The peculiar aptitude required for successfully rewriting a song or
orchestral composition for the piano, so that it shall become, not a
mere bald, literal reproduction of the melodies and harmonies, as in
most of the piano-scores of the opera, interesting only to students, but
a complete and effective art-work for this instrument, may be a lower
order of genius than the original creative faculty, but is certainly
more rare and almost as valuable to the musical world. It demands,
first, a clear, discriminating perception of the essential musical and
dramatic elements of the original work, in their relative proportions
and degrees of importance, distinct from the merely idiomatic details of
their setting; second, a supreme knowledge of the resources and
limitations of the new medium of expression, so as at once to preserve
unimpaired the peculiar character and primal force of the original
composition, and to make it sound as if expressly written for the piano.
It is one thing to write out the notes of an orchestral score so that
they are, in the main, playable by a single performer on the piano; but
it is quite another thing to readjust all the effects to pianistic
possibilities, so as to produce in full measure the intended artistic
impression. There is practically the same difference as in poetic
translation between the rough, verbal rendering of a Latin exercise by a
school-boy, and the finished, artistic English version of a poem from
some foreign tongue, by a gifted and scholarly writer like Longfellow.
Whatever may be thought or said of Liszt as an original composer, in his
piano transcriptions he has never had an equal, scarcely even a would-be
competitor. His work in this line is of inestimable importance to the
pianist, both as student and public performer, and forms a rich and
extensive department of piano literature. Think what a gap would be left
in any artist’s repertoire if Liszt’s transcriptions, including the
rhapsodies, were struck out of it; for the rhapsodies are only
transcriptions of gipsy music. Practically all of Wagner’s music that is
available for the pianist he owes to Liszt’s able intermediation. True,
Brassin has done some commendable work in his settings of fragments from
the Nibelungen operas, but of these the “Magic Fire” music is the only
really usable number; and this, though playable and attractive from its
own intrinsic merits, is hardly satisfactory, either as a genuinely
pianistic setting or as a reproduction of the artistic effects of the
original. One feels that it is an interesting attempt, not a complete
success; and the “Ride of the Walkyrie,” which ought to be the most
effective of all the Wagner numbers for piano, is wholly unusable for
concert purposes. One is practically restricted to Liszt in this
direction, but finds in him a mine of highly finished, admirably set
gems, accessible, though technically not easy to appropriate.
Wagner-Liszt: Spinning Song, from the “Flying Dutchman”
Take, for example, the familiar and ever-enjoyable “Spinning Song” from
the “Flying Dutchman,” definite and symmetrical in form, perfect in
every detail as a piano composition, eminently playable and pianistic,
yet preserving the original dramatic intention with absolute
completeness and integrity. Those who are familiar with the opera will
need no explanation of its contents; but for the many piano students who
are not, I give a brief synopsis of the scene of which this music is at
once an accompaniment and a picture; for Wagner’s music is all intended
to intensify, by reduplicating in tone, scenes and moods represented on
the stage.
A little company of village maidens, in a seaport town in Holland, is
assembled of a winter evening to spin. It is to be a semi-social,
semi-useful gathering, much like the old quilting parties of our
grandmothers’ time, and they are all in the best of spirits. They start
the wheels, but something is wrong apparently; the thread breaks or
tangles, and two or three times they are obliged to stop, wait a moment,
and recommence, till finally the buzz and hum of the swift-rolling
wheels become continuous. This orchestral imitation of the
spinning-wheel is a piece of very graphic realism, and in the piano
arrangement is given almost equally well in the left-hand accompaniment,
while the right hand carries in chords the chorus of the spinning
maidens, as they sing at their work, a bright, joyous, rhythmical song,
full of gaiety and wit, as shown by an occasional interruption by a
burst of merry laughter.
In the very midst of their jollity they are startled into an abrupt
silence by the ominous sound of a single horn close by, and they suspend
their work to listen. The horn rings out, clear and strong, a peculiar
impressive signal, which they know and dread as that of the “Flying
Dutchman,” the terror of those shores, the fated commander of a phantom
ship, manned by a specter crew, who sails the northern seas eternally,
in winter storm and summer fog, condemned forever to this ghastly
isolation from his living fellow-men, and striking terror to the hearts
of all the simple fisher-folk, whenever the dim outlines of his ship are
seen in the misty offing; and especially when his signal horn is heard;
for it is known that he does sometimes land. His only possible chance of
escape from the awful curse upon him is that once in a hundred years he
is permitted to spend a few brief days on shore and mingle with his
kind, and if, during that short period, he can win the love of any true
maiden so completely that she will voluntarily give her life for him,
then the curse is ended and both may rise to the realms of the blessed
together. It is a grand opportunity for generous self-sacrifice on the
part of some noble girl; but naturally all shrink from it, and are
panic-stricken at his approach.
But the horn dies away. Echo repeats the notes and drops them. All is
still. They think he is merely passing, as he often does, and has no
intention of landing here at present. So, after a little timid
hesitation, they resume their work and their song, become as hilarious
as before, even more so, going off at last into a perfect gale of
laughter, in the midst of which the horn sounds again; this time nearer,
louder, more importunate. Surely he is about to land, perhaps is already
on shore and approaching; and then there is a frenzy of panic; work is
flung aside, wheels are overturned in the confusion, and the girls
scatter in mad terror in all directions; and with this flight the scene
closes, and this transcription for the piano ends.
I will add, however, for the completion of the story, that one of the
girls, the heroine, her woman’s heart touched to pity by the awful
destiny of the curse-laden commander, remains, half in eagerness, half
in fear, to meet him at his entrance and to become the willing sacrifice
for his redemption.
The keynote of the whole opera is found in that sublimest of all
facts—human love triumphant over fate.
With this story in mind, even those quite unfamiliar with the music
cannot fail to recognize and follow the successive details of the scene
described: the whir and hum of the spinning-wheels, the chorus of
singing maidens, the entrance of the signal horn, with its echo and the
terror that follows; the repetition of these incidents in growing
climax, and the mad confusion and scamper at the close.