NEO-ROMANTICISM: JOHANNES BRAHMS AND CÉSAR FRANCK
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.
I
In the lifetime of Beethoven tendencies became evident in music which
during the nineteenth century developed extraordinarily both rapidly
and far, and brought about new forms and an almost wholly new art of
orchestration. Music underwent transformations parallel to those which
altered the face of all the arts and even of philosophy, and which
were closely dependent on the general political, social, and æsthetic
forces set loose throughout Europe by the French Revolution. In the
music of Beethoven himself many of these alterations are suggested,
foreshadowed, actually anticipated. The last pianoforte sonatas, the
Mass in D, the Ninth Symphony and the last string quartets were all
colored by an intense subjectivity. The form was free and strange.
They were and are to-day incomprehensible without deep study, they
are not objectively evident. They are dim and trackless realms of
music, hinting at infinite discoveries and possibilities. They were
not models, not types for his successors to imitate, but gospels of
freedom and messages from remote valleys and mountains. They cast a
light over distances yet to be attained. At the same time they were the
expression of his own soul, profoundly personal and mystical. We need
not, however, look here for traces of the French Revolution nor signs
of the times. This is not proud and conscious glorification of the
individual, nor the confident expression of a mood, at once relaxed and
self-assertive. This is the music of a man who was first cut off from
the world, who was forced within himself, so to speak, by illness, by
loneliness, by complete deafness, whose heart and soul were imprisoned
in an aloofness, who could find inspiration but in the mystery and
power of his own being. What he brought forth from such heights and
depths was to be infinitely suggestive to musicians of a later age.
During the last half dozen years of Beethoven’s life, two younger
men, strongly affected by the new era of freedom, were molding and
coloring music in other ways. Schubert, fired by the poetry of the
German romanticists, was pouring out songs full of freshness and the
new spirit, expressing in music the wildness of storm and night,
the gruesome forest-rider, the fairy whisperings of the brook, the
still sadness of frosty winter. Under his hands the symphony became
fanciful, soft, and poetical. He filled it with enchanting melody,
with the warm-blooded life of folk-songs and native rhythm, veiled
it in shifting harmonies. Beside him reckless Weber, full of German
fairy tales, of legends of chivalry, sensitive to tone-color, was
writing operas dear to the people, part-songs for men loyal to Germany,
adorning legend and ballad with splendid colors of sound. Schubert
had little grasp of form, which is order in music; Weber had hardly
to concern himself with it, since his music was, so to speak, the
draperies of a form, of the drama. For each, poetry and legend was the
inspiration, romantic poetry and wild legend, essentially Teutonic;
for each, rapture and color was the ideal. So it was at the death of
Beethoven. Weber was already dead, Schubert had but a year to live. On
the one hand, Beethoven the mystic, unfathomed, infinitely suggestive;
on the other, Schubert and Weber, the inspired rhapsodist, the genial
colorist, prototypes of much to come. On every hand were imminent
needs, unexplored possibilities.
In the amazingly short space of twenty-five years there grew up from
these seeds a new music, most firmly rooted in Schubert and Weber,
at times fed by the spirit of Beethoven. The rhapsodist gloried in
his mood, the colorist painted gorgeous panoramas; there were poets
in music, on the one hand, and painters in music, on the other. The
question of form and design, the most vital for music if not for all
the arts, has been met in many ways. The poets have limited themselves,
or at any rate have found their best and most characteristic
expression, in small forms. They publish long cycles made up of short
pieces. Often, as in the case of Schumann’s _Papillons_, _Carnaval_,
or _Kreisleriana_, the short pieces are more or less closely held
together in their relationship to one fanciful central idea. They
are scenes at a dress ball, comments and impressions of two or three
individualities at a fête, various expressions in music of different
aspects of a man’s character. Or they may have no unity as in the case
of Chopin’s preludes, studies, sets of mazurkas, or Mendelssohn’s
‘Songs Without Words,’ or Schumann’s _Bunte Blätter_. The painters in
music have devised new forms. They prefer to paint pictures of action,
they become narrative painters in music. The mighty Berlioz paints
progressive scenes from a man’s life; Liszt gives us the battle between
Paganism and Christianity in a series of pictures, the whole of life in
its progress toward death, the dreams, the torture and the ultimate
triumph of Mazeppa, of Tasso. They have acquired overpowering skill
with the brush and palette, they write for tremendous orchestras, their
scores are brilliant, often blinding. Their narratives move on with
great rush. We are familiar with the story, follow it in the music.
We know the guise in music of the characters which enact it, they
are constantly before us, moving on, rarely reminiscent. The bands
of strict form break before the armies of characters, of ideas, of
events, and we need no balance, for the story holds us and we are not
upset. But these painters, and we in their suite, are less thrilled by
the freedom of their poem and by the stride of their narrative than
bewitched and fired by the gorgeousness of the colors which they employ
with bold and masterly hand.
We shall look relatively in vain for such colors in the music of the
‘poets.’ They are lyricists, they express moods in music and each
little piece partakes of the color of the mood which it enfolds--is in
general delicate and monochrome. The poets are essentially composers
for the pianoforte. They have chosen the instrument suitable for
the home and for intimate surroundings, and their choice bars the
brilliancy of color from their now exquisite now passionate and
profoundly moving art. They are musicians of the spirit and the mood,
meditative, genuine, passionate, tearful and gay by turn. The others
are musicians of the senses and the act, dramatists, tawdry charlatans
or magnificently glorious spokesmen, leaders, challengers, who speak
with the resonance of trumpets and seduce with the honey of soft music.
Now the poets are descended from Schubert and the painters from Weber.
Both are unwavering in their allegiance to Beethoven, but the spirit of
Beethoven has touched them little. The poets more than the painters are
akin to him, but they lack his breadth and power. The painters have
something of his daring strength, but they stand over against him, are
not in line with him. Such is the condition of music only twenty-five
years after the death of him whom all, save Chopin, who worshipped
Mozart, hailed as supreme master.
In September, 1853, Brahms came to Schumann, then conductor at
Düsseldorf on the Rhine, provided with a letter of introduction from
Joseph Joachim, the renowned violinist, but two years his senior.
Brahms was at that time just over twenty years of age. He brought
with him manuscripts of his own composing and played for Schumann. A
short while before he had played the same things for Liszt at Weimar.
Of his three weeks’ stay as Liszt’s guest very bitter accounts have
been written. If Brahms was tired and fell asleep while Liszt was
playing to him, if Liszt was merely seeking to impose himself upon
the young musician when he played that young man’s scherzo at sight
from manuscript, and altered it, well and good. Brahms was, at any
rate--thanks in this case, too, to Joachim--received in the throne-room
of the painters in music, and nothing came of it. He departed the
richer by an elegant cigar-case, gift from his host; and in later years
still spoke of Liszt’s unique, incomparable and inimitable playing. But
in the throne-room of the poets he was hailed with unbounded rejoicing.
Schumann took again in his gifted hand the pen so long idle and wrote
the article for the _New Journal of Music_, which proclaimed the advent
of the true successor of Beethoven. It was a daring prophecy and it
had a tremendous effect upon Brahms and upon his career; for it was a
gage thrown to him he could not neglect and though it at once created
an opposition, vehement and longstanding, it screwed his best and most
genuine efforts to the sticking place. Never through the rest of his
life did he relax the self-imposed struggle to make himself worthy of
Schumann’s confidence and hope.
Meanwhile, among the painters, directly in the line from Weber, another
man had come to the fore, a colossal genius such as perhaps the world
had never seen before nor is like to see again. Richard Wagner, at
that time just twice the age of Brahms, was in exile at Zürich. He had
written _Rienzi_, ‘The Flying Dutchman,’ _Tannhäuser_, and _Lohengrin_.
All had been performed. The libretto of the Ring was done and the music
to _Rheingold_ composed and orchestrated. Schumann disapproved. It is
hard to understand why he, so recklessly generous, so willing to see
the best in the music of all the younger school, the ardent supporter
of Berlioz, should have turned away from Wagner. One must suspect a
touch of personal aversion. He was not alone. No man ever had fiercer
battle to wage than Wagner, nor did any man ever bring to battle a
more indomitable courage and will. Liszt was his staunch supporter;
and to Liszt, too, both Schumann and his wife had aversion, easier to
understand than their aversion to Wagner. For Liszt, the virtuoso, was
made of gold and tinsel. Liszt, the composer, was made so in part.
But Wagner, the musician, was incomparably great, that is to say, his
powers were colossal and unlike those of any other, and therefore not
to be compared. That Schumann failed to recognize this comes with
something of a shock to those who have been amazed at the keenness of
his perception, and yet more to those who have rejoiced to find in the
musician the nobility and generosity of a great-hearted man. It is
obvious that the divergence between poets and painters had by this time
become too wide for his unselfish, sympathetic nature to bridge; and
thus when Brahms, a young man of twenty, was launched into the world
of music he found musicians divided into two camps between which the
hostility was to grow ever more bitter. Liszt at Weimar, Schumann at
Düsseldorf, were the rallying points for the opposing sides, but within
a year Schumann’s mind failed. The standard was forced upon Brahms, and
Liszt gave himself up to Wagner.
It was almost inevitable that the great part of the world of music
should be won over by Wagner. One by one the poets seceded, gave way
to the influence of Wagner’s marvellous power, an influence which
Clara Schumann never ceased to deplore. The result was that Brahms was
regarded, outside the circle of a few powerful friends, as reactionary.
He led, so to speak, a negative existence in music. He was cried down
for what he was not, not for what he was. There is no reason to suppose
that Brahms suffered thereby. The sale of his compositions constantly
increased and after the first few probationary years he never lacked a
good income from them. Still, perhaps the majority of musicians were
blinded by the controversy to the positive, assertive, progressive
elements in Brahms’ music. On the other hand, the adherents of Brahms,
the ‘Brahmins,’ as they have been not inaptly called, retaliated by
more or less shameful attacks upon Wagner, which later quite justly
fell back upon their own heads, to their merited humiliation. They
failed to see in him anything but a smasher of tradition, they closed
their eyes to his mighty power of construction. In the course of
time Wagner’s triumph was overwhelming. He remained the successful
innovator, and Brahms the follower of ancient tradition.
II
The life of Brahms offers little that is striking or unusual. He was
born in Hamburg, the northern city by the sea, on the 7th of May,
1833, of relatively humble parents. His father was a double-bass
player in a theatre orchestra. His mother, many years older than his
father, and more or less a cripple, seems to have had a deep love for
reading and a remarkable memory to retain what she had read. In his
earliest childhood Brahms commenced to acquire a knowledge of poetry
from his mother, which showed all through his later life in the choice
of poems he made for his songs. His ability to play the piano was so
evident that his father hoped to send him as a child wonder to tour
the United States, from which fate, however, he was saved by the
firmness of one of his teachers. Twice in November, 1847, he appeared
with others in public, playing conventional show pieces of the facture
of Thalberg; but in the next year he gave a recital of his own at
which he played Bach, a point of which Kalbeck[118] makes a trifle
too much. The income of the father was very small, and Brahms was not
an overwhelming success as a concert pianist. To earn a little money,
therefore, he used to play for dancing in taverns along the waterfront;
forgetful, we are told, of the rollicking sailors, absorbed in books
upon the desk of the piano before him. His early life was not an easy
one. It helped to mold him, however, and brought out his enormous
perseverance and strength of will. These early days of hardship were
never forgotten. He believed they had helped rather than hindered him,
a belief which, it must be admitted, is refreshingly manly in contrast
to the wail of despised genius so often ringing in the ears of one who
reads the lives of the great musicians as they have been penned by
their later worshippers. Not long before he died, being occupied with
the question of his will and the disposal of his money, he asked his
friend, the Swiss writer J. V. Widmann for advice. Widmann suggested
that he establish a fund for the support and aid of struggling young
musicians; to which Brahms replied that the genius of such, if it were
worth anything, would find its own support and be the stronger for the
struggle. The attitude is very characteristic.
Occasional visitors to Hamburg had a strong influence upon the youth.
Such were Joachim and Robert and Clara Schumann, though he did not
then meet the latter. At the age of nineteen, having already composed
the E-flat minor scherzo, the F-sharp minor and C-major sonatas and
numerous songs, he went forth on a concert tour with the Bohemian
violinist Remenyi. On this tour he again came in touch with Joachim,
who furnished him with letters to Liszt at Weimar and the Schumanns at
Düsseldorf. Of his stay at Weimar mention has already been made. At
Düsseldorf he was received at once into the heart of the family. In
striking contrast with the gruffness of later years is the description
given by Albert Dietrich of the young man come out of the north to the
home of the Schumanns. ‘The appearance, as original as interesting,
of the youthful almost boyish-looking musician, with his high-pitched
voice and long fair hair, made a most attractive impression upon me. I
was particularly struck by the characteristic energy of the mouth and
serious depths in his blue eyes....’ One evening Brahms was asked to
play. He played a Toccata of Bach and his own scherzo in E-flat minor
‘with wonderful power and mastery; bending his head down over the keys,
and, as was his wont in his excitement, humming the melody aloud as he
played. He modestly deprecated the torrent of praise with which his
performance was greeted. Everyone marvelled at his remarkable talent,
and, above all, we young musicians were unanimous in our enthusiastic
admiration of the supremely artistic qualities of his playing, at times
so powerful or, when occasion demanded it, so exquisitely tender, but
always full of character. Soon after there was an excursion to the
Grafenberg. Brahms was of the party, and showed himself here in all
the amiable freshness and innocence of youth.... The young artist was
of vigorous physique; even the severest mental work hardly seeming an
exertion to him. He could sleep soundly at any hour of the day if he
wished to do so. In intercourse with his fellows he was lively, often
even exuberant in spirits, occasionally blunt and full of wild freaks.
With the boisterousness of youth he would run up the stairs, knock at
my door with both fists, and, without awaiting a reply, burst into the
room. He tried to lower his strikingly high-pitched voice by speaking
hoarsely, which gave it an unpleasant sound.’
All accounts of the young Brahms lay emphasis on his lovableness,
his exuberant good spirits, his shining good health and his physical
vitality. Clara Schumann wrote in her diary: ‘I found a nice stanza in
a poem of Bodenstedt’s which is just the motto for Johannes:
’“In winter I sing as my glass I drain,
For joy that the spring is drawing near;
And when spring comes, I drink again,
For joy that at last it is really here.”'
Clara, too, admired his playing, and she was competent to judge. ‘I
always listen to him with fresh admiration,’ she wrote. ‘I like to
watch him while he plays. His face has a noble expression always, but
when he plays it becomes even more exalted. And at the same time he
always plays quietly, i. e. his movements are always beautiful, not
like Liszt’s and others’.’ He was always devoted to Schubert and she
remarked that he played Schubert wonderfully. Later in life his playing
became careless and loud.
Not half a year after Brahms was received at Düsseldorf Schumann’s mind
gave way. In February, 1854, he attempted suicide, and immediately
after it became necessary to send him to a private sanatorium at
Endenich. For two years longer he lived. They were years of anguish
for his wife, during which Brahms was her unfailing refuge and support.
She wrote in her diary that her children might read in after years
what now is made known to the world. ‘Then came Johannes Brahms. Your
father loved and admired him as he did no man except Joachim. He came,
like a true comrade, to share all my sorrow; he strengthened the heart
that threatened to break, he uplifted my mind, he cheered my spirits
whenever and wherever he could, in short, he was in the fullest sense
of the word my friend.’
Brahms was profoundly affected by the suffering he witnessed and by
the personal grief at the loss of a friend who had meant so much to
him. The hearty, boisterous gaiety such as he poured into parts of
his youthful compositions, into the scherzo of the F-minor sonata,
for instance, and into the finale of the C-major, never again found
unqualified expression in his music. His character was set and
hardened. From then on he locked his emotions within himself. Little
by little he became harsh, rejected, often roughly, kindness and
praise--made himself a coat of iron and shut his nature from the
world. Ruthlessly outspoken and direct, seemingly heedless of the
sensibilities of those who loved him dearly and whom he dearly loved,
he presents only a proud, fierce defiance to grief, to misfortune,
even to life itself. What such self-discipline cost him only his music
expresses. Three of his gloomiest and most austere works came first
into his mind during the horror of Schumann’s illness; the D-minor
concerto for the piano, the first movement of the C-minor quartet, and
the first movement of the C-minor symphony.
Meanwhile he was earning a precarious living by giving concerts here
and there, not always with success; and he had begun a relentlessly
severe course of self-training in his art. Here Joachim and he were
mutually helpful to each other. Every week each would send to the
other exercises in music, fragments of compositions, expecting in
return frank and merciless criticism. In the fall of 1859 he accepted
a position at Detmold as pianist and leader of the chorus. A small
orchestra was at his service, which offered him opportunity to study
instrumental effects, especially wind instruments, and for which he
wrote the two serenades in A and in D major. Likewise he profited by
his association with the chorus, and laid at Detmold the foundation
for his technique in writing for voices, which has very rarely been
equalled. Duties in this new position occupied him only during the
musical season, from September to December. At other times he played in
concert or went back to his home in Hamburg. At one concert in Leipzig
in 1859 he was actually hissed, either because his own concerto which
he played or his manner of playing it was offensive. The critics were
viciously hostile. Brahms took the defeat manfully, evidently ranked
it as he did his days of playing for the Hamburg sailors, among the
experiences which were in the long run stimulating. At Hamburg he
organized a chorus of women’s voices for which many of his loveliest
works were then and subsequently composed. In the chorus was a young
Viennese lady from whom, according to Kalbeck, he first heard Viennese
folk-music. With Vienna henceforth in mind he continued in his work at
Detmold until 1862, when he broke away from North Germany and went to
establish himself in the land of his desire. He came before the public
first as a pianist, later as a composer. For a year he was conductor of
the _Singakademie_. Afterward he never held an office except during the
three years 1872-1875, when he was conductor of the _Gesellschaft der
Musikfreunde_.
The death of his mother in 1867 aggravated his tendency to forbidding
self-discipline. The result in music was the ‘German Requiem,’ which
even those who cannot sympathize with his music in general have
willingly granted to be one of the great masterpieces of music. As it
was first performed at a concert of the _Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde_
in Vienna in April, 1867, it consisted of only three numbers. To these
he later added four, and in this form it was performed on Good Friday,
April 10, 1868, in Bremen. Clara Schumann, who was present, wrote in
her diary that she had been more moved by it than by any other sacred
music she had ever heard. It established Brahms’ reputation as a
composer, a reputation which steadily grew among conservatives. A group
of distinguished critics, musicians, and men of unusual intellectual
gifts gathered about him in Vienna. Among them were Dr. Theodor
Billroth, the famous surgeon, probably his most intimate friend; Eduard
Hanslick and Max Kalbeck among the critics, K. Goldmark and Johann
Strauss among the musicians. Joachim was a lifelong friend, Von Bülow
and Fritz Simrock, the publisher, were staunch admirers, and in Dvořák
he later took a deep interest. Journeys to Italy and to Switzerland
took him from Vienna for some time every year, and he often spent a
part of the summer with Clara Schumann at various German watering
places.
A few works were inspired by unusual events, such as the ‘Song of
Triumph’ to celebrate the victory of the German armies in the war
against France, and the ‘Academic Festival Overture,’ composed in
gratitude to the university at Breslau which conferred upon him the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy. A similar degree was offered by the
University of Cambridge, which Brahms was forced to refuse because he
was unwilling to undertake the voyage to England.
He was an omnivorous reader and an enthusiastic amateur of art. Regular
in his habits, a stubborn and untiring worker, he composed almost
unceasingly to the time of his last illness and death in April, 1897.
The great works for the orchestra comprise ‘Variations on a Theme of
Haydn’s,’ the ‘Academic Festival Overture,’ and the ‘Tragic Overture,’
four great symphonies, the second concerto for piano and orchestra,
the concerto for violin and orchestra, and a concerto for violin and
violoncello. The great choral works are the ‘Requiem,’ ‘The Song of
Triumph,’ and ‘The Song of Destiny,’ a cantata, ‘Rinaldo,’ and a great
number of songs. Besides these there are many sets of works for the
piano, all in short forms, generally called caprices or intermezzi, and
several sets of variations, one on a theme of Paganini, one on a theme
of Handel; sonatas for piano and violin, and piano and violoncello;
the magnificent quintet in F-minor for piano and strings, sonatas for
clarinet and piano, string quartets, piano quartets, and trios.
III
Brahms is to be ranked among the romantic composers in that all his
work is distinctly a reflection of his own personality, in that every
emotion, mood, dream, or whatever may be the cause and inspiration
of his music is invariably tinged with the nature through which it
passed. The lovable, boisterous frankness which was characteristic of
him as a young man was little by little curbed, subdued, levelled,
so to speak. He cultivated an austere intellectual grasp of himself,
tending to crush all sentimentality and often all sentiment. We may not
hesitate to believe his own word that Clara Schumann was dearer to him
than anyone else upon the earth, nor yet can we fail to read in her
diary that she suffered more than anyone else from his uncompromising
intellectuality. If she attempted to praise or encourage him she met
with a heartless intellectual rebuke. Not long after Schumann died, he
wrote a letter to reprimand her for taking his own cause too much to
heart. ‘You demand too rapid and enthusiastic recognition of talent
which you happen to like. Art is a republic. You should take that as a
motto. You are far too aristocratic.... Do not place one artist in a
higher rank and expect the others to regard him as their superior, as
dictator. His gifts will make him a beloved and respected citizen of
this republic, but will not make him consul or emperor.’ To which she
replied: ‘It is true that I am often greatly struck by the richness
of your genius, that you always seem to me one on whom heaven has
poured out its best gifts, that I love and honor you for the sake of
many glorious works. All this has fastened its roots deep down in my
heart, so, dearest Johannes, do not trouble to kill it all by your
cold philosophizing.’ Clara exerted herself to bring his compositions
before the public. A short extract from her diary will show how Brahms
rewarded her efforts. ‘I was in agonies of nervousness but I played
them [variations on a theme of Schumann’s] well all the same, and
they were much applauded. Johannes, however, hurt me very much by his
indifference. He declared that he could no longer bear to hear the
variations, it was altogether dreadful to him to listen to anything
of his own and to have to sit by and do nothing. Although I can well
understand this feeling I cannot help finding it hard when one has
devoted all one’s powers to a work, and the composer himself has not a
kind word for it.’ The tenderness which would have meant much to her
he failed to show. He made himself rough and harsh, stern and severe.
That a man could write of him as ‘a steadfast, strong, manly nature,
self-contained and independent, striving ever for the highest, an
uncompromisingly true and unbending artistic conscience, strict even
to harshness, rigidly exacting,’ wins the adherent, wins loyalty and
admiration, hides but does not fill the lack.
Undoubtedly, as a son of a gloomy northern land, the tendency to
self-restraint was a racial heritage. Outward facts of his life show
that he was himself conscious of it and that he tried in a measure to
escape from it. His love of gay Vienna, his journeys into Switzerland,
his oft-repeated search for color and spontaneous emotion in Italy, are
all signs of a man trying to be free from his own nature. ‘But that, in
spite of Vienna,’ writes Walter Niemann, ‘he remained a true son of the
sea-girt province, we know from all accounts of his life. Melancholy,
deep, powerful and earnest feeling, uncommunicativeness, a noble
restraint of emotion, meditativeness, even morbidness, the inclination
to be alone with himself, the inability both as man and as artist to
get away from himself, are characteristics which must be ever assigned
to him.’[119]
There is something heroic in this, a grim strength, the chill of
northern forests and northern seas, loneliness and the power to endure
suffering in silence. It is an old ideal. The thane, were he wanderer
or seafarer, never forgot it was his duty to lock his sorrow within his
breast. That it might lead and has led to morbidness, to taciturnity,
on the one hand, is no less evident than that, on the other, it may
lead to splendid fortitude and nobility. This old ideal has found its
first full expression in music through Brahms. We come upon a paradox,
the man who would express nothing, who has in music expressed all.
It is striking how the man reveals himself in his music. The rigorous
self-discipline and restraint find their counterpart in the absolute
perfection of the structure, the polyphonic skill, the intellectual
poise and certainty. There is a resultant lack of obvious color, a
deliberate suppression of sensuousness, so marked that Rubinstein could
call him, with Joachim, the high-priest of virtue, a remark which
carries the antidote to its own sting, if one will be serious. And the
music of Brahms is essentially serious. In general it lacks appealing
charm and humor. Its beauties yield only to thoughtful study, but the
harvest is rich, though often sombre. He belongs to the poets, not the
painters, in that his short pieces are saturated with mood, even and
rather monochrome. The mood, too, is prevailingly dark, not light. That
he could at times rise out of it and give way to light-heartedness
and frank humor no one can deny who will recall, for instance, the
‘Academic Festival Overture,’ where the mood is boisterous and full of
fun, student fun. The Passacaglia in the Fourth Symphony hints at it
as well, and some of the songs, and the last movement of the violin
concerto. But these are in strong contrast to the general spirit of
his music. His happier moods are ever touched with wistfulness or
with sadness. In such vein he is often at his best, as, for example,
in the allegretto of the first and of the second symphonies. Such a
mischievous humor as Beethoven expressed in the scherzo of the Eroica
Symphony, such peasant joviality as rollicks through the scherzo of
the Pastoral, such wit as glances through the eighth symphony, were,
if he had them at all within him, too oppressed to find utterance and
excite laughter or even smiles. As a boy, it will be remembered, he was
often overbrimming with good spirits, full of freakish sport. The first
three sonatas reflect this. Then came the illness of Schumann, his
adored friend, and, knowing what grief and suffering were, he fortified
himself against them. He took a wound to heart and never after was off
his guard.
It cannot be said that his music is wholly lacking in humor. Reckless,
‘unbuttoned’ humor is indeed rarely if ever evident; but the broader
humor, the sense of balance and proportion, strengthens his works
almost without exception. If it can be said that he was never able to
free himself from a mood of twilight and the northern sea, it cannot be
said that he was so sunk in this mood as to lose himself in unhealthy
morbidness, to lose perspective and the power of wide vision. Above
all else his music is broadly planned. It is wide and spacious, not to
say vast. There is enormous force in it, vigor of mind and of spirit,
too. Surcharged it may not be with heat and color, but great winds blow
through it, it is expansive, it lifts the listener to towering heights,
never drags him to ecstatic torture in the fiery lake of distressed
passion and hysterical grief. For this reason Liszt could say of some
of it that it was ‘sanitary,’ and here again we must be serious not to
smart with the sting.
No musician ever devoted himself more wholeheartedly to the study of
folk-music, but he failed to imbue his works with the spirit of it. One
has but to contrast him with Haydn or with Schubert to be convinced.
The _Liebeslieder_ waltzes, and the set of waltzes arranged for four
hands, charming as they are, lack the true folk-spirit of spontaneity
and warmth. For all their seeming simplicity they hold back something;
they are veiled and therefore suggestive, not immediate. They breathe
of the ever-changing sea, not of the warm and stable earth. His
admiration for Johann Strauss is well known. That he himself could not
write waltzes of the same mad, irresistible swing was to him a source
of conscious regret. Yet the accompaniments which he wrote for series
of German folk-songs are ineffably beautiful. In them, he interprets
the spirit of the northern races to which by birth and character
he belonged. That which would have made him the interpreter of all
mankind, that quick emotion which is the essence of the human race,
the current of warm blood which flows through us all and makes us all
as one, he bound and concealed within himself. He cannot speak the
common idiom.
Hence his music will impress the listener upon the first hearing as
intellectual, and, as a rule, study and familiarity alone reveal the
depth of genuine emotional feeling from which it sprang. Therefore it
is true of him in the same measure as it is true of Bach and Beethoven
that the beauty of his music grows ever richer with repeated hearings,
and does not fade nor become stale. It is not, however, intellectual
in the sense that it is always deliberately contrived, but only in so
far as it reflects the austere control of mind over emotion which was
characteristic of him as a man. One is conscious always of control and
a consequent power to sustain. In rhythm, in melody and in harmony this
control has left its mark. It is to be doubted if the music of any
other composer is so full of idiosyncrasies of expression. Strangely
enough these are not limitations. They are not mannerisms in the sense
that they are habits, mere formulas of expression, unconsciously
affected and riding the composer to death. They are subtly connected
with and suitable to the quality of emotion which they serve to
express, that emotion which, as we have seen, is always under control.
They are signs of strength, not of weakness.
His rhythm is varied by devices of syncopation which are not to be
found used to such an extent in the works of any other of the great
composers. Especially frequent is the alteration of two beats of
three values into three beats of two, an alteration practised by the
early polyphonic writers and called the _hemiola_. Brahms employed
it not only with various beats of the measure but with the measures
themselves. Thus two measures of 3/4 time often become in value three
measures of 2/4 time. Notice, for instance in the sonata for piano in
F-minor the part for the left hand in measures seven to sixteen of
the first movement. In this passage the left hand is clearly playing
in 2/4 time, the right in 3/4; yet the sum of rhythmical values for
each at the end of the passage is the same. It is to be noted that,
whereas Schumann frequently lost himself in syncopation, or, in other
words, overstepped the mark so that the original beat was wholly lost
and with it the effect of syncopation, at any rate to the listener,
Brahms always contrived that the original beat should be suggested if
not emphasized, and his employment of syncopation, therefore, is always
effective as such. He acquired extraordinary skill in the combination
of different rhythms at the same time, and in the modification of tempo
by modification of the actual value of the notes. The variety and
complexity of the rhythm of his music are rarely lost on a listener,
though often they serve only to bewilder him until the secret becomes
clear. Within the somewhat rigid bounds of form and counterpoint his
music is made wonderfully flexible, while by syncopation he actually
makes the natural beat more relentless. Mystery, rebellion, divergence,
the world-old struggle between law and chaos he could express either in
fine suggestions or in strong contradictions by his power over rhythm
in music. In the broader rhythm of structure, too, he was free. Phrases
of five bars are constantly met with in his music.
His melodies are indescribably large. They have the poise of great and
far-reaching thought and yet rarely lack spontaneity. Indeed, as a
song writer he is unexcelled. In his instrumental music there is often
a predominance of lyricism. Though he was eminently skillful in the
treatment of melodic motifs, of small sections of melody, though his
mastery of polyphonic writing is second to none, except Bach, parts of
the symphonies seem to be carried by broad, flowing melodies, which in
their largeness and sweep have the power to take the listener soaring
into vast expanses. To cite but one instance, the melodies of the first
movement of the D-major symphony are truly lyrical. In them alone there
is wonderful beauty, wonderful power. They are not meaningless. Of that
movement it is not to be said what a marvellous structure has Brahms
been able to build out of motives in themselves meaningless, in the
hands of another insignificant. The beauty of the movement is largely
in the materials out of which it is built. Of the melodies of Beethoven
it may be said they have infinite depth, of those of Schubert that they
have perennial freshness, of those of Schumann romance and tenderness,
but of Brahms that they have power, the power of the eagle to soar.
They are frequently composed of the tones of a chord, sometimes of the
simple tonic triad. Notice in this regard the first melodies of all the
symphonies, the songs ‘Sapphic Ode,’ _Die Mainacht_, _Wiegenlied_, and
countless others.
His harmonies are, as would be expected from one to whom softness was
a stranger, for the most part diatonic. They are virile, almost never
sensuous. Sharp dissonances are frequent, augmented intervals rare, and
often his harmonies are made ‘thick’ by doubling the third even in very
low registers. There is at times a strong suggestion of the old modal
harmony, especially in works written for chorus without accompaniment.
Major and minor alternate unexpectedly, the two modes seeming in his
music interchangeable. He is fond of extremely wide intervals, very low
and very high tones at once, and the empty places without sound between
call forth the spirit of barren moorland, the mystery of dreary places,
of the deserted sea.
In all Brahms’ music, whether for piano, for voices, combinations of
instruments, or for orchestra, these idiosyncrasies are present. They
are easily recognized, easily seized upon by the critic; but taken
together they do not constitute the sum of Brahms’ genius. They are
expressive of his broad intellectual grasp; but the essence of his
genius consists far rather in a powerful, deep, and genuine emotional
feeling which is seldom lacking in all that he composed. It is hard to
get at, hard for the player, the singer, and the leader to reveal, but
the fact none the less remains that Brahms is one of the very great
composers, one who truly had something to say. One may feel at times
that he set himself deliberately to say it in a manner new and strange;
but it is none the less evident to one who has given thought to the
interpretation of what lies behind his music, that the form of his
utterance, though at first seemingly awkward and willful, is perfectly
and marvellously fitting.
IV
Brahms’ pianoforte works are with comparatively few exceptions in
small forms. There are rhapsodies and ballades and many intermezzi and
capriccios. Unlike Schumann he never gives these pieces a poetic title
to suggest the mood in which they are steeped, though sometimes, rarely
indeed, he prefixes a motto, a stanza from a poem, as in the andante of
the F-minor sonata, or the title of a poem, as in the ballade that is
called ‘Edward,’ or the intermezzo in E-flat major, both suggested by
Scotch poems. The pieces are almost without exception difficult. The
ordinary technique of the pianist is hardly serviceable, for common
formulas of accompaniment he seldom uses, but rather unusual and wide
groupings of notes which call for the greatest and most rapid freedom
of the arm and a largeness of hand. Mixed rhythms abound, and difficult
cross-accents. For one even who has mastered the technical difficulties
of Chopin and Liszt new difficulties appear. He seems to stand out of
the beaten path of virtuosity. His aversion to display has carefully
stripped all his music of conventional flourish and adornment, and his
pianoforte music is seldom brilliant never showy, but rather sombre.
What it lacks in brilliance, on the other hand, it makes up in richness
and sonority; and when mastered will prove, though ungrateful for the
hand, adapted to the most intimate spirit of the instrument. The two
sets of variations on a theme of Paganini make the utmost demands upon
hand and head of the player. It may be questioned if any music for
the piano is technically more difficult. One has only to compare them
with the Liszt-Paganini studies to realize how extraordinarily new
Brahms’ attitude toward the piano was. In Liszt transcendent, blinding
virtuosity; in Brahms inexhaustible richness.
The songs, too, are not less difficult and not more brilliant. The
breadth of phrases and melodies require of the singer a tremendous
power to sustain, and yet they are so essentially lyrical that the
finest shading is necessary fully to bring out the depth of the feeling
in them. The accompaniments are complicated by the same idiosyncrasies
of rhythm and spacing which are met with in the piano music, yet they
are so contrived that the melodies are not taken and woven into them as
in so many of the exquisite songs of Schumann, but that the melodies
are set off by them. In writing for choruses or for groups of voices,
he manifested a skill well-nigh equal to that of Bach and Handel.
He seems often to have gone back to the part-songs of the sixteenth
century for his models.
Compared with the scores of Wagner his orchestral works are sombre and
gray. The comparison has led many to the conclusion that Brahms had
no command of orchestral color. This is hardly true. Vivid coloring
is for the most part lacking, but such coloring would be wholly out
of place in the expression of the emotion which gives his symphonies
their grandeur. His art of orchestration, like his art of writing for
the pianoforte, is peculiarly his own, and again is the most fitting
imaginable to the quality of his inspiration. It is often striking.
The introduction to the last movement of the first symphony, the
coda of the first movement of the second symphony, the adagio of the
fourth symphony are all points of color which as color cannot be
forgotten; and in all his works for orchestra this is what Hugo Riemann
calls a ‘gothic’ interweaving of parts, which, if it be not a subtle
coloration, is at any rate most beautiful shading. On the whole, it is
inconceivable that Brahms should have scored his symphonies otherwise
than he has scored them. As they stand they are representative of the
nature of the man, to whom brilliance and sensuousness were perhaps too
often to be distrusted. Much has been made of the well-known fact that
not a few of his works, and among them one of his greatest, the quintet
in F minor for pianoforte and strings, were slow to take their final
color in his mind. The D minor concerto for piano and orchestra was
at one time to have been a symphony, the great quintet was originally
a sonata for two pianos, the orchestral variations on a theme of
Haydn, too, were first thought of for two pianos, and the waltzes
for pianoforte, four hands, were partially scored for orchestra. But
this may be as well accounted for by his evident and self-confessed
hesitation in approaching the orchestra as by insensitiveness to tone
color. The concerto in D minor is opus 15, the quintet opus 34, the
Haydn variations opus 56. The first symphony, on the other hand, is
opus 68. After this all doubt of color seems to have disappeared.
Analysis of the great works is reserved for later volumes. The
‘Requiem,’ the quintet for piano and strings, the ‘Song of Destiny,’
the overwhelmingly beautiful concerto for violin and orchestra,
the songs, the songs for women’s voices with horn and harp, the
‘Academic Festival Overture,’ and the ‘Tragic Overture,’ the works for
pianoforte, the trios, quartets and quintets for various instruments,
the four mighty symphonies--all bear the stamp of the man and of his
genius in ways which have been hinted at. No matter how small the form,
there is suggestion of poise and of great breadth of opinion. It is
this spirit of expanse that will ever make his music akin to that of
Bach and Beethoven. Schumann’s prophecy was bold. Some believe that it
has been fulfilled, that Brahms is in truth the successor of Beethoven.
Whether or not Brahms will stand with Bach and Beethoven as one of the
three greatest composers it is far too early to say. The limitations
of his character and of his temperament are obvious and his music has
not escaped them. On the other hand, the depth and grandeur, the heroic
strength, the power over rhythm, over melody, and over harmony belong
only to the highest in music. He was of the line of poets descended
from Schubert through Schumann, but he had a firmer grasp than they.
His music is more strongly built, is both deeper and higher. Its
sombreness has been unjustly aggravated by comparison with Wagner, but
the time has come when the two men are no longer judged in relation
to each other, when they are found to be of stuff too different to
be compared any more than fire and water can be compared. They are
sprung of radically different stock. It might almost be said that they
are made up of different elements. If with any composers, he can only
be compared with Bach and Beethoven. His perfect workmanship nearly
matches that of the former; but Bach, for all the huge proportions of
his great works, is a subtle composer, and Brahms is not subtle. The
harmonies of Bach are chromatic, those of Brahms, as we have seen,
are diatonic. His forms are near those of Beethoven, and his rugged
spirit as well. His symphonies, in spite of the lyrical side of his
genius which is evident in them, can stand beside those of the master
of Bonn and lose none of their stature. But he lacks the comic spirit
which sparkles ever and again irrepressibly in the music of Beethoven.
He is indubitably a product of the movement which, for lack of a more
definite name, we must call romantic; and, though it has been said with
truth that some of the music of Beethoven and much of Bach is romantic,
it cannot be denied that the romantic movement brought to music
qualities which are not evident in the works of the earlier masters.
The romanticists in every art took themselves extremely seriously as
individuals. From their relationship to life as a whole, to the state,
and to man they often rebelled, even when making a great show of
patriotism. A reaction was inevitable, tending to realism, cynicism,
even pessimism. Brahms stood upon the outer edge of romanticism, on
the threshold of the movement to come. He took himself seriously, not
however with enjoyment in individual liberty, with conscious indulgence
in mood and reverie, but with grim determination to shape himself
and his music to an ideal, which, were it only that of perfect law,
was fixed above the attainment of the race. If, as it has been often
written, Beethoven’s music expresses the triumph of man over destiny,
Brahms may well speak of a triumph in spite of destiny. That over which
Beethoven triumphed was the destiny which touches man; that in spite
of which and amid which the music of Brahms stands firm and secure is
the destiny of the universe, of the stars and planets whirling through
the soundless, unfathomable night of space, not man’s soul exultant but
man’s reason unafraid, unshaken by the cry of the heart which finds no
consolation.
V
The drift of romanticism toward realism is easy to trace in all the
arts. There were, however, artists of all kinds who were caught up, so
to speak, from the current into a life of the spirit, who championed
neither the glory of the senses, as Wagner, nor the indomitable power
of reason, as Brahms, but preserved a serenity and calm, a sort of
confident, nearly ascetic rapture, elevated above the turmoil of the
world, standing not with nor against, but floating above. Such an
artist in music was César Franck, growing up almost unnoticed between
Wagner and Brahms, now to be ranked as one of the greatest composers of
the second half of the century. He is as different from them as they
are from each other. Liszt, the omniscient, knew of him, had heard him
play the organ in the church of Ste. Clotilde, where in almost monastic
seclusion the greater part of his life flowed on, had likened him to
the great Sebastian Bach, had gone away marvelling; but only a small
band of pupils knew him intimately and the depth of his genius as a
composer.
His life was retired. He was indifferent to lack of appreciation. When,
through the efforts of his devoted disciples, his works were at rare
intervals brought to public performance, he was quite forgetful of
the cold, often hostile, audience, intent only to compare the sound
of his music as he heard it with the thought he had had in his soul,
happy if the sound were what he had conceived it would be. Of envy,
meanness, jealousy, of all the darker side of life, in fact, he seems
to have taken no account. Nor by imagination could he picture it, nor
express it in his music, which is unfailingly luminous and exalted.
Most striking in his nature was a gentle, unwavering, confident candor,
and in his music there is scarcely a hint of doubt, of inquiring, or
of struggle. It suggests inevitably the cathedral, the joyous calm of
religious faith, spiritual exaltation, even radiance.
His life, though not free in early years from hardship, was relatively
calm and uneventful. He was born in Liège in December, 1822, eleven
years after Wagner, eleven years before Brahms, and from the start was
directed to music by his father. In the course of his early training at
Liège he acquired remarkable skill as a virtuoso, and his father had
hopes of exploiting his gifts in wide concert tours. In 1835 he moved
with his family to Paris and remained there seven years; at the end of
which, having amazed his instructors and judges at the Conservatoire,
among whom, be it noted, the venerable Cherubini, and won a special
prize, he was called from further study by the dictates of his father
and went back to Liège to take up his career as a concert pianist. For
some reason this project was abandoned at the end of two years, and he
returned to Paris, there to pass the remainder of his life.
At first he was organist at the church of Notre Dame de Lorette, later
at Ste. Clotilde, and in 1872 he was appointed professor of the organ
at the Conservatoire. To the end of his life he gave lessons in organ
and pianoforte playing, here and there, and in composition to a few
chosen pupils. He was elected member of the Legion of Honor in 1885;
not, however, in recognition of his gifts as a composer, but only of
his work as professor of organ at the Conservatoire. He died on the 8th
of November, 1890. At the time of his marriage, in 1848, he resolved
to save from the pressure of work to gain a livelihood an hour or two
of every day for composition--time, as he himself expressed it, to
think. The hours chosen were preferably in the early morning and to the
custom, never broken in his lifetime, we owe his great compositions,
penned in those few moments of rest from a busy life. He wrote in
all forms, operas, oratorios, cantatas, works for piano, for string
quartet, concertos, sonatas, and symphonies.
With the exception of a few early pieces for piano all his work
bears the stamp of his personality. Like Brahms, he has pronounced
idiosyncrasies, among which his fondness for shifting harmonies is
the most constantly obvious. The ceaseless alteration of chords, the
almost unbroken gliding by half-steps, the lithe sinuousness of all the
inner voices seem to wrap his music in a veil, to render it intangible
and mystical. Diatonic passages are rare, all is chromatic. Parallel
to this is his use of short phrases, which alone are capable of being
treated in this shifting manner. His melodies are almost invariably
dissected, they seldom are built up in broad design. They are resolved
into their finest motifs and as such are woven and twisted into the
close iridescent harmonic fabric with bewildering skill. All is in
subtle movement. Yet there is a complete absence of sensuousness,
even, for the most part, of dramatic fire. The overpowering climaxes
to which he builds are never a frenzy of emotion, they are superbly
calm and exalted. The structure of his music is strangely inorganic.
His material does not develop. He adds phrase upon phrase, detail
upon detail with astonishing power to knit and weave closely what
comes with what went before. His extraordinary polyphonic skill seems
inborn, native to the man. Arthur Coquard said of him that he thought
the most complicated things in music quite naturally. Imitation,
canon, augmentation, and diminution, the most complex problems of the
science of music, he solves without effort. The perfect canon in the
last movement of the violin sonata sounds simple and spontaneous. The
shifting, intangible harmonies, the minute melodies, the fine fabric as
of a goldsmith’s carving, are all the work of a mystic, indescribably
pure and radiant. Agitating, complex rhythms are rare. The second
movement of the violin sonata and the last movement of the ‘Prelude,
Aria, and Finale’ are exceptional. The heat of passion is seldom
felt. Faith and serene light prevail, a music, it has been said, at
once the sister of prayer and of poetry. His music, in short, wrote
Gustave Derepas, ‘leads us from egoism to love, by the path of the true
mysticism of Christianity; from the world to the soul, from the soul to
God.’
His form, as has been said, is not organic, but he gives to all his
music a unity and compactness by using the same thematic material
throughout the movements of a given composition. For example, in the
first movement of the ‘Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue’ for piano, the
theme of the fugue which constitutes the last movement is plainly
suggested, and the climax of the last movement is built up out of this
fugue theme woven with the great movement of the chorale. In the first
movement of the ‘Prelude, Aria, and Finale,’ likewise for piano, the
theme of the Finale is used as counterpoint; in the Aria again the same
use is made of it; in the Finale the Aria theme is reintroduced, and
the coda at the end is built up of the principal theme of the Prelude
and a theme taken from the closing section of the Aria. The four
movements of the violin sonata are most closely related thematically;
the symphony, too, is dominated by one theme, and the theme which opens
the string quartet closes it as well. This uniting of the several
movements of a work on a large scale by employing throughout the same
material was more consistently cultivated by Franck than by any other
composer. The concerto for piano and orchestra in E-flat by Liszt is
constructed on the same principle; the D minor symphony of Schumann
also, and it is suggested in the first symphony of Brahms, but these
are exceptions. Germs of such a relationship between movements in the
cyclic forms were in the last works of Beethoven. In Franck they
developed to great proportion.
The fugue in the ‘Prelude, Chorale and Fugue’ and the canon in the last
movement of the violin sonata are superbly built, and his restoration
of strict forms to works in several movements finds a precedent only
in Beethoven and once in Mozart. The treatment of the variation form
in the _Variations Symphoniques_ for piano and orchestra is no less
masterly than his treatment of fugue and canon, but it can hardly be
said that he excelled either Schumann or Brahms in this branch of
composition.
Franck was a great organist and all his work is as clearly influenced
by organ technique as the works of Sebastian Bach were before him.
‘His orchestra,’ Julien Tiersot wrote in an article published in
_Le Ménéstrel_ for October 23, 1904, ‘is sonorous and compact, the
orchestra of an organist. He employs especially the two contrasting
elements of strings (eight-foot stops) and brass (great-organ). The
wood-wind is in the background. This observation encloses a criticism,
and his method could not be given as a model; it robs the orchestra
of much variety of coloring, which is the richness of the modern art.
But we ought to consider it as characteristic of the manner of César
Franck, which alone suffices to make such use legitimate.’ Undeniably
the sensuous coloring of the Wagnerian school is lacking, though
Franck devoted himself almost passionately at one time to the study
of Wagner’s scores; yet, as in the case of Brahms, Franck’s scoring,
peculiarly his own, is fitting to the quality of his inspiration. There
is no suggestion of the warmth of the senses in any of his music.
Complete mastery of the art of vivid warm tone-coloring belongs only to
those descended from Weber, and preëminently to Wagner.
The works for the pianoforte are thoroughly influenced by organ
technique. The movement of the rich, solid basses, and the
impracticably wide spaces call urgently for the supporting pedals of
the organ. Yet they are by no means unsuited to the instrument for
which they were written. If when played they suggest the organ to
the listener, and the Chorale in the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue is
especially suggestive, the reason is not be found in any solecism,
but in the religious spirit that breathes from all Franck’s works and
transports the listener to the shades of vast cathedral aisles. Among
his most sublime works are three Chorale Fantasias for organ, written
not long before he died. These, it may safely be assumed, are among the
few contributions to the literature for the organ which approach the
inimitable master-works of Sebastian Bach.
There are three oratorios, to use the term loosely, ‘Ruth,’ ‘The
Redemption,’ and ‘The Beatitudes,’ belonging respectively in the three
periods in which Franck’s life and musical development naturally fall.
All were coldly received during his lifetime. ‘Ruth,’ written when
he was but twenty-four years old, is in the style of the classical
oratorios. ‘The Redemption,’ too, still partakes of the half dramatic,
half epic character of the oratorio; but in ‘The Beatitudes,’ his
masterpiece, if one must be chosen, the dramatic element is almost
wholly lacking, and he has created almost a new art-form. To set
Christ’s sermon on the mount to music was a tremendous undertaking,
and the great length of the work will always stand in the way of
its universal acceptance; but here more than anywhere else Franck’s
peculiar gift of harmony has full force in the expression of religious
rapture and the mysticism of the devout and childlike believer.
It is curious to note the inability of Franck’s genius to express wild
and dramatic emotion. Among his works for orchestra and for orchestra
and piano are several that may take rank as symphonic poems, _Les
Éolides_, _Le Chasseur maudit_, and _Les Djinns_, the last two based
upon gruesome poems, all three failing to strike the listener cold.
The symphony with chorus, later rearranged as a suite, ‘Psyche,’ is an
exquisitely pure conception, wholly spiritual. The operas _Hulda_ and
_Grisèle_ were performed only after his death and failed to win a place
in the repertory of opera houses.
It is this strange absence of genuinely dramatic and sensuous elements
from Franck’s music which gives it its quite peculiar stamp, the
quality which appeals to us as a sort of poetry of religion. And it
is this same lack which leads one to say that he grows up with Wagner
and Brahms and yet is not of a piece with either of them. He had an
extraordinarily refined technique of composition, but it was perhaps
more the technique of the goldsmith than that of the sculptor. His
works impress by fineness of detail, not, for all their length and
remarkable adherence of structure, by breadth of design. His is
intensely an introspective art, which weaves about the simplest subject
and through every measure most intricate garlands of chromatic harmony.
It is a music which is apart from life, spiritual and exalted. It does
not reflect the life of the body, nor that of the sovereign mind, but
the life of the spirit. By so reading it we come to understand his own
attitude in regard to it, which took no thought of how it impressed the
public, but only of how it matched in performance, in sound, his soul’s
image of it.
With Wagner, Brahms and César Franck the romantic movement in music
comes to an end. The impulse which gave it life came to its ultimate
forms in their music and was for ever gone. It has washed on only like
a broken wave over the works of most of their successors down to the
present day. Now new impulses are already at work leading us no one
knows whither. It is safe to say that the old music has been written,
that new is in the making. An epoch is closed in music, an epoch which
was the seed time of harmony as we learned it in school, and as,
strangely enough, the future generations seem likely to learn it no
more.
Beethoven stood back of the movement. From him sprang the two great
lines which we have characterized as the poets and painters in music,
and from him, too, the third master, César Franck. It would indeed
be hardihood to pronounce whether or not the promise for the future
contained in the last works of Beethoven has been fulfilled.
L. H.
FOOTNOTES:
[118] Max Kalbeck: ‘Johannes Brahms,’ 3 vols. (1904-11).
[119] Walter Niemann: _Die Musik seit Richard Wagner_, Berlin, 1914.