advanced the oratorio toward a style in which acting was to become
incongruous. Stradella had the Handelian feeling for mass effects.
He perceived the true use of the great chorus, and he piled up
majestic climaxes with a skill marvellous for his time. He died four
years before Handel was born, but he had already carved out that
definiteness of structure which is so salient a feature of Handel's
works. The drift away from the dramatic character had already begun.
Indeed, Dr. Parry in his admirable "Evolution of the Art of Music"
expresses doubt that even the works of Carissimi can have been
intended for action. Still, we must not forget that whether oratorio
should or should not be acted remained an unsettled question till the
decision of the good Dr. Gibson, Bishop of London, in Handel's day.
However, a comprehensive view of the works of Handel and Bach shows
that the oratorio had in their time been clearly differentiated in
style and purpose from the opera. Bach's employment of the tenor
narrator places his Passions on a ground far removed from the
pictorial presentation of the stage. We know, too, that Bach wrote
for church performance. Handel's oratorios designed for the concert
platform were quite as far away as Bach's from the manner of the
theatre, though they departed in a different direction.
Dear old Papa Haydn, who wept with emotion when he heard the
Hallelujah chorus and exclaimed, "He is the master of us all," was
even less dramatic than either Handel or Bach, for although they
used no dramatic forms, they had their mighty outbursts of emotional
expression; while their declamation, as well as their massive
climaxes, often rises far above the trumpery effects of the opera of
their period.
But Haydn was a most gentle spirit. He was too full of the fluid
of humility and too much given to amiable reflection to approach
dramatic effects. His music in both the "Creation" and "The Seasons"
is descriptive, commentary, and speculative. It is delightful and it
is exceedingly mild. It dwells comfortably in a peaceful atmosphere
very remote from that of the nervous theatricalism of Carissimi or
the impulsive eloquence of Stradella. It is just as far, too, from
the poignant intensity of the psychic personification found in Bach's
music. Bach's Christ is the living Son of God, but always in the
heavens. It is a Christ of the inmost soul, not of the imaginative
eye. It is a Christ of the heart, and has no pictorial form.
But Haydn sets a world before us, and lets us hear the rushing
of the waters and the sighing of the winds. It was reserved for a
thoroughly cultivated master to unify in his work the elements found
in all these predecessors. Mendelssohn, without letting go of the
Protestant chorale, which was so potent in the Bach Passion, or
the massed chorus which Handel learned from Stradella how to use,
or the orchestral description of Haydn, or the flexible recitative
of Carissimi, succeeded in producing a new form of purely dramatic
oratorio. His "Elijah" flashed forth as a religious opera. It might
be put on the stage and acted. It stands almost perfectly adapted
to such use, and would certainly prove far more influential in the
theatre than "Anima e Corpo" did even in its own day. Mendelssohn was
not a mighty genius, but he was a most clever adapter.
Since his day oratorio has wavered between the Italian dramatic form
of the earliest period and a modernization of the Bach form. English
composers have over and over again written for their festivals on the
lines of Handel or Mendelssohn, seemingly without a clear discernment
of the inner characteristics which differentiated the two.
Continental composers have made all sorts of experiments. Gounod even
tried in his "Redemption" to show how the melodic style of "Faust"
could be superimposed on the ground plan of Bach. It is needless to
say that the scheme met with a cheering failure. Oil and water would
not mix.
Edgar Tinel, whose "St. Franciscus" was produced in Brussels in 1888,
was the first to make a deliberate attempt to return to the earliest
dramatic form of the Italians. He certainly did not contemplate a
stage performance, but he wrote in the fashion of the lyric drama
of his time. He used the whole apparatus of the German opera except
the leading motive. But Tinel failed in one important particular. He
was unable to use the means of the opera without making it produce
the speech of the theatre. His oratorio smells of the stage. It is a
religious drama only because its story is in a measure religious. The
music and much of the thought are, to say the least, secular. It may
not be going too far to say that sometimes they are profane.
Now, what has Edward Elgar accomplished, and what does the character
of his work indicate as the present tendency of oratorio? In his
musical method he has striven to demonstrate that Bach and Wagner
were of one blood. And, indeed, who that has heard the twining
polyphony of five themes near the end of the "Meistersinger" prelude
ever doubted that both of these masters sprang from the loins of
Palestrina, the son of the house of Ockeghem? Elgar has preserved for
the necessity of oratorio the narrator, though he has diversified his
recitation by dividing it among the voices.
This preservation of the narrator is the one characteristic of the
contemporaneous oratorio form which proclaims to the world that the
mandate of the Bishop of London is still in force. Nothing else in
the score would disclose this fact. Everything is constructed on
dramatic lines; everything is conceived in the mood of Mendelssohn's
"Elijah." The tremendous picture of the entrance of the soul of
Gerontius into the shrine of the Invisible and the descriptive speech
of Mary Magdalen on her tower, accompanied by the sounds of the orgy,
demand most eloquently the accompaniment of pictorial scenes. And
these are but two examples taken at random from scores prolific in
similar instances.
The distribution of the narrative among several voices is the method
of Handel, but in the treatment of the choruses Elgar has learned
still more from that master. Here we have lessons accepted from both
Bach and the Saxon, and in the dawn of the twentieth century we find
a product of the skill of Stradella in handling huge masses of tone.
In the employment of one set of choruses representative of actors
in the story and another of purely commentary nature, Elgar has
followed Bach's method in "The Passion." He has honored aged custom
in allotting the words of Jesus to a bass voice. The treatment of the
post-ascension speeches of the Saviour as choral, or many-voiced, is
as old as Heinrich Schütz.
Furthermore, Mr. Elgar has preserved the ecclesiastic character in
his music by adhering to the use of the polyphonic devices which
were created by church composers and which have sternly resisted the
efforts of the ablest masters, even of Verdi, to lend themselves
to the restless utterance of the music drama. Elgar's polyphony is
by no means stencilled in form; his fugues are not fugues of the
North German pattern. He handles single and double counterpoint with
consummate ease and with the assured freedom of one who dares to
depart from the beaten path without fear of disaster.
Added to this is the employment of a harmonic style which belongs
entirely to the present day. Mr. Elgar's polyphony is built on a
harmonic basis which almost completely ignores the ecclesiastic
tonalities of the earlier church writers and utilizes the diatonic
and chromatic scheme of the present, the method of Wagner's "Tristan
und Isolde." It is as far from Handel as it is from Mendelssohn.
Its source is without question the inexhaustible fount of musical
learning, the music of Sebastian Bach, but it is Bach studied by the
lamp of Brahms and recited with the tongue of Wagner.
Brahms was himself a filter of Bach, and this might seem to indicate
that the Sebastianism of Elgar was exceeding thin. But the English
writer, while considering the work of the composer of the "German
Requiem," has accepted suggestions from it only as to manner. For the
original matter he has gone back to the real master of all masters.
In his recitatives he again has shown a profound understanding of the
psychologic nature of Bach's declamation. Upon it, as a foundation,
he has reared a style of his own, very flexible, full of variety and
as changeful in its harmonic undercurrents as a sunset sky.
To these derivations from the art of Bach and others Elgar has
added much of the material of to-day's music. In the first place, he
has permitted the diatonic major mode to occupy its own proud place
as the chief medium for the expression of the optimistic emotions.
Bach seldom tarried loner in major keys. He was lingering under
the influence of the ecclesiastic modes. Elgar has emancipated his
oratorio music from the domination of these modes, but he has not,
like Handel and Mendelssohn--the one governed by the Omphalic distaff
of Italian opera and the other writing in an age when the minor was
always relative--neglected their significance entirely.
Secondly, he has utilized the whole splendor of the modern orchestra
and has extended it in every direction which seemed to him necessary.
He has employed gongs, both great and small; cymbals ancient and
modern, bells with and without keyboard mechanism, tambourine and
triangle. Of course, he has written elaborately for the organ; he
would not be a loyal son of the royal house of Bach if he had not.
Thirdly, he has gone over, horse, foot, and baggage, to the
Wagnerian camp and armed himself from head to foot with leading
motives. In "The Apostles" there are ninety-two of them--just two
more than Hans von Wolzogen found in the whole of "Der Ring des
Nibelungen." The result is that there is almost no free composition
in the score; it is all woven out of the motives. The web thus woven
is sometimes thick, sometimes thin. Motives steal upon us singly or
crowd before us four at a time, writhing in a counterpoint, sometimes
forming most beautiful orchestral cloud shapes and again smearing
garish shades and monstrous outlines across the musical firmament.
Elgar never shrinks from outlandish combinations. He is as daring as
Strauss. He makes fearful ugliness when he wishes to do so. But he
does everything with a delineative purpose. He is the Wagnerite of
oratorio.
To Wagner's ingenious scheme of interweaving and developing leading
motives Elgar has joined the ground plan of polyphonic choral writing
which was the secret of the influence of Bach and Handel, but Elgar
has a palette with a thousand tone tints which they never knew. He
has all the delicate inner tracery of modern harmonization to throw
additional lights and shades upon his colors.
In a word, Elgar has brought together in his oratorios all
the expressional power of modern musical romanticism, whether
found in the descriptive tone pictures of the instrumentalists,
the declamation of the dramatists, or the orchestration of the
contemporaneous opera. What is the result? We have now oratorio quite
as dramatic as Tinel's, but saved from mere theatricalism by the
artistic discretion of the composer.
But the thing itself is anomalous. As we have noted, the narrator
becomes an imperative necessity, because oratorio now demands scenic
representation, and that is forbidden. How much more imposing would
"The Apostles" be if we would frankly go back to the way of Cavaliere
and put it on the stage! Why enact "Parsifal" and not this? Which is
the truer tale, the more convincing art? This "Apostles" reads like
that question-begging version of "Parsifal" as a narrative poem in
which all the stage directions are turned into descriptive verse.
Set those descriptions to music and have them recited by singers in
evening dress and you have your "Parsifal" in correct oratorio form.
Are we afraid of it? Or is it simply that certain good people
to whom the theatre is a place accursed must have their dramatic
excitements in some other form? Let us, if you will, go to a dimly
lighted concert hall and sit with our heads bent over our scores
while ladies and gentlemen, gloved and in evening dress, narrate
and chant to us a tremendous drama, helped out by all the resources
of modern delineative music, and we try to see the action with our
mind's eye. Thus shall we salve our consciences and perform the
tragedy of the Passion within the four walls of our skulls. This may
perchance insure to us that salvation which might be endangered were
we fearlessly to countenance an actual presentation of the drama on
the stage.
The oratorio of to-day tends steadily toward the completion of a
cycle. It started from the primitive religious play of Cavaliere, and
through the development of the method of choral composition reached a
point at which all conception of action disappeared. From that point
it has been slowly and surely moving around to the restoration of the
dramatic element, till now it stands once more at the very threshold
of the theatre. In its present form it is an absurdity. Even the
singers find it almost impossible to sing the oratorios of the new
sort without putting at least facial expression into their work,
and every one of them looks solemnly conscious of the foolishness
of evening dress. Mr. Elgar's interpretation makes Judas Iscariot
altogether too realistic for a white waistcoat, and his Mary Magdalen
in a Princess gown with kid-gloved arms is a portrait which would
make Henner gasp and Ruskin stare.
NOTE
The chapters of this volume, except three, appeared originally as
articles in the NEW YORK SUN in the course of the two years during
which I have had the honor to serve that paper. The first half of the
chapter on "Strauss and the Song Writers" and the chapter entitled
"The Classic of the Unprogressive" were first printed in the NEW
YORK TIMES, of which it was my privilege to be musical editor for
some years. The first of the four articles on Richard Strauss was
previously published in the ATLANTIC MONTHLY. My thanks are due to
the proprietors and editors of the journals named for permission to
incorporate the essays in this book.
W. J. H.
THE STORY OF MUSIC.
BY W. J. HENDERSON.
_12mo, Ornamental Cloth Cover, $1.00._
"Mr. Henderson tells in a clear, comprehensive, and logical way the
story of the growth of modern music. The work is pre-fixed by a
newly-prepared chronological table, which will be found invaluable
by musical students, and which contains many dates and notes of
important events that are not further mentioned in the text.... Few
contemporary writers on music have a more agreeable style, and few,
even among the renowned and profound Germans, a firmer grasp of the
subject. The book, moreover, will be valuable to the student for
its references, which form a guide to the best literature of music
in all languages. The story of the development of religious music,
a subject that is too often made forbidding and uninteresting to
the general reader, is here related so simply as to interest and
instruct any reader, whether or not he has a thorough knowledge of
harmonics and an intimate acquaintance with the estimable dominant
and the deplorable consecutive fifths. The chapter on instruments and
instrumental forms is valuable for exactly the same reasons."--NEW
YORK TIMES.
"It is a pleasure to open a new book and discover on its first page
that the clearness and simple beauty of its typography has a harmony
in the clearness, directness, and restful finish of the writer's
style.... Mr. Henderson has accomplished, with rare judgment and
skill, the task of telling the story of the growth of the art of
music without encumbering his pages with excess of biographical
material. He has aimed at a connected recital, and, for its sake,
has treated of creative epochs and epoch-making works, rather than
groups of composers segregated by the accidents of time and space....
Admirable for its succinctness, clearness, and gracefulness of
statement."--NEW YORK TRIBUNE.
"The work is both statistical and narrative, and its special design
is to give a detailed and comprehensive history of the various steps
in the development of music as an art. There is a very valuable
chronological table, which presents important dates that could not
otherwise be well introduced into the book. The choice style in which
this book is written lends its added charms to a work most important
on the literary as well as on the artistic side of music."--BOSTON
TRAVELLER.
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.,
91-93 Fifth Avenue, New York.
PRELUDES AND STUDIES
_MUSICAL THEMES OF THE DAY._
BY W. J. HENDERSON,
Author of "The Story of Music."
_12mo, Cloth, Extra, Gilt Top, $1.00._
"The questions which he handles are all living. Even the purely
histories lectures which he has grouped together under the general
head of "The Evolution of Piano Music," are informed with freshness
and contemporaneous interest by the manner which he has chosen for
their treatment.... The concluding chapter of the book is an essay
designed to win appreciation for Schumann, ... and is the gem of the
book both in thought and expression."--NEW YORK TRIBUNE.
"Leaving Wagner, of whom the book treats in a most interesting way,
the evolution of piano music is taken up and treated in such a way
as to convince one that the writer is a master of his subject. Mr.
Henderson dwells on the performances of some living players, their
methods, manner, etc., and closes his work with a number on Schumann
and the programme symphony."--DETROIT SUNDAY NEWS.
"The book is written by one who knows his subject thoroughly and is
made interesting to the general public as well as to those who are
learned in music.--BOSTON POST.
"All lovers and students of music will find much to
appreciate.... Mr. Henderson writes charmingly of his various
subjects--sympathetically critically, and keenly. He shows a sincere
love for his themes, and study of them; yet he is never pedantic, a
virtue to be appreciated in a writer of essays upon any department of
art."--BOSTON TIMES.
"Mr. Henderson's clear style is well known to readers of the musical
criticism of the New York Times, and his catholicity of sentiment,
and freedom from prejudice, ... though this volume will be especially
valuable to the student of music, it will be helpful to the amateur,
and can be read with satisfaction by one ignorant of music, which,
altogether, is surely high praise."--PROVIDENCE SUNDAY JOURNAL.
"It is a volume of extremely suggestive musical studies.... They are
all full of appreciative comment, and show considerable dear insight
into the origin and nature of musical works. The author has a style
which is adapted to exposition. The book is an attractive one for the
lover of music."--PUBLIC OPINION.
"Mr. Henderson studies carefully and intelligently the evolution
of piano music and Schumann's relation to the development of the
programme symphony. This is a suggestive, original, and well-equipped
group of essays upon themes which interest musicians."--LITERARY WORLD.
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.,
91-93 Fifth Avenue, New York.
WAGNER
AS I KNEW HIM.
BY FERDINAND PRAEGER.
_Crown 8vo, 858 Pages, Cloth, Gilt Top, $1.50._
"The late Ferdinand Praeger will live in the history of musical
biography as the author of the best book that has been written on
Wagner the man.... In this agreeable volume we get what may be
conceived to be the true Wagner, as seen by the eye of a friend who
was too fair to be a partisan. Certainly we know of no portrait
of the great musician so graphic and so enjoyable. The book is as
attractive as a good novel. What more can one say to recommend it
to the general reader? For 'Wagner as I Knew Him' is by no means
fitted only for the musical amateur. There is nothing professional
or technical about it. It is a volume which can be understood
and appreciated even by those who know little or nothing of
music."--GLOBE.
"The two chapters on Wagner's life in London are of especial
interest as showing the true character of the man; for, while in
London, Wagner spent much of his time with Praeger, who became a
sort of Boswell and host for the time, and minutely noted all his
peculiarities.... It is no depreciation of Praeger's efforts to say
that the most valuable pages in his book are those which contain
the numerous letters to him by Wagner, here printed for the first
time."--NATION, N. Y.
"A lively and thoroughly readable book, rich with personal
reminiscence and self-confessions of the modern Master of
Music."--CHRISTIAN UNION, N.Y.
"A lively delineation of the master as he appeared in daily life,
in friendly intercourse and correspondence, in domestic life, as
composer and conductor, as student and master, as revolutionist and
exile; it depicts him in his down settings and in his uprisings, in
his external appearance and in his inward thoughts and feelings. It
is full of interest from beginning to end, and of entertainment as
well. Of the latter quality, indeed, there are some most amusing
examples."--ÉTUDE, PHILADELPHIA.
"Really it is a biography, though it is not exactly in that form or
aimed at so ambitious a purpose, but it covers the whole of Wagner's
active life. We cannot speak too highly of it.... It is a remarkably
faithful story, presenting the composer's character and experiences
in vivid colors, and not failing to give the weak as well as the
strong side."--HERALD, BOSTON.
"A really valuable addition to the number of books about music and
musicians."--CRITIC, N. Y.
"It is easy to see that Mr. Praeger knew his subject well and was
fully competent to write about it."--CHICAGO TRIBUNE.
"The story of Wagner's life and labors is retold in this volume with
that added charm which comes from the pen of a writer personally
engaged in the action described. The account of Wagner's visit to
London, when he was Dr. Praeger's guest, is full of interest and
brings the man before the reader more picturesquely than any other
part of the book.... On the whole this volume is a valuable addition
to the already large library of Wagner literature."--N. Y. TIMES.
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.,
91 and 93 Fifth Avenue, New York.
CHRISTIAN THAL.
THE STORY OF A MUSICAL LIFE.
By M. E. FRANCIS (Mrs. FRANCIS BLUNDELL),
AUTHOR OF "THE DUENNA OF A GENIUS," "MANOR FARM," ETC.
Crown 8vo, $1.50
" ... This year has seen several attempts to produce a real 'musical
novel.' That of Mrs. Francis is one of the best, it is a pretty story
and one which will give no little inspiration among students in the
reading.... In 'Christian Thal' the characters are such as we all
know and can well understand.... It is, although a musical novel,
very human."--MUSICAL LIFE, NEW YORK.
" ... We have seldom read anything more charming than are parts,
at least, of this picture of artistic, semi-Bohemian life in
Germany; she has caught the very spirit of it, she makes one
feel it all--the frank good-comradeship, the bubbling enthusiasm
for art, the childlike disregard for conventionalities. And the
characters are delightfully drawn, too, with delicate yet incisive
touches...."--COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER, NEW YORK.
" ... The temperament that goes with great artistic genius is well
displayed in the hero. As a story we are glad to say that the
interest steadily heightens to the end, and that the book contains
pathos, sentiment, humor, and the other characteristics demanded by a
readable work in fiction...."--THE ÉTUDE.
" ... It is nevertheless one of the most readable of Mrs. Francis
Blundell's (M. E. Francis') novels. It centers in musical circles,
in the love affair of a young musical genius, 'Christian Thal' of
foreign origin, and a young English girl whom he meets at a German
health resort.... This is a very good companion for one's resting
hours."--CHICAGO RECORD-HERALD.
"An interesting novel in which love, music, and human weakness,
and the waywardness of woman are strangely and cleverly blended.
Each chapter is headlined with a bar of music and the entire
story is keyed to respond to the musical theme. Dramatic and
absorbing."--PITTSBURGH CHRONICLE-TELEGRAPH.
" ... There is a fascination about the tale which will hold the
reader."--PICAYUNE, NEW ORLEANS.
" ... The book is as much saturated with the art musical as was that
delightful book 'Trilby' with the art pictorial Even the chapter
headings are excerpts from some well-remembered and well-beloved
master. It is a symphony in words with love for its theme,
beautifully ornamented with the harmony of emotion and has a finale
radiant with peace, goodness, and wedded love."--ARMY AND NAVY
REGISTER.
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 91-93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.