No. 1, in G major
No. 2, in F major
No. 3, in E minor
No. 4, in A minor
No. 5, in D major
No. 6, in G minor
No. 7, in B flat major
No. 8, in C minor
No. 9, in F major
No. 10, in D minor
No. 11, in A major
No. 12, in B minor
Handel apparently took a peculiar pride in his Concerti Grossi. He
published them himself, and by subscription. They would probably be more
popular today if all conductors realized the fact that music in Handel’s
time was performed with varied and free inflections; that his players
undoubtedly employed many means of expression. As German organists of
forty years ago insisted that Bach’s preludes, fugues, toccatas, should
be played with full organ and rigidity of tempo, although those who
heard Bach play admired his skill in registration, many conductors find
in all of the _allegros_ of Handel’s concertos only a thunderous speech
and allow little change in tempo. In the performance of this old music,
old but fresh, the two essential qualities demanded by Handel’s music,
suppleness of pace and fluidity of expression, named by Volbach, are
usually disregarded. Unless there be elasticity in performance, hearers
are not to be blamed if they find the music formal, monotonous, dull.
The twelve concertos were composed within three weeks. Kretzschmar has
described them as impressionistic pictures, probably without strict
reference to the modern use of the word “impressionistic.” They are not
of equal worth. Romain Rolland[30] finds the seventh and three last
mediocre. In the tenth he discovers French influences and declares that
the last _allegro_ might be an air for a music box. Yet the music at its
best is aristocratic and noble.
* * *
Handel’s twelve grand concertos for strings were composed between
September 29 and October 30, 1739. The London _Daily Post_ of October
29, 1739, said: “This day are published proposals for printing by
subscription, with His Majesty’s royal license and protection, Twelve
Grand Concertos, in Seven Parts, for four violins, a tenor, a
violoncello, with a thorough-bass for the harpsichord. Composed by Mr.
Handel. Price to subscribers, two guineas. Ready to be delivered by
April next. Subscriptions are taken by the author, at his house in Brook
Street, Hanover Square, and by Walsh.” In an advertisement on November
22 the publisher added, “Two of the above concertos will be performed
this evening at the Theatre Royal, Lincoln’s Inn.” The concertos were
published on April 21, 1740. In an advertisement a few days afterwards
Walsh said, “These concertos were performed at the Theatre Royal in
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and now are played in most public places with the
greatest applause.” Victor Schoelcher made this comment in his _Life of
Handel_: “This was the case with all the works of Handel. They were so
frequently performed at contemporaneous concerts and benefits that they
seem, during his lifetime, to have quite become public property.
Moreover, he did nothing which the other theaters did not attempt to
imitate. In the little theater of the Haymarket, evening entertainments
were given in exact imitation of his ‘several concertos for different
instruments, with a variety of chosen airs of the best master, and the
famous _Salve Regina_ of Hasse.’ The handbills issued by the nobles at
the King’s Theatre make mention also of ‘several concertos for different
instruments.’”[31]
The year 1739, in which these concertos were composed, was the year of
the first performance of Handel’s _Saul_ (January 16) and _Israel in
Egypt_ (April 4)—both oratorios were composed in 1738—also of the music
to Dryden’s _Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day_ (November 22).
Romain Rolland, discussing the form _concerto grosso_, which consists
essentially of a dialogue between a group of soloists, the _concertino_
(trio of two solo violins and solo bass with cembalo) and the chorus of
instruments, _concerto grosso_, believes that Handel at Rome in 1708 was
struck by Corelli’s works in this field, for several of his concertos of
Opus 3 are dated 1710, 1716, 1722. Geminiani introduced the concerto
into England—three volumes appeared in 1732, 1735, 1748—and he was a
friend of Handel.
It is stated that the word “concerto,” as applied to a piece for a solo
instrument with accompaniment, first appeared in a treatise by Scipio
Bargaglia (Venice, 1587); that Giuseppe Torelli, who died in 1708, was
the first to suggest a larger number of instruments in a concerto, and
to give the name _concerto grosso_ to this species of composition. But
Michelletti, seventeen years before, had published his _Sinfonie e
concerti a quatro_, and in 1698 his _Concerti musicali_, while the word
“concerto” occurs frequently in the musical terminology of the
seventeenth century. It was Torelli who, determining the form of the
grand solo for violin, opened the way to Archangelo Corelli, the father
of modern violinists, composers, or virtuosos.
Romain Rolland insisted that the instrumental music of Handel has the
nature of a constant improvisation, music to be served piping hot to an
audience, and should preserve this character in performance. “When you
have studied with minute care each detail, obtained from your orchestra
an irreproachable precision, tonal purity, and finish, you will have
done nothing unless you have made the face of the improvising genius
rise from the work.”
FRANZ JOSEF
HAYDN
(Born at Rohrau, Lower Austria, March 31, 1732; died at Vienna, May 31,
1809)
Haydn has been sadly misunderstood by present followers of tradition who
have spoken of him as a man of the old school, while Mozart was a
forerunner of Beethoven. Thus they erred. Mozart summed up the school of
his day and wrote imperishable music. There has been only one Mozart,
and there is no probability of another being born for generations to
come; but Haydn was often nearer in spirit to the young Beethoven. It is
customary to speak lightly of Haydn as an honest Austrian who wrote
light-hearted _allegros_, also minuets by which one is not reminded of a
court with noble dames smiling graciously on gallant cavaliers, but sees
peasants thumping the ground with heavy feet and uttering joyful cries.
It is said carelessly that Haydn was a simple fellow who wrote at ease
many symphonies and quartets that, to quote Berlioz, recall “the
innocent joys of the fireside and the _pot-au-feu_.” But Haydn was
shrewd and observing—read his diary, kept in London—and if he was
plagued with a shrewish wife he found favor with other women. Dear Mrs.
Schroeter of London received letters from him breathing love, not manly
complimentary affection. And it is said of Haydn that he was only
sportive in his music, having a fondness for the bassoon. But Haydn
could express tenderness, regret, sorrow in his music.
LONDON SYMPHONIES
SYMPHONY NO. 104, IN D MAJOR (B. & H. NO. 2)
I. Adagio; allegro
II. Andante
III. Menuetto; trio
IV. Allegro spiritoso
Haydn’s symphony is ever fresh, spontaneous, yet contrapuntally worked
in a masterly manner. What a skillful employment of little themes in
themselves of slight significance save for their Blakelike innocence and
gayety! Yet in the introduction there is a deeper note, for, contrary to
current and easy belief, Haydn’s music is not all beer, skittles, and
dancing. There are even gloomy pages in some of his quartets; tragic
pages in his _Seven Last Words_, and the prelude to _The Creation_,
depicting chaos, is singularly contemporaneous.
* * *
Haydn composed twelve symphonies in England for Salomon. His name began
to be mentioned in England in 1765. Symphonies by him were played in
concerts given by J. C. Bach, Abel, and others in the ’seventies. Lord
Abingdon tried in 1783 to persuade Haydn to take the direction of the
Professional Concerts which had just been founded. Gallini asked him his
terms for an opera. Salomon, violinist, conductor, manager, sent a music
publisher, one Bland—an auspicious name—to coax him to London, but Haydn
was loath to leave Prince Esterhazy. Prince Nicolaus died in 1790, and
his successor, Prince Anton, who did not care for music, dismissed the
orchestra at Esterház and kept only a brass band; but he added 400
gulden to the annual pension of 1,000 gulden bequeathed to Haydn by
Prince Nicolaus. Haydn then made Vienna his home. And one day, when he
was at work in his house, the “Hamberger” house in which Beethoven also
once lived, a man appeared, and said: “I am Salomon from London, and
come to fetch you with me. We will agree on the job tomorrow.” Haydn was
intensely amused by the use of the word “job.” The contract for one
season was as follows: Haydn should receive three hundred pounds for an
opera written for the manager Gallini, £300 for six symphonies and £200
for the copyright, £200 for twenty new compositions to be produced in as
many concerts under Haydn’s direction, £200 as guarantee for a benefit
concert, Salomon deposited 5,000 gulden with the bankers, Fries &
Company, as a pledge of good faith. Haydn had 500 gulden ready for
traveling expenses, and he borrowed 450 more from his prince. Haydn
agreed to conduct the symphonies at the piano.
Salomon about 1786 began to give concerts as a manager, in addition to
fiddling at concerts of others. He had established a series of
subscription concerts at the Hanover Square Rooms, London. He thought of
Haydn as a great drawing card. The violinist W. Cramer, associated with
the Professional Concerts, had also approached Haydn, who would not
leave his prince. The news of Prince Esterhazy’s death reached Salomon,
who then happened to be at Bonn. He therefore hastened to Vienna.
The first of the Salomon-Haydn concerts was given March 11, 1791, at the
Hanover Square Rooms. Haydn, as was the custom, “presided at the
harpsichord”; Salomon stood as leader of the orchestra. The symphony was
in D major, No. 2, of the London list of twelve. The _adagio_ was
repeated, an unusual occurrence, but the critics preferred the first
movement.
The orchestra was thus composed: twelve to sixteen violins, four violas,
three violoncellos, four double basses, flute, oboe, bassoon, horns,
trumpets, drums—in all about forty players.
Haydn and Salomon left Vienna on December 15, 1790, and arrived at
Calais by way of Munich and Bonn. They crossed the English Channel on
New Year’s Day, 1791. From Dover they traveled to London by stage. The
journey from Vienna took them seventeen days. Haydn was received with
great honor.
Haydn left London towards the end of June, 1792. Salomon invited him
again to write six new symphonies. Haydn arrived in London, February 4,
1794, and did not leave England until August 15, 1795. The orchestra at
the opera concerts in the grand new concert hall of the King’s Theatre
was made up of sixty players. Haydn’s engagement was again a profitable
one. He made by concerts, lessons, symphonies, etc., £1,200. He was
honored in many ways by the King, the Queen, and the nobility. He was
twenty-six times at Carlton House, where the Prince of Wales had a
concert room; and, after he had waited long for his pay, he sent a bill
from Vienna for 100 guineas, which Parliament promptly settled.
LONDON SYMPHONIES
SYMPHONY NO. 94, IN G MAJOR, “SURPRISE” (B. & H. NO. 6)
I. Adagio cantabile e vivace assai
II. Andante
III. Menuetto
IV. Allegro di molto
This symphony, known as the “_Surprise_,” and in Germany as the symphony
“with the drumstroke,” is the third of the twelve Salomon symphonies as
arranged in the order of their appearance in the catalogue of the
Philharmonic Society (London).
Composed in 1791, this symphony was performed for the first time on
March 23, 1792, at the sixth Salomon concert in London. It pleased
immediately and greatly. _The Oracle_ characterized the second movement
as one of Haydn’s happiest inventions, and likened the “surprise”—which
is occasioned by the sudden orchestral crash in the _andante_—to a
shepherdess, lulled by the sound of a distant waterfall, awakened
suddenly from sleep and frightened by the unexpected discharge of a
musket.
Griesinger in his Life of Haydn (1810) contradicts the story that Haydn
introduced these crashes to arouse the Englishwomen from sleep. Haydn
also contradicted it; he said it was his intention only to surprise the
audience by something new. “The first _allegro_ of my symphony was
received with countless ‘Bravos,’ but enthusiasm rose to its highest
pitch after the _andante_ with the drumstroke. ‘_Ancora! ancora!_’ was
cried out on all sides, and Pleyel himself complimented me on my idea.”
On the other hand, Gyrowetz, in his Autobiography, page 59 (1848), said
that he visited Haydn just after he had composed the _andante_, and
Haydn was so pleased with it that he played it to him on the piano, and
sure of his success, said with a roguish laugh: “The women will cry out
here!” C. F. Pohl[32] added a footnote, when he quoted this account of
Gyrowetz, and called attention to Haydn’s humorous borrowing of a
musical thought of Martini to embellish his setting of music to the
commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” when he had occasion to put music
to the Ten Commandments. The _Surprise_ symphony was long known in
London as “the favorite grand overture.”
PARIS SYMPHONIES
SYMPHONY NO. 88, IN G MAJOR (B. & H. NO. 13)
I. Adagio; allegro
II. Largo
III. Menuetto; trio
IV. Finale; allegro con spirito
The Parisian orchestra, which Haydn undoubtedly had in mind, was a large
one—forty violins, twelve violoncellos, eight double basses—so that the
composer could be sure of strong contrasts in performance by the string
section. Fortunate composer—whose symphonies one can, sitting back,
enjoy without inquiring into psychological intention or noting attempts
at realism in musical seascapes and landscapes—music not inspired by
book or picture—just music; now pompous, now merry, and in more serious
moments, never too sad, but with a constant feeling for tonal grace and
beauty.
* * *
Haydn wrote a set of six symphonies for a society in Paris known as the
_Concert de la loge olympique_. They were ordered in 1784, when Haydn
was living at Esterház. Composed in the course of the years 1784-89,
they are in C, G minor, E flat, B flat, D, A. No. 1, in C, has been
entitled the “_Bear_”; No. 2, in G minor, has been entitled the “_Hen_”;
and No. 4, in B flat, is known as the “_Queen of France_.” This symphony
is the first of a second set, of which five were composed in 1787, 1788,
1790. If the sixth was written, it cannot now be identified. This one in
G major was written in 1787, and is numbered 88 in the full and
chronological listing of Mandyczewski (given in Grove’s Dictionary).
I. The first movement opens with a short, slow introduction, _adagio_, G
major, 3-4 which consists for the most part of strong _staccato_ chords
which alternate with softer passages. The main body of the movement
_allegro_, G major, begins with the first theme, a dainty one, announced
_piano_ by the strings without double basses and repeated _forte_ by the
full orchestra with a new counter figure in the bass. A subsidiary theme
is but little more than a melodic variation of the first. So, too, the
short conclusion theme—in oboes and bassoon, then in the strings—is only
a variation of the first. The free fantasia is long for the period and
is contrapuntally elaborate. There is a short _coda_ on the first theme.
II. _Largo_, D major, 3-4. A serious melody is sung by oboe and
violoncellos to an accompaniment of violas, double basses, bassoon, and
horn. The theme is repeated with a richer accompaniment; while the first
violins have a counter figure. After a transitional passage the theme is
repeated by a fuller orchestra, with the melody in first violins and
flute, then in the oboe and violoncello. The development is carried
along on the same lines. There is a very short _coda_.
III. The _Menuetto_, _allegretto_, G major, 3-4, with trio, is in the
regular minuet form in its simplest manner.
IV. The _finale_, _allegro con spirito_, G major, 2-4, is a _rondo_ on
the theme of a peasant country dance, and it is fully developed. Haydn
in his earlier symphonies adopted for the _finale_ the form of his first
movement. Later he preferred the _rondo_ form, with its couplets and
refrains, or repetitions of a short and frank chief theme. “In some
_finales_ of his last symphonies,” says Brenet,[33] “he gave freer reins
to his fancy, and modified with greater independence the form of his
first _allegros_; but his fancy, always prudent and moderate, is more
like the clear, precise arguments of a great orator than the headlong
inspiration of a poet. Moderation is one of the characteristics of
Haydn’s genius; moderation in the dimensions, in the sonority, in the
melodic shape; the liveliness of his melodic thought never seems
extravagant, its melancholy never induces sadness.”
The usual orchestration of Haydn’s symphonies (including those listed
above) consisted of one (or two) flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two
horns, two trumpets, kettledrums, and strings. In his last years (from
1791) he followed Mozart’s lead in introducing two clarinets. The
clarinets accordingly appear in the London symphony in D major,
described in this chapter.—EDITOR.
PAUL
HINDEMITH
(Born at Hanau, on November 16, 1895)
“KONZERTMUSIK” FOR STRING AND BRASS INSTRUMENTS
There was a time in Germany when Hindemith was regarded as the
white-haired boy; the hope for the glorious future; greater even than
Schönberg. In England, they look on Hindemith coolly—an able and
fair-minded critic there has remarked: “The more one hears of the later
Hindemith, the more exasperating his work becomes. From time to time
some little theme is shown at first in sympathetic fashion, then
submitted to the most mechanical processes known to music. Any pleasant
jingle seems to mesmerize the composer, who repeats it much as Bruckner
repeats his themes—Hindemith abuses the liberty shown to a modern.”
But Hindemith is not always mesmerized by a pleasant jingle. Witness his
oratorio, performed with great success. The title is forbidding, _The
Unending_, but the performance takes only two hours. The _Concert
Music_, composed for the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra, is more than interesting. It cannot be called “noble,” not
even “grand,” but it holds the attention by its strength in structure,
its spirit, festal without blatancy. For once there is no too evident
desire to stun the hearer. It is as if the composer had written for his
own pleasure. It is virile music with relieving passages—few in
number—that have genuine and simple beauty of thought and expression;
exciting at times by the rushing rhythm.
* * *
Hindemith, at the age of eleven, played the viola in the theater and in
the moving-picture house; when he was thirteen, he was a viola virtuoso,
and he now plays in public his own concertos for that instrument. When
he was twenty, he was first concert master of the Frankfort opera house.
His teachers in composition were Arnold Mendelssohn and Bernhard Sekles
at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfort. He is the viola player in the
Amar Quartet (Licco Amar, Walter Casper, Paul Hindemith, and Maurits
Frank—in 1926 his brother Rudolf was the violoncellist).
Apropos of a performance of one of his works, in Berlin, the late Adolf
Weissmann wrote in a letter to the _Christian Science Monitor_:
“Promising indeed among the young German composers is Paul Hindemith.
More than promising he is not yet. For the viola player Paul Hindemith,
travelling with the Amar Quartet through half Europe, has seldom time
enough to work carefully. The greater part of his compositions were
created in the railway car. Is it, therefore, to be wondered at that
their principal virtue lies in their rhythm? The rhythm of the rolling
car is, apparently, blended with the rhythm springing from within. It is
always threatening to outrun all the other values of what he writes. For
that these values exist cannot be denied.”
A foreign correspondent of the London _Daily Telegraph_, having heard
one of his compositions, wrote: “It was all rather an exhilarating
nightmare, as if Hindemith had been attempting to prove the theorem of
Pythagoras in terms of parallelograms, which is amusing, but utterly
absurd.”
It has been said by A. Machabey that Hindemith has been influenced in
turn by Wagner, Brahms—“an influence still felt”; Richard Strauss; Max
Reger, who attracted him by his ingenuity and freedom from elementary
technic; Stravinsky, who made himself felt after the war; and finally by
the theatrical surroundings in which he lives. “He is opposed to
post-romanticism. Not being able to escape from romanticism in his
youth, today he seems to be completely stripped of it. Freed from the
despotism of a text, from the preëstablished plan of programme music,
from obedience to the caprices and emphasis of sentiment, music in
itself suffices.... The reaction against romanticism is doubled by a
democratic spirit which was general in Germany after the war.” Therefore
he has had many supporters, who welcomed, “besides this new spirit, an
unexpected technic, unusual polyphony and instrumentation, in which one
found a profound synthesis of primordial rhythms, tonalities enriched
and extended by Schönberg and Hauer, economical and rational groupings
of jazz.” Then his compositions are so varied: chamber music for the
ultra-fastidious; melodies for amateurs; dramatic works for opera-goers;
orchestral pieces for frequenters of concerts; he has written for
débutantes and children; for the cinema, marionettes, mechanical pianos,
brass bands. Work has followed work with an amazing rapidity.
ARTHUR
HONNEGER
(Born at Havre, France, on March 10, 1892)
“PACIFIC 231,” ORCHESTRAL MOVEMENT
Some say that Honegger had no business to summon a locomotive engine for
inspiration. No doubt this music of Honegger’s is “clever,” but
cleverness in music quickly palls. Louis Antoine Jullien years ago in
this country excited wild enthusiasm by his _Firemen’s Quadrille_, in
which a conflagration, the bells, the rush of the firemen, the squirting
and the shout of the foreman, “Wash her, Thirteen!” were graphically
portrayed.
But there is majestic poetry in great machines, even in railway engines.
One of Turner’s most striking pictures is the one depicting a hare
running madly across a viaduct with a pursuing locomotive in rain and
mist. What was the most poetic thing of the Philadelphia exposition of
1876? The superb Corliss engine, epic in strength and grandeur. Walt
Whitman, Kipling, and others have found inspiration in a locomotive; why
reproach a composer for attempting to express “the visual impression and
the physical sensation” of it? One may like or dislike _Pacific 231_,
but it is something more than a musical joke; it was not merely devised
for sensational effect.
* * *
When _Pacific 231_ was first performed in Paris at Koussevitzky’s
concerts, May 8 and 15, 1924, Honegger made this commentary:
“I have always had a passionate love for locomotives. To me they—and I
love them passionately as others are passionate in their love for horses
or women—are like living creatures.
“What I wanted to express in the _Pacific_ is not the noise of an
engine, but the visual impression and the physical sensation of it.
These I strove to express by means of a musical composition. Its point
of departure is an objective contemplation: quiet respiration of an
engine in state of immobility; effort for moving; progressive increase
of speed, in order to pass from the ‘lyric’ to the pathetic state of an
engine of three hundred tons driven in the night at a speed of one
hundred and twenty per hour.
“As a subject I have taken an engine of the ‘Pacific’ type, known as
‘231,’ an engine for heavy trains of high speed.”
Other locomotive engines are classified as “Atlantic,” “Mogul.” The
number 231 here refers to the number of the “Pacific’s” wheels 2—3—1.
“On a sort of rhythmic pedal sustained by the violins is built the
impressive image of an intelligent monster, a joyous giant.”
_Pacific 231_ is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English
horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, double bassoon, four
horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, snare drum, bass
drum, cymbals, tam-tam, strings.
The locomotive engine has been the theme of strange tales by Dickens,
Marcel Schwob, Kipling, and of Zola’s novel, _La Bête humaine_. It is
the hero of Abel Gance’s film, _Roué_ for which it is said Honegger
adapted music, and the American film, _The Iron Horse_.
PAUL MARIE THÉODORE
VINCENT d’INDY
(Born at Paris, March 27, 1852;[34] died at Paris on December 2, 1931)
Vincent d’Indy’s music has often been charged with the atrocious crimes
of austerity and aloofness; it has been called cerebral. It is true that
d’Indy uses his head, not loses it, in composition; that his music will
never be popular with the multitude; it lacks an obvious appeal to those
who say, with an air of finality: “I know what I like.” It is not
sugary; it is not theatrical. To say that it is cold is to say that it
is not effusive. D’Indy does not gush. Nor does he permit himself to run
with a mighty stir and din to a blatant climax, dearly loved by those
who think that noise shows strength. He respects his art and himself,
and does not trim his sails to catch the breeze of popular favor. There
is a nobility in his music; there is to those who do not wear their
heart on their sleeve true warmth. There is a soaring of the spirit, not
a drooping to court favor. And no one has ever questioned his
constructive skill.