PIANOFORTE AND CHAMBER MUSIC OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
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.
I
The striking difference between the pianoforte music of the nineteenth
century and that of the eighteenth is, of course, not an accident. That
of the eighteenth is in most cases not properly piano music at all,
since it was composed specifically for the clavichord or harpsichord,
which have little beyond the familiar keyboard in common with the
modern pianoforte. Both classes of instruments were known and in use
throughout the greater part of the eighteenth century, and the date
1800 may be taken as that at which the pianoforte displaced its rivals.
Much of the old harpsichord music is played to-day on the piano (as,
for instance, Bach’s preludes and fugues), but the structure of the
music is very different, and the effect on the piano gives no idea of
the effect as originally intended.
The most superficial glance shows eloquently the difference between
the two sorts of keyboard music. That of the nineteenth century
differs from its predecessor in its emphasis on long sustained
‘singing’ melody, in its greater range, in its reliance on special tone
qualities, in being (to a great extent) melodic instead of polyphonic,
in wide skips and separation of notes, and, above all, in its use of
sustained chords. Leaving aside the specific tendencies of the romantic
period, all these differences can be explained by the difference in the
instruments for which the two sorts of music were written.
The clavichord was a very simple instrument of keys and strings. The
length of the vibrating string (which determines its pitch) was set, at
the stroke which set it in vibration, by a metal ‘tangent’ on the end
of the key lever, being at once the hammer and the fret of the string.
The stroke was slight, the tone was extremely soft. The vibration
continued only a few seconds and was so slight that anything like
the ‘singing tone’ of the pianoforte was impossible. But within the
duration of a single note the player, by a rapid upward and downward
movement of the wrist which varied the pressure on the key, could
produce a wavering tone similar to the vibrato of the human voice and
the violin, which gave a faint but live warmth to the tone, unhappily
wholly lacking in the tone of the pianoforte. It was doubtless this
peculiar ‘live’ expressiveness which made the instrument a favorite of
the great Bach, and which, moreover, justifies the player in making
the utmost possible variety of tone in playing Bach’s clavier works on
the modern instrument. The sound of the instrument was something like
that of an æolian harp, and was therefore quite unsuited to the concert
hall. But it was of a sympathetic quality that made it a favorite for
small rooms, and much loved by composers for their private musings.
The harpsichord was the concert piano, so to speak, of the time.
Its strings were plucked by means of a short quill, and a damper
automatically deadened the tone an instant afterwards. The instrument
was therefore quite incapable of sustained melody, or of gradations of
volume, except with the use of stops, which on the best instruments
could bring new sets of strings into play. Its tone was sharp and
mechanical, not very unlike that of a mandolin.
Now what the modern pianoforte possesses (apart from its greater range
and resonance) is chiefly ability to control the power of the tone by
force or lightness of touch, and to sustain individual notes, by means
of holding down the key, or all of them together through the use of
the sustaining pedal. Theoretically, the clavichord could both control
power and sustain notes, but the tone was so slight that these virtues
were of little practical use. The ground principle of the pianoforte is
its rebounding hammer, which strikes the string with any desired power
and immediately rebounds so as to permit it to continue vibrating. Each
string is provided with its damper, which is held away from it as long
as the key is pressed down. The sustaining or damper pedal removes
all the dampers from the strings, so that any notes which are struck
will continue vibrating. The one thing which the piano cannot do is
to control the tone after it is struck. By great care in the use of
materials piano makers have been able to produce a tone which continues
vibrating with great purity and persistence, but this inevitably dies
out as the vibrations become diminished in amplitude. The ‘legato’ of
the pianoforte is only a second best, and is rather an aural illusion
than a fact. Any increasing of the tone, as with the violin, is quite
impossible. Any true sustaining of the tone is equally impossible, but,
by skillful writing and playing, the illusion of a legato tone can be
well maintained and a far greater beauty and variety of effect can be
reached than one might think possible from a mechanical examination of
the instrument.
Before 1770 (the date of Beethoven’s birth) clavier music existed only
for the clavichord and the harpsichord, though it could also be played
on the pianoforte. Beethoven grew up with the maturing pianoforte. By
the time he had reached his artistic maturity (in 1800) it had driven
its rivals from the field. Up to 1792 all Beethoven’s compositions were
equally adapted to the piano and the harpsichord. Up to 1803 they were
published for pianoforte _or_ harpsichord, though it is probable that
in the preceding decade he had written most of his clavier music with
the pianoforte in mind.
The earliest pianoforte (made in the first two decades of the
eighteenth century) had a compass of four and a half octaves, a little
more than that of the ordinary clavichord. The pianoforte of Mozart’s
time had five octaves, and Clementi added half an octave in 1793. By
1811 six and a half octaves had been reached, and in 1836 (about the
time of the publication of Liszt’s first compositions, barring the
youthful Études) there were seven, or seven and one-third, which have
remained the standard ever since. During all this time piano makers
had been endeavoring to increase the rigidity of the piano frame. This
was partly to take care of the greater size due to the adding of bass
strings, but chiefly to permit of greater tension. The quality and
persistency of the vibration depends to a great extent on the tension
of the strings. Other things being equal, the excellence of the tone
increases (up to a certain limit) with the tension. This led gradually
to the introduction of iron supports, and later to a solid cast iron
or steel frame, though up to 1820 only wood was used in the body of
the pianoforte, until the tension became so great and the pitch so
high (for the sake of tonal brilliancy) that the wooden frame proved
incapable of sustaining the strain. The average tension on each string
is, in the modern piano, some one hundred and seventy-five pounds, and
was up to recent times much higher. The present Steinway concert grand
suffers a strain of more than twenty tons, and, under the higher pitch
of former years, had to stand thirty. The weight of the instrument
itself is half a ton.
These improvements have made the piano second only to the orchestra for
all around usefulness and expressiveness. The size of the instrument
and the high tension of the strings made its tone sufficient for the
largest concert hall, and permitted a keyboard range almost double that
of the harpsichord. The individual dampers responsive to the pressure
of the key made a quasi-legato and true melody playing possible.
The rebounding hammer directly controlled by the key made possible
all varieties of soft and loud tone. And the sustaining or damper,
incorrectly called the loud pedal, made possible the sustaining of
chords in great richness. The usefulness of this last device is still
not half stated in saying that chords can be sustained; for, when all
the strings are left open, there occurs a sympathetic vibration in the
strings which are not struck by the hammers but are in tune with the
overtones of the strings that are struck. This fact increases to an
astonishing extent the resonance and sonority of any chords sounded
with the help of the sustaining pedal. It makes the instrument almost
orchestral in quality, opening to it an amazing range and variety of
effect which Chopin, Liszt, and many piano writers after them, used
with supreme and magical skill. The soft pedal opens another range of
effects. On the grand piano it shifts the hammers so that they hit but
one of the three strings proper to each note in the middle and upper
registers. Hence the direction _una corda_, written in the pianoforte
works of all great masters, including Beethoven.
The piano thus became an ideal sounding board for the romantic
movement. It was capable of luscious expressive melody. It could
obtain effects of great delicacy and intimate character. It could be
loud, astonishing and orchestral. Its tone was in itself a thing of
sensuous beauty. Its freedom in harmony was no less than its freedom
in melody, and enharmonic changes, beloved of all the romanticists,
became easy. It allowed the greatest liberty in the disposition of
notes, and harmonic accompaniment, with broken chords and arpeggios,
could take on an absolute beauty of its own. This sufficiently explains
the complete change in the method of writing clavier music in the
nineteenth century. One example of the way in which Mozart and Chopin
obtained harmonic sonority in accompaniments will show how far-reaching
the change was.
[Illustration: Music score: Mozart: Sonata in F major]
[Illustration: Music score: Chopin: Nocturne Op. 27, No. 2]
By the use of the damper pedal the Chopin formula gives the effect of
a sustained chord. On the harpsichord it would have sounded like a few
notes too widely scattered to be united in sonority.
With such an instrument every style of music became possible. Liszt
asserted that he could reproduce any orchestral effect on it, and
many of the best orchestral works of his time became generally known
first through his pianoforte arrangements of them. Equally possible
were the simple song-like melodies of some of Chopin’s preludes, or
the whimsical genre pieces of Schumann. As a consequence the wonderful
piano literature of the nineteenth century is equal to any music in
range, power, and emotional expressiveness.
II
Nearly all the qualities of romantic music find their beginnings in
Beethoven. But it is not always easy to disentangle the romantic from
the classical element in his music, and for convenience we begin
the history of the romantic period with Schubert and Weber. For
the specific and conscious tendencies of romanticism first showed
themselves in the fondness for smaller free pianoforte forms, which
Beethoven cultivated not at all, if we omit his historically negligible
_Für Elise_ and one or two other pieces of the same sort. Beethoven’s
later sonatas, while romantic in their breaking through the classic
form and seeking a more intense emotional expression, are rather the
prophets of romanticism than its ancestors.
When Schubert dared to write lovely pieces without any reference to
traditional forms he began the history of romantic piano music. This
he did in his lovely Impromptus, opus 90, and the famous _Moments
musicals_, both published in the year of his death, 1828. The
Impromptus were not so named by the composer, but the title can well
stand. They are essentially improvisations at the piano. They were
written not to suit any form, nor to try any technical task, but simply
because the composer became fascinated with his musical idea and
wanted to work it out, which is true (theoretically at least) of all
romantic music. In the very first of the Impromptus, that in C minor,
we can almost see Schubert running his fingers over his piano, timidly
experimenting with the discovery of a new tune, his childlike delight
at finding it a beautiful one, and his pleasure in lingering over
lovely cadences and enharmonic changes, or in working out new forms for
his melody. The very first note--the octave G struck fortissimo--is
a note for the pianoforte and not for clavichord or harpsichord.
For it is held, and with the damper pedal pressed down, so that the
other strings may join in the symphony in sympathetic vibration. And
throughout the piece this G seems to sound magically as the dominant
around which the whole harmony centres as toward a magnet. In other
words, we are meeting in this first Impromptu our old Romantic friend,
sensuous tone. The pleasure which Schubert takes in repeating the G,
either by inference or in fact, or in swelling his chords by the use
of the pedal, or in drawing out melodic cadences, or in coaxing out
the reverberating tones of the bass, or in letting his melodic tone
sound as though from the human voice--this, we might almost say, marks
the discovery of the pianoforte by the nineteenth century. And it is
equally romanticism’s growing realization of itself.
All the impromptus are of great beauty, and all are unmistakably of
Schubert. They have the fault of improvisations in that they are
too long, but if one is in a leisurely mood to receive them, they
never become a bore. The _Moments musicals_ are still more typical
of Schubert’s genius--some of them short, ending suddenly almost
before the hearer is aware that they have begun, but leaving behind a
definite, clear-cut impression like a cameo. They are the ancestors of
all the genre pieces of later times. Each of them might have a fanciful
name attached, and each has the directness of genius. Schubert’s
sonatas are important only in their possession of the qualities of
the Impromptus and _Moments musicals_. They are filled with beauties,
but as sonatas--as representatives of classical organization and
logic--they are negligible. Schubert cannot resist the charm of a
lovely melody, and, when he finds one, the claims of form retire into
the background. Certain individual movements are of high excellence,
but played consecutively they are uneven. The ‘Fantasia’ in C minor
(containing one of the themes from Schubert’s song, ‘The Wanderer,’)
is a fine imaginative and technical work, but its freedom of form is
of no historical importance, as Mozart wrote a long fantasia in C that
was even more daring. The dances, likewise, have no significance in
point of form, being written altogether after the usual manner of the
day (they were, in fact, mostly pot boilers), but they contain at times
such appealing beauty that they helped to dignify the dance as a type
of concert piano music. The ability to create the highest beauty _in
parvo_ is distinctive of the romantic movement, and Schubert’s dances
and marches have stimulated many another composer to simplicity of
expression. The influence of them is evident in the _Carnaval_ and the
_Davidsbündler Tänze_ of Schumann. Liszt elaborated them and strung
several together for concert use, and the waltzes of Brahms, who, more
perhaps than any other, admired Schubert and profited by him, are
derived directly from those of Schubert.
Liszt may be quoted once more, in his rhetorical style, but with his
sympathetic understanding that never misses the mark: ‘Our pianists,’
he says, ‘hardly realize what a noble treasure is to be found in the
clavier music of Schubert. The most of them play him through _en
passant_, notice here and there repetitions and retards--and then lay
them aside. It is true that Schubert himself is partly responsible for
the infrequent performance of his best works. He was too unconsciously
productive, wrote ceaselessly, mingling the trivial and the important,
the excellent and the mediocre, paying no heed to criticism and
giving his wilfullness full swing. He lived in his music as the birds
live in the air and sang as the angels sing--oh, restlessly creative
genius! Oh, faithful hero of my youthful heaven! Harmony, freshness,
power, sympathy, dreaminess, passion, gentleness, tears, and flames
stream from the depths and heights of your soul, and in the magic
of your humanity you almost allow us to forget the greatness of your
mastership!’
Along with Schubert, Weber stands as the progenitor of the modern
pianoforte style. (The comparative claims of the two can never be
evaluated.) Here, again, it was Liszt who chiefly made the importance
of the man known to the world. He took loving pains in the editing
of Weber’s piano works late in his life, and, with conscientious
concern for the composer’s intention, wrote out amplified paraphrases
of many of the passages to make them more effective in performance.
The absolute value of these works, especially the sonatas, is much
disputed. It is customary to call them structurally weak, and at
least reputable to call them indifferent in invention. Yet we are
constantly being reminded in them that their author was a genius,
and the genius who composed _Der Freischütz_. Certainly they deserve
more frequent performance. As sonatas, they are, on the whole, more
brilliant and more adequate than Schubert’s. Single movements, such
as the andante of the A flat sonata, opus 39, can stand beside
Beethoven in emotional dignity and tender beauty. But, whatever is
the absolute musical value of these works, they are an advance on
Beethoven in one particular, the quality which the Germans describe
with the word _klaviermässig_--suited to the piano. For Beethoven,
with all the daring of his later sonatas, got completely away from the
harpsichord method of writing only to write for piano in orchestral
style. He never began to exhaust the qualities of the pianoforte which
are distinctive of the instrument. Weber’s writing is more for the
pianoforte. Especially Weber enriched piano literature with dramatic
pathos and romantic tone coloring, with vigorous harmony and expressive
song-like melody. The famous ‘Invitation to the Dance’ shows him at his
best, giving full play to his love of the simple and folk-like tune,
separating the hands and the fingers, and slashing brilliant streaks
of light and shade in the piano keyboard. The famous _Konzertstück_, a
great favorite of Liszt, and the concerto, once the rival in popularity
of Chopin’s, are rapidly slipping back into the gloom of a forgotten
style. As show pieces they pointed the way to further development
of pianoforte technique; but that which made them brilliant is now
commonplace, the stock in trade of even third-rate pianists; and the
genuine emotional warmth which has made much of Schubert’s pianoforte
works immortal is absent in these _tours de force_ of Weber.
Historically Schubert leads the way to the piano style of Schumann, and
Weber to that of Liszt, and both in company to the great achievements
of the romantic period. But their style is a long way from modern
pianoforte style--much more closely related to Beethoven than to
Chopin. The dependence on the damper pedal for harmonic effects, the
extreme separation of the notes of a broken chord, the striving for
excessive power by means of sympathetic vibrations of the strings, and,
in general, the _pointillage_ use of notes as spots of color in the
musical picture, are only in germ in their works. The chorale method
of building up harmonies by closely adjacent notes still continues to
the detriment of the best pianistic effect. But in the work of the
composers immediately following we find the qualities of the piano
developed almost to the limit of possible effect.
III
Keyboard music now tended more and more away from the old chorale and
polyphonic style, in which eighteenth century music was ‘thought,’
toward a style which could take its rise from a keyed instrument
with pedals. Weber and Schubert achieved only at times this complete
freedom in their clavier music. It remained for Schumann, Liszt, and
Chopin to reveal the peculiar richness of the piano. Their styles are
widely differentiated, yet all truly pianistic and supplementary one
to the other. The differences can be derived from the personalities
and the outward lives of the three men. Schumann was the unrestrained
enthusiast, who was prevented by an accident from becoming a practising
virtuoso and was obliged to do his work in his work-room and his
inner consciousness. Liszt was, above all, the man of the world, the
man who loved to dominate people by his art and understood supremely
well how to do it. Chopin was by nature too sensitive ever to be a
public virtuoso; he reflected the Paris of the thirties in terms of
the individual soul where Liszt reflected it in terms of the crowd.
Each of them loved his piano ‘as an Arab his steed,’ in Liszt’s words.
Hence Schumann’s music, while supremely pianistic, has little concern
for outward effect, and was, in point of fact, slow in winning wide
popularity. With an influential magazine and a virtuoso wife to preach
and practise his music in the public ear, Schumann nevertheless had to
see the more facile Mendelssohn win all the fame and outward success.
Schumann’s reputation was for many years an ‘underground’ one. But
he was too much a Romantic enthusiast to make any concessions to the
superficial taste of the concert hall or drawing room, and continued
writing music which sounded badly unless it was very well played, and
even then rather austerely separated the sheep from the goats among its
hearers. Schumann is, above all, the pianists’ pianist. The musical
value and charm of his works is inextricably interwoven with the
executant’s delight in mastering it.
Liszt is, of course, no less the technician than Schumann--in fact,
much more completely the technician in his earlier years. But his
was less the technique of pleasing the performer than of pleasing
the audience. With a wizardry that has never been surpassed he hit
upon those resources of the piano which would dazzle and overpower.
Very frequently he adopts the too easy method of getting his effect,
the crashing repeated chord and the superficial fireworks. None of
Schumann’s technical difficulties are without their absolute musical
value; all of Liszt’s, whether they convey the highest poetry or the
utmost banality, are directed toward the applause of the crowd.
Chopin is much more than the elegant salon pianist, which is the part
of him that most frequently conditions his external form. He was the
sensitive harpstring of his time, translating all its outward passions
into terms of the inward emotions. Where Schumann had fancy Chopin had
sentiment or emotion. Chopin had little of Schumann’s vivid interest
in experimenting in pianistic resources for their own sake. Even his
Études are so preëminently musical, and have so little relation to a
pianistic method, that they show little technical enthusiasm in the
man. Chopin was interested in the technical possibilities of the piano
only as a means of expressing his abounding sentiments and emotions.
It is because he has so much to express and such a great variety of
it that his music is of highest importance in the history of piano
technique, and is probably the most subtly difficult of all pianoforte
music. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that there are twenty
pianists who can play the Liszt studies to one who can play those of
Chopin. The technical demands he makes upon his instrument are always
just enough to present his musical message and no more. Though he was
utterly and solely of the piano (as neither Schumann nor Liszt was) he
had neither the executant nor the public specifically in mind when he
composed.
Schumann’s first twenty-six published works (covering \ most of the
decade from 1830 to 1840) were almost exclusively for the piano. From
the beginning he showed his instinct for its technical possibilities.
Opus 1, published in November, 1831, was a set of variations, the theme
being the musical ‘spelling’ of the name of a woman friend of his, the
‘Countess Abegg,’ perhaps as much a product of the imagination as was
the music itself. The variations show the crudities of dilettantism, as
well as its enthusiasm and courage. They were far from being the formal
mechanical variations of classical clavier music. No change of the
theme but has a musical and expressive beauty apart from its technical
ingenuity. Especially they reveal a vivid sense of what the piano could
do as distinguished from what the clavichord or harpsichord could do.
Much better was opus 2, the _Papillons_, or ‘Butterflies,’ which is
still popular on concert programs. All that is typical of Schumann the
pianist is to be found in some measure in this opus 2. For, besides the
vivid joy they reveal in experimentation with pianistic effects, there
is the fact that they came, by way of Schumann’s colorful imagination,
out of literature. Here was romanticism going full tilt. From his
earliest years Schumann had adored his Jean Paul. He had equally adored
his piano. When he read the one he heard the other echoing. This was
precisely the origin of the _Papillons_, as Schumann confessed in
letters to his friends. The various dances of opus 2 are the portions
of the masked dance of the conclusion of Jean Paul’s _Flegeljahre_--not
as program music, nor even as pictorial music, but in the vaguest
way the creation of the sensitive musician under the stimulus of
literature. Schumann attached no especial value to the fanciful titles
which he gave much of his piano music; in his later revisions of it he
usually withdrew them altogether. He always insisted that the music and
not the literature was the important thing in his music. The names
which betitle his music were often afterthoughts. They were nearly
always given in a playful spirit. The literary music of Schumann is not
in the least music which expresses literature, but only music written
by a sensitive musician under the creative stimulus of literature.
The ‘Butterflies’ of opus 2 (_Papillons_) are by no means the
flittering, showy butterflies common to salons of that day. They are
free and fanciful dances, rich in harmonic and technical device, and
rich especially in buoyant high spirits. The canons, the free melodic
counterpoint, the recurrence of passages to give unity to the series,
the broken or rolling chords, the spicy rhythmical devices, the
blending of voices in a manner quite different from the polyphonic
style of old, and the use of single anticipatory or suspended notes for
changes of key--these gave evidence of what was to be the nature of
Schumann’s contribution to piano literature.
From now on until 1839, when Schumann began to be absorbed in song
writing, there appeared at leisurely intervals piano works from his
study, few of which are anything short of creations of genius. In the
Intermezzi his technical preoccupations were given fuller play; in
the _Davidsbündler Tänze_ our old friends ‘Florestan,’ ‘Eusebius,’
and ‘Meister Raro’ contribute pieces in their own special vein, all
directed to the good cause of ‘making war on the Philistines’--in
other words, asserting the claims of lovely music against those of
mechanical music, and of technically scholarly music against those of
sentimental salon music. Following this work came the Toccata, one of
Schumann’s earliest serious works later revised--an amazing achievement
in point of technical virtuosity, based on a deep knowledge of Bach and
polyphonic procedure, yet revealing the new Schumann in every bar. It
proved that the young revolutionist who was emphasizing musical beauty
over musical learning was not doing so because he was technically
unequipped.
He now wrote the _Carnaval_, perhaps the most popular of Schumann’s
piano works, with Schumann’s friends, including Clara Wieck, Chopin,
and Paganini, appearing among the ‘musical pictures.’ Schumann’s humor
is growing more noisy, for in the last movement the whole group join
in an abusive ‘march against the Philistines,’ to the tune of the
old folk-song, ‘When Grandfather Married Grandmother.’ Why should an
avowed revolutionist take as his patron theme a song which praises the
good old times ‘when people knew naught of Ma’m’selle and Madame,’ and
deprecates change? But the romanticists, especially of Schumann’s type,
prided themselves on nothing more than their historical sense and their
kinship with the past--especially the German past.
Next came more ambitious piano works, and interspersed among them the
_Phantasiestücke_ (‘Fantasy Pieces’), containing some of Schumann’s
most characteristic numbers, and the brilliant ‘Symphonic Études,’
masterpieces one and all. And still later the ‘Novelettes,’ the
_Faschingsswank_, the well-known ‘Scenes from Childhood,’ and the
_Kreisleriana_. This group Schumann felt to be his finest work. It
was taken, like the _Papillons_, from literature, this time E. T. A.
Hoffmann’s tales of the eccentric Kapellmeister Kreisler.
It is worth while to recall Hoffmann’s story, as an example of the
sort of literature to which Schumann responded musically. In Dr. Bie’s
words:[93] ‘The garden into which the author leads us is full of tone
and song. The stranger comes up to the young squire and tells him of
many distant and unknown lands, and strange men and animals; and his
speech dies away into a wonderful tone, in which he expresses unknown
and mysterious things, intelligibly, yet without words. But the castle
maiden follows his enticements, and they meet every midnight at the
old tree, none venturing to approach too near the strange melodies
that sound therefrom. Then the castle maiden lies pierced through
under the tree, and the lute is broken, but from her blood grow mosses
of wonderful color over the stone, and the young Chrysostom hears
the nightingale, which thereafter makes its nest and sings its song
in the tree. At home his father is accompanying his old songs on the
clavicymbal, and songs, mosses, and castle maiden are all fused in his
mind into one. In the garden of tone and song all sorts of internal
melodies rise in his heart, and the murmur of the words gives them
their breath. He tries to set them to the clavier, but they refuse to
come forth from their hiding places. He closes the instrument, and
listens to see whether the songs will not now sound forth more clearly
and brightly; for “I knew well that the tones must dwell there as if
enchanted.” Out of a world like this floated all sorts of compositions
in Schumann’s mind.... A thousand threads run from all sides into this
intimate web in which the whole lyrical devotion of a musical soul
is interwoven. The piano is the orchestra of the heart. The joys and
sorrows which are expressed in these pieces were never put into form
with more sovereign power. For the external form Bach gave the impulse;
for the content, Hoffmann. The garlanded roses of the middle section
of No. 1, the shimmering blossoms of the ‘inverted’ passage in the
_Langsamer_ of No. 2, the immeasurable depth of the emotions in the
slow pieces (4 and 6), the bass unfettered by accent, in the last bars
of No. 8, leading down to final whisperings, all are among the happiest
of inspirations.’
It will be noticed that most of the piano works of Schumann which
we have mentioned are series of short pieces. Some of the series,
notably the _Papillons_, the _Carnaval_, and _Kreisleriana_, are
held loosely together by a literary idea. The twenty little pieces
which constitute the _Carnaval_ have, moreover, an actual relation
to each other, in that all of them contain much the same melodic
intervals. Three typical sequences of intervals, which Schumann called
‘Sphinxes,’ are the groundwork of the _Carnaval_, but very subtly
disguised. That _Pierrot_, _Arlequin_, the _Valse Noble_, _Florestan_,
and _Papillons_ are thus closely related is likely to escape even the
careful listener; and these are perhaps the clearest examples. But
this device of ‘Sphinxes,’ and other devices for uniting a long series
of short pieces, really accomplish Schumann’s purpose. On the other
hand, they never give to the works in question the broad design and
the epic continuity of the classical sonata at its best. The Beethoven
sonatas opus 101 and 110, for example, are carved out of one piece.
The Schumann cycles are many jewels exquisitely matched and strung
together. The skill in so putting them together was peculiarly his, and
is the more striking in that each little piece is separately perfect.
In general, it may be said that Schumann was at his best when working
on this plan. The power over large forms came to him only later, after
most of his pianoforte music had been written. The two sonatas, one
in F sharp and one in G minor, both belong to the early period; and
both, in spite of most beautiful passages, are, from the standpoint of
artistic perfection, unsatisfactory. In neither are form and content
properly matched. Exception must be made, however, for the Fantasia in
C major, opus 17. Here, what was uncertainty or insincerity becomes an
heroic freedom by the depth of ideas and the power of imagination which
so found expression. The result is a work of immeasurable grandeur,
unique in pianoforte literature.
After his marriage to Clara Wieck Schumann gave most of his attention
to music for voice and for orchestra. In this later life belongs the
concerto for piano and orchestra. No large concert piece in all piano
literature is more truly musical and less factitious; no large work of
any period in the history of music shows more economy in the use of
musical material and means. In it Schumann is as completely sincere as
in his smaller pieces, and, in addition, reveals what came more into
view in his later years--the fine reserve and even classic sense of
fitness in the man.
Mendelssohn as piano composer is universally known by his ‘Songs
Without Words,’ a title which he invented in accordance with the
fashion of the time. Like all the rest of his music, these pieces
are less highly regarded now than a few decades ago. Modern music
has passed far beyond the romanticism of the first half of the last
century, and the ‘Songs Without Words,’ with all their occasional
charm, have no one quality in sufficient proportion to make them
historical landmarks. They are never heard on concert programs; their
chief use is still in the instruction of children. Their finish and
fluidity would not plead very strongly for them if it were not for
the occasional beauty of their melodies. They remain chiefly as an
indication of the better dilettante taste of the time. And, as Mr.
Krehbiel has pointed out,[94] we should give generous credit to the
music which was engagingly simple and honest in a time when the taste
was all for superficial brilliance.
But Mendelssohn as a writer for the pianoforte is at his best in the
Scherzos, the so-called ‘Elf’ or ‘Kobold’ pieces, a type in which he
is in his happiest and freshest mood. One of these is a ‘Battle of
the Mice,’ ‘with tiny fanfares and dances, all kinds of squeaks, and
runnings to and fro of a captivating grace.’ Another is the well-known
‘Rondo Capriccioso,’ one of his best. In these ‘fairy pieces’
Mendelssohn derives directly from Schubert and the _Moments musicaux_.
In the heavier pianoforte forms Mendelssohn had great vogue in his day,
and Berlioz tells jestingly how the pianos at the Conservatory started
to play the Concerto in G minor at the very approach of a pupil,
and how the hammers continued to jump even after the instrument was
demolished.
IV
The quality of the musical taste which Chopin and in part Liszt were
combatting is forcibly brought out in the ‘Recollections of the Life of
Moscheles,’ as quoted by Dr. Bie.[95] ‘The halls echo with jubilations
and applause,’ he says, ‘and the audiences, especially the easily
kindled Viennese, are enthusiastic in their cheers; and music has
become so popular and the compositions so banal that it seldom occurs
to them to condemn shallowness. The dilettantes push forward, the
circle of instruction widens the cheaper and better the pianos become.
They push themselves into rivalry with the artists, in great concerts.
From professional piano-playing--and they often played at two places
in an evening--the artists took recreation with the good temper which
never failed in those years. The great singer Malibran would sit down
to the piano and sing the “Rataplan” and the Spanish songs, to which
she would imitate the guitar on the keyboard. Then she would imitate
famous colleagues, and a Duchess greeting her, and a Lady So-and-so
singing “Home, Sweet Home” with the most cracked and nasal voice in the
world. Thalberg would then take his seat and play Viennese songs
and waltzes with “obbligato snaps.” Moscheles himself would play with
hand turned round, or with the fist, perhaps hiding the thumb under the
fist. In Moscheles’ peculiar way of playing the thumb used to take the
thirds under the palm of the hand.’
[Illustration: Frédéric Chopin]
_From a study by Delacroix_
The piano recital of modern times was then unknown. It was not until
1838 that Liszt dared give a recital without the assistance of other
artists, and it was not Liszt’s music so much as his overshadowing
personality that made the feat possible then. Chopin, coming to Paris
under excellent auspices, had little need to make a name for himself in
the concert hall under these conditions, and, as we may imagine, had
still less zest for it. He was chiefly in demand to play at private
parties and aristocratic salons, where he frequently enough, no doubt,
met with stupidity and lack of understanding, but where, at least, he
was spared the noisy vulgarity of a musical vaudeville. Taking the best
from his friends, and selecting the excellent from the atmosphere of
the salons which he adorned, Chopin went on composing, living a life
which offers little color to the biographer. By the time he had reached
Paris in 1831 he had several masterpieces tucked away in his portfolio,
but, though perfectly polished, they are of his weaker sentimental
style. The more powerful Chopin, the Chopin of the polonaises, the
ballades, the scherzos, and some of the preludes, was perhaps partly
the result of the intimacy with George Sand, whose personality was of
the domineering, masculine sort. But more probably it was just the
development of an extraordinarily sensitive personality. At any rate,
it was not long after his arrival in Paris that Chopin’s creative power
had reached full vigor.
After that the chronology of the pieces counts for little. They can
be examined by classes, and not by opus numbers, except for the
posthumous pieces (following opus 65), which were withheld from
publication during the composer’s life by his own wish, and were meant
by him to be burned. They are, in almost every case, inferior to the
works published during his lifetime. The works, grouped together, may
be summed up as follows: over fifty mazurkas, fifteen waltzes, nearly
as many polonaises, and certain other dances; nineteen nocturnes,
twenty-five preludes, twenty-seven études, four ballades, four
scherzos, five rondos, three impromptus, a berceuse, a barcarolle,
three fantasias, three variations, four sonatas, two piano concertos,
and a trio for piano and strings. All his works, then, except the
Polish songs mentioned in the last chapter, are written primarily for
the piano, a few having other instruments in combination or orchestral
accompaniment, but the vast majority for piano alone.
The dances are highly variable in quality. Of the many mazurkas, some
are almost negligible, while a few reveal Chopin’s use of the Polish
folk-manner in high perfection. They are not a persistent part of
modern concert programs. The waltzes, on the other hand, cannot be
escaped; they are with us at every turn in modern life. Theorists
have had fine battles over their musical value; some find in them the
most perfect art of Chopin, and others regard them as mere glorified,
superficial salon pieces. Certainly they concede more to mere outward
display than do most of his compositions, and the themes sometimes
border on the trivial. The posthumous waltzes are like Schubert’s in
that they are apt to be thin in style with occasional rare beauties
interspersed. Of the remaining waltzes, the most pretentious, such
as the two in A flat, are extremely brilliant in design, offering to
the executant, besides full opportunity for the display of dexterity,
innumerable chances for nuance of effect (which are, of course,
frequently abused, so that the dances become disjointed and specious
caricatures of music). The waltz in A minor is far finer, containing
the true emotional Chopin, by no means undignified in the dance form.
No less fine is the hackneyed C-sharp minor waltz, in which the
opportunities for legitimate refinement and variety of interpretation
are infinite. These waltzes retain little of the feeling of the dance,
despite the frequent buoyancy of their rhythm. Chopin was interested
in emotional expression and extreme refinement of style; it mattered
little to him by what name his piece might be called.
The Polonaises are a very different matter. Here we find a type of
heroic expression which Liszt himself could not equal. The fine energy
of the ‘Military’ polonaise in A major is universally known. The sound
and fury of this piece is never cheap; it is the exuberant energy of
genius. Even greater, if possible, are the polonaises in F sharp minor
and in A flat major. No element in them falls below absolute genius.
All of Liszt’s heroics never evoked from the piano such superb power.
The sick and ‘pathological’ Chopin which is described to us in music
primers is here hardly to be found--only here and there a touch of
moody intensity, which is, however, never repressive. The Chopin of
the waltzes and nocturnes would have been a man of weak and morbid
refinement, all the more unhealthy because of his hypersensitive
finesse. But, when we have added thereto the Chopin of the Polonaises,
we have one of the two or three greatest, if not the very greatest,
emotional poet of music. The Polonaises will stand forever as a protest
against the supposition that Chopin’s soul was degenerate.
The traditional ‘sick’ Chopin is to be found _ipsissimus_ in the
Nocturnes, the most popular, with the waltzes, of his works. In such
ones as those in E flat or G the sentiment is that of a lad suffering
from puppy-love and gazing at the moon. From beginning to end there is
scarcely a bar which could correspond to the feelings of a physically
healthy man. Yet we must remember that this sort of sentiment was
quite in the fashion of the time. Byron had created of himself a myth
of introspective sorrow. Only a few decades before, the Werther of
Goethe’s novel, committing suicide in his suit of buff and blue, was
being imitated by love-sick swains among all the fashionable circles
which sought to do the correct thing. Chateaubriand and Jean Paul had
cast their morbid spell over fashionable society, and this spell was
not likely to pass away from the hectic Paris of the thirties while
there were such men as Byron and Heine to bind it afresh each year
with some fascinating book of verse. From such an influence a highly
sensitive man like Chopin could not be altogether free. There is
something in every artistic nature which can respond sympathetically
to the claims of the morbid, for the reason that the artist is a man
to feel a wide variety of the sensations that pertain to humanity. No
one of the great creative musicians of the time was quite free from
this morbid strain; in the sensitive, retiring Chopin it came out in
its most effeminate guise. But the point is, it did not represent the
whole of the man, nor necessarily any essential part of him. It was
the response of his nervous organism to certain of the influences to
which he was subject. Chopin may have been physiologically decadent or
psychologically morbid; it is hardly a question for musicians. But his
music, taken as a whole, does not prove a nature that was positively
unhealthy. Its persistent emphasis of sensuousness and emotion makes
it doubtless a somewhat unhealthy influence on the nerves of children;
but the same could be said of many of the phases of perfectly healthy
adult life. And, whatever may be the verdict concerning Chopin, we must
admire the manner in which he held his powerful emotional utterance
within the firm restraint of his aristocratic sense of fitness. If he
has sores, he never makes a vulgar display of them in public.
The Preludes have a bolder and profounder note. They are the
treasure-house of his many ideas which, though coming from the best of
his creative spirit, could not easily find a form or external purpose
for themselves. We may imagine that they are the selected best of his
improvisation on his own piano, late at night. Some of them, like the
prelude in D flat major (the so-called ‘raindrop’ prelude) he worked
out at length, with conscientious regard for form. Others, like that
in A major, were just melodies which were too beautiful to lose but
were seemingly complete just as they stood. The marvellous prelude in
C-sharp minor is the ultimate glorification of improvisation with all
the charm of willful fancy and aimlessness, and all the stimulation of
a sensitive taste which could not endure having a single note out of
place. The Preludes are complete and unique; a careful listener can
hear the whole twenty-six successively and retain a distinct impression
for each. This is the supreme test of style in a composer, and in sense
of style no greater composer than Chopin ever lived.
The Études deserve their name in that they are technically difficult
and that the performer who has mastered them has mastered a great deal
of the fine art of the pianoforte. But they are the farthest possible
from being études in the pedagogical sense. It is quite true that each
presents some particular technical difficulty in piano playing, but the
dominance of this technical feature springs rather from the composer’s
sense of style than from any pedagogical intent. Certainly these
pieces could not be more polished, or in most cases, more beautiful,
whatever their name and purpose. They may be as emotional as anything
of Chopin’s, as the ‘Revolutionary’ étude in C minor, which, tradition
says, was written in 1831 when the composer received news of the fall
of Warsaw before the invading Russians. The steady open arpeggio of
the bass is supposed to represent the rumble of conflict, and the
treble melody alternately the cries of rage of the combatants and the
prayers of the dying. But for the most part the Études are pure grace
and ‘pattern music,’ with always that morose or emotional under-current
which creeps into all Chopin’s music. The peculiar virtue of the
Études, apart from their interest for the technician, consists in their
exquisite grace and freedom combined with perfection of formal pattern.
In the miscellaneous group of larger compositions, which includes the
Ballades, the Scherzos, the Fantasias, the Sonatas, and the Concertos,
we find some of Chopin’s greatest musical thoughts. The Ballades are
the musical narration of some fanciful tale of love or adventure.
Chopin supplied no ‘program,’ and it is probable that he had none in
mind when he composed them. But they tease us out of thought, making
us supply our own stories for the musical narration. They have the
power of compelling the vision of long vistas of half-remembered
experiences--the very mood of high romance. The Scherzos show Chopin’s
genius playing in characteristic perfection. They are not the ‘fairy
scherzos’ of Mendelssohn, but vivid emotional experiences, and Schumann
could well say of the first, ‘How is gravity to clothe itself if jest
goes about in dark veils?’ Though they seem to be wholly free and
fantastical in form, they yet are related to the traditional scherzo,
not only in their triple rhythm, but in the general disposition of
musical material. Traces of the old two-part song form, in which most
of the scherzos of Beethoven were written, are evident, and also of the
third part, called the Trio. On the other hand, elaborate transitional
passages from one part back to another conceal or enrich the older,
simpler form, and in all four there is a coda of remarkable power and
fire. The Fantasia in B minor, long and intricate, is one of the most
profoundly moving of all Chopin’s works; it leaves the hearer panting
for breath, as though he had waked up from an experience which had
sapped the energy of his soul. As for the Sonatas and the Concertos,
Chopin’s detractors have tried to deny them any particular merit--or
any excellence except that of incidental beauties. The assertion will
hardly stand. Chopin’s strength was not in large-scale architecture,
nor in what we might call ‘formal form.’ But the sonatas and concertos
have a way of charming the hearer and freeing his imagination in spite
of faulty structure, and one sometimes feels that, had a few more
of them been written, they would have created the very standards of
form on which they are to be judged. The famous ‘Funeral March’ was
interpolated as a slow movement of the B flat minor sonata, with which
it is always heard. Liszt’s eulogy of this may seem vainly extravagant
to our materialistic time, but it represents exactly what happens to
any one foolish enough to try to put into words the emotions stirred up
by this wonderful piece.
Chopin, as we have said, played little in public. He said the public
scared him. When he did play people were wont to complain that he could
not be heard. They were used to the bombastic tone of Kalkbrenner.
Chopin might have remedied this defect and made a successful concert
performer out of himself, but his physical strength was always delicate
and his artistic conscience, moreover, unwilling to permit forcing or
grossness; so he continued to play too ‘softly.’ The explanation was
his delicate finger touch, coming entirely from the knuckles except
where detached chords were to be taken, when the wrists, of course,
came into play. Those who were so fortunate as really to _hear_
Chopin’s playing had ecstasies of delight over this pearly touch,
which made runs and florid decorations sound marvellously liquid
and flute-like. No other performer before the public could do this.
Chopin’s pupils were in this respect never more than pupils.
People complained, on hearing Chopin’s music played by others, that
it had no rhythm, that it was all _rubato_. The inaccuracy of this
was evident when Chopin played his own compositions. For the melody,
the ornament, of the right hand might be _rubato_ as it pleased, but
beneath it was a steady, almost mechanical operation of the left hand.
It was a part of Chopin’s conscious method, and it is said he used a
metronome in practising. The point is worth emphasizing because of the
way it illuminates Chopin’s fine sense of self-control and fitness.
No technical method was ever more accurately suited to its task than
Chopin’s. He grew up in the atmosphere of the piano, and ‘thought
piano’ when composing music. He then drew on this and that piano
resource until, by the time he had ended his short life, he had
revealed the greater part of its potential musical possibilities--and
always in what he had needed in the business of expressing his musical
thoughts. With him the piano became utterly freed from the last traces
of the tyranny of the polyphonic and chorale styles. But he supplied a
polyphony of his own, the strangest, eeriest thing imaginable. It was
the combination of two or three melodies, widely different and very
beautiful, sometimes with the harmonic accompaniment added, sometimes
with the harmony rising magically out of the counterpoint, but always
in a new manner that was utterly pianistic. Chopin carried to its
extreme the widely broken chord, as in the accompaniment to the major
section of the ‘Funeral March.’
But it was in the art of delicate figuration (borrowed in the first
place from Hummel) that Chopin was perhaps most himself. This, with
Chopin, can be contained within no formula, can be described by no
technical language. It was inexhaustible; it was eternally fluid, yet
eternally appropriate. It somehow fused the utmost propriety of mood
with the utmost grace of pattern. Even when it is most abundant, as in
the F sharp major nocturne, it never seems exaggerated or in bad taste.
Harmonically Chopin was an innovator, at times a radical one. Here,
again, he seemed to appropriate what he needed for the matter in hand,
and exhibit no experimental interest in what remained. His free changes
of key are graceful rather than sensuous, as with Schubert, and, when
the modulation grows out of quasi-extemporaneous embellishment, as
in the C sharp minor prelude, it melts with an ease that seems to
come quite from the world of Bach. The later mazurkas anticipate the
progressive harmonies of Wagner.
Much of his manner of playing, as well as the notion of the nocturne,
Chopin got from the Scotchman, Field, who had fascinated European
concert halls with his dreaming, quiet performance, and with the free
melody of the nocturne genre which he had invented. From Hummel, as we
have said, Chopin borrowed his embellishment, and from Cramer he chose
many of the fundamentals of pianistic style. From the Italians (Italian
opera included) he received his taste for long-drawn, succulent melody;
in the composer of ‘Norma’ we see a poor relation of the aristocratic
Pole. Thus from second and third-rate sources Chopin borrowed or took
what he needed. He was surrounded by first-rate men, but dominated
by none. He took what he wanted where he found it, but only what he
wanted. He was constantly selecting--and rejecting. Therein he was the
aristocrat.
This is the place to make mention of several writers for the piano
whose works were of importance in their day and occasionally to-day
appear upon concert programs. Stephen Heller,[96] slightly younger than
Chopin, and, unlike the Pole, blessed with a long life, wrote in the
light and graceful style which was much in vogue, yet generally with
sufficient selective sense to avoid the vapid. About the same can be
said for Adolph Henselt (1814-1889), whose étude, ‘If I Were a Bird,’
still haunts music conservatories. His vigorous concerto for piano
is also frequently played. William Sterndale Bennett, who, after his
student years in Leipzig, became Mendelssohn’s priest in England, wrote
four concertos, a fantasia with orchestra, a trio, and a sonata in F
minor. His work is impeccable in form, often fresh and charming in
content, but without radical energy of purpose--precisely Mendelssohn’s
list of qualities. Finally, we may mention Joachim Raff (1822-1882),
writer of a concerto and a suite, besides a number of smaller pieces
which show programmistic tendencies.
V
Liszt, the supreme virtuoso of the piano, is the Liszt who wrote about
three-fourths of the compositions which bear his name. The other
fourth, or perhaps a quarter share of the whole, comes from another
Liszt, a great poet, who could feel the values of whole nations as
Chopin could feel the values of individual souls. It is not a paradox
to say that Liszt was so utterly master of the piano that he was a
slave to it. With it he won a place for himself among counts and
princesses, storming a national capital with twenty-four concerts at
a single visit by way of variety between flirtations. Having so deeply
in his being the pianistic formulas for conquering, it was inevitable
that when he set out to do other tasks the pianistic formula conquered
him. So it is, at least, in much of his music, which, with all its
supreme pianistic skill, is sometimes pretty worthless music. Only,
apart from this Liszt of the piano, there always stood that other
Liszt--the one who, as he tells us in his book on gypsy music, slept in
the open fields with the gypsies, studied and noted their tunes, and
felt the great sweeps of nature as strongly as he felt the great sweeps
of history. Both Liszts must be kept in mind if we would understand his
piano works.
Liszt’s piano style was quite the opposite of Chopin’s. The Pole
played for a few intimate friends; the Hungarian played for a vast
auditorium. He had the sense of the crowd as few others have ever had
it. His dazzling sweeps of arpeggios, of diatonic and chromatic runs,
his thunderous chords, piling up on one another and repeated in violent
succession, his unbelievable rapidity of finger movement, his way of
having the whole seven octaves of the keyboard apparently under his
fingers at once--in short, his way of making the pianoforte seem to be
a whole orchestra--this was the Liszt who wrote the greater part of
what we are about to summarize briefly.
Liszt’s piano style was not born ready made. Although he captured Paris
as an infant prodigy when he first went there, he had an immense amount
of maturing and developing to do. ‘It is due in great measure to the
example of Paganini’s violin playing that Liszt at this time, with
slow, deliberate toil, created modern piano playing,’ says Dr. Bie.
‘The world was struck dumb by the enchantment of the Genoese violinist;
men did not trust their ears; something uncanny, inexplicable, ran
with this demon of music through the halls. The wonder reached Liszt;
he ventured on _his_ instrument to give sound to the unheard of; leaps
which none before him had ventured to make, “disjunctions” which no
one had hitherto thought could be acoustically united; deep tremolos
of fifths, like a dozen kettle-drums, which rushed forth into wild
chords; a polyphony which almost employed as a rhythmical element the
overtones which destroy harmony; the utmost possible use of the seven
octaves in chords set sharply one over another; resolutions of tied
notes in unceasing octave graces with harmonies hitherto unknown of
the interval of the tenth to increase the fullness of tone-color; a
regardless interweaving of highest and lowest notes for purposes of
light and shade; the most manifold application of the tone-colors of
different octaves for the coloration of the tone-effect; the entirely
naturalistic use of the tremolo and the glissando; and, above all, a
perfect systematization of the method of interlacing the hands, partly
for the management of runs, so as to bring out the color, partly to
gain a doubled power by the division, and partly to attain, by the use
of contractions and extensions in the figures, a fullness of orchestral
chord-power never hitherto practised. This is the last step possible
for the piano in the process of individualization begun by Hummel and
continued by Chopin.’
The earliest of Liszt’s published études, published in 1826, are now
difficult to obtain. They were the public statement of his pianistic
creed, the ultimatum, so to speak, of the most popular pianist of the
day to all rivals. They seemed to represent the utmost of pianistic
skill. Then, in 1832, came Paganini to Paris, and Liszt, with his
customary justice toward others, recognized in him the supreme
executant, and, what was more significant, the element of the true
artist. Inevitably the experience reacted on his own art. He adapted
six of Paganini’s violin caprices for piano, achieving a new ‘last
word’ in pianoforte technique. These studies still hold their place
in piano concerts, especially the picturesque ‘Campanella.’ In 1838
Liszt sought to mark the progress of his pianism to date by publishing
a new arrangement of his earliest études, under the name of _Études
d’exécution transcendante_. These, while primarily technical studies,
are also the work of a creative artist. The _Mazeppa_ was a symphonic
poem in germ (later becoming one in actuality). The _Harmonies du
Soir_, experimenting with ‘atmospheric’ tone qualities on the piano,
is an ancestor of the modern ‘impressionistic’ school. The _Étude
Héroique_ foreshadows the _Tasso_ and _Les Préludes_. The significant
thing in this is the way in which Liszt’s creative impulse grew out of
his mastery of the piano.
A predominant part of Liszt’s earlier activity has in recent times
passed into comparative insignificance. We are nowadays inclined
to sneer at his pompous arrangements of everything from Beethoven
symphonies and Bach preludes to the popular operas of the day. But
these arrangements, by which his pianistic method chiefly became known,
were equally important in their effect on pianism and on musical taste.
The name and fame of Berlioz’s _Symphonie Fantastique_ went out among
the nations chiefly through Liszt’s playing of his arrangement of it.
Schubert’s songs, likewise, which one would suppose were possible only
for the voice, were paraphrased by Liszt with such keen understanding
of the melodic resources of the piano, and such pious regard for the
intentions of Schubert, that Liszt’s piano was actually the chief
apostle of Schubert’s vocal music through a great part of Europe. Liszt
was similarly an apostle of Beethoven’s symphonies. It is eternally to
his credit that Liszt, though in many ways an aristocrat in spirit, was
never a musical snob; his paraphrases of Auber’s and Bellini’s operas
showed as catholic a sense of beauty as his arrangements of Beethoven.
He could bow to the popular demand for opera _potpourris_ without ever
quite descending to the vulgar level of most pianists of his day,
though coming perilously near it. His arrangements were always in some
degree the work of a creative artist, who could select his themes and
develop them into an artistic whole. They were equally the work of an
interpretive artist, for they frequently revealed the true beauties and
meanings of an opera better than the conductors and singers of the day
did.
As Liszt travelled about the world on his triumphal tours, or sojourned
in the company of the Countess d’Agoult in Switzerland, he sought
to confide his impressions to his piano. These impressions were
published in the two volumes of the ‘Years of Pilgrimage,’ poetic
musical pictures in the idiom of pianistic virtuosity. The first
of these pieces was written to picture the uprising of the workmen
in Lyons, following the Paris revolution of 1830. Thereafter came
impressions of every sort. The chapel of William Tell, the Lake of
Wallenstein, the dances of Venice or Naples, the reading of Dante or
of Petrarch’s sonnets--all gave him some musical emotion or picture
which he sought to translate into terms of the piano. The musical
value of these works is highly variable, but at their best, as in
certain of the grandiose Petrarch sonnets, they equal the best of
his symphonic poems. In these works, too, his experiments in radical
harmony are frequent, and at times he completely anticipates the novel
progressions of Debussy--whole-toned scale and all. Along with the
‘Years of Pilgrimage’ may be grouped certain other large compositions
for the piano, such as the two ‘Legends’ of St. Francis, the six
‘Consolations,’ the brilliant polonaises, the fascinating ‘Spanish
Rhapsody,’ and the grandiose _Funerailles_. All of these works are
still frequently played by concert pianists.
The two grand concertos with orchestra--in E flat major and A
major--are of dazzling technical brilliancy. In the second in
particular the pianistic resource seems inexhaustible. The thematic
material is in Liszt’s finest vein and the orchestral accompaniment is
executed in the highest of colors. In the second, too, Liszt not only
connects the movements, as was the fashion of the day, but completely
fuses them, somewhat in the manner that a Futurist painter fuses the
various parts of his picture. Scherzo, andante, and allegro enter when
fancy ordains, lasting sometimes but a moment, and returning as they
please. In the same way is constructed the superb pianoforte sonata
in B minor, a glorious fantasy in Liszt’s most heroic style. It is
commonly said that as a sonata this work is structurally weak; it
would be truer to say that as a sonata it has no existence. It is the
nobility of the work, in its contrapuntal and pianistic mastership,
that carries conviction.
The Hungarian Rhapsodies, perhaps Liszt’s most typical achievement,
are universally known. They were the outcome of his visit to his
native land in 1840, and of the notes he made at the time from the
singing of the gypsies. His book, ‘The Gypsies and Their Music,’ is
well worth reading for any who wish to know the real impulse behind
the Rhapsodies. Liszt, beyond any of his time, understood the æsthetic
and ethical import of folk-music, and knew how to place it at the
foundation of all other music whatsoever. Without such an appreciation
he could not have caught so accurately the distinctive features of
Hungarian music and developed them through his fifteen rhapsodies
without ever once losing the true flavor. In them the gypsy ‘snap,’
the dotted notes, the instrumental character, the extreme emphasis on
rhythm, and the peculiar oriental scales become supremely expressive.
Liszt is here, as he aspired to be, truly a national poet. The Lassan
or slow movement of the second, and every note of the twelfth, the
national hymn and funeral march which open the fourteenth, are a
permanent part of our musical heritage. On the other hand, their real
musical value is unhappily obscured by virtuoso display. They are,
first and foremost, pieces for display, however much genuine life and
virility the folk melodies and rhythms on which they are based may
give them. As such they find their usual place at the end of concert
programs, to suit the listener who is tired of really listening and
desires only to be taken off his feet by pyrotechnics; as well as to
furnish the player his final opportunity to dazzle and overpower.
VI
The romantic age produced many works in the quieter forms of chamber
music, but, perhaps because these forms were quieter, was not at
its best in them. Nearly all the German composers of the period,
save Liszt, wrote quantities of such music. The string quartet was
comparatively under a cloud after Schubert’s death, suffering a decline
from his time on. But no quartets, save those of Beethoven, are finer
than Schubert’s. He brought to them in full power his genius for
melody. Moreover, he showed in them a genius for organization which
he did not usually match in his other large works. In the best of
his quartets he escaped the danger to which a lesser melodist would
have succumbed--that of incontinently putting a chief melody into
the first violin part and letting the remaining instruments serve as
accompaniment In no musical type are all the voices so absolutely
equal as in the string quartet; the composer who unduly stresses any
one of the four is false to the peculiar genius of the form. But
Schubert feels all the parts: he gives each its individuality, not in
the close polyphonic manner of Bach, but in the melodist’s manner of
writing each voice with an outline that is distinctive. In these works
the prolixity which so often beset him is purged away; the musical
standard is steadily maintained. The movements show steady development
and coherence. The instruments are admirably treated with reference to
their peculiar possibilities. Often the quartets are highly emotional
and dramatic, though they never pass beyond the natural limitations
of this peculiarly abstract type of music. In his search for color
effects, too, Schubert frequently foreshadows the methods and feelings
of modern composers, but these effects, such as the tremolo climax,
are not false to the true nature of the instruments he is using. Some
of Schubert’s chamber works still hold their place in undiminished
popularity in concerts. A few make use of the melodies of some of his
best songs, such as ‘The Wanderer,’ ‘Death and the Maiden,’ and _Sei
mir gegrüsst_. The best are perhaps those in A minor, G major, and D
minor. To these we must add the great C major quintet, which uses the
melody of ‘The Trout’ in its last movement.
Contemporary with Schubert, and outliving him by a number of years
was Ludwig Spohr (1784-1859), whose quartets number as many as those
of Mozart and Beethoven put together. The only one which still holds
its place in concert programs is that in G minor, opus 27. His
quartets have the personal faults and virtues of their composer,
being somewhat tenuous and mannered, and inclined to stress solo
virtuosity. Schumann’s early quartets, especially the three in opus
41, show him very nearly at his best. These, written in the early
years of his married life, after a deliberate study of the quartets of
Beethoven, are thoroughly workmanlike, and are eminently successful as
experiments in direct and ‘aphoristic’ expression. They rank among the
best in string quartet literature. Not so much can be said for those
of Mendelssohn. They were, of course, immensely popular in their time.
But, though their style is polished, their content is not creative
in the finer sense. And, strangely enough, their composer frequently
committed in them faults of taste in his use of the instruments. The
best to be said of them, as of much of the rest of Mendelssohn’s music,
is that they were of immense value in refining and deepening the
musical taste of the time, when the greater works of every type were
caviar to the general.
In addition to the quartets of the romantic period we should mention
the vast quantity of chamber music written for various combinations
of instruments. Spohr in particular was very prolific, and his
combinations were sometimes highly unusual. For instance, he has to
his credit a nonet, four double quartets, a ‘nocturne’ for wind and
percussion instruments, a sextet for strings and a concerto for string
quartet with orchestral accompaniment. Mendelssohn’s octet for strings,
opus 22, is fresh and interesting, especially in the scherzo, where the
composer is at his best. And, to follow the great trios (piano, violin,
and 'cello) of Beethoven, we have two trios, D minor and C minor, by
Mendelssohn, and three trios, in D minor, F major, and G minor, by
Schumann, of which the first is the best. The later Schumann sonatas
for violin show only too clearly the composer’s declining powers.
The romantic period was naturally the time for great pianoforte
concertos. Weber, in his two concertos, in C and E flat, and in his
_Concertstück_ for piano and orchestra, foreshadowed the spirit of
great concertos that followed, though his technique was still one of
transition. Mendelssohn’s concerto in G minor was for years the most
popular of show pieces in conservatories, though it has since largely
dropped out of use. (His _Capriccio_, however, is still familiar
and beautiful.) But the great concerto of the period, and one of the
great ones of all time, was Schumann’s in A minor. This was originally
written as a solo piece of moderate length, but broadened into a
concerto of three distinct though joined movements, each representing
the best of Schumann’s genius. No concerto ever conceded less to mere
display, or maintained a more even standard of musical excellence.
And to-day, though the technical brilliance is somewhat dimmed by
comparison with more modern works, the idealistic sincerity of the
lovely concerto speaks with unlessened vigor. Numerous other concertos
for pianoforte were composed and were popular in the period we are
discussing, but most of them have dropped out of use, except for the
instruction of conservatory students. Among them we may mention the
concerto in F minor by Adolph Henselt (1814-1889), one of the famous
virtuosos of the time, whose work is exceedingly pianistic, elaborate
and graceful, but somewhat pedantic and lacking in force; that in A
flat by John Field (1782-1837); that in C sharp minor by Ferdinand Ries
(1784-1838); that in F minor by Sterndale Bennett (1816-1875); that in
F sharp minor by Ferdinand Hiller (1811-1885), a famous virtuoso of
the time, who was closely identified with the work and activities of
some of the greatest composers; and that in G minor by Joachim Raff
(1822-1882). Chopin’s two concertos, composed in his earliest years
of creative activity, are uneven, but in parts reveal the genius of
their composer and justly maintain their somewhat limited popularity in
modern concerts.
Ludwig Spohr, whom Rupert Hughes calls one of ‘the first of second-best
composers,’ was a virtuoso of the violin, and it is chiefly through
his writing for that instrument that he retains what position he has
in modern times. He first became known as a violinist and constantly
showed his predilection for the instrument in his writings. In his
day he seemed a dazzling genius, with his eleven operas, his nine
symphonies, and his great oratorio ‘The Last Judgment.’ Yet these
have hardly more than a historical value to-day--except for the quiet
pleasure they can give the student who takes the trouble to examine
the scores. It is as a composer for the violin that Spohr continues
to speak with some authority. His seventeen concertos still enter
largely into the training of young violin virtuosos, and figure to a
considerable though diminishing extent in concerts. As a master of the
violin Spohr represents the old school. His bowing, when he played,
was conservative. He drew from his instrument a broad singing quality
of tone. All his writing shows his intimacy with the instrument of
his personal triumphs. It has been said that ‘everything turned to a
concerto at his touch.’ His style, however, was not lurid, but rather
delicate and nuanced. Presently he was eclipsed by Paganini,[97] a
genius who was half charlatan, who stopped short of no trick with his
instrument provided it might procure applause. Spohr could see nothing
but the trickster in this man who thrilled Liszt and who has left
several pieces which are to-day in constant use and are not scorned
by the best of musicians. Spohr, however, had an individuality which
could not blend with that of the meteoric virtuoso. In some respects
he is extraordinarily modern. His harmony was continually striving
for peculiar and colorful effects. He was addicted, in a mild way,
to program music, and gave titles to much of his music, such as
the ‘Seasons’ symphony. But his genius always stopped short of the
epoch-making quality of supreme creativeness.
In violin literature we must mention one more work, one which has
never been surpassed in beauty of workmanship and which remains one
of the great things of its kind in all music. This is Mendelssohn’s
concerto. It is, outside of the concert overtures, the one work of his
which has not sunk materially in the eyes of musicians since its first
years. Its themes, though not robust, are of the very highest beauty.
Its technical qualities make it one of the best beloved of works to
violinists. And its unmatchable polish and balance of architecture make
it a constant joy to concert audiences.
H. K. M.
FOOTNOTES:
[93] Oskar Bie: ‘A History of the Pianoforte and Pianoforte Players,’
Chap. VIII.
[94] ‘The Pianoforte and Its Music,’ Chap. X.
[95] ‘The Pianoforte and Pianoforte Players,’ Chap. VII.
[96] B. Pesth, 1814; d. Paris, 1888.
[97] Niccolò Paganini, the greatest of all violin virtuosi, was born in
1782 in Genoa, and died, 1840, in Nizza.