Liszt, in his able and unique but somewhat prolix work, entitled “The
Bohemians and Their Music in Hungary,” which, so far as I can learn, has
never been translated into English, gives some most interesting
information concerning these much-played and much-discussed Rhapsodies,
their origin, character, and artistic importance, their relation to the
national music of the gipsies and the racial peculiarities of this
strange people, which I believe will be new to most readers.
I present here what seem to me the most valuable facts and ideas in
Liszt’s book in connection with these Rhapsodies, using, so far as
possible, his own words translated from the French. I have used the word
“gipsies” for “Bohemians” in the translation; this being the usual
English name for the race, as “Bohemian” is the French.
It should be distinctly borne in mind that, contrary to the generally
prevailing impression, these so-called Hungarian Rhapsodies are not in
any sense derived from or founded upon national Hungarian music, or the
national life and racial traits of the Hungarians. The floating
fragments of wild, fantastic melody and strange, weird harmony which
Liszt has gathered and utilized in this form, came neither from the Huns
nor from the Magyars, whose blended tribes compose the present Hungarian
race; but they are of purely gipsy origin. It is distinctly and
characteristically gipsy music which Liszt has merely adapted to the
piano. His reasons for calling these works Hungarian Rhapsodies he
states as follows:
“In publishing a part of the material which we had the opportunity to
collect during our long connection with the gipsies of Hungary, in
transcribing it for the piano, as the instrument which could best
render, in its entirety, the sentiment and the form of the gipsy art, it
was necessary to select a generic name which should indicate the doubly
national character which we attach to it.
“We have called the collection of these fragments ‘Hungarian
Rhapsodies.’ By the word ‘Rhapsody’ we have wished to designate the
fantastically epic element which we believe we recognize therein. Each
of these productions has always seemed to us to form a part of a poetic
series. These fragments narrate no facts, it is true; but ‘those who
have ears to hear’ will recognize in them certain states of mind, in
which are condensed the ideals of a nation. It may be a nation of
Pariahs; but what difference does that make to art? Since they have
experienced sentiments capable of being idealized, and have clothed them
in a form of undisputed beauty, they have acquired the right to
recognition in art.
“Furthermore, we have called these Rhapsodies ‘Hungarian’ because it
would not be just to separate in the future what has been united in the
past. The Hungarians have adopted the gipsies as their national
musicians. They have identified themselves with their proud and warlike
enthusiasms, as with their poignant griefs, which they know so well how
to depict. They have not only associated themselves in their ‘Frischka’
with their joys and feasts, but have wept with them while listening to
their ‘Lassans.’
“The nomadic people of the gipsies, though scattered in many countries,
and cultivating elsewhere their music, have nowhere given it a value
equivalent to that which it has acquired on Hungarian soil; because in
no other place has it met, as there, the popular sympathy which was
necessary to its development. The liberal hospitality of the Hungarians
toward the gipsies was so necessary to its existence that it belongs as
much to the one as to the other. Hungary, then, can with good right
claim as its own this art nourished by its cornfields and its vineyards,
developed by its sun and its shade, encouraged by its admiration,
embellished and ennobled, thanks to its favor and protection.”
These compositions, then, according to Liszt’s own statement, are called
“Hungarian” only by courtesy and a sort of national adoption. They are
called “Rhapsodies” because of their resemblance, in form, character,
and content, to those detached, fragmentary poems sung or recited by the
wandering bards, troubadours, and rhapsodists of the olden time—poems
embodying the collective sentiments, the heroic deeds, the touching or
stirring experiences of a people, which were later collected and welded
together, with more or less coherency, by some master mind, to form the
national epic of that people. This music, of an authentically gipsy
parentage, of which Liszt speaks as “the songs without words” of the
gipsies, and to which he has merely stood sponsor at its rechristening
and its introduction, in new civilized dress, to the musical world, is
the only art form in which this enigmatical race has ever expressed
itself—the only channel through which its ill-comprehended but intense
inner life of emotion, imagination, and vague idealism has found vent.
It is the inarticulate, but none the less expressive, cry of the soul of
a race struggling with that universal human longing for self-utterance.
Liszt’s aim, pursued for many years, at great pains and with masterly
ability, was to collect and preserve for the world at least certain
representative portions of this music, and construct from them a tone
epic of the gipsies, possessing, not only from the artistic, but from
the historical and anthropological standpoint, an interest and value
similar to that of other epics in verse, as, for instance, those of the
Greeks, the Persians, the Germans, the Finns, Scandinavians, etc.
Of the actual history of the gipsies little is known, save that they are
the strangest and most anomalous people of the globe. Numerous theories
as to their origin have been advanced, only to be abandoned. But the
best belief of to-day is that they originated in India, being of the
lowest Soodra caste or Pariahs there, driven out by the terrible Mongol
invasions between the tenth and thirteenth centuries A. D. They first
appear to the historical world in Egypt, and their name, “gipsies,”
given them in this country and Great Britain, is but a corruption of the
word “Egyptian”; and hence they were long erroneously supposed to have
originated there. In other countries they have received various names,
as Bohemians in France, Gitanos in Spain, Zigeuner in Germany, Zingari
in Italy. But they always and everywhere designate themselves as Romani,
or Roma Sinte, meaning, “Roma” (men) and “Sinte,” probably from Scind,
or the Indus River. They did not appear in Western Europe till the early
part of the fifteenth century, first in Bohemia, then in France and
Germany, and thence they spread, in wandering bands, from natural
increase, and, perhaps, from further immigration, over most of Europe
and other large portions of the world, everywhere abused and hated, and
by most governments cruelly persecuted. The Austrian government, under
Maria Theresa, was the main, modified exception to this harshness. She
encouraged and protected them in some localities in Hungary, and, under
this more humane care, they have there lived, in very considerable
numbers, a more stable and localized life than elsewhere on earth,
affording some modifications and improvement of their general habits and
character, as nomad, oriental vagabonds.
Liszt, in the book referred to, has eloquently and strikingly
characterized this strange people, as follows: “Among the nations of
Europe there suddenly appeared one day a people, whence no one could
definitely say. It cast itself upon the Continent without showing any
desire of conquest, but also without asking any right to a domicile. It
did not desire to appropriate to itself an inch of ground, but it
declined to give up an hour of time. It had no wish to conquer, but it
refused to submit. It avowed neither from what Asiatic or African
plateaus it had descended, nor from what necessity it had sought other
skies. It brought no memories; it betrayed no hope. Too vain of its sad
race to condescend to merge itself in any other, it was content to live
repulsing all foreign elements.... This is a strange people, so strange
as to resemble no other in any respect. It possesses neither country,
nor religion, nor history, nor any law whatever.... It permits no
influence, no will, no persecution, no instruction either to modify,
dissolve, or extirpate it. It is divided into tribes, hordes, and bands
which wander here and there, following each the route dictated by
chance, without communication with each other, largely ignoring their
collective existence, but each preserving, under the most distant
meridian, with a solidarity which is sacred to them, infallible rallying
signs, the same physiognomy, the same language, the same manners.... The
ages pass. The world progresses. The countries where they sojourn make
war or peace, change masters and manners, while they remain impassive
and indifferent, living from day to day, profiting by the preoccupations
caused by events which decide the fate of nations, to secure their own
existence with less difficulty.... This people that shares the joys, the
sorrows, the prosperities, and misfortunes of no other; that, like an
incarnate sarcasm, laughs at the ambitions, the tears, the combats, and
festivals of all others; that knows neither whence it came nor whither
it goes; ... that preserves no traditions and registers no annals; that
has no faith and no law, no belief and no rule of conduct; that is held
together only by gross superstitions, vague customs, constant misery,
and deep humiliation; this people, that nevertheless is obstinate, at
the price of all degradation and destitution, to preserve its tents and
its tatters, its hunger and its liberty; this people, that exercises
upon civilized nations an indescribable and indestructible fascination,
passing as a mysterious legacy from one age to the next, all defamed as
it is, offers nevertheless some striking and charming types to our
grandest poets; this people, so heterogeneous, of a character so
indomitable, so intractable, so inexplicable, must conceal, in some
corner of its heart, some lofty qualities, since, susceptible of
idealization, it has idealized itself; for it has poems and songs which,
if united, might perhaps form the national epic of the gipsies.”
It is from such a people, so understood and described by him, that Liszt
has taken the musical fragments inwrought into his Hungarian Rhapsodies;
and he reasons at length and ingeniously as to his right to call these
musical cycles parts of what could be enlarged and made to cohere into a
national tone epic. This people, being unfitted to express itself
nationally in any other mode save through its wonderful, though rude and
uncultivated, instinct for music, “as it drew the bow upon the strings
of the violin, inspiration taught it, without its seeking, rhythms,
cadences, modulations, songs, speech, and discourse. Hegel was not
wrong,” says Liszt, “when he gives to the word ‘epic’ more of the
signification of the verb ‘to speak,’ or utter, than of the substantive,
‘recital’; and these tone pictures are fragments of an epic, because
they speak sentiments which are common to all the race, which form their
inner nature, the physiognomy of their soul, the expression of their
whole sentient being.” And therefore, in summary conclusion, Liszt says:
“Believing that the scattered fragments of the instrumental music of the
gipsies, properly arranged, with some understanding of the succession
necessary to make them reciprocally valuable, would afford the
expression of those collective sentiments which inhere in the entire
people, determining their character and customs, one feels himself
authorized to give to such a collection the name of National Epic.”
Regarded from a purely musical standpoint, the Rhapsodies have
occasioned much controversy and considerable adverse criticism on the
part of certain musicians who pride themselves on their loyalty to
conservative traditions. They have been decried as trivial, superficial,
and sensational; as lacking in depth and dignity, in symmetry of form
and nobility of sentiment. These critics seem to forget that the object
of all art is primarily, not instruction or elevation, or even abstract
beauty, but expression. Its mission is to portray, not exclusively the
highest and grandest emotions of humanity, but every experience, every
shade of feeling, every psychological possibility of the race, with
equally sympathetic fidelity. Humanity is the broad theme; and the
various forms of art, on which the specialist is apt to lay undue
stress, are only the means of expression, not the supreme end. That form
is best, in any given case, which best serves the artist’s purpose.
It should be remembered that the music under discussion does not purport
to embody the loftiest or profoundest sentiment which Liszt was
personally capable of feeling or portraying, but the life, scenes, and
moods of the gipsy camp, presented in the primitive, but spontaneous and
vividly graphic, tone imagery of the gipsies themselves. Who shall say
that, as a representative racial art, it is not precisely as legitimate,
as worthy, and as genuinely artistic as the characteristic national art
of the Germans, the Italians, or any other people? Who shall presume to
dictate to the artist what subject, or class of subjects, he may or may
not select for treatment? I repeat, all art has for its mission the
expression of life, all life; not the establishment or maintenance of
standards either of morals or emotions; still less of mere forms of
expression. Is not the gipsy maid, with her ungoverned caprices, her
moments of exuberant gaiety, or passionate grief, just as much alive,
hence as legitimate a theme for the artist, and certainly as interesting
and romantic a subject for art treatment, as the staid German
_Hausfrau_, or the frivolous American society girl? The beggar boy has
been as ably painted, and is considered as artistic a figure as the
king. Poets have sung the loves of shepherds and shepherdesses as fondly
as those of lords and ladies. Is not, then, a good portrayal of a gipsy
camp, whether in words, colors, or tones, just as legitimate a work of
art as an equally able picture of an imperial palace, or an imposing
cathedral? Will not “Carmen” live as long on the operatic stage as even
that paragon of all feminine virtues, “Fidelio”? Is not Don Juan as
immortal a personage in art as Lohengrin? Goethe says: “We have only the
right to ask three questions of any art work: First, what did the artist
intend? Second, was it worth doing? Third, has he succeeded?” Judged
from this, the only true standpoint of esthetic criticism, I venture to
maintain that the Hungarian Rhapsodies are just as good and just as
legitimate music, in their own peculiar way,—that is to say, they
fulfil the essential conditions of their special artistic purpose, as
well and as completely,—as the Bach fugues, or the Beethoven sonatas.
Granting, if need be, that the Rhapsodies are sensational, heaven
protect us from music that produces no sensation! And, in this case, it
is the sensation, or startling effect, not of mere brilliancy, but of
the unfamiliar contact with the spirit of a race radically differing
from our own; not sensuous and superficial, but profoundly
temperamental, possessing all the fresh charm of new thought expressed
in a novel idiom. Granting again that their melodies are capricious and
fantastic, their harmonies strange and half-barbaric, their form
incoherent and wholly at variance with our established notions of
musical structure, all this but renders them the more characteristic.
The picturesque gipsy could not appear to advantage, nor as a typical
figure in conventional evening dress, with punctilious drawing-room
manners; and the sentiments imputed to him, to be true to life, must not
be those of the cultivated modern gentleman, expressed with the stately
precision affected by the scholastic world; but primitive, elementary,
to some degree chaotic, uttered with the rude force and directness of
the undeveloped nature. In brief, he must be represented against the
background and amid the surroundings which are his natural environment.
These Rhapsodies are to be taken as rough but faithful self-portraitures
of the gipsies, strictly on their own standards of merit, as art works
in a department by themselves, with a pronounced individuality and a
definite purpose. They are sixteen in number, and all constructed on the
same general plan, made up, like mosaics, of widely varying fragments of
melody, each expressing some particular mood or phase of life, but
combined so as to give a comprehensive impression of the scenes and
conditions of gipsy camps, familiar to Liszt for many years, through
frequent and lengthy visits, as vividly described by him in the book
from which we have so largely quoted.
Roughly speaking, the melodies so interwoven in the Rhapsodies may be
divided into three classes, all of which appear in about equal
proportions, and with their ever startling sharpness of contrast, in
each and all of these works: the “lassan,” a slow, mournfully lugubrious
song, expressing the uttermost depths of depression; the “frischka,” a
bright, playful, capricious dance movement, full of grace, humor, and
witching coquetry, and the “czardas,” a furious, almost demoniac dance
portraying the dance delirium at its most intoxicating extreme,
resembling somewhat the Tarantelle of Spain and the Dervish dance of the
Orient. These three, with an occasional brief strain from a fugitive
love-song, shy and elusive as the notes of some timid night bird, or a
march-like movement of wild but distinctly martial character, formed the
crude material from which Liszt has wrought these always effective and
thoroughly pianistic compositions. A brief, special reference to two or
three of the best known among them will be sufficient to indicate an
intelligent interpretation of them all.
The No. 6, for instance, begins with one of the march movements referred
to. It is rhythmic and pompous, with a bold, half-barbaric splendor.
Next comes one of the slower forms of the “frischka,” which is often
sung in Hungary to the words of a half-tipsy drinking-song. Then follows
one of the most doleful of the “lassans,” the words to which, in free
translation, run as follows: “My father is dead, my mother is dead, I
have no brothers or sisters, and all the money that I have left will
just buy a rope to hang myself with.”
The work closes with one of the wildest, most impetuous of the “czardas”
dances, which Liszt has wrought up to an irresistible, overwhelming
climax.
The No. 12 begins with a slow, gloomy recitative delivered with an
impressive dignity so exaggerated as to border on the bombastic; a tale
of strange adventures, it may be, narrated by the chief of the tribe at
the evening camp-fire, while the flickering firelight plays upon the
picturesque figures grouped about against the somber background of the
pines, and the thunder mutters sullenly in the distance. Then a quiet
bit of lyric, evidently a love-song, gives a touch of softness to the
scene, and hints at a covert courtship among the shadows. Later, the
crisp, piquant music of the “frischka” calls the young people to the
dance, which gradually increases in speed and brilliancy, till it
finally merges in the “czardas,” in which all join, and which is given
with the greatest possible dash and abandon.
No. 15 is founded upon, and mainly consists of the Rakoczy March,
composed by a gipsy musician in honor of Rakoczy, that Hungarian
patriot, popular general, and hero, whose daring exploits as leader, in
the Hungarian struggle for independence, made him a prominent historical
figure of his time, and the idol of his countrymen. This march has been
adopted as the national march of Hungary, and Liszt’s setting of it for
piano is among his most stupendous works.
These few illustrations may serve as guides in forming a correct
conception of all the Rhapsodies. I have given to the foregoing article
more space than seems, at first thought, to be warranted; partly,
because it gives a somewhat unusual point of view in considering Liszt,
not only as a composer, but as a thoughtful and philosophic student of
esthetics, and as an eloquent, forceful writer; partly, because I hope
it may produce in the minds of some readers a more favorable, because
more justly discriminating, attitude of mind toward these Hungarian
Rhapsodies as musical art works; but mainly, because it emphasizes, with
the powerful support of Liszt’s authority, certain general principles of
art which seem to me all-important, but which are too often ignored in
considering the special art of music.
RUBINSTEIN
1830 1894