One of the best known and most popular of Grieg’s compositions is the
second movement of his piano suite entitled “Aus dem Volksleben”
(sketches of Norwegian country life), a work which portrays, with all
his graphic power and good-natured humor, a number of unique and
characteristic phases of the peasant life in Norway. This second
movement, at once the easiest and most pleasing number of the suite, is
intended as a realistic representation of the music of a primitive
peasant band, which leads a rural bridal procession, made up of
Norwegian countrypeople, on its way to the church.
We may fancy ourselves seated on a bank by the roadside, with a jolly
company of villagers in picturesque holiday costume, listening to their
jests and gaiety as we await the rustic pageant. Soon our attention is
caught by the sound of distant music, gradually approaching, strange,
weird, uncanny music, as if the gnomes and trolls had left their work in
the secret mines and caverns of the mountains, where they are ever
forging new chains for the fettered earth-giants as their prisoned
strength increases, and had turned musicians for a frolic and come forth
into the light of day to join the festival. The rhythmic beat of drums
and cymbals, the shrill, strident notes of the fife, the quaint,
quavering tones of the pipe and clarinet, mingle in a strain jocosely
mirthful, rather than truly gay, and becoming more insistent as it
advances.
There is no trace of tenderness, no hint of sweet anticipation, no
suggestive undertone of sacred solemnity, in this music. We miss the
warm color and tremulous, sustained effects of the violins, which with
us are always symbolic of love. It seems almost like a musical satire on
the tender passion; as if the divine but dethroned Balder (the God of
Love in Norse mythology), disgusted by the infidelity and ingratitude of
mankind, were employing all his wondrous power as a minstrel to
depreciate and deride this his best gift to humanity. But perhaps we do
not rightly appreciate the significance of the music. As it draws nearer
and nearer, growing stronger with every moment, we begin to suspect that
perhaps its very rudeness and primitive energy express more truthfully
than more delicate, dreamy, finely shaded cadences could do, the idea
that human love is one of the elemental forces of nature, underlying and
antedating all the subtilizing refinements of civilization, and destined
to outlast them, as the rugged granite of the northern mountains
antedates and will outlast all the crystal palaces of taste and luxury.
On comes the procession, the music swelling and growing with every step,
till as it passes immediately before us it becomes an almost deafening
crash of dissonant instruments, each player with lusty good-will doing
his utmost to honor the occasion, outvie his comrades, and earn his
share in the wedding feast, by making his part most prominent in the
general din. First comes the band, then the bride and groom and the
bridesmaids in white, with wands and wreaths, a troop of children with
baskets of flowers, then a company of the immediate friends and
relatives of the bridal pair, with the older neighbors and acquaintances
soberly bringing up the rear. So they defile before us, and pass on
their way down the sunlit country road to the church, the music
gradually diminishing as it recedes into the distance, growing fainter
and fainter till only occasional shriller notes or louder fragments
reach us, and at last even these are sunk in the summer silence.
This movement is in march time and form, and the strict, unvarying march
rhythm should be preserved throughout, absolutely without variation. The
tone should be crisp and clear, with but little singing quality, to
represent that of wooden wind instruments, but varying in degree from
the softest possible _pp_ to the most tremendous _fff_ which the
performer is capable of producing. The player is here afforded an
opportunity of testing his powers in that most difficult of all elements
in pianism—a long-sustained, evenly-graded crescendo and diminuendo. To
produce its true realistic effect, the music should emerge almost
imperceptibly out of silence, increase steadily, but by infinitesimal
degrees, to the greatest quantity of tone power which the instrument
will produce; then diminish as gradually and steadily till it dissolves
into silence again at the close; not stopping at a given point, but
simply ceasing to sound. Those who have heard Rubinstein render the
Turkish march from “The Ruins of Athens” will remember it as a masterly
model for this effect.
SAINT-SAËNS
1835