He was born at Eutin, and fulfilled his father's desire, which had
always been to have a child who should correspond to the youthful
promise of Mozart. The father was an actor, and the director of a
traveling troupe, largely composed of his own children by a former
marriage. This mode of life continued for a number of years, while the
future master was quite small. In 1794 Carl Maria's mother was engaged
as a singer at the theater at Weimar, under Goethe's direction.
Presently, however, the boy became a pupil of Heuschkel, an eminent
oboeist, a solid pianist and organist, and a good composer. Under his
careful direction Weber developed a technique which very soon passed
far beyond anything that had previously been seen. Still later he
became a pupil of Michael Haydn, a brother of Joseph. As early as 1800
the boy gave concerts in Leipsic and other towns in central Germany.
At this time an opera book was given him, "_Das Wald Mädchen_," and
the opera was composed and produced in November. Five years later it
was highly appreciated at Vienna, and was performed also at Prague and
St. Petersburg. Young Weber was of a most active mind, and interested
himself in all questions of art. In 1803 he made the acquaintance of
the famous Abbé Vogler, and became his pupil. Vogler commissioned him
to prepare the piano score of a new opera of his. He still continued
his practice as pianist, but when he lacked some months of being
eighteen years of age he was made director of the music of the theater
at Breslau. This was his first acquaintance with practical life as a
musician. He showed great talent for direction and organization, and
here he composed his first serious opera "_Rubezahl_" (1806). His
next position was at Stuttgart, where he became musical director in
1807. After composing several short pieces, he led a somewhat
irregular life for several years, concerting as a pianist, writing
articles for the papers, at which he was very talented, beginning a
musical novel, and at length, in 1810, producing his opera "_Abou
Hassan_." Then followed about three years of roving life as a concert
player and occasionally as composer, until 1813, when he was appointed
musical director at Prague. The opera here was in very bad condition,
and the company incapable, but Weber engaged new singers in Vienna,
and entirely reorganized the affair, and conducted himself so
prudently that he gained the good will of nearly every one. As an
example of his quickness it may be mentioned that upon discovering
that certain musicians in the orchestra, who were not disposed to
yield to his strict ideas of discipline, were conversing with each
other in Bohemian, while the music was going on, he learned the
language himself sufficiently to rebuke them in their own tongue. His
next position was at Dresden in 1816, and here he remained nine years
until his death. His position at first was somewhat ambiguous. There
were two troupes of singers in the opera--an Italian and the German.
The grand operas were given in Italian by the Italian company, and the
light operas in German by the German company. It was Weber's task to
change this, by producing new works of a distinctly higher character
than the foreign works of the Italian company. The second year he was
able to produce a few good operas of other schools in German versions,
but it was not until 1821, when his "_Preciosa_" was produced at
Berlin, and 1822, when "_Der Freischütz_" was produced in the same
theater, that the reputation of the young master was established
beyond question. It is impossible at the present time to describe the
enthusiasm which the latter work created. It was a new departure in
opera. It united two strains very dear to the German heart--the simple
peasant life and the people's song are represented in the choruses,
and in the arias of the less important people. Agatha, the heroine,
has a prayer of exquisite beauty, which still is often heard as a
church tune. And in contrast with these elements was the weird and
uncanny music of Zamiel, the Satanic spirit of the wood, and the
strange incantation scene in the Wolf's Glen at midnight, where the
magic balls are cast. The story was thoroughly German, and the music
not only German and well suited to the story, but distinctly original
and charming of itself. In this work, perhaps first of any opera,
Weber made use of what has since been known as "leading
motives"--characteristic melodic phrases appropriate to Zamiel and
Agatha. The instrumentation was very graphic, and as Weber had been
brought up upon the stage, there were many novelties of a scenic kind.
In fact, the work marked as distinct an epoch as Wagner's "Nibelungen
Ring," and what is more to the point, it was one of the operative
influences affecting the young Wagner, as he tells with considerable
care in his autobiography. His next effort was a comic opera, the
"Three Pintos," which was never finished. Then came "_Euryanthe_"
performed at Vienna in 1823 with the most extraordinary success. This
work is said to have been the model upon which Wagner created his
"_Lohengrin_." When it was produced in Berlin in 1825, the enthusiasm
was yet greater and more remarkable than in Vienna. In 1825 he
composed "_Oberon_," the first of the operas in which the fairy
principle has prominent exemplification. This was produced in London
early in 1826. But by this time Weber's health had become completely
broken, and he died there of overwork and fatigue. He was laid to his
rest, to the music of Mozart's Requiem, in the chapel at Moorsfields
in London.
Weber was the first of the romantic composers--the first, at least, to
gain the ear of the public. These operas, with their beautifully
descriptive music, in which voices and orchestra co-operate with the
action and scene as one, were composed at the same time that the young
Franz Schubert was improvising his beautiful songs in Vienna. From one
end of Germany to the other, and in all Europe, these operas made
their way. "_Der Freischütz_" has lasted fifty years, and is still
presented with success. More than that, as already noticed, Weber
furnished the model, or point of departure, for a multitude of smaller
composers, who developed the opera in various side directions; and
last, but not least, for Richard Wagner himself.
Moreover, in the department of piano playing Weber was no less
epoch-marking than in that of opera. In 1812 his sonata in C, Opus 24,
was produced, a work which is distinctly in advance of those of
Clementi or any other writer before that time. The finale of this work
is the well known rondo "Perpetual Motion," which, indeed, contains no
new principle of piano playing, but is an elegant example of
melodiousness and real musicianly qualities displayed at the highest
possible speed. His next sonata, Opus 39, in A flat (1816), is still
more remarkable. The piano playing here is of an extremely brilliant
and picturesque description. Here also, in the _Andante_ we have the
tricks which he afterward made so effective in the _Concertstück_, of
the legato melody accompanied by chords _pizzicati_. Equally
significant in this way is the sonata in D minor, Opus 49, published
in the same year as the preceding. Here we have very strong contrast
and an enormous fire and vigor. The romantic impulse, however, had
been displayed yet earlier in his "_Momento Capriccioso_," Opus 12, in
B flat (1808). This extremely rapid piece of changing chords
_pianissimo_ is like a reminiscence from fairy land, and the second
subject contrasts with it to a degree which would have satisfied
Schumann. It is a choral-like movement with intervening interludes in
the bass, upon which Rubinstein must have modeled his "_Kamennoi
Ostrow_," No. 22. But the most decided token of the romantic movement
is seen in the "Invitation to the Dance," and the "_Polacca
Brilliant_," both of which were published in 1819. Two years later
came the concert piece, which for seventy years has remained a
standard selection for brilliant pianists, and for fifteen years was
Liszt's great concert solo. It marks a transition from Moscheles,
Dussek and Clementi to Thalberg and Liszt. The "Invitation to the
Dance," moreover, was the first _salon_ piece idealized from a popular
dance form.
III.
Yet another distinguished name might well have been enrolled among
those of the great virtuosi of the first part of the nineteenth
century. Jacob Liebmann Beer, better known as Giacomo Meyerbeer
(1791-1864), was born at Berlin, the son of a rich Jewish banker. The
name Meyer was prefixed to his own later, as a condition of inheriting
certain property from a distant relative. As the boy showed talent
for music at a very early age, he was put to the study of the
pianoforte, and it was his ambition to distinguish himself as a
virtuoso, which his talent undoubtedly permitted, if he had not been
diverted from it by the success of his early attempts at opera. He was
taught by a pupil of Clementi, and for a while by Clementi himself, as
well as by other distinguished teachers, and if reports are to be
believed concerning his playing, he must have become by the time he
was twenty years old one of the very first virtuosi in Europe. His
studies in theory were carried on under Abbé Vogler, at Darmstadt,
where he was a schoolmate with C.M. von Weber and Gansbacher, and
later with Salieri at Vienna. At Darmstadt he wrote an oratorio "God
and Nature," which was performed by the _Singakademie_, of Berlin, in
1811; and an opera, "_Alimelek_" ("The Two Caliphs"), which also was
successfully given at Munich in the Grand Opera House in the same
year, 1811. Both works were anonymous. The opera made considerable
reputation, and was played in several other cities. Upon Salieri's
direction he went to Venice, where he arrived in 1815, to find
Rossini's star in the ascendant, and all Venice, and Italy as well,
wild over the bewitching melodies of "_Tancredi_." Meyerbeer, having
that vein of cleverness and adaptability so characteristic of his
race, immediately became a composer of Italian operas, and produced in
Venice, "_Romilda e Constanza_" (Padua, 1815), "_Semiramide
Riconosciuta_" (Turin, 1819), "_Emma di Resburgo_" (Venice, 1820), the
latter also making a certain amount of reputation in Germany as "_Emma
von Leicester_." Then followed "_Margherita d'Anjou_" (Milan, _La
Scala_, 1820), "_L'Esule di Granata_" (Milan, 1822) and "_Il Crociato
in Egitto"_ (Venice, 1824). All of these were Italian operas, with
melody in quite the Rossini vein, with the same attention as Rossini
to the light, the pleasing and the vocal, but with a certain added
element of German cleverness of harmony and thematic treatment.
[Illustration: Fig. 77.
GIACOMO MEYERBEER.]
He now returned to Berlin, but his opera, "_Das Brandenburger Thor_,"
which he had written for Berlin, was not performed, owing to opposing
intrigues. Nevertheless, for about six years Meyerbeer remained in his
native city, married, and presently lost two infant children. In 1830
he took up his abode in Paris, where already his "_Il Crociato_" had
been performed, in 1826, and in that city, as the leading composer for
grand opera, he lived six years, and finally died there. For the Paris
stage he produced a succession of large and sensational operas,
following to some extent the footsteps of Spontini, in respect to the
heroic, the spectacular and the theatrical. Up to the time of his
going to Paris, Meyerbeer had figured as an Italian composer in grace
of melody, German in his harmony, and now he became a French composer
in refinements of rhythm. His first work in Paris was "_Robert le
Diable_," 1831, and it made his reputation, and at the same time made
an epoch in operatic construction. It was followed by "_Les
Huguenots_," 1838, which when played in Berlin, in 1842, so pleased
the king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, that he created Meyerbeer "General
Musical Director" for Prussia, and Meyerbeer came to Berlin to reside.
Here in 1842 he wrote his "_Das Feldlager in Schlesien_" in which
Jenny Lind made a great success. Later, however, he made over a great
part of this music for his opera of "_L'Étoile du Nord_," 1854, for
the Opéra Comique in Paris. His remaining works were "_L'Africaine_,"
performed after his death, in 1865; "_Le Prophète_," 1843, and
"_Dinorah_," 1859. He died in Paris while superintending the
production of his "_L'Africaine_." In his will he left a fund of
10,000 thalers, the interest of which to be used as a prize for the
support of a young German composer during eighteen months' study in
Italy, Germany and France, six months in each. Besides the operas
above mentioned Meyerbeer wrote a quantity of other music for
orchestra, cantatas, and occasional pieces for festival purposes, of
which the "Schiller March" is an example.
The music of Meyerbeer is extremely sensational. His instrumentation
is rich, at times _bizarre_, and strongly contrasted. His knowledge of
stage effect, such that he knew by intuition what would do, and what
not. He was to some extent created by circumstances, a striking
instance of which is told in connection with the opera of the
"Huguenots," where the parting with Valentine at the end of the fourth
act was originally without important music. But the tenor declined to
take the part unless suitable music could be furnished him at this
point. Whereupon Meyerbeer wrote the impassioned duet, since so
celebrated, and which in fact is generally recognized as one of the
most suitable, not to say most effective, incidents of the whole
opera. Meyerbeer's operas follow the lead of Spontini in their
fondness for military glory and spectacle. They partake of the
virtuoso spirit of the other great geniuses mentioned in a later
chapter--all of whom wrote for the sake of an effect to be arrived at,
rather than from any inner necessity of carrying out their tone-poems
in such and such a way. Meyerbeer's influence, about 1830 to 1840, was
supreme upon the stage. It was to consult him that young Wagner
undertook his journey to Paris, bringing with him his splendid
spectacular opera "Rienzi," quite in the Meyerbeer vein. This feature
in the work, most likely, was the one chiefly concerned in preventing
its acceptance at Paris under Meyerbeer's direction. Wagner was very
much influenced by Meyerbeer in all his earlier works, particularly in
the matter of splendid appointments for the stage. With all the
splendid brilliancy of Meyerbeer's music, there is something insincere
about it. It rarely touches the deeper springs of feeling. This is
true of the greatest of his pieces, no less than of the smaller
numbers.
IV.
The most interesting story in the history of opera, and one so
resplendent that it is impossible not to regard the others as merely
in some degree preparatory to it, is that of Richard Wagner
(1813-1883). This remarkable man was born in Leipsic in 1813, the son
of a superintendent of police. His mother was a woman of refined and
spiritual nature. After the death of his father, his mother married
again--an actor named Geyer--a circumstance having an important
bearing on the future of the composer. His brother Albert and his
sister Rosalie became actors, and Wagner himself was familiar with the
stage from earliest childhood. He studied music while a boy, but his
ambition was to become a poet. He translated the twelve books of the
Odyssey. He made the acquaintance of Shakespeare's plays, first in
German, afterward in English. He made a translation of Romeo's
soliloquy, and began to compose music for it. At the age of eighteen
he copied Beethoven's ninth symphony in score, for the purpose of
knowing it more thoroughly. His musical progress was such that at the
age of twenty-one he was able to accept a position as the conductor of
the opera at Magdeburg. In 1836 this failed, and he accepted a place
at Königsberg. He had then written one opera, called "The Love Veto."
In 1837 he was much interested in Bulwer's "Rienzi," and immediately
made a libretto from it. He was now musical director at Riga, and his
wife had leading feminine rôles in opera. His favorite composer in
opera just then was Meyerbeer. For some reason he lost his place at
Riga, and resolved to visit London, taking ship across the Black sea.
It was a sailing vessel of small burden, and they encountered a very
violent storm. He heard the legend of the Flying Dutchman, and the
next year made a poem of it and commenced to write the opera. He spent
some time in Paris, where he hoped to get his "Rienzi" accepted at the
Grand Opera. This opera he had written on a large scale in the hope of
pleasing Meyerbeer, whose influence at Paris was very strong at this
time. This, however, he failed to do, very possibly because his opera
was too good. He was reduced to great straits, and had to write
_potpourri_ for the cornet and piano at a beggarly price, in order to
gain a living. In 1843 his "Rienzi" was accepted at Dresden, through
the influence of Meyerbeer. It was performed with great success, and
Wagner was called there as conductor. Here he had an important
position, having to produce the best operas of all schools. He brought
out his own "Flying Dutchman" and had already finished "_Tannhäuser_."
He read the Arthur legends, and conceived the idea of an opera upon a
subject connected with the Holy Grail. This was "_Lohengrin_,"
completed in March, 1848. It was in a fair way to have been produced
under his own direction if he had had the good sense to let politics
alone; but in some way he mixed himself up in the revolutionary
attempt of that year, and was obliged to flee the country. He went to
Zurich, where he lived in great poverty at first, but afterward with a
certain moderate income, for nearly ten years. This circumstance was
evidently providential, as will appear in the sequel.
[Illustration: Fig. 78.
RICHARD WAGNER.]
Franz Liszt was now conductor at Weimar, and he brought out
"_Lohengrin"_ in 1850. From this moment a friendship was established
between these two remarkable men. Liszt sent Wagner a handsome
_honorarium_, and from this time on was his financial guardian. By
this time Wagner's art theories had become pretty well defined. From
his standpoint the three great arts of music, poetry and drama had
been independently explored to their limit--music by Beethoven, poetry
and the drama by Shakespeare and Goethe--and the only remaining thing
of importance to do was to unite them all in one homogeneous mass, and
by their combined operation accomplish a more profound and
overwhelming effect than had been made before, or indeed would have
been possible to them separately. In his autobiography, speaking of
his early experiences as conductor, he says:
"The peculiar, gnawing feeling that oppressed me in conducting our
ordinary opera, was often interrupted by an indescribable enthusiastic
feeling of happiness, when here and there, in the performance of
nobler works, I became thoroughly conscious, in the midst of the
representation, of the incomparable influence of dramatic-musical
combinations--an influence of such depth, fervor and life, as no other
art is capable of producing.
"That such impressions, which, with the rapidity of lightning, made
clear to me undreamed-of possibilities, could constantly renew
themselves for me--this was the thing which bound me to the theater,
much as the typical spirit of our operatic performances filled me with
disgust. Among especially strong impressions of this character, I
remember the hearing of an opera, by Spontini, in Berlin, under that
master's own direction; and I felt myself, too, thoroughly elevated
and ennobled for a time, when I was teaching a small opera company
Méhul's noble 'Joseph.' And when, twenty years ago, I spent some time
in Paris, the performances at the Grand Opera could not fail by the
perfection of their musical and dramatic _mise en scène_ to exercise a
most dazzling and exciting influence upon me. But greatest of all was
the effect produced upon me in early youth by the artistic efforts
of a dramatic singer of (in my eyes) entirely unsurpassed
merit--Schröder-Devrient. The incomparable dramatic talent of this
woman, the inimitable harmony and strong individuality of her
representations, which I studied with eyes and ears, filled me with a
fascination that had a decisive influence on my whole artistic career.
The possibilities of such a performance were revealed to me, and with
her in view, there grew up in my mind a legitimate demand, not for
musical-dramatic representation alone, but for the _poetic-musical
conception_ of a work of art, to which I could hardly continue to give
the name of 'opera.'"
[Illustration: Fig. 79.
MME. SCHRÖDER-DEVRIENT (1804-1860).]
Soon after his removal to Zurich, he commenced to compose the libretto
of the "Nibelung's Ring." This work was founded on the famous old
German poem, "_Die Nibelungen Lied_," but with very important
modifications of Wagner's own. It is divided into four works. In the
first, "_Das Rheingold_," the gold of the Rhine, is stolen, and a
curse is laid upon it. The second opera of the series is "_Die
Walküre_." In this work the remarkable character of Brunhilde is the
central figure. She is one of the Wish-maidens of Odin, whose duty it
was to conduct the souls of slain heroes to Walhalla, the dwelling
place of the gods. The entire conception of this character is unique,
and still more unique in the musical way in which it is worked out. We
find in this work also the mother and father of Siegfried, and the
opera closes when Brunhilde is thrown into the magic slumber with the
fire around her. The third opera of the series is that of Siegfried,
the half-divine, half-human hero, who knows no fear--who slays the
dragon that captures the gold of the Rhine--awakens Brunhilde from her
magic sleep, etc. The fourth opera is called "The Twilight of the
Gods," or "The Death of Siegfried." I will not consume space by
describing this poem in detail, since this material is easily
accessible in every encyclopedia. I have already treated it at
considerable length in the second volume of my "How to Understand
Music." These works are especially remarkable upon a musical side. The
opera of the "Rhinegold" is a little monotonous, but the orchestral
score contains many points of beauty, and "The Valkyrie" is beautiful
throughout, conceived in a very masterly and poetic vein; the
instrumentation, also, is extremely noble and beautiful. In the whole
of these two works there is scarcely a single piece which can be
played apart from the rest as a concert number. The drama moves
straight on from one thing to another. There are no melodies of the
conventional type, and the music is closely woven together, like the
effects of an April day, with storms, sunshine and shadows following
each other without any perceptible break. So great has been the
advance in musical taste since these were first composed, that "The
Ride of the Valkyries," a famous descriptive piece for orchestra,
forming the prelude of the second act, has been played in all parts of
the world, as also the "Magic Fire Scene," which closes the opera.
These are given over and over again by Thomas, and arrangements of
them are often played at the piano. Directly he had finished "_Die
Walküre_," Wagner sent it to Liszt, and a letter with it, in which he
modestly admitted that he thought it was very fine, or words to that
effect. Liszt, on his part, was delighted with it. He wrote a most
beautiful and noble letter to Wagner about it, and a little later he
speaks of Hans von Bülow having been with him, when he could not
refrain from giving him "a sight of Walhalla." So he brought out the
score, and he said that Hans pounded at the piano, and he himself
hummed and howled as well as he could, and they had a great time over
it.
Wagner then set to work on the opera of "_Siegfried_," which
interested him very much indeed. This character also is a genuine
conception of Wagner's. The wild forest boy who knows no fear, who has
the most marvelous strength, is described in music as wild and
powerful as himself. When Sieglinde, Siegfried's mother, was married,
an old man appeared at the wedding with an ashen staff, his hat brim
drooping over one eye, and in the midst of the festivities he drew a
mighty sword and with a great blow thrust it into the stem of the ash
tree which grew in the center of the house, saying that it was the
sword of a hero, and that whoever was strong enough to draw it should
wield it in the service of gods. All the strong men tugged at this
weapon, but none were able to draw it. When Siegmund, Siegfried's
father, comes there, he draws the weapon amid a splendid burst of
music. This sword is broken on Wotan's spear, but the pieces are saved
for Siegfried, and one of the great scenes in the opera of
"_Siegfried_" is where he welds anew the broken sword, and at the end
cleaves the anvil with one mighty stroke. The opera of "_Siegfried_"
closes with the awakening of Brunhilde, and a splendid duet with
Siegfried.
The composition of this work was interrupted at the end of the second
act, and here we come to one of the most curious circumstances in
Wagner's career. He says that he felt it necessary to stop now and
write a practical opera for the stage as it then was, in order to
re-establish his connection with the German theater, for he did not
believe that these works would be performed in his own time.
Accordingly he wrote "_Die Meistersinger_," and the opera of "Tristan
and Isolde." They were finished in 1865, and Hans von Bülow, who was
then director of the opera at Munich, took them both for rehearsal;
they had there about 160 rehearsals of "Tristan and Isolde"--but gave
it up as impossible, the singers forgetting from one day to another
the music they had learned the previous day. The other work, "_Die
Meistersinger_," fared better. They had sixty-six rehearsals, and
finally brought it to a dress rehearsal, which was as far as they got
toward performing it. Nothing shows the increased growth that Wagner
had made, as well as his unconsciousness of this growth, like this
experience of his operas at Munich, under so enterprising and able a
director as Hans von Bülow--who was undoubtedly the most competent man
in Germany, as well as the most courageous, for the task of producing
this kind of work. Although these operas were not successful at the
time, "_Die Meistersinger_" has since become highly appreciated upon
large stages, and it is in my opinion the most beautiful opera that
has ever been written. The music throughout is in a noble and
dignified strain, with melodies beautiful and highly finished, almost
suitable for church music, yet comedy in the best sense of the term.
The famous prize song in this work is sufficiently well known. There
is a most delightful finale in the third act, where Beckmesser's
serenade occurs as one of the incidents. The other work, "Tristan and
Isolde," is the most difficult opera that has ever been written, and
will have to wait a generation yet, most likely, before its beauties
are fully appreciated.
After composing these two enormous works, Wagner went on to finish
"_Siegfried_," and then completed the work by writing "_Die
Götterdämmerung_" ("The Twilight of the Gods"), or, "The Death of
Siegfried," as he had originally intended to call it. This work
contains one number which is stupendous in its pathos, "The Funeral
March of Siegfried." Nothing like it exists elsewhere. These four
operas have a very remarkable peculiarity, that throughout the four
there are certain leading motives, which repeatedly occur. There is
the motive of "the magic fire," which cuts a great figure in the first
opera of the series, where Loki, the fire god, appears and is ushered
in by this motive. It occurs again in the magic fire scene, at the
close of "_Die Walküre_," where Wotan surrounds Brunhilde with
shrieking flames, in order that their terrors may deter cowards from
waking her. There is the "sword motive," which is heard in the first
opera, when this sword is first spoken of; it is finely developed
where the sword is drawn, and again in the opera of "_Siegfried_,"
where it is freshly welded. There is the "Walhalla motive," the
"Siegfried motive," the "Valkyrie motive," and many others, to the
number of nearly one hundred. These are woven together, especially in
the last opera of the series, in a most astonishing and wonderful way,
yet without impairing the musical flow of the work. The scores are
also extremely elaborate, from an orchestral point of view, requiring
a large number of instruments, most of them having a great deal to do.
This great trilogy, as Wagner called it, which was at first supposed
to be beyond the ability of the public to appreciate, has now been
given in all parts of Germany with great success, and it is no longer
beyond the ability of an audience to enjoy.
By the time he had completed this work, Wagner had conceived the idea
of a national theater, to be completed regardless of cost, and with
appointments permitting it to produce great works in a faultless
manner. At first he thought of building it at Munich, but the Munich
public proving fickle, he resolved to build it in an inland town,
where all his audience would be in the attitude of pilgrims, who would
have come from a distance to hear a great work with proper
surroundings. The sum required to complete this was about $500,000. It
is sufficient compliment to Wagner's ability to say that he secured
it, King Louis, of Bavaria, having contributed more than $100,000.
Large sums also were sent in by Wagner societies all over the world.
The house was completed at Bayreuth. It was a little theater holding
about 1,500 people, with a magnificent stage, which at that time was
far in advance of any other, but has since been surpassed by many,
notably by that of the Auditorium, in Chicago. Here he proposed to
have what he called a stage festival--the singers to contribute their
services gratuitously, the honor of being selected for this place, and
the advantage of the experience, being regarded as ample compensation.
The orchestra, likewise, in great part was to be composed of
virtuosi--also to play without pay. All these expectations were
realized. Leading the violins for several years was the famous
virtuoso, Wilhelmj, and the singers of the Bayreuth festival were the
best that the German stage possessed. The festival is now carried out
upon a more rational basis, the singers receiving something for their
services. Wagner completed his achievements by the opera of
"_Parsifal_"--a work nearly related to "_Lohengrin_"--in some respects
more beautiful. This is entirely like church music, and the whole
effect of the performance at Bayreuth,--for it has never been given
elsewhere--is noble and beautiful. It leaves an impression like a
church service.
The peculiarities of Wagner's operas are many. The plays, from a
poetic side, are in the vein of magic; irresistible causes work
together for irresistible ends. They are somber and primeval, like the
voice of the forest. The music fits the poem exactly, without making
any attempt at being beautiful on its own account. It is extremely
elaborate, and richly scored for orchestra, and full of beautiful
science--not intended to be recognized as such by the average hearer.
From a dramatic point of view the works are very consistent, and the
stage effects are of a remarkable kind. Wagner was fortunate enough to
make the acquaintance of a mechanic able to carry out some of his most
impracticable suggestions.
Wagner left a large number of pamphlets and treatises, which are
likely to remain among the classics of musical literature. The most
important is his "Opera and Drama," written in 1851. This is a full
discussion, in singularly vigorous and clear language, of the entire
nature of opera as poetically conceived and as practically carried out
by the previous masters, and as proposed to be carried out by Wagner
himself. Many of Wagner's writings have now been translated into
English. His opera texts are highly esteemed by his admirers, and
respected by all. As a poet the general opinion seems to be that he
was given to magnificent phraseology rather than to delicacy of fancy
or humor. He is most at home with the grand, the gigantic, the
superhuman; and in nearly all that he writes the primeval undertone of
the minor makes itself felt.
It is entirely uncertain whether opera will continue to follow the
lines he laid down, with the same severity, but there can be no
question that his influence upon the course of art will be very great.
In musical discourse, especially in the harmonic side of it, Wagner
has made very great variations from the practices of his predecessors,
even the most free of the instrumental writers--Schumann. His
modulations are carried into more remote keys, and the tempered scale
is taken as a finality of our tonal system. All the keys are brought
near, as he treats them, and in any key any chord whatever can be
introduced without effecting a modulation, provided it be so managed
that the sense of tonality is not unsettled.
Personally Wagner was rather small, very fastidious in his attire and
surroundings. In 1869 Mme. Cosima, daughter of Liszt, and wife of Von
Bülow, left him and became the wife of Wagner. During the last ten
years of his life they had an elegant residence at Bayreuth, where
Mme. Wagner still has her home. Wagner died in Venice, whither he had
gone for the mild climate. No musician in the entire history of art
has occupied the attention of the whole contemporaneous world to
anything like the same degree as did Richard Wagner, from the
performance of "_Lohengrin_," in 1850, until his death in 1883.
CHAPTER XXXV.
VIRTUOSITY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY; PAGANINI; BERLIOZ; CHOPIN;
LISZT.
I.
Strictly speaking, there was no break in the continuity of art
development represented in the virtuoso appearances recorded in
Chapter XXX, and those with which we have presently to deal. In point
of chronology, many of those recorded in the present chapter were
contemporaneous with some of those in the former. Nevertheless, the
artists with whom we are now concerned represent principles more
decidedly belonging to the romantic, and hence to the nineteenth
century, than did those whose operations have already been discussed
as part of the record of the eighteenth. This is seen in the quality
and the novelty of their playing, and still more in the influence
which they exercised upon the musicians who came after.
[Illustration: [autograph] N. Paganini
Fig. 80.]
Earliest of these in point of time, and most influential in other
departments than his own, was the famous Italian violinist, Nicolo
Paganini (1784-1840), perhaps the most remarkable executant upon the
violin who has ever appeared. His father, a clever amateur, had him
taught music at an early age, and when only nine years of age he
played in a concert at Genoa with triumphant success. He had already
practiced diligently and, with the intuition of genius, had found out
his own ways of accomplishing things, so that when, at the age of
eleven, he was taken to Parma to the teacher Rolla, he was told that
there was nothing to teach him. Returning home, he continued his
practice, applying himself as much as eight or ten hours a day, and
producing a number of compositions so difficult that he alone could
play them. His first European tour took place in 1805, and astonished
the world. The most marvelous stories were told of him. It was
popularly supposed that he could play upon anything, provided only the
catgut and the horsehair were furnished him. His first appearance in
France was in 1831, and in the same year he played in London. The
height of his fame was reached in 1834, at which time Berlioz, the
French composer, presented him with a beautiful symphony, "_Harold en
Italie_." Notwithstanding the fact that Paganini lost money in Paris,
he presented Berlioz with 20,000 francs, in order to enable him to
pursue his career as a composer unhampered by financial distress. This
act was greatly to Paganini's credit, and entirely contrary to the
prevalent opinion concerning him, which was that he was very miserly.
Among the works which Paganini produced was a set of caprices for the
violin which were essentially novelties for the instrument. He
enlarged the resources of the violin in every direction, employing
double stopping, harmonics, and the high positions with a freedom
previously unknown. Notwithstanding Spohr's modest remark that upon a
certain evening when playing for some amateurs he delighted them "with
all the Paganini juggles," it is certain that he did nothing of the
kind.
[Illustration: Fig. 81.
PAGANINI AS HE APPEARED.
(From a drawing by Sir Edwin Landseer. [Grove.])]
It is impossible after this lapse of time to realize the sensation
which Paganini's appearances made. His tall, emaciated figure and
haggard face, his piercing black eyes and the furor of passion which
characterized his playing, made him seem like one possessed, and many
hearers were prepared to assert of their own knowledge that they had
seen him assisted by the Evil Spirit. His caprices remain the sheet
anchor of the would-be virtuoso. The entire art of violin playing
rests upon two works--the Bach sonatas for violin solo, and the great
Paganini caprices. Everything of which the violin is capable, or which
any virtuoso has been able to find in it, is contained in these works.
Upon two composers of this century Paganini's influence was extremely
powerful. Schumann took his departure from the Paganini caprices,
seeking to perform upon the piano the same kind of effect which
Paganini had obtained from the violin, or to discover others
equivalent to them. And Liszt set himself to do upon the piano the
same kind of impossibilities which Paganini had performed upon the
violin. Both these masters accomplished more than they planned for.
Schumann enriched the current of musical discourse by his experiments
having their departure from Paganini, thereby accomplishing something
which Paganini did not; for while the great violinist's works are of
astonishing value for the violin, they are not particularly
significant as tone-poetry. They are pleasing and sensational, and at
times passionate, show pieces for the virtuoso.
II.
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), for whose genius Paganini had such
admiration, was perhaps the most remarkable French personality in
music during the nineteenth century, and one of the most commanding in
the whole world of music. He was born at Grenoble, in the south of
France. His father, a physician, intended that the son should follow
his own profession, but when the young Berlioz was sent to Paris to
study medicine, at the age of eighteen, music proved too strong for
him, and he entered the Conservatory as a pupil of Lesueur. His
parents were so incensed by this course that the paternal supplies
were cut off, and the young enthusiast was driven to the expedient of
earning a scanty living by singing in the opera chorus at an obscure
theater, _La Gymnase Dramatique_. The daring originality of the young
musician, and his habit of regarding every rule as open to question,
rendered him anything but a favorite with Cherubini, the director of
the Conservatory, and it was only after several trials that he carried
off the prize for composition. The second instance of this kind
occurred in 1830, the piece being a dramatic cantata "_Sardanapole_,"
which gained him the prize of Rome, carrying with it a pension
sufficient to maintain the winner during three years in Italy.
On his return to Paris, he found it extremely difficult to secure a
living by his compositions, their originality and the scale upon which
he carried them out, placing them outside the conventional markets for
new musical works designed for public performance. In this strait he
took to writing for the press, in the _Journal des Débats_, for which
his talent was little, if any, less marked than for musical
production upon the largest scale. As a writer, he was keen,
sarcastic, bright and sympathetic. A man of the world, and at the same
time an artist, he touched everything with the characteristic
lightness and raciness of the born _feuilletonist_. Very soon (in
1834), he produced his symphony "_Harold en Italie_," which Paganini
so much admired that he presented Berlioz with the very liberal, even
princely _douceur_ of 20,000 francs ($4,000). Meanwhile Berlioz was
unable to secure recognition in Paris. His compositions were regarded
as extravagant and fantastic, and Parisians were curiously surprised
at the reception the composer met with in Germany, when he traveled
there in 1842 and 1843, and again in 1852, bringing out his works. The
Germans were by no means unanimous regarding his merits. Mendelssohn,
who found Berlioz most interesting as a man, had no admiration for his
music. To him it appeared crazy and unbeautiful. The sole recognition
which Berlioz had in France was the librarianship of the
_Conservatoire_, with a modest salary, and the Cross of the Legion of
Honor. In spite of the small esteem in which this clever master was
held by his countrymen during his life, he produced a succession of
remarkable works, without which the art of music would have missed
some of its brightest pages. Among these we may mention his dramatic
legend of "The Damnation of Faust," for solos, chorus and orchestra,
which marks one of the highest points reached by program music. This
great work is now generally accepted as one of the best of the
romantic productions, and the orchestral pieces in it have become part
of the standard repertory of orchestras everywhere.
Berlioz was above all the composer of the grandiose, the magnificent.
This appears in his earliest works. In 1837 he composed his Requiem,
for the funeral obsequies of General Damremont. This work is of
unprecedented proportions. It is scored for chorus, solos and
orchestra, the latter occasionally of extraordinary appointment. In
the "_Tuba Mirum_," for example, he desires full chorus of strings,
and four choirs of wood-wind and brass. The wood-wind consists of
twelve horns, eight oboes, and four clarinets, two piccolos and four
flutes. The brass is disposed in four choirs as follows, each at one
of the corners of the stage; the first consists of four trumpets, four
tenor trombones and two tubas; the second of four trumpets and four
tenor trombones; the third the same; the fourth of four trumpets, four
tenor trombones and four ophicleides. The bewildering answers of these
four choirs of brass give place at the words "Hear the awful trumpet
sounding," to a single bass voice, accompanied by sixteen kettle
drums, tuned to a chord. A movement of similar sonority is the "_Rex
Tremendæ Majestatis_." At other times the work is very melodious. It
is indeed singular that a young composer should commence his career
with a piece so daring. But to Berlioz's credit it must be said he
never makes a mistake in his calculations of effect. When he desires
contrast and blending effect of different masses, these results always
follow whenever his work is performed according to his directions.
All the music of Berlioz belongs to the category of "program music,"
that is to say, everywhere there is an attempt at painting a scene or
representing something by means of music, that something being
habitually suggested and explained by the text, if the work be vocal,
or by explanatory notes, if the work be instrumental. This is as true
of his symphonies, "Romeo and Juliet," and "Harold in Italy," as in
the vocal works themselves. The list of these contains an oratorio,
"The Childhood of Christ" (1854), "The Damnation of Faust" (1846), the
operas "_Benvenuto Cellini_," produced at the _Académie_, 1838, "The
Trojans" (1856), "_Beatrice et Benedict_" (1863). The first was
performed under the direction of Liszt at Weimar, about 1850, but with
indifferent success. Berlioz instrumented several pianoforte
compositions for orchestra, the best known of them being Weber's
"Invitation to the Dance," and "Polonaise in E flat." His treatise
upon instrumentation, published in 1864, remained standard until since
the appearance of the elaborate and more systematic work upon this
subject by F.A. Gevaert. The greatest of Berlioz's works is his
splendid "_Te Deum_," written during the years 1854 and 1855, for some
kind of festival performance. He planned this composition as part of a
great trilogy of an epic-dramatic character in honor of Napoleon, the
first consul. At the moment of his return from his Italian campaigns,
he was to have been represented as entering Notre Dame, where this
"_Te Deum_" is sung by an appointment of musical forces consisting of
a double chorus of 200 voices, a third choir of 600 children, an
orchestra of 134, an organ, and solo voices. The entire work was never
completed, and the "_Te Deum_" had its first and only representation
in Berlioz's lifetime at the opening of the Palace of Industry, April
30, 1855. The work is full of splendid conceptions, and is freer from
eccentricities than any other of the author. It is extremely sonorous,
and is destined to be better known as festival occasions upon a larger
scale become more numerous.
The whole effect of Berlioz's activity was that of a virtuoso in the
department of dramatic and descriptive music, and in the art of
wielding large orchestral masses. It is curious that between him and
Wagner the relations should never have been cordial, although the ends
proposed by both were substantially identical, and the genius of both
incontestable. Berlioz had no confidence in Wagner's "endless melody,"
and when he writes about music he does so in the attitude of a humble
follower of the old masters.
III.
The progress in piano playing, in the course of the nineteenth century
has been most extraordinary. The music of Beethoven and Schubert,
composed during the first quarter of this century, and the influence
of the virtuosi prominent during that time, whose activity has been
told in connection with those of the century previous (the operative
principles of which were the ones mainly influencing them); and the
continual strife of the piano makers to increase the resonance,
singing quality and artistic susceptibility of the tone and the
strength and elasticity of the action, as recounted in the
chapter devoted to the history of this, the greatest of modern
instruments--were concentrating influences having the effect of
calling attention to the new instrument in a very remarkable manner.
Add to these causes the meteor-like appearance of Paganini, with his
stupendous execution upon the violin, and its novel possibilities. All
these together seem to have led four gifted geniuses at about the same
time to make independent investigations into the tonal possibilities
of the piano, and the mode of producing effects upon it, in the hope
of creating a new art, and of rivaling the weird successes of the
highly gifted Italian, who apparently had exhausted the possibilities
of the violin. The artists thus occupied in developing the art of
piano playing were Chopin, Liszt, Thalberg and Schumann, and it is far
from easy to determine exactly which one it was who first brought his
influence to bear upon the public; or which one it was who first
arrived at the successful application of the principles of the new
technique, whose essential divergences from the old consisted in a
more flexible use of the fingers, hand and arm, and the co-operation
of the foot for the promotion of blending, and of bringing into
simultaneous use the tonal resources from all parts of the instrument.
In this case, as in so many others of remarkable invention, the
improvements seem to have been made by several independent
investigators acting simultaneously, each one ignorant of the work of
the others. The impulse in the direction of greater freedom had
already found expression in the pianoforte pieces of the great master,
Von Weber, whose sonatas and caprices had been published between 1810
and 1820. (See pp. 410 and 411.) These contain several novelties,
which I have found it more convenient to discuss in connection with
the personal history of the composer. Liszt has generally been held as
a little the earliest of the four in point of time, his arrangement of
Berlioz's "Harold" symphony having been published, according to the
dates in Weitzmann's history, in 1827, but according to more accurate
information, in 1835, while he had published his arrangement of the
Paganini caprices in 1832, one year after hearing Paganini. In these
works Liszt makes demands upon the hands which were not recognized as
among the possibilities of the old technique. But for all this, it is
apparently certain that the honor of having developed a style
distinctly original, and with peculiarities easily recognizable by
the average listener, belongs to the great virtuoso Thalberg.
Sigismund Thalberg (1812-1871) was the illegitimate son of Prince
Dietrichstein, a diplomat then living at Geneva. His mother was the
Baroness von Wetzlar. Thalberg was carefully educated, and accustomed
to high-bred society from childhood. His father intended him for a
diplomatic career, but the boy's talent for the piano was
irresistible, and, so well had his education been advanced by his
teacher, the first bassoonist of the Vienna opera, that by the time he
was fifteen he made a brilliant success at a concert in Vienna. His
first composition in the style which he afterward made so famous was
the fantasia on themes from "_Euryanthe_," which was published in
1828. Later, in 1835, he entered upon his public career as virtuoso
with concert tours to all parts of the world, everywhere greeted with
admiration and astonishment. He appeared in Paris late in 1834 or
early in 1835, finding Liszt there in the plenitude of his powers.
Then there was a rivalry between them, and opposing camps were
instituted of their respective admirers. The dispute as to their
relative excellence ran high, and, as usually happens in personal
questions of this sort, victory did not belong entirely to either
party. Nevertheless, at this distance it is not easy to see why the
question should have been raised, since in the light of modern piano
playing Liszt's art had in it the promise of everything which has come
since; while Thalberg's had in it only one side of the modern art.
Thalberg had a wonderful technique, in which scales of marvelous
fluency, lightness, clearness and equality, intervened between chord
passages of great breadth and sonority, so that all the resources of
the piano were open to him. But his specialty was that of carrying a
melody in the middle of the piano, playing it by means of the two
thumbs alternately, the other hand being occupied in runs and passages
covering the whole compass of the piano, crossing the melody from
below, or descending upon it from the highest regions of the treble,
and continuing down the keyboard with perfect equality and lightness,
without in the slightest degree disturbing the singing of the melody.
This, of its own accord, went on in the most artistic manner, as if
the pianist had nothing at all else to do than to _sing_ it. The
perfection of Thalberg's melody playing was something wonderful, as
well it might be; for in order to master the art of it, he studied
singing for five years with one of the best teachers of the Italian
school, the eminent Garcia. This, however, was later, after he had
located in Paris.
This trick of treating the melody was not new with Thalberg. It had
previously been done upon the harp by the great Welsh virtuoso, Parish
Alvars (1808-1849), whose European reputation had been acquired by a
succession of great concert tours, and who at length closed his days
in Vienna, where Thalberg lived. There was also an Italian master,
Giuseppe Francesco Pollini (1763-1846), who in 1809 became professor
of the piano in the Conservatory of Milan. Pollini had been a pupil of
Mozart, and dedicated to that great master his first work. Early after
being appointed professor he published a great school for the
pianoforte (1811), in which the art is fully discussed in all its
bearings, and minute directions given for touch and all the rest
appertaining to a concert treatment of the instrument. He was the
first to write piano pieces upon three staves, the middle one being
devoted to the melody; a proceeding afterward followed in some cases
by Liszt and Thalberg. Pollini surrounded his melodies, thus placed in
the middle of the instrument, where at that time the sonority and
singing quality of the pianoforte exclusively lay, with runs and
passages of a brilliant and highly ingenious kind. This was done in
his "_Una de 32 Esercizi in Forma di Toccata_," but he had already, in
1801, published several brilliant pieces in Paris, in which novelties
occur. I have never seen a copy of these works of Pollini, nor any
other account of them than those in Riemann's dictionary and in
Weitzmann's history of the pianoforte, but it is altogether likely
that when they are examined we shall find in this case, as in many
others of progressive development, that the final result was reached
by a succession of steps, each one short, and apparently not so very
important. The chain of technical development for the piano extended
from Bach in unbroken progress, and the discovery of Pollini, who was
less known in western lands than others of the great names in the
list, enables us to fill in between Moscheles and Thalberg. Pollini's
work anticipates the Clementi _Gradus_ by about six years.
To return to Thalberg.--In 1856 he visited America, where his success
was the same as in all other parts of the world. Having accumulated a
fortune, he retired from active life, and bought an estate near
Naples, where he spent the remainder of his life. There were reasons
of a purely external and conventional kind why the playing of Thalberg
should have attracted more attention, or at least been more admired,
than that of Liszt, in Paris and in aristocratic circles everywhere.
His manner was the perfection of quiet. Whatever the difficulty of the
passages upon which he was engaged, he remained perfectly quiet,
sitting upright, modestly, without a single unnecessary motion.
Moreover, the general character of his passages, which progressed
fluently upward or downward by degrees, instead of taking violent
leaps from one part of the keyboard to another, permitted him to
maintain this elegant quiet with less restriction than would have been
possible in such works, for instance, as the great concert fantasias
of Liszt. It is to be noticed, further, that the peculiar sonority of
Thalberg's playing depended upon the improvements in the pianoforte,
made just before his appearance and during his career. His method of
playing the melody, moreover, while perhaps not distinctly so
recognized by him, employed a noticeable element of the arm touch,
while his passage work was a ringer movement of the lightest and most
facile description. His chords, also, were often struck with a finger
touch, and he was perhaps the originator of the peculiar effect
produced by touching a chord with the fingers only, but rebounding
from the keys with the whole arm to the elbow. A chord thus played has
the delicacy peculiar to finger work, but in the removal from the keys
the muscles of the arm are called into action in such a way that the
finger stroke is intensified to a degree somewhat depending upon the
height to which the rebound is carried.
IV.
François Frédéric Chopin (1809-1849) was one of the most remarkable
composers of this epoch, and in some respects one of the most
precocious musical geniuses of whom we have any record. He was born at
Zela-Zowa Wola, a village six miles from Warsaw, in Poland, the son of
a French merchant living there, who had married a Polish lady. Later,
in consequence of financial reverses, his father became a teacher in
the university. The boy, François, was brought up amid refined and
pleasant surroundings, and his education was carefully looked to.
Although rather delicate in appearance, he was healthy and full of
spirits. His precocity upon the piano was such that at the age of nine
he played a concerto in public with great success, from which time
forward he made many appearances in his native city. He early began to
compose, and by the time he was thirteen or fourteen, had undertaken a
number of works of considerable magnitude. After having received the
best instruction which his native city afforded, he started out, at
the age of nineteen, for a visit to Vienna, where he appeared in two
concerts, and to his own surprise was pronounced one of the greatest
virtuosi of the day. This, however, is not the point of his precocity.
When he started upon his tour to Vienna, he had with him certain
manuscripts, which he had composed. His Opus 2 consisted of variations
upon Mozart's air, "_La ci Darem la Mano_," of which later Schumann
wrote such a glowing account in his paper at Leipsic. These variations
were enormously difficult, and in a wholly novel style. There were
several mazurkas, the three nocturnes, Opus 9, of which the extremely
popular one in E flat stands second; the twelve studies, Opus 10,
dedicated to Franz Liszt, and a concerto in F minor, and all or nearly
all of that in E minor. These were the work of a boy then only
nineteen, the pupil of a comparatively unknown provincial teacher.
When we examine these works more minutely, our astonishment increases,
for they represent an entirely new school of piano playing. New
effects, new management of the hands, new passages, beautiful melody,
exquisitely modulated harmonies--in short, a new world in piano
playing was here opened. So difficult and so strange were these works,
that for nearly a generation the more difficult ones of them were a
sealed book to amateur pianists, and even virtuosi like Moscheles
declare that they could never get their fingers reliably through them.
[Illustration: Fig. 82.
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN.]
Much pleased with his success in Vienna, Chopin returned to Warsaw,
and after some months, set out for London, by way of Paris. Here his
fortune varied somewhat. At first he found it impossible to secure a
hearing, his only acquaintances being a few of his exiled
fellow-countrymen, who were there. At length one evening a friend
took him to a reception at the Rothschild's, and in this cultivated
society he found appreciative listeners to his marvelous playing. From
that time on he remained in Paris, only leaving it when his health
made it necessary to visit the south of France. He very seldom
appeared in public. His touch was not sufficiently strong to render
his playing effective in a large hall.
The whole of the Chopin genius is summed up in his early works, which
he took with him on his visit to Vienna. All his later works are in
some sense repetitions. The ideas and the treatment are new, but the
principles underlying are the same, and rarely, if ever, does he reach
a higher flight than in some of these earlier works. His most
celebrated innovation was that of the Nocturne, a sentimental
cantilena for the pianoforte, in which a somewhat Byronic sentiment is
expressed in a high-bred and elegant style. The name "nocturne" was
not original with Chopin--the Dublin pianist, John Field, having
published his first nocturnes in 1816. Field himself derived the name
from the prayers of the Roman Church which are made between midnight
and morning. The name, therefore, implies something belonging to the
night--mysterious, dreamy, poetic. In Field's there is little of this,
aside from the name; the melodies are plain and the sentiments
commonplace. With Chopin, however, it is entirely different. In some
instances the treatment for the piano is very simple, as in the
popular nocturne in E flat, already mentioned; but in other cases he
exercises the utmost freedom, and very carefully trained fingers are
needed to perform them successfully. This is the case, for example, in
the beautiful nocturne in G, Opus 37, No. 2, where the passages in
thirds and sixths are extremely trying; also in the very dramatic
nocturne in C minor, Opus 48.
Chopin's place in the Pantheon of the romantic school is that of the
popularizer of pianoforte sentiment. His compositions, by whatever
name they may be called, are essentially lyric pieces, songs, ballads
and fanciful stories in rhyme. The subjects are frequently tender or
sad, sometimes morbid--in short, Byronic. The treatment is always
graceful and high-bred, and the contrasts strong. The melodies are
embroidered with a peculiar kind of _fioratura_, which he invented
himself, founded upon the Italian embellishment of that kind--a
delicate efflorescence of melody, which, when perfectly done, is
extremely pleasing. The names applied to the different compositions
such as Ballade, Scherzo, Prelude, Rondo, Sonata, Impromptu, have only
a remote reference to the nature of the piece. Occasionally the entire
composition is morbid and unsatisfactory to a degree. These belong to
the later period of his life, when he was in poor health. He is a
woman's composer. In his strongest moments there is always an
effeminate element. In this respect he is exactly opposite to Schumann
and Beethoven, whose works, however delicate and refined, have always
a manly strength. Chopin made the most important modifications in the
current way of treating the piano. In this part of his activity he
seemed to realize the possibilities of the instrument, in the same way
that Paganini had recognized those of the violin. His passages, while
based upon those of Hummel, nevertheless produced effects of which
Hummel was totally incapable. Chopin is the originator of the extended
_arpeggio_ chord, of the chromatic sequences of the diminished
sevenths with passing notes, and cadenza forms derived from them. He
is thoroughly French in his views of "changing notes," as, for
instance, in the accompaniment to the impromptu in A flat, Opus 29.
His influence upon the general progress of musical development is to
be traced in the works of Liszt, especially in the later pianoforte
works, and in a large number of less gifted imitators, like Doehler.
V.
Aside from Wagner, the most remarkable figure of this century is that
of Franz Liszt, who was born at Raiding, in Hungary, 1811, and died at
Bayreuth, 1886. His father, Adam Liszt, was an official in the
imperial service, and a musical amateur, capable of instructing his
son in piano playing. At the age of nine he made his first public
appearance, with so much success that several noblemen guaranteed the
money to enable him to pursue his studies for six years in Vienna.
Here he became a pupil of Czerny, Salieri and Randhartinger. He made
the acquaintance of Schubert, and upon one occasion played before
Beethoven, who kissed him, with the prophecy that he would make his
mark. His first appearance as a composer was in a set of variations on
a waltz by Diabelli, the same for which Beethoven wrote the
thirty-three variations, Opus 120. Liszt's variation was the
twenty-fourth in the set to which Beethoven did not contribute. It was
published in 1823, when he was twelve years old. The same year he went
to Paris, his father hoping to enter him at the Conservatory, in spite
of his foreign origin; but Cherubini refused to receive him, so he
studied with other composers. His operetta of "_Don Sanché_" was
performed at the _Académie Royale_ in 1825, and was well received. At
this time he was in the height of his youthful success in Paris,
tall, slender, with long hair and a most free and engaging
countenance, with ready wit and unbounded tact. He performed marvels
upon the piano, such as no one else could attempt. His repertory at
this time seems to have consisted of pieces of the old school. In 1827
he lost his father, and being thrown upon his own resources, he began
his concert tour. He appeared in London in 1827, his piece being the
Hummel concerto. Three years later he played in London again, his
number being the Weber _Concertstück_.
There was something weird and magnetic about his playing. He was very
tall, about six feet two inches, slender, with piercing eyes, very
long arms, but small hands; he played without notes, and amid the most
frightful difficulties of execution kept his eyes fixed upon this,
that or the other person in the audience. He moved about at the piano
very much in the exciting passages, not, apparently, on account of the
difficulty of overcoming technical obstacles, but simply from innate
fire and excitement. As for technical difficulties, they did not
exist. Everything that the piano contained seemed to be at his
service, and the only regret was that the instrument was not better
able to respond to his demand. In the _fortissimo_ passages his tone
was immense, and his _pianissimos_ were the most delicate whispers. In
these his fingers glided over the keys with inconceivable lightness
and speed, and the tone fell upon the ear with a delicate tracery with
which no particular was lost by reason of speed or lightness. This
wonderful control of the instrument stood him in equal stead with his
own compositions, especially adapted to his own style of playing; or
with the works of the old school, which he transfigured as they had
never been played before; or the last sonatas of Beethoven, which at
that time were a sealed book to most musicians. These, indeed, he did
not play in public, but in private. The essential novelties of the
Liszt technique were the _bravura_ cadenzas. The other sensational
features, such as carrying the melody in the middle range of the piano
with surrounding embroidery, the rapid runs and the extravagant
climaxes, were all more or less common to the three representative
virtuoso piano writers of this epoch--Liszt, Chopin and Thalberg.
A careful study of all the circumstances and influences surrounding
Liszt at the time, leads to the conclusion that his ideas of the
possibilities of the pianoforte were matured very gradually, not
reaching their complete expression in the operatic fantasias before
about 1834 or 1835. His early appearances were in pieces of the old
school, and there is nothing more to be found in contemporary accounts
of his playing than admiration for its superior fire and delicacy.
Upon the appearance of Paganini, however, this was changed. The
temporary eclipse, which this brilliant apparition made of the rising
Liszt, led him to new studies in original directions. Thus arose the
transcriptions of the Paganini caprices in 1832, and the composition
of his own "Studies for Transcendent Execution," in the same or the
following year. Farther sensational improvements were probably the
result of the Thalberg contest in Paris during 1835.
Liszt's influence may be inferred from such incidents as the
following: In 1839 there was a movement on foot to erect a monument to
Beethoven at Bonn, but after some months' solicitation the committee
found it impossible to realize the desired sum, or anything
approaching it. Whereupon Liszt wrote them to give themselves no
further uneasiness, for he himself would be responsible for the entire
amount, about $10,000. This large sum he raised by his own exertions,
and paid over, and a monument was unveiled with brilliant ceremonies
in 1845. One of the performances upon that occasion was that of the
Beethoven fifth concerto, which Liszt himself played. Concerning this
memorable performance Berlioz himself writes: "The piano concerto in E
flat is generally known for one of the better productions of
Beethoven. The first movement and the _Adagio_, above all, are of
incomparable beauty. To say that Liszt played it, and that he played
it in a fashion grand, fine, poetic, yet always faithful, is to make a
veritable pleonasm, and there was a tumult of applause, a sound of
trumpets, and _fanfares_ of the orchestra, which must have been heard
far beyond the limits of the hall. Liszt immediately afterward mounted
the desk of the conductor to direct the performance of the symphony in
C minor, which he made us hear as Beethoven wrote it, including the
entire _scherzo_, without the abridgment, as we have so long been
accustomed to hear at the Conservatory at Paris; and the finale, with
the repeat indicated by Beethoven. I have always had such confidence
in the taste of the correctors of the great masters that I was very
much surprised to find the symphony in C minor still more beautiful
when executed entirely than when corrected. It was necessary to go to
Bonn to make this discovery."
In 1849 a new epoch was opened in the history of this remarkable man.
The grand duke of Weimar invited him to assume the direction of his
musical establishment, including the opera. The salary was absurdly
small--$800 or $1,000 a year. This, however, cut no figure in Liszt's
mind, for he had always been singularly open-handed, yet at same time
prudent. From his successful concert tours he had put by funds, 20,000
francs for his aged mother, and 20,000 francs for each of the three
children he had by the Countess D'Agoult (known in literature as
Daniel Stern), and he considered that the position would afford him an
opportunity of developing his own talent for composition, and at the
same time of affording a hearing for important new works, which, on
account of their novelty and originality, were impossible of
performance in the theaters of large cities. The repertory of the
Weimar opera, from this time on, was most extraordinary. Here were
produced for the first time Wagner's "Flying Dutchman,"
"_Tannhäuser_," and "_Lohengrin_," "_Benvenuto Cellini_," of Berlioz,
Schumann's "_Genoveva_" and "_Mannfred_," and Schubert's "Alfonso and
Estrella." Here were produced, also, the best of the operas of
previous generations. Every master work of this sort Liszt revised
with the greatest care, giving endless patience to every detail, and
supplementing the resources of the theater, when insufficient, by
"guests" from the great operas in the capital. Thus the musical
establishment at Weimar became a sort of Mecca, to which all the
musicians of the world gathered, especially the young and energetic in
the pursuit of knowledge, and creative artists seeking a hearing or
fresh inspiration. From an artistic standpoint, nothing more beautiful
than the life of Liszt at Weimar could be desired. Besides these
operatic performances and his symphony concerts, he gathered about him
a succession of young virtuosi pianists. These had lessons, more or
less formally, some of them for many years. Liszt never received money
for lessons, and took no pupils but those whom he regarded as
promising, or who were personally attractive to himself. About 1850
the American, Dr. William Mason, was there, and for two years
following. The class at this time contained the well known names of
Rubinstein, Carl Klindworth, Pruckner, Tausig, Joachim Raff, and Hans
von Bülow. From this time on there is scarcely a concert pianist in
the world who did not spend a few months or longer with Liszt at
Weimar. Nor did his influence stop here. He produced a constant
succession of important works, and conducted concerts and festivals in
Hungary, and in different parts of Germany and France. Everywhere his
inspiring presence and his keen insight were prized above all ordinary
resources.
There is not space here to sketch in detail his singular and trying
relations to that self-conscious genius, Wagner, who, when absconding
to Zurich, sent the score of "_Lohengrin_" to Liszt. It can be
imagined with what force the elevated and noble beauty of this
epoch-marking work appealed to a genius so sensitive as Liszt. He not
only produced the opera with great care, but prepared the public for
it by means of extended articles in important journals in Leipsic,
Berlin and Paris. From this time on, Liszt became the good angel of
Wagner. There are few records in the annals of music more creditable
than the letters of Liszt to Wagner. He took charge of his business in
Germany, exercised his wholly unique and commanding influence to
secure performances of Wagner's operas, sent him money out of his own
purse, and secured some from his friends. More than this, he greeted
every new work of Wagner's with an appreciation as generous and noble
as it was intelligent and fine.
About 1852 Liszt commenced his symphonic poems. In these he avails
himself of two of Wagner's suggestions. Much is made of the leading
motive, and the orchestration is handled in a sonorous and brilliant
manner, which Berlioz and Wagner first introduced. The works are very
effective and original. Certain ones of them have become almost
classic, like "The Preludes" and "_Tasso_." He also wrote a number of
large choral works, among them his "Legend of the Holy Elizabeth," the
"Graner Mass," etc.
[Illustration: Fig. 83.
LISZT AS ABBÉ.
(Grove.)]
There is hardly a province of musical composition in which Liszt did
not distinguish himself. The orchestral compositions number about
twenty. There are several important arrangements, such as Schubert
marches, Schubert's songs, "Rakoczy March," and a variety of
arrangements for pianoforte and orchestra, including two concertos,
the Weber Polacca in E, and the Schubert fantasia. The pianoforte
compositions are extremely numerous. Of the original pieces there are
perhaps one hundred. Of important arrangements, such as the _études_
from Paganini, the organ preludes and fugues from Bach, Schubert
marches, etc., there are thirty or forty. Of the operatic fantasias
there are perhaps a hundred or more. There are fifteen Hungarian
Rhapsodies, and a large number of transcriptions of vocal pieces (of
songs alone there are upwards of a hundred). Of masses and psalms
about twenty. Two oratorios, several cantatas, about sixty original
songs for single voice and piano, and very many other writings of a
literary and musical kind. In 1865 Liszt left Weimar for several
years, and resided in Rome, where he began to take holy orders.
[Illustration: Fig. 84.
FRANZ LISZT.]
In the closing years of Wagner's life, after the Bayreuth festival
theater had been inaugurated, Liszt was a central figure, and there
are few large cities in Europe which he did not visit for the sake of
encouraging important productions of the Wagnerian works. Thus, taken
as a composer, a performer, a conductor, and an appreciative friend of
art, his name is one which deserves to be revered as long as the
history of music in the nineteenth century is remembered.
Fig. 84 represents him as he appeared in the last years of his life.
The portrait of Liszt as abbé is taken from Grove's Dictionary.
Neither of these last pictures gives an adequate idea of the sweetness
of his expression. While the profile in middle life was sharp and
clearly cut, as we see it in the abbé picture, and while in old age
the mouth assumed a stern and set expression in repose, his smile was
extremely winning, and the habitual expression of his face in
conversation one of amiability and kindness.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXXVI.
MENDELSSOHN AND SCHUMANN.
I.
One of the most fortunate personalities among modern composers was
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847), who was born in Berlin, the
grandson of Moses Mendelssohn, the famous Jewish philosopher. The
father of Felix was a banker, and his mother a woman of a very sweet
and amiable disposition. The children of Abraham Mendelssohn were
baptized in the Christian faith in order to escape in some degree the
prejudice against the Jewish race. Felix, having a strong inclination
to music, at an early age made great progress in it. His first concert
appearance was made at the age of ten, in which he played the piano
part in a trio by Woelfl, and was very much applauded. As early as his
twelfth year he began systematically to compose, and being naturally
of methodical habits, which were still further encouraged by his
father and mother, he kept an accurate record of his works, which at
the last filled forty-four folio volumes, the most of the pieces being
dated, and the place given where they were written. In the year 1820
he composed between fifty and sixty movements, of almost every sort,
songs, part songs, pieces for organ, piano, strings and orchestra, as
well as a cantata, and a little comedy for voices and a piano. In the
summer of 1820, the whole family made a tour of Switzerland, and a
very large number of pieces were composed at this time. In this same
year he made a more important concert appearance with Aloys Schmitt,
in which he played with Schmitt a duet for two pianos. This continued
exercise in composition was not entirely of an abstract nature, for
the Mendelssohn family were accustomed to have reunions on Sunday
evenings, when these pieces were played. For occasions like this he
wrote several small operas, and his talent was encouraged in every way
by his parents, and by his very judicious teacher, the celebrated
Zelter. When he was scarcely more than twelve years old, Zelter had
him play before Goethe, and a trio of the boy's was also played, after
which he was sent to play in the garden while his seniors discussed
his prospects. Thus the boy grew up under the most favorable
circumstances possible, his father being a wise and careful man, who,
although not a musician, thoroughly sympathized with the artistic aims
of his son; and his mother also encouraged him to more serious
efforts. Even at this early age he was a prolific composer of
orchestral music, the year 1824 being that of the composition of the
symphony in C minor, now known as No. 1, but in Mendelssohn's
catalogue marked the thirteenth of his compositions. In this year
Moscheles passed through Berlin on his way to London, and made the
acquaintance of Mendelssohn. At the Sunday morning music in the
Mendelssohn house, Moscheles recalls the performance of Felix's C
minor quartette, D major symphony, a concerto by Bach, played by
Fanny, and a duet for two pianos. In the same year Spohr came to
Berlin, and a little later Hiller, both of whom speak of
Mendelssohn's playing as something very remarkable. His celebrated
octette for strings, Opus 20, was composed in 1825. This was the first
of his works which has retained its popularity. The year following he
composed the overture to "The Midsummer Night's Dream," one of the
most remarkable pieces of the early romantic school. In this the
fairy-like music of Titania and her elves is charmingly contrasted
with the folk songs and the absurd bray of the transformed Bottom. He
had already written an opera "_Camacho_," which had been submitted to
Spontini, the musical director of Berlin, but it was never performed.
He entered at the University and attended the lectures of Hegel and
Carl Ritter, the geographer, but for mathematics he had no talent. Two
folio volumes of notes of the lectures of Hegel and Ritter are
preserved from the years 1827 and 1828. His overture to "The Calm Sea
and Prosperous Voyage" was written in 1828. In the year following he
started on a long journey of three years, carefully planned by his
father, in which all the countries of Europe were to have been visited
successively, and observations made on civilization and society. His
first appearance before an English audience was at a Philharmonic
concert, May 25, 1828, when he conducted his symphony in C minor and
improvised on the piano. He was received with the utmost applause.
Five days later he played the _Concertstück_ of Von Weber, and, which
was a great innovation at that time, with no music before him. His
letters from London are very charming indeed. At a concert later, his
overture to "The Midsummer Night's Dream" was performed with great
success; this was the beginning of his English popularity, lasting all
the rest of his life.
The first of his "Songs without Words" was published in 1830, having
been originally composed for his sister Fanny. In this simple act he
opened a new chapter of the literature for the piano. The form of the
song without words had already been given in Field's nocturnes, the
first of which were published in 1816; but Mendelssohn, by giving it
the title, "_Song_, without Words," put the hearer in a different
relation to the composition--that of seeking to find in the work a
poetic suggestion in addition to pleasing melody and finely modulated
harmony. This, also, is extremely characteristic of the romantic
epoch, in which music has its origin in poetry. He had already written
a number of those charming _capriccios_, in which the piano is treated
with light staccato changing chords, such as Von Weber had suggested
nearly twenty years earlier in his "_Moment Capriccio_," but which no
writer brought to such perfection as Mendelssohn. These two styles of
pianoforte writing--the fairy-like _scherzo_, and the "Song without
Words," are Mendelssohn's specialties, in which no other writer can be
compared with him. He also wrote a number of concertos for piano and
orchestra, and one for violin, in which these two elements are very
strong features. Without having the effective passage work of
Thalberg, Liszt or Chopin, or the bold originality of Schumann,
Mendelssohn was an extremely original and pleasing pianoforte writer.
During his life, especially in the later part of it, he was somewhat
over-estimated; but at the present time, through the emergence of
Schumann from the obscurity into which Mendelssohn's reputation cast
him, the works of Mendelssohn are often underestimated. He opened a
new chapter in tone-poetry, popularizing pianoforte sentiment.
The famous G minor concerto for the piano was first produced in Munich
in 1831. In the same year he went to Paris, where many of his works
were performed and others were composed. The next year he was in
London again, when the Hebrides overture was produced and the first
book of "Songs without Words" was published. He also played the organ
at several of the churches, and excited general admiration by his
vigorous style. He is said to have been the first to play a Bach pedal
fugue in England, certainly the first to play any of the important
ones. In 1833 he was settled at Düsseldorf, as musical director of the
church and two associations. There he immediately instituted a reform
in the music of the church, and in the character of the selections for
concert. In the church there were masses by Beethoven and Cherubini,
motettes by Palestrina, and cantatas by Bach. The next year his
oratorio of "St. Paul" was begun. In 1837 he was married to a very
charming lady--Miss Cecilia Jeanrenaud, daughter of a clergyman of the
Reformed Church at Frankfort. Very soon after the wedding he was in
London and Birmingham, where he conducted "St. Paul" and commenced to
prepare the libretto for his oratorio of "Elijah." Among the Bach
fugues which he played in London on the organ at this time were the D
major, the G minor, the E major, the C minor and the short E minor.
His pedal playing was very highly esteemed.
[Illustration: Fig. 85.
MORITZ HAUPTMANN.]
In 1835 he commenced to conduct the _Gewandhaus_ concerts at Leipsic,
and the celebrated conservatory there was founded in 1843. The first
professors were Hauptmann, David, Schumann, Pohlenz and C.F. Becker.
Ferdinand David (1810-1873) was the greatest master of the violin
during the third quarter of the century. Moritz Hauptmann
(1792-1868), originally a violinist, was one of the most original
theorists of this century. His greatest work, "Harmony and Meter," was
published in 1853. Soon afterward Moscheles became associated with
them. The city of Leipsic remained his home during the remainder of
his life. The founding of the conservatory may have been hastened by
certain plans which Mendelssohn had endeavored three years before to
get adopted in Berlin, where there was a project for founding a royal
music school upon a different basis from any at that time existing.
From some change in the ministry, or temporary political disturbance,
the plan fell through, but in Leipsic it was carried out. This famous
school from that time forward, for nearly fifty years, exercised an
influence greater than that of any other music school in the world.
Among its graduates are a very large number of the most successful
teachers and celebrated professional musicians. They had been drawn to
Leipsic by the reputation given the conservatory by the possession of
such masters as Mendelssohn, Schumann, Hauptmann, Moscheles, Plaidy,
Dr. Paul, Becker, Brendel, Reinecke and others. After Mendelssohn's
death, indeed, the tradition of his ideas hampered the efficiency of
the school to some extent, but very thorough work has always been done
there. During his four years' connection with the conservatory
Mendelssohn conducted the _Gewandhaus_ concerts and superintended the
entire educational operations of the school. In addition to this he
conducted a succession of important festivals in all parts of Europe,
producing new works of his own, and the greatest works of the masters
before him. He made a great reputation as concert pianist, playing his
own concertos and those of Beethoven, as well as the _Concertstück_ of
Von Weber. Everywhere he improvised upon the organ or the piano, and
through all the admiration which he received remained the same simple,
unaffected, sincere artist that he was when a boy. His home life was
very happy. In Ferdinand Hiller's reminiscences many charming pictures
of it are given.
The greatest of Mendelssohn's works was "Elijah," which was produced
at Birmingham, August 26, 1846. Staudigl, the famous baritone of
Vienna, was Elijah. The work went extremely well at the first
performance--better, Mendelssohn says, than any former work of his.
The continual anxiety of producing the new work, the travel and the
many responsibilities belonging to his position finally undermined
his health, and at length, November 4, 1847, he died at Leipsic. It is
doubtful whether any musician ever left a warmer or a more
distinguished circle of friends than Mendelssohn. In all parts of the
musical world his death was regarded as a calamity.
[Illustration: Fig. 86.
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.]
In "Elijah" and in the first part of "St. Paul" Mendelssohn made an
addition to the world's stock of oratorios scarcely second to any
other works, excepting Händel's "Messiah." "Elijah," in particular,
had the advantage of an extremely dramatic and picturesque story, and
a text well selected from the Scriptures. There are many moments in
this work of rare and exquisite beauty. The choruses when
contrapuntally developed, have themes somewhat too short, whereby the
effect of the words is lost in the intermingling of voices coming in
at later moments, but there are other parts of the work which are
extremely beautiful. There is a lovely chorus, "He Watching over
Israel," in which the gentle Mendelssohnian melody is accompanied by
soft triplets in the strings, whereby a most delightfully light and
_spirituelle_ effect is produced. Near the end of the work there is a
very graphic recitative to the words, "And One Cherub Cried to
Another"; then a soprano voice with grand phrase sings "Holy, Holy Is
God, the Lord," three other soprano voices joining in the last words.
These are very lightly accompanied. Immediately thereupon, the entire
chorus, orchestra and organ, with the utmost power, come in with the
same melody, "Holy, Holy Is God, the Lord." This antiphon between the
full chorus and the female quartette continues in varying style
throughout the chorus, and the result is thrilling in the extreme.
Extremely dramatic, also, is the great chorus "Thanks Be to God, for
He Laveth the Thirsty Land." There are many solo numbers in the work,
all of them remarkable for the care with which the text is treated,
and the clearness with which the musical utterance expresses the
words. The famous tenor song, "If with All Your Hearts Ye Truly Seek
Him," the alto song, "Oh Rest in the Lord," the angel trio, "Lift
Thine Eyes," the great soprano song, "Hear Ye Israel," and the bass
aria, "It Is Enough," and especially the prayer of Elijah, "Lord God
of Abraham, Isaac and Israel," are scarcely surpassed in the entire
range of oratorio music. There is very remarkable instrumentation,
also in the scenes on Mt. Carmel, and especially at the series of
choruses where "God, the Lord, Passed By."
During his life, Mendelssohn was very highly esteemed as a composer of
orchestral music, symphonies and overtures. While his works in this
department contain many beauties, and are carried out with elegant
clearness of form, and with that refinement and taste which
characterized everything which Mendelssohn did, they have not
maintained their reputation at the high level where it formerly stood.
It was Mendelssohn's fortune to be one of the masters instrumental in
introducing the romantic school; but upon principle and education he
was classical in his taste and instincts, and while his works had a
very important use in cultivating an appetite for novelty, whereby the
other masters of the romantic school profited later, he went so short
a distance in the new path that the march of events has since left him
somewhat behind.
II.
If it were asked to name the two masters most representative of the
nineteenth century, one could scarcely go amiss, the names of Robert
Schumann and Richard Wagner immediately occurring. Robert Schumann
(1810-1856), the son of a very intelligent book seller, was born at
Zwickau, in Saxony, and was intended for the law. He received lessons
in music at an early age, and his talent was unmistakable. When he was
about eleven he accompanied a performance of Frederick Schneider's
"_Weltgericht_." At home, with the aid of some musical companions he
got up performances of musical compositions, and had a small
orchestra. He entered at the Leipsic University as a student of law,
but devoted the most of his time to playing the piano, and to reading
Jean Paul, for whom he had a great fondness. He immediately attached
himself to the musical circles, entering himself as a pupil with
Wieck, the father of his future wife. A year later he transferred his
attendance to the University of Heidelberg, attracted thither by the
lectures of the famous teacher Thibaut, the same whose work upon the
"Purity of Musical Art," had only recently been published. Here, as in
Leipsic, his principal occupation was practicing upon the piano, which
he did to the extent of six or seven hours a day. Notwithstanding his
fondness for music, his mother was violently opposed to his entering
the musical profession, and as his father was now dead, her wishes
naturally had much weight. He had already commenced to write songs,
quite a number of which belong to the year 1830, when he was living in
Heidelberg.
He made a tour to the north of Italy, and heard the Italian musician
Paganini, which fired him with so much ardor, that he immediately set
himself to transcribe his Caprices for the piano, and to accomplish
upon this instrument similar effects to those which Paganini produced
upon the violin. At length, after much difficulty with his guardian
and his mother, it was agreed that he might fit himself for a
musician, so in 1830 he was back again in Leipsic studying diligently
with Master Wieck. In his ardor for great results in a short time, he
undertook some kind of mechanical discipline for the fourth finger of
his right hand, the effect of which was that the tendons became
overstrained, the finger crippled, and for a long time he was utterly
unable to use it in piano playing. In composition he now entered upon
regular instruction with Heinrich Dorn, at that time conductor of the
opera in Leipsic. Dorn recognized the greatness of Schumann's genius,
and devoted himself with much interest to his improvement. In 1832 a
symphony of his was produced in Zwickau, but apparently with little
success, for the work was never heard of afterward. At this same
concert Wieck's daughter, Clara, who was then thirteen years of age,
appeared as a pianist, and Zwickau, Schumann says, "was fired with
enthusiasm for the first time in its life." Already he was very much
interested in the promising girl, and expresses himself concerning her
with much ardor. He seems to have been singularly slow in composition.
At this time, 1833, he had written the first and third movements of
the G minor sonata, had commenced the F minor sonata and completed the
"Toccata," which had been begun four years before. He also arranged
the second set of Paganini's caprices, Opus 10. He found a faithful
friend in Frau Voigt, a pianist of sense and ability. Schumann usually
passed his evenings in a restaurant in company with his friends, after
the German fashion, but while the others talked he usually remained
silent. Frau Voigt told W. Taubert that one lovely summer evening
after making music with Schumann, they both felt inclined to go upon
the water. They sat side by side in the boat for an hour in silence.
At parting Schumann pressed her hand and said, "Good day, we have
perfectly understood one another."
The immediate result of the musical associations of Schumann, in
Leipsic, was the project for a musical journal, devoted to progress
and sincerity. In opera Rossini was then the ruling force. At the
piano Herz and Hünten; and musical journalism was represented by
_Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung_, published by Breitkopf & Härtel,
which praised almost everything, upon general principles. In 1834,
the first number of the _Neue Zeitschrift für Musik_ saw the light.
The editors were Robert Schumann, Friedrich Wieck, Ludwig Schunke and
Julius Knorr. Schumann was the ruling power, and he proceeded to
develop his literary faculty in a variety of forms. He writes under
many pseudonyms, and has much to say about the "David league against
the Philistines," a society existing in his imagination only. One of
the famous early articles in this paper was that upon Chopin's
variation "_La ci Darem_," greeting the work of the talented young
Pole as a production of rare genius. Schumann himself thought so well
of this article that he placed it at the beginning of his collected
writings. It will be impossible within available limits to define the
influence of this journal. During the ten years when Schumann was
editor, many of the most important productions of the modern school
first saw the light, and all come in for discussion, from a point of
view at the same time sympathetic and intelligent.
As an example of the musical life at Leipsic in this time, Moscheles
mentions an evening in 1835, when Mendelssohn conducted his first
concert in the _Gewandhaus_; the day before this there had been a
musical gathering at Wieck's, at which both Mendelssohn and Schumann
were present, perhaps the first time that these two great geniuses
were brought together. The next day Mendelssohn, Schumann, Moscheles
and Banck dined together, and the next day there was music at Wieck's
house--Moscheles, Clara Wieck and L. Rakemann from Bremen, playing
Bach's D minor concerto for three pianos, Mendelssohn putting in the
orchestral accompaniments on the fourth piano. With Mendelssohn he
contracted quite an intimacy. In 1836 he found himself very much
devoted to Clara Wieck, and in order to secure a more favorable
opening for his career, resolved to transfer himself and the paper to
Vienna, but after a year he returned again to Leipsic, and then the
course of true love became more difficult, for Papa Wieck was
resolutely opposed to the match; but after some months his consent was
given, and they were married in 1840. During this year he had an
extraordinary activity as a song writer. The "Woman's Love and Life,"
the "Poet's Love," and various other cycles of song, were all produced
under the stress of his happy prospects with Clara. It is not easy to
ascertain the order of his compositions, since, as we have already
seen, the sonatas and some of the other works appearing late in the
list of opus numbers were composed very early.
The romantic tendency is the most marked of all of Schumann's
characteristics as a composer. He is above all others the composer of
moods. His long pieces are invariably aggregates of shorter ones. The
typical forms of Schumann's thought are two, and two only, the Song
and the Fantasia. He made diligent efforts to master counterpoint and
fugue, and manly attempts in these provinces can be found among his
writings; but counterpoint and fugue remained to him a foreign
language. The smoothness of Mendelssohn, the readiness of Bach, of
Beethoven, or even Mozart, are impossible to him. On the other hand,
when he follows his own inclination, he creates forms that are clear,
concise and original. One scarcely knows which to admire more--the
graphic correspondence of the music with the suggestive title placed
at the head, or the original style of the music itself, which is
entirely unlike anything by any former composer. His Opus 2 is a set
called _Papillons_, "Butterflies," or "Scenes at a Ball," consisting
of twelve short movements in different style, without explanatory
titles. Some are fantastic, others are sentimental, all original and
striking. The eleventh number of this is a short but magnificent
polonaise in D major, an extremely spirited and beautiful movement
which has since been very popular. The transcriptions of the Paganini
caprices were undertaken as studies for the composer himself in the
direction of unexplored pianoforte effects, but Schumann had also the
intention of providing in music new discipline for piano students. In
my opinion the technical value of these works has not yet been
realized, and it is quite possible that a later generation may esteem
them more highly than the present. However this may be, the practice
of writing gave Schumann a greater freedom, the effect of which is
seen upon the next set of pieces, the six _Intermezzi_. These,
however, are vague and mystical, rather than clear. With the "David's
League Dances" the Schumann nature appears more plainly. The style is
freer, and these new combinations are very charming, although they
must undoubtedly have been fatal stumbling blocks to the fingers of a
pianist trained in Dussek and Hünten. "The Carnival," a series of
fanciful scenes, belongs to an earlier period, having been composed in
1834 and 1835. The different numbers, of which there are twenty-one,
are provided with explanatory titles, such as "Pierrot," "Harlequin,"
"Valse Noble," "Eusebius," "Chopin," etc. Of all the earlier works the
Fantasy-Pieces, Opus 12, are the most successful. These eight
pictures, "In the Evening," "Soaring," "Why," "Whims," "In the Night,"
"Fable," "Dreams," and "The End of the Song," or peroration, are
extremely characteristic and beautiful, and it is not easy to assign
the pre-eminence of one number over the others. Of the same general
class, only upon a smaller scale, are the "Scenes from Childhood,"
Opus 15, of which there are thirteen little pieces, each with an
explanatory title, such as "Playing Tag," "Happy Enough," "Dreams"
(_Traumerei_). In this direction Schumann often composed at a later
period of his life. There is the "Album for the Young," Opus 68,
containing forty-three short pieces, all with titles; the twenty
"Album Leaves," Opus 124, and the "Forest Scenes," with titles like
"The Entrance," "The Hunter on the Lookout," "Solitary Flowers,"
"Prophetic Bird," "Hunting Song," etc.
Schumann's greatness as a composer for the pianoforte, both from a
technical and poetic standpoint, is shown in such works as the
"_Études Symphoniques_," the "_Kreisleriana_," and the concerto in A
minor. The first of these works is regarded by many as the most
satisfactory of any of this author's works. It consists of an air,
nine variations and a finale which is in rondo form. The variations,
however, are fantasies rather than variations, the theme itself
appearing very little in any of them, and in some of them not at all.
It would be impossible to find within the same compass a similar
number of pages covering so wide a range of beautiful pianoforte
effects, and highly suggestive and poetic music. In the fantasia in C,
Schumann's fancy takes on a more serious mood. He treats the piano
with great freedom, requiring of the player a powerful touch and much
refinement of tone-color, as well as a style of technique which he
himself has largely created. The second movement of this, the march
tempo, represents Schumann's imagination in a forcible light in two
directions--its bold, strong moods, and its deeply subjective,
meditative activity. The "_Kreisleriana_" consists of eight fantasies
named after an old schoolmaster near Leipsic, noted for his
eccentricities. This work was coldly received when first produced, but
later has become very popular. The best movements are the first and
second, but the entire work is strong. The concerto in A minor is by
no means a show piece for the piano, but an extremely vigorous and
poetic improvisation, in which the solo and orchestral instruments
answer each other, and work together in a furor of inspiration.
The entire art of modern piano playing is indebted to Schumann for
some of its most impressive elements. He was fond of playing with the
dampers raised, and might well contest the honor with Liszt of having
originated the modern style of pedal legato as distinguished from the
finger legato of Chopin and all the early writers. He seems to have
discovered the touch which Mason called elastic; that made by shutting
the hand and at the same allowing the wrist to remain flexible. In
quite a number of his pieces this effect is very marked, as the first
number of "_Kreisleriana_," the first of the "Night Pieces," and
especially the fourth of these, where the chords are purposely spread
beyond the octave, in order to necessitate their being struck with the
finger and arm touch combined, in the same manner as that illustrated
on a larger scale in the eleventh study of Chopin's, Opus 10. Indeed,
if one were to attempt to characterize the Schumann technique by some
one of its more prominent features, the free use of the arm would be,
perhaps, the one best representing the depth and sonority of tone
required for these effects. But while Schumann demands broad, deep,
elastic tone color for the stronger moments in his work, there is no
other writer so desirous as he of the soft, full, mysterious tone
representing what he was fond of calling _Innigkeit_ ("inwardness").
There are many minor mannerisms which have been diligently cultivated
by later composers, the most prominent among them being perhaps what
might be called the accompaniment upon the off beat. In many of his
works Schumann occupies the middle ground of the piano with soft
chords which are felt rather than heard, and which always come in upon
the half beat or the quarter beat, and rarely or never upon the full
accented part of a measure. The differentiation of the melody from its
harmonic and rhythmic background is accomplished by this great master
in a beautiful manner. Take for instance, the romanze in F sharp, Opus
28, No. 2. The melody of the first strophe of this exquisite music
might have been written for Church. It is a duet for baritones, the
voices being represented by the thumbs of the player. Against this
melody in quarter notes and eighths, there is an accompaniment in
sixteenths, covering two octaves and a third, the entire effect being
soft and distant. In the second strophe the soprano voice takes the
melody, which is supported by rare harmonies and a lovely figuration
in the alto. The third strophe brings back again the principal
subject, and a splendid climax is made, after which an elaborate coda
concludes the work. It is impossible to play this lovely piece with
good effect without the Schumann technique. Played with the Mozart
technique it would be simply insipid, and with a Beethoven technique
it would still be dry and harsh. It is only by the combination of the
arm touch for the melody, the very obscure, unobtrusive finger touch
for the accompaniment, and the constant use of the pedal for
promoting blending of tones, that the vague and poetic atmosphere of
this piece can be realized.
Schumann might also be credited with the invention of a new style of
composition, or of music thinking. The element of canonic imitation
occurs in his works in wholly new form. A single phrase or motive is
repeated through nearly an entire movement, in a thousand different
forms and transformations, so that the whole movement is made up from
this single germ; and yet with such mastery of rhythm and of harmony
as to conduct the thought to a powerful climax, without any impression
of monotony interfering with it. One can hardly go amiss in the large
works of Schumann for illustrations of this style of composition.
Take, for example, the Novelette in B minor, Opus 99; the Novelette in
E major, Opus 21, No. 7; the first of the "_Kreisleriana_," and many
other parts of the same work. This style I have elsewhere called the
"Thematic," as distinguished from the "Lyric," in which a flowing
melody is a distinctive trait. Beethoven, in a number of cases,
employs a style of thought development somewhat similar, but the
results accomplished are tamer than with Schumann. One of the most
striking examples is found in the finale of the sonata in D minor,
Opus 31, No. 2, and in the first movement of the sonata in C minor,
Opus 111. In this point of view Schumann appears as the predecessor of
Wagner, who almost certainly took his departure for thematic work from
Schumann.
If it were not for these numerous, highly poetic and masterly
compositions for pianoforte solo, and for the chamber pieces, the
symphonies and other large works, Schumann would have been entitled to
a very eminent place among composers by his songs alone. These are as
different as possible from those of previous writers, excepting
Schubert, and the voice itself is not always well considered in them;
but there are no other works in this department in which the poetic
sentiment is so thoroughly reproduced in the music as Schumann has
done it in his "Woman's Love and Life," and in "Poet's Love," and in
many single songs of other sets, "The Spring Night" being a very
marked example. If the future should chance to produce a race of
poetic and intelligent singers, these songs will be found among the
most effective which the whole literature of music can show. Some of
them are already well and favorably known in all parts of the world.
The excellencies of Schumann as a song writer are only in part
reproduced in his larger works in the form of cantatas, and in the
opera of "_Genoveva_." He was without the technique of chorus
construction, and writes injudiciously for voices in mass. His
instrumentation, although graphically conceived, is not cleverly
worked out, in consequence of which we find in such works as the
"Pilgrimage of the Rose," "Paradise and the Peri," the "Faust" music,
and the opera of "_Genoveva_," some extremely brilliant suggestions
and contrasts, and occasionally fine moments, intermingled with many
others which fail for want of technical skill in the use of the
performing material.
The same restriction may be applied to the orchestral and chamber
works, in spite of the inherent force and beauty of the ideas they
contain. In the symphony, for example, he writes badly for the
violins, the very soul of the orchestra. The phrases are short,
staccato notes abound, and scarcely in an entire score have the
violinists the long sustained phrases, where the singing power of
this beautiful instrument appears. The best of the chamber pieces are
those in which the piano is the principal instrument, especially the
great quintette. This is a master work of a very high order, and while
the strings do not have the consideration that belongs to them, the
pianoforte is treated with so much freedom and power as in a great
measure to compensate for this lack.
Of the Schumann works as a whole the most striking characteristic is
the spontaneous, improvistic effect. Every Schumann piece--that is to
say, every _successful_ Schumann piece--has the character of an
improvisation, in which the power and fancy of the composer are as
marked as his deep tenderness and sentiment, fine instinct for poetic
effect and a delicate ear for tone-color. For this reason the popular
appreciation of the Schumann works upon a large scale is only a
question of an educated generation. There are many indications of
progress in this direction on the part of musical amateurs the world
over. In Schumann's lifetime, and immediately after his death, the
neglect of his compositions was extreme. Dr. Wm. Mason narrates that
when he visited Leipsic in 1850, one of the first symphonies he heard
was Schumann's in B flat, the first composition of this writer he had
ever heard. The beauty and force of the work took complete possession
of him. A new world of tone was opened to him. He dreamed of the
Schumann symphony all night, and at early morning went down to
Breitkopf & Härtel's to inquire whether this man Schumann had written
anything for the piano. The salesman laid before him a few dusty
compositions off the shelves. The young American asked, "Is that all?"
More were produced. "Is that all?" he asked again, whereupon the
salesman, discovering that he had a Schumann enthusiast to deal with,
took advantage of the moment and in the cellar showed him whole
editions of Schumann pianoforte pieces tied up in bundles, exactly as
they had come from the printers. Liszt in some of his earlier concerts
attempted to patronize the Schumann compositions. Their style,
however, was so different from the sensationalism of his own pieces or
the sentiment of Chopin, that the public failed to appreciate them,
and the pianist dropped them. Nevertheless, there were reasons why
Liszt ought to have played these works. The Schumann technique is not
sensational, like that of Liszt, but it has with it one element in
common, already referred to--the pedal legato--and no pianist of that
time was so well prepared to recognize and interpret this element as
Liszt if he had realized his opportunity.
[Illustration: Fig. 87.
ROBERT SCHUMANN.]
In person Schumann was of medium height, inclining to corpulency, with
a very soft and gentle walk and a most invincible habit of silence.
Old residents of Leipsic remember his visits to the rehearsals at the
_Gewandhaus_, where for a whole evening he would sit with his
handkerchief held over his mouth, never speaking a word to any one
from the beginning to the end, and going away as silently as he came.
Nevertheless, it was universally recognized that upon these occasions
Schumann heartily enjoyed himself, and to use his own words again, he
and the music "perfectly understood one another." His mind was
intensely active and fanciful. This is seen in all his pieces. The
rapidity of the musical thought, the strong contrasts of mood, the
proximity of remote chords and modulations, are all indications of
this mental trait. It was this, also, which finally destroyed him. His
mind became unbalanced, and after intermittent attacks of melancholy
his life ended with two years' almost entire oblivion of reason. In
spite of his comparative unpopularity in his own day, no one of the
romantic masters has left so strong an impression upon the composers
who came after him. In my opinion, the four great names which have
been most operative in establishing forms of musical thought and in
creating wholly original and highly poetic and masterly tone-poems by
means of those forms, are Bach, Beethoven, Schumann and Wagner, and
each one of the earlier masters has in his work the prophecy of most
of the qualities of those who come after, while each of the later
reflects the characteristic traits of his predecessors.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
ITALIAN OPERA DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The strongest personality of the Italian composers (though by no means
the loveliest), at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was that
of Gasparo Spontini (1774-1851). He was born of peasant stock in the
Roman states and educated at Naples, where his boyish successes were
made. In 1803 he went to Paris, where he composed several operas with
very poor success. Nevertheless, having full confidence in his own
powers, he was not discouraged, and in 1804 his one-act opera of
"Milton" was performed successfully at the _Théatre Feydeau_. He had
already begun his "_La Vestale_," which was brought out in 1807, and
immediately achieved a remarkable success. Spontini was appointed
"_Compositeur Particulaire_" to the Empress Josephine, in spite of
which an oratorio of his was hissed from the stage in Holy Week of the
same year that his "_Vestale_" had been so favorably received. The
popularity of "The Vestal" continued to grow, so that it had been
performed more than 200 times in Paris before 1824. In Italy and
Germany, where its career began, in 1811, its popularity was similar.
His next opera was "_Fernand Cortez_," (1809), afterward materially
improved. These two works mark the highest point reached by Spontini.
They are brilliant, martial, vigorous and spectacular, and the
legitimate predecessors of the Meyerbeer grand operas. Spontini's
smaller works failed, and in 1819 negotiations were concluded with
King William III, who had been impressed with "_La Vestale_" when he
had visited Paris, whereby for twenty years Spontini was made
"director general" of the opera in Berlin. In this position he
produced a number of other works, the best being "_Nurmahal_" (1822),
"_Alcidor_" (1825) and "_Agnes von Hohenstaufen_" (1829). Spontini was
a vigorous director, but unprincipled, vain and narrow. Nevertheless,
at his concerts he produced the fifth and seventh symphonies of
Beethoven for the first time in Berlin, as well as parts of the great
Bach mass in B minor, and much other great music. Opposition to his
tyranny culminated in 1842 by his dismission from the directorship,
Meyerbeer being his successor. His popularity paled from the
production of Weber's "_Der Freischütz_" in 1821. Spontini died in his
native town of Majolitat.
[Illustration: Fig. 88.
ROSSINI.]
The Italian composer most famous in the earlier part of the century
was Gioacchino Antonio Rossini (1792-1868), a native of Pesaro, a
small town on the Adriatic. After a short course at the Conservatory
of Verona, the boy commenced to compose, and no less than thirteen
short pieces preceded his first really popular opera, "_Tancredi_,"
which was produced at _La Fenice_, in Venice, in 1813. The success of
this work led to many others, among which the best known are "The
Italian in Algiers," "The Turk in Italy," and (in 1816) no less than
five operas in one year--"_Torvaldo e Dorliska_," "The Barber of
Seville," "_La Gazetta_" and "_Otello_," his first serious opera. He
composed with the utmost facility. "The Barber," one of the most
successful operas ever performed, and the one of Rossini's works which
bids fair to outlast the rest, was composed and mounted within a
month. For this work he received eighty pounds sterling. It was not at
first successful. In 1823 he brought out "_Semiramide_," which was
only moderately successful at first. The next turn in Rossini's
fortune found him in London, where he had accepted an engagement with
the manager of King's Theater, and here he produced a number of his
former works with moderate success. Rossini himself appeared upon the
stage and sang the solos in a cantata which he had composed in honor
of the King, George IV. He turned many honest pennies during his
London engagement by acting as accompanist at private _soirées_ for a
fee of £50. At the end of five months he found himself in possession
of £7,000, with which he made a graceful retreat to Paris, where he
accepted the musical direction of the _Théatre Italienne_, at the
salary of £800 per year. This was in 1826. After the expiration of his
engagement at this theater several of his works were produced at the
Grand Opera, among which were the "Siege of Corinth" and "_Moise_"
(March 27, 1827). This work, which is given in England as an oratorio,
was a revised edition of his opera of "Mose," which he had written for
Naples five years before. The most taking number in it is the famous
prayer, which has been played and sung in every form possible for a
popular melody. The operatic career of Rossini ended in 1829 with the
production of his opera of "William Tell," at the Paris _Académie_,
with a brilliant cast. In this work he forswears florid writing, and
makes a serious effort at dramatic characterization. The opera is
extremely melodious, and a very great advance over any of his former
productions. Having now accumulated a fortune, he retired from the
stage and lived the remainder of his life near Paris in elegant
leisure, composing a solemn mass and a few other sacred works, but no
other operas.
In reviewing the career of this singularly gifted Italian melodist, it
is impossible to resist the conclusion that his talents were worthy of
a nobler development. Among his sacred works the "_Stabat Mater_" is
the most popular. It contains some very beautiful chromatic writing,
and is really an art work of distinguished merit. His latest work was
the "_Messe Solennelle_" (1864). Rossini was fond of good living, very
witty in conversation, and his house was frequented by the most
brilliant wits and the best artists of the thirty years between
"William Tell" and his death.