independent without at any time dominating the song, while in their
employment of details they assist greatly in creating the mood. The
result of the combination of the best traits found in these songs
is a striking power of exposition, a convincing formation of the
"stimmung." When upon a well-established mood Strauss builds climaxes
such as those of "Wie solten wir geheim sie halten," "Heimliche
Aufforderung," and "Caecile," the effect is moving. When he desires
to offer a touch of that humor which lies close to tears, he can do
it, as witness that little masterpiece "Ach weh mir unglückhaftem
Mann."
Yet with all the beauties of the Strauss songs there are some
weaknesses that must not be denied. A cycle of these songs will
not maintain its charm from beginning to end as will Schumann's
"Dichterliebe," or Schubert's "Müllerlider." The earlier song
masters, to be, sure, had the advantage of a more fertile soil. They
had fresh fields and pastures new. And they belonged to a school of
composers whose very first claim to distinction was their fecundity
of melodic invention.
The Strauss songs are not primarily melodic. Neither are any of
the high art songs of our time. All our song masters are marching
steadily out into the vague and mystic land of moonlight moods and
shifting shadows of tonalities. The strict song form irks them. They
cease not to twist their phrases so that these may not coincide
with the lines of the stanza. They are stung with the virus of the
Wagnerian method. They make melody in fragments.
Now it is no easy matter to write one vague, semi-mystic, intangibly
harmonized mood picture after another, eschewing clearly marked
melodic and rhythmic outlines, and at the same time to avoid
monotony. Dr. Strauss's songs, let us confess it, often seem
monotonous when half a dozen of them are sung in a row. It requires
a nice skill in selection to escape this. It can be escaped, for the
composer has been prolific and he has written some good things in the
pure lied style, which may be alternated with the others. But the
presence of this element of monotony is worth considering, because it
is a manifestation of a difficulty into which the present manner of
song writing is leading composers. Perhaps all the good tunes have
been written!
Melodic invention is a vital element in the making of songs. There
must be a thematic subject. No matter how far into the realm of
detailed declamation the composer may elect to go, he may not wholly
neglect the musical figure. If he does, he writes not song, but
recitative. The fundamental difference between lyric declamation
and pure recitative lies in the presence of the musical figure in
the former, and the musical figure is the root of melody. It is the
motive, the rhythmic and melodic germ.
If now we turn from the songs of Richard Strauss to those of the
much-lauded Hugo Wolf, we shall find that there is a difference in
this very matter. Wolf's melodic ideas are singularly vague and
deficient in directness of character. They do not come clean out upon
the ear as the proclamation of a master's embodiment of a poetic
thought; neither do they set a character or fix a mood. They easily
lose themselves in the speculative convolutions of that philosophic
declamation which is the peculiar fruit of contemporaneous
cultivation in the field of song. Intervallic difficulties abound in
these Wolf songs, and the harmonic basis is so strained at times that
the ear is outraged by the withholding of the normal resolutions of
the chords.
But these things are part and parcel of the musical affectation of
the time. Possibly twenty years hence these wrestings of musical
nature will have become sweetened by the uses of adversity, and the
ears of the very children will accept them as freely as they now do
the lush harmonies of "Träume" and "Im Treibhaus."
Wolf's artistic endeavor in song writing is clearly the same as that
of Richard Strauss, but the achievement is far different. To throw
songs by the two composers into close juxtaposition as is frequently
done in recitals is to inflict a needlessly cruel punishment on
Wolf. To interject into the programme one of the uncommon songs of
Schubert, such as "Dem Unendlichen," is still more cruel, for this
serves to show that the melodious Franz Peter could pen philosophic
apostrophe and oratoric declamation with the best of the moderns, and
yet remain more musical than any of them.
Strauss, be it said to his credit, never omits the proposition of
some sort of a musical theme. But his method is not that of the
elder lyric school. He is a romanticist of the ultra-modern type,
and carves out his musical forms over the pattern of his text with
infinite labor. He lays down a theme which sets a character and
indicates a point of aim; and then he develops, as I have already
noted, by the method of transition, so that new material springs from
the old in our very sight as the eastern conjurer's flowers grow from
the bare earth.
Wolf works on similar lines. He is not a conscious imitator, but his
method is the Strauss method, the method of Schubert's "Delphine"
buried under the twentieth-century manner. But Wolf lacks both the
directness of Schubert and the ingenuity of Strauss. His work in
many places rings false. It smells too often of the midnight forge
and the hammer of the driven quill. Schubert's song bursts from him
full grown, like Minerva from the head of Jove. Strauss's songs show
reflection and aspiration and loving care in their finish. Wolf's
echo with the sound of the workshop. They are by no means journeyman
work, but they are hewn out with hard labor and they do not give
forth the fragrance of utter spontaneity.
Questions will naturally arise as to the power of these songs to
stand comparison with the lyrics of the later Frenchmen. Reynaldo
Hahn, for example, also toys with the rarefied method, and paints
delicate impressionistic tone pictures. These are not ordinary songs,
but they will not bear the chilling spaces of the concert room. They
are for the salon, for the intimate communication of one at the piano
to another sitting beside it.
With a cigarette, a glass of Madeira (very mellow), lights half down,
as stage directions say, and a woman with whom you are not too much
in love singing to you in the point-lace wilderness, the songs of
Reynaldo Hahn will make of you an Omar Khayyam transformed into what
Mr. Kipling calls "a demnition product." If the woman is beautiful,
the Madeira soothing, and the cigarette mild, you will be ready to
swear that Hahn is the Schubert of the Boulevards. But if some one
sings Hahn to you as No. 4 on an afternoon programme in a rectangular
recital hall, you will vote the dainty French writer the essence of
puerility.
Another of these very precious gentlemen who has come into notice
is Alexandre Georges. Did you ever chance to hear his "Chansons de
Miarka," settings of texts of Jean Richepin's "Miarka, the Bear's
Foundling"? They are worth a hearing. The poems--consider such
titles as "Nuages," "La Poussière," "La Pluie," "La Parole"--are
mood pictures and invite musical treatment. The composer has done
well with them. He has done nothing new, to be sure, but he has made
himself comfortable in the well-kept museum of the obvious. He has
trotted in old-fashioned rhythm with the Romany, and he has rained a
glittering torrent of sixteenth notes along the upper steppes of the
keyboard.
But what can we ask? A Frenchman must not be disrespectful of the
vogue. These songs have atmosphere, and if it is painted in familiar
and safe tints, who shall blame a man for assuring himself of correct
methods? The declamation is generally clear and fluent, and the moods
of the poems are reproduced in the music with propriety and elegance.
But this is wandering. The point to be made--not a very important
one, perhaps--is that all these moderns, with Strauss, their best
man, in the lead, are experimenting. They are testing the power of
lyric composition to do without the poetic basis of metre. Without
metre they are compelled to develop their melodies by a new process,
and they seem likely to fall into the error of losing definite
musical figuration altogether. They declaim and recite. Their
accompaniments are miniature symphonic descriptions. Yet it has all
been done before. The two Schubert songs already named, and "Die
Allmacht" ought to show these gentlemen how to do what they seem to
be trying so hard to do without quite accomplishing their ends.
AUX ITALIENS
I.--ITALIAN OPERA OF TO-DAY
What do ye singing? What is this ye sing?
SWINBURNE, _Atalanta in Calydon_.
Several factors have united in causing a new interest in the opera
of Italy. In so far as New York is concerned the singing together of
two such admirable exponents of the art of bel canto as Mme. Marcella
Sembrich and Enrico Caruso has restored to life some of the older
works, while a recent visit of Mascagni and the frequent performances
of Puccini's "La Bohème" and "Tosca" have directed serious attention
to the tendency of the younger art. The struggles of the youthful
school to maintain its national characteristics in the face of its
own yearnings after the flesh-pots of Wagnerism have afforded an
absorbing spectacle for observers of musical progress.
The leader and master of all these young eagles was, of course, the
incomparable Verdi, the most characteristic composer of opera Italy
ever brought forth. But although he showed them all precisely how
to mingle the fruits of the new fields opened by Wagner with those
of the old Italian soil, they have not always wisely accepted his
instruction. They have sought for independence in manner, and in some
instances with disheartening results. But perhaps a cursory review of
some of their achievements may not be in vain.
Doubtless the casual observer will be struck first by the
instrumentation of these modern Italians. Puccini's scores certainly
offer abundant food for study, and his clever adjustment of the
leading motive scheme to the instrumental background of a thoroughly
Italian vocal melody, as in "Tosca," is an accomplishment not to be
passed by with a smile. If we compare the scores of such works as
those of Puccini and Mascagni with the works of the Donizetti period,
we note with astonishment the immense strides made in the use of the
orchestra.
But we must not be deceived. The Donizettian period was one of
reaction. The Gluck-Piccini battle had not long since been fought out
in Paris, and the principles of dramatic verity in opera had once
more been vindicated, but at the cost of a great public weariness.
The classic polish and repose of Gluck's music were intellectually
satisfying, but his scores lacked the vital heat to keep warm the
blood of the artistically indolent. To this day the best works of
Gluck invite our admiration, but seldom awaken our feelings. The
idle, pleasure-seeking public of Europe soon turned again to its
strumming ditties. It threw itself at the feet of Rossini, and within
forty years after the establishment of Gluck's superiority in Paris
the whole Continent was beating time to "Di tanti palpiti."
Once more the Voice was the deity of the operatic stage, and woe
betide the composer who so wrote for his orchestra as to interfere
with its supremacy. Rossini, who had artistic aspirations in spite of
all his insincerity and intellectual laziness, made many improvements
in operatic writing. It was he who first omitted from an opera all
use of the old-fashioned dry recitative and used throughout that
which has the support of the orchestra. He enriched the manner of
writing for horns and clarinets, and he introduced instrumental
effects which later composers have adopted with good effect. But,
nevertheless, "William Tell" was a failure, and Rossini sulked in his
tent for thirty years, while Bellini and Donizetti turned out their
nursery operas, in which the orchestra has been likened to a "big
guitar."
The advance in orchestral writing in opera after this time is often
erroneously attributed wholly to Wagner, but undoubtedly it is the
king of all musical charlatans, Meyerbeer, who should have the lion's
share of the honor. When Wagner was a young, struggling, and utterly
unknown composer, seeking for an opening in Paris, he threw himself
at the feet of Meyerbeer, who was the idol of both the French and the
Prussian capitals. Meyerbeer's operas were already known throughout
Europe, and to their cheap and tawdry orchestral effects the later
composers no doubt owed the suggestion that with the orchestra much
might be said that could not be given to the voices. Subsequently the
leaven of Wagnerism permeated European musical art, but the despised
Meyerbeer undoubtedly pointed out to many writers the path which led
back toward the true source of Italian operatic composition.
For in the beginning of opera, Monteverde experimented with
orchestral effects, chiefly descriptive, to be sure, but indicating
what might be done. Lully afterward developed some ideas as to
dramatic expression in the instrumental score, and these were
further expanded by Gluck. The progress along this path was checked
temporarily by the reaction in favor of cheap tunes for the display
of voices. Verdi took up the development of the orchestral part of
Italian opera where Rossini left off, and in his early works wrote
in a style that bears more than a family resemblance to that of
"William Tell." But Verdi was a man of broad vision, an assimilator
of universal ideas, and he was not slow to recognize the drift of
operatic art. He discerned the rising importance of the orchestral
score and realized the full value of the instrumental adjunct. In
"Aïda" he utilized to their utmost capacity its resources in coloring
and in "Otello" he placed in the orchestra some of the most important
and significant passages of his music,--passages which went further
than anything in the setting of the text itself toward the complete
explication of the emotions working in the drama. In "Falstaff" he
used the orchestra as a commentator on the humor of every situation,
and even succeeded in making it aid in the interpretation of
Falstaff's ridiculous philosophy.
One has only to hearken for a minute to Mascagni's use of the basses
in "Cavalleria Rusticana" to recognize the source of his knowledge.
"Otello," with its wonderful bass recitative in the murder scene, was
produced in 1887; "Cavalleria Rusticana" was brought out in 1890.
Mascagni's dramatic treatment of the orchestral part of the lyric
drama is no mere imitation, however; it is a part of the general
movement in Italian opera which began with Verdi's "Aïda" and which
may without difficulty be traced back through Boito's "Mefistofele"
(of which the first version was produced in 1868) to Rossini's
"William Tell." The advance was akin to that made in all species of
music. The first experiments were in the direction of description by
means of imitative figuration. These are what we find in "Tell." The
allotment to the orchestra of the emotional background of the drama
was bound to come later, in the natural order of things. Mascagni
stands in the direct line of progress in this matter, and his
contribution to the general results is, though small, nevertheless
worthy of remark.
How much he and Leoncavallo and Puccini owe to Ponchielli would be
hard to determine. The composer of "La Gioconda" was somewhat ahead
of his time, and his work was not fairly understood when it was new.
But in one feature of operatic composition suggested by this work all
the later composers seem inclined to go too far. They are striving
to follow Verdi in his earnest attempt to set every phrase of the
text of "Otello" to music perfectly adapted to the expression of its
meaning. But Verdi avoided the fatal error into which these young
Italians are falling. He never went so far as to obliterate from his
scores all trace of melodic character.
If one were to take a dozen or twenty pages of "Tosca," "Pagliacci,"
"Iris," and "Zanetto," shuffle them together and then play them,
it would be almost impossible for any ordinary lover of music to
distinguish the writing of one composer from that of another.
"Zanetto" sounds as much like Puccini as like Mascagni, and the
composer of "Iris" might have written almost any page of "La Bohème."
This work, however, bears the same relation to Puccini's other works
as "Cavalleria Rusticana" does to the other operas of Mascagni. It is
well supplied with clearly formed melodies. That is the real reason
of the wide popularity of "Cavalleria Rusticana." Rarely sinking
below the level of passionate expression demanded by the intense
tragedy of the story, it is always purely lyric, and its melodies
stamp themselves upon the memory.
The other works for the most part seem to wander along in endless
stretches of melodious phrases, which have no closely organized
relation to each other. They sound well, for these Italians have the
trick of writing well for the singer. But they are open confessions
of a fear of becoming tuneful in the old Italian style of Donizetti
and Rossini. These young men seem to be constantly on the verge of
writing in the aria form and of avoiding it only by thrusting in some
unnatural modulation or some unexpected cadence. They seem to be
striving for an endless melody, like Wagner's, which is not congenial
to them. They forget that when the emotional conditions of the scene
pointed to melodious music Wagner was frankly melodic, and that he
wrote as lyrically as Schubert himself, though naturally constructing
his melodies on a larger frame. Think of the joyous carol of the
Rhine maidens in the water-woven vision of the first scene of the
great trilogy; of the hard-wrung tribute of the crafty Loge to
"Weibes Wonne und Werth"; of the love song of Siegmund, the duet
between him and Sieglinde, the heart-rending farewell of the stricken
god in the last scene; of Siegfried's Titanic cradle song to his
infant sword; of the nightingale twitter of the forest bird, of the
throbbing love duet of the third act of "Siegfried"; of the ebullient
duet in the first scene of "Götterdämmerung"; of the chorus of
Gunther's men, of the narrative of Siegfried, and of the stupendous
threnody of Brünnhilde's immolation. Wagner was not afraid to write
songs when he needed them in his art.
It is a grave mistake to sell the Italian birthright of vocal melody
for a mess of orchestral pottage. And it is altogether unnecessary.
These young Italians must let alone their attempts to set reason
to music. Their latest librettos contain too much philosophizing
and not enough passion. Zanetto is altogether too sophisticated to
be typical. Sylvia thinks too much. Osaka in "Iris" is altogether
too much a man of the world. Iris is a human doll. Kyoto is an
accomplished speculator in human folly. These are not figures to be
animated with great music. They forbid its presence. These young
Italians must get back to a realization of the fundamental truth
that music is the speech of emotion. Love, hate, fear, elation,
depression, grief,--these are for music to interpret. But you cannot
discuss Christianity and positivism in lyrics, nor make intelligent
comment in six-eight time on the causes of poverty. The limitations
of music are far smaller even than those of lyric poetry, yet its
field is as large as that of the true drama, for it is that of all
human emotion.
Do they need a model? Well, there is one of whom they seemingly know
not. Away back in the years before even Rossini assailed flaccid
Paris with the strenuous peal of "William Tell," a German boy of
seventeen wrote in 1814 a song called "Gretchen am Spinnrade," and
the following year he cast upon the waters that marvellous condensed
drama "Der Erl-König." In the five minutes of that one song by Franz
Peter Schubert lies the history of a human soul. It is an epitome
of emotion, and the piano does quite as much as the voice--but
not more--in the expression. If the young Italians would like to
learn something more than they already know about the way to build
condensed opera, let them study the songs of Schubert. There they
will find a solution of the problem of how to combine perfect vocal
melody with a dramatic accompaniment without sacrificing one iota of
dramatic verity.
An additional question of high import is whether these young
firebrands are not setting the torch to the roots of nationality in
their art. It is useless for theoreticians to argue that there is
no nationality in music. There is nationality in all art, and the
"Virgin" painted by Rubens is a Flemish woman just as surely as she
is Italian when limned by Michael Angelo. There never was a German
who could have conceived the lilt of "Funiculi, funicula," nor an
Italian who could have composed "Schwesterlein." No Russian could
have penned the dainty "Pierre et sa Mie," nor could a Frenchman
have imagined "Ay Ouchnem." Only an Englishman could have written
"Rule Britannia," of which Wagner said that the first four measures
contained the whole character of the English people.
Nationality shows itself most conspicuously in song. Instrumental
music is at best an artificial species. Its forms, its methods, are
handed from one nation to another, and the Harvard graduate builds
his symphony upon the Viennese model of Papa Haydn. But the musical
idioms of a people cannot be kept out of their songs. The folk song
was ignored successfully for a thousand years, but in certain happy
days of the Middle Ages it wooed and won the fugue, and modern
music, strong with the strength of musical science, beautiful with
the beauty of spontaneous emotional utterance, was the fruit of this
union. But for all time the idiom of the folk song colored the vocal
art. The musical idioms imposed themselves on the scientific basis,
and when a German or a Frenchman or an Italian composed a song, he
composed it with a counterpoint common through all Europe, but with
the melodic idiom of the songs of his own people.
The Italians of to-day have not wholly forgotten the essentials
of their native melody. Indeed, their composing betrays a deep
self-consciousness. They see the character of their own music and
try to escape it, and it is of this very act that complaint is here
made. But the fundamentals of Italian melody are not entirely lost.
The pages of Puccini's "Manon," "La Bohème," and "Tosca" are not
completely devoid of song which is indisputably Italian. No one would
ever mistake it for French or German. But it is no longer the melody
of Donizetti and Bellini. That is well. The Italian masters of the
beginning of this century wrote tunes for their own sake without
thought of their dramatic expressiveness, and Donizetti did not
hesitate to stop the entire action of his "Lucia" at one of the most
critical points in order that the famous sextet might be sung.
The modern Italians do not fall into that sort of error. They are
striving with all their power to compose dramatically. They are
striving, too, to preserve Italian music, and for this all honor
should be shown them. More than that, they have shown plainly the
path along which Italian music should advance. They have demonstrated
beyond question that the aria, which was the central sun of the old
Neapolitan system of opera, is wholly unessential. They have shown
that the dialogue of the lyric drama can be carried on in a musical
speech which is melodious, but not dominated by musical patterns.
They have illustrated to the full the possibilities of a flexible and
eloquent recitative. They have carried to a high degree of excellence
the art of fitting the musical accent to the word, and the contour of
the phrase to the natural inflection of the speech. This they have
done, too, in the full knowledge that their art in this detail is
quite lost upon the general public and appeals only to a few studious
critics of their music.