sunny major.

Still to the sound of flowing waters comes the forest hunt, with all the

sport of trumpets and other brass.

It is descriptive music, tonal painting if you will; but the color is

local or national. The strokes are not so much of events or scenes as of

a popular humor and character, which we must feel with small stress of

each event. The blowing of trumpets, the purling of streams, the swaying

of trees, in primal figures, all breathe the spirit of Bohemia.

The hunt dies away; emerging from the forest the jolly sounds greet us

of a peasant wedding. The

[Music: _Tempo moderato_

(Reeds and strings)]

parade reaches the church in high festivity and slowly vanishes to

tinkling bells.

Night has fallen; in shifted scene the stream is sparkling in the

moonlight still to the quiet sweet harmonies. But this is all background

for a dance of nymphs, while a dulcet, sustained song sounds through the

night. At last, to the golden horns a faintest harmony is added of

deeper brass. Still very softly, the brass strike a quicker phrase and

we seem to hear the hushed chorus of hunt with the call of trumpets, as

the other brass lead in a new verse that grows lustier with the livelier

song and dance, till--with a flash we are alone with the running stream

with which the dance of nymphs has somehow merged.

On it goes, in happy, ever more masterful course, a symbol of the

nation's career, surging in bright major and for a moment quieting

before the mighty Rapids of St. Johann. Here the song of the stream is

nearly lost in the rush of eddies and the strife of big currents, with

the high leaps of dashing spray,--ever recurring like unceasing battle

with a towering clash at the height of the tempest. At last all meet in

overpowering united torrent, suddenly to hush before the stream, at the

broadest, rushes majestically along in hymnal song of exalted harmonies

and triumphant melody, with joyous after-strains.

As the pilgrim to his Mecca, so the waters are wafted into the climactic

motive of the Hradschin, the chant of the holy citadel. The rest is a

long jubilation

[Music: _Motiv Vyserad_

(Full orchestra, with rapid figures in the strings)]

on quicker beats of the chant, amid the plash of waters and the shaking

of martial brass. Strangely, as the other sounds die away, the melody of

the stream emerges clear and strong, then vanishes in the distance

before the jubilant Amen.

In the general view we must feel a wonderful contrast here with the

sophomoric state of the contemporary art in other lands where the

folk-song has lost its savor,--where the natural soil is exhausted and

elegant castles are built in the air of empty fantasy, or on the sands

of a vain national pride.

_DVÔRÁK. SYMPHONY, "FROM THE NEW WORLD."_[A]

[Footnote A: Anton Dvôrák, 1841-1904.]

It is a much-discussed question how far Dvôrák's American symphony is

based on characteristic folk-song. Here are included other questions: to

what extent the themes are based on an African type, and whether negro

music is fairly American folk-song. Many, perhaps most people, will

answer with a general negative. But it seems to be true that many of us

do not really know the true negro song,--have quite a wrong idea of it.

To be sure, all argument aside, it is a mistake to think that folk-song

gets its virtue purely from a distinctive national quality,--because it

is Hungarian, Scandinavian, or Slavonic. If all the national modes and

rhythms of the world were merged in one republic, there would still be a

folk-song of the true type and value. There is a subtle charm and

strength in the spontaneous simplicity, all aside from racial color. It

is here that, like Antaeus, the musician touches Mother Earth and renews

his strength. So, when Dvôrák suddenly shifts in the midst of his New

World fantasy into a touch of Bohemian song, there is no real loss. It

is all relevant in the broad sense of folk feeling, that does not look

too closely at geographical bounds. It is here that music, of all arts,

leads to a true state of equal sympathy, regardless of national

prejudice. What, therefore, distinguishes Dvôrák's symphony may not be

mere negro melody, or even American song, but a genuine folk-feeling, in

the widest meaning.

In one way, Dvôrák's work reminds us of Mendelssohn's Scotch Symphony:

both exploit foreign national melody in great poetic forms. One could

write a Scotch symphony in two ways: one, in Mendelssohn's, the other

would be to tell of the outer impression in the terms of your own

folk-song. That is clearly the way Mendelssohn wrote most of the Italian

Symphony,--which stands on a higher plane than the Scotch. For folk-song

is the natural language of its own people. It is interesting to see the

exact type that each theme represents; but it is not so important as to

catch the distinction, the virtue of folk-song _per se_ and the purely

natural utterance of one's own. Of course, every one writes always in

his folk-tones. On the other hand, one may explore one's own special

treasures of native themes, as Dvôrák himself did so splendidly in his

Slavic Dances and in his Legends. So one must, after all, take this

grateful, fragrant work as an idea of what American composers might do

in full earnest. Dvôrák is of all later masters the most eminent

folk-musician. He shows greatest sympathy, freedom and delight in

revelling among the simple tones and rhythms of popular utterance,

rearing on them, all in poetic spontaneity, a structure of high art.

Without strain or show, Dvôrák stood perhaps the most genuine of late

composers, with a firm foot on the soil of native melody, yet with the

balance and restraint and the clear vision of the trained master.[A]

[Footnote A: The whole subject of American and negro folk-song is new

and unexplored. There are races of the blacks living on the outer reefs

and islands of the Carolinas, with not more than thirty whites in a

population of six thousand, where "spirituals" and other musical rites

are held which none but negroes may attend. The truest African mode and

rhythm would seem to be preserved here; to tell the truth, there is

great danger of their loss unless they are soon recorded.]

In a certain view, it would seem that by the fate of servitude the

American negro has become the element in our own national life that

alone produces true folk-song,--that corresponds to the peasant and serf

of Europe, the class that must find in song the refuge and solace for

its loss of material joys. So Dvôrák perhaps is right, with a far seeing

eye, when he singles the song of the despised race as the national type.

Another consideration fits here. It has been suggested that the

imitative sense of the negro has led him to absorb elements of other

song. It is very difficult to separate original African elements of song

from those that may thus have been borrowed. At any rate, there is no

disparagement of the negro's musical genius in this theory. On the

contrary, it would be almost impossible to imagine a musical people that

would resist the softer tones of surrounding and intermingling races.

We know, to be sure, that Stephen Foster, the author of "The Old Folks

at Home," "Massa's in the Cold, Cold Ground," and other famous ballads,

was a Northerner, though his mother came from the South. We hear, too,

that he studied negro music eagerly. It is not at all inconceivable,

however, Foster's song may have been devoid of negro elements, that the

colored race absorbed, wittingly or unwittingly, something of the vein

into their plaints or lullabies,--that, indeed, Foster's songs may have

been a true type that stirred their own imitation. From all points of

view,--the condition of slavery, the trait of assimilation and the

strong gift of musical expression may have conspired to give the negro a

position and equipment which would entitle his tunes to stand as the

real folk-song of America.

The eccentric accent seems to have struck the composer strongly. And

here is a strange similarity with Hungarian song,--though there is, of

course, no kinship of race whatever between Bohemians and Magyars. One

might be persuaded to find here simply an ebullition of rhythmic

impulse,--the desire for a special fillip that starts and suggests a

stronger energy of motion than the usual conventional pace. At any rate,

the symphony begins with just such strong, nervous phrases that soon

gather big force. Hidden is the germ of the first, undoubtedly the chief

theme of the whole work.

It is more and more remarkable how a search will show the true

foundation of almost all of Dvôrák's themes. Not that one of them is

actually borrowed, or lacks an original, independent reason for being.

Whether by imitation or not, the pentatonic scale of the Scotch is an

intimate part of negro song. This avoidance of the seventh or leading

tone is seen throughout the symphony as well as in the traditional

jubilee tunes. It may be that this trait was merely confirmed in the

African by foreign musical influence. For it seems that the

leading-note, the urgent need for the ascending half-tone in closing,

belongs originally to the minstrelsy of the Teuton and of central

Europe, that resisted and conquered the sterner modes of the early

Church. Ruder nations here agreed with Catholic ritual in preferring the

larger interval of the whole tone. But in the quaint jump of the third

the Church had no part, clinging closely to a diatonic process.

The five-toned scale is indeed so widespread that it cannot be fastened

on any one race or even family of nations. The Scotch have it; it is

characteristic of the Chinese and of the American Indian. But,

independently of the basic mode or scale, negro songs show here and

there a strange feeling for a savage kind of lowering of this last note.

The pentatonic scale simply omits it, as well as the fourth step. But

the African will now and then rudely and forcibly lower it by a

half-tone. In the minor it is more natural; for it can then be thought

of as the fifth of the relative major. Moreover, it is familiar to us in

the Church chant. This effect we have in the beginning of the Scherzo.

Many of us do not know the true African manner, here. But in the major

it is much more barbarous. And it is almost a pity that Dvôrák did not

strike it beyond an occasional touch (as in the second quoted melody). A

fine example is "Roll, Jordan Roll," in E flat (that opens, by the way,

much like Dvôrák's first theme), where the beginning of the second line

rings out on a savage D flat, out of all key to Caucasian ears.

We soon see stealing out of the beginning _Adagio_ an eccentric pace in

motion of the bass, that leads to the burst of main subject, _Allegro

molto_, with a certain

[Music: _Allegro molto_

(Strings)

(Horns)

_Pizz._ (Strings)

(Clarinets doubled below in bassoons)

(Strings)]

ragged rhythm that we Americans cannot disclaim as a nation. The working

up is spirited, and presently out of the answer grows a charming jingle

that somehow strikes home.

[Music: (Violins, with harmony in lower strings)]

It begins in the minor and has a strange, barbaric touch of cadence.

Many would acknowledge it at most as a touch of Indian mode. Yet it is

another phase of the lowered seventh. And if we care to search, we find

quite a prototype in a song like "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel." Soon

the phrase has a more familiar ring as it turns into a friendly major.

But the real second theme comes in a solo tune on the flute, in the

major,

[Music: (Solo flute)

(Strings)]

with a gait something like the first.[A] Less and less we can resist the

genuine negro quality of these melodies, and, at the same time, their

beauty and the value of the tonal treasure-house in our midst.

[Footnote A: Again it is interesting to compare here the jubilee song,

"Oh! Redeemed," in the collection of "Jubilee and Plantation Songs," of

the Oliver Ditson Company.]

The whole of the first Allegro is thus woven of three melodious and

characteristic themes in very clear sonata-form. The second, Largo,

movement is a lyric of moving pathos, with a central melody that may not

have striking traits of strict African song, and yet belongs to the type

closely associated with the negro vein of plaint or love-song. The

rhythmic

[Music: _Largo_

(English horn solo)]

turns that lead to periods of excitement and climaxes of rapid motion,

are absent in the main melody. But

[Music: (Oboe and clarinets)

(Basses _pizz._ with _tremolo_ figures in violins)]

they appear in the episode that intervenes. Even here, in the midst, is

a new contrast of a minor lament that has a strong racial trait in the

sudden swing to major and, as quickly, back to the drearier mode. This

is followed by a rhapsody or succession of rapid, primitive phrases,

that leads to a crisis where, of a sudden, three themes sing at once,

the two of the previous Allegro and the main melody of the Largo, in

distorted pace with full chorus. This excitement is as suddenly lulled

and soothed by the return of the original moving song.

The Scherzo starts in a quick three-beat strum on the chord we have

pointed to as a true model trait of negro music, with the lowered

leading-note. The

[Music: _molto vivace_ (Fl. and oboes)

(Strings) (Cl't.)]

theme, discussed in close stress of imitation, seems merely to mark the

rapid swing in the drone of strange harmony. But what is really a sort

of Trio (_poco sostenuto_) is another sudden, grateful change to major,

perfectly true to life, so to speak, in this turn of mode and in the

simple lines of the tune. The lyric mood all but suppresses the dance,

the melody sounding like a new verse of the Largo. The trip has always

lingered, but not too much for the delicious change when it returns to

carry us off our feet.

The Scherzo now steals in again, quite a piece, it seems, with the Trio.

As the rising volume nears a crisis, the earliest theme (from the first

Allegro) is heard in the basses. In the hushed discourse of Scherzo

theme that follows, the old melody still intrudes. In mockery of one of

its turns comes an enchanting bit of tune, as naïve an utterance as any,

much like a children's dancing song. And it returns later with still new

enchantment of rhythm. But the whole is too full of folk-melody to trace

out, yet is, in its very fibre, true to the idea of an epic of the

people.

Presently the whole Scherzo and Trio are rehearsed; but now instead of

the phase of latest melodies is a close where the oldest theme (of

Allegro) is sung in lusty blasts of the horns and wood, with answers of

the Scherzo motive.

In the last movement, _Allegro con fuoco_, appears early a new kind of

march tune that, without special

[Music: _Allegro con fuoco_

(Horns and trumpets with full orchestra)]

trick of rhythm, has the harsh note of lowered leading-note (in the

minor, to be sure) in very true keeping with negro song. The march is

carried on, with flowing answer, to a high pitch of varied splendor and

tonal power. The second theme is utterly opposed in a certain pathetic

rhapsody. Yet it rises, at the close, to a fervent burst in rapid

motion. We

[Music: (Solo clarinets)

(_tremolo_ strings)]

may expect in the Finale an orgy of folk-tune and dance, and we are not

disappointed. There is, too, a quick rise and fall of mood, that is a

mark of the negro as well as of the Hungarian. By a sudden doubling, we

are in the midst of a true "hoe-down," in jolliest jingle, with that

naïve iteration, true to life; it comes out clearest when the tune of

the bass (that sounds like a rapid "Three Blind Mice") is

[Music: (Strings, wood and brass)

(See page 205, line 9.)]

put in the treble. A pure idealized negro dance-frolic is here. It is

hard to follow all the pranks; lightly as the latest phrase descends in

extending melody, a rude blast of the march intrudes in discordant

humor. A new jingle of dance comes with a redoubled pace of bits of the

march. As this dies down to dimmest bass, the old song from the Largo

rings high in the wood. Strangest of all, in a fierce shout of the whole

chorus sounds twice this same pathetic strain. Later comes a redoubled

speed of the march in the woodwind, above a slower in low strings. Now

the original theme of all has a noisy say. Presently the sad second

melody has a full verse. Once more the Largo lullaby sings its strain

in the minor. In the close the original Allegro theme has a literal,

vigorous dispute with the march-phrase for the last word of all.

The work does less to exploit American music than to show a certain

community in all true folk-song. Nor is this to deny a strain peculiar

to the new world. It seems a poet of distant land at the same time and

in the same tones uttered his longing for his own country and expressed

the pathos and the romance of the new. Dvôrák, like all true workers,

did more than he thought: he taught Americans not so much the power of a

song of their own, as their right of heritage in all folk-music. And

this is based not merely on an actual physical inheritance from the

various older races.

If the matter, in Dvôrák's symphony, is of American negro-song, the

manner is Bohemian. A stranger-poet may light more clearly upon the

traits of a foreign lore. But his celebration will be more conscious if

he endeavor to cling throughout to the special dialect. A true national

expression will come from the particular soil and will be unconscious of

its own idiom.

The permanent hold that Dvôrák's symphony has gained is due to an

intrinsic merit of art and sincere sentiment; it has little to do with

the nominal title or purpose.

CHAPTER XIV

THE EARLIER BRUCKNER[A]

[Footnote A: Anton Bruckner, born at Annsfelden, Austria, 1828; died in

Vienna in 1896.]

Whatever be the final answer of the mooted question of the greatness of

Bruckner's symphonies, there is no doubt that he had his full share of

technical profundity, and a striking mastery of the melodious weaving of

a maze of concordant strains. The question inevitably arises with

Bruckner as to the value of the world's judgments on its contemporary

poets. There can be no doubt that the _furore_ of the musical public

tends to settle on one or two favorites with a concentration of praise

that ignores the work of others, though it be of a finer grain. Thus

Schubert's greatest--his one completed--symphony was never acclaimed

until ten years after his death. Even his songs somehow brought more

glory to the singer than to the composer. Bach's oratorios lay buried

for a full century. On the other hand, names great in their day are

utterly lost from the horizon. It is hard to conceive the _éclat_ of a

Buononcini or a Monteverde,--whose works were once preëminent. There are

elements in art, of special, sensational effect, that make a peculiar

appeal in their time, and are incompatible with true and permanent

greatness. One is tempted to say, the more sudden and vehement the

success, the less it will endure. But it would not be true. Such an

axiom would condemn an opera like "Don Giovanni," an oratorio like the

"Creation," a symphony like Beethoven's Seventh. There is a wonderful

difference, an immeasurable gulf between the good and the bad in art;

yet the apparent line is of the subtlest. Most street songs may be poor;

but some are undoubtedly beautiful in a very high sense. It is a problem

of mystic fascination, this question of the value of contemporary art.

It makes its appeal to the subjective view of each listener. No rule

applies. Every one will perceive in proportion to his capacity, no one

beyond it. So, a profound work may easily fail of response, as many

works in the various arts have done in the past, because the average

calibre of the audience is too shallow, while it may deeply stir an

intelligent few. Not the least strange part of it all is the fact that

there can, of necessity, be no decision in the lifetime of the poet.

Whether it is possible for obscure Miltons never to find their meed of

acclaim, is a question that we should all prefer to answer in the

negative. There is a certain shudder in thinking of such a chance; it

seems a little akin to the danger of being buried alive.

The question of Bruckner's place can hardly be said to be settled,

although he has left nine symphonies. He certainly shows a freedom, ease

and mastery in the symphonic manner, a limpid flow of melody and a sure

control in the interweaving of his themes, so that, in the final

verdict, the stress may come mainly on the value of the subjects, in

themselves. He is fond of dual themes, where the point lies in neither

of two motives, but in the interplay of both; we see it somewhat

extended in Richard Strauss, who uses it, however, in a very different

spirit. The one evident and perhaps fatal lack is of intrinsic beauty of

the melodic ideas, and further, an absence of the strain of pathos that

sings from the heart of a true symphony. While we are mainly impressed

by the workmanship, there is no denying a special charm of constant

tuneful flow. At times this complexity is almost marvellous in the clear

simplicity of the concerted whole,--in one view, the main trait or trick

of symphonic writing. It is easy to pick out the leading themes as they

appear in official order. But it is not so clear which of them

constitute the true text. The multiplicity of tunes and motives is

amazing.

Of the Wagner influence with which Bruckner is said to be charged,

little is perceptible in his second symphony. On the contrary, a strong

academic tradition pervades. The themes are peculiarly symphonic.

Moreover they show so strikingly the dual quality that one might say, as

a man may see double, Bruckner sang double. Processes of augmenting and

inverting abound, together with the themal song in the bass. Yet there

is not the sense of overloaded learning. There is everywhere a clear and

melodious polyphony.

But with all masterly architecture, even enchanting changes of harmony

and a prodigal play of melody, the vacuity of poetic ideas must preclude

a permanent appeal. Bruckner is here the schoolmaster: his symphony is a

splendid skeleton, an object lesson for the future poet.

In the FOURTH (ROMANTIC) SYMPHONY the main light plays throughout on the

wind. The text is a call of horns, that begins the work. It is a

symphony

[Music: _In tranquil motion_

(Horns, _espressivo_)

(Strings)]

of wood-notes, where the forest-horn is sovereign,--awakening a widening

world of echoes, with a murmuring maze of lesser notes. One has again

the feeling that in the quiet interweaving of a tapestry of strains lies

the individual quality of the composer,--that the _forte_ blasts, the

stride of big unison figures are but the interlude.

In the Andante the charm is less of tune than of the delicate changing

shades of the harmony and of the colors of tone. We are ever surprised

in the gentlest way by a turn of chord or by the mere entrance of a horn

among the whispering strings. The shock of a soft modulation may be as

sudden as of the loud, sudden blare. But we cannot somehow be consoled

for the want of a heart-felt melody.

The Scherzo is a kind of hunting-piece, full of the sparkle, the color

and romance of bugles and horns,--a spirited fanfare broken by hushed

phrases of strings or wood, or an elf-like mystic dance on the softened

call of trumpets. The Trio sings apart, between the gay revels, in soft

voices and slower pace, like a simple ballad.

The Finale is conceived in mystical retrospect, beginning in vein of

prologue: over mysterious murmuring strings, long sustained notes of the

reed and horn in octave descent are mingled with a soft carillon of

horns and trumpets in the call of the Scherzo. In broad swing a free

fantasy rises to a loud refrain (in the brass) of the first motive of

the symphony.

In slower pace and hush of sound sings a madrigal of tender phrases. A

pair of melodies recall like figures of the first Allegro. Indeed, a

chain of dulcet strains seems to rise from the past.

The fine themal relevance may be pursued in infinite degree, to no end

but sheer bewilderment. The truth is that a modern vanity for subtle

connection, a purest pedantry, is here evident, and has become a baneful

tradition in the modern symphony. It is an utter confusion of the letter

with the spirit. Once for all, a themal coherence of symphony must lie

in the main lines, not in a maze of unsignificant figures.

Marked is a sharp alternation of mood, tempestuous and tender, of

Florestan and Eusebius. The lyric phase yields to the former heroic

fantasy and then returns in soothing solace into a prevailing motive

that harks back to the second of the beginning movement. The fantasy,

vague of melody, comes

[Music: (Wood and horns)

(Strings)]

(in more than one sense) as relief from the small tracery. It is just to

remember a like oscillation in the first Allegro.

When the prologue recurs, the phrases are in ascent, instead of descent

of octaves. A climactic verse of the main dulcet melody breaks out in

resonant choir of brass and is followed by a soft rhapsody on the

several strains that hark back to the beginning. From the halting pace

the lyric episode rises in flight of continuous song to enchanting lilt.

Now in the big heroic fantasy sing the first slow phrases as to the

manner born and as naturally break into a paean of the full motive,

mingled with strains of the original legend of the symphony, that flows

on to broad hymnal cadence.

In mystic musing we reach a solemn stillness where the prologue phrase

is slowly drawn out into a profoundly moving hymn. Here we must feel is

Meister Bruckner's true poetic abode rather than in the passion and

ecstasy of romance into which he was vainly lured.[A]

[Footnote A: Bruckner's Fifth Symphony (in B flat) is a typical example

of closest correlation of themes that are devoid of intrinsic melody.

An introduction supplies in the bass of a hymnal line the main theme of

the Allegro by inversion as well as the germ of the first subject of the

Adagio. Throughout, as in the Romantic Symphony, the relation between

the first and the last movement is subtle. A closing, jagged phrase

reappears as the first theme of the Finale.

The Adagio and Scherzo are built upon the same figure of bass. The theme

of the Trio is acclaimed by a German annotator as the reverse of the

first motive of the symphony.

In the prelude of the Finale, much as in the Ninth of Beethoven, are

passed in review the main themes of the earlier movements. Each one is

answered by an eccentric phrase that had its origin in the first

movement and is now extended to a fugal theme.

The climactic figure is a new hymnal line that moves as central theme of

an imposing double fugue.]

CHAPTER XV

THE LATER BRUCKNER

In Bruckner's later works appears the unique instance of a discipline

grounded in the best traditions, united to a deft use of ephemeral

devices. The basic cause of modern mannerism, mainly in harmonic

effects, lies in a want of formal mastery; an impatience of thorough

technic; a craving for quick sensation. With Bruckner it was the

opposite weakness of original ideas, an organic lack of poetic

individuality. It is this the one charge that cannot be brought home to

the earlier German group of reaction against the classic idea.

There is melody, almost abundant, in Wagner and Liszt and their German

contemporaries. Indeed it was an age of lyricists. The fault was that

they failed to recognize their lyric limitation, lengthening and padding

their motives abnormally to fit a form that was too large. Hence the

symphony of Liszt, with barren stretches, and the impossible plan of the

later music-drama. The truest form of such a period was the song, as it

blossomed in the works of a Franz.

Nor has this grandiose tendency even yet spent its course. A saving

element was the fashioning of a new form, by Liszt himself,--the

Symphonic Poem,--far inferior to the symphony, but more adequate to the

special poetic intent.

Whatever be the truth of personal gossip, there is no doubt that

Bruckner lent himself and his art to a championing of the reactionary

cause in the form that was intrinsically at odds with its spirit. Hence

in later works of Bruckner these strange episodes of borrowed romance,

abruptly stopped by a firm counterpoint of excellent quality,--indeed

far the best of his writing. For, if a man have little ideas, at least

his good workmanship will count for something.

In truth, one of the strangest types is presented in Bruckner,--a pedant

who by persistent ingenuity simulates a master-work almost to

perfection. By so much as genius is not an infinite capacity for pains,

by so much is Bruckner's Ninth not a true symphony. Sometimes, under the

glamor of his art, we are half persuaded that mere persistence may

transmute pedantry into poetry.

It seems almost as if the Wagnerians chose their champion in the

symphony with a kind of suppressed contempt for learning, associating

mere intellectuality with true mastery, pointing to an example of

greatest skill and least inspiration as if to say: "Here is your

symphonist if you must have one." And it is difficult to avoid a

suspicion that his very partisans were laughing up their sleeve at their

adopted champion.

We might say all these things, and perhaps we have gone too far in

suggesting them. After all we have no business with aught but the music

of Bruckner, whatever may have been his musical politics, his vanity,

his ill judgment, or even his deliberate partisanship against his

betters. But the ideas themselves are unsubstantial; on shadowy

foundation they give an illusion by modern touches of harmony and rhythm

that are not novel in themselves. The melodic idea is usually divided in

two, as by a clever juggler. There is really no one thought, but a

plenty of small ones to hide the greater absence.

We have merely to compare this artificial manner with the poetic reaches

of Brahms to understand the insolence of extreme Wagnerians and the

indignation of a Hanslick. As against the pedantry of Bruckner the style

of Strauss is almost welcome in its frank pursuit of effects which are

at least grateful in themselves. Strauss makes hardly a pretence at

having melodic ideas. They serve but as pawns or puppets for his

harmonic and orchestral _mise-en-scène_. He is like a play-wright

constructing his plot around a scenic design.

Just a little common sense is needed,--an unpremeditated attitude. Thus

the familiar grouping, "_Bach_, _Beethoven_ and _Brahms_" is at least

not unnatural. Think of the absurdity of "_Bach_, _Beethoven_ and

_Bruckner_"![A]

[Footnote A: A festival was held in Munich in the summer of 1911, in

celebration of "Bach, Beethoven and Bruckner."]

The truth is, the Bruckner cult is a striking symptom of a certain

decadence in German music; an incapacity to tell the sincere quality of

feeling in the dense, brilliant growth of technical virtuosity. In the

worship at the Bayreuth shrine, somehow reinforced by a modern national

self-importance, has been lost a heed for all but a certain vein of

exotic romanticism, long ago run to riotous seed, a blending of hedonism

and fatalism. No other poetic message gets a hearing and the former may

be rung in endless repetition and reminiscence, provided, to be sure, it

be framed with brilliant cunning of workmanship.

Here we feel driven defiantly to enounce the truth: that the highest

art, even in a narrow sense, comes only with a true poetic message. Of

this Bruckner is a proof; for, if any man by pure knowledge could make a

symphony, it was he. But, with almost superhuman skill, there is

something wanting in the inner connection, where the main ideas are

weak, forced or borrowed. It is only the true poetic rapture that

ensures the continuous absorption that drives in perfect sequence to

irresistible conclusion.

_SYMPHONY NO. 9_

_I.--Solenne._ Solemn mystery is the mood, amid trembling strings on

hollow unison, before the eight

[Music: _Misterioso_

(Eight horns with _tremolo_ strings on D in three octaves)]

horns strike a phrase in the minor chord that in higher echoes breaks

into a strange harmony and descends into a turn of melodic cadence. In

answer is another chain of brief phrases, each beginning

[Music: (1st violins)

(Lower reeds with strings _tremolo_ in all but basses)]

with a note above the chord (the common mark and manner of the later

school of harmonists[A]) and a new ascent on a literal ladder of

subtlest progress, while hollow intervals are intermingled in the pinch

of close harmonies. The bewildering maze here begins of multitudinous

design, enriched with modern devices.

[Footnote A: See Vol. II, note, page 104.]

A clash of all the instruments acclaims the climax before the unison

stroke of fullest chorus on the solemn note of the beginning. A favorite

device of Bruckner, a measured tread of _pizzicato_ strings with

interspersed themal motives, precedes the romantic episode. Throughout

the movement is this alternation of liturgic chorale with tender melody.

[Music: _Molto tranquillo_

(Strings) _espressivo_

(Oboes and horns)]

Bruckner's pristine polyphonic manner ever appears in the double strain

of melodies, where each complements, though not completes the other.

However multiple the plan, we cannot feel more than the quality of

_unusual_ in the motives themselves, of some interval of ascent or

descent. Yet as the melody grows to larger utterance, the fulness of

polyphonic art brings a beauty of tender sentiment, rising to a moving

climax, where the horns lead the song in the heart of the madrigal

chorus, and the strings alone sing the expressive answer.

[Music: (Violins doubled in 8ve.)

(Strings, woods and horns)]

A third phrase now appears, where lies the main poetry of the movement.

Gentle swaying calls of

[Music: _Tranquillo_ (Wood and violins)

(4 horns in 8ve.)

(Horns)

(Strings with bassoons)]

soft horns and wood, echoed and answered in close pursuit, lead to a

mood of placid, elemental rhythm, with something of "Rheingold," of

"Ossian" ballad, of the lapping waves of Cherubini's "Anacreon." In the

midst the horns blow a line of sonorous melody, where the cadence has a

breath of primal legend. On the song runs, ever mid the elemental

motion, to a resonant height and dies away as before. The intimate,

romantic melody now returns, but it is rocked on the continuing pelagic

pulse; indeed, we hear anon a faint phrase of the legend, in distant

trumpet, till we reach a joint rhapsody of both moods; and in the never

resting motion, mid vanishing echoes, we dream of some romance of the

sea.

Against descending harmonies return the hollow, sombre phrases of the

beginning, with the full cadence of chorale in the brass; and beyond,

the whole prelude has a full, extended verse. In the alternation of

solemn and sweet episode returns the tender melody, with pretty

inversions, rising again to an ardent height. The renewed clash of

acclaiming chorus ushers again the awful phrase of unison (now in octave

descent), in towering majesty. But now it rises in the ever increasing

vehemence where the final blast is lit up with a flash of serene

sonority.

This motive, of simple octave call, indeed pervades the earlier symphony

in big and little. And now, above a steady, sombre melodic tread of

strings it rises in a fray of eager retorts, transfigured in wonderful

harmony again and again to a brilliant height, pausing on a ringing

refrain, in sombre hue of overpowering blast.

A soft interlude of halting and diminishing strings leads to the

romantic melody as it first appeared, where the multiple song again

deepens and ennobles the theme. It passes straight into the waving,

elemental motion, where again the hallowed horn utters its sibyl phrase,

again rising to resonant height. And again merges the intimate song with

the continuing pulse of the sea, while the trumpet softly sounds the

legend and a still greater height of rhapsody.

Dull brooding chords bring a sombre play of the awing phrase, over a

faint rocking motion, clashing in bold harmony, while the horns surge in

broader melody. The climactic clash ends in a last verse of the opening

phrase, as of primal, religious chant.

_II.--Scherzo._ In the dazzling pace of bright clashing harmonies, the

perfect answers of falling and rising phrases, we are again before the

semblance, at

[Music: _Vivace_

(Flute with _pizz._ violins)

(Flute)

(_Pizz._ strings)]

least, of a great poetic idea. To be sure there is a touch of stereotype

in the chords and even in the pinch and clash of hostile motives. And

there is not the distinctive melody,--final stamp and test of the shaft

of inspiration. Yet in the enchantment of motion, sound and form, it

seems mean-spirited to cavil at a want of something greater. One stands

bewildered before such art and stunned of all judgment.

A delight of delicate gambols follows the first brilliant dance of main

motive. Amid a rougher trip of unison sounds the sonorous brass, and to

softest jarring murmur of strings a pretty jingle of reed,

[Music: _grazioso_

(Oboe)

(_Pizz._ strings with soft chord of wind and rhythmic bassoon)]

with later a slower counter-song, almost a madrigal of pastoral answers,

till we are back in the ruder original dance. The gay cycle leads to a

height of rough volume (where the mystic brass sound in the midst) and a

revel of echoing chase.

In sudden hush of changed tone on fastest fairy trip, strings and wood

play to magic harmonies. In calming motion the violins sing a quieter

song, ever

[Music: _Piu tranquillo_

_Dolce_

(Violins)

(Oboe)

(Violins)

(Oboes with sustained strings)]

echoed by the reed. Though there is no gripping force of themal idea,

the melodies are all of grateful charm, and in the perfect round of

rhythmic design we may well be content. The original dance recurs with a

full fine orgy of hostile euphony.

_III.--Adagio._ _Feierlich,--awesome_ indeed are these first sounds, and

we are struck by the originality

[Music: _Molto lento (Solenne)_

(Violins, G string)

_broadly_

(Strings with choir of tubas, later of trombones and contrabass-tuba)]

of Bruckner's technic. After all we must give the benefit at least of

the doubt. And there is after this deeply impressive _introit_ a

gorgeous Promethean

[Music: (Woodwind and low brass with _tremolo_ strings)

(3 trumpets)

(4 horns)]

spring of up-leaping harmonies. The whole has certainly more of concrete

beauty than many of the labored attempts of the present day.

The prelude dies down with an exquisite touch of precious

dissonance,--whether it came from the heart or from the workshop. The

strange and tragic part is that with so much art and talent there should

not be the strong individual idea,--the flash of new tonal figure that

stands fearless upon its own feet. All this pretty machinery seems

wasted upon the framing and presenting, at the moment of expectation, of

the shadows of another poet's ideas or of mere platitudes.

In the midst of the broad sweeping theme with a

[Music: (Strings, with cl't and oboe)

_Very broadly_

(G string)]

promise of deep utterance is a phrase of horns with the precise accent

and agony of a _Tristan_. The very semblance of whole motives seems to

be taken from the warp and woof of Wagnerian drama. And thus the whole

symphony is degraded, in its gorgeous capacity, to the reëchoed rhapsody

of exotic romanticism. It is all little touches, no big thoughts,--a

mosaic of a symphony.

[Music: (Horns)]

And so the second theme[A] is almost too heavily laden with fine detail

for its own strength, though

[Music: (Violins, reeds and horns)

_Poco piu lento_

_dolce_

(_Pizz._ of lower strings)]

it ends with a gracefully delicate answer. The main melody soon recurs

and sings with a stress of warm feeling in the cellos, echoed by glowing

strains of the horns. Romantic harmonies bring back the solemn air of

the prelude with a new counter melody, in precise opposite figure, as

though inverted in a mirror, and again the dim moving chords that seem

less of Bruckner than of legendary drama. In big accoutrement the double

theme moves with double answers, ever with the sharp pinch of harmonies

and heroic mien. Gentlest retorts of the motives sing with fairy

clearness (in horns and reeds), rising to tender, expressive dialogue.

With growing spirit they ascend once more to the triumphant clash of

empyraean chords, that may suffice for justifying beauty.

[Footnote A: We have spoken of a prelude, first and second theme; they

might have been more strictly numbered first, second and third theme.]

Instead of the first, the second melody follows with its delicate grace.

After a pause recurs the phrase that harks from mediaeval romance, now

in a stirring ascent of close chasing voices. The answer, perfect in its

timid halting descent, exquisite in accent and in the changing hues of

its periods, is robbed of true effect by its direct reflection of

Wagnerian ecstasies.

As if in recoil, a firm hymnal phrase sounds in the strings, ending in a

more intimate cadence. Another chain of rarest fairy clashes, on the

motive of the prelude, leads to the central verse, the song of the first

main melody in the midst of soft treading strings, and again descends

the fitting answer of poignant accent.

And now, for once forgetting all origin and clinging sense of

reminiscence, we may revel in the rich romance, the fathoms of mystic

harmony, as the main song sings and rings from the depths of dim legend

in lowest brass, amidst a soft humming chorus, in constant shift of

fairy tone.

A flight of ascending chords brings the big exaltation of the first

prophetic phrase, ever answered by exultant ring of trumpet, ending in

sudden awing pause. An eerie train of echoes from the verse of prelude

leads to a loveliest last song of the poignant answer of main song, over

murmuring strings. It

[Music: (_Tremolo_ violins with lower 8ve.)

(Reeds)

(Horns)

(Violas)]

is carried on by the mystic choir of sombre brass in shifting steps of

enchanting harmony and dies away in tenderest lingering accents.[A]

[Footnote A: In place of the uncompleted Finale, Bruckner is said to

have directed that his "_Te Deum_" be added to the other movements.]

CHAPTER XVI

HUGO WOLFF[A]

_"PENTHESILEA." SYMPHONIC POEM_[B]

[Footnote A: Hugo Wolff, born in 1860, died in 1903.]

[Footnote B: After the like-named tragedy of Heinrich von Kleist.]

An entirely opposite type of composer, Hugo Wolff, shows the real

strength of modern German music in a lyric vein, sincere, direct and

fervent. His longest work for instruments has throughout the charm of

natural rhythm and melody, with subtle shading of the harmony. Though

there is no want of contrapuntal design, the workmanship never obtrudes.

It is a model of the right use of symbolic motives in frequent

recurrence and subtle variation.

In another instrumental piece, the "Italian Serenade," all kinds of

daring suspenses and gentle clashes and surprises of harmonic scene give

a fragrance of dissonant euphony, where a clear melody ever rules.

"Penthesilea," with a climactic passion and a sheer contrast of tempest

and tenderness, uttered with all the mastery of modern devices, has a

pervading thrall of pure musical beauty. We are tempted to hail in Wolff

a true poet in an age of pedants and false prophets.

PENTHESILEA.--A TRAGEDY BY HEINRICH VON KLEIST.[A]

[Footnote A: German, 1776-1811.]

As Wolff's work is admittedly modelled on Kleist's tragedy, little known

to the English world, it is important to view the main lines of this

poem, which has provoked so divergent a criticism in Germany.

On the whole, the tragedy seems to be one of those daring, even profane

assaults on elemental questions by ways that are untrodden if not

forbidden. It is a wonderful type of Romanticist poetry in the bold

choice of subject and in the intense vigor and beauty of the verse.

Coming with a shock upon the classic days of German poetry, it met with

a stern rebuke from the great Goethe. But a century later we must surely

halt in following the lead of so severe a censor. The beauty of diction

alone seems a surety of a sound content,--as when Penthesilea exclaims:

"A hero man can be--a Titan--in distress,

But like a god is he when rapt in blessedness."

An almost convincing symbolism has been suggested of the latent meaning

of the poem by a modern critic,[A]--a symbolism that seems wonderfully

reflected in Wolff's music. The charge of perverted passion can be based

only on certain lines, and these are spoken within the period of madness

that has overcome the heroine. This brings us to the final point which

may suggest the main basic fault in the poem, considered as art. At

least it is certainly a question whether pure madness can ever be a

fitting subject in the hero of a tragedy. Ophelia is an episode;

Hamlet's madness has never been finally determined. Though the Erinnys

hunted Orestes in more than one play, yet no single Fury could, after

all, be the heroine of tragedy. Penthesilea became in the crisis a pure

Fury, and though she may find here her own defense, the play may not

benefit by the same plea. On the other hand, the madness is less a

reality than an impression of the Amazons who cannot understand the

heroine's conflicting feelings. There is no one moment in the play when

the hearer's sympathy for the heroine is destroyed by a clear sense of

her insanity.

[Footnote A: Kuno Francke. See the notes of Philip Hale in the programme

book of the Boston Symphony Orchestra of April 3-4, 1908.]

For another word on the point of symbolism, it must be remembered that

the whole plot is one of supernatural legend where somehow human acts

and motives need not conform to conventional rule, and where symbolic

meaning, as common reality disappears, is mainly eminent. It is in this

same spirit that the leading virtues of the race, of war or of peace,

are typified by feminine figures.

The Tragedy is not divided into acts; it has merely four and twenty

scenes--upon the battle-field of Troy. The characters are Penthesilea,

Queen of the Amazons; her chief leaders, Prothoe, Meroe and Asteria, and

the high priestess of Diana. Of the Greeks there are Achilles, Odysseus,

Diomede and Antilochus. Much of the fighting and other action is not

seen, but is reported either by messengers or by present witnesses of a

distant scene.

The play begins with the battle raging between Greeks and Amazons.

Penthesilea with her hosts amazes the Greeks by attacking equally the

Trojans, her reputed allies. She mows down the ranks of the Trojans, and

yet refuses all proffers of the Greeks.

Thus early we have the direct, uncompromising spirit,--a kind of

feminine Prometheus. The first picture of the heroine is of a Minerva in

full array, stony of gaze and of expression until--she sees Achilles.

Here early comes the conflict of two elemental passions. Penthesilea

recoils from the spell and dashes again into her ambiguous warfare. For

once Greeks and Trojans are forced to fight in common defence.

"The raging Queen with blows of thunder struck

As she would cleave the whole race of the Greeks

Down to its roots....

* * * * *

"More of the captives did she take

Than she did leave us eyes to count the list,

Or arms to set them free again.

* * * * *

"Often it seemed as if a special hate

Against Achilles did possess her breast.

* * * * *

"Yet in a later moment, when

His life was given straight into her hands,

Smiling she gave it back, as though a present;

His headlong course to Hades she did stay."

In midst of the dual battle between Achilles and the Queen, a Trojan

prince comes storming and strikes a treacherous blow against the armor

of the Greek.

"The Queen is stricken pale; for a brief moment

Her arms hang helpless by her sides; and then,

Shaking her locks about her flaming cheeks,

Dashes her sword like lightning in his throat,

And sends him rolling to Achilles' feet."

The Greek leaders resolve to retreat from the futile fight and to call

Achilles from the mingled chase of love and war.

Achilles is now reported taken by the Amazons. The battle is vividly

depicted: Achilles caught on a high ledge with his war-chariot; the

Amazon Queen storming the height from below. The full scene is witnessed

from the stage,--Penthesilea pursuing almost alone; Achilles suddenly

dodges; the Queen as quickly halts and rears her horse; the Amazons fall

in a mingled heap; Achilles escapes, though wounded. But he refuses to

follow his companions to the camp; he swears to bring home the Queen

wooed in the bloody strife of her own seeking.

Penthesilea recoils with like vehemence from the entreaties of her

maids, intent upon the further battle, resolved to overcome the hero or

to die. She forbids the Festival of Roses until she has vanquished

Achilles. In her rage she banishes her favorite Prothoe from her

presence, but in a quick revulsion takes her back.

In the next scene the high priestess and the little Amazon maids prepare

the Feast, which Penthesilea had ordered in her confident attack upon

the fleeing Greeks. One of the Rose-maidens recounts the passing scene

of the Queen's amazing action. The indignant priestess sends her command

to the Queen to return to the celebration. Though all the royal suite

fling themselves in her path, Penthesilea advances to the dual

battle.[A]

[Footnote A: The law of the Amazons commanded them to wage war as told

them by the oracle of Mars. The prisoners were brought to the Feast of

Roses and wedded by their captors. After a certain time they were sent

back to their homes. All male children of the tribe were put to death.]

In a renewal of her personal contest, regardless of the common cause,

and in her special quest of a chosen husband, Penthesilea has broken the

sacred law.

The flight now follows of the Amazon hosts. When the two combatants meet

in the shock of lances, the Queen falls in the dust; her pallor is

reflected in Achilles' face. Leaping from his horse, he bends o'er her,

calls her by names, and woos life back into her frame. Her faithful

maids, whom she has forbidden to harm Achilles, lead her away. And here

begins the seeming madness of the Queen when she confesses her love. For

a moment she yields to her people's demands, but the sight of the

rose-wreaths kindles her rage anew. Prothoe defends her in these lines:

"Of life the highest blessing she attempted.

Grazing she almost grasped. Her hands now fail her

For any other lesser goal to reach."

In the last part of the scene the Queen falls more and deeper into

madness. It is only in a too literal spirit that one will find an

oblique meaning,--by too great readiness to discover it. In reality

there seems to be an intense conflict of opposite emotions in the

heroine: the pure woman's love, without sense of self; and the wild

overpowering greed of achievement. Between these grinding stones she

wears her heart away. A false interpretation of decadent theme comes

from regarding the two emotions as mingled, instead of alternating in a

struggle.

Achilles advances, having flung away his armor. Prothoe persuades him to

leave the Queen, when she awakes, in the delusion that she has conquered

and that he is the captive. Thus when she beholds the hero, she breaks

forth into the supreme moment of exaltation and of frenzied triumph. The

main love scene follows:

Penthesilea tells Achilles the whole story of the Amazons, the conquest

of the original tribe, the rising of the wives of the murdered warriors

against the conquerors; the destruction of the right breast (_A-mazon_);

the dedication of the "brides of Mars" to war and love in one. In

seeking out Achilles the Queen has broken the law. But here again

appears the double symbolic idea: Achilles meant to the heroine not love

alone, but the overwhelming conquest, the great achievement of her life.

The first feeling of Penthesilea, when disillusioned, is of revulsive

anger at a kind of betrayal. The Amazons recover ground in a wild desire

to save their Queen, and they do rescue her, after a parting scene of

the lovers. But Penthesilea curses the triumph that snatches her away;

the high priestess rebukes her, sets her free of her royal duties, to

follow her love if she will. The Queen is driven from one mood to

another, of devoted love, burning ambition and mortal despair.

Achilles now sends a challenge to Penthesilea, knowing the Amazon

conditions. Against all entreaty the Queen accepts, not in her former

spirit, but in the frenzy of desperate endeavor, in the reawakened rage

of her ambition, spurred and pricked by the words of the priestess.

The full scene of madness follows. She calls for her dogs and elephants,

and the full accoutrement of battle. Amidst the terror of her own

warriors, the rolling of thunder, she implores the gods' help to crush

the Greek. In a final touch of frenzy she aims a dart at her faithful

Prothoe.

The battle begins, Achilles in fullest confidence in Penthesilea's love,

unfrightened by the wild army of dogs and elephants. The scene, told by

the present on-lookers, is heightened by the cries of horror and dismay

of the Amazons themselves.

Achilles falls; Penthesilea, a living Fury, dashes upon him with her

dogs in an insane orgy of blood. The Queen in the culminating scene is

greeted by the curses of the high priestess. Prothoe masters her horror

and turns back to soothe the Queen. Penthesilea, unmindful of what has

passed, moves once more through the whole gamut of her torturing

emotions, and is almost calmed when she spies the bier with the hero's

body. The last blow falls when upon her questions she learns the full

truth of her deed. The words she utters (that have been cited by the

hostile critics) may well be taken as the ravings of hopeless remorse,

with a symbolic play of words. She dies, as she proclaims, by the knife

of her own anguish.

The last lines of Prothoe are a kind of epilogue:

"She sank because too proud and strong she flourished.

The half-decayèd oak withstands the tempest;

The vigorous tree is headlong dashed to earth

Because the storm has struck into its crown."[A]

[Footnote A: Translations, when not otherwise credited, are by the

author.]

The opening scene--"Lively, vehement: Departure of the Amazons for

Troy"--begins impetuous and hefty with big strokes of the throbbing

motive,

[Music: (_Tutti_ with higher 8ves.)

(Piccolo in 8ve.)

(Bass in 8ve.)]

the majestic rhythm coursing below, lashed by a quicker phrase above.

Suddenly trumpets sound, somewhat more slowly, a clarion call answered

by a choir of other trumpets and horns in enchanting retort of changing

harmonies. Ever a fresh color of

[Music: (Flutes and oboes)

(Answering groups of brass)

(Lower strings _pizz._)]

tone sounds in the call of the brass, as if here or yonder on the

battle-field. Sometimes it is almost too sweetly chanting for fierce

war. But presently it turns to a wilder mood and breaks in galloping

pace into a true chorus of song with clear cadence.

[Music: (Flutes with reeds in lower 8ve.)

(Violins with upper 8ve.)

(Lower strings and brass with lower 8ve.)]

The joyful tinge is quickly lost in the sombre hue of another phase of

war-song that has a touch of funeral trip (though it is all in 3/4

time):

[Music: (Muted strings)

(Horns and bassoons)]

A melody in the minor plays first in a choir of horns and bassoons,

later in united strings, accompanied by soft rolls of drums and a touch

of the lowest brass. Harp and higher woodwind are added, but the volume

is never transcendent save in a single burst when it is quickly hushed

to the first ominous whisper. Out of this sombre song flows a romance of

tender sentiment, _tranquillo_ in strings, followed by the wood. The

crossing threads of expressive melody

[Music: _Tranquillo_

(Strings)

(In the midst enters a strain of solo horn)]

rise in instant renewal of stress and agitation. The joy of battle has

returned, but it seems that the passion of love burns in midst of the

glow of battle, each in its separate struggle, and both together in one

fatal strife. The sombre melody returns in full career, dying down to a

pause.[A]

[Footnote A: In a somewhat literal commentary attributed to Dr. Richard

Batka, the Amazons here, "having reached their destination, go into

night-encampment--as represented by the subdued roll of the

kettle-drums, with which the movement concludes."]

_Molto sostenuto_, in changed rhythm of three slow beats, comes

"Penthesilea's Dream of the Feast of Roses." Over a thick cluster of

harmonies in harp and strings the higher wood sing a new song in long

drawn lyric notes with ravishing turns of tonal color,--a

[Music: _Molto sostenuto_

(Flutes, oboes and clarinets)

(Rapid arpeggic figures of harps and muted strings)]

dual song and in many groups of two. The tranquil current of the dream

is gradually disturbed; the main burden is dimmed in hue and in mood.

Faster, more fitful is the flow of melody, with hostile intruding motive

below; it dashes at last into the tragic phase--Combats; Passions;

Madness; Destruction--in very rapid tempo of 2/2 rhythm.

In broad, masterful pace, big contrary figures sweep up and down,

cadencing in almost joyous chant, gliding, indeed, into a pure hymn, as

of triumph (that harks back to the chorussing song in the beginning).

Throughout the poem the musical symbols as well as the motives of

passion are closely intertwined. Thus the identity of the impetuous

phrase of the very beginning is clear with the blissful theme of the

Dream of the Feast of Roses. Here, at the end of the chorussing verse is

a play or a strife of phrases where we cannot escape a symbolic intent.

To _tremolo_ of violas the cellos hold a tenor of descending melody over

a rude rumbling phrase of the basses of wood and strings, while the oboe

sings in the treble an expressive answer of ascending notes. A conflict

is

[Music: (_Molto vivace_)

(cello _molto espressivo_)

(Violas)

(Basses and bassoons with upper 8ve.)

(Oboe) _espressivo_]

evident, of love and ambition, of savage and of gentle passion, of chaos

and of beauty. At the height, the lowest brass intrude a brutal note of

triumph of the descending theme. To the victory of Pride succeeds a

crisis of passionate yearning. But at the very height is a plunge into

the fit of madness, the fatal descending phrase (in trombones) is ever

followed by furious pelting spurts in the distorted main theme.

At last the paroxysm abates, throbbing ever slower, merging into the

tender song of the Dream that now rises to the one great burst of

love-passion. But it ends in a wild rage that turns right into the

war-song of the beginning. And this is much fuller of incident than

before. Violins now ring an hostile motive (the former rumbling phrase

of basses) from the midst of the plot against the main theme in

trumpets. Instead of the former pageantry, here is the pure frenzy of

actual war. The trumpet melodies resound amidst the din of present

battle. Instead of the other gentler episodes, here is a more furious

raving of the mad Queen (in the hurried main motive), where we seem to

see the literal dogs of war let loose and spurred on,--each paroxysm

rising to a higher shock.

Great is the vehemence of speed and sound as the dull doom of

destruction drones in the basses against a grim perversion of the

yearning theme above, that overwhelms the scene with a final shriek.

Slowly the dream of love breathes again, rises to a fervent burst, then

yields to the fateful chant and ends in a whisper of farewell.

CHAPTER XVII

MAHLER[A]

[Footnote A: Gustav Mahler, 1860-1911.]

In Mahler the most significant sign is a return to a true counterpoint,

as against a mere overlading of themes, that began in Wagner and still

persists in Strauss,--an artificial kind of structure that is never

conceived as a whole.

While we see in Mahler much of the duophonic manner of his teacher,

Bruckner, in the work of the younger man the barren art is crowned with

the true fire of a sentient poet. So, if Bruckner had little to say, he

showed the way to others. And Mahler, if he did not quite emerge from

the mantle of Beethoven, is a link towards a still greater future. The

form and the technic still seem, as with most modern symphonies, too

great for the message. It is another phase of orchestral virtuosity, of

intellectual strain, but with more of poetic energy than in the

symphonies of the French or other Germans.

In other forms we see this happy reaction towards ancient art, as in the

organ music of a Reger. But in the Finale of Mahler's Fifth Symphony

there is a true serenity, a new phase of symphony, without the climactic

stress of traditional triumph, yet none the less joyous in essence.

We cannot help rejoicing that in a sincere and poetic design of

symphony is blended a splendid renaissance of pure counterpoint, that

shines clear above the modern spurious pretence. The Finale of Mahler's

Fifth Symphony is one of the most inspired conceptions of counterpoint

in all music. In it is realized the full dream of a revival of the art

in all its glorious estate.

_SYMPHONY NO. 5_

I.--1. _Funeral March._

2. _In stormy motion (with greatest vehemence)._

II.--3. _Scherzo (with vigor,--not too fast)._

III.--4. _Adagietto (very slowly)._

5. _Rondo-Finale (allegro)._

Mahler's Fifth Symphony, whatever be its intrinsic merit, that can be

decided only by time and wear, undoubtedly marks a high point of

orchestral splendor, in the regard of length and of the complexity of

resources. By the latter is meant not so much the actual list of

instruments as the pervading and accumulating use of thematic

machinery.[A]

[Footnote A: The symphony is probably the longest instrumental work that

had appeared at the time of its production in 1904. The list of

instruments comprises 4 flutes, 3 oboes, 3 clarinets, 2 bassoons,

contra-bassoon, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, kettle-drums,

cymbals, bass-drum, snare-drum, triangle, glockenspiel, gong, harp and

strings.

Compared with D'Indy's Second Symphony, the Fifth of Mahler has a larger

body of brass as well as of woodwind.]

The plan of movements is very original and in a way, two-fold. There are

three great divisions, of which the first comprises a Funeral March,

and an untitled Allegro in vehement motion. The second division has

merely the single movement, Scherzo. In the third are an Adagietto and a

Rondo Finale.

_I.--1. Funeral March._--A call of trumpet, of heroic air and tread, is

answered by strident chords ending in a sonorous motive of horns that

leads to the funeral trip, of low brass. The mournful song of the

principal melody appears presently in the strings, then returns to the

funeral trip and to the strident chords. The first trumpet motive now

sounds with this clanging phrase and soon the original call abounds in

other brass. The deep descending notes of the horns recur and the full

song of the funeral melody much extended, growing into a duet of cellos

and high woodwind,

[Music: (Strings, bassoons and clarinets)]

and further into hymnal song on a new motive.

[Music: (Wood, horns and strings)

(Bass notes in lowest wood and strings)]

So the various melodies recur with new mood and manner. Suddenly, in

fierce abandon, a martial tramp of the full band resounds, in gloomy

minor,

[Music: _Suddenly faster. Impassioned_

(Rapid descending figure in violins)

(Trumpet)

(Trombones)

(Tuba and strings)]

the violins in rapid rage of wailing figure: the trumpet strikes the

firm note of heroic plaint.

Wild grief breaks out on all sides, the strings singing in passionate

answer to the trumpet, the high wood carrying on the rapid motion. At

the height of the storm the woodwind gain control with measured rhythm

of choral melody. Or perhaps the real height is the expressive double

strain, in gentle pace, of the strings, and the wood descending from on

high.

[Music: (Woodwind doubled below)

(Strings doubled above)

_espressivo_

(Brass and strings)]

The duet is carried on in wilder mood by most of the voices.

A return to the solemn pace comes by imperceptible change, the softer

hues of grief merging with the fiercer cries. Now various strains sound

together,--the main funeral melody in the woodwind.

In the close recurs the full flow of funeral song, with the hymnal

harmonies. In the refrain of the stormy duet the sting of passion is

gone; the whole plaint dies away amid the fading echoes of the trumpet

call.

_I.--2._ The second movement, the real first Allegro, is again clearly

in two parts. Only, the relative paces are exactly reversed from the

first movement. In tempestuous motion, with greatest vehemence, a

rushing motive of the basses is stopped by a chord of brass and

strings,--the chord itself reverberating to the lower rhythm.

[Music: _In stirring motion. With greatest vehemence_

(Brass and strings)

(Bass of wood and string)

(Trumpets)]

Throughout the whole symphony is the dual theme, each part spurring the

other. Here presently are phrases in conflicting motion, countermarching

in a stormy maze. It is all, too, like noisy preparation,--a manoeuvring

of forces before the battle. Three distinct figures there are before a

blast of horn in slower notes, answered by shrill call in highest wood.

There enters a regular, rhythmic gait and a clearer tune, suggested by

the call.

[Music: (Horns, oboes and 1st violins, G string)

(Strings and wood)

(Tuba and strings)

(Second violins)]

In the brilliant medley there is ever a new figure we had not perceived.

So when the tune has been told, trumpets and horns begin with what seems

almost the main air, and the former voices sound like mere heralds.

Finally the deep trombones and tuba enter with a sonorous call. Yet the

first rapid trip of all has the main legend.

As the quicker figures gradually retire, a change of pace appears, to

the tramp of funeral. Yet the initial and incident strains are of the

former text. Out of it weaves the new, slower melody:

[Music: _Much slower_ (in the tempo of the former funeral march)

(Oboes)

(Flutes and clarinets)

(Cellos)

_molto cantando_]

Throughout, the old shrill call sounds in soft lament. Hardly like a

tune, a discourse rather, it winds along, growing and changing naïvely

ever to a new phrase. And the soft calls about seem part of the melody.

An expressive line rising in the clarinet harks back to one of the later

strains of the funeral march.

The second melody or answer (in low octaves of strings) is a scant

disguise of the lower tune in the stormy duet of the first movement. Yet

all the strains move in the gentle, soothing pace and mood until

suddenly awakened to the first vehement rhythm.

Before the slower verse returns is a long plaint of cellos to softest

roll of drums. The gentle calls that usher in the melody have a

significant turn, upwards instead of down. All the figures of the solemn

episode appear more clearly.

On the spur of the hurrying main motive of trumpets the first pace is

once more regained.

A surprise of plot is before us. In sudden recurrence of funeral march

the hymnal song of the first movement is heard. As suddenly, we are

plunged into the first joyful scene of the symphony. Here it is most

striking how the call of lament has become triumphant, as it seems

without a change of note. And still more wonderful,--the same melody

that first uttered a storm of grief, then a gentle sadness, now has a

firm exultant ring. To be sure, it is all done with the magic trip of

bass,--as a hymn may be a perfect dance.

Before the close we hear the first fanfare of trumpet from the opening

symphony, that has the ring of a motto of the whole. At the very end is

a transfigured entrance,--very slowly and softly, to a celestial touch

of harp, of the first descending figure of the movement.

_II.--3. Scherzo._ Jovial in high degree, the Scherzo begins with the

thematic complexity of modern fashion. In dance tune of three beats

horns lead off with a jolly call; strings strike dancing chords; the

lower wind play a rollicking answer, but together with the horns, both

strains continuing in dancing duet. Still the saucy call of horns seems

the main text, though no single tune reigns alone.

[Music: (Horns)

_Scherzo. With vigor, not too fast_

(Strings and flutes)

(Strings)

(Clarinets and basses)]

The violins now play above the horns; then the cellos join and there is

a three-part song of independent tunes, all in the dance. So far in

separate voices it is now taken up by full chorus, though still the

basses sing one way, trebles another, and the middle horns a third. And

now the high trumpet strikes a phrase of its own. But they are all in

dancing swing, of the fibre of the first jolly motive.

A new episode is started by a quicker _obligato_ of violins, in

neighboring minor, that plays about a fugue of the woodwind on an

incisive theme where the cadence has a strange taste of bitter sweet

harmony in the modern Gallic manner.

[Music: (Clarinets)

(Violas)

(Violins)

(Bass of brass and wood)]

Horns and violins now pursue their former duet, but in the changed hue

of minor where the old concords are quaintly perverted. But this is only

to give a merrier ring to the bright madrigal that follows in sweetly

clashing higher wood, with the trip still in the violins. Thence the

horns and violins break again into the duet in the original key. Here

the theme is wittily inverted in the bass, while other strings sing

another version above.

So the jolly dance and the quaint fugue alternate; a recurring phrase is

carried to a kind of dispute, with opposite directions above and below

and much augmented motion in the strings.

In the dance so far, in "three time," is ever the vigorous stamp on the

third beat, typical of the German peasant "_Ländler_." Here of a sudden

is a change as great as possible within the continuing dance of three

steps. "More tranquil" in pace, in soft strings, without a trace of the

_Ländler_ stamp, is a pure waltz in pretty imitation of tuneful theme.

[Music: _More gently_ (G string) (D string)

(Strings)

acc't _pizzicato_]

And so the return to the vigorous rough dance is the more refreshing.

The merry mood yields to a darker temper. "Wild" the strings rush in

angry fugue on their rapid phrase; the quaint theme is torn to shreds,

recalling the fierce tempest of earlier symphony.

But the first sad note of the Scherzo is in the recitative of horn,

after the lull. A phrase of quiet reflection, with which the horn

concludes the episode as with an "_envoi_," is now constantly rung; it

is wrought from the eerie tempest; like refined metal the melody is

finally poured; out of its guise is the theme now of mournful dance.

"Shyly" the tune of the waltz answers in softest oboe. In all kinds of

verses it is sung, in expressive duet of lower wood, of the brass, then

of high reeds; in solo trumpet with counter-tune of oboe, finally in

high flutes. Here we see curiously, as the first themes reappear, a

likeness with the original trumpet-call of the symphony. In this guise

of the first dance-theme the movements are bound together. The _envoi_

phrase is here evident throughout.

At this mystic stage, to pure dance trip of low strings the waltz

reënters very softly in constant growing motion, soon attaining the old

pace and a new fulness of sound. A fresh spur is given by a wild motion

of strings, as in the fugal episode; a new height of tempest is reached

where again the distorted shreds of first dance appear, with phrases of

the second. From it like sunshine from the clouds breaks quickly the

original merry trip of dance.

The full cycle of main Scherzo returns with all stress of storm and

tragedy. But so fierce is the tempest that we wonder how the glad mood

can prevail. And the sad _envoi_ returns and will not be shaken off.

The sharp clash of fugue is rung again and again, as if the cup must be

drained to the drop. Indeed, the serious later strain does prevail, all

but the final blare of the saucy call of brass.[A]

[Footnote A: In the Scherzo are chimes, accenting the tune of the dance,

and even castanets, besides triangle and other percussion. The second

movement employs the harp and triangle.]

_III.--4. Adagietto._[A] "Very slowly" first violins carry the

expressive song that is repeated by the violas.

[Footnote A: The Adagietto is scored simply for harp and strings; nor

are the latter unusually divided.]

[Music: _Adagietto_

(Strings and harp)]

A climax is reached by all the violins in unison. A new glow, with

quicker motion, is in the episode, where the violins are sharply

answered by the violas, rising to a dramatic height and dying away in a

vein of rare lyric utterance.

It is all indeed a pure lyric in tones.

_III.--5. Rondo-Finale._ The whole has the dainty, light-treading humor

that does not die of its own vehemence. Somewhat as in the Ninth

Symphony of Beethoven,--tyrant of classical traditions, the themes

appear right in the beginning as if on muster-roll, each in separate,

unattended song. A last chance cadence passes down the line of voices

and settles into a comfortable rhythm as prevailing theme, running in

melodious extension, and merging after a

[Music: (Clarinets, horns and bassoons) (Flutes and oboes)

_Allegro commodo_]

hearty conclusion in the jovially garrulous fugue.

Here the counter-theme proves to be one of the initial tunes and takes a

leading rôle until another charming strain appears on high,--a pure

nursery rhyme crowning the learned fugue. Even this is a guise of one

of the original motives in the mazing medley, where it seems we could

trace the ancestry of each if we could linger and if it really mattered.

And yet there is a rare charm in these subtle turns; it is the secret

relevance that counts the most.

The fugue reaches a sturdy height with one of the first themes in lusty

horns, and suddenly falls into a pleasant jingle, prattling away in the

train of important figures, the kind that is pertinent with no outer

likeness.

[Music: _Grazioso_

(Strings, bassoons and horns)]

Everywhere, to be sure, the little rhythmic cadence appears; the whole

sounds almost like the old children's canon on "Three Blind Mice";

indeed the themal inversion is here the main tune. Then in the bass the

phrase sounds twice as slow as in the horns. There are capers and

horseplay; a sudden shift of tone; a false alarm of fugue; suddenly we

are back in the first placid verse of the rhythmic motive.

Here is a new augmentation in resonant horns and middle strings, and the

melodious extension. A former motive that rings out in high reed, seems

to have the function of concluding each episode.

A new stretch of fugue appears with new counter-theme, that begins in

long-blown notes of horns. It really is no longer a fugue; it has lapsed

into mere smooth-rolling motion underneath a verse of primal tune. And

presently another variant of graceful episode brings a delicious

lilt,--_tender, but expressive_.

[Music: _Grazioso_

_espressivo_

(Strings)]

With all the subtle design there is no sense of the lamp, in the gentle

murmur of quicker figure or melodious flow of upper theme. Moving is the

lyric power and sweetness of this multiple song. As to themal

relation,--one feels like regarding it all as inspired madrigal, where

the maze and medley is the thing, where the tunes are not meant to be

distinguished. It becomes an abandoned orgy of clearest counterpoint.

Throughout is a blending of fugue and of children's romp, anon with the

tenderness of lullaby and even the glow of love-song. A brief mystic

verse, with slow descending strain in the high wood, preludes the

returning gambol of running strings, where the maze of fugue or canon

is in the higher flowing song, with opposite course of answering tune,

and a height of jolly revel, where the bright trumpet pours out the

usual concluding phrase. The rhythmic episode, in whimsical change, here

sings with surprise of lusty volume. So the merry round goes on to a big

resonant _Amen_ of final acclaim, where the little phrase steals out as

naturally as in the beginning.

Then in quicker pace it sounds again all about, big and little, and

ends, after a touch of modern Gallic scale, in opposing runs, with a

last light, saucy fling.

Mahler, we feel again, realizes all the craving that Bruckner breeds for

a kernel of feeling in the shell of counterpoint. Though we cannot deny

a rude breach of ancient rule and mode, there is in Mahler a genuine,

original, individual quality of polyphonic art that marks a new stage

since the first in Bach and a second in Beethoven. It is this bold revel

in the neglected sanctuary of the art that is most inspiriting for the

future. And as in all true poetry, this overleaping audacity of design

is a mere expression of simplest gaiety.

CHAPTER XVIII

RICHARD STRAUSS[A]

[Footnote A: Born in 1864.]

Much may be wisely written on the right limits of music as a depicting

art. The distinction is well drawn between actual delineation, of figure

or event, and the mere suggestion of a mood. It is no doubt a fine line,

and fortunately; for the critic must beware of mere negative philosophy,

lest what he says cannot be done, be refuted in the very doing. If

Lessing had lived a little later, he might have extended the principles

of his "Laocöon" beyond poetry and sculpture into the field of music.

Difficult and ungrateful as is the task of the critical philosopher, it

must be performed. There is every reason here as elsewhere why men

should see and think clearly.

It is perhaps well that audiences should cling to the simple verdict of

beauty, that they should not be led astray by the vanity of finding an

answer; else the composer is tempted to create mere riddles. So we may

decline to find precise pictures, and content ourselves with the music.

The search is really time wasted; it is like a man digging in vain for

gold and missing the sunshine above.

Strauss may have his special meanings. But the beauty of the work is

for us all-important. We may expect him to mark his scenes. We may not

care to crack that kind of a nut.[A] It is really not good eating.

Rather must we be satisfied with the pure beauty of the fruit, without a

further hidden kernel. There is no doubt, however, of the ingenuity of

these realistic touches. It is interesting, here, to contrast Strauss

with Berlioz, who told his stories largely by extra-musical means, such

as the funeral trip, the knell of bells, the shepherd's reed. Strauss at

this point joins with the Liszt-Wagner group in the use of symbolic

motives. Some of his themes have an effect of tonal word-painting. The

roguish laugh of Eulenspiegel is unmistakable.

[Footnote A: Strauss remarked that in _Till Eulenspiegel_ he had given

the critics a hard nut to crack.]

It is in the harmonic rather than the melodic field that the fancy of

Strauss soars the freest. It is here that his music bears an individual

stamp of beauty. Playing in and out among the edges of the main harmony

with a multitude of ornamental phrases, he gains a new shimmer of

brilliancy. Aside from instrumental coloring, where he seems to outshine

all others in dazzling richness and startling contrasts, he adds to the

lustre by a deft playing in the overtones of his harmonies, casting the

whole in warmest hue.

If we imagine the same riotous license in the realm of tonal

noise,--cacophony, that is, where the aim is not to enchant, but to

frighten, bewilder, or amaze; to give some special foil to sudden

beauty; or, last of all, for graphic touch of story, we have another

striking element of Strauss's art. The anticipation of a Beethoven in

the drum of the Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony, or the rhythmic whims of

a Schumann in his Romantic piano pieces suggest the path of much of this

license. Again, as passing notes may run without heed of harmony, since

ancient days, so long sequences of other figures may hold their moving

organ-point against clashing changes of tonality.

Apart from all this is the modern "counterpoint," where, if it is quite

the real thing, Strauss has outdone the boldest dreams of ancient school

men. But with the lack of cogent form, and the multitude of small

motives it seems a different kind of art. We must get into the

view-point of romantic web of infinite threads, shimmering or jarring in

infinite antagonism (of delayed harmony). By the same process comes

always the tremendous accumulation towards the end. As the end and

essence of the theme seems a graphic quality rather than intrinsic

melody, so the main pith and point of the music lies in the weight and

power of these final climaxes.

_TOD UND VERKLÄRUNG (DEATH AND TRANSFIGURATION), TONE POEM_

It may be well to gather a few general impressions before we attempt the

study of a work radical in its departure from the usual lines of tonal

design.

There can be no doubt of the need of vigilance if we are to catch the

relevance of all the strains. To be sure, perhaps this perception is

meant to be subconscious. In any case the consciousness would seem to

ensure a full enjoyment.

It is all based on the motif of the Wagner drama and of the Liszt

symphonies, and it is carried to quite as fine a point. Only here we

have no accompanying words to betray the label of the theme. But in the

quick flight of themes, how are we to catch the subtle meaning? The

interrelation seems as close as we care to look, until we are in danger

of seeing no woods for the trees.

Again the danger of preconception is of the greatest. We may get our

mind all on the meaning and all off the music. The clear fact is the

themes do have a way of entering with an air of significance which they

challenge us to find. The greatest difficulty is to distinguish the

themes that grow out of each other, as a rose throws off its early

petals, from those that have a mere chance similarity. Even this

likeness may have its own intended meaning, or it may be all beside the

mark. But we may lose not merely the musical, but even the dramatic

sequence in too close a poring over themal derivation. On the other hand

we may defy the composer himself and take simply what he gives, as if on

first performance, before the commentators have had a chance to breed.

And this may please him best in the end.

We must always attend more to the mood than to themal detail as

everywhere in real music, after all. Moments of delight and triumph we

know there are in this work. But they are mere instants. For it is all

the feverish dream of death. There can be no earlier rest. Snatches they

are of fancy, of illusion, as, says the priest in Oedipus, is all of

life.

It may be worth while, too, to see how pairs of themes ever occur in

Strauss, the second in answer, almost in protest, to the first. (It is

not unlike the pleading in the Fifth Symphony of the second theme with

the sense of doom in the first.) So we seem to find a motive of fate,

and one of wondering, and striving; a theme of beauty and one of

passion,--if we cared to tread on such a dangerous, tempting ground.

Again, we may find whole groups of phrases expressive of one idea, as of

beauty, and another of anxious pursuit. Thus we escape too literal a

themal association.

Trying a glimpse from the score pure and simple, we find a poem,

opposite the first page, that is said to have been written after the

first production. So, reluctantly, we must wait for the mere

reinforcement of its evidence.

_Largo_, in uncertain key, begins the throb of irregular rhythm (in

strings) that Bach and Chopin and Wagner have taught us to associate

with suffering. The first figure is a gloomy descent of pairs of chords,

with a hopeless cry above (in the flutes). In the recurrence, the turn

of chord is at last upward. A warmer hue of waving sounds (of harps) is

poured about, and a gentle vision appears on high, shadowed quickly by

a theme of fearful wondering. The chords return as at first. A new

series of descending tones

[Music: (Flute an 8ve. higher) (Oboe)

_Largo_

_dolce_

(Harp with arpeggio groups of six to the quarter)]

intrude, with a sterner sense of omen, and yield to a full melodic

utterance of longing (again with the

[Music: (Solo violin muted)

(Horns)

(Harp with arpeggio groups of six to the quarter)]

soothing play of harp), and in the midst a fresh theme of wistful fear.

For a moment there is a brief glimpse of the former vision. Now the

song, less of longing than of pure bliss, sings free and clear its

descending lay in solo violin, though an answering phrase (in the horns)

of upward striving soon rises from below. The vision now appears again,

the wondering monitor close beside. The melancholy chords return to dim

the beauty. As the descending theme recedes, the rising motive sings a

fuller course on high with a new note of eager, anxious fear.

All these themes are of utmost pertinence in this evident prologue of

the story. Or at least the germs of all the leading melodies are here.

In sudden turn of mood to high agitation, a stress of wild desire rings

out above in pairs of sharp ascending chords, while below the wondering

theme rises in growing tumult. A whirling storm of the two phrases ends

in united burst like hymn of battle, on the line of the wondering theme,

but infused with

[Music: _Alla breve_

_Tutti_

(Bass doubled below)]