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THE PIANOLIST
THE PIANOLIST
A GUIDE FOR PIANOLA PLAYERS
BY
GUSTAV KOBBÉ
AUTHOR OF "HOW TO APPRECIATE MUSIC," ETC.
NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY
1907
COPYRIGHT 1907, BY
MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY
NEW YORK
Published November, 1907
PRESS OF
THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY
LANCASTER, PA
_TO MY FRIEND_
JOSEPH HUTCHISON STEVENSON
CONTENTS
I. THE TITLE AND PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK 1
II. THE CHARM OF PLAYING A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT YOURSELF 10
III. FIRST STEPS OF THE MUSICAL NOVICE 39
IV. THE THRILL OF THE GREAT MASTERS 83
V. AN "OPEN SESAME" TO CHOPIN 117
VI. NOTES ON SOME OTHER MASTERS 141
VII. EDUCATIONAL FACTORS 150
VIII. A FEW "DON'TS" FOR PIANOLISTS 159
I. THE TITLE AND PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK
My book, "How to Appreciate Music," in the chapter devoted to the
pianoforte, contains a paragraph relating to the Pianola and its
influence in popularizing music and stimulating musical taste. I
confess that before I started that paragraph I was puzzled to know
what term to use in designating the instrument I had in mind.
"Mechanical piano-player" is a designation which not only does not
appeal to me, but, furthermore, fails to do justice to the instrument,
which, although mechanical in its working, is far from being
mechanical in its effects.
The result?--I took a cross cut and arrived straight at the word
Pianola as being the name of the most widely known piano-player, and
happily derived from the name of the most widely known instrument, the
pianoforte or, as it is more popularly termed, the piano. For this
reason the term Pianola was used in the paragraph referred to and now
is employed in this book; and, for the same reason, this book is
called "The Pianolist." It is believed to be the title least requiring
explanation, if, indeed, it requires any explanation at all. Right
here, however, I must add that the company which manufactures the
Pianola objects to the use of the word as a generic term.
So much for the title. Now for the purpose of this book.
Soon after the publication of "How to Appreciate Music" I discovered
that the paragraph concerning this new musical instrument had made a
hit. It was widely quoted as evidence of the "up-to-dateness" of the
book and I began to receive letters from pianola owners who were
pleased that the merits of the instrument should have been recognized
in a serious book on music. Among these was a letter from a Mr. Harry
Mason, of Detroit, suggesting that I should write a book for the use
of those who owned piano-players. Mr. Mason and myself never have met.
He knows me merely as an author of a book on music. All I know of him
is that he is one of the editors of a druggists' trade paper in
Detroit. Yet from him has come the suggestion which has led me to
write this book, although, to judge from his letter, he had not been
deeply interested in music until he began to use a "player" and,
through it, was led to ask for a book which would tell him, in
untechnical language, something about an art that was beginning to
have eloquence and meaning for him. To me this is highly significant,
for there must be thousands of others like him all over the country,
to whom, in the same way, the great awakening just is coming through
the pianola--at first a means of amusement, then an educator with the
element of amusement, but of a higher order, left in!
Shortly after I received Mr. Mason's letter an incident added greatly
to the force of his suggestion. I always have been very fond of
Schubert's "Rosamunde" impromptu. The first person I heard play it
publicly was Annette Essipoff, a Russian pianist and one of the very
few great women pianists of the world. Frequently I have heard it
since then, but never so charmingly interpreted excepting--But that is
the most interesting part of the story.
One night I was at my desk in my study, when, suddenly, I heard the
strains of this impromptu, which is an air with variations, from the
direction of the drawing room. It was sweet and tender, graceful and
expressive, according to the character of the variations; and, when
the last variation began with a crispness and delicacy that made me
wonder what great virtuoso was at my pianoforte without my knowing it,
I hurried to the drawing room and, entering it--found my fourteen year
old daughter seated at a pianola. The instrument had arrived only a
short time before from the house of a friend who had gone South for
the winter. My daughter never had had a music lesson, never had heard
Schubert's "Rosamunde" impromptu. Yet she had, without any effort,
been the first to take me back to Essipoff's playing of Schubert's
charming work! It would have been ludicrous had it not meant so much.
In fact it was ludicrous because, a few days before, when the
instrument had just been delivered and set up, I had been deceived in
much the same manner by her playing of a composition by Grieg.
But to return to the Schubert impromptu. Essipoff, my young daughter,
the associate editor of a druggist' paper in Detroit, and myself; the
first a great virtuoso, the second a schoolgirl, the third a writer on
a trade paper, the fourth a music critic--what a leveller of
distinctions, what a universal musical provider the pianola is! Ten
years ago the virtuoso and the music critic would have been the only
ones concerned. The schoolgirl and the trade paper editor wouldn't
have been "in it." Now, the schoolgirl was playing like a virtuoso and
the writer on drugs and druggists was giving hints to the music
critic. A great leveller, placing the musical elect and those who
formerly would have had to remain outside the pale, on a common
footing! This may not always appeal to the musical elect, but think
what it means to the great mass of those who are genuinely musical but
have lacked the opportunity for musical study or to those whose taste
for music never has been brought out.
To paraphrase a few sentences from my "How to Appreciate Music" that
have been much quoted:--
"'Are you musical?'
"'No,' nine persons out of ten will reply; 'I neither play nor sing.'
"'Your answer shows a complete misunderstanding of the case. Because
you neither play nor sing, it by no means follows that you are
unmusical. If you love music and appreciate it, you may be more
musical than many pianists and singers; or latent within you and only
awaiting the touchstone of music there may be a deeper love and
appreciation of the art than can be attributed to many virtuosos. For
most of a virtuoso's love and appreciation is apt to be centered upon
himself. And when you say, 'I cannot play,' you are mistaken. You are
thinking of the pianoforte. You may not be able to play that. But you
or any one else can play the pianola, and that instantly places at
your command all the technical resources of which even the greatest
virtuosos can boast."
One purpose of this book thus is to bring home to people an
appreciation of what this modern instrument is, whether it is regarded
as a toy with which the business man amuses himself with two-steps and
ragtime after business hours, or as a serious musical instrument.
Another purpose, and a large one, is to furnish pianolists with a
guide to the music which they play, or might play if their attention
were directed to it and to some of its characteristics, and to point
out the importance of the instrument in developing a love of good
music.
I also have in writing this book a purpose which I may describe as
personal. I believe I was the first American to publish an analysis of
the Wagner music dramas that seemed to be what the public wanted, and
the first to contribute to a magazine of general circulation an
article on Richard Strauss. It is a matter of pride with me always to
be found on the firing line--even if it is the privilege of those who
watch the battle from a safe distance to dictate the despatches and
take the credit for the result to themselves. And so, I wish to be the
first to write a book on the pianola, an instrument of such importance
to the progress and popular spread of music that, at the present time,
we can have but a faint glimmering of the great part it is destined to
play.
II. THE CHARM OF PLAYING A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT YOURSELF
How I wish I could play like that! What is more common than this
exclamation from people who are listening to a great virtuoso or even
only to a fairly clever amateur? They realize that, no matter how much
they may enjoy a performance, there is much greater fascination in
being the performer. Not a musical person but would play if he could.
Why, however, that "if"? It no longer exists. It has been eliminated.
The charm, the fascination of playing a musical instrument yourself
can be yours, and the only "if" to it is--if you have intelligence
enough to appreciate what that means.
What formerly was an insuperable obstacle, the lack of technical
facility--the real inability to play--absolutely has been done away
with. There is no excuse for anybody's not playing who wants to. The
pianola furnishes the technique, the dexterity, the finger facility,
or whatever you may choose to call it. So far as this is concerned the
instrument itself makes you a virtuoso--places you on a par with a
Liszt, Paderewski or Rosenthal. It does so mechanically, yet without
the sharpness and insistent preciseness of a machine. Its action is
pneumatic and the effect of the compressed air is to impart to its
"touch"--the manner in which its "fingers" strike the keys--an
elasticity which at least is comparable with the touch of human
fingers. As a friend of mine, a lawyer, who has owned three pianolas
and who actually has been made musical through them, expresses
it:--"When you've got a mechanical device as good or nearly as good as
a virtuoso, you've got something of enormous importance to the whole
world." And so you have.
I find a great feature of the so-called mechanical piano-player lies
in what it allows you to do yourself. It provides you with technique,
but, to use a colloquial phrase, "you can still call your soul your
own." The technique, the substitute for that finger facility which
only years of practice will give, is the pianola's; but the
interpretation is _yours_! The instrument provides the devices for
accelerating or retarding the time and for making the tone loud or
soft, but when to whip up the time or to slow down, when to use the
sustaining or the soft lever or when to swell through a crescendo from
pianissimo to fortissimo--all that is left to your own taste, judgment
and discretion. There is, indeed, among the improvements introduced in
the pianola a contrivance, of which more hereafter, by which complete
directions are given for the interpretation of the roll of music that
is being played. These directions, however, are not compulsory. They
are, in each instance, based on high authority and are of great value
even to persons who are thoroughly familiar with the music, but they
need not be followed if the player does not want to follow them. He is
likely in the beginning to accept the directions, the so-called
metrostyle marking, as he would the instruction of a high class
teacher, while, later on, he may incline to regard the metrostyle as
indicating the general spirit in which the piece should be
interpreted, but vary it in detail as his mood or fancy dictates. The
metrostyle may, in fact, be called the pianolist's "coach," giving him
the kind of hints and directions which even the greatest players and
singers value. Something, however, of the pianolist himself, something
of his own thought and feeling goes into every interpretation. That
this is so is proved by the fact that no two pianolists interpret the
same composition alike. There are differences, more or less marked,
just as there are when the same piece is played by two pianists. In
the broader outlines, in general spirit, the interpretations may be
the same, but they will be distinguished by subtle shadings that
indicate temperamental differences. The perspective of a landscape
varies when viewed from different windows; so does life when observed
from different points of view; so does the interpretation of a
composition when played by different people on the pianola.
Were the instrument purely a mechanical device to wind up and set
going, the artistic results of which it is capable never would have
been obtained, and, I may add, this book never would have been
written. The fact that artistic expression instead of machine-like
precision has been its aim is what has caused its possibilities as a
musical instrument to appeal to me. It cannot be sufficiently urged
that in this country, as in every other, there is an immense amount of
latent musical taste awaiting only the touchstone of hearing music or,
better still, the fascination of personally producing music, to assert
itself. Before the invention of the piano-player hearing music was the
only touchstone; through the piano-player there is added the
fascination of being yourself a participator in producing the music
you hear. When Theodore Thomas said "Nothing so awakens interest in
music as helping to make it," he hit the nail on the head. "After
playing all this music I want to go to concerts next winter. I'd like
to hear how the 'Fifth Symphony' sounds on the orchestra," said my
little girl after the pianola had been in the house only a week. "All
this music?" Yes indeed. More than she could have become familiar
with in six months' concert-going and instruction. And we always had
said that she wasn't musical!
This fascination of personally producing music is such a great factor
in the spread of musical taste that it is well worth looking into
further. There always is more pleasure in doing something than in
watching some one else do it. Take the average amateurs who get
together for music. They enjoy what they play a thousand-fold more
than if they were listening to the greatest virtuosos playing the same
program. Why? Because always there is more satisfaction in doing the
thing itself than merely in contemplating the result of what some one
else is doing. And so, with music, "to experience the full fascination
the divine art can exercise on us mortals, we must take an active part
in the making of it." Through the pianola the opportunity of taking an
active part in the making of it is open to everybody. Remember what
my friend said. It is worth repeating. "When you've got a mechanical
device as good, or nearly as good as a virtuoso, you've got something
of enormous importance to the whole world." Mechanical, remember, only
in a certain sense. Were it wholly mechanical it never could be "as
good, or nearly as good, as a virtuoso."
Now let us see how this personal affiliation of pianola and pianolist,
of instrument and player, has been worked out, so that the player is
not a mere human treadmill pumping air into a cabinet on castors,
but--whether he be a lawyer, merchant, financier, dressmaker,
milliner, or society leader; one of the Four Hundred or one of the
eighty million--a musical artist with an unlimited repertory.
The pianoforte is the most universal musical instrument of the
civilized world. I once turned the old question, "What is home without
a mother," into "What is home without a pianoforte?" Practically no
household that makes claim to refinement is without one. Only too
often, however, even in such homes, it is merely an article of drawing
room furniture, because no member of the household can play it. There
it stands waiting for the chance visitor who can strike the keys and
make the strings vibrate with music.
Imagine that you are a member or let us say the head of that
household. You can't play a note and yet you are "fond of music." This
"fondness for music" manifests itself in different degree in different
people and somewhat according to their opportunities. You may be a
hardworking business man and when you come home from business, you
want diversion, amusement. For some one to suggest a classical
concert to you would make you feel like being asked to begin the day's
work all over again without a night's rest in between. As for Wagner,
that would be worse than straightening out an intricate account after
a day spent in poring over a ledger. No. Music without any tune to it
may be all right for some people, but comic opera is "good enough" for
you. You like that coon song you heard the other night. How you would
enjoy playing it on the pianoforte if you only knew how! But you
don't, so you have to pay a speculator three dollars for a seat if you
want to hear it again.
Suppose the days of miracles weren't past and, by some miracle, you
suddenly found yourself in command of the technique of the
pianoforte--able to play whatever you wanted to. You'd buy that coon
song and some other pieces of light music, and then you'd hurry home
to your pianoforte and play them off as fast as you could, while the
family stood around and listened and marvelled.
That is precisely the miracle the pianola performs for you. It gives
you, from the moment it enters your house, control over the keyboard
of the pianoforte that so long has stood mute in your home. All you
have to do is to put in the perforated music roll, work the
pedals--and the music begins. Supposing it is that coon song from the
comic opera you liked so much. The first time you play it, you may be
so interested in the instrument's accurate reproduction of the tune
that you don't stop to think of the expression. The chances are,
however, that your delight over what you have accomplished will lead
you to play the song right over again. Now you begin to realize that
there was something more than mere accuracy in the delivery of the
melody when you heard it at the theatre. There was interpretation,
that something which the individual artist puts into everything he
does. You will recall that while the piece was taken pretty fast as a
whole, some phrases were taken faster, others more slowly. You have
been told that by moving a little lever to the right or left, you can
produce these effects. You try it. When you come to a phrase that
should be taken a little faster, you move the lever slightly to the
right--and the pianoforte responds. It is the same when you move the
lever to the left for the slower phrases--the pianoforte responds and
the phrase is retarded. Two other levers control the volume of sound
so that you can play any part of the piece louder or softer if you
want to. It is not at all unlikely that you may vary these details to
suit yourself, instead of simply being guided by your recollection of
what you heard at the theatre. In a word you yourself become on the
spot an interpreter of music, put something of yourself into what you
play. The instrument instead of being merely a machine that grinds out
music is a machine only in so far as it takes the place of technique,
of finger facility. The expression, the real interpretation, that
which gives one the fascination of playing, is your own.
That's your first experience with the instrument. Pretty soon you are
apt to have another experience that is even more valuable. You stocked
up pretty well with the music of the day, the current Broadway comic
opera and musical comedy successes. Gradually, however, that pet coon
song of yours will begin to pall on you a little. The very jingle to
the tune that made it catch your fancy so quickly causes you to tire
of it, and so it goes with the other pieces whose rhythm is so marked
and continued with such great precision and whose tunefulness was so
obvious that they made an instantaneous impression upon your musically
untrained sense of hearing. You are beginning to find out what any one
who is trained in any art is bound to discover sooner or later. The
things most easily understood are not apt to give the most lasting
pleasure. Some one suggests to you that you try one of the lighter
classical pieces. You don't like that word "classical," it suggest
heaviness, lack of tunefulness, the kind of thing that "may be all
right for some people," but never, you think, would suit you. At last,
however, you yield. You inquire for something of the kind and are
advised to try Mendelssohn's "Spring Song." Much to your surprise you
don't find it heavy at all. In fact you recall once having heard it
played between the acts in a theatre and having thought it rather
pretty. Its rhythm isn't as persistently emphatic as that of ragtime,
nor does its melody stand out in such sharp relief, but instead of
wearying you on repetition, you like it better every time you play it.
Encouraged by this experience you next purchase the same composer's
"Spinning Song." This may not appeal to you so much at first. It seems
to run along very rapidly without any very clearly defined melody.
Still, it is by the same composer as the "Spring Song," so it may be
worth trying over again. It is more familiar now, and you begin to
associate the rapid, whirring phrases with its title--with the idea of
"spinning." How clear it suddenly becomes. You even conjure up in your
mind the picture of some young woman in quaint garb seated at a
spinning wheel in an old-fashioned room--and you find yourself
experiencing all the pleasure that comes from association of ideas,
the keenest enjoyment that art affords. You are making rapid progress
now, so rapid that it is as impossible as unnecessary to follow you
step by step. The main point is that you are becoming truly musical
and at the same time enjoying it. What might be "all right for some
people" has become all right for you too. You have been repaid a
thousand-fold for the little effort it cost you to discover through
the gradual development of a taste that had lain dormant, the kind of
music that "lasts." The same thing is true of your whole family. It
has become musical, and in an incredibly short space of time. The
pianola has done it, and done the same thing in thousands of other
cases.
Now take the case of some one whose musical taste, to begin with, is
more advanced. Supposing that, instead of having had your musical
horizon bounded by coon songs and comic operas, you were an attendant
at orchestral concerts, song and pianoforte recitals and grand opera.
You are a genuine music lover, genuinely musical, but you can't play.
You long to reproduce and express at home the music you have heard
elsewhere. If only, after hearing Paderewski play your favorite Chopin
nocturne, which, as with so many other music lovers, is the exquisite
one in G major, Opus 37, No. 2, you could go to your own pianoforte
and play it! You think it is one of the most beautiful compositions in
the whole repertory, and of all pianists whom you have heard,
Paderewski, in your opinion, plays it better than any other. There are
pieces that sound more difficult and you have been told that it
doesn't call for advanced technique as much as it does for soul. That
is what your favorite virtuoso seems to you to put into it--soul, his
own soul, interpreting himself, unconsciously expressing his own
thoughts and feelings, through those of the composer. That is what you
are convinced you could do, if only you knew how to play; for you are
musical, very musical, almost, in fact, to your finger tips. But
these, alas, never have been trained to command the keyboard. You are
getting along well in business, making money and all that; and yet you
look upon your life as half a failure because, although you have the
temperament artistic, you are unable to gratify fully your passion for
music. You can listen, but you can't play. You can hear Paderewski
interpret your favorite nocturne, but you can't go home to your own
pianoforte and let your fingers conjure up memories of it on the
keyboard. You have a beautiful pianoforte in your house--for the use
of others. You'd be willing to mortgage half your income for life, if
you could learn to play it yourself. But it's too late for that now.
So you think.
But one day you drop in at a friend's house and from the drawing room
come strains of your favorite Chopin nocturne. Something about it
reminds you of the way Paderewski plays it. Who can it be? You know
that your friend doesn't play the pianoforte. But, as you stand in the
doorway, hesitating whether to go in or not, it is he who looks out at
you from behind the instrument and nods to you to come in. You drop
into a chair and listen and wonder. The nocturne comes to an end, your
friend rises, greets your wondering look with a smile, and meets your
amazed query with one word: "Pianola!"
"It sounded like Paderewski," you stammer in a dazed sort of way.
"Why shouldn't it? Practically, I have been taught how to play it by
that great artist." He takes out the roll and brings it over for you
to look at. On it you see, reproduced in facsimile this autographed
certification:
"The line on this roll indicates the tempo according to my
interpretation.
"I.J. Paderewski."
The roll, as the expression goes, has been "metrostyled" by the
virtuoso himself.
"I didn't know you had one of these instruments. Why haven't you told
me?--How long have you had it?"
"About a week," he answers.
"And you can make it sound like that?"
"Of course I can. Nothing easier. Just stand behind me and watch."
He replaces the music roll and, as he pedals and it unrolls, he shows
you how easy it is with the metrostyle to follow the red line marked
by Paderewski to indicate how he plays the piece.
"According to my idea," continues your friend, "he plays some parts of
the second melody a little too slowly--makes it too sentimental,
instead of poetically expressive. You may observe that I don't always
follow the line. That's one of the great things about the instrument.
You can profit by the directions just as much as you want to, but you
can disregard them whenever you have a mind to. It may seem
presumptuous to differ, even in a small detail, from a great virtuoso
like Paderewski, but every virtuoso has his idiosyncrasies and we,
who, after all, have been listening to music all our lives and have
heard all the great pianists from Rubinstein to 'Paddy' himself and
all the women pianists from Essipoff to Bloomfield-Zeisler, are
entitled to some ideas of our own. As I just said, one of the great
things about the instrument is that it allows us this latitude. I call
it a cinch!
"Now here's something else. We know Richard Strauss' big tone poems,
the biggest things in music since Wagner. But did you know that he's
written some charming little pieces for pianoforte? Just listen to
this. It's a 'Träumerei' or 'Revery,' a delicious little dreamy
improvisation. He 'metrostyled' it himself and, as I've never heard
anyone play it, I'm only too glad to have his directions. They give
you the general hang of the thing 'right off the reel,' so to speak.
But later on, when I become more familiar with it, if I want to vary
the interpretation according to my own mood of the moment, I can. It's
a great thing, though, to find out how famous living composers, like
Richard Strauss, Grieg--here are a couple of rolls from his 'Peer
Gynt' suite metrostyled by himself--Saint-Saëns, Elgar, or even
composers of first rate lighter music, like Moszkowski and Chaminade,
conceive that they want to have their works interpreted; or how great
virtuosos, like Paderewski, Rosenthal and other pianists, play them;
or gifted instructors in music, like Carl Reinecke, would have them
performed. It's like taking lessons in interpretation from these
people.
"There's another matter that will interest you. Take pieces like
Rubinstein's 'Melody in F' or the best known selection from his
'Kammenoi, Ostrow,' where the melody lies, in the former in between
the accompaniment, in the latter below it--you recall, of course, how
the accompanying figure hovers above it. In pieces like these it is
important that the melodic line should be clearly distinguished,
otherwise it will be smothered. Fortunately an attachment to the
instrument, the themodist, enables you to bring out the melody and,
at the same time does not prevent your retarding or accelerating the
general movement of the piece or of varying the volume of sound as
much as you like.
"While I've had the instrument only a little while, I've been struck
with something else. I find that you can accomplish a good deal
through what I may call 'foot-technique,' varying the degree of
strength with which you use the pedals that pump in the air. By this
means you can play louder or softer at will and by a sharp pressure
emphasize individual chords and phrases. This, I find, makes the
interpretation seem more personal than when I use the sustaining and
soft levers alone. Altogether I'm beginning to look upon myself as a
virtuoso, and the best thing you can do, old man, is to take my advice
and become one too."
Fortunately you are musical enough and intelligent enough to
appreciate the philosophy and significance of the instrument--that it
supplies what you haven't got, the technique, but that you give it the
expression, the soul; that although it is not a pianoforte, but an
attachment to that instrument, nevertheless, in playing it, you
express something of yourself, something of your inner being,
something of your higher artistic nature through it.
There is a large class of people to whom the "piano-player" is or
should be a great boon. I mean those who play the pianoforte, but not
well enough to play publicly or professionally. To this class belong
the thousands of music teachers and the amateurs. The majority of them
may be more truly musical than many of the virtuoso pianists, but they
are lacking in technique. For the technical standard is growing higher
every year. Comparatively few music teachers have much opportunity of
hearing music, the result being that they find it difficult to keep up
with the times. They become old-fashioned, and in these progressive
days to become old-fashioned means to be forced to "drop out." They
lack the technique to run through the modern repertoire, and the time
to hear others in it. It hardly is necessary to point out what the
pianola, which gives them complete technical mastery of the keyboard,
should be to them.
As regards the amateur I can cite my own case as an example. I had
progressed on the pianoforte until I was able to play Liszt's
arrangement of the Spinning Song from Wagner's "Flying Dutchman." It
is a difficult piece, but there is a great deal of pianoforte music
that is more difficult and that was entirely beyond me. Moreover the
fact that I was able to play this composition after much assiduous
practice, did not mean that I could play equally difficult or even
considerably less difficult music with ease by sight. The repertoire
of even the best amateur is apt to be a small one. He gains his
general knowledge of music from what he hears.
With me, in time, as with so many amateurs, pianoforte playing had to
yield first place to my regular work. I took up writing and that
became paramount. I began to lose my pianoforte technique, and I
should not like to say how many years it is since I lost the ability
to play Liszt's arrangement of the Spinning Song from the "The Flying
Dutchman," the "Butterfly" etude of Chopin and other works that I had
had at my fingers' ends. Often, when I went to pianoforte recitals and
heard these compositions played, I grieved over what I had
lost--through sacrificing the pianoforte to the pen.
I grieve no longer. I have acquired a perfect technique, the technique
of a great virtuoso--through the pianola. It is a key that has
unlocked for me the whole repertory of music. With it I can play the
most difficult work ever written as easily as I can a five-finger
exercise. It gives me the technique, but all that is summed up in the
one word "expression," I am at liberty to put into the music myself.
In the whole world there are perhaps two, at the most three pianoforte
virtuosos who really deserve to be called great. To listen to them is
the acme of musical delight. But right next to this comes the
performance of any musical person, whether a child or grown up, on the
pianola. It is better than the playing of any virtuoso not absolutely
of the very first rank, and infinitely preferable to the playing of
the most gifted amateur, while the performance of the average amateur
almost is juvenile compared with it. Moreover there are pieces of
which the Liszt "Campanella," the Mendelssohn "Rondo Capriccioso" and
the "Rosamunde" impromptu of Schubert, are examples, that, when played
on the pianola by a musical person, sound just as well as if they came
from under the fingers of the greatest living virtuoso--possibly
better.
These are not dreams, they are facts; and discoverable in due time by
everyone who is made musical through the instrument of which I am
writing; and, in an incredibly short time by any one, already musical,
who takes it up. Moreover they are facts readily susceptible of
explanation, and here it is:--All technical difficulties being
eliminated by the pianola, the player is free to give his whole
attention to interpretation, to that subtle something which we call
"expression," and which constitutes the supreme quality of a musical
performance.
III. FIRST STEPS OF THE MUSICAL NOVICE
I confess that when I first thought of writing this book my intention
was to plan it somewhat on the same lines as the usual "How to Listen
to Music" book, but to make it somewhat simpler. As the catalogue of
pianola music includes everything from Bach to Richard Strauss it
seemed to me that it would be easy to give the reader a course in
musical development, beginning with the simpler pieces of Bach, like
the bourrées and gavottes; then taking up the sonatas of Mozart and
Beethoven; the compositions of the romantic school from Schubert to
Chopin; and ending with the modern school of Wagner, Liszt and Richard
Strauss--in other words giving a survey of the whole evolution of
music.
This would coincide with the ordinary course of musical instruction,
which naturally ranges from what are considered the easier and
simpler pieces to the more difficult ones, early music being less
complicated and making less demand upon the player's technique than
music of the present day. But I had forgotten one important point
which is, that on the pianola nothing is difficult, that with this
modern instrument the question of difficulty entirely disappears, and
that the most hair-raising, breath-catching exploits of virtuosity are
as easy for the pianolist as the most commonplace five-finger
exercises are for the pianist. In other words, the pianolist can
approach music from a wholly new standpoint. For him music exists
simply as music. Its history, its evolution, which latter after all is
a matter purely technical, need not concern him at all.
I was brought to this view by a rather startling discovery. I think it
will seem equally startling to any one who has studied music in the
usual way--the laborious technical development involved in acquiring
the mastery of a musical instrument, generally the pianoforte. In
discussing Chopin's "Etude" in A flat, Op. 10, No. 10, one of the
greatest virtuosos of his day, Hans van Bülow, said that "he who can
play this study in a really finished manner may congratulate himself
on having climbed to the highest pinnacle of the pianist's Parnassus,
as it is perhaps the most difficult piece of the entire set. The whole
repertory of piano music does not contain a study of perpetual
movement so full of genius and fancy as this particular one is
universally acknowledged to be, excepting perhaps Liszt's 'Feux
Follets' (Will-o'-the wisps)." In looking over the catalogue of music
for the mechanical piano-player I find that this immensely difficult
study by Liszt, so difficult that Von Bülow classes it with the
Chopin study, "the highest pinnacle of the pianist's Parnassus," is
listed with the "popular" pieces. Thus a composition which taxes the
resources of the greatest virtuosos to the utmost and which few if any
amateurs can play at all, presents no difficulties whatsoever to the
pianolist and actually becomes "popular." The same thing is true of
the Liszt "Bell Rondo" (La Campanella). This delicate, dainty yet
immensely difficult work, which most amateurs know only from hearing
it played in pianoforte recitals because they themselves can do no
more than stumble through it, is, like the "Feux Follets," a popular
piece in the repertory of the pianolist. Such an astounding result is
possible only upon the pianola which absolutely eliminates all
technical difficulties and leaves the player free to select his music
without regard to such difficulties.
Another matter connected with the pianolist's repertory opens up a
field for speculation into which, fortunately, it is quite possible
for the layman to follow the musician and to appreciate the point I
wish to make. As many purchasers of pianolas are people who never have
received musical instruction, it might be supposed that the most
popular selections for the instrument would be either bits of musical
slang like twosteps and ragtime, or, at the best, simple pieces in the
recognized classical forms. But the result of the spread of musical
taste through this new instrument is wholly different and wholly novel
from the standpoint of conventional musical experience. The public,
the great musical public created by an instrument which does away with
all considerations of technique and leaves the player free to select
what he wants to play, no matter how difficult it may be when played
on the pianoforte, sweeps aside all conventions which learned
commentators, critics and writers on the history and evolution of
music have sought to establish and in fact have succeeded in
establishing for those who have been obliged to study music in the
ordinary way, and boldly selects as first choice from the vast array
of compositions Liszt's "Rhapsodie Hongroise" No. 2, with the
"Tannhäuser" overture of Wagner a close second. In other words the
musical public when left to itself and not led--or led astray--by
pedants begins at the right end of musical evolution which is the end,
the supreme efflorescence, and not the beginning. Conceding that the
evolution of the human race began with the monkey and ends with
ourselves, it may be said, metaphorically, that the musical public,
when left to itself, declines to monkey with the monkey, but at once
proceeds to pluck the full flower of evolution, the human. For if any
musical compositions are human documents that term is applicable to
the "Second Rhapsody" and to the "Tannhäuser" overture. Each tells a
vivid story and tells it according to the canons of art, life and
truth. The unfortunate student of music, shackled by instruction that
aims mainly at teaching him how to play an instrument and ignores the
higher side of art, plods through the classical repertory until he
gets an idea that music consists of nothing but symphonies and
sonatas, which is as absurd as it would be to say that poetry consists
of nothing but sonnets, whereas a couple of dozen good sonnets are
enough for the literature of any language.
Indeed, while instruction in the other arts steadily is being
modernized and steadily aims to familiarize the student with their
higher aspects, little progress has been made in the teaching of
music. It still is in a state comparable only with that which existed
in the teaching of languages when instruction in these was given
according to the system of Ollendorf, with its series of foolish
questions and answers:--
"Is this the sword of the grandfather?"
"No, it is the false curl of the grandmother."
A five finger exercise, or an old-fashioned technical study with its
dry little theme in the treble and its foolish little answer in the
bass, always suggests to me something along the lines of the
Ollendorfian phraseology:--
"Is this musical phrase beautiful?"
"No, but it is great for limbering up the little finger."
Often since giving thought to the new instrument which wholly
eliminates the question of technique from pianoforte playing, I have
wondered if the importance attached to "limbering up the little
finger" has not given us a wrong musical perspective; whether
compositions musically of little value have not assumed enormous
importance in the curriculum and been retained there, because they
developed finger facility in certain directions. For example to a
pianist the "School of Velocity" by Czerny and the "Gradus ad
Parnassum" by Clementi, two series of famous technical studies, mean
everything. To the pianolist they mean nothing--need mean nothing. As
for the "School of Velocity" he can by simply moving the tempo lever
to the right make the pianola play so fast that, if old Czerny still
were alive, he would lose his breath listening to it. As for the
"Gradus ad Parnassum," the difficulties which Clementi piled up in the
pianist's path, the pianolist overleaps as lightly and casually as if
wholly unaware of their existence. He may never have heard of these
technical works yet, if he has natural musical instinct or has
developed it through the piano-player, he will be as correct in his
judgment of what to play and how to play it, as if he had devoted his
whole life to an arduous study of pianoforte technique. The
pianolist's experience with music is wholly musical, while the
pianist's is largely technical. For observe, that while a music
teacher often selects a piece for his pupil, not so much because it is
beautiful but because it follows up and supplements the technical
exercise which the pupil has been practicing, the pianolist's point of
view in choosing his repertory is not obscured by any consideration of
this kind. Scratch a Russian and you find a Tartar; scratch musical
instruction of the average kind and you find technique. The
pianolist's progress is determined by music's appeal to his soul; the
average music pupil's by what he can accomplish with his fingers. In
this way, as I already have suggested, certain pieces have acquired an
importance far out of proportion to their musical value, and have
retained their position not only in the curriculum but, unfortunately,
even in the concert repertory.
There is a lot of this dry wood in music and the unfortunate student
is compelled to chop it until, when he sees a real tree, he thinks it
is all wrong because it has green leaves instead of withered ones and
strong, sappy branches instead of little twigs that snap off at the
least touch. This is the reason that modern music, although it is the
most natural music ever written, has to be "explained"--because
students prejudiced by pedantic instruction have become so accustomed
to the artificial that they cannot appreciate what is natural; just
as experts in primitive art fail to appreciate the beauty of the later
schools of painting.
To me it is positively exhilarating that the great mass of those
people who have become devotees of the mechanical piano-player do not
stop to ask what is the relation of this or that composition to the
development of music or its place in musical evolution; but, taking
music simply as music, confidently place pieces like the "Second
Rhapsody" or the "Tannhäuser" overture on the pianola and are thrilled
by the artistic realism of these compositions. Unconsciously they are
supporting the contention of those advanced thinkers in music who
place the expression of life and truth above artificial form. Suppose
a paint brush were invented which would give complete mastery of the
technique of painting to the person in whose hand it was placed.
Would that person go to work copying the old masters? No. He would
paint the sea, the low meadow land, the foot hills, the mountains, the
waving grain, the forest, the man he admired, the woman he loved. And
so it is that the player who has the technical mastery of the
pianoforte placed, so to speak, at his disposal, is led by instinct
toward the most modern expression of musical thought and genius.
In his book, "The Temple of Art," Ernest Newlandsmith has a chapter on
musical education in which he points out that after all a pianist's
fingers and muscles are simply mechanical contrivances for striking
the keys, and that to gain complete control or mastery of this
mechanical process requires incessant drudgery and labor, such mastery
being attained only by very few people. "The average pianist never
gains the power of even striking the notes in really difficult music;
yet for an artist to infuse the exact expression of his feeling into a
work, he must not only be able to do this, but must also be able to
vary this striking of notes by the most minute and subtle degrees of
intensity, and that without experiencing any difficulty whatever, so
that his entire attention may be devoted to his feeling." All this the
pianolist gains without any of that drudgery so apt to obscure correct
musical perspective, so that, to quote again from Mr. Newlandsmith,
"it is a matter of wonder that any one can be found to speak against
mechanical piano-players, when they remember that they are only
mechanical to the extent that a pianist has to be. They are not
intended to play of themselves, like a musical box, but are controlled
by the performer's feeling."
The first steps in music are apt to be "two-steps." Marches and dances
of a popular kind and the seemingly inevitable coon-song may be
regarded as the infant's food of the musical novice. For a person
whose love of music still is latent, may not "arrive" at once at the
"Second Rhapsody" or the "Tannhäuser" overture. The friend to whom I
have dedicated this book began with the lightest kind of music, the
kind he now regards as "trash." For from knowing nothing at all about
music, he has become, through the piano-player, an ardent lover of all
that is good in the art. Nevin's "Narcissus" happened to be included
in his first set of rolls. He tried it over, but thought it dull.
After a while, however, when the other rolls began to pall on him, he
played it again and found in it something that he missed in the
others. This was the first step toward better things, and step by
step thereafter he gained in musical taste until now his judgment is
unerring.
Nevin whose death six years ago and at a comparatively early age, was
a distinct loss to music, was one of the small number of composers who
have written music of the lighter kind which yet is thoroughly good,
music that is pleasing without being trivial, melodious without a
suggestion of the commonplace, and thoroughly sound in workmanship.
This American composer was exceptionally apt at reproducing in music a
mood or fancy and at painting in tone the charms of a romantic
locality. Possibly no gentler rise from what is known as the "light
classic" to the classic can be provided than through him. Therefore I
begin with him, although he is a thoroughly modern composer, my aim
being gradually to lead the pianolist from enjoyment of lighter works,
of the kind, however, which possess genuine musical merit, to an
appreciation of the greater masterpieces. Sometimes I have selected
only one work by a composer and, except in the case of Chopin, never
more than a few examples from any composer. But the works which I cite
and describe in more or less detail, should suffice to stimulate the
pianolist to explore more fully the range of the composers I mention,
and of others. I give merely a taste; the catalogue of music rolls
supplies the full menu.
To some this arrangement may seem haphazard. Nevertheless it has
system and purpose. The usual method followed in books that aim to be
musical guides would have been much easier. Mine I believe best
adapted to the needs of the average pianolist, who, it may be assumed,
at the time he purchases his instrument, knows little or nothing about
music of the higher kind; whose taste, in fact, still is to be
developed.