Franz Schubert, the golden sands of whose brief existence, rich with the
jewel gleams of genius, ran all too swiftly through the glass of time,
between the years 1797 and 1828, may be considered, if not the
strongest, certainly the most genial, fluent, and spontaneous composer
of the modern Romantic School, which arose and flourished so luxuriantly
during the vigorous youth of our own century. He is most generally known
as the master of the German “Lied” or song. This brief, concise,
epigrammatic form of condensed musical expression, though not, of
course, original with Schubert, received at his hand its fullest
development, its highest perfection, both as regards intrinsic beauty
and dramatic precision; while in quantity, as well as quality, he far
surpasses all competitors in this vein of creative work. There are
something like 600 of these songs from his pen, and such was his fluent
versatility of production, that he is known to have completed seven of
these inimitable musical gems in one day. His instrumental compositions,
whether for orchestra or piano, though far less numerous, are for the
most part equally able and effective, and deserve a much more frequent
hearing in the concert-room than they at present receive, displaying, as
they do, to the full, his inventive spontaneity, his inexhaustible fund
of fresh, original melody, and the peculiar, tender, poetic grace of his
style.
Most of Schubert’s best known pianoforte works, like the composition
under discussion, belong to the smaller, more modest, and unpretentious
forms. They are eminently soft, sweet, and winning, rarely exhibiting
that breadth, grandeur, and passionate intensity with which such
composers as Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt have made us familiar. But who
would despise the wood anemone because it chances not to possess the
voluptuous perfume of the queenly rose or the gorgeous hues of the
wizard poppy?
The “theme and variations,” of which this work is an excellent example,
is one of the most ancient, natural, and logical forms of musical
construction. A simple melody, clearly enunciated at the beginning, is
used by the composer as the musical germ of his work, from which he
evolves, as by the process of spontaneous growth, all its manifold
possibilities for varied expression and contrasted effect; much as the
skilful orator expands from his tersely stated thesis or text, by means
of elaborate comparison, analysis, antithesis, and peroration, all that
far-reaching sequence of deduction and argument latent in his
thought-germ. It is always fascinating to watch this growth, this
gradual evolution, this play of many colored lights over the familiar
theme, under the skilful and ingenious manipulation of a master hand.
But there is, I claim, a deeper interest and a higher pleasure to be
derived from seeking, beneath the smoothly flowing harmonies and
graceful, rippling embellishment, for the allegorical significance or
suggestion mirrored in their clear depths, as scenes and faces are
reflected in the tranquil stream, and which are rarely, if ever, wanting
in the true art work.
The “theme and variations” in music, which owes its origin to the first
crude attempts of early composers to elongate and develop a musical idea
into a symmetrical art form, corresponds to a very early phase of
another art. I refer to the series of progressive pictures carved on the
friezes of many ancient Oriental and Grecian temples, portraying
successive episodes in the life of some god, hero, king, or prophet. The
central figure is ever the same, however attitude, action, mood, and
environment may vary, to suit the stage of his story represented in each
scene. No smoke of battle, strangeness of garb, or storm of emotion can
so obscure or distort the familiar lineaments that they are not
recognizable, though they take contour and expression from
circumstances, those variations in the theme of life. The same idea is
carried out in pictorial art in the interiors of more modern edifices,
when the walls of cathedrals are adorned with frescoes representing the
life of Christ, in numerous consecutive panels, from the infant in the
manger to the death upon the cross. Painting can tell a story, within
certain limitations, as well as words, and more powerfully. The same is
true of music, for those who have ears to hear.
As already stated in connection with the Beethoven sonata, Op. 26, to me
the “theme and variations” always seems to represent a given character
or personality, met at different times, amid varying scenes and
circumstances, in many moods and situations, as would be the case in
real life; developing with the progress of acquaintance and contrasting
experiences, showing now one aspect, now another, according to the
changes of inner emotion or outward environment, but always preserving
the same individuality, an identity which lends itself to, but does not
lose itself in, the vicissitudes of human existence. In the particular
work before us, let the first fresh, simple, tender theme symbolize a
maiden, the heroine of the story we will call her, fair, with the
delicate freshness of first youth, full of the winning grace, the naïve
simplicity and the dreamy poetic fancy of one of Lytton’s heroines: a
young girl,
“Standing with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river meet—
Womanhood and childhood fleet.”
All the manifold vicissitudes of life are lying untried before her, with
the latent possibilities of her nature waiting to be unfolded and
developed by experience, that climate of the soul.
In the first variation, with its tremulous yet flowing embellishment,
all is vague, uncertain, conjectural. She seems in a mood of
speculation, of reverie, to be gazing forward down the dim vista of the
years, and wondering, with a thrill at heart, what they promise or
presage for her. It is the first rosy, dawning twilight of as yet
indefinite hope and desire.
In the second, her pulses beat to a swifter, stronger measure. She has
begun to taste the zest of life and is borne along impetuously on the
stream of youthful exhilaration and unbroken confidence, out into the
broad, full sunlight of the first great happiness. Light ripples of
laughter, quick-drawn breaths of delight, a sunny circuit of bright and
blithe fancies, envelop the theme and well-nigh conceal it.
The mournful melody, somber minor harmonies, and sobbing accompaniment
of the third variation, so full of passionate pain, express the all too
certain reaction from the former hilarious mood, the coming of that
inevitable shadow of all great joy—its corresponding grief. The hour
has come when the first great, crushing sorrow surges in upon the soul,
in a resistless, overwhelming tide; and our heroine, from fancying that
her life’s pathway was to be all roses and sunshine, is forced to find
it, for the time at least, all thorns and midnight darkness, and to
match her single strength with the might of woe in that struggle for
supremacy which must come soon or late to all.
The fourth again changes wholly in character; is bold, energetic,
spirited, almost martial. The struggle of life is in full progress. The
resolute, forceful bass tones, with which the left hand enters from time
to time, seem like the impetus of a strong will giving momentum to
earnest purpose. This variation tells in stirring trumpet tones of
victory, of the dauntless courage and the elastic strength born in noble
natures of endurance and endeavor, of a character invigorated by
conflict, deepened and matured by adversity; and it leads us back, at
its close, through many winding ways and devious modulations, to a later
happiness, expressed in the fifth and last—a happiness hard-won, but
more complete than the first, though less exuberant, more ethereal and
spiritual, with something in it of the mellow sunset glow.
The work closes with a tranquil coda, a brief evening retrospect, grave
and thoughtful; but, on the whole, cheerful in tone, as if the backward
glance were, all in all, fraught with satisfaction. Here we find the
opening theme, the character melody, in all its first simplicity, but
given an octave lower, in slower tempo and in full chords. Our heroine
has not altered; the contours are clear, the proportions identical, not
a note is wanting; but the _leit-motif_ of her personality is deeper,
broader, and fuller for the experiences of life behind her, and seems to
bear the imprint as of an epitaph, “I have lived and loved and labored.
All is well.”