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The Art of Music
A Comprehensive Library of Information
for Music Lovers and Musicians
Editor-in-Chief
DANIEL GREGORY MASON
Columbia University
Associate Editors
EDWARD B. HILL LELAND HALL
Harvard University Past Professor, Univ. of Wisconsin
Managing Editor
CÉSAR SAERCHINGER
Modern Music Society of New York
In Fourteen Volumes
Profusely Illustrated
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Beethoven]
_After the painting by Karl Stieler
(Original owned by H. Hinrichsen, Leipzig)_
THE ART OF MUSIC: VOLUME TWO
A Narrative History of Music
Department Editors:
LELAND HALL
AND
CÉSAR SAERCHINGER
Introduction by
LELAND HALL
Past Professor of Musical History, University of Wisconsin
BOOK II
CLASSICISM AND ROMANTICISM
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC
1915
Copyright, 1915, by
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC, Inc.
(All Rights Reserved)
A NARRATIVE HISTORY OF MUSIC
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME II
In the first volume of THE ART OF MUSIC the history of the art has
been carried in as straight a line as possible down to the death of
Bach and Handel. These two great composers, while they still serve as
the foundation of much present-day music, nevertheless stand as the
culmination of an epoch in the development and style of music which
is distinctly of the past. Many of the greatest of their conceptions
are expressed in a language, so to speak, which rings old-fashioned in
our ears. Something has been lost of their art. In the second volume,
on the other hand, we have to do with the growth of what we may call
our own musical language, with the language of Beethoven, Schubert,
Schumann, Wagner and Brahms, men with whose ideals and with whose modes
of expression we are still closely in touch. In closing the first
volume the reader bids farewell to the time of music when polyphony
still was supreme. In opening this he greets the era of melody and
harmony, of the singing allegro, the scherzo, the rondo, of the
romantic song, of salon music, of national opera and national life in
music.
We have now to do with the symphony and the sonata, which even to the
uninitiated spell music, no longer with the toccata and the fugue,
words of more or less hostile alarm to those who dread attention. We
shall deal with forms based upon melody, shall trace their growth from
their seeds in Italy, the land of melody, through the works of Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven. We shall watch the perfecting of the orchestra,
its enrichment in sonority and in color. We shall see the Lied spring
from the forehead of Schubert. We shall mark the development of the
pianoforte and the growth of a noble literature of pianoforte music,
rivalling that of the orchestra in proportion and in meaning. A new
opera will come into being, discarding old traditions, alien myths,
allying itself to the life of the peoples of Europe.
Lastly we shall note the touch of two great forces upon music, two
forces mysteriously intertwined, the French Revolution and the Romantic
Movement. Music will break from the control of rich nobles and make
itself dear to the hearts of the common people who inherit the earth.
It will learn to speak of intimate mysteries and intensely personal
emotion. Composers will rebel from dependence upon a patronizing class
and seek judgment and reward from a free public. In short, music
will be no longer only the handmaiden of the church, or the servant
of a socially exalted class, but the voice of the great human race,
expressing its passions, its emotions, its common sadness and joy, its
everyday dreams and even its realities.
The history of any art in such a stage of reformation is necessarily
complicated, and the history of music is in no way exceptional. A
thousand new influences shaped it, hundreds of composers and of
virtuosi came for a while to the front. Political, social and even
economical and commercial conditions bore directly upon it. To ravel
from this tangle one or two threads upon which to weave a consecutive
narration has been the object of the editors. Minuteness of detail
would have thwarted the purpose of this as of the first volume, even
if space could have been allowed for it. The book has, therefore,
been limited to an exposition only of general movements, and to
only general descriptions of the works of the greatest composers who
contributed to them. Many lesser composers, famous in their day, have
not been mentioned, because their work has had no real historical
significance. They will, if at all vital, receive treatment in the
later volumes.
On the other hand, the reader is cautioned against too easy acceptance
of generalities which have long usurped a sway over the public, such
as the statement that Emanuel Bach was the inventor of the sonata
form, or that Haydn was the creator of the symphony and of the string
quartet. Such forms are evolved, or built up step by step, not created.
The foundations of them lie far back in the history of the art. In the
present volume the attention of the reader will be especially called to
the work of the Italian Pergolesi, and the Bohemian Johann Stamitz, in
preparing these forms for Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
Just as, in order to bring into relief the main lines of development,
many men and many details have been omitted, so, in order to bring
the volume to well-rounded close, the works of many men which
chronologically should find their place herein have been consigned
arbitrarily to a third volume. Yet such treatment is perhaps not so
arbitrary as will at first appear. Wagner, Brahms, and César Franck
are the three greatest of the later romantic composers. They developed
relatively independently of each other, and represent the culmination
of three distinct phases of the romantic movement in music. Their
separate influences made themselves felt at once even upon composers
scarcely younger than they. Men so influenced belong properly among
their followers, no matter what their ages. Inasmuch as the vast
majority of modern music is most evidently founded upon some one of
these three men, most conspicuously and almost inevitably upon Wagner,
contemporaries who so founded their work will be treated among the
modern composers, as those men who lead the way over from the three
great geniuses of a past generation to the distinctly new art of
the present day. Notable among these are men like Max Bruch, Anton
Bruckner, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler, and Camille Saint-Saëns. Some
of these men, by the close connection of their art to that of past
generations, might perhaps more properly be treated in this volume, but
the confusion of so many minor strands would obscure the trend of the
narrative. Moreover, exigencies of space have enforced certain limits
upon the editors. Thus, also, the national developments, the founding
of distinctly national schools of composition in Scandinavia, Russia,
Bohemia and elsewhere, directly influenced by the romantic movement in
Germany, have had to find a place in Volume III.
It is perhaps in order to forestall any criticism that may be made in
the score of what will seem to some serious omissions. Composers of
individual merit, though their music is of light calibre, are perhaps
entitled to recognition no less than their confrères in more ambitious
fields. We refer to such delightful writers of comic opera as Johann
Strauss, Millöcker, Suppé, etc., and the admirable English school of
musical comedy headed by Sir Arthur Sullivan. Without denying the
intrinsic value of their work, it must be admitted that they have
contributed nothing essentially new or fundamental to the development
of the art and are therefore of slight historical significance. The
latter school will, however, find proper mention in connection with the
more recent English composers to whom it has served as a foundation if
not a model. More adequate treatment will be accorded to their works in
the volumes on opera, etc.
In closing, a word should be said concerning the contributors to
the Narrative History. There is ample precedent for the method
here employed of assigning different periods to writers especially
familiar with them. Such collaboration has obvious advantages, for the
study of musical history has become an exceedingly diverse one and
by specialization only can its various phases be thoroughly grasped.
Any slight difference in point of view or in style will be more than
offset by the careful and appreciative treatment accorded to each
period or composer by writers whose sympathies have led them to a
careful and adequate presentation, in clear perspective, of the merits
of a given style of composition. The editors have endeavored as far
as possible to avail themselves of the able researches recently made
in Italy, Germany, France, etc., and they extend their acknowledgment
to such authors of valuable special studies as Johannes Wolf, Hermann
Kretschmar, Emil Vogel, Romain Rolland, Julien Tiersot, etc., and
especially to the scholarly summary of Dr. Hugo Riemann, of Leipzig. A
more extensive list of these works will be found in the Bibliographical
Appendix to Volume III.
LELAND HALL
CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO
PAGE
INTRODUCTION BY LELAND HALL iii
PART I. THE CLASSIC IDEAL
CHAPTER
I. THE REGENERATION OF THE OPERA 1
The eighteenth century and operatic convention--Porpora
and Hasse--Pergolesi and the _opera buffa_--_Jommelli_,
Piccini, Cimarosa, etc.--Gluck’s early life; the Metastasio
period--The comic opera in France; Gluck’s reform;
_Orfeo_ and _Alceste_--The Paris period; Gluck and Piccini;
the Iphigénies; Gluck’s mission--Gluck’s influence; the
_opéra comique_; Cherubini.
II. THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CLASSIC PERIOD 45
Classicism and the classic period--Political and literary
forces--The conflict of styles; the sonata form--The Berlin
school; the sons of Bach--The Mannheim reform: the
genesis of the symphony--Followers of the Mannheim
school; rise of the string quartet; Vienna and Salzburg
as musical centres.
III. THE VIENNESE CLASSICS: HAYDN AND MOZART 75
Social aspects of the classic period; Vienna, its court
and its people--Joseph Haydn--Haydn’s work; the symphony;
the string quartet--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart--Mozart’s
style; Haydn and Mozart; the perfection of orchestral
style--Mozart and the opera; the Requiem; the
mission of Haydn and Mozart.
IV. LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 128
Form and formalism--Beethoven’s life--His relations with his
family, teachers, friends and other contemporaries--His
character--The man and the artist--Determining
factors in his development--The three periods in his
work and their characteristics--His place in the history of
music.
V. OPERATIC DEVELOPMENT IN ITALY AND FRANCE 177
Italian opera at the advent of Rossini--Rossini and the
Italian operatic renaissance--_Guillaume Tell_--Donizetti
and Bellini--Spontini and the historical opera--Meyerbeer’s
life and works--His influence and followers--Development of
_opéra comique_; Boieldieu, Auber, Hérold, Adam.
PART II. THE ROMANTIC IDEAL
VI. THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT: ITS CHARACTERISTICS AND ITS GROWTH 213
Modern music and modern history; characteristics of the
music of the romantic period--Schubert and the German
romantic movement in literature--Weber and the German
reawakening--The Paris of 1830: French Romanticism--Franz
Liszt--Hector Berlioz--Chopin; Mendelssohn--Leipzig
and Robert Schumann--Romanticism and classicism.
VII. SONG LITERATURE OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD 269
Lyric poetry and song--The song before Schubert--Franz
Schubert; Carl Löwe--Robert Schumann; Robert
Franz; Mendelssohn and Chopin; Franz Liszt as song writer.
VIII. PIANOFORTE AND CHAMBER MUSIC OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD 293
Development of the modern pianoforte--The pioneers:
Schubert and Weber--Schumann and Mendelssohn--Chopin
and others--Franz Liszt, virtuoso and poet--Chamber
music of the romantic period; Ludwig Spohr and others.
IX. ORCHESTRAL LITERATURE AND ORCHESTRAL DEVELOPMENT 334
The perfection of instruments; emotionalism of the romantic
period; enlargement of orchestral resources--The
symphony in the romantic period; Schubert, Mendelssohn,
Schumann; Spohr and Raff--The concert overture--The rise
of program music; the symphonic _leit-motif_; Berlioz’s
_Fantastique_; other Berlioz symphonies; Liszt’s dramatic
symphonies--Symphonic poem; _Tasso_; Liszt’s other symphonic
poems--The legitimacy of program music.
X. ROMANTIC OPERA AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHORAL SONG 372
The rise of German opera; Weber and the romantic opera;
Weber’s followers--Berlioz as opera composer--The _drame
lyrique_ from Gounod to Bizet--_Opéra comique_ in the
romantic period; the _opéra bouffe_--Choral and sacred music
of the romantic period.
PART III. THE ERA OF WAGNER
XI. WAGNER AND WAGNERISM 401
Periods of operatic reform; Wagner’s early life and
works--Paris: _Rienzi_, “The Flying Dutchman”--Dresden:
_Tannhäuser_ and _Lohengrin_; Wagner and Liszt; the
revolution of 1848--_Tristan_ and _Meistersinger_--Bayreuth;
“The Nibelungen Ring”--_Parsifal_--Wagner’s musico-dramatic
reforms; his harmonic revolution; the _leit-motif_
system--The Wagnerian influence.
XII. NEO-ROMANTICISM: JOHANNES BRAHMS AND CÉSAR FRANCK 443
The antecedents of Brahms--The life and personality of
Brahms--The idiosyncrasies of his music in rhythm, melody,
and harmony as expressions of his character--His works for
pianoforte, for voice, and for orchestra; the historical
position of Brahms--Franck’s place in the romantic
movement--His life, personality, and the characteristics of
his style; his works as the expression of religious
mysticism.
XIII. VERDI AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 477
Verdi’s mission in Italian opera--His early life and
education--His first operas and their political
significance--His second period: the maturing of his
style--Crowning achievements of his third period--Verdi’s
contemporaries.
A NARRATIVE HISTORY OF MUSIC
CHAPTER I
THE REGENERATION OF THE OPERA
The eighteenth century and operatic convention--Porpora and
Hasse--Pergolesi and the _opera buffa_--Jommelli, Piccini, Cimarosa,
etc.--Gluck’s early life; the Metastasio period--The comic opera in
France; Gluck’s reform; _Orfeo_ and _Alceste_--The Paris period;
Gluck and Piccini; the Iphigénies; Gluck’s mission--Gluck’s
influence; Salieri and Sarti; the development of _opéra comique_;
Cherubini.
While the deep, quiet stream of Bach’s genius flowed under the bridges
all but unnoticed, the marts and highways of Europe were a babel of
operatic intrigue and artistic shams. Handel in England was running
the course of his triumphal career, which luckily forced him into the
tracks of a new art-form; on the continent meantime Italian opera
reached at once its most brilliant and most absurd epoch under the
leadership of Hasse and Porpora; even Rameau, the founder of modern
harmonic science, did not altogether keep aloof from its influence,
while perpetuating the traditions of Lully in Paris. Vocal virtuosi
continued to set the musical fashions of the age, the artificial
soprano was still a force to which composers had to submit; indeed,
artificiality was the keynote of the century.
The society of the eighteenth century was primarily concerned with the
pursuit of sensuous enjoyment. In Italy especially ‘the cosmic forces
existed but in order to serve the endless divertissement of superficial
and brainless beings, in whose eyes the sun’s only mission was to
illumine picturesque cavalcades and water-parties, as that of the moon
was to touch with trembling ray the amorous forest glades.’ Monnier’s
vivid pen-picture of eighteenth century Venetian society applies, with
allowance made for change of scene and local color, to all the greater
Italian cities. ‘What equivocal figures! What dubious pasts! Law (of
Mississippi bubble fame) lives by gambling, as does the Chevalier
Desjardins, his brother in the Bastille, his wife in a lodging-house;
the Count de Bonneval, turbaned, sitting on a rug with legs crossed,
worships Allah, carries on far-reaching intrigues and is poisoned by
the Turks; Lord Baltimore, travelling with his physician and a seraglio
of eight women, with a pair of negro guards; Ange Goudar, a wit, a
cheat at cards, a police spy and perjurer, rascally, bold, and ugly;
and his wife Sarah, once a servant in a London tavern, marvellously
beautiful, who receives the courtly world at her palace in Pausilippo
near Naples, and subjugates it with her charm; disguised maidens, false
princes, fugitive financiers, literary blacklegs, Greeks, chevaliers of
all industries, wearers of every order, splenetic _grands seigneurs_,
and the kings of Voltaire’s _Candide_. Of such is the Italian society
of the eighteenth century composed.
Music in this artificial atmosphere could only flatter the sense of
hearing without appealing to the intelligence, excite the nerves and
occasionally give a keener point to voluptuousness, by dwelling on a
note of elegant sorrow or discreet religiousness. The very church,
according to Dittersdorf, had become a musical boudoir, the convent a
conservatory. As for the opera, it could not be anything but a lounge
for the idle public. The Neapolitan school, which reigned supreme in
Europe, provided just the sort of amusement demanded by that public. It
produced scores of composers who were hailed as _maestri_ to-day and
forgotten to-morrow. Hundreds of operas appeared, but few ever reached
publication; their nature was as ephemeral as the public’s taste was
fickle, and a success meant no more to a composer than new commissions
to turn out operas for city after city, to supply the insatiate thirst
for novelty. The manner in which these commissions were carried out
is indicative of the result. Composers were usually given a libretto
not of their choosing; the recitatives, which constituted the dramatic
groundwork, were turned out first and distributed among the singers.
The writing of the arias was left to the last so that the singers’
collaboration or advice could be secured, for upon their rendition
the success of the whole opera depended; they were, indeed, _written
for_ the singers--the particular singers of the first performance--and
in such a manner that their voices might show to the best advantage.
As Leopold Mozart wrote in one of his letters, they made ‘the coat
to fit the wearer.’ The form which these operas took was an absolute
stereotype; a series of more or less disconnected recitatives and
arias, usually of the _da capo_ form, strung together by the merest
thread of a plot. It was a concert in costume rather than the drama in
music which was the original conception of opera in the minds of its
inventors.
Pietro Metastasio, the most prolific of librettists, was eminently
the purveyor of texts for these operas, just as Rinuccini, the
idealist, had furnished the poetic basis for their nobler forerunners.
Metastasio’s inspiration flowed freely, both in lyrical and emotional
veins, but ‘the brilliancy of his florid rhetoric stifled the cry
of the heart.’ His plots were overloaded with the vapid intrigues
that pleased the taste of his contemporaries, with quasi-pathetic
characters, with passionate climaxes and explosions. His popularity
was immense. He could count as many as forty editions of his own works
and among his collaborators were practically all the great composers,
from Handel to Gluck and Cimarosa. As personifying the elements which
sum up the opera during this its most irrational period we may take
two figures of extraordinary eminence--Niccola Porpora and Johann Adolf
Hasse.
I
Niccola Porpora (1686-1766), while prominent in his own day as
composer, conductor, and teacher (among his pupils was Joseph
Haydn), is known to history chiefly by his achievements as a singing
master--perhaps the greatest that ever lived. The art of _bel canto_,
that exaltation of the human voice for its own sake, which in him
reached its highest point, was doubtless the greatest enemy to artistic
sincerity and dramatic truth, the greatest deterrent to operatic
progress in the eighteenth century. Though possessed of ideals of
intrinsic beauty--sensuousness of tone, dynamic power, brilliance, and
precision like that of an instrument--this art would to-day arouse
only wonder, not admiration. Porpora understood the human voice in all
its peculiarities; he could produce, by sheer training, singers who,
like Farinelli, Senesino, and Caffarelli, were the wonder of the age.
By what methods his results were reached we have no means of knowing,
for his secret was never committed to writing, but his method was most
likely empirical, as distinguished from the scientific, or anatomical,
methods of to-day. It was told that he kept Caffarelli for five or six
years to one page of exercises, and then sent him into the world as the
greatest singer of Europe--a story which, though doubtless exaggerated,
indicates the purely technical nature of his work.
Porpora wrote his own _vocalizzi_, and, though he composed in every
form, all of his works appear to us more or less like _solfeggi_. His
cantatas for solo voice and harpsichord show him at his best, as a
master of the florid Italian vocal style, with consummate appreciation
of the possibilities of the vocal apparatus. His operas, of which
he wrote no less than fifty-three, are for the most part tedious,
conventional, and overloaded with ornament, in every way characteristic
of the age; the same is true in some measure of his oratorios, numerous
church compositions, and chamber works, all of which show him to be
hardly more than a thoroughly learned and accomplished technician.
But Porpora’s fame attracted many talented pupils, including the
brilliant young German, Hasse (1699-1783), mentioned above, who,
however, quickly forsook him in favor of Alessandro Scarlatti, a slight
which Porpora never forgave and which served as motive for a lifelong
rivalry between the two men. Hasse, originally trained in the tradition
of the Hamburg opera and its Brunswick offshoot (where he was engaged
as tenor and where he made his debut with his only German opera,
‘Antiochus’), quickly succumbed to the powerful Italian influence.
The Italians took kindly to him, and, after his debut in Naples with
‘Tigrane’ (1773), surnamed him _il caro sassone_. His marriage with
the celebrated Faustina Bordoni linked him still closer to the history
of Italian opera; for in the course of his long life, which extends
into the careers of Haydn and Mozart, he wrote no less than seventy
operas, many of them to texts by the famed Metastasio, and most of
them vehicles for the marvellous gifts of his wife. While she aroused
the enthusiasm of audiences throughout Europe, he enjoyed the highest
popularity of any operatic composer through half a century. Together
they made the opera at Dresden (whither Hasse was called in 1731 as
royal kapellmeister) the most brilliant in Germany--one that even
Bach, as we have seen, was occasionally beguiled into visiting. Once
Hasse was persuaded to enter into competition with Handel in London
(1733), the operatic capital of Europe, where Faustina, seven years
before, had vanquished her great rival Cuzzoni and provided the chief
operatic diversion of the Handel régime to the tune of £2,000 a year!
Only the death of August the Strong in 1763 ended the Hasses’ reign in
Dresden, where during the bombardment of 1760 Hasse’s library and most
of the manuscripts of his works were destroyed by fire. What remains
of them reveals a rare talent and a consummate musicianship which,
had it not been employed so completely in satisfying the prevailing
taste and propitiating absurd conventions, might still appeal with the
vitality of its harmonic texture and the beauty of its melodic line.
Much of the polyphonic skill and the spontaneous charm of a Handel is
evident in these works, but they lack the breadth, the grandeur and
the seriousness that distinguish the work of his greater compatriot.
Over-abundance of success militates against self-criticism, which is
the essential quality of genius, and Hasse’s success was not, like
Handel’s, dimmed by the changing taste of a surfeited public. Hasse’s
operas signalize at once the high water mark of brilliant achievement
in an art form now obsolete and the ultimate degree of its fatuousness.
Hasse and Porpora, then, were the leaders of those who remained
true to the stereotyped form of opera, the singers’ opera, whose
very nature precluded progress. They and a host of minor men, like
Francesco Feo, Leonardo Vinci, Pasquale Cafaro, were enrolled in a
party which resisted all ideas of reform; and their natural allies in
upholding absurd conventions were the singers, that all-powerful race
of virtuosi, the impresarios, and all the great tribe of adherents who
derived a lucrative income from the system. Against these formidable
forces the under-current of reform--both musical and dramatic--felt
from the beginning of the century, could make little head. The protests
of men like Benedetto Marcello, whose satire _Il teatro alla moda_
appeared in 1722, were voices crying in the wilderness. Yet reform
was inevitable, a movement no less momentous than when the Florentine
reform of 1600 was under way--the great process of crystallization and
refinement which was to usher in that most glorious era of musical
creation known as the classic period. Like the earlier reform, it
signified a reaction against technique, against soulless display of
virtuosity, a tendency toward simplicity, subjectivity, directness of
expression--a return to nature.
Though much of the pioneer work was done by composers of instrumental
music whose discussion must be deferred to the next chapter, the
movement had its most spectacular manifestations in connection with
opera, and in that aspect is summed up in the work of Gluck, the
outstanding personality in the second half of the eighteenth century.
In the domain of absolute music it saw its beginnings in the more or
less spontaneous efforts of instrumentalists like Fasch, Foerster,
Benda, and Johann Stamitz. First among those whose initiative was felt
in _both_ directions we must name Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, the
young Neapolitan who, born in 1710, had his brilliant artistic career
cut short at the premature age of twenty-six.
II
Pergolesi was the pupil of Greco, Durante, and Feo at the
_Conservatorio dei Poveri_ at Naples, where a biblical drama and
two operas from his pen were performed in 1731 without arousing any
particular attention. But a solemn mass which he was commissioned to
write by the city of Naples in praise of its patron saint, and which
was performed upon the occasion of an earthquake, brought him sudden
fame. The commission probably came to him through the good offices of
Prince Stegliano, to whom he dedicated his famous trio sonatas. These
sonatas, later published in London, brought an innovation which had no
little influence upon contemporary composers; namely, the so-called
_cantabile_ (or singing) _allegro_ as the first movement. Riemann, who
has edited two of them,[1] calls attention to the richly developed
sonata form of the first movement of the G major trio especially, of
which the works of Fasch, Stamitz, and Gluck are clearly reminiscent.
‘The altogether charming, radiant melodies of Pergolesi are linked with
such conspicuous, forcible logic in the development of the song-like
theme, always in the upper voice, that we are not surprised by the
attention which the movement aroused. We are here evidently face to
face with the beginning of a totally different manner of treatment in
instrumental melodies, which I would like to call a transplantation of
the aria style to the instrumental field.’[2] We shall have occasion to
refer to this germination of a new style later on. At present we must
consider another of Pergolesi’s important services to art--the creation
of the _opera buffa_.[3]
We have had occasion to observe in another chapter the success of
the ‘Beggar’s Opera’ in England in 1723, which hastened the failure
of the London Academy under Handel’s management. Vulgar as it was,
this novelty embodied the same tendency toward simplicity which was
the essential element of the impending reform; it was near to the
people’s heart and there found a quick response. This ballad-opera,
as it was called, was followed by many imitations, notably Coffey’s
‘The Devil to Pay, or The Wives Metamorphosed’ (1733), which, later
produced in Germany, was adapted by Standfuss (1752) and Johann Adam
Hiller (1765) and thus became the point of departure for the German
singspiel. This in turn reacted against the popularity of Italian opera
in Germany. The movement had its Italian parallel in the fashion for
the so-called _intermezzi_ which composers of the Neapolitan school
began very early in the century to interpolate between the acts of
their operas, as, in an earlier period, they had been interpolated
between the acts of the classic tragedies (_cf._ Vol. I, p. 326 ff).
Unlike these earlier spectacular diversions, the later _intermezzi_
were comic pieces that developed a continuous plot independent of
that of the opera itself--an anomalous mixture of tragedy and comedy
which must have appeared ludicrous at times even to eighteenth century
audiences. These artistic trifles were, however, not unlikely, in their
simple and unconventional spontaneity, to have an interest surpassing
that of the opera proper. Such was the case with _La serva padrona_,
which Pergolesi produced between the acts of his opera _Il pigionier_
(1733). This graceful little piece made so immediate an appeal that it
completely overshadowed the serious work to which it was attached, and,
indeed, all the other dramatic works of its composer, whose fame to-day
rests chiefly upon it and the immortal _Stabat mater_, which was his
last work.
_La serva padrona_ is one of the very few operatic works of the century
that are alive to-day. An examination of its contents quickly reveals
the reason, for its pages breathe a charm, a vivacity, a humor which we
need not hesitate to call Mozartian. Indeed, it leaves little doubt in
our minds that Mozart, born twenty-three years later, must have been
acquainted with the work of its composer. At any rate he, no less than
Guglielmi, Piccini, Paesiello, and Cimarosa, the chief representatives
of the _opera buffa_, are indebted to him for the form, since, as
the first _intermezzo_ opera capable of standing by itself (it was
afterward so produced in Paris), it must be regarded as the first real
_opera buffa_.
Most of the later Neapolitans, in fact, essayed both the serious
and comic forms, not unmindful of the popular success which the
latter achieved. It became, in time, a dangerous competitor to the
conventionalized _opera seria_, as the ballad-opera and the singspiel
did in England and Germany, and the _opéra bouffon_ was to become
in France. Its advantage lay in its freedom from the traditional
operatic limitations (_cf._ Vol. I, page 428). It might contain an
indiscriminate mixture of arias, recitatives, and ensembles; its
_dramatis personæ_ were a flexible quantity. Moreover, it disposed
of the male soprano, favoring the lower voices, especially basses,
which had been altogether excluded from the earlier operas. Hence it
brought about a material change in conditions with which composers had
thus far been unable to cope. In it the stereotyped _da capo_ aria
yielded its place to more flexible forms; one of its first exponents,
Nicolo Logroscino,[4] introduced the animated ensemble finale with
many movements, which was further developed by his successors. These
wholesome influences were soon felt in the serious opera as well: it
adopted especially the finale and the more varied ensembles of the
_opera buffa_, though lacking the spicy parodistical element and the
variegated voices of its rival. Thus, in the works of Pergolesi’s
successors, especially Jommelli and Piccini, we see foreshadowed the
epoch-making reform of Gluck.
There is nothing to show, however, that Pergolesi himself was conscious
of being a reformer. His personal character, irresponsible, brilliant
rather than introspective, would argue against that. We must think of
him as a true genius gifted by the grace of heaven, romantic, wayward,
and insufficiently balanced to economize his vital forces toward a
ripened age of artistic activity. He nevertheless produced a number of
other operas, mostly serious, masses, and miscellaneous ecclesiastical
and chamber works. His death was due to consumption. So much legend
surrounds his brief career that it has been made the subject of two
operas, by Paolo Serrão and by Monteviti.
C.S.
III
About the close of Pergolesi’s career two men made their debuts whose
lives were as nearly coeval as those of Bach and Handel and who, though
of unequal merit, if measured by the standards of posterity, were both
important factors in the reform movement which we are describing. These
men were Jommelli and Gluck, both born in 1714, the year which also
gave to the world Emanuel Bach, the talented son of the great Johann
Sebastian.
Nicola Jommelli was born at Aversa (near Naples). At first a pupil of
Durante, he received his chief training under Feo and Leo. His first
opera, _L’Errore amoroso_, was brought out under an assumed name at
Naples when the composer was but twenty-three, and so successfully
that he had no hesitation in producing his _Odoardo_ under his own
name the following year. Other operas by him were heard in Rome, in
Bologna (where he studied counterpoint with Padre Martini); in Venice,
where the success of his _Merope_ secured him the post of director of
the _Conservatorio degli incurabili_; and in Rome, whither he had gone
in 1749 as substitute _maestro di capella_ of St. Peter’s. In Vienna,
which he visited for the first time in 1748, _Didone_, one of his
finest operas, was produced. In 1753 Jommelli became kapellmeister
at Ludwigslust, the wonderful rococo palace of Karl Eugen, duke of
Württemberg, near Stuttgart. Like Augustus the Strong of Saxony, the
elector of Bavaria, the margrave of Bayreuth, the prince-bishop of
Cologne, this pleasure-loving ruler of a German principality had known
how to _s’enversailler_--to adopt the luxuries and refinements of the
court of Versailles, then the European model for royal and princely
extravagance. His palace and gardens were magnificent and his opera
house was of such colossal dimensions that whole regiments of cavalry
could cross the stage. He needed a celebrated master for his chapel and
his opera; his choice fell upon Jommelli, who spent fifteen prosperous
years in his employ, receiving a salary of ‘6,100 gulden per annum, ten
buckets of honorary wine, wood for firing and forage for two horses.’
At Stuttgart Jommelli was strongly influenced by the work of the German
musicians; increased harmonic profundity and improved orchestral
technique were the most palpable results. He came to have a better
appreciation of the orchestra than any of his countrymen; at times
he even made successful attempts at ‘tone painting.’ His orchestral
‘crescendo,’ with which he made considerable furore, was a trick
borrowed from the celebrated Mannheim school. It is interesting to
note that the school of stylistic reformers which had its centre at
Mannheim, not far from Stuttgart, was then in its heyday; two years
before Jommelli’s arrival in Stuttgart the famous Opus 1 of Johann
Stamitz--the sonatas (or rather symphonies) in which the Figured Bass
appears for the first time as an integral obbligato part--was first
heard in Paris. The so-called _Simphonies d’Allemagne_ henceforth
appeared in great number; they were published mostly in batches, often
in regular monthly or weekly sequence as ‘periodical overtures,’ and
so spread the gospel of German classicism all over Europe. How far
Jommelli was influenced by all this it would be difficult to determine,
but we know that when in 1769 he returned to Naples his new manner
found no favor with his countrymen, who considered his music too
heavy. The young Mozart in 1770 wrote from there: ‘The opera here is
by Jommelli. It is beautiful, but the style is too elevated as well
as too antique for the theatre.’ It is well to remark here how much
Jommelli’s music in its best moments resembles Mozart’s. He, no less
than Pergolesi, must be credited with the merit of having influenced
that master in many essentials.
Jommelli allowed none but his own operas to be performed at Stuttgart.
The productions were on a scale, however, that raised the envy of
Paris. No less a genius than Noverre, the reformer of the French
ballet, was Jommelli’s collaborator in these magnificent productions;
and Jommelli also yielded to French influences in the matter of
the chorus. He handled Metastasio’s texts with an eye to their
psychological moments, and infused into his scores much of dramatic
truth. In breaking up the monotonous sequence of solos, characteristic
of the fashionable Neapolitan opera, he actually anticipated Gluck. All
in all, Jommelli’s work was so unusually strong and intensive that we
wonder why he fell short of accomplishing the reform that was imminent.
‘Noverre and Jommelli in Stuttgart might have done it,’ says Oscar Bie,
in his whimsical study of the opera, ‘but for the fact that Stuttgart
was a hell of frivolity and levity, a luxurious mart for the purchase
and sale of men.’
Jommelli’s last Stuttgart opera was _Fetonte_.[5] When he returned
to Italy in 1769 he found the public mad with enthusiasm over a new
_opera buffa_ entitled _Cecchina, ossia la buona figliuola_. In Rome it
was played in all the theatres, from the largest opera house down to
the marionette shows patronized by the poor. Fashions were all _alla
Cecchina_; houses, shops, and wines were named after it, and a host
of catch-words and phrases from its text ran from lip to lip. ‘It is
probably the work of some boy,’ said the veteran composer, but after he
had heard it--‘Hear the opinion of Jommelli--this is an inventor!’
The boy inventor of _Cecchina_ was Nicola Piccini, another Neapolitan,
born in 1728, pupil of Leo and Durante, who was destined to become the
most famous Italian composer of his day, though his works have not
survived to our time. His debut had been made in 1754 with _Le donne
dispettose_, followed by a number of other settings of Metastasio
texts. We are told that he found difficulty in getting hearings at
first, because the comic operas of Logroscino monopolized the stage.
Already, then, composers were forced into the _opera buffa_ with its
greater vitality and variety. Piccini’s contribution to its development
was the extension of the duet to greater dramatic purpose, and also of
the concerted finale first introduced by Logroscino. We shall meet him
again, as the adversary of Gluck. Of hardly less importance than he
were Tommaso Traetto (1727-1779), ‘the most tragic of the Italians,’
who surpassed his contemporaries and followers in truth and force of
expression, and in harmonic strength; Pietro Guglielmi (1727-1804), who
with his 115 operas gained the applause of all Italy, of Dresden, of
Brunswick, and London; Antonio Sacchini (1734-1786), who, besides grace
of melody, attained at times an almost classic solidity; and Giovanni
Paesiello (1741-1816), whose decided talent for _opera buffa_ made him
the successful rival of Piccini and Cimarosa.
Paesiello, with Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801), was the leading
representative of the _buffa_ till the advent of Mozart. As Hadow
suggests, he might have achieved real greatness had he been less
constantly successful. ‘His life was one triumphal procession from
Naples to St. Petersburg, from St. Petersburg to Vienna, from Vienna
to Paris.’ Ferdinand of Sicily, Empress Catharine of Russia, Joseph
II of Austria, and even Napoleon were successively his patrons; and
his productiveness was such that he never had time, even had he had
inclination, to criticise his own works. Of his ninety-four operas
only one, ‘The Barber of Seville,’ is of historic interest, for its
popularity was such that, until Rossini, no composer dared to treat
the same theme. Cimarosa deserves perhaps more extended notice than
many others on account of his _Matrimonio segreto_, written in Russia,
which won unprecedented success there and in Italy. It is practically
the only one of all the works of composers just mentioned that has not
fallen a victim to time. Its music is simple and tuneful, fresh and
full of good humor.
The eighteenth century public based its judgments solely on mere
externals--a pleasing tune, a brilliant singer, a sumptuous
_mise-en-scène_ caught its favor, the merest accident or circumstance
might kill or make an opera. To-day a composer is carried off in
triumph, to be hissed soon after by the same public. Rivalry among
composers is the order of the day. Sacchini, Piccini, Paesiello,
Cimarosa, are successively favorites of Italian audiences; in London
Christian Bach and Sacchini divide the public as Handel and Bononcini
did before them; in Vienna Paesiello and Cimarosa are applauded with
the same acclaim as Gluck; in St. Petersburg Galuppi,[6] Traetta,
Paesiello, and Cimarosa follow each other in the service of the
sovereign (Catharine II), who could not differentiate any tunes but the
howls of her nine dogs; in Paris, at last, the leading figures become
the storm centre of political agitations. All these composers’ names
are glibly pronounced by the busy tongues of a brilliant but shallow
society. Favorite arias, like Galuppi’s _Se per me_, Sacchini’s _Se
cerca, se dice_, Piccini’s _Se il ciel_, are compared after the manner
of race entries. Florimo, the historian of the Naples opera, dismissed
the matter with a few words: ‘Piccini is original and prolific;
Sacchini gay and light, Paesiello new and lithe, Cafaro learned
in harmony, Galuppi experienced in stagecraft, Gluck a _filosofia
economica_.’ They all have their merits--but, after all, the difference
is a matter of detail, a fit subject for the gossip of an opera box.
Even Gluck is but one of them, if his Italian operas are at all
different the difference has escaped his critics.
But all of these composers, as well as some of their predecessors,
worked consciously or unconsciously in a regeneration that was slowly
but surely going forward. The working out of solo and ensemble forms
into definite patterns; the development of the recitative from
mere heightened declamation to a free arioso, fully accompanied,
and to the _accompagnato_ not followed by an aria at all; the
introduction of concertising instruments which promptly developed
into independent inner voices and broadened the orchestral polyphony,
the dynamic contrasts--at first abrupt, then gradual--which Jommelli
took over from the orchestral technique of Mannheim; the ingenious
construction of ensembles and the development of the finale into a
_pezzo concertanto_--all these tended toward higher organization,
individual and specialized development, though purely musical at
first and strictly removed from the influence of other arts. The
dramatic elements, the plastic and phantastic, which, subordinated at
first, found their expression in ‘laments’ and in _simile_ arias (in
which a mood was compared to a phenomena of nature), then in _ombra_
scenes, where spirits were invoked, and in similar exalted situations,
gradually became more and more prominent, foreshadowing the time when
the portrayal of human passions was to become once more the chief
purpose of opera.
IV
The last and decisive step in the revolution was the coming of Gluck.
‘It seems as if a century had worked to the limit of its strength to
produce the flower of Gluck--the great man is always the composite
genius of all the confluent temporal streams.’[7] Yet he himself was
one of these composite forces from which the artistic purpose of his
life was evolved. The Gluck of the first five decades, the Gluck of
Italian opera, of what we may call the Metastasio period, was simply
one of the many Italians unconsciously working toward that end. His
work through two-thirds of his life had no more significance than that
of a Leo, a Vinci, or a Jommelli. Fate willed, however, that Gluck
should be impressed more strongly by the growing public dissatisfaction
with senseless Italian opera, and incidentally should be brought into
close contact with varied influences tending to the broadening of his
ideas. Cosmopolite that he was, he gathered the essence of European
musical culture from its four corners. Born in Germany, he was early
exposed to the influence of solid musicianship; trained in Italy he
gained, like Handel, its sensuous melody; in England he heard the
works of Handel and received in the shape of artistic failure that
chastisement which opened his mind to radical change of method. In
France, soon after, he was impressed with the plastic dramatic element
of the monumental Lully-Rameau opera. Back in Vienna, he produced
_opéra comique_ and held converse with lettered enthusiasts. Calzabigi,
like Rinuccini in 1600, brought literary ideas of reform. Metastasio
was relegated--yet not at once, for Gluck was careful, diplomatic.
He fed his reform to the public in single doses--diluted for greater
security, interspersed with Italian operas of the old school as sops to
the hostile singers, jealous of their power. Only thus can we explain
his relapses into the current type. He knew his public must first be
educated. He felt the authority of a teacher and he resorted to the
didactic methods of Florence--of his colleagues of 1600, whom Calzabigi
knew and copied. Prefaces explaining the author’s purpose once more
became the order of the day; finally the reformer was conscious of
being a reformer, of his true life mission. Except for what human
interest there is in his early life we may therefore pass rapidly over
the period preceding 1762, the momentous year of _Orfeo ed Euridice_.
Born July 2, 1714, at Weidenwang, in the upper Palatinate, Christoph
Willibald Gluck’s early years were passed in the forests of Bavaria
and Bohemia. His father, Alexander Gluck, had been a game-keeper,
who, having established himself in Bohemia in 1717, had successively
entered the employ of various territorial magnates--Count Kaunitz in
Neuschloss, Count Kinsky in Kamnitz, Prince Lobkowitz in Eisenberg,
and, finally, the grand-duchess of Tuscany in Reichstadt. His intention
toward his son had been at first to make of him a game-keeper, and it
is recorded that young Christoph was put through a course of Spartan
discipline with that end in view, during which he was obliged to
accompany his father barefooted through the forest in the severest
winter weather.
[Illustration: Birthplace of Gluck at Weidenwang (Central Franconia)]
From the age of twelve to eighteen, however, he attended the Jesuit
school at Kommotau in the neighborhood of the Lobkowitz estate and
there, besides receiving a good general education, he learned to sing
and play the violin and the 'cello, as well as the clavichord and
organ. In 1732 he went to Prague and studied under Czernohorsky.[8]
Here he was soon able to earn a modest living--a welcome circumstance,
for there were six younger children at home, for whom his father
provided with difficulty. In Prague he gave lessons in singing and on
the 'cello; he played and sang in various churches; and on holidays
made the rounds of the neighboring country as a fiddler, receiving his
payment in kind, for the good villagers, it is said, often rewarded
him with fresh eggs. Through the introductions of his patron, Prince
Lobkowitz, it was not long before he obtained access to the homes of
the music-loving Bohemian nobility, and when he went to Vienna in 1736
he was hospitably received in his protector’s palace. Prince Lobkowitz
also made it possible for him to begin the study of composition. In
Vienna he chanced to meet the Italian Prince Melzi, who was so pleased
with his singing and playing that he made him his chamber musician and
took him with him to Milan. Here, during four years, from 1737 to 1741,
Gluck studied the theory of music under the celebrated contrapuntist
Giovanni Battista Sammartini, and definitely decided upon musical
composition as a career.
His studies completed, he made his debut as a creative artist at
the age of twenty-seven, with the opera _Artaserse_ (Milan, 1741),
set to a libretto of Metastasio. It was the first of thirty Italian
operas, composition of which extended over a period of twenty years,
and which are now totally forgotten. The success of _Artaserse_ was
instantaneous. We need not explain the reasons for this success, nor
the circumstances that, together with its fellows, from _Demofoonte_ to
_La finta schiava_, it has fallen into oblivion.
His Italian successes procured for him, however, an invitation in 1745
to visit London and compose for the Haymarket. Thither he went, and
produced a new opera, _La caduta de’ giganti_, which, though it earned
the high praise of Burney, was coldly received by the public. A revised
version of an earlier opera, _Artamene_, was somewhat more successful,
but _Piramo e Tisbe_, a _pasticcio_ (a kind of dramatic potpourri
or medley, often made up of selections from a number of operas),
fell flat. ‘Gluck knows no more counterpoint than my cook,’ Handel
is reported to have said--but then, Handel’s cook was an excellent
bassist and sang in many of the composer’s own operas. Counterpoint,
it is true, was not Gluck’s forte, and the lack of depth of harmonic
expression which characterized his early work was no doubt due to the
want of contrapuntal knowledge. Handel quite naturally received Gluck
with a somewhat negligent kindness. Gluck, on the other hand, always
preserved the greatest admiration for him--we are told that he hung the
master’s picture over his bed. Not only the acquaintance of Handel,
whose influence is clearly felt in his later works, but the musical
atmosphere of the English capital must have been of benefit to him.
Perhaps the most valuable lesson of his life was the London failure
of _Piramo e Tisbe_. He was astonished that this _pasticcio_, which
presented a number of the most popular airs of his operas, was so
unappreciated. After thinking it over he may well have concluded
that all music properly deserving of the name should be the fitting
expression of a situation; this vital quality lacking, in spite of
melodic splendor and harmonic richness and originality, what remained
would be no more than a meaningless arrangement of sounds, which
might tickle the ear pleasantly, but would have no emotional power. A
short trip to Paris afforded him an opportunity of becoming acquainted
with the classic traditions of the French opera as developed by Lully
and Rameau. Lully, it will be remembered, more nearly maintained the
ideals of the early Florentines than their own immediate successors.
In his operas the orchestra assumed a considerable importance, the
overture took a stately though conventional aspect. The chorus and the
ballet furnished a plastic background to the drama and, indeed, had
become integral features. Rameau had added harmonic depth and variety
and given a new charm to the graceful dance melodies. Gluck must have
absorbed some or all of this; yet, for fifteen years following his
visit to London, he continued to compose in the stereotyped form of
the Italian opera. He did not, it is true, return to Italy, but he
joined a travelling Italian opera company conducted by Pietro Mingotti,
as musical director and composer. One of his contributions to its
répertoire was _Le nozze d’Ercole e d’Ebe_, which was performed in
the gardens of the Castle of Pillnitz (near Dresden) to celebrate the
marriage of the Saxon princess and the Elector of Bavaria in June,
1747. How blunted Gluck’s artistic sense must have been toward the
incongruities of Italian opera is shown by the fact that the part of
Hercules in this work was written for a soprano and sung by a woman. In
others the rôles of Agamemnon the ‘king of men,’ of demigods and heroes
were trilled by artificial sopranos.
After sundry wanderings Gluck established himself in Vienna, where in
1748 his _Semiramide reconosciuta_ had been performed to celebrate the
birthday of the Empress Maria Theresa. It was an _opera seria_ of the
usual type and, though terribly confused, it revealed at times the
power and sweep characteristic of Handel.
In Vienna Gluck fell in love with Marianna Pergin, the daughter of a
wealthy merchant whose father would not consent to the marriage. The
story that his sweetheart had vowed to be true to him and that he
wandered to Italy disguised as a Capucin to save expenses in order
to produce his _Telemacco_ for the Argentina Theatre in Rome has no
foundation. But at any rate the couple were finally married in 1750,
after the death of the relentless father. This signalized the close of
Gluck’s nomadic existence. With his permanent residence in Vienna began
a new epoch in his life. Vienna was at that time a literary, musical,
and social centre of importance, a home of all the arts. The reigning
family of Hapsburg was an uncommonly musical one; the empress, her
father, her husband (Francis of Lorraine), and her daughters were all
music lovers. Maria Theresa herself sang in the operatic performances
at her private theatre. Joseph II played the 'cello in its orchestra.
The court chapel had its band, the cathedral its choir and four
organists. In the Hofburg and at the rustic palace of Schönbrunn music
was a favorite diversion of the court, cultivated alike by the Austrian
and the Hungarian nobility. The royal opera houses at Launburg and
Schönbrunn placed in their service a long series of the famous opera
composers.
_Semiramide_ had recommended its composer to the favor of Maria
Theresa, his star was in the ascendant. In September, 1754, his comic
opera _Le Chinese_, with its tragic-comic ballet, _L’Orfano della
China_, performed at the countryseat of the Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen
in the presence of the emperor and court, gave such pleasure that
its author was definitely attached to the court opera at a salary of
two thousand ducats a year. His wealthy marriage and his increasing
reputation, instead of tempting him to indulge in luxurious ease,
spurred him to increased exertions. He added to the sum total
of his knowledge by studies of every kind--literary, poetic, and
linguistic--and his home became a meeting place for the _beaux esprits_
of art and science. He wrote several more operas to librettos by
Metastasio, witnessed the triumph of two of them in Rome, after which
he was able to return to Vienna, a _cavaliere dello sperone d’oro_
(knight of the golden spur), this distinction having been conferred
upon him by the Pope. Henceforth he called himself _Chevalier_ or
_Ritter_ (not _von_) Gluck.
V
For the sake of continuity we are obliged at this point to resume
the thread of our remarks concerning the _opera buffa_ of Pergolesi.
In 1752, about the time of Gluck’s official engagement at the Vienna
opera, an Italian troupe of ‘buffonists’ introduced in Paris _La
serva padrona_ and _Il maestro in musica_ (Pergolesi’s only other
comic opera). Their success was sensational, and, having come at a
psychological moment, far-reaching in results, for it gave the impulse
to a new school, popular to this day--that of the French _opéra
comique_, at first called _opera bouffon_.
The latter part of the eighteenth century had witnessed the birth of
a new intellectual ideal in France, essentially different from those
associated with the preceding movements of the Renaissance and the
Reformation. Neither antiquity nor the Bible were in future to be the
court of last instance, but judgment and decision over all things
was referred to the individual. This theory, and others laid down by
the encyclopedists--the philosophers of the time--reacted equally on
all the arts. New theories concerning music were advanced by laymen.
Batteaux had already insisted that poetry, music, and the dance were,
by very nature, intended to unite; Diderot and Rousseau conceived
the idea of the unified work of art. Jean Jaques Rousseau,[9] the
intellectual dictator, who laid a rather exaggerated claim to musical
knowledge, and the famous satirist, Baron Melchior Grimm, now began a
literary tirade against the old musical tragedy of France, which, like
the Italian opera, had become paralyzed into mere formulas. Rousseau,
who had shortly before written a comic opera, _Le devin du village_
(The Village Seer), in French, now denounced the French language, with
delightful inconsistency, as unfit to sing; Grimm in his pamphlet, _Le
petit prophète de Boehmisch-Broda_, threatened the French people with
dire consequences if they did not abandon French opera for Italian
_opera buffa_.[10] This precipitated the widespread controversy
between Buffonists and anti-Buffonists, known as the _Guerre des
bouffons_, which, in this age of pamphleteers, of theorists, and
revolutionary agitators, soon assumed political significance. The
conservatives hastened to uphold Rameau and the cause of native art;
the revolutionists rallied to the support of the Italians. Marmontel,
Favart, and others set themselves to write after the Italian model,
‘Duni brought from Parma his _Ninette à la cour_ and followed it in
1757 with _Le peintre amoureux_; _Monsigny_[11] left his bureau and
Philidor[12] his chess table to follow the footsteps of Pergolesi;
lastly came Grétry from Rome and killed the old French operatic style
with _Le Tableau parlant_ and _Zémire et Azor_!’ The result was the
production of a veritable flood of pleasing, delightful operettas
dealing with petty love intrigues, mostly of pastoral character, in
place of the stale, mythological subjects common to French and Italian
opera alike. The new school quickly strengthened its hand and improved
its output. Its permanent value lay, of course, in the infusion of new
vitality into operatic composition in general, a rejuvenation of the
poetic as well as musical technique, the unlocking of a whole treasure
of subjects hitherto unused.
Gluck at Vienna, already acquainted with French opera, was quick to
see the value of this new _genre_, and he produced, in alternation
with his Italian operas, a number of these works, partly with
interpolations of his own, partly rewritten by him in their entirety.
Among the latter class must be named _La fausse esclave_ (1758);
_L’île de Merlin_ (1758); _L’arbre enchantée_ (1759); _L’ivrogne
corrigé_ (1760); _Le cadi dupé_ (1761); and _La recontre imprévue_
(1764). As Riemann suggests, it is not accidental that Gluck’s idea to
reform the conventionalized opera dates from this period of intensive
occupation with the French _opéra bouffon_. There is no question that
the simpler, more natural art, and the genuineness and sincerity of the
comic opera were largely instrumental in the fruition of his theories.
His only extended effort during the period from 1756 to 1762 was a
pantomimic ballet, _Don Giovanni_, but the melodramas and symphonies
(or overtures) written for the private entertainment of the imperial
family, as well as seven trio sonatas, varied in expression and at
times quite modern in spirit, also date from this time. It is well to
remember also that this was a period of great activity in instrumental
composition; that the Mannheim school of symphonists was just then at
the height of its accomplishment.
Gluck’s first reform opera, _Orfeo ed Euridice_, appeared in 1762.
The young Italian poet and dramatist, Raniero da Calzabigi, supplied
the text. Calzabigi, though at first a follower of Metastasio, had
conceived a violent dislike for that librettist and his work. A
hot-headed theorist, he undoubtedly influenced Gluck in the adoption
of a new style, perhaps even gave the actual initiative to the change.
The idea was not sudden. We have already pointed out how the later
Neapolitans had contributed elements of reform and had paved the way
in many particulars. They had not, however, like Gluck, attacked the
root of the evil--the text. Metastasio’s texts were made to suit only
the old manner; Calzabigi’s were designed to a different purpose: the
unified, consistent expression of a definite dramatic scheme. In the
prefaces which accompanied their next two essays in the new style,
_Alceste_ and _Paride_, Gluck reverted to almost the very wording of
Peri and Caccini, but nevertheless no reaction to the representative
style of 1600 was intended. Though he spoke of ‘forgetting his
musicianship,’ he did not deny himself all sensuous melodic flow in
favor of a _parlando_ recitative. Too much water had flowed under the
bridges since 1600 for that. Scarlatti and his school had not wrought
wholly in vain. But the coloratura outrage, the concert-opera, saw the
beginning of its end. The _da capo_ aria was discarded altogether, the
chorus was reintroduced, and the subordination of music to dramatic
expression became the predominating principle. Artificial sopranos
and autocratic _prime donne_ could find no chance to rule in such a
scheme; their doom was certain and it was near. In the war that ensued,
which meant their eventual extinction, Gluck found a powerful ally in
the person of the emperor, Francis I.
In that sovereign’s presence _Orfeo_ was first given at the
_Hofburgtheater_ in Vienna. Its mythological subject--the same that
Ariosti treated in his _favolo_ of 1574, that Peri made the theme of
his epoch-making drama of 1600, that Monteverdi chose for his Mantuan
debut in 1607--was surely as appropriate for this new reformer’s first
experiment as it was suited to the classic simplicity and grandeur of
his music. The opera was studied with the greatest care, Gluck himself
directing all the rehearsals, and the participating artists forgot
that they were virtuosi in order better to grasp the spirit of the
work. It was mounted with all the skill that the stagecraft of the
day afforded. Although it did not entirely break with tradition and
was not altogether free of the empty formulas from which the composer
tried to escape, it was too new to conquer the sympathies of the
Viennese public at once. Indeed, the innovations were radical enough to
cause trepidations in Gluck’s own mind. His strong feelings that the
novelty of _Orfeo_ might prevent its success induced him to secure the
neutrality of Metastasio before its first performance, and his promise
not to take sides against it openly.
Gluck’s music is as fresh to-day as when it was written. Its beauty
and truth seemed far too serious to many of his contemporaries. People
at first said that it was tiresome; and Burney declared that ‘the
subordination of music to poetry is a principle that holds good only
for the countries whose singers are bad.’ But after five performances
the triumph of _Orfeo_ was assured and its fame spread even to Italy.
Rousseau said of it: ‘I know of nothing so perfect in all that
regards what is called fitness, as the ensemble in the Elysian fields.
Everywhere the enjoyment of pure and calm happiness is evident, but
so equable is its character that there is nothing either in the
songs or in the dance airs that in the slightest degree exceeds its
just measure.’ The first two acts of _Orfeo_ are profoundly human,
with their dual picture of tender sorrow and eternal joy. The grief
of the poet and the lamentations of his shepherd companions, rising
in mournful choral strains, insistent in their reiteration of the
motive indicative of their sorrow, are as effective in their way as
the musical language of Wagner, even though they lack the force of
modern harmony and orchestral sonority. The principle is fundamentally
the same. Nor is Gluck’s music entirely devoid of the dramatic force
which has come to music with the growth of the modern orchestra. Much
of the delineation of mood and emotion is left to the instruments.
Later, in the preface to _Alceste_, Gluck declared that the overture
should be in accord with the contents of the opera and should serve as
a preparation for it--a simple, natural maxim to which composers had
been almost wholly blind up to that time. In Gluck’s overtures we see,
in fact, no Italian, but a German, influence. They partake strongly of
the nature of the first movements of the Mannheim symphonies, showing a
contrasting second theme and are clearly divided into three parts, like
the sonata form. Thus the new instrumental style was early introduced
into the opera through Gluck’s initiation, and thence was to be
transferred to the overtures of Mozart, Sacchini, Cherubini, and others.
In 1764 _Orfeo_ was given in Frankfort-on-the-Main for the coronation
of the Archduke Joseph as Roman king. The imperial family seems to
have been sympathetically appreciative of Gluck’s efforts with the
new style; but nevertheless his next work, _Telemacco_, produced at
the Burgtheater in January, 1765, though considered the best of his
Italian operas, was a peculiar mixture of the stereotype and the new,
as if for a time he lacked confidence. Quite different was the case
of _Alceste_ (Hofburgtheater, Dec. 16, 1767). In this, his second
classic music drama, the composer carried out the reforms begun in
_Orfeo_ more boldly and more consistently. Calzabigi again wrote the
text. The music was neither so full of color nor so poetic as that
of its predecessor, yet was more sustained and equal in beauty. The
orchestration is somewhat fuller; the recitatives have gained in
expressiveness; there are effects of great dramatic intensity, and
arias of severe grandeur. Berlioz called _Alceste’s_ aria ‘Ye gods
of endless night’ the perfect manifestation of Gluck’s genius. Like
_Orfeo_, _Alceste_ was admirably performed, and again opinions differed
greatly regarding it. Sonnenfels[13] wrote after the performance: ‘I
find myself in wonderland. A serious opera without _castrati_, music
without _solfeggios_, or, I might rather say, without gurgling; an
Italian poem without pathos or banality. With this threefold work of
wonder the stage near the Hofburg has been reopened.’ On the other
hand, there were heard in the parterre such comments as ‘It is meant
to call forth tears--I may shed a few--of _ennui_’; ‘Nine days without
a performance, and then a requiem mass’; or ‘A splendid two gulden’s
worth of entertainment--a fool who dies for her husband.’ This last is
quite in keeping with the sentiment of the eighteenth century in regard
to conjugal affection. It took a long while for the public to accustom
itself to the austerity and tragic grandeur of this ‘tragedy set to
music,’ as its author called it. Yet _Alceste_ in its dual form (for
the French edition represents a complete reworking of its original) is
Gluck’s masterpiece, and it still remains one of the greatest classical
operas.
Three years after _Alceste_ came _Paride ed Elena_ (Nov. 30, 1770), a
‘drama for music.’ In the preface of the work, dedicated to the duke
of Braganza, Gluck again emphasized his beliefs. Among other things he
wrote: ‘The more we seek to attain truth and perfection the greater the
need of positiveness and accuracy. The lines that distinguish the work
of Raphael from that of the average painter are hardly noticeable, yet
any change of an outline, though it may not destroy resemblance in a
caricature, completely deforms a beautiful female head. Only a slight
alteration in the mode of expression is needed to turn my aria _Che
faro senza Euridice_ into a dance for marionettes.’ _Paride ed Elena_,
constructed on the principles of _Orfeo_ and _Alceste_, is the least
important of Gluck’s operas and the least known. The libretto lacks
action, but the score is interesting because of its lyric and romantic
character. Much of its style seems to anticipate the new influences
which Mozart afterward brought to German music. It also offers the
first instance of what might be called local color in its contrasting
choruses of Greeks and Asiatics.
It is interesting to note that at the time of composing the lyrical
‘Alceste’ Gluck was also preparing for French opera with vocal
romances, _Lieder_. His collection of songs set to Klopstock’s odes
was written in 1770. They have not much artistic value, but they are
among the earliest examples of the _Lied_ as Mozart and Beethoven later
conceived it, a simple song melody whose mission is frankly limited
to a faithful emphasis of a lyrical mood. Conceived in the spirit of
Rousseau, they are spontaneous and make an unaffected appeal to the
ear. The style is nearer that of French _opéra comique_, at which Gluck
had already tried his hand, thus obtaining an exact knowledge of the
spirit of the French language and of its lyrical resources.
VI
The wish of Gluck’s heart was to carry to completion the reforms he
had initiated, but Germany had practically declared against them.
His musical and literary adversaries at the Viennese court, Hasse
and Metastasio, had formed a strong opposition. Baron Grimm spoke of
Gluck’s reforms as the work of a barbarian. Agricola, Kirnberger, and
Forkel were opposed to them. In Prussia, Frederick the Great had a few
arias from _Alceste_ and _Orfeo_ sung in concert, and decided that the
composer ‘had no song and understood nothing of the grand opera style,’
an opinion which, of course, prevented the performance of his operas in
Berlin. In view of all this it is not surprising that he should turn to
what was then the centre of intellectual life, that he should seize the
opportunity to secure recognition for his art in the great home of the
drama--in Paris.
Let us recall for a moment Gluck’s connection with the French _opéra
bouffon_. Favart had complimented him, in a letter to the Vienna opera
director Durazzo, for the excellence of his French ‘déclamation.’
Evidently Gluck and his friend Le Blanc du Roullet, attaché of the
French embassy, had kept track of the _Guerre des bouffons_, and
had taken advantage of the psychology of the moment, for Rameau had
died in 1764 and the consequent weakening of the National party had
resulted in the victory of the Buffonists. Du Roullet suggested to
Gluck and Calzabigi that they collaborate upon a French subject for
an opera, and chose Racine’s _Iphigénie_. The opera was completed and
the text translated by du Roullet, who now wrote a very diplomatic
letter to the authorities of the Académie royale (the Paris opera).
It recounted how the Chevalier Gluck, celebrated throughout Europe,
admired the French style of composition, preferred it, indeed, to the
Italian; how he regarded the French language as eminently suited to
musical treatment, and that he had just finished a new work in French
on a tragedy of the immortal Racine, which exhausted all the powers
of art, simple, natural song, enchanting melody, recitative equal to
the French, dance pieces of the most alluring freshness. Here was
everything to delight a Frenchman’s heart; besides, his opera had been
a great financial success in Bologna, and so valiant a defender of the
French tongue should be given an opportunity in its own home.
The academy saw a new hope in this. It considered the letter in
official session, and cautiously asked to see an act of _Iphigénie_.
After examination of it Gluck was promised an engagement if he would
agree to write six operas like it. This condition, almost impossible of
acceptance for a man of Gluck’s age, was finally removed through the
intercession of Marie Antoinette, now dauphiness of France, Gluck’s
erstwhile pupil in Vienna.
Gluck was invited to come to Paris as the guest of the Académie
and direct the staging of _Iphigénie_. He arrived there with his
wife and niece[14] in the summer of 1773. Lodged in the citadel of
the anti-Buffonists, he incurred in advance the opposition of the
Italian party, but, diplomat that he was, he at once set about to
propitiate the enemy. Rousseau, the intellectual potentate of France,
was eventually won over; but, despite the fact that Gluck’s music
was essentially human and should have fulfilled the demands of the
‘encyclopedists,’ such men as Marmontel, La Harpe, and d’Alambert
were arrayed against him, together with the entire Italian party and
many of the followers of the old French school, who refused to accept
him as the successor of Lully and Rameau. Mme. du Barry was one of
these. Marie Antoinette, on the other hand, constituted herself Gluck’s
protector. It was the _Guerre des bouffons_ at its climax.
The _première_ of _Iphigénie en Aulide_ (April, 1774) was awaited with
the greatest impatience. Gluck had spared no pains in the preparation.
He drilled the singers, spoiled by public favor, with the greatest
vigor, and ruthlessly combatted their caprices. The obstacles were
many: Legras was ill; Larivée, the Agamemnon, did not understand his
part; Sophie Arnold, known as the greatest singing actress of her day,
sang out of tune; Vestris, the greatest dancer of his time--he was
called the ‘God of the Dance’--was not satisfied with his part in the
ballet of the opera. ‘Then dance in heaven, if you’re the god of the
dance,’ cried Gluck, ‘but not in my opera!’ And when the terpsichorean
divinity insisted on concluding _Iphigénie_ with a _chaconne_, he
scornfully asked: ‘Did the Greeks dance _chaconnes_?’ Gluck threatened
more than once to withdraw his opera, yielding only to the persuasions
of the dauphiness.
The second performance of the opera determined its triumph, a triumph
which in a manner made Paris the centre of music in Europe.[15]
Marie Antoinette even wrote to her sister Marie Christine to express
her pleasure. Gluck received an honorarium of 20,000 francs and was
promised a life pension. Less severe and solemn than _Alceste_,
_Iphigénie en Aulide_ and _Iphigénie en Tauride_ (written ten years
later to a libretto by Guillard and not heard until May 18, 1779) were
the favorites of town and court up to the very end of the _ancien
régime_. Not only are both more appealing and less sombre, but they are
also more delicate in form, more simple in sentiment, and more intimate
than _Alceste_.
Gluck’s fame was now universal. Voltaire, the oracle of France, had
pronounced in his favor. The nobility sought his society, the courtiers
waited on him. Even princes hastened, when he laid down his bâton, to
hand him the peruke and surcoat cast aside while conducting. A strong
well-built man, bullet-headed, with a red, pockmarked face and small
gray, but brilliant, eyes; richly and fashionably dressed; independent
in his manner; jealous of his liberty; opinionated, yet witty and
amiable, this revolutionary à la Rousseau, this ‘plebeian genius’
completely conquered all affections of Parisian society. He was at home
everywhere; every salon lionized him, he was a familiar figure at the
_levers_ of Marie Antoinette.
In August, 1774, a French version of _Orfeo_, extensively revised, was
heard and acclaimed. This confirmed the victory--the anti-Gluckists
were vanquished for the time. But a permanent connection with the
Paris opera did not at once result for Gluck, and the next year
he returned to Vienna, taking with him two old opera texts by
Quinault--Lully’s librettist--_Roland_ and _Armide_, which the
_Académie_ had commissioned him to set. He set to music only the
latter of the two poems, for, when he learned that Piccini likewise
had been asked to set the _Roland_, and had been invited to Paris by
Marie Antoinette, he destroyed his sketches. An older light operetta,
_Cythère assiegée_, which he recast and foolishly dispatched to Paris,
thoroughly displeased the Parisians. The opposition was quick to seize
its advantage. It looked about for a leader and found him in Piccini,
now at the head of the great Neapolitan school. He was induced to come
to Paris by tempting promises, but was so ill-served by circumstances
that, in spite of the manœuvres and the intrigues of his partisans, his
_Roland_ was not given until 1778.
On April 23, 1776, Gluck directed the first performance of his new
French version of _Alceste_. It was hissed. In despair Gluck rushed
from the opera house and exclaimed to Rousseau: ‘_Alceste_ has
fallen!’ ‘Yes,’ was the answer, ‘but it has fallen from the skies!’
In 1777 came _Armide_. In this opera Gluck thought he had written
sensuous music.[16] It no longer makes this impression--the passion
of ‘Tristan,’ the oriental voluptuousness of the _Scheherazade_ of
Rimsky-Korsakov, and the eroticism of modern dramatic scores have
somewhat cooled the warmth of the love music of _Armide_. On the other
hand, the passion of hatred is delineated in this opera powerfully
and vigorously enough for modern appreciation. _Armide_ is beautiful
throughout by reason of its sincerity.
Piccini’s _Roland_ followed _Alceste_ in a few months, January, 1778.
It was a success, but only a temporary one. After twelve well-attended
performances it ceased to draw. Nevertheless it fanned the flame of
controversy. The fight of Gluckists and Piccinnists, in continuation of
the _Guerre des bouffons_, of which the principals, by the way, were
quite innocent, was at its height. Men addressed each other with the
challenge ‘Êtes-vous Gluckiste ou Piccinniste?’ Piccini was placed at
the head of an Italian troupe which was engaged to give performances on
alternate nights at the _Académie_. The two ‘parties’ were now on equal
footing. Finally it occurred to the director to have the two rivals
treat the same subject and he selected Racine’s _Iphigénie en Tauride_.
Piccini was handicapped from the start. His text was bad, neither
his talent nor his experience was so suited to the task as Gluck’s.
The latter’s version was ready in May, 1779, and was a brilliant
success. According to the _Mercure de France_ no opera had ever made
so strong and so universal an impression upon the public. ‘Pure
musical beauty as sweet as that of _Orfeo_, tragic intensity deeper
than that of _Alceste_, a firm touch, an undaunted courage, a new
subtlety of psychological insight, all combine to form a masterpiece
such as throughout its entire history the operatic stage has never
known.’ Piccini, who meantime had produced his _Atys_, brought out his
_Iphigénie_ in January, 1781. Despite many excellences it was bound to
be anti-climax to Gluck’s. Needless to say it admits of no comparison.
Too great stress has often been laid on the quarrels of the ‘Gluckists’
and ‘Piccinnists,’ which, it is true, went to absurd lengths. As
is usually the case with partisanship in art, the chief characters
themselves were not personal enemies. The Italian sympathizers merely
took up the cry which the Buffonists had formerly raised against the
opera of Rameau. According to them Gluck’s music was made up of too
much noise and not enough song. ‘But the Buffonist agitation had been
justified by results; it had produced the _opéra comique_, which
had assimilated what it could use of the Italian _opera buffa_.’
Not so this new controversy. Hence, despite a few days of glory for
Piccini, his party was not able to reawaken in France a taste for the
superficial charm of Italian music. ‘The crowd is for Gluck,’ sighed La
Harpe. And when, after the glorious success of _Iphigénie en Tauride_,
Piccini’s _Didon_ was given in 1783, it owed the favor with which it
was received largely to the fact that in style and expression it
followed Gluck’s model.
In 1780, six months after the _Iphigénie_ première, Gluck retired
to Vienna to end his days in dignified and wealthy leisure. He had
accomplished his task, fulfilled the wish of his heart. In his
comfortable retreat he learned of the failure of Piccini’s _Iphigénie
en Tauride_, while his own was given for the 151st time on April 2,
1782! He also enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing that _Les Danaïdes_,
the opera written by his disciple and pupil, Antonio Salieri, justified
the truth of his theories by its success on the Paris stage in 1784.
It was this pupil, who, consulting Gluck on the question of whether
to write the rôle of Christ in the tenor in his cantata ‘The Last
Judgment,’ received the answer, half in jest, half in earnest, ‘I’ll
be able before long to let you know from the beyond how the Saviour
speaks.’ A few days after, on Nov. 15, 1787, the master breathed his
last, having suffered an apoplectic stroke.
The inscription on his tomb, ‘Here rests a righteous German man, an
ardent Christian, a faithful husband, Christoph Ritter Gluck, the great
master of the sublime art of tone’ emphasizes the strongly moral side
of his character. For all his shrewdness and solicitude for his own
material welfare, his music is ample proof of his nobility of soul; its
loftiness, purity, unaffected simplicity reflect the virtues for which
men are universally respected.
In its essence Gluck’s music may be considered the expression of
the classic ideal, the ‘naturalism’ and ‘new humanism’ of Rousseau,
which idealized the old Greek world and aimed to inculcate the Greek
spirit; courage and keenness in quest of truth and devotion to the
beautiful. The leading characteristics of his style have been aptly
defined as the ‘realistic notation of the pathetic accent and passing
movement, and the subordination of the purely musical element to
dramatic expression.’ ‘I shall try,’ he wrote in the preface to
_Alceste_, ‘to reduce music to its own function, that of seconding
poetry by intensifying the expression of sentiments and the interest of
situations without interrupting the action by needless ornament. I have
accordingly taken great care not to interrupt the singer in the heat of
the dialogue and make him wait for a tedious _ritornel_, nor do I allow
him to stop on a sonorous vowel, in the middle of a phrase, in order
to show the agility of a beautiful voice in a long cadenza. I also
believed it my duty to try to secure, to the best of my power, a fine
simplicity; therefore I have avoided a display of difficulties which
destroy clarity. I have never laid stress on aught that was new, where
it was not conditioned in a natural manner by situation and expression;
and there is no rule which I have not been willing to sacrifice with
good grace for the sake of the effect. These are my principles.’ The
inscription, _Il préféra les Muses aux Sirènes_ (He chose the Muses
rather than the Sirens), beneath an old French copper-plate of Gluck,
dating from 1781, sounds the keynote of his artistic character. A
prophet of the true and beautiful in music, he disdained to listen for
long to the tempting voices which counselled him to prefer the easy
rewards of popular success to the struggles and uncertainties involved
in the pursuit of a high ideal. And, when the hour came, he was ready
to reject the appeal of external charm and mere virtuosity and to lead
dramatic musical art back to its natural sources.
VII
Gluck’s immediate influence was not nearly as widespread as his reforms
were momentous. It is true that his music, reverting to simpler
structures and depending on subtler interpretation for its effects
put an end to the absolute rule of _prime uomini_ and _prime donne_,
but, while some of its elements found their way into the work of his
more conventional contemporaries, his example seems not to have been
wholly followed by any of them. His dramatic teachings, too, while
they could not fail to be absorbed by the composers, were not adopted
without reserve by any one except his immediate pupil Salieri, who
promptly reverted to the Italian style after his first successes. Gluck
was not a true propagandist and never gathered about him disciples
who would spread his teachings--in short he did not found a ‘school.’
Even in France, where his principles had the weight of official
sanction, apostasy was rife, and Rossini and Meyerbeer were probably
more appreciated than their more austere predecessor. His influence
was far-reaching rather than immediate. It remained for Wagner to take
up the thread of reasoning where Gluck left off and with multiplied
resources, musically and mechanically, with the way prepared by
literary forces, and himself equipped with rare controversial powers,
demonstrate the truths which his predecessor could only assert.
Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) with _Les Danaïdes_, in 1781, achieved
a notable success in frank imitation of Gluck’s manner; indeed, the
work, originally intrusted to Gluck by the Académie de Musique, was,
with doubtful strategy, brought out as that master’s work, and in
consequence brought Salieri fame and fortune. Other facts in Salieri’s
life seem to bear out similar imperfections of character. He was,
however, a musician of high artistic principles. When in 1787 _Tarare_
was produced in Paris it met with an overwhelming success, but
Salieri nevertheless withdrew it after a time and partially rewrote
it for its Vienna production, under the title of _Axur, Rè d’Ormus_.
‘There have been many instances in which an artist has been taught by
failure that second thoughts are best; there are not many in which
he has learned the lesson from popular approbation.’[17] Salieri’s
career is synchronous with Mozart’s, whom he outlived, and against
whom he intrigued in ungenerous manner at the Viennese court, where
he became kapellmeister in 1788. He profited by his rival’s example,
moreover, but his music ‘falls between the methods of his two great
contemporaries, it is less dramatic than Gluck’s and it has less
melodic genuineness than Mozart’s.’
Prominent among those who adhered to Italian operatic tradition
was Giuseppe Sarti (1729-1802), ‘a composer of real invention, and
a brilliant and audacious master of the orchestra.’ We have W. H.
Hadow’s authority for the assertion that he first used devices which
are usually credited to Berlioz and Wagner, such as the use of muted
trumpets and clarinets and certain experiments in the combination of
instrumental colors. Sarti achieved truly international renown; from
1755 to 1775 he was at the court of Copenhagen, where he produced
twenty Italian operas, and four Danish singspiele; next he was director
of the girls’ conservatory in Venice and till 1784 musical director of
Milan cathedral,[18] and from 1784 till 1787 he served Catherine II of
Russia as court conductor. His famous opera, _Armida e Rinaldo_, he
produced while in this post (1785), as well as a number of other works.
In 1793 he founded a ‘musical academy’ which was the forerunner of the
great St. Petersburg conservatory, and he was its director till 1801.
His introduction of the ‘St. Petersburg pitch’ (436 vibrations for A)
is but one detail of his many-sided influence.
Not the least point of Sarti’s historical importance is the fact that
he was the teacher of Cherubini. Luigi Cherubini occupies a peculiar
position in the history of music. Born in Florence in 1760 and
confining his activities to Italy for the first twenty-eight years
of his career, he later extended his influence into Germany (where
Beethoven became an enthusiastic admirer) and to Paris, where he
became a most important factor of musical life, especially in that
most peculiarly French development--the _opéra comique_. His operatic
method represents a compromise between those of his teacher, Sarti, and
of Gluck, who thus indirectly exerts his influence upon comic opera.
Successful as his many Italian operas--produced prior to 1786--were,
they hardly deserve notice here. His Paris activities, synchronous with
those of Méhul, are so closely bound up with the history of _opéra
comique_ that we may well consider them in that connection.
The _opéra comique_, the singspiel of France, was comic opera with
spoken dialogue. Its earlier exponents, Monsigny, Philidor, and Gossec,
were in various ways influenced by Gluck in their work. Grétry,[19]
whose _Le tableau parlant_, _Les deux avares_, and _L’Amant jaloux_ are
‘models of lightness and brilliancy,’ like Gluck ‘speaks the language
of the heart’ in his masterpieces, _Zémire et Azor_ and _Richard Cœur
de Lion_, and excels in delineation of character and the expression
of typically French sentiment. Grétry’s appearance marked an epoch in
the history of _opéra comique_. His _Mémoires_ expose a dramatic creed
closely related to that of Gluck, but going beyond that master in its
advocacy of declamation in the place of song.
Gossec, also important as symphonist and composer of serious operas
(_Philemon et Baucis_, etc.), entered the comic opera field in 1761,
the year in which the Opéra Comique, known as the Salle Favart, was
opened, though his real success did not come till 1766, with _Les
Pêcheurs_. Carried away by revolutionary fervor, he took up the
composition of patriotic hymns, became officially connected with
the worship of Reason, and eventually left the comic opera field to
Cherubini and Méhul. Both arrived in Paris in 1778, which marks the
second period of _opéra comique_.
The peaceful artistic rivalry and development of this period stand in
peculiar contrast to the great political holocaust which coincides
with it--the French Revolution. That upheaval was accompanied by an
almost frantic search for pleasure on the part of the public, and
an astounding increase in the number of theatres (seventeen were
opened in 1791, the year of Louis XVI’s flight, and eighteen more
up to 1800). Cherubini’s wife herself relates how the theatres were
crowded at night after the guillotine had done its bloody work by day.
Music flourished as never before and especially French music, for the
storm of patriotism which swept the country made for the patronage of
things French. In the very year of Robespierre’s execution (1794) the
_Conservatoire de Musique_ was projected, an institution which has ever
since remained the bulwark of French musical culture.[20]
In 1789 a certain Léonard, _friseur_ to Marie Antoinette, was given
leave to collect a company for the performance of Italian opera,
and opened his theatre in a hall of the Tuileries palace with his
countryman Cherubini as his musical director. The fall of the Bastille
in 1794 drove them from the royal residence to a mere booth in the
Foire St. Germain, where in 1792 they created the famous Théâtre
Feydeau, and delighted Revolutionary audiences with Cherubini versions
of Cimarosa and Paesiello operas. Here, too, _Lodoïska_, one of
Cherubini’s most brilliant works, was enthusiastically applauded.
Meantime Étienne Méhul (b. Givet, Ardennes, 1763; d. Paris, 1817),
the modest, retiring artist, who had been patiently awaiting the
recognition of the _Académie_ (his _Alonzo et Cora_ was not produced
till 1791) had become the hero of the older enterprise at the Salle
Favart,[21] and there produced his _Euphrosine et Corradin_ in 1790,
followed by a series of works of which the last, _Le jeune Henri_
(1797), was hissed off the stage because, in the fifth year of the
revolution, it introduced a king as character--the once adored Henry
IV! This was followed by a more successful series, ‘whose musical force
and the enchanting melodies with which they are begemmed have kept them
alive.’ His more serious works, notably _Stratonice_, _Athol_, and
especially _Joseph_, a biblical opera, are highly esteemed. M. Tiersot
considers the last-named work superior to that by Handel of the same
name. Méhul was Gluck’s greatest disciple--he was directly encouraged
and aided by Gluck--and even surpassed his master in musical science.
Cherubini’s _Médé_ and _Les deux journées_ were produced in 1797 and
1800, respectively. The latter ‘shows a conciseness of expression and
a warmth of feeling unusual to Cherubini,’ says Mr. Hadow; at any
rate it is better known to-day than any of the other works, and not
infrequently produced both in France and Germany. It is _opéra comique_
only in form, for it mixes spoken dialogue with music--its plot is
serious. In this respect it furnishes a precedent for many other
so-called _opéras comiques_. Cherubini’s musical resources were almost
unlimited, wealth of ideas is even a fault with him, having the effect
of tiring the listener, but his overtures are truly classic, his
themes refined, and his orchestration faultless. In _Les deux journées_
he abandoned the Italian traditions and confined himself practically
to ensembles and choruses. He must, whatever his intrinsic value, be
reckoned among the most important factors in the reformation of the
opera in the direction of music drama.
Cherubini was not so fortunate as to win the favor of Napoleon, as
did his colleagues, Gossec and Grétry and Méhul, all of whom received
the cross of the Legion of Honor. He returned to Vienna in 1805 and
there produced _Faniska_, the last and greatest of his operas, but
his prospects were spoiled by the capture of Vienna and the entry
of Napoleon, his enemy, at the head of the French army. He returned
to France disappointed but still active, wrote church music, taught
composition at the conservatory and was its director from 1821 till
his death in 1842. The _opéra comique_ continued meantime under the
direction of Paesiello and from 1803 under Jean François Lesueur
(1760-1837) ‘the only other serious composer who deserves to be
mentioned by the side of Méhul and Cherubini.’ Lesueur’s innovating
ideas aroused much opposition, but he had a distinguished following.
Among his pupils was Hector Berlioz.
F. H. M.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Collegium musicum No. 29.
[2] Riemann: Handbuch, II³, p. 121.
[3] Usually Nicolo Logroscino is named as having gone before him,
but, as that composer is in evidence only from 1738 (two years after
Pergolesi’s death), the date of his birth usually accepted (1700) seems
doubtful (cf. Kretzschmar in _Peters-Jahrbuch_, 1908).--Riemann: _Ibid._
[4] Born in Naples, date unknown; died there in 1763. He was one of
the creators of _opera buffa_, his parodistic dialect pieces--_Il
governatore_, _Il vecchio marito_, _Tanto bene che male_, etc.--being
among its first examples. In 1747 he became professor of counterpoint
at the _Conservatorio dei figliuoli dispersi_ in Palermo.
[5] After his return to Naples his three last works, _Armida_,
_Demofoonte_, and _Ifigenia in Tauride_, passed over the heads of an
unmindful public. The composer felt these disappointments keenly.
Impaired in health he retired to his native town of Aversa and died
there August 25, 1774.
[6] Baldassare Galuppi, born on the island of Burano, near Venice, In
1706; died in Venice, 1785, was a pupil of Lotti. He ranks among the
most eminent composers of comic operas, producing no less than 112
operas and 3 dramatic cantatas in every musical centre of Europe. He
also composed much church music and some notable piano sonatas.
[7] Oskar Bie; _Die Oper_ (1914).
[8] Bohuslav Czernohorsky (1684-1740) was a Franciscan monk, native
of Bohemia, but successively choirmaster in Padua and Assisi, where
Tartini was his pupil. He was highly esteemed as an ecclesiastical
composer. At the time when Gluck was his pupil he was director of the
music at St. Jacob’s, Prague.
[9] Born 1712; died 1778. Though not a trained musician he evinced
a lively interest in the art from his youth. Besides his _Devin du
village_, which remained in the French operatic repertoire for sixty
years, he wrote a ballet opera, _Les Muses galantes_, and fragments of
an opera, _Daphnis et Chloé_. His lyrical scene, _Pygmalion_, set to
music first by Coignet, then by Asplmayr, was the point of departure of
the so-called ‘melodrama’ (spoken dialogue with musical accompaniment).
He also wrote a _Dictionnaire de musique_ (1767).
[10] _Le petit prophète de Boehmisch-Broda_ has been identified by
historians with the founder of the Mannheim school, Johann Stamitz,
for the latter was born in Deutsch-Brod (Bohemia), and but two years
before had set Paris by the ears with his orchestral ‘sonatas.’ The
hero of the Grimm pamphlet is a poor musician, who by dream magic is
transferred from his bare attic chamber to the glittering hall of
the Paris opera. He turns away, aghast at the heartlessness of the
spectacle and music.
[11] Pierre Alexandre Monsigny, born near St. Omer, 1729, died, Paris,
1817. _Les aveux indiscrets_ (1759); _Le cadi dupé_ (1760); _On ne
s’avise jamais de tout_ (1761); _Rose et Colas_ (1764), etc., are his
chief successes in opera comique.
[12] François-André-Danican Philidor, born, Dreux, 1726; died,
London, 1795. Talented as a chess player he entered international
contests successfully, and wrote an analysis of the game. His love
for composition awoke suddenly and he made his comic-opera debut in
1759. His best works are: _Le maréchal férant_ (1761); _Tom Jones_
(1765), which brought an innovation--the _a capelli_ vocal quartet; and
_Ernelinde, princesse de Norvège_ (1767), a grand opera.
[13] Sonnenfels, a contemporary Viennese critic, was active in his
endeavors to uplift the German stage. (_Briefe über die Wienerische
Schaubühne_, Vienna, 1768.)
[14] Gluck’s marriage was childless, but he had adopted a niece,
Marianne Gluck, who had a pretty voice and pursued her musical training
under his care. Both Gluck’s wife and niece usually accompanied him in
his travels.
[15] After _Iphigénie en Aulide_ Paris became the international centre
of operatic composition. London was more in the nature of an exchange,
where it was possible for artists to win a good deal of money quickly
and easily; the glory of the great Italian stages dimmed more and more,
and Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, and Munich were only locally important.
Operatic control passed from the Italian to the French stage at the
same time German instrumental composition began its victories.
[16] Gluck declared that the music of Armide was intended ‘to give
a voluptuous sensation,’ and La Harpe’s assertion that he had made
_Armide_ a sorceress rather than an enchantress, and that her part was
‘_une criallerie monotone et fatigante_,’ drew forth as bitter a reply
from the composer as Wagner ever wrote to his critics.
[17] W. H. Hadow: Oxford History of Music, Vol. V.
[18] During this period he produced his famous operas, _Le gelosie
vilane; Fernace_ (1776), _Achille in Sciro_ (1779), _Giulio Sabino_
(1781).
[19] André Erneste Modeste Grétry, born, Liège, 1742; died, near Paris,
1813. ‘His Influence on the _opéra comique_ was a lasting one; Isouard,
Boieldieu, Auber, Adam, were his heirs.’--Riemann.
[20] The Paris _Conservatoire de Musique_, succeeding the Bourbon
_École de chant et de déclamation_ (1784) and the revolutionary
_Institut National de Musique_ (1793), was established 1795, with
Sarrette as director and with liberal government support. Cherubini
became its director in 1822, and its enormous influence on the general
trend of French art dates from his administration.
[21] The two theatres, after about ten years’ rivalry, united as
the Opéra Comique which, under government subsidy, has continued to
flourish to this day.
CHAPTER II
THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CLASSIC PERIOD
Classicism and the classic period--Political and literary forces--The
conflict of styles; the sonata form--The Berlin school; the sons of
Bach--The Mannheim reform; the Genesis of the Symphony--Followers of
the Mannheim school; rise of the string quartet; Vienna and Salzburg
as musical centres.
It is impossible to assign the so-called Classic Movement to a definite
period; its roots strike deep and its limits are indefinite. It
gathered momentum while the ideas from which it revolted were in their
ascendency; its incipient stage was simultaneous with the reign of
Italian opera. To define the meaning of classicism is as difficult as
it is to fix the date of its beginning. By contrasting, as we usually
do, the style of that period with a later one, usually called the
Romantic, by comparing the ideal of classicism with the romantic ideal
of subjective expression, we get a negative rather than a positive
definition; for classicism is generally presumed to be formal, and
antagonistic to that free ideal--a supposition which is not altogether
exact, for it was just the reform of the classicists that opened
the way to the free expressiveness which is characteristic of the
‘Romantics.’ On the other hand, the classic ideal of just proportions,
of pure objective beauty, did find expression in the crystallized
forms, the clarified technique, and the flexible articulation that
superseded the unreasonably ornate, the polyphonically obscure, or the
superficial, trite monotony of a great part of pre-classic music.
I
When Gluck’s _Alceste_ first appeared on the boards of the Imperial
Opera in 1768, Mozart, the twelve-year-old prodigy, was the pet of
Viennese salons; Haydn, with thirty symphonies to his credit, was
laying the musical foundations of a German Versailles at Esterhàz;
Emanuel Bach, practically at the end of his career, had just left
Frederick the Great to become Telemann’s successor at Hamburg; and
Stamitz, the great reformer of style and the real father of the modern
orchestra, was already in his grave. On the other hand, there were
still living men like Hasse and Porpora, whose recollection reached
back to the very beginnings of the century. These men belonged to
an earlier age, and so did in a sense all the men discussed in the
last chapter, with a few obvious exceptions. But their influence
extended far into the period which we are about to discuss; their
careers are practically contemporaneous with the classic movement. The
beginnings of that movement, the first impulses of the essentially new
spirit we must seek in the work of men who were, like Pergolesi, the
contemporaries of Bach and Handel.
To the reader of history perhaps the most significant outward sign of
the impending change is the shifting of musical supremacy away from
Italy, which had held unbroken sway since the days of Palestrina. We
have seen in the last chapter how with Gluck the operatic centre of
gravity was transferred from Naples to Paris. We shall now witness a
similar change in the realm of ‘absolute’ music--this time in favor
of Germany. The underlying causes of this change are fundamentally
the same as those which directed the course of literature and general
culture--namely the social and political upheaval that followed the
Reformation and ushered in a century of struggle and strife, that
kindled the Phœnix of a united and liberated nation, the Germany of
to-day. A glance at the political history of the preceding era will
help our comprehension of the period with which we have to deal.
The peace of Westphalia (1648) had left the German Empire a
dismembered, powerless mass. No less than three hundred ‘independent’
states, ruled over by petty tyrants--princes, dukes, margraves,
bishops--each of whom had the right to coin money, raise armies and
contract alliances, made up a nation defenseless against foes, weakened
by internal and military oppression, steeped in abject misery and
moral depravity. For over a hundred years it remained an ‘abortion,’
an ‘irregular body like unto a monster,’ as Puffendorf characterized
it. Despite its pretensions it was, as Voltaire said, ‘neither
holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.’ Flood after flood of pillaging
soldiery had passed across its fertile acres, spreading ruin and
dejection; the ravages of Louis XIV, the invasion of Kara Mustapha,
the Spanish, the Swedish, the Polish wars, left the people victims
of the selfish ambitions of brutish monarchs, men whose example set
a premium upon crime. These noble robbers had made of the map of
Europe a crazy-quilt, the only sizable patches of which represented
France, Austria, and Russia. Italy, like Germany, was divided, but
with this difference--its several portions were actually ruled by the
‘powers’--Austria had Tuscany and Milan, Spain ruled Naples and Sicily,
while France owned Sardinia and Savoy. Its superior culture, having
thus the benefit of a benevolent paternalism, penetrated to the very
hearts of the conquerors, to Vienna, Madrid, and Paris, and spread a
thin but glittering coat all over Europe. Germany, on the other hand,
was, under the sham of independence, so constantly threatened with
annihilation, so impoverished through strife, that the very idea of
culture suggested a foreign thing, an exotic within the reach only
of the mighty. Friedrich von Logau in the early seventeenth century
bewailed the influx of foreign fashions into Germany, while Moscherosch
denounced the despisers and traitors of his fatherland; and Lessing,
over a century later, was still attacking the predominance of French
taste in literature. We must not wonder at this almost total eclipse of
native culture. The fact that the racial genius could perpetuate its
germ, even across this chasm of desolation, is one of the astounding
evidences of its strength.
That germ, to which we owe the preservation of German culture, that
thin current which ran all through the seventeenth and the early
eighteenth century, had two distinct manifestations: the religious
idealism of the north, and the optimistic rationalism of the south,
which found expression in the writings of Leibnitz. The first of these
movements produced in literature the religious lyrics of Protestant
hymn writers, in music the cantatas, passions, and oratorios of a Bach
and a Handel. Its ultimate expression was the _Messias_ of Klopstock,
which in a sense combined the two forms of art; for, as Dr. Kuno
Francke[22] says, it is an ‘oratorio’ rather than an epic. As for
Leibnitz, according to the same authority, ‘it is hard to overestimate
his services to modern culture. He stands midway between Luther and
Goethe.... In a time of national degradation and misery his philosophy
offered shelter to the higher thought and kept awake the hope of an
ultimate resurrection of the German people.’ The one event which
signalizes that resurrection more than any is the battle of Rossbach in
1757. This was the shot that reverberated through Europe and summoned
all eyes to witness a new spectacle, a prince who declared himself
the servant of his people. With Frederick the Great as their hero the
Germans of the North could rally to the hope of a fatherland; their
poets, tongue-tied for centuries, broke forth in new lyric bursts; the
vision of a united, triumphant Germany fired patriots, philosophers,
scientists and artists with enthusiasm for a new ideal. This
idealism--or sentimentality--stood in sharp contrast to the somewhat
cynical rationalism of Rousseau, Diderot, and d’Alembert, but it had an
even stronger influence on art.
The immediate effect of this regeneration was an increased output of
literature and of music, a greater individuality, or assertiveness,
in the native styles, the perfection of its technique, and the
crystallization of its forms. In literature it bore its first fruits
in the works of Klopstock and Wieland. Already in 1748 Klopstock had
‘sounded that morning call of joyous idealism which was the dominant
note of the best in all modern German literature.’ This poet is an
important figure to us, for he is of all writers the most admired in
the period of musical history with which these chapters deal. His very
name brought tears to the eyes of Charlotte in Goethe’s _Werther_;
Leopold Mozart could go no further in his admiration of his son’s
genius than to compare him to Klopstock. Wieland, who lived less in
the realm of the spiritual but was fired with a greater enthusiasm
for humanity, was among the first to give expression to his hope of
a united Germany. He was personally acquainted with Mozart and early
appreciated his genius.[23]
A transformation was thus wrought in the minds of the people of
northern Europe. Much as in the humanitarian revelation of the Italian
Renaissance, men became introspective, discovered in the recesses of
their souls a new sympathy; men’s hearts became more receptive than
they had ever been; and, as, after the strife of centuries, Europe
settled down to a placid period of reconstruction, all this found
manifold expression in people’s lives and in their art.
The close of the Seven Years’ War in 1763 had brought an era of
comparative peace. Austria, though deprived of some territory, entered
upon a period of prosperity which augured well for the progress of art;
Prussia, on the other hand, proceeded upon a career of unprecedented
expansion under the enlightened leadership of the great Frederick. The
Viennese court, which had patronized music for generations, now became
what Burney called it, ‘the musical capital of Europe,’ while Berlin
and Potsdam constituted a new centre for the cultivation of the art.
Frederick, the friend of Voltaire, though himself a lover of French
culture, and preferring the French language to his own, nevertheless
encouraged the advancement of things native. He insisted that his
subjects patronize home manufactures, affect native customs, and,
contrary to Joseph II in Vienna, he engaged German musicians for his
court in preference to Italians. The two courts may thus be conceived
as the strongholds of the two opposing styles, German and Italian,
which in fusing produced the new expressive style that is the most
characteristic element of classic music.
II
To make clear this conflict of styles represented by the north and
the south, by Berlin and Vienna, respectively, we need only ask the
reader to recall what we have said about the music of Bach in Vol.
I and that of Pergolesi in the last chapter. In the one we saw the
culmination of polyphonic technique upon a modern harmonic basis,
a fusion of the old polyphonic and new monodic styles, enriched by
infinite harmonic variety, with a wealth of ingenious modulations and
chromatic alterations, and a depth of spirit analogous to the religious
idealism which we have cited as the dominant intellectual note of
post-Reformation Germany. In the other, the direct outcome of the
monodic idea, and therefore essentially melodic, we found a consummate
grace and lightness, but also a certain shallowness, a desire to
please, to tickle the ear rather than to stir the deeper emotions.
In the course of time this style came to be absolutely dominated by
harmony, through the peculiar agency of the Figured Bass. But instead
of an ever-shifting harmonic foundation, an iridescent variety of
color, we have here an essentially simple harmonic structure, largely
diatonic, and centring closely around the tonic and dominant as the
essential points of gravity, swinging the direction of its cadences
back and forth between the two, while employing every melodic device to
introduce all the variety possible within the limitations of so simple
a scheme.
While, then, the style of Bach, and the North Germans, on the one
hand, had a predominant _unity of spirit_ it tended to _variety of
expression_; the style of the Italians, on the other hand, brought a
_variety of ideas_ with a comparative simplicity of scheme or _monotony
of expression_, which quickly crystallized into stereotyped forms. One
of these forms, founded upon the simple harmonic scheme of tonic and
dominant, developed, as we have seen, into the instrumental sonata,
a type of which the violin sonatas of Corelli and his successors,
Francesco Geminiani, Pietro Locatelli, and Giuseppe Tartini, and the
piano sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti are excellent examples. Many
Italians managed to endow such pieces with a breadth, a song-like
sweep of melody, to which their inimitable facility of vocal writing
led them quite naturally. Pergolesi especially, as we have said,
deserves special merit for the introduction of the so-called ‘singing
allegro’ in the first movements of his sonatas. Germans were quick
to follow these examples and their innate tendency to variety of
expression caused them to add another element--that of rhythmic
contrast.[24] Indeed, although the Italian style continued to hold sway
throughout Europe long after 1700, we find among its exponents an ever
greater number of Germans. Their proclivity for harmonic fullness,
pathos, and dignity was, moreover, reinforced by the influence of
French orchestral music of the style of Lully and his successors. It
was reserved for the Germans, also, to develop the sonata form as we
know it to-day, to build it up into that wonderful vehicle for free
fancy and for the philosophic development of musical ideas.
Before introducing the reader to the men of this epoch, who
prepared the way for Haydn and Mozart, we are obliged, for a better
understanding of their work, to describe briefly the nature and
development of that form which serves, so to speak, as a background to
their activity.
Certain successive epochs in the history of our art have been so
dominated by one or another type of music that they might as aptly
derive their names from the particular type in fashion as the early
Christian era did from plain-chant. Thus the sixteenth century might
well be called the age of the madrigal, the early seventeenth the
period of accompanied monody, and the late seventeenth the epoch of
the suite. As the vogue of any of these forms increases, a chain of
conventions and rules invariably grows up which tends first to fix
it, then to force it into stereotypes which become the instrument of
mediocre pedants. The very rules by which it grows to perfection become
the shackles which arrest its expansion. Thus it usually deteriorates
almost immediately after it has reached its highest elevation at the
hand of genius, unless it gives way to the broadening, liberalizing
assaults of iconoclasts, and only in the measure to which it is capable
of adapting itself to broader principles is further life vouchsafed to
it. It continues then to exist beyond the period which is, so to speak,
its own, in a sort of afterglow of glory, less brilliant but infinitely
richer in interest, color and all-pervading warmth. All the types
above mentioned, from the madrigal down, have continued to exist, in a
sense, to our time, and, though our age is obviously as antagonistic
to the spirit of the madrigal as it is to that of plain-chant, we
might cite modern part-songs partaking of the same spirit which have
a far stronger appeal. The modern symphonic suites of a Bizet or a
Rimsky-Korsakoff as compared to the orchestral suite of the eighteenth
century furnish perhaps the most striking case in point.
The period which this and the following chapters attempt to describe is
dominated by the sonata form. Not a composer of instrumental music--and
it was essentially the age of instrumental music--but essayed that form
in various guises. Even the writers of opera did not fail to adopt
it in their instrumental sections, and even in their arias. But the
decades which are our immediate concern represent a formative stage,
because there is much variety, much uncertainty, both in nomenclature
and in the matter itself. Nomenclature is never highly specialized at
first. A name primarily denotes a variety of things which have perhaps
only slight marks of resemblance. Thus we have seen how _sonata_,
derived from the verb _suonare_, to sound, is at first a name for any
instrumental piece, in distinction to _cantata_, a vocal piece. The
_canzona da sonar_ (or _canzon sonata_) symbolized the application
of the vocal style to instruments, and the abbreviation ‘sonata’ was
for a time almost synonymous with _sinfonia_, as in the first solo
sonatas (for violin) of Bagio Marini about 1617. The sonata in its
modern sense is essentially a solo form; but, during a century or more
of its evolution, the most familiar guise under which it appeared was
the ‘trio-sonata.’ That, as we have seen, broadened out to symphonic
proportions (while adapting some of the features of the orchestral
suite) and the sonata became more specifically a solo piece, or,
better, a group of pieces, for the sonata of our day is a ‘cyclical’
piece. But through all its outward manifestations, and irrespective of
them, it underwent a definite and continuous metamorphosis, by which it
assumed a more and more definite pattern, or patterns, which eventually
fused into one.
The ‘cycle sonata’ undoubtedly had its root idea in the dance suite,
and for a long time that derivation was quite evident. The minuet,
obstinately holding its place in the scheme until Beethoven converted
it into the scherzo, was the last birthmark to disappear. The variety
of rhythm that the dance suite offers is also clearly preserved in
the principle of rhythmic contrasts _between the movements_. These
comprise usually a rapid opening movement embodying the essentials
of the ‘sonata form’; a contrasting slow movement, shorter and
in less conventional form--sometimes aria, sometimes ‘theme and
variations’--stands next; the finale, in the lighter Italian form, was
usually a quick dance movement or short, brilliant piece of slight
significance; in the German and more developed examples it was often
a rondo (one principal theme recurring at intervals throughout the
piece with fresh ‘episodical’ matter interspersed), and more and more
frequently it was cast in the first-movement form. Between the slow
movement and the finale is the place for the minuet (if the sonata is
in four movements). Haydn, though not the first so to use it, quickened
its tempo and enriched it in content. A second minuet (Menuetto II)
appears in the earlier symphonies of Haydn and Mozart, which by and
by is incorporated with the first as ‘trio’--the familiar alternate
section always followed by a repeat of the minuet itself.
Of course, the distinguishing feature of the sonata over all other
forms is the peculiar pattern of at least _one_ of its movements--most
usually the first--the outcome of a long evolution, which, in its
finally settled form, with the later Mozart and with Beethoven, became
the most efficient, the most flexible, and the most convincing medium
for the elaboration of musical ideas. The ‘first-movement form,’ as it
has been called, appears in the eighteenth century in either of two
primary patterns: the _binary_ (consisting of two sections), and the
_ternary_ (consisting of three). The binary, gradually introduced by
the Italians, notably Pergolesi and Alberti, is simply a broadening
of the ‘song-form’ in two sections (each of which is repeated),
having one single theme or subject, presented in the following key
arrangement (‘A’ denoting the tonic or ‘home’ key and ‘B’ the dominant
or related key): |:A--B:| |:B--A:|. This, with broadened dimensions
and more definite thematic distinction, within each section gave way
to: |:A¹--B²:||:B¹--A²:| (¹ and ² representing first and second theme,
respectively). In this arrangement the second section simply reproduces
the thematic material of the first, but in the reverse order of keys
or tonality. It should be added that the ‘second theme’ was usually,
at this early stage of development, a mere suggestion, an embryo with
very slight individuality. The leading representatives of this type of
form as applied to the suite as well as the sonata were Pergolesi,
Domenico Alberti, Handel, J. S. Bach, J. F. Fasch, Domenico Scarlatti,
Locatelli, and Gluck, and most of the later Italians, who continued to
prefer this easily comprehended form, placing but simple problems of
musicianship before the composer. It was eminently suited to the easy
grace of polite music, of the ‘salon’ music of the eighteenth century.
But in the works of German suite writers especially the restatement of
the first theme after the double bar displays almost from the beginning
a tendency toward variety, abridgment, expansion, and modulation of
harmony. Gradually this section assumed such a bewildering, fanciful
character, such a variety of modulations, that the subject in its
original form was forgotten by the hearer, and all recollection of the
original key had been obliterated from the mind. Composers then grasped
the device of restating the first theme in the original key after
this free development of it, and then restating the second theme as
before. Both the tonic and the dominant elements of the first section
(or exposition) are now seen to be repeated in the tonic key in the
restatement section (or recapitulation) and the form has assumed the
following shape:
||:A¹--B²:||:(A²) | Development or | A¹--B¹:|
‘Working-out’
This is clearly a three-division form, and as such is closely allied
to the ballad form, or _ternary_ song-form, which is as old as the
binary. Already Johann Sebastian Bach in his Prelude in F minor, in
the second part of the ‘Well-tempered Clavichord,’ gives an example
of it, and in Emanuel Bach and his German contemporaries this type
becomes the standard. But it is curious to observe how strongly the
Italian influence worked upon composers of the time, for, whenever
the desire to please is evident in their work, we see them adopt the
simpler pattern, and even when the ternary form is used the so-called
‘working-out’ is little more than an aimless sequence of meaningless
passage work intended to dazzle by its brilliance and its grandiose
effects, with but little relation to the subject matter of the piece.
Even Mozart and Haydn veered back and forth between the two types until
they had arrived at a considerably advanced state of maturity.
The second theme, as time went on, became more and more individualized
and, as it assumed more distinct rhythmic and melodic characteristics,
it lent itself more freely to logical development, like the principal
subjects, became in fact a real ‘subject’ on a par with the first.
With Stamitz and the Mannheim school, at last, we meet the idea of
_contrast between the two themes_, not only in key but in spirit, in
meaning. As with characters in a story, these differences can readily
be taken hold of and elaborated. The themes may be played off against
each other, they may be understood as masculine and feminine, as bold
and timid, or as light and tragic--the possibilities of the scheme are
unlimited, the complications under which an ingenious mind can conceive
it are infinite in their interest. Thus only, by means of _contrast_,
could states of mind be translated into musical language, thus only was
it possible to give voice to the deeper sentiments, the new feelings
that were tugging at the heart-strings of Europe. Only with this great
principle of emotional contrast did the art become receptive to the
stirrings of _Sturm und Drang_, of incipient Romanticism, thus only
could it give expression to the graceful melancholy of a Mozart, the
majestic ravings of a Beethoven.
III
Having given an indication of the various stages through which the
sonata form passed, we may now speak of the men who developed it. We
are here, of course, concerned only with those who cultivated the
later and eventually universal German type.
In the band of musicians gathered about the court of Frederick the
Great we find such pioneers as Joachim Quantz, the king’s instructor
on the flute;[25] Gottlieb Graun, whose significance as a composer of
symphonies, overtures, concertos, and sonatas is far greater than that
of his brother Karl Heinrich, the composer of _Der Tod Jesu_; and the
violinist Franz Benda, who was, however, surpassed in musicianship
by his brother Georg, _kapellmeister_ in Gotha. All of these and a
number of others constitute the so-called Berlin school, whose most
distinguished representative by far was Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach,
the most eminent of Johann Sebastian’s sons. He has been called, not
without reason, the father of the piano sonata, for, although Kuhnau
preceded him in applying the form to the instrument, it is he who made
it popular, and who definitely fixed its pattern, determined the order
of its movements--Allegro; Andante or Adagio; Allegro or Presto--so
familiar to all music-lovers.
Emanuel Bach was born in Weimar in 1714. He was sent to Frankfort
to study law, but instead established a chorus with himself as its
leader. In 1738 he went to Berlin, where, two years later, we see
him playing the accompaniments to ‘Old Fritz’s’ flute solos. The
royal amateur’s accomplishments were of doubtful merit, but Bach
stood the strain for twenty-seven years, at the end of which the king
abandoned the flute for the sword, and Bach abandoned the king to
finish his days in Hamburg as director of church music. But church
music was not his _métier_. His cantatas were ‘pot-boilers.’ Emanuel
was made of different stuff from his father. He fitted into his
time--a polished courtier, more witty than pious, more suave than
sincere, more brilliant than deep, but of solid musicianship none the
less--the technician _par excellence_, both as composer and executant,
a clean-cut formalist, a thorough harmonist ‘crammed full of racy
novelty,’ though not free from pedantry, and preferring always the
_galant_ style of the period. The ‘polite’ instrument, the harpsichord,
was essentially his. The ‘Essay on the True Manner of Playing the
Clavier,’ which he wrote in Berlin, is still of value to-day. His
technique was, no doubt, derived from that of his father, but he
introduced a still more advanced method of fingering.
His great importance to history, however, lies in his instrumental
compositions, comprising no less than two hundred and ten solo
pieces--piano sonatas, rondos, concertos, trio-sonatas of the
conventional type (two violins and bass), six string quartets and the
symphonies printed in 1780. These works exercised a dual force. While
yielding to the taste of the time, they held the balance to the side
of greater harmonic richness and artistic propriety; on the other
hand, they played an important part in the further development of the
prevailing forms to a point where they could become ‘free enough and
practical enough to deal with the deep emotions.’ ‘As yet people looked
on the art as a refined sort of amusement. Not until Beethoven had
written his music did its possibilities as a vehicle for deep human
feeling and experience become evident.’[26] By following fashion Bach
became its leader, and so exercised a widespread influence over his
contemporaries and immediate followers. For a few years, says Mr. W. H.
Hadow, the fate of music depended upon Emanuel Bach; Mozart himself,
though directly influenced by him only in later life, called him ‘the
father of us all.’
Bach may hardly be said to have originated the modern ‘pianistic’
style--the free, brilliant manner of writing particularly adapted
to the requirements of the instrument. Couperin and the astonishing
Domenico Scarlatti were before him. Naturally the instrument which he
used was not nearly so resonant or sonorous as the piano of our day;
an instrument the strings of which were plucked by quills attached
to the key lever, not hit by hammers as the strings of our piano,
was, of course, devoid of all sustaining power. This fact accounts
for the infinite number of ornaments, trills, mordents, grace notes,
bewildering in their variety, with which Bach’s sonatas are replete.
Despite the technical reason for their existence we cannot forego the
obvious analogy between them and the rococo style prevalent in the
architecture and decorations of the period. Emanuel Bach’s music was as
fashionable as that style, and his popularity outlasted it. Strange as
it may seem, ‘Bach,’ in the eighteenth century and beyond, always meant
‘Emanuel’!
Quite a different sort of man was Emanuel’s elder brother, Wilhelm
Friedemann Bach, the favorite son of his father and thought to be
the most gifted, too. But the definition of genius as ‘an infinite
capacity for taking pains’ would not fit his gifts. Wilhelm preferred
a good time to concentrated labor, hence his name is not writ large in
history. Yet his work, mostly preserved only in manuscript--concertos,
suites, sonatas and fantasias--shows more real individuality, more
_Innigkeit_ and, at times, real passion than does his brother’s. And,
moreover, something that could never happen to his brother’s works
happened to one of his. It was ascribed to his father and was so
published in the Bach Society’s edition of Sebastian’s works. In the
examples of his work, resurrected by the indefatigable Dr. Riemann,
we are often surprised by harmonic vagaries and rhythmic ingenuities
that recall strongly the older Bach; the impassioned fancy of that
polyphonic giant finds often a faint echo in the rhapsodic wanderings
of his eldest son.
Friedemann Bach’s life was, like his work, rambling, irregular. Born
in 1710, he was organist in Dresden from 1733 to 1747; then at Halle,
in the church that was Handel’s drilling ground under old Zachau. His
extravagances cost him this post and perhaps many another, for he roved
restlessly over Germany for the rest of his life until, a broken-down
genius of seventy-four, he ended his career in Berlin in 1784.
In sharp contrast to the career of the oldest son of Bach stands that
of the youngest, Johann Christian (born 1734, in Leipzig), chiefly
renowned as an opera composer of the Italian school. He has been
called the ‘Milanese Bach,’ because from 1754 to 1762 he made that
Italian city his home and there wrote operas, and became a Catholic
to qualify as the organist of Milan Cathedral; and the ‘London Bach’
because there he spent the remaining twenty years of his life, a most
useful and honorable career. His first London venture was in opera,
too, but his historic importance does not lie in that field. Symphonies
(including one for two orchestras), concertos for piano and various
other instruments, quintets, quartets, trios, sonatas for violin, and
numerous piano pieces which did much to popularize the new instrument,
are his real monuments. Trained at first by his brother Emanuel, he
was bound to follow the polite, elegant style of the period, and more
so perhaps because of his Italian experience. For that reason his
value has been greatly underestimated. But he is, nevertheless, an
important factor in the stylistic reform that prepared the way for the
great classics, and the upbuilding of German instrumental music. Of
his influence upon Mozart and Haydn we shall have more to say anon.
That influence was, of course, largely Italian, for Bach followed the
Italian pattern in his sonatas. It was he that passed on to Mozart the
_singing allegro_ which he had brought with him from Italy, and so he
may be considered in a measure the communicator of Pergolesi’s genius.
As the centre of London musical life Christian Bach exercised a
tremendous influence in the formation of popular taste.[27] The
subscription concerts which he and another German, Carl Friedrich Abel
(1725-1787), instituted in 1764, were to London what the _Concerts
spirituels_ were to Paris. Not only symphonies, but cantatas and
chamber works of every description were here performed in the manner of
our public concerts of to-day, and the higher forms of music were thus
placed for the first time within the reach of a great number of people.
After 1775 these concerts took place in the famous Hanover Square Rooms
and were continued until 1782. In the following year another series,
known as the ‘Professional Concerts,’ was begun and since that time the
English capital has had an unbroken succession of symphonic concerts.
IV
The writer of musical history is confronted at every point with the
problem of classification. The men whom we have discussed can, though
united by ties of nationality and even family, hardly be considered
as of one school. We have taken them as the representatives of the
North German musical art; yet, as we were obliged to state, Southern
influence affected nearly all of them. Similarly, we should find
in analyzing the music of the Viennese that a more or less rugged
Germanism had entered into it. J. J. Fux (1660-1741), the pioneer of
the ‘Viennese school’; Georg Reutter, father and son (1656-1738, and
1708-1772); F. L. Gassmann (1723-1774); Johann Georg Albrechtsberger
(1736-1809); Leopold Hoffman (1730-1772); Georg Christoph Wagenseil
(1715-1777); and Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-1799), who, with
others, are usually reckoned as of that school, are all examples of
this Germanism. Indeed, these men assume a historic importance only in
the degree to which they absorb the advancing reforms of their northern
_confrères_. All of them are indebted for what merit they possess to
the great school of stylistic reformers who, about the year 1750,
gathered in the beautiful Rhenish city of Mannheim, and whose leader,
Johann Stamitz, was, until recently, unknown to historians except as an
executive musician. His reappearance has cleared up many an unexplained
phenomenon, and for the first time has placed the entire question of
the origins of the Classic, or Viennese, style, the style of Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven, in its proper light. Much of the merit ascribed
to Emanuel Bach, for instance, in connection with the sonata, and to
Haydn in connection with the symphony belongs rightfully to Stamitz. We
may now safely consider the Viennese school, like that of Paris, as an
offshoot of the Mannheim school and shall, therefore, discuss both as
subsidiary to it.
The Mannheim reform brought into instrumental music, as we have said,
one essentially new idea--the idea of contrast. Contrast is one of the
two fundamental principles of musical form; the other is reiteration.
Reiteration in its various forms--imitation, transposition, and
repetition--is a familiar element in every musical composition. The
‘germination’ of musical ideas, the logical development of such ideas,
or motives--into phrases, sentences, sections, and movements, is in
practice only a broadening of that principle. All the forms which we
have discussed--the aria, the canzona, the toccata, the fugue, and the
sonata--owe their being to various methods of applying it. Contrast,
the other leading element of form, may be applied technically in
several different ways, of which only two interest us here--contrast
of _key_ and dynamic contrast. Contrast of key is the chief requisite
in the most highly organized forms, such as the fugue and the sonata,
and as such had been consciously employed for practically two hundred
years. But dynamic contrast--the change from loud to soft, and _vice
versa_, especially gradual change, which, moreover, carries with it the
broader idea of varying expression, contrast of _mood_ and _spirit_,
never entered into instrumental music until the advent of Johann
Stamitz. It is this duality of expression that distinguishes the new
from the old; this is the outstanding feature of Classic music over all
that preceded it.
Johann Stamitz was born in Deutsch-Brod, Bohemia, in 1717, and died at
Mannheim in 1757. In the course of his forty years he revolutionized
instrumental practice and laid the foundations of modern orchestral
technique, created a new style of composition, which enabled Mozart and
Beethoven to give adequate expression to their genius; and originated a
method of writing which resulted in the abolition of the Figured Bass.
When, in 1742, Charles VII had himself crowned emperor in Frankfort,
Stamitz first aroused the attention of the assembled nobility as a
violin virtuoso. The Prince Elector of the Palatinate, Karl Theodor,
at once engaged him as court musician. In 1745 he made him his concert
master and musical director. Within a year or two, Stamitz made the
court band into the best orchestra of Europe. Burney, Leopold Mozart,
and others who have left their judgment of it convince us that it was
as good as an orchestra could be with the limitations imposed by the
still imperfect intonation of certain instruments. It was, at any
rate, the first orchestra on a modern footing, whose members were
artists, bent upon artistic interpretation. It is curious to read
Leopold Mozart’s expression of surprise at finding them ‘honest, decent
people, not given to drink, gambling, and roistering,’ but such was the
reputation musicians as a class enjoyed in those days.[28]
We may recall how Jommelli introduced the ‘orchestral crescendo’ in the
Strassburg opera. That he emulated the Mannheim orchestra rather than
set an example for it seems unquestionable; for Stamitz had already
been at his work ten years when Jommelli arrived. The gradual change
from _piano_ to _forte_, and the sudden change in either direction
to indicate a change of mood, not only within single movements, but
_within phrases and even themes_, was bound to lead to important
consequences. While fiercely opposed by the pedants among German
musicians, the practice found quick acceptance in the large centres
where Stamitz’s famous Opus 1 was performed. These Six Sonatas (or
Symphonies), ‘_ou à trois ou avec toutes (sic) l’orchestre_,’ were
brought out in 1751 at the _Concerts spirituels_ under Le Gros.[29]
Stamitz’s ‘Sonatas’ were performed with drums, trumpets, and horns.
Another symphony with horns and oboes, and another with horns and
clarinets (a rare novelty), were brought out in the winter of 1754-55,
with Stamitz himself as conductor. These ‘symphonies’ were, as a
matter of fact, trio-sonatas in the conventional form--two violins
and Figured Bass--such as had been produced in great number since
the time of Pergolesi. But there was a difference. The Figured Bass
was a fully participating third part, not depending upon the usual
harpsichord interpretation of the harmony. The compositions were,
in fact, true string trios. But they were written for (optional)
orchestral execution, and when so performed the added wind instruments
supplied the harmonic ‘filling.’ This means, then, the application of
the classic sonata form to orchestral music, and virtually the creation
of the symphony.[30]
While not, by a long way, parallel with the symphonies of Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven, these works of Stamitz are, nevertheless, true
symphonies in a classic style, orchestral compositions in sonata form.
They have the essential first-movement construction, they are free from
the fugato style of the earlier orchestral pieces, and, instead of the
indefinite rambling of passage work, they present the clear thematic
phraseology, the germination of ideas, characteristic of the form.
Their sincere phraseology, says Riemann, ‘their boldness of conception,
and the masterly thematic development which became an example in the
period that followed ... give Stamitz’s works lasting value. Haydn and
Mozart rest absolutely upon his shoulders.’[31]
Following Stamitz’s first efforts there appeared in print a veritable
flood of similar works, known in France as _Simphonies d’Allemagne_,
most of them by direct pupils of Stamitz, by F. X. Richter, his
associate in Mannheim, by Wagenseil, Toeschi, Holtzbauer, Filtz, and
Cannabich, his successor at the Mannheim _Pult_. Stamitz’s own work
comprises ten orchestral trios, fifty symphonies, violin concertos,
violin solo and violin-piano sonatas, a fair amount for so short a
career. That for a long time this highly interesting figure disappeared
from the annals of musical history is only less remarkable than the
eclipse of Bach’s fame for seventy-five years after his death, though
in Stamitz’s case it was hardly because of slow recognition, for
already Burney had characterized him as a great genius. Arteaga in 1785
called him ‘the Rubens among composers’ and Gerbert (1792) said that
‘his divine talent placed him far above his contemporaries.’
V
From these contemporaries we shall select only a few as essential links
in the chain of development. Three men stand out as intermediaries
between Stamitz and the Haydn-Mozart epoch: Johann Schobert, chiefly
in the field of piano music; Luigi Boccherini, especially for stringed
chamber-music; and Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, for the symphony.
These signalize the ‘cosmopolization’ of the new art; representing, as
it were, its French, Italian, and South German outposts.
Schobert is especially important because of the influence which he and
his colleague Eckard exercised upon Mozart at a very early age.[32]
These two men were the two favorite pianists of Paris _salons_ about
the middle of the century. Chamber music with piano obbligato found
in Schobert one of its first exponents. A composer of agreeable
originality, solid in musicianship, and an unequivocal follower of the
Mannheim school, he must be reckoned as a valiant supporter of the
German sonata as opposed to its lighter Italian sister, though French
characteristics are not by any means lacking in his work.
As one in whom these characteristics predominate we should mention
François Joseph Gossec, familiar to us as the writer of _opéras
comiques_, but also important as a composer of trio-sonatas (of the
usual kind), some for orchestral performance (like those of Stamitz,
_ad lib._), and several real symphonies, all of which are clearly
influenced in manner by Stamitz and the Mannheimers. Gossec was, in a
way, the centre of Paris musical life, for he conducted successively
the private concerts given under the patronage of La Pouplinière,
those of Prince Conti in Chantilly, the _Concert des amateurs_, which
he founded in 1770, and, eventually, the _Concerts spirituels_,
reorganized by him. The _Mercure de France_, in an article on Rameau’s
_Castor et Pollux_, calls Gossec France’s representative musician among
the pioneers of the new style. Contrasting his work with Rameau’s the
critic refers to the latter as being _d’une teneur_ (of one tenor),
while Gossec’s is full of _nuance_ and contrast. This slight digression
will dispose of the ‘Paris school’ for the present; we shall now
proceed to the chief _Italian_ representative of Mannheim principles.
In placing Boccherini before Haydn in our account of the string quartet
we may lay ourselves open to criticism, for Haydn is universally
considered the originator of that form. But, as in almost every case,
the fixing of a new form cannot be ascribed to the efforts of a single
man. Although Haydn’s priority seems established, Boccherini may more
aptly be taken as the starting point, for, while Haydn represents a
more advanced state of development, Boccherini at the outset displays a
far more finished routine.
In principle, the string quartet has existed since the sixteenth
century, when madrigals[33] and _frottole_ written in vocal polyphony
and for vocal execution were adapted to instruments. The greater part
of the polyphonic works of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
was written in four parts, and so were the German _lieder_, French
_chansons_, and Italian _canzonette_, as well as the dance pieces
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In instrumental music
four-part writing has never been superseded, despite the quondam
preference for many voices, and the one hundred and fifty years’ reign
of Figured Bass. But a strictly four-part execution was adhered to
less and less, as orchestral scoring came more and more into vogue for
suite and sonata. Hence the string quartet, when it reappeared, was as
much of a novelty in its way as the accompanied solo song seemed to
be in 1600. _Quartetti_, _sonate a quattro_ and _sinfonie a quattro_
are, indeed, common titles in the early seventeenth century, but their
character is distinctly different from our chamber music; they are
_orchestral_, depending on harmonic thickening and massed chordal
effects, while the peculiar charm of the string quartet depends on
purity and integrity of line in every part, and while, at the same
time, each part is at all times necessary to the harmonic texture.
Thus the string quartet represents a more perfect fusion of the
polyphonic and harmonic ideals than any other type. The exact point of
division between ‘orchestral’ and true quartets cannot, of course, be
determined, though the distinction becomes evident in works of Stamitz
and Gossec, when, in one opus, we find trios or quartets, some of which
are expressly determined for orchestral treatment while others are not.
It is Stamitz’s reform again which ‘loosened the tongue of subjective
expression,’ and, by turning away from fugal treatment, prepared the
way for the true string quartet. Boccherini’s first quartets are
still in reality symphonies; and in Haydn’s early works, too, the
distinction between the two is not clear. Boccherini’s, however, are
so surprisingly full of new forms of figuration, so sophisticated in
dynamic nuances, and so strikingly modern in style that, without the
previous appearance of Stamitz, Boccherini would have to be considered
a true pioneer.
Luigi Boccherini was born in 1743 in Lucca. After appearing in Paris
as ‘cellist he was made court virtuoso to Luiz, infanta of Spain, and
accordingly he settled in Madrid. Frederick William II of Prussia
acknowledged the dedication of a work by conferring the title of court
composer on Boccherini, who then continued to write much for the king
and was rewarded generously, like Haydn and Mozart after him. The
death of his royal patron in 1797 and the loss of his Spanish post
reduced the composer to poverty at an old age (he died 1805). He has
to his credit no less than 91 string quartets, 125 string quintets, 54
string trios and a host of other works, including twenty symphonies,
also cantatas and oratorios. To-day he is neglected, perhaps unjustly,
but in this he shares the fate of all the musicians of his period
who abandoned themselves to the lighter, more elegant _genre_ of
composition.
The relation of Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf to the Mannheim school
is, in the symphonic field, relatively the same as that of Schobert
in regard to the piano, and Boccherini in connection with the string
quartet. Again we must guard against the criticism of detracting
from the glory of Haydn. Both Haydn and Dittersdorf were pioneers in
developing the symphony according to the Mannheim principles, but, of
course, Haydn in his later works represents a more advanced stage, and
will, therefore, more properly receive full treatment in the next
chapter. Ditters probably composed his first orchestral works between
1761 and 1765, while kapellmeister to the bishop of Grosswardein in
Hungary, where he succeeded Michael Haydn (of whom presently). Though
Joseph Haydn’s first symphony (in D-major) had already appeared in
1759, it had as yet none of the ear-marks of the new style.
Ditters was doubtless more broadly educated than most musicians of his
time,[34] and probably in touch with the latest developments, a fact
borne out by his works, which, however, show no material advance over
his models.
These works include, notably, twelve orchestral symphonies on Ovid’s
_Metamorphoses_, besides about one hundred others and innumerable
pieces of chamber music, many of the lighter social _genre_, and
several oratorios, masses, and cantatas. His comic operas have a
special significance and will be mentioned in another connection.
Ditters was more fortunate in honors than material gain. Both the
order of the Golden Spur, which seems to have been a coveted badge of
greatness, and the patent of nobility came to him; but after the death
of his last patron, the prince bishop of Breslau, he was forced to
seek the shelter of a friendly roof, the country estate of Ignaz von
Stillfried in Bohemia, where he died in 1799.
His Vienna colleague, Georg Christian Wagenseil,[35] we may dismiss
with a few words, for, though one of the most fashionable composers
of his time, his compositions have hardly any historic interest--they
lack real individuality. But he was in the line of development under
the Mannheim influence, and he did for the piano concerto what
Schobert did for the sonata--applied to it the newly crystallized
sonata form. His concertos were much in vogue; little Mozart had them
in his prodigy’s repertoire--and no doubt they left at least a trace of
their influence on his wonderfully absorbent mind. Wagenseil enjoyed a
favored existence at court as teacher of the Empress Maria Theresa and
the imperial princesses, with the rank of imperial court composer. The
Latin titles on his publications seem to reflect his somewhat pompous
personality. Pieces in various forms for keyboard predominate, but the
usual quota of string music, church music, and some symphonies are in
evidence. His sixteen operas are a mere trifle in comparison with the
productivity of the period.
* * * * *
Before closing our review of the minor men of the period which had its
climax in the practically simultaneous appearance of Haydn and Mozart,
we must take at least passing notice of two men, the brother of one
and the father of the other, who, by virtue of this close connection,
could not fail to exercise a very direct influence upon their greater
relatives. By a peculiar coincidence these two had one identical scene
of action--the archiepiscopal court of Salzburg, that Alpine fastness
hemmed in by the mountains of Tyrol, Styria, and Bohemia. Hither
Leopold Mozart had come from Augsburg, where he was born in 1719, to
study law at the university; but he soon entered the employ of the
Count of Thurn, canon of the cathedral, as secretary, and subsequently
that of the prince archbishop as court musician, and here he ended his
days at the same court but under another master of a far different
sort. Johann Michael Haydn became his confrère, or rather his superior,
in 1762, having secured the place of archiepiscopal _kapellmeister_,
left vacant by the death of the venerable Eberlin. Before this he had
held a similar but less important post at Grosswardein (Hungary) as
predecessor to Ditters, and, like his slightly older brother Joseph,
had begun his career as chorister in St. Stephen’s in Vienna.
Salzburg had always been one of the foremost cities of Europe in its
patronage of musical art. Not only the reigning prelates, but people
of every station cultivated it. At this time it held many musicians
of talent; and its court concerts as well as the elaborate musical
services at the cathedral and the abbey of St. Peter’s, the oratorios
and the occasional performances under university auspices contributed
to the creation of a real musical atmosphere. The old Archbishop
Sigismund, whose death came only too soon, must, in spite of the elder
Mozart’s misgivings on the subject, have been a liberal, appreciative
patron, for the interminable leaves of absence, for artistic and
commercial purposes, required by both father and son were sufficient to
try the patience of anyone less understanding. Leopold’s chief merit
to the world was the education of his son, for the sake of which he
is said to have sacrificed all other opportunities as pedagogue. His
talents in that direction were considerable, as his pioneer ‘Violin
method’ (1756) attests. It experienced several editions, also in
translations, some even posthumous. His compositions, through the
agency of which his great son first received the influence of Mannheim,
were copious but of mediocre value. Nevertheless, their formal
correctness and sound musicianship were most salutary examples for the
emulation of young Wolfgang. Leopold had the good sense to abandon
composition as soon as he became aware of his son’s genius and to bend
every effort to its development. The elder Mozart received the title
of court composer and the post of _vice-kapellmeister_ under Michael
Haydn, when the latter came to Salzburg.
Michael Haydn’s career in Salzburg was a most honorable one. It placed
him in a state of dignity which, though eminently gratifying, was
less calculated to rouse inspiration and ambition than the stormier
career of his greater brother. Notwithstanding this fact, he has left
something like twenty-eight masses, two requiems, 114 graduals, 66
offertories, and much other miscellaneous church music; songs, choruses
(the earliest four-part _a capella_ songs for men’s voices); thirty
symphonies (not to be compared in value to his brother’s), and numerous
smaller instrumental pieces! But a peculiar form of modesty which made
him averse to seeing his works in print confined his influence largely
to local limits. It is a most fortunate fact that within these limits
it fell upon so fertile a ground. For young Mozart was most keen in his
observation of Haydn’s work, appreciated its value and received the
first of those valuable lessons that the greater Joseph taught him in
this roundabout fashion.
C. S.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] History of German Literature (1907).
[23] ‘The Emperor Joseph, who objected to Haydn’s “tricks and
nonsense,” requested Dittersdorf in 1786 to draw a parallel between
Haydn’s and Mozart’s chamber music. Dittersdorf answered by requesting
the Emperor in his turn to draw a parallel between Klopstock and
Gellert; whereupon Joseph replied that both were great poets, but that
Klopstock must be read repeatedly in order to understand his beauties,
whereas Gellert’s beauties lay plainly exposed to the first glance.
Dittersdorf’s analogy of Mozart with Klopstock, Haydn with Gellert (!),
was readily accepted by the Emperor.’ Cf. Otto Jahn: ‘Life of Mozart,’
Vol. III.
[24] Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758) was, according to Riemann, the
first to introduce this contrast. He was one of the most interesting of
the minor composers of Bach’s time. Cf. Riemann’s _Collegium Musicum_,
No. 10.
[25] His compositions were chiefly for that instrument, and he achieved
lasting merit with his _Anweisung die Flöte traversière zu spielen_
(1752). He was born in 1697 and died in 1773.
[26] Surette and Mason: ‘The Appreciation of Music.’
[27] He was music master to the queen and in a way entered upon the
heritage of Handel.
[28] For further details concerning the Mannheim orchestra we refer the
reader to Vol. VIII, Chap. II.
[29] The _Concerts spirituels_, founded in 1725 by Philidor, were so
called because they were held on church holidays, when theatres were
closed. Mouret, Thuret, Royer, Mendonville, d’Auvergne, Gaviniès, and
Le Gros succeeded Philidor in conducting them till the revolution
in 1791 brought them to an end. Another series of concerts, though
private, is important for us here, because of its early acceptance of
Mannheim principles. This was inaugurated by a wealthy land owner, La
Pouplinière, who had been an enthusiastic protector of Rameau. ‘It
was he,’ said Gossec, ‘who first introduced the use of horns at his
concerts, _following the counsel of the celebrated Johann Stamitz_.’
This was about 1748, and in 1754 Stamitz himself visited the orchestra,
after which Gossec became its conductor and developed the new style.
[30] Riemann cites Scheibe in the _Kritische Musikus_ to the effect
that symphonies with drums and trumpets (or horns) were already common
in 1754, but we may safely assume that they were not symphonies in
our sense--orchestral sonatas--for it must be recalled that the
word _Sinfonia_ was applied to pieces of various kinds, from a
note-against-note canzona (seventeenth century) to interludes in
operas, oratorios, etc., and more especially to the Italian operatic
overture as distinguished from the French. The German dance-suite,
too, from 1650 on, had a first movement called _Sinfonia_, which
was superseded by the overture (in the French style) soon after. In
the early eighteenth century the prevailing orchestral piece was an
_overture_, usually modelled after the Italian Sinfonia. Not this,
indeed, but the chamber-sonata was the real forerunner of the symphony,
as our text has just shown.
[31] _Handbuch der Musikgeschichte_, II². We are indebted to Riemann
for this entire question of Stamitz, whose findings are the result of
very recent researches.
[32] The first four piano concertos ascribed to Mozart in Koechel’s
catalogue have now been proved to be merely studies based on Schobert’s
sonatas. Cf. T. de Wyzewa et G. de St. Foix: _Un maître inconnu de
Mozart_.
[33] The majority of madrigals were, however, written in five parts.
[34] This education he owed to the magnanimity of Prince Joseph of
Hildburghausen, whom in his youth he attended as page. In 1761 the
prince secured him a place in the Vienna court orchestra which he held
till his engagement in Grosswardein.
[35] Born, Vienna, 1715; died there 1777.
CHAPTER III
THE VIENNESE CLASSICS: HAYDN AND MOZART
Social aspects of the classic period; Vienna, its court and its
people--Joseph Haydn--Haydn’s work; the symphony; the string
quartet--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart--Mozart’s style; Haydn and Mozart;
the perfection of orchestral style--Mozart and the opera; the
Requiem; the mission of Haydn and Mozart.
I
We have prefaced the last chapter with a review of the political and
literary forces leading up to the classic period. A brief survey
of social conditions may similarly aid the reader in supplying
a background to the important characters of this period and the
circumstances of their careers. First, we shall avail ourselves of
the picturesque account given by George Henry Lewes in his ‘Life
of Goethe.’ ‘Remember,’ he says, ‘that we are in the middle of the
eighteenth century. The French Revolution is as yet only gathering
its forces together; nearly twenty years must elapse before the storm
breaks. The chasm between that time and our own is vast and deep. Every
detail speaks of it. To begin with science--everywhere the torch of
civilization--it is enough to say that chemistry did not then exist.
Abundant materials, indeed, existed, but that which makes a science,
viz., the power of _prevision_ based on _quantitative_ knowledge, was
still absent; and alchemy maintained its place among the conflicting
hypotheses of the day.... This age, so incredulous in religion, was
credulous in science. In spite of all the labors of the encyclopedists,
in spite of all the philosophic and religious “enlightenment,” in
spite of Voltaire and La Mettrie, it was possible for Count St. Germain
and Cagliostro to delude thousands; and Casanova found a dupe in the
Marquise d’Urfé, who believed he could restore her youth and make
the moon impregnate her![36] It was in 1774 that Messmer astonished
Vienna with his marvels of mystic magnetism. The secret societies of
Freemasons and Illuminati, mystic in their ceremonies and chimerical
in their hopes--now in quest of the philosopher’s stone, now in quest
of the perfectibility of mankind--a mixture of religious, political,
and mystical reveries, flourished in all parts of Germany, and in all
circles.
‘With science in so imperfect a condition we are sure to find a
corresponding poverty in material comfort and luxury. High-roads, for
example, were only found in certain parts of Germany; Prussia had no
_chaussée_ till 1787. Mile-stones were unknown, although finger-posts
existed. Instead of facilitating the transit of travellers, it was
thought good political economy to obstruct them, for the longer they
remained the more money they spent in the country. A century earlier
stage coaches were known in England; but in Germany public conveyances
were few and miserable; nothing but open carts with unstuffed seats.
Diligences on springs were unknown before 1800,’ ... and we have the
word of Burney and of Mozart that travel by post was nothing short of
torture![37]
If we examine into the manners, customs, and tastes of the period
we are struck with many apparently absurd contradictions. Men whose
nature, bred in generations of fighting, was brutal in its very
essence outwardly affected a truly inordinate love of ceremony and
lavish splendor. The same dignitaries who discussed for hours the
fine distinctions of official precedence, or the question whether
princes of the church should sit in council on green seats or red, like
the secular potentates, would use language and display manners the
coarseness of which is no longer tolerated except in the lowest spheres
of society. While indulging in the grossest vulgarities and even vices,
and while committing the most wanton cruelties, this race of petty
tyrants expended thousands upon the glitter and tinsel with which they
thought to dazzle the eyes of their neighbors. While this is more true
of the seventeenth than of the eighteenth century, and while Europe was
undergoing momentous changes, conditions were after all not greatly
improved in the period of Haydn and Mozart. The graceful Italian
melody which reigned supreme at the Viennese court, or the glitter
of its rococo salons, found a striking note of contrast in the broad
dialect of Maria Theresa and the ‘boiled bacon and water’ of Emperor
Joseph’s diet. A stronger paradox than the brocade and ruffled lace of
a courtier’s dress and the coarse behavior of its wearer could hardly
be found.
The great courts of Europe, Versailles, Vienna, etc., were imitated
at the lesser capitals in every detail, as far as the limits of the
princes’ purses permitted. As George Henry Lewes says of Weimar, ‘these
courts but little corresponded with those conceptions of grandeur,
magnificence, or historical or political importance with which the name
of court is usually associated. But, just as in gambling the feelings
are agitated less by the greatness of the stake than by the variations
of fortune, so, in social gambling of court intrigue, there is the
same ambition and agitation, whether the green cloth be an empire or
a duchy. Within its limits Saxe-Weimar, for instance, displayed all
that an imperial court displays in larger proportions. It had its
ministers, its chamberlains, pages, and sycophants. Court favor and
disgrace elevated and depressed as if they had been imperial smiles or
autocratic frowns. A standing army of six hundred men, with cavalry of
fifty hussars, had its war department, with war minister, secretary,
and clerk. Lest this appear too ridiculous,’ Lewes adds that ‘one of
the small German princes kept a corps of hussars, which consisted of a
colonel, six officers and two privates!’ Similarly every prince, great
or petty, gathered about him, for his greater glory, the disciples of
the graceful arts. Not a count, margrave, or bishop but had in his
retinue his court musicians, his organists, his court composer, his
band and choir, all of whom were attached to their master by ties of
virtually feudal servitude, whose social standing was usually on a
level with domestic servants and who were often but wretchedly paid. We
have had occasion to refer to a number of the more important centres,
such as Berlin, where Frederick the Great had Johann Quantz, Franz
Benda, and Emanuel Bach as musical mentors; Dresden, where Augustus
the Third had Hasse and Porpora;[38] Stuttgart, where Karl Eugen gave
Jommelli a free hand; Mannheim, where Karl Theodor gathered about him
that genial band of musical reformers with Stamitz at their head; and
Salzburg, where Archbishop Sigismund maintained Michael Haydn, Leopold
Mozart, and many another talented musician.
As for the greater courts, they became the _nuclei_ for aggregations
of men of genius, to many of whom the world owes an everlasting
debt of gratitude, but who often received insufficient payment,
and who, in some cases, even suffered indignities at the hands of
their masters which are calculated to rouse the anger of an admiring
posterity. London and Paris were, of course, as they had been for
generations, the most brilliant centres--the most liberal and the
richest in opportunities for musicians of talent or enterprise. At
the period of which we speak the court of George II (and later George
III) harbored Johann Christian Bach, Carl Friedrich Abel, and Pietro
Domenico Paradies; at the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette
Rameau was in his last years, while Gluck and Piccini were the objects
of violent controversy, while Philidor, Monsigny, and Grétry were
delighting audiences with _opéra comique_, and while a valiant number
of instrumentalists, like Gossec, Gaviniès, Schobert, and Eckhard, were
building up a French outpost of classicism. Capitals which had but
recently attained international significance, like Stockholm and St.
Petersburg, assiduously emulated the older ones; at the former, for
instance, Gustavus III patronized Naumann, and at the latter Catherine
II entertained successively Galuppi, Traetto, Paesiello, and Sarti.
But Vienna was now the musical capital of Europe. It was the
concentrated scene of action where all the chief musical issues of the
day were fought out. There the Mannheim school had its continuation,
soon after its inception; there Haydn and Mozart found their greatest
inspiration--as Beethoven and Schubert did after them--it remained the
citadel of musical Germany, whose supremacy was now fairly established.
It is significant that Burney, in writing the results of his musical
investigations on the continent, devotes one volume each to Italy
and France but two to Germany, notwithstanding his strong Italian
sympathies. However, the reason for this is partly the fact that
Germany was to an Englishman still somewhat of a wilderness, and that
the writer felt it incumbent upon him to give some general details of
the condition of the country. We can do no better than quote some of
his observations upon Vienna in order to familiarize the reader with
the principal characters of the drama for which it was the stage.[39]
After describing the approach to the city, which reminds him of Venice,
and his troubles at the customs, where his books were ‘even more
scrupulously read than at the inquisition of Bologna,’ he continues:
‘The streets are rendered doubly dark and dirty by their narrowness,
and by the extreme height of the houses; but, as these are chiefly
of white stone and in a uniform, elegant style of architecture, in
which the Italian taste prevails, _as well as in music_, there is
something grand and magnificent in their appearance which is very
striking; and even those houses which have shops on the ground floor
seem like palaces above. Indeed, the whole town and its suburbs appear
at the first glance to be composed of palaces rather than of common
habitations.’
Now for the life of the city. ‘The diversions of the common people
... are such as seem hardly fit for a civilized and polished nation
to allow. Particularly the combats, as they are called, or baiting
of wild beasts, in a manner much more savage and ferocious than our
bull-baiting, etc.’ The better class, of course, found its chief
amusement in the theatres, but the low level of much of this amusement
may be judged from the fact that rough horse-play was almost necessary
to the success of a piece. Shortly before Burney’s visit the customary
premiums for actors who would ‘voluntarily submit to be kicked and
cuffed’ were abolished, with the result that theatres went bankrupt
‘because of the insufferable dullness and inactivity of the actors.’
By a mere chance Burney witnessed a performance of Lessing’s _Emilia
Galotti_, which as a play shocked his sensibilities, but he speaks in
admiring terms of the orchestra, which played ‘overtures and act-tunes’
by Haydn, Hoffman, and Vanhall. At another theatre the pieces were so
full of invention that it seemed to be music of some other world.
Musically, also, the mass at St. Stephen’s impressed him very much:
‘There were violins and violoncellos, though it was not a festival,’
and boys whose voices ‘had been well cultivated.’ At night, in the
court of his inn, two poor scholars sang ‘in pleasing harmony,’ and
later ‘a band of these singers performed through the streets a kind of
glees in three and four parts.’ ‘Soldiers and common people,’ he says,
‘frequently sing in parts, too,’ and he is forced to the conclusion
that ‘this whole country is certainly very musical.’
Through diplomatic influence our traveller is introduced to the
Countess Thun (afterwards Mozart’s patron), ‘a most agreeable lady of
very high rank, who, among other talents, possesses as great skill
in music as any person of distinction I ever knew; she plays the
harpsichord with that grace, ease, and delicacy which nothing but
female fingers can arrive at.’ Forthwith he meets ‘the admirable poet
Metastasio, and the no less admirable musician Hasse,’ as well as his
wife, Faustina, both very aged; also ‘the chevalier Gluck, one of the
most extraordinary geniuses of this, or perhaps any, age or nation,’
who plays him his _Iphigénie_, just completed, while his niece, Mlle.
Marianne Gluck, sang ‘in so exquisite a manner that I could not
conceive it possible for any vocal performance to be more perfect.’
He hears music by ‘M. Hoffman, an excellent composer of instrumental
music’; by Vanhall, whom he meets and whose pieces ‘afforded me such
uncommon pleasure that I should not hesitate to rank them among the
most complete and perfect compositions for many instruments which the
art of music can boast(!)’; also some ‘exquisite quartets by Haydn,
executed in the utmost perfection’; and he attends a comic opera by
‘Signor Salieri, a scholar of M. Gassman,’ at which the imperial
family was present, his imperial majesty being extremely attentive
‘and applauding very much.’[40] ‘His imperial majesty’ was, of course,
Joseph II, who we know played the violoncello, and was, in Burney’s
words, ‘just musical enough for a sovereign prince.’ The entire
imperial family was musical, and the court took its tone from it. All
the great houses of the nobility--Lichtenstein, Lobkowitz, Auersperg,
Fürnberg, Morzin--maintained their private bands or chamber musicians.
Our amusing informant, in concluding his account of musical Vienna,
says: ‘Indeed, Vienna is so rich in composers and incloses within its
walls such a number of musicians of superior merit that it is but just
to allow it to be among German cities the imperial seat of music as
well as of power.’
It need hardly be repeated that Italian style was still preferred by
the society of the period, just as Italian manners and language were
affected by the nobility. Italian was actually the language of the
court, and how little German was respected is seen from the fact that
Metastasio, the man of culture _par excellence_, though living in
Vienna through the greater part of his life, spoke it ‘just enough to
keep himself alive.’ Haydn, like many others, Italianized his name to
‘Giuseppe’ and Mozart signed himself frequently Wolfgango Amadeo Mozart!
This, then, is the city in which Haydn and Mozart were to meet for the
first time just one year after Burney’s account. Though the first was
the other’s senior by twenty-four years their great creative periods
are virtually simultaneous. They date, in fact, from this meeting,
which marks the beginning of their influence upon each other and their
mutual and constant admiration. Both already had brilliant careers
behind them as performers and composers, and it becomes our duty now to
give separate accounts of these careers.
C. S.
II
JOSEPH HAYDN
The boundaries of Hungary, the home of one of the most musical peoples
of the world, lies only about thirty miles from Vienna. Here, it is
said, in every two houses will be found three violins and a lute. Men
and women sing at their work; children are reared in poverty and song.
In such a community, in the village of Rohrau, near the border line
between Austria and Hungary, lived Matthias Haydn, wagoner and parish
sexton, with Elizabeth, his wife. They were simple peasant people,
probably partly Croatian in blood, with rather more intelligence than
their neighbors. After his work was done Matthias played the harp and
Elizabeth sang, gathering the children about her to share in the simple
recreation. Franz Joseph, the second of these children, born March 31,
1732, gave signs of special musical intelligence, marking the time and
following his mother in a sweet, childish voice at a very early age.
When he was six he was put in the care of a relative named Frankh,
living in Hainburg, for instruction in violin and harpsichord playing,
and in singing. Frankh seems to have been pretty rough with the
youngster, but his instruction must have been good as far as it went,
for two years later he was noticed by Reutter, chapel master at St.
Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, and allowed to enter the choir school.
Reutter was considered a great musician in his day--he was ennobled in
1740--but he did not distinguish himself by kind treatment of little
Joseph, who was poorly clad, half starved, and indifferently taught.
The boy, however, seems, even at this early age, to have had a definite
idea of what he wanted, and doggedly pursued his own path. He got what
instruction he could from the masters of the school, purchased two
heavy and difficult works on thoroughbass and counterpoint, spent play
hours in practice on his clavier, and filled reams of paper with notes.
He afterwards said that he remembered having two lessons from von
Reutter in ten years. When he was seventeen years old his voice broke,
and, being of no further service to the chapel master, he was turned
out of the school on a trivial pretext.
The period that followed was one that even the sweet-natured man must
sometimes have wished to forget. He was without money or friends--or at
least so he thought--and it is said he spent the night after leaving
school in wandering about the streets of the city. Unknown to himself,
however, the little singer at the cathedral had made friends, and with
one of the humbler of these he found a temporary home. Another good
Viennese lent him one hundred and fifty florins--a debt which Haydn not
only soon paid, but remembered for sixty years, as an item in his will
shows. He soon got a few pupils, played the violin at wedding festivals
and the like, and kept himself steadily at the study of composition. He
obtained the clavier sonatas of Emanuel Bach and mastered their style
so thoroughly that the composer afterward sent him word that he alone
had fully mastered his writings and learned to use them.
At twenty Haydn wrote his first mass, and at about the same time
received a considerable sum for composing the music to a comic opera.
He exchanged his cold attic for a more comfortable loft which happened
to be in the same house in which the great Metastasio lived. The poet
was impressed by Haydn’s gifts and obtained for him the position of
music master in an important Spanish family, resident in Vienna.
In this way, step by step, the fortunes of the young enthusiast
improved. He made acquaintances among musical folk, and occasionally
found himself in the company of men who had mounted much higher on
the professional ladder than himself. One of these was Porpora,
already successful and of international fame. Porpora was at that time
singing master in the household of Correr, the Venetian ambassador at
Vienna, and he proposed that Haydn should act as his accompanist and
incidentally profit by so close an acquaintance with his ‘method.’
Thus Haydn was included in the ambassador’s suite when they went to
the baths of Mannersdorf, on the border of Hungary. At the soirées
and entertainments of the grandees at Mannersdorf Haydn met some of
the well-known musicians of the time--Bonno, Wagenseil, Gluck, and
Ditters--becoming warmly attached to the last-named. His progress in
learning Porpora’s method, however, was not so satisfactory. The mighty
man had no time for the obscure one; the difficulty was obvious. But
Haydn, as always, knew what he wanted and did not hesitate to make
himself useful to Porpora in order to get the instruction he needed.
He was young and had no false pride about being fag to a great man for
a purpose. His good-natured services won the master over; and so Haydn
was brought into direct connection with the great exponent of Italian
methods and ideas.
In 1755 he wrote his first quartet, being encouraged by a wealthy
amateur, von Fürnberg, who, at his country home, had frequent
performances of chamber music. Haydn visited Fürnberg and became
so interested in the composition of chamber music that he produced
eighteen quartets during that and the following year. About this time
he became acquainted with the Count and Countess Thun, cultivated and
enthusiastic amateurs, whose names are remembered also in connection
with Mozart, Gluck, and Beethoven. Haydn instructed the Countess Thun
both in harpsichord playing and in singing, and was well paid for his
services.
The same Fürnberg that drew the attention of Haydn to the composition
of string quartets also recommended him to his first patron, Count
Morzin, for the position of chapel master and composer at his private
estate in Bohemia, near Pilsen. It was there, in 1759, that Haydn wrote
his first symphony. He received a salary of about one hundred dollars a
year, with board and lodging. With this munificent income he decided to
marry, even though the rules of his patron permitted no married men in
his employ.
Haydn’s choice had settled on the youngest daughter of a wig-maker of
Vienna named Keller; but the girl, for some unknown reason, decided to
take the veil. In his determination not to lose so promising a young
man, the wig-maker persuaded the lover to take the eldest daughter,
Maria Anna, instead of the lost one. The marriage was in every way
unfortunate. Maria Anna was a heartless scold, selfish and extravagant,
who, as her husband said, cared not a straw whether he was an artist
or a shoemaker. Haydn soon gave up all attempts to live with her,
though he supplied her with a competence. She lived for forty years
after their marriage, and shortly before she died wrote to Haydn, then
in London, for a considerable sum of money with which to buy a small
house, ‘as it was a very suitable place for a widow.’ For once Haydn
refused both the direct and the implied request, neither sending her
the money nor making her a widow. He outlived her, in fact, by nine
years, purchased the house himself after his last visit to London and
spent there the remainder of his life.
To go back, however, to his professional career. Count Morzin was
unfortunately soon obliged to disband his players and the change that
consequently occurred was one of the important crises of Haydn’s life.
He was appointed second chapel master to Prince Anton Esterhàzy, a
Hungarian nobleman, whose seat was at Eisenstadt. Here Haydn was to
spend the next thirty years, here the friendships and pleasures of his
mature life were to lie, and here his genius was to ripen.
The Esterhàzy band comprised sixteen members at the time of Haydn’s
arrival, all of them excellent performers. Their enthusiasm and support
did much to stimulate the new chapel master, even as his arrival
infused a new spirit into the concerts. The first chapel master,
Werner, a good contrapuntal scholar, took the privilege of age and
scoffed at Haydn’s new ideas, calling him a ‘mere fop.’ The fact that
they got on fairly well together is surely a tribute to Haydn’s good
nature and genuine humbleness of spirit. The old prince soon died,
being succeeded by his brother, Prince Nicolaus. When Werner died some
five years later Haydn became sole director. Prince Nicolaus increased
the orchestra and lent to Haydn all the support of a sympathetic lover
of music, as well as princely generosity. He prepared for himself a
magnificent residence, with parks, lakes, gardens, and hunting courses,
at Esterhàz, where royal entertainments were constantly in progress.
Daily concerts were given, besides operas and special performances for
all sorts of festivals. The seclusion of the country was occasionally
exchanged for brief visits to Vienna. In 1773 the Empress Maria
Theresa--she who, as Electoral Princess, had studied singing with
Porpora--was entertained at Esterhàz and heard the first performance
of the symphony which bears her name. In 1780 Haydn wrote, for the
opening of a new theatre at Esterhàz, an opera which was also performed
before royalty at Vienna. He composed the ‘Last Seven Words’ in 1785,
and in the same year Mozart dedicated to him six quartets in terms of
affectionate admiration.
By the death of Prince Nicolaus, in 1790, Haydn lost not only a patron
but a friend whom he sincerely loved. His life at Esterhàz was, on
the other hand, full of work and conscientious activity in conducting
rehearsals, preparing for performances, and in writing new music. On
the other hand, it was curiously restricted in scope, isolated from
general society, and detached from all the artistic movements of
his period. His relations with the prince were genial and friendly,
apparently quite unruffled by discord. Esterhàzy, though very much the
grandee, was indulgent, and not only allowed his chapel master much
freedom in his art, but also recognized and respected his genius. The
system of patronage never produced a happier example of the advantages
and pleasures to be gained by both patron and follower; but, after
all, a comment of Mr. Hadow seems most pertinent to the situation:
‘It is worthy of remark that the greatest musician ever fostered by
a systematic patronage was the one over whose character patronage
exercised the least control.’ It is Haydn, of course, who is the
subject of this remark.
There was, at that time, an enterprising violinist and concert
manager, Johann Peter Salomon, travelling on the continent in quest of
‘material’ for his next London season. As soon as news of the death
of Prince Nicolaus reached Salomon, he started for Vienna with the
determination to take Haydn back with him to London. Former proposals
for a season in London had always been ignored by Haydn, who considered
himself bound not to abandon his prince. Now that he was free,
Salomon’s persuasions were successful. Haydn, nearly sixty years of
age, undertook his first long journey, embarking on the ocean he had
never before seen, and going among a people whose language he did not
know. He was under contract to supply Salomon with six new symphonies.
They reached London early in the year 1791, and Haydn took lodgings,
which seemed very costly to his thrifty mind, with Salomon at 18
Great Pulteney street. The concerts took place from March till May,
Salomon leading the orchestra, which consisted of thirty-five or forty
performers, while Haydn conducted from the pianoforte. The enterprise
was an immediate success. Haydn’s symphonies happened to hit the
taste of the time, and his fame as composer was supplemented by great
personal popularity. People of the highest rank called upon him, poets
celebrated him in verse, and crowds flocked to the concerts.
Heretofore Haydn’s audiences had usually consisted of a small number
of people whose musical tastes were well cultivated but often
conventional; now he was eagerly listened to by larger and more
heterogeneous crowds, whose enthusiasm reacted happily upon the
composer. He wrote not only the six symphonies for the subscription
concerts, but a number of other works--divertimenti for concerted
instruments, a nocturne, string quartets, a clavier trio, songs, and a
cantata--and was much in demand for other concerts. At the suggestion
of Dr. Burney, the University of Oxford conferred upon him the degree
of Doctor of Music. The prince of Wales invited him to visit at one
of the royal residences; his portrait was painted by famous artists;
everybody wished to do him honor. The directors of the professional
concerts tried to induce him to break his engagements with Salomon,
but, failing in this, they engaged a former pupil of Haydn’s, Ignaz
Pleyel from Strassburg, and the two musicians conducted rival
concerts. The rivalry, however, was wholly friendly, so far as Haydn
and his pupil were concerned. He visited Windsor and the races, and was
present at the Handel commemoration in Westminster Abbey, where he was
much impressed by a magnificent performance of ‘The Messiah.’
After a stay of a year and a half in London Haydn returned to Vienna,
travelling by way of Bonn, where he met Beethoven, who afterward came
to him for instruction. Arriving in Vienna in July, 1792, he met with
an enthusiastic reception. Early in 1794 Salomon induced him, under
a similar contract, to make another journey to London, and to supply
six new works for the subscription concerts. Again Haydn carried all
before him. The new symphonies gained immediate favor; the former set
was repeated, and many pieces of lesser importance were performed. The
famous virtuosi, Viotti and Dussek, took part in the benefits for Haydn
and Salomon. Haydn was again distinguished by the court, receiving
even an invitation to spend the summer at Windsor, which he declined.
In every respect the London visits were a brilliant success, securing
a competence for Haydn’s old age, additional fame, and a number of
warm personal friendships whose memory delighted him throughout the
remaining years of his life.
On his return to Vienna fresh honors awaited the master, who was never
again to travel far from home. During his absence a monument and bust
of himself had been placed in a little park at Rohrau, his native
village. Upon being conducted to the place by his friends he was much
affected, and afterwards accompanied the party to the modest house in
which he was born, where, overcome with emotion, he knelt and kissed
the threshold. In Vienna concerts were arranged for the production of
the London symphonies, and many new works were planned. One of the
most interesting of these was the ‘National Hymn,’ composed in 1797,
to words written by the poet Hauschka. On the birthday of the Emperor
Franz II the air was sung simultaneously at the National Theatre in
Vienna and at all the principal theatres in the provinces. Haydn also
used the hymn as the basis of one of the movements in the Kaiser
Quartet, No. 77.
The opportunity afforded Haydn in London of becoming more familiar with
the work of Handel had a striking effect upon his genius, turning it
toward the composition of oratorios. His reputation was high, but it
was destined to soar still higher. Through Salomon, Haydn had received
a modified version of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost,’ compiled by Lidley.
This, translated into German by van Swieten, formed the libretto of
‘The Creation,’ composed by Haydn in a spirit of great humbleness
and piety. It was first performed in Vienna in 1798 and immediately
produced a strong impression, the audience, as well as the composer,
being deeply moved. Choral societies were established for the express
purpose of giving it, rival societies in London performed it during the
season of 1800, and it long enjoyed a popularity scarcely less than
that of ‘The Messiah.’ Even with this important work his energy was
not dulled. Within a short time after the completion of ‘The Creation’
he composed another oratorio, ‘The Seasons,’ to words adapted from
Thomson’s poem. This also sprang into immediate favor, and at the time
of its production, at least, gained quite as much popularity as ‘The
Creation.’
But the master’s strength was failing. After ‘The Seasons’ he wrote but
little, chiefly vocal quartets and arrangements of Welsh and Scottish
airs. On his seventy-third birthday Mozart’s little son Wolfgang, aged
fourteen, composed a cantata in his honor and came to him for his
blessing. Many old friends sought out the aged man, now sick and often
melancholy, and paid him highest honors. His last public appearance
was in March, 1808, at a performance of ‘The Creation’ at the
university in Vienna, conducted by Salieri. Overcome with fatigue and
emotion Haydn was carried home after the performance of the first part,
receiving as he departed the respectful homage of many distinguished
people, among whom was Beethoven. From that time his strength waned,
and, on May 31, 1809, he breathed his last. He was buried in a
churchyard near his home; but, in 1820, at the command of Prince Anton
Esterhàzy, his body was removed to the parish church at Eisenstadt,
where so many years of his tranquil life had been spent.
It is of no small value to consider Haydn the man, before even Haydn
the musician, for many of the qualities which made him so respected
and beloved as a man were the bedrock upon which his genius was built.
There was little of the obviously romantic in his life, nearly all of
which was spent within a radius of thirty miles; but it glows with
kindness, good temper, and sterling integrity. He was loyal to his
emperor and his church; thrifty, generous to less fortunate friends
and needy relatives, generous, also, with praise and appreciation.
Industrious and methodical in his habits, he yet loved a jest or a
harmless bit of fooling. He was droll and sunny tempered, modest in his
estimate of himself, but possessing at the same time a proper knowledge
of his powers. He was not beglamored by the favor of princes; and,
while steadfast in the pursuit of his mission, seemed, nevertheless, to
have been without ambition, in the usual sense, even as he was without
malice, avarice, or impatience. Good health and good humor were the
accompaniment of a gentle, healthy piety. These qualities caused him
to be beloved in his lifetime; and they rank him, as a man, forever
apart from the long list of geniuses whose lives have been torn asunder
by passions, by undue sensitiveness, by excesses, or overweening
ambition--all that is commonly understood by ‘temperament.’ The flame
of Haydn’s temperament burned clearly and steadily, even if less
intensely; and the record of his life causes a thrill of satisfaction
for his uniform and consistent rightness, his few mistakes.
It remains now to consider the nature of the service rendered by this
remarkable man to his art, through the special types of composition
indissolubly connected with his name. These are the symphony and the
quartet.
III
The early history of the development of the symphony is essentially
that of the development of the sonata, which we have described in
the last chapter. When Joseph Haydn actually came upon the scene
as composer, the term symphony, or ‘sinfonia,’ had been applied to
compositions for orchestra, though these pieces bore little resemblance
to modern productions. They were usually written in three movements,
two of them being rather quick and lively, with a slow one between, and
were scored for eight parts--four strings, two oboes or two flutes, and
two ‘cors de chasse,’ or horns. Often the flutes or oboes were used
simply to reinforce the strings, while the horns sustained the harmony.
The figured bass was still in use, often transferred, however, to the
viol di gamba, and the director used the harpsichord. The treatment
of the parts was still crude and stiff, showing little feeling for
the tone color of the instruments, balancing of parts, or variety of
treatment.
The internal structure, also, was still very uncertain. The first
movement, now usually written in strict sonata form, did not then
uniformly contain the two contrasting themes, nor the codas and
episodes of the modern schools; and the working-out section and
recapitulation were seldom clearly defined. Even in the poorest
examples, however, the sonata scheme was generally vaguely present;
and in the best often definitely marked. We must not lose sight,
however, of the epoch-making work of Stamitz and his associates at
Mannheim, both in the fixing of symphonic form and the advancement of
instrumental technique. Stamitz’s Opus I appeared, it will be recalled,
in 1751; Dittersdorf’s emulation of the Mannheim symphonies began about
1761. The intervening decade was a period of experiment and constant
improvement. Haydn, though his first symphony, composed in 1759, showed
none of the new influence, must have been cognizant of the advance.
Haydn’s first symphony, written when he was twenty-seven, is described
by Pohl as being a ‘small work in three movements, for two violins,
viola, bass, two hautboys, and two horns; cheerful and unpretending
in character.’ From this time on his experiments in the symphonic
form were continuous, and more than one hundred examples are credited
to him. He was so situated as to be able to test his work by actual
performance. To this fortunate circumstance may be attributed the fact
that he made great improvements in orchestration, and that he gained
steadily in clearness of outline, variety of treatment, and enlargement
of ideas.
In five years Haydn composed thirty symphonies, besides many other
pieces. His reputation spread far beyond the bounds of Austria, and
the official gazette of Vienna called him ‘our national favorite.’ His
seclusion furthered his originality and versatility, and his history
seems a singularly marked example of growth from within, rather than
growth according to the currents of contemporary taste. By 1790 the
number of symphonies had reached one hundred and ten, and the steps
of his development can be clearly traced. There are traces of the
old traditions in the doubling of the parts, sometimes throughout an
entire movement; in the neglect of the wind instruments, sometimes for
the entire adagio; and in long solo passages for bassoon or flute.
Such peculiarities mark most of the symphonies up to 1790. Among these
crudities, however, are signs of a steady advance in other respects. In
the all-important first movement he more and more gave the second theme
its rights, felt for new ways of developing the themes themselves,
and elaborated the working-out section. The coda began to make its
appearance, and the figured bass was abandoned. He established the
practice of inserting the minuet between the slow movement and the
finale, thus setting the example for the usual modern practice. The
middle strings and wind instruments gradually grew more independent,
the musical ideas more cultivated and refined, his orchestration
clearer and more buoyant. His work is cheerful and gay, showing solid
workmanship, sometimes deep emotion, rarely poetry. Under his hands the
symphony, as an art form, gained stability, strength, and a technical
perfection which was to carry the deeper message of later years, and
the message of the great symphonic writers who followed him.
During Haydn’s comparative solitude at Eisenstadt, however, a wonderful
youth had come into the European musical world, had absorbed with the
facility of genius everything that musical science had to offer, had
learned from Haydn what could be done with the symphony as he had
learned from Gluck what could be done with opera, and had outshone and
outdistanced every composer living at the time. What Haydn was able
to give to Mozart was rendered back to him with abundant interest.
Mozart made use of a richer and more flexible orchestration, achieved
greater beauty and poignancy of expression; and Haydn, while retaining
his individuality, still shows marked traces of this noble influence.
The early works of Haydn were far in advance of his time, and were
highly regarded; but they do not reveal the complete artist, and they
have been almost entirely superseded in public favor by the London
symphonies, composed after Mozart’s death. In these he reaches heights
he had never before attained, not only in the high degree of technical
skill, but in the flood of fresh and genial ideas, and in new,
impressive harmonic progressions. The method of orchestration is much
bolder and freer. The parts are rarely doubled, the bass and viola have
their individual work, the parts for the wind instruments are better
suited to their character, and greater attention is paid to musical
nuances. In these last works Haydn arrived at that ‘spiritualization of
music’ which makes the art a vehicle not only for intellectual ideas,
but for deep and earnest emotion.
Parallel with the growth of the symphonic form and its variety of
treatment came also a real growth of the orchestra. The organization
of 1750, consisting of four strings and four wind instruments, had
become, in 1791, a group of thirty-five or forty pieces, consisting of,
besides the strings, two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns,
two trumpets and drums. To these were sometimes added clarinets, and
occasionally special instruments, such as the triangle or cymbals.
Thus, by the end of the century, the form of the symphony, according to
modern understanding, was practically established, and the orchestra
organized nearly according to its present state. Haydn represents the
last stage of the preparatory period, and he was, in a very genuine
and literal sense, the founder, and to some degree the creator, of the
modern symphony.
The string quartet had its birth almost simultaneously with the
symphony, and is also the child of Haydn’s genius. Its ancestors are
considered by Jahn to be the divertimenti and cassations designed for
table music, serenades, and such entertainments, and written often
in four or five movements for four wind instruments, wind instruments
with strings, or even for clavier. This species of composition was
transferred, curiously enough, to two violins, viola and bass--the
latter being in time replaced by the 'cello. This combination of
instruments, so easily available for private use, appealed especially
to Haydn, and his later compositions for it are still recognized as
models.
The quartet, like the symphony, is based on the sonata form, and
developed gradually, in a manner similar to the larger work. Haydn’s
first attempt in this species was made at the age of twenty-three,
and eighty-three quartets are numbered among his catalogued works.
The early ones are very like the work of Boccherini, and consist
of five short movements, with two minuets. As Haydn progressed his
tendency was to make the movements fewer and longer. After Quartet No.
44 the four-movement form is generally used, and his craftsmanship
grows more delicate. Gradually he filled the rather stiff and formal
outline with ideas that are graceful and charming, even though they
may sound somewhat elementary to modern ears. He recognized the fact
that in the quartet each individual part must not be treated as solo,
nor yet should the others be made to supply a mere accompaniment to
the remainder. Each must have its rôle, according to the capacity of
the instrument and the balance of parts. The best of Haydn’s quartets
exhibit not only a well-established form and a fine perception
of the relation of the instruments, but also the more spiritual
qualities--tenderness, playfulness, pathos. He is not often romantic,
neither is there any trace of far-fetched mannerisms or fads. He gave
the form a life and freshness which at once secured its popularity,
even though the more scientific musicians of his day were inclined to
regard it with suspicion, as a trifling innovation. Nevertheless,
it was the form which, together with the symphony, was to attest the
greatness of Mozart and Beethoven; and it was from Haydn that Mozart,
at least, learned its use.
It is impossible to estimate rightly Haydn’s service to music
without taking into account one of his most striking and original
characteristics--his use of simple tunes and folk songs. Much light has
been thrown on this phase of his genius by the labors of a Croatian
scholar, F. X. Kuhac, and the results of his work have been given to
the English-speaking world by Mr. Hadow. As early as 1762, in his
D-major symphony, composed at Eisenstadt, Haydn began to use folk
songs as themes, and he continued to do so, in symphonies, quartets,
divertimenti, cantatas, and sacred music, to the very end of his
career. In this respect he was unique among composers of his day. No
other contemporaneous writer thought it fitting or beautiful to work
rustic tunes into the texture of his music. Mozart is witty with the
ease of a man of the world, quite different from the naïve drollery
of Haydn, whose humor, though perhaps a trifle light and shallow, is
always mobile, fresh, and gay. It is pointed out, moreover, by the
writers above mentioned that the shapes of Haydn’s melodic phrases
are not those of the German, but of the Croatian folk song, and that
the rhythms are correspondingly varied. Eisenstadt lies in the very
centre of a Croatian colony, and Rohrau, Haydn’s birthplace, has
also a Croatian name. Many of its inhabitants are Croatian, and a
name, strikingly similar to Haydn’s was of frequent occurrence in
that region. Add to this the fact that his music is saturated with
tunes which have all the characteristics, both rhythmic and melodic,
of the Croatian; that many tunes known to be of that origin are
actually employed by him, and the presumption in favor of his Croatian
inheritance is very strong.
But Haydn’s speech, like that of every genius, was not only that of his
race, but of the world. He had the heart of a rustic poet unspoiled by
a decayed civilization. Like Wordsworth, he used the speech of a whole
nation, and lived to work out all that was in him. Although almost
entirely self-taught, he mastered every scientific principle of musical
composition known at his time. He was able to compose for the people
without pandering to what was vicious or ignorant in their taste. He
identified himself absolutely with secular music, and gave it a status
equal to the music of the church. He took the idea of the symphony and
quartet, while it was yet rather formless and chaotic, floating in the
musical consciousness of the period as salt floats in the ocean, drew
it from the surrounding medium, and crystallized it into an art form.
Something has already been said concerning Haydn’s popularity in
England, and the genuine appreciation accorded him in that country.
Haydn himself remarked that he did not become famous in Germany
until he had gained a reputation elsewhere. Even in his old age he
remembered, rather pathetically, the animosity of certain of the Berlin
critics, who had used him very badly in early life, condemning his
compositions as ‘hasty, trivial, and extravagant.’ It is only another
proof that Beckmesser never dies. Haydn was his own best critic, though
a modest one, when he said, ‘Some of my children are well bred, some
ill bred, and, here and there, there is a changeling among them.... I
know that God has bestowed a talent upon me, and I thank Him for it.
I think I have done my duty, and been of use in my generation by my
works.’ He rises above all his contemporaries, except Mozart, as a
lighthouse rises above the waves of the sea. With Mozart and Beethoven
he formed the immortal trio whose individual work, each with its own
quality and its own weight, are the completion and the sum of the
first era of orchestral music.
F. B.
IV
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Radically different from the career of Haydn is that of Mozart, which,
indeed, has no parallel in the annals of music or any other art.
It partakes so much of the marvellous as to defy and to upset all
our notions of the growth of creative genius. What Haydn learned by
years of endeavor and experience Mozart acquired as if by instinct.
The forms evolved by the previous generation, that new elegance of
melodic expression, the _finesse_ of articulation and the principles
of organic unity, all these were a heritage upon which he entered with
full cognizance of their meaning and value. It was as though he had
dreamed these things in a previous existence. They made up for him a
language which he used more easily than other children use their mother
tongue. It is a fact that he learned to read music earlier than words.
What common children express in infantile prattle, this marvel of a
boy expressed in musical sounds. At three he attempted to emulate his
sister at clavier playing and actually picked out series of pleasing
thirds; at four, he learned to play minuets which his father taught him
‘as in fun’ (a half-hour sufficed for one), and, at five, he composed
others like them himself. At six, these compositions merited writing
down, which his father did, and we have the dated notebook as evidence
of these first stirrings of genius. At the age of seven Mozart appeared
before the world as a composer. The two piano sonatas with violin
accompaniment which he dedicated to the Princess Victoire have all the
attributes of finished musical workmanship, and, even if his father
retouched and corrected these and other early works, the performance,
as that of a child, is none the less remarkable.
The extraordinary training and the wise guidance of the father, a
highly educated musician, broad-minded and progressive, were the second
great advantage accruing to Mozart, whose genius was thus led from
the beginning into proper channels. Leopold Mozart, himself under the
influence of the Mannheim school, naturally imparted to his son all the
peculiarities of their style. Through him also the influence of Emanuel
Bach became an early source of inspiration. Pure, simple melody with
a natural obvious harmonic foundation was the musical ideal to which
Mozart aspired from the first. Nevertheless, the study of counterpoint
was never neglected in the training which his father gave him, though
it was not until later, under the instruction of Padre Martini, that he
came to appreciate its full significance and elevated beauty.
With Mozart the musical supremacy of Germany, first asserted by the
instrumental composers of Mannheim and Berlin, is confirmed and
extended to the field of vocal music and the opera. Mozart could
accomplish this task only by virtue of his broad cosmopolitanism,
which, like that of Gluck, enabled him to gather up in his grasp the
achievements of the most diverse schools. To this cosmopolitanism he
was predisposed by the circumstances of his birth as well as of his
early life. The geographical position of Salzburg, where he was born in
1756, was, in a sense, a strategic one. Situated in the southernmost
part of Germany, it was exposed to the influence of Italian taste;
inhabited by a sturdy German peasantry and bourgeoisie, its sympathies
were on the side of German art, and the musicians at court were, at
the time of Mozart’s birth, almost without exception Germans. Yet the
echoes of the cultural life not only of Vienna, Munich, and Mannheim,
but of Milan, Naples, and Paris, reached the narrow confines of this
mountain fastness, this citadel of intolerant Catholicism.
But Mozart’s cosmopolitanism was broader than this. He was but six
years of age, gifted with a marvellous power of absorption, and
impressionable to a degree, when his father began with him and
his eleven-year-old sister, also highly talented and already an
accomplished pianist, the three-years’ journey--or concert tour, as we
should say to-day--which took them to Munich, to Vienna, to Mannheim,
to Brussels, Paris, London, and The Hague. They played before the
sovereigns in all these capitals and were acclaimed prodigies such
as the world had never seen. How assiduously young Mozart emulated
the music of all the eminent composers he met is seen from the fact
that four concertos until recently supposed to have been original
compositions were simply rearrangements of sonatas by Schobert,
Honauer, and Eckhardt.[41] Similarly, in London he carefully copied out
a symphony by C. F. Abel, until recently reckoned among his own works;
and a copy of a symphony by Michael Haydn, his father’s colleague in
Salzburg, has also been found among his manuscripts. But the most
powerful influence to which he submitted in London was that of Johann
Christian Bach, who determined his predilection for Italian vocal style
and Italian opera.
Already, in 1770, when he and his father were upon their second
artistic journey, he tried his hand both at Italian and German opera,
with _La finta semplice_ and _Bastien und Bastienne_, and it is
significant that during their production he was already exposed to the
theories of Gluck, who brought out his _Alceste_ in that year. But it
must be said that neither of the two youthful works shows any traits of
these theories. The first of them failed of performance in Vienna and
was not produced until later at Salzburg; the other was presented under
private auspices at the estate of the famous Dr. Messmer of ‘magnetic’
fame. But in the same year Mozart, then fourteen years of age, made his
debut in Italian _opera seria_ with _Mitradite_ at Milan. This was the
climax of a triumphal tour through Italy, in the course of which he was
made a member of the Philharmonic academies of Verona and Bologna, was
given the Order of the Golden Spur by the Pope, and earned the popular
title of _Il cavaliere filarmonico_.
Upon his return to Salzburg young Mozart became concert master at
the archiepiscopal court, and partly under pressure of demands for
occasional music, partly spurred on by a most extraordinary creative
impulse, he turned out works of every description--ecclesiastical and
secular; symphonies, sonatas, quartets, concertos, serenades, etc.,
etc. He had written no less than 288 compositions, according to the
latest enumeration,[42] when, at the age of twenty-one, he was driven
by the insufferable conditions of his servitude to take his departure
from home and seek his fortune in the world. This event marked the
period of his artistic adolescence. Accompanied by his mother he went
over much of the ground covered during his journey as a prodigy, but
where before there was universal acclaim he now met utter indifference,
professional opposition and intrigue, and general lack of appreciation.
However futile in a material sense, this broadening of his artistic
horizon was of inestimable value to the ripening genius.
While equally sensitive to impressions as before, he no longer
merely imitated, but caught the essence of what he heard and welded
it by the power of his own genius into a new and infinitely superior
musical idiom. Now for the first time he rises to the heights, to the
exalted beauty of expression which has given his works their lasting
value. Already in the fullness of his technical power, equipped with
a musicianship which enabled him to turn to account every hint, every
suggestion, this virtuoso in creation no less than execution fairly
drank in the gospel of classicism. Mannheim became a new world to him,
but in his very exploration of it he left the indelible footprints of
his own inspiration.
If he met the Mannheim musicians on an equal footing it followed
that he could approach those of Paris with a certain satirical
condescension. But, if his genius _was_ recognized, professional
intrigue prevented his drawing any profit from it--he was reduced
to teaching and catering to patronage in the most absurd ways, from
writing a concerto for harp and flute (both of which he detested) to
providing ballets for Noverre, the all-powerful dancer of the Paris
opera. His adaptability to circumstances was extraordinary. But all
to no avail; the total result of his endeavors was the commission to
write a symphony for the _Concerts spirituels_ then conducted by Le
Gros. Nowhere else has he shown his power of adaptability in the same
measure as in this so-called ‘Paris Symphony.’ It is, as Mr. Hadow
says, perhaps the only piece of ‘occasional’ music that is truly
classic. The circumstances of its creation appear to us ridiculous
but are indicative of the musical intelligence of Paris at this time.
The _premier coup d’archet_, the first attack, was a point of pride
with the Paris orchestra, hence the piece had to begin with all the
instruments at once, which feat, as soon as accomplished, promptly
elicited loud applause. ‘What a fuss they make about that,’ wrote
Mozart. ‘In the devil’s name, I see no difference. They just begin
all together as they do elsewhere. It is quite ludicrous.’ For the
same reason the last movement of the Paris Symphony begins with a
unison passage, _piano_, which was greeted with a hush. ‘But directly
the _forte_ began they took to clapping.’ Referring to the passage
in the first _Allegro_, the composer says, ‘I knew it would make an
effect, so I brought it in again at the end, _da capo_.’ And, despite
those prosaic calculations, the symphony ‘has not an unworthy bar
in it,’ and it was one of the most successful works played at these
famous concerts. Yet Paris held out no permanent hope to Mozart and he
was forced to return to service in Salzburg, under slightly improved
circumstances.[43]
It is nothing short of tragic to see how the young artist vainly
resisted this dreaded renewal of tyranny, and finally yielded, out of
love for his father. His liberation came with the order to write a
new opera, _Idomeneo_, for Munich in 1781. This work constitutes the
transition from adolescence to maturity. It is the last of his operas
to follow absolutely the precedents of the Italian _opera seria_, and
its success definitely determined the course of his artistic career. In
the same year he severed his connection with the Salzburg court (but
not until driven to desperation and humiliated beyond words), settled
in Vienna, and secured in a measure the protection of the emperor. But
for his livelihood he had for a long time to depend upon concerts,
until a propitious circumstance opened a new avenue for the exercise of
his talents. Meantime he had experienced a new revelation. His genius
had been brought into contact with that of Joseph Haydn, whom he
met personally at the imperial palace in 1781 during the festivities
occasioned by the visit of Grand Duke Paul of Prussia.[44] This
master’s works now became the subject of his profound study, which bore
almost immediate results in his instrumental works.
The propitious circumstance alluded to above lay in another direction.
Joseph II had made himself the protector of the German drama in Vienna
and had given the theatre a national significance. His patriotic
convictions induced him to adopt a similar course with the opera,
though his own personal tastes lay clearly in the direction of Italy.
At any rate, he abolished the costly spectacular ballet and Italian
opera and instituted in their stead a ‘national vaudeville,’ as the
German opera was called. The theatre was opened in February, 1778, with
a little operetta, _Die Bergknappen_, by Umlauf, and this was followed
by a number of operas partly translated from the Italian or French,
including _Röschen und Colas_ by Monsigny, _Lucile_, _Silvain_, and
_Der Hausfreund_ by Grétry; and _Anton und Antonette_ by Gossec. In
1781 the emperor commissioned Mozart to contribute to the repertoire
a _singspiel_, and a suitable libretto was found in _Die Enführung
aus dem Serail_. It had an extraordinary success. In the flush of his
triumph Mozart married Constanze Weber, sister of the singer Aloysia
Weber, the erstwhile sweetheart of Mannheim. This again complicated his
financial circumstances; for his wife, loyal as she was, knew nothing
of household economy. Not until 1787 did Mozart secure a permanent
situation at the imperial court, and then with a salary of only eight
hundred florins (four hundred dollars), ‘too much for what I do, too
little for what I could do,’ as he wrote across his first receipt. His
duties consisted in providing dance music for the court! Gluck died in
the year of Mozart’s appointment, but his position with two thousand
florins was not offered to Mozart. To the end of his days he had to
endure pecuniary difficulties and even misery.
Intrigue of Italian colleagues, with Salieri, Gluck’s pupil, at their
head, moreover placed constant difficulties in Mozart’s way, and when,
in 1785, his ‘Marriage of Figaro’ was brought out in Vienna it came
near being a total failure because of the purposely bad work of the
Italian singers. But at Prague, shortly after, the opera aroused the
greatest enthusiasm, and out of gratitude Mozart wrote his next opera,
_Don Giovanni_, for that city (1787). In Vienna again it met with no
success. In this same wonderful year he completed, within the course of
six weeks, the three last and greatest of his symphonies.
In a large measure the composer’s own character--his simple, childlike
and loyal nature--stood in the way of his material success. When, in
1789, he undertook a journey to Berlin with Prince Lichnowsky Frederick
William II offered him the place of royal _kapellmeister_ with a salary
of three thousand thalers. But his patriotism would not allow him to
accept it in spite of his straitened circumstances; and when, after
his return, he was induced to submit his resignation to the emperor,
so that, like Haydn, he might seek his fortune abroad, he allowed his
sentiment to get the better of him at the mere suggestion of imperial
regret. The only reward for his loyalty was an order for another opera.
This was _Così fan tutte_, performed in 1790.
During his Berlin journey Mozart had visited Leipzig and played upon
the organ of St. Thomas’ Church. His masterly performance there so
astonished the organist, Doles, that, as he said, he thought the spirit
of his predecessor, Johann Sebastian Bach, had been reincarnated. It
is significant how thus late in life Bach’s influence opened new
vistas to Mozart--for he had probably known so far only the Leipzig
master’s clavier compositions. It is related how, after a performance
of a cantata in his honor, he was profoundly moved and, spreading
the parts out on the organ bench, became immersed in deep study. The
result is evident in his compositions of the last two years. During
the last, 1791, he wrote _La clemenza di Tito_, another _opera seria_,
for Prague, and his last and greatest German opera, _Die Zauberflöte_,
for Vienna. The _Requiem_, by some considered the crowning work of his
genius, was his last effort; he did not live to finish it. He died
on December 5th, 1791, in abject misery, while the ‘Magic Flute’ was
being played to crowded houses night after night on the outskirts of
Vienna. The profits from the work meantime accrued to the benefit of
the manager, Schikaneder, the ‘friend’ whom Mozart had helped out of
difficulties by writing it. Mozart was buried in a common grave and the
spot has remained unknown to this day.
* * * * *
Thus, briefly, ran the life course of one of the greatest and, without
question, the most gifted of musicians the world has seen. Within
the short space of thirty-six years he was able to produce an almost
countless series of works, the best of which still beguile us after a
century and a half into unqualified admiration. They have lost none of
their freshness and vitality, and it is even safe to say that they are
better appreciated now than in Mozart’s own day. The tender fragrant
loveliness of his melodies, the caressing grace of his cadences will
always remain irresistible; in sheer beauty, in pure musical essence,
we shall not go beyond them. Much might be said of the eternal
influence of Mozart on the latter-day disciples--we need only call to
mind Weber, Brahms, Tschaikowsky, and Richard Strauss, whose own work
is a frank and worthy tribute to his memory.
It has been said that Mozart’s is the only music sufficient unto
itself, requiring no elucidation, no ‘program’ whatever. Hence its
appeal is the most immediate as well as the most general. It has
that impersonal charm which contrives to ingratiate itself with
personalities ever so remote, and to accommodate itself to every
mood. Yet a profoundly human character lies at the bottom of it all.
Mozart the simple, childlike, ingenuous, and generous; or Mozart the
witty, full of abandon, of frank drollery and good humor. With what
fortitude he bore poignant grief and incessant disappointment, how he
submitted to indignities for the sake of others, is well known. But
every attack upon his artistic integrity he met with stern reproof,
and through trial and misery he held steadfast to his ideal as an
artist. To Hoffmeister, the publisher, demanding more ‘salable’ music,
he writes that he prefers to starve; Schikaneder, successful in making
the master’s talent subserve his own ends, gets no concession to the
low taste of his motley audience. Inspired with the divinity of his
mission, he subordinates his own welfare to that one end, and he
breathes his last in the feverish labor over his final great task, the
_Requiem_, ‘his own requiem,’ as he predicted.
V
We have endeavored to point out in our brief sketch of Mozart’s life
the chief influences to which he was exposed. The extent to which he
assimilated and developed the various elements thus absorbed must
determine his place in musical history. ‘The history of every art,’
says Mr. W. H. Hadow, ‘shows a continuous interaction between form and
content. The artist finds himself confronted with a double problem:
what is the fittest to say, and what is the fittest manner of saying
it.... As a rule, one generation is mainly occupied with questions of
design, another takes up the scheme and brings new emotional force to
bear upon it, and thus the old outlines stretch and waver, the old
rules become inadequate, and the form itself, grown more flexible
through a fuller vitality, once more asserts its claim and attains
a fuller organization.’ The generation preceding Mozart and Haydn
had settled for the time being the question of form. Haydn said, as
it were, the last word in determining the design, applying it in
the most diverse ways and pointing the road to further development.
Mozart found it ‘sufficient to his needs and set himself to fill it
with a most varied content of melodic invention.’ The analogy drawn
by Mr. Hadow between the Greek drama and the classic forms of music
is particularly apt: in both the ‘plot’ is constructed in advance and
remains ever the same; the artist is left free to apply his genius to
the poetic interpretation of situations, the delineation of character,
the beauty of rhythm and verse. It was in these things that Mozart
excelled. He brought nothing essentially new, but, by virtue of his
consummate genius, he endowed the symphonic forms as he found them with
a hitherto unequalled depth and force of expression, an individuality
so indefinable that we can describe it only as ‘Mozartian.’ In no sense
was Mozart a reformer. In opera, unlike Gluck, he did not find his
limitations irksome, but knew how to achieve within these limitations
an ideal of dramatic truth without detracting from the quality of his
musical essence. His style is as independent of psychology as it is
of formal interpretation, it is ‘sufficient unto itself,’ ineffable
in its beauty, irresistible in its charm. This utter independence and
self-sufficiency of style enabled him to use with equal success the
vocal and instrumental idioms. And in his work we actually see an
assimilation of the two styles and an interchange of their individual
elements.
Mozart’s inspiration was primarily a melodic one and for that reason
we see him purposely subordinating the harmonic substructure and often
reducing it to its simplest terms. If he employs at times figures of
accompaniment which are obvious and even trite, it is done with an
evident purpose to throw into relief the individuality of his melodies,
those rich broideries and graceful arabesques which Mozart knew how to
weave about a simple ‘tonic and dominant.’ No composer ever achieved
such variety within so limited a harmonic range. On the other hand,
it has been truthfully said that Mozart was the greatest polyphonist
between Bach and Brahms. He was able to make the most learned use of
contrapuntal devices when occasion demanded, but never in the use
of these devices did he descend to dry formalism. His _incidental_
use of counterpoint often produces the most telling effects; the
accentuation of a motive by imitation, a caressing counter-melody to
add poignancy to an expressive phrase, the reciprocal germination of
musical ideas, all these he applies with consummate science and without
ever sacrificing ingenuous spontaneity. Again in his harmonic texture
there are moments of daring which perplexed his contemporaries and even
to-day are open to dispute. The sudden injection of a dissonant note
into an apparently tranquil harmonic relation, such as in the famous
C-major Quartet, which aroused such violent discussion when first
heard, or in the first Allegro theme of the _Don Giovanni_ overture, is
his particularly favorite way of introducing ‘color.’
This chromaticism of Mozart’s is one of the striking differences
between his music and Haydn’s. ‘Haydn makes his richest point of color
by sheer abrupt modulation; Mozart by iridescent chromatic motion
within the limits of a clearly defined harmonic sequence.’[45] In
drawing a further comparison between the two Viennese masters we find
in Haydn a greater simplicity and directness of expression, a more
unadorned, unhesitating utterance, as against Mozart, to whom perfectly
chiselled phrases, a polished, graceful manner of speech are second
nature, whether his mood is gay or sad, his emotions careless or deep.
The distinction is aptly illustrated by the juxtaposition of the
following two themes quoted in Vol. IV of the ‘Oxford History of Music.’
[Illustration: Haydn: Finale of Quartet in G (Op. 33, N.º 5)]
[Illustration: Mozart: Finale of Quartet in D-minor (K. 421)]
But the difference is not so much in phraseology as in the broader
aspects of invention and method. The fundamental division lies, of
course, in the character of the two men. Haydn, the simple, ingenuous
peasant, whose moods range from sturdy humor to solid dignity; Mozart,
the keen, vivacious, witty cosmopolitan, whose humor always tends to
satire, but whose exalted moments are moments of soulful, subjective
contemplation. His music is accordingly more epigrammatic, on the one
hand, and of a deeper, rounder sonority, on the other. Mozart and
Haydn first became acquainted with each other in 1780, when both had
behind them long careers full of creative activity. It is significant,
however, that practically all the works which to-day constitute our
knowledge of them were created after this meeting, and neither their
music nor the fact of their admiration for each other leaves any doubt
as to the power and depth of their mutual influence. Mozart profited
probably more in matters of technique and structure; Haydn in matters
of refinement and delicacy.
The complete list of Mozart’s works includes no less than twenty-one
piano sonatas and fantasias (besides a number for four hands);
forty-two violin sonatas; twenty-six string quartets; seven string
quintets, several string duos and trios; forty-one symphonies;
twenty-eight divertimenti, etc., for orchestra; twenty-five piano
concertos; six violin concertos; and eighteen operas and other
dramatic works, besides single movements for diverse instruments,
chamber music for wind and for strings and wind, songs, arias, and
ecclesiastical compositions of every form, including fifteen masses.
But only a portion of these is of consequence to the music lover of our
day; the portion which constitutes virtually the last decade of his
activity. The rest, though full of grace and charm, has only historical
significance.
His piano sonatas, we have seen, followed the model of Schobert and, in
some measure, of Emanuel Bach, but the style of these works, available
to the amateur and valuable as study material, is more individual
than that of either of the earlier masters and their musical worth
is far superior. The first of them were written about 1774 for Count
von Dürnitz, of Munich, and represent his contribution to the light,
elegant style of the period. In some later ones he strikes a more
serious note; dashing or majestic allegros alternate with caressing
cantabiles, graceful andantes or adagios of delicious beauty and
romantic expressiveness. The violin sonatas, though supposed to
have been written chiefly for the diversion of his lady pupils (the
instrument was still considered most suitable for feminine amusement),
are full of beauty, strength, and dramatic expression.
The string quartets, the first of which he wrote during his Italian
journey of 1770, are in his early period slight and unpretentious but
lucid and delicate compositions, in which we may trace influences of
Sammartini and Boccherini. From 1773 on, however, the influence of
Haydn’s genius is apparent. By 1781, when Mozart took up his residence
in Vienna, quartet-playing had become one of the favorite pastimes of
musical amateurs. Haydn was the acknowledged leader in this popular
field and ‘whoever ventured on the same field was obliged to serve
under his banner.’ During the period of 1782 to 1785 Mozart wrote a
series of six quartets, which he dedicated to that master ‘as the fruit
of long and painful study inspired by his example.’ After playing them
over at Mozart’s house (on such occasions Haydn took the first violin
part, Dittersdorf the second, Mozart the viola, and Vanhall the 'cello)
Haydn turned to Leopold Mozart and said: ‘I assure you solemnly and as
an honest man that I consider your son to be the greatest composer
of whom I have ever heard.’ Like Haydn and Boccherini, Mozart was
commissioned to write some quartets for the king of Prussia (William
II), and, since his royal patron himself played the 'cello, he
cleverly emphasized that instrument without, however, depriving the
other instruments of their independent power of expression. Mozart’s
partiality for quartet writing is evident from the many sketches in
that form which have been preserved. They are among the masterpieces
of chamber music, as are also his string duos, trios, and, especially,
his four great string quintets. The celebrated one in G minor is,
as Jahn says, a veritable ‘psychological revelation.’ Few pieces in
instrumental music express a mood of passionate excitement with such
energy.’
Mozart’s concertos for the piano and also those for the violin
were written primarily for his own use. The best of them date from
the period preceding his Paris journey, when he expected to make
practical use of them, for he was a virtuoso of no mean powers on both
instruments. There are six concertos for either instrument, every
one full of pure beauty and a model of form. In them he substituted
the classic sonata form for the variable pattern used in the earlier
concertos, and hence he may be considered the creator of the classic
concerto, his only definite contribution to the history of form. They
are not merely brilliant pieces for technical display, but symphonic,
both in proportion and import. In them are found some of the finest
moments of his inspiration. ‘It is the Mozart of the early concerti to
whom we owe the imperishable matter of the Viennese period,’ says Mr.
Hadow, ‘and the influences which helped to mold successively the style
of Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert.’
Of Mozart’s symphonies and serenades, terms which in some cases are
practically synonymous, there are about eleven that are of lasting
value and at least three that are imperishable. With the exception of
the Paris symphony, ‘a brilliant and charming _pièce d’occasion_,’
which was referred to above, all of them were written during the Vienna
period, and the three great ones flowed from the composer’s pen within
the brief space of six weeks in 1787, the year of _Don Giovanni_. In
the matter of form again Mozart followed in the tracks of the Mannheim
school. The usual three movements remain, but, like Haydn, he usually
adds the minuet after the slow movement. The ‘developed ternary form’
is applied in the first and more and more frequently also in other
movements, especially the last, where it takes the place of the lighter
rondo. But the musical material is richer and its handling far more
ingenious than that of his predecessors, just as the spiritual import
is much deeper. The movements are more closely knit, they have a unity
of emotion which clearly points in the direction of Beethoven’s later
works. There is, if not an _idée fixe_, at any rate a _sentiment fixe_.
It is manifested in a multiplicity of ways: more consistent use of the
principal thematic material in the ‘working-out,’ reassertion of themes
after the ‘transition’ (the section leading from the exposition to the
development), introductions which are, as it were, improvisations on
the mood of the piece, and codas ‘summing up’ the subjective matter.
This same unity exists between the different movements; a note of grief
or passion sounded in the first movement is either reiterated in the
last or else we feel that the composer has emerged from the struggle in
triumph or noble joy. Only the minuet, an almost constant quantity with
Mozart, brings a momentary relief or abandon to a lighter vein, if it
is not itself, as in the G minor symphony, nobly dignified and touched
with sadness.
In the use of orchestral instruments, too, Mozart emulated the
practice of the Mannheim composers. Their works were usually scored
for eight parts, that is, two oboes _or_ flutes and two horns, besides
the usual string body. Clarinets were still rare at that time, and
parts provided for them were for that reason arranged for optional
use, being interchangeable with the oboe parts. Mozart, although he
had heard them as early as 1778 at Mannheim, used them only in his
later works,[46] and even then did not often employ that part of
their range which reaches below the oboe’s compass (still thinking of
them as alternates for that instrument). But in the manner of writing
for instruments Mozart’s works show a real novelty. In the Mannheim
symphonies the wood wind instruments usually doubled the string parts,
but occasionally they were given long, sustained notes and the brass
even went beyond mere ‘accent notes’ (_di rinforza_) to the extent
of an occasional sustained note or any individual motive. Haydn and
Mozart at first confirmed this practice, but in their later works they
introduced a wholly new method, which Dr. Riemann calls ‘filigree
work’ and which formed the basis of Beethoven’s orchestral style. ‘The
idea to conceive the orchestra as a multiplicity of units, each of
which may, upon proper occasion, interpose an essential word, without,
however, protruding itself in the manner of a solo and thus disturbing
in any way the true character of the symphonic ensemble, was foreign
to the older orchestral music.’[47] A mere dialogue between individual
instruments or bodies of instruments was, of course, nothing new,
but the cutting up of a single melodic thread and having different
instruments take it up alternately, as Haydn did, was an innovation,
and immediately led to another step, viz., the interweaving of
individual melodic sections, dove-tail fashion, thus:
[Illustration: Haydn: Finale, 36^{th} Symphony]
and this in turn brought, with Mozart, the coöperation of _groups of
instruments_ in such dove-tail formations, and led finally to the more
sophisticated disposition of instrumental color, as in the second theme
of the great G minor symphony:
[Illustration: Music score]
This sort of figure has nothing in common with the old polyphony,
in which there is always one predominating theme, shifting from one
voice to another. The equal and independent participation of several
differently colored voices in the polyphonic web is the characteristic
feature of modern orchestral polyphony, the style of Beethoven and his
successors down to Strauss.
To Mozart Dr. Riemann gives the credit for the first impulses to this
free disposition of orchestral parts. It is evident, however, only in
his last works, and notably the three great symphonies--the mighty
‘Jupiter’ (in C) with the great double fugue in the last movement,
the radiantly cheerful E-flat, and the more deeply shaded, romantic
G-minor, ‘the greatest orchestral composition of the eighteenth
century,’ works which alone would have assured their creator’s
immortality. It would be futile to attempt a description of these
monumental creations, but we cannot forego a few general remarks about
them. They preach the gospel of classicism in its highest perfection.
Beauty of design was never more potent in art. It is Praxitelean
purity of form warmed with delicate yet rich color. The expositions
are as perfect in form as they are rich in content; the developments a
world of iridescent color, of playful suggestions and sweet reminders.
The clean-cut individuality of his themes, as eloquent as Wagner’s
leit-motifs, so lend themselves to transmutation that a single motive
of three notes, revealed in a thousand new aspects, suffices as
thematic material for an entire development section. We refer to the
opening theme of the G minor:
[Illustration: Music score]
A fascinating character displayed in every conceivable circumstance
and situation would be the literary equivalent of this. But often the
characters are two or three, and sometimes strange faces appear and
complicate the story.
Mozart is the master of subtle variants, of unexpected yet not
unnatural turns in melody. His recapitulations therefore are rarely
literal. The essence remains the same, but it is deliciously
intensified by almost imperceptible means. Compare the second theme
of the last movement of the G minor in its original form with its
metamorphosis:
[Illustration: Music score]
[Illustration: Music score]
What infinite variety there is within the limits of these three
symphonies! The allegros, now majestic, noble; now rhythmically alert,
scintillant, joyous; now full of suggestions of destiny; the andantes
sometimes grave or sad, sometimes a caressing supplication followed by
radiant bliss; the finales triumphant or careless, a furious presto or
a mighty fugue--it is a riot of beauty and a maze of delicate dreams.
But nowhere is Mozart more himself than in his minuets. The minuet was
his cradle song. The first one he wrote--at four--would have set the
feet of gay salons to dancing, but later they took real meaning, became
alive with more than rhythm. Whether they go carelessly romping through
flowery fields, full of the effervescence of youth, as in the Jupiter
symphony, whether they sway languidly in sensuous rhythms or race
ahead in fretful flight, with themes flitting in and out in breathless
pursuit, they are always irresistible. And what balmy consolation, what
sweet reassurance there lies in his ‘trios.’ Haydn gave life to the
minuet; Mozart gave it beauty.
The outstanding feature, however, not only of Mozart’s symphonies,
but of all his instrumental music, is its peculiarly melodic quality,
the constant sensuous grace of melody regardless of rhythm or speed.
Other composers had achieved a cantabile quality in slow movements, but
rarely in the allegros and prestos. Pergolesi, perhaps, came nearest to
Mozart in this respect and there is no doubt that that side of Mozart’s
inspiration was rooted in the vocal style of the Italians. Here, then,
is the point of contact between symphony and opera. Mozart is the
‘conclusion, the final result of the strong influence which operatic
song had exerted upon instrumental music since the beginning of the
eighteenth century.’[48] On the other hand, Mozart brought symphonic
elements into the opera, in which, so far, it had been lacking; and
it is safe to say that only an ‘instrumental’ composer could have
accomplished what Mozart accomplished in dramatic music.
[Illustration: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]
_After an unfinished portrait by Josef Lange_
VI
Great as were Mozart’s achievements in the field of symphonic music,
his services to opera were at least as important. Recent critics,
such as Kretzschmar,[49] are wont to exalt the dramatic side of his
genius above any other. It is certain, at any rate, that his strongest
predilection lay in that direction. Already, in 1764, his father writes
from London how the eight-year-old composer ‘has his head filled’
with an idea to write a little opera for the young people of Salzburg
to perform. After the return home his dramatic imagination makes
him personify the parts of his counterpoint exercises as _Il signor
d’alto_, _Il marchese tenore_, _Il duco basso_, etc. Time and again he
utters ‘his dearest wish’ to write an opera. Once it is ‘rather French
than German, and rather Italian than French’; another time ‘not a
_buffa_ but a _seria_.’ Curious enough, neither in _seria_ nor in the
purely Italian style did he attain his highest level.
But his suggestions, and much of his inspiration, came from Italy.
In serious opera, Hasse, Jommelli, Paesillo, Majo, Traetto, and even
minor men served him for models, and, of course, his friend Christian
Bach; and Mozart never rose above their level. Lacking the qualities
of a reformer he followed the models as closely as he did in other
fields, but here was a form that was not adequate to his genius--too
worn out and lifeless. Gluck might have helped him, but he came too
late. And so it happened that _Mitridate_ (1770), _Ascanio in Albo_ (a
‘serenata,’ 1771), _Il sogno di Scipione_ and _Lucio Silla_ (1772),
_Il rè pastore_ (dramatic cantata, 1775), _Idomeneo_ (1781), and even
_La Clemenza di Tito_, written in his very last year, are as dead
to-day as the worst of their contemporaries. But with _opera buffa_
it was otherwise. Various influences came into play here: Piccini’s
_La buona figluola_ and (though we have no record of Mozart’s hearing
it) its glorious ancestor, Pergolesi’s _Serva padrona_; the successes
of the _opéra comique_, Duni, Monsigny, Grétry, even Rousseau--all
these reëchoed in his imagination. And then the flexibility of the
form--the thing was unlimited, capable of infinite expansion. What if
it had become trite and silly--a Mozart could turn dross to gold, he
could deepen a puddle into a well! This was his great achievement; what
Gluck did for the _opera seria_ he did for the _buffa_. He took it
into realms beyond the ken of man, where its absurdities became golden
dreams, its figures flesh and blood, its buffoonery divine abandon. The
serious side of the story, too, became less and less parody and more
and more reality, till in _Don Giovanni_ we do not know where the point
of gravity lies. He calls it a _dramma giocosa_, but the joke is all
too real. Death, even of a profligate, has its sting.
But what a music, what a halo of sound Mozart has cast about it all.
What are words of the text, after all, especially when we do not
understand them? These melodies carry their own message, they _cannot_
be sung without expression, they are expression themselves. Is there
in all music a more soul-stirring beauty than that of _Deh vieni non
tardar_ (Figaro, Act II), or _In diesen teuren Hallen_ (Magic Flute,
Act II)? Or more delicious tenderness than Cherubino’s _Non so più_ and
_Voi che sapete_, or Don Giovanni’s serenade _Deh vieni alla fenestra_;
or more dashing gallantry than _Fin ch’an dal vino_? Were duets
ever written with half the grace of _La ci darem la mano_, in _Don
Giovanni_, or the letter scene in _Figaro_? They are jewels that will
continue to glow when opera itself is reduced to cinders.
The purely musical elements of opera are Mozart’s chief concern. If
he gives himself wholly to that without detriment to the drama, it is
only by virtue of his own extraordinary power. Mozart could not, like
Gluck, make himself ‘forget that he was a musician,’ and would not if
he could; yet his scenes _live_, his characters are more real than
Gluck’s; all this despite ‘set arias,’ despite coloratura, despite
everything that Gluck abolished. But in musical details he followed
him; in the portrayal of mood, in painting backgrounds, and in the
handling of the chorus. Gluck painted landscape, but Mozart drew
portraits. In musical characterization his mastery is undisputed.
Again we have no use for words; the musical accents, the contour of
the phrase and its rhythm delineate the man more precisely than a
sketcher’s pencil. Here once more beauty is the first law, it sheds its
evening glow over all. No mere frivolity here, no dissolute roisterers,
no faithless wives--Don Giovanni, the gay cavalier, becomes a ‘demon of
divine daring,’ the urchin Cherubino is made the incarnation of Youth,
Spring, and Love; the Countess personifies the ideal of pure womanhood;
Beaumarchais, in short, becomes Mozart.
_La finta semplice_ (1768), _La finta giardiniera_ (1775), and some
fragmentary works are, like Mozart’s _serious_ operas, now forgotten,
but _Così fan tutte_ (1790), _Le nozze di Figaro_ (1786), and _Don
Giovanni_ (1787) continue with unimpaired vitality as part of every
respectable operatic repertoire. The same is true of his greatest
German opera, _Die Zauberflöte_, and in a measure of _Die Entführung
aus dem Serail_. Germany owes a debt of undying gratitude to the
composer of these, for they accomplished the long-fought-for victory
over the Italians. Hiller and his singspiel colleagues had tried it
and failed; and so had Dittersdorf, the mediocre Schweitzer (allied
to Wieland the poet), and numerous others. Now for the first time
tables were turned and Italy submitted to the influence of Germany.
Mozart had beaten them on their own ground and had the audacity to
appropriate the spoil for his own country. Without Mozart we could have
no _Meistersinger_, cries Kretzschmar, which means no _Freischütz_, no
_Oberon_, and no _Rosenkavalier_! But only we of to-day can know these
things. Joseph II, who had ‘ordered’ the _Entführung_ and whose express
command was necessary to bring it upon the boards, opined on the night
of the première that it was ‘too beautiful for our ears, and a powerful
lot of notes, my dear Mozart.’ ‘Exactly as many as are necessary, your
majesty,’ retorted the composer. It was an evening of triumph, but a
triumph soon forgotten; for, after a few more attempts, the lights went
down on German opera--the ‘national vaudeville’--and Salieri and his
crew returned with all the wailing heroines, the strutting heroes, the
gruesome ghosts, and all the paraphernalia of ‘serious opera!’
However, the people, the ‘common people,’ liked Punch and Judy better,
or, at least, its equivalent. ‘Magic’ opera was the vogue, the absurder
the better; and Schikaneder was their man. Some eighteenth century
‘Chantecler’ had left a surplus of bird feathers on his hands--and
these suggested Papageno, the ‘hero’ of another ‘magic’ opera--‘The
Magic Flute.’ The foolishness of its plot is unbelievable, but Mozart
was won over. _Magic_ opera! Why--any opera would do. Now we know how
he loved it! And now he used his _own_ magic, his wonderful strains,
and lo, nonsense became logic, the ‘silly mixture of fairy romance and
free-masonic mysticism’ was buried under a flood of sound; Schikaneder
is forgotten and Mozart stands forth in all the radiance of his glory.
Let the unscrupulous manager make his fortune and catch the people’s
plaudits--but think of the unspeakable joy of Mozart on his deathbed
as every night he follows the performances in his imagination, act by
act, piece by piece, hearing with a finer sense than human ear and
dreaming of generations to come that will call him master!
The _Requiem_, which Mozart composed for the most part while
_Zauberflöte_ was ‘running,’ is the only ecclesiastical work which
does not follow in the rut of his contemporaries. All his masses,
offertories, oratorios, etc., are ‘unscrupulous adaptations of the
operatic style to church music.’ The _Requiem_, completed by his pupil,
Süssmayr, according to the master’s direction, shows all the attributes
of his genius--‘deeply felt melody, masterful development, and a
breadth of conception which betrays the influence of Handel.’ ‘But,’
concludes Riemann, ‘a soft, radiant glow spreading over it all reminds
us of Pergolesi.’ Yes, and that influence is felt in many a measure of
this work--we should be tempted to use a trite metaphor if Pergolesi’s
mantle were adequate for the stature of a Mozart. As perhaps the finest
example, in smaller form, of his church music we may refer the reader
to the celebrated _Ave verum_, composed in 1791, which is reprinted in
our musical supplement.
* * * * *
Through Haydn and Mozart orchestral music emerged strong and well
defined from a long period of dim growth. Their symphonies are, so to
speak, the point of confluence of many streams of musical development,
most of which, it may be remarked, had their source in Italy. The
cultivation of solo melody, the development of harmony, largely by
practice with the figured bass, until it became part of the structure
of music, the perfection of the string instruments of the viol type
and of the technique in playing and writing for them, the attempts
to vivify operatic music by the use of various _timbres_, all these
contributed to the establishment of orchestral music as an independent
branch of the art. The question of form had been first solved in music
for keyboard instruments or for small groups of instruments and was
merely adapted to the orchestra. These lines of development we have
traced in previous chapters. The building up of the frame, so to speak,
of orchestral music was synthetical. It had to await the perfection of
the various materials which were combined to make it. This was, as we
have said, a long, slow process. The symphony was evolved, not created.
So, in this respect, neither Haydn nor Mozart are creators.
But once the various constituents had fallen into place, the perfected
combination made clear, new and peculiar possibilities, to the
cultivation of which Haydn and Mozart contributed enormously. These
peculiar possibilities were in the direction of sonority and tone
color. In search of these Haydn and Mozart originated the _orchestral_
style and pointed the way for all subsequent composers. In the Haydn
symphonies orchestral music first rang even and clear; in those of
Mozart it was first tinged with tone colors, so exquisite, indeed, that
to-day, beside the brilliant works of Wagner and Strauss, the colors
still glow unfaded.
If Haydn and Mozart did not create the symphony, the excellence of
their music standardized it. The blemish of conventionality and
empty formalism cannot touch the excellence of their best work. Such
excellence would have no power to move us were it only skill. There
is genuine emotional inspiration in most of the Salomon symphonies
and in the three great symphonies of Mozart. In Haydn’s music it
is the simple emotion of folk songs; in Mozart’s it is more veiled
and mysterious, subtle and elusive. In neither is it stormy and
assertive, as in Beethoven, but it is none the less clearly felt. That
is why their works endure. That is the personal touch, the special
gift of each to the art. Attempts to exalt Beethoven’s greatness by
contrasting his music with theirs are, in the main, unjust and lead to
false conclusions. Their clarity and graceful tenderness are not less
intrinsically beautiful because Beethoven had the power of the storm.
Moreover, the honest critic must admit that the first two symphonies
of Beethoven fall short of the artistic beauty and the real greatness
of the Mozart G minor or C major. Indeed, it is to be doubted if any
orchestral music can be more beautiful than Mozart’s little symphony in
G minor, for that is perfect.
We find in them the fresh-morning Spring of symphonic music, when the
sun is bright, the air still cool and clear, the sparkling dew still
on the grass. After them a freshness has gone out of music, never to
return. Never again shall we hear the husbandman whistle across the
fields, nor the song of the happy youth of dreams stealing barefoot
across the dewy grass.
C. S.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] Superstition was still so widespread that Paganini was actually
forced to produce evidence that he did not derive his ‘magic’ from the
evil one.
[37] Burney in describing his travels says: ‘So violent are the jolts,
and so hard are the seats, of German post wagons, that a man is rather
kicked than carried from one place to another.’ Mozart in a letter
recounting to his father his trip from Salzburg to Munich avows that he
was compelled to raise himself up by his arms and so remain suspended
for a good part of the way!
[38] After Augustus’ death, in 1763, musical life at this court
deteriorated, though Naumann was retained as kapellmeister by Charles,
Augustus’s son.
[39] _Cf._ Charles Burney: ‘The Present State of Music in Germany,’
London, 1773.
[40] Among other musicians he met is old Wagenseil, who was confined
to his couch, but had the harpsichord wheeled to him and ‘played me
several _capriccios_ and pieces of his own composition in a very
spirited and masterly manner.’ Merely mentioned are Ditters, Huber,
Mancini, the great lutenist Kohaut, the violinist La Motte, and the
oboist Venturini.
[41] Johann Schobert especially caught the boy’s fancy, though both
his father and Baron Grimm, their most influential friend in Paris,
depreciated his merits and tried to picture him as a small, jealous
person. T. de Wyzewa and G. de St. Foix, in their study _Un maître
inconnu de Mozart_ (_Zeitschrift Int. Musik-Ges._, Nov., 1908), and in
their partially completed biography of Mozart, have clearly shown the
powerful influence of the Paris master on the youthful composer.
[42] T. de Wyzewa and G. de St. Foix in their scholarly work ‘W.-A.
Mozart’ have catalogued and fixed the relative positions of all the
Mozart compositions. This in a sense supersedes the famous catalogue
made by Ludwig von Koechel (1862, Supplement 1864).
[43] Mozart’s mother, ill during the greater part of the Paris sojourn,
died about the time of the symphony première. Grief-stricken as he
was, he wrote his father all the details of the performance and merely
warned him that his mother was dangerously ill. At the same time he
advised a close Salzburg friend of the event and begged him to acquaint
his father with it as carefully as possible.
[44] Another incident of this veritable carnival of music was the
famous pianoforte competition between Mozart and Clementi.
[45] W. H. Hadow, in ‘The Oxford History of Music.’
[46] It is a well-known fact that the moment of his first acquaintance
with the instrument Mozart became enamored of its tone. No ear ever was
more alive to the purely sensuous qualities of tone color.
[47] Riemann: _Handbuch der Musikgeschichte_, II.
[48] Riemann: _Op. cit._
[49] Hermann Kretzschmar: _Mozart in der Geschichte der Oper_
(_Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters_, 1905).