The Walzer, op. 39, were not written first for two hands, but for four.
The composer arranged them afterward for solo-purposes. They are divine
specimens of the dance, and I prefer them even to Rubinstein, and that
is saying much, for the Russian has left many admirable examples.
Any comparison with the Chopin valse is of course out of the question.
Chopin wrote, as Liszt truthfully said, for countesses, and in his
aristocratic measures we feel the swirl of silken skirts, divine the
perfume of the fashionable salon and hear the soft pulsations of
delicate, half uttered confidences. The room rustles with the patter of
beauty’s feet, but after all it is a drawing room; not a breath of the
open is there.
There are some of the Chopin valses that are not only mediocre, but
positively bad. Take the first, the one in E flat, is it not actually
vulgar? And the one in A flat that follows is not much better. The A
minor valse is elegiac, even unto the Mendelssohnian point. It is
when the A flat valse, op. 42, is reached that we get a taste of the
true Chopin. This with the one in C sharp minor, the posthumous valse
in E minor and the delightfully developed dance in A flat are Chopin
at his dancing best. The D flat valse is something to be avoided,
simply because of the woful way it has been misrepresented by pianists.
I don’t allude to double-noting the unfortunate piece, but to the
erroneous fashion of playing the first section too fast and the second
too slow. Georges Mathias, of Paris, a genuine Chopin pupil, said that
the master took the tempo rather moderately, making an accelerando
on the up run, ending with a little click on B flat. The rubato, so
M. Mathias declared, was indescribably beautiful; therefore, unless
the Chopin tradition is carried out, let the Valse de Chien rest its
tiresome little bark in peace. With the E flat nocturne, it has become
a nuisance.
The musical content of the Chopin valse is a certain suavity,
distinctive grace, charming rhythm and aristocratic melody, and
it is safe to say that few of these qualities can be found in the
Brahms Walzer. But as is the case with Schubert, Brahms dances more
poetically, and always in the open air. Sometimes the round verge of
the sun blazes overhead in the blue, and you hear the muscular jolt
of large limbed men and women taking their pleasure heartily, then the
aromatic night of the forest encompasses you, and the sound of dancing
is heard, but afar. Poetry is in the air and passion too, and exquisite
is the sound and exquisite the suggestion.
Take the first dance of the op. 39. It is in the key of B, and
harmonized in the lustiest, freest fashion imaginable. It opens boldly,
joyously, with the decisiveness we know so well in the preambule to
Schumann’s Carneval. It is but a page long, and a small page at that,
but there is no mistaking its worth.
The second valse in E has an entrancing lilt, marked dolce; it is well
named. The mood is nocturnal, the color subdued, but none the less full
of glancing richness. Then follow two tiny gems, as precious almost as
some of Chopin’s preludes. The one is in the warm and neglected key of
G sharp minor, the other in E minor. The first has the pulse beat of
Chopin, the second is Hungarian and lovely, and the brace of harmonic
progressions at the close is worth living for.
If there could be such a thing as a sacred valse, then No. 5 of the
series is sacred. In the key of E, you can sense the valse, but the
theme is serious to gravity, just as a Chopin scherzo is a tragic poem.
One feels like echoing Robert Schumann’s “How is gravity to clothe
itself if jest goes about in dark veils?”
C sharp major is the key of No. 6, and has a touch of the fantastic
element that we find in the variations. No. 7 in C sharp minor-major
is full of harmonic variety. My two favorites of the set are the
valses in B flat and D minor. Both are poems. The one in B flat is a
proof positive of Brahms’ “geniality.” In a small piano piece by the
Russian Liadow, the same melodic and rhythmic idea is utilized; even
the pretty modulation from B flat to D flat is not overlooked. Then on
the page opposite in the valse in D minor, Brahms pilfers boldly from
Schumann. In the Pièces Caractéristiques (Die Davidsbündler) No. 18, in
C, certainly prompted Brahms, but with what ease and variety has he not
handled the other man’s theme! It is like a sigh, an unshed tear, and
is more Brahms than it is Schumann.
By a clever suspension we are at once led to dance No. 10 in G. The
next valse in B minor might have been written by Schubert. It is a
charming pendant to the Momen Musicale, or is it an impromptu in F
minor?
There are sixteen in all and I have briefly indicated the principal
ones, although there is yet another in the key of G sharp minor and a
delightful one in A flat, No. 15. This has the true tang of Brahms, the
amiability, the large, sweet nature, the touch of life that we call
universal when we find it in Shakespeare. Brahms is far from being a
poet of the universal, for he is too German, lacks marked profile and
is more the philosopher than the bard. Yet has he something of fulness
of life; the strenuous ideality that is always found in world-poets.
Remember, too, that I am considering the man from the points of view
of his piano works. Consider the great German Requiem, the C minor
symphony, the D minor piano concerto, before you class this composer
as a specialist working within well defined limitations. I dislike
playing the part of an advocate when all should be so clear in the
Brahms question, but I do so because of his supreme indifference to
what anyone thought of his theory and practice, and also because of
the cloud thrown over him by his warmest enemies and most misguided
admirers. That he lives, that he gains continually in strength, and
this, too, in spite of the Brahmsianer, is a satisfactory guarantee of
his genius.
Let me quote for you what Louis Ehlert--by no means a
Brahmsianer--wrote of the Walzer: “Having in time assumed an
ordinary and most material character, dance music has been led back
to the domain of high art by Schubert and Chopin. Dancing may be
accomplished in many ways: passionately, indifferently, distractedly
or symbolically. The symbolic dancer will introduce in his motions
the poetic idea underlying the dance; that is, the fleeting, half
confidential, and yet not binding, contact of one person with another
of the opposite sex, a sort of rhythmic dialogue without words. And
Brahms possessed the gift of substantiating his mastery in this field
by the charm of half revealed sentiment, by the modest denial of the
scarcely uttered confession and by his power of rendering the wildest
yearnings speechless with confusion.
“At times, it is true, he handles his subject in a more decided manner,
but the most beautiful among his waltzes are those whose cheeks are
tinged with blushes. Brahms carried the freshness of youth into his
later years, and blushes are peculiarly becoming to him. His sweetest
melodies are merely tinted with a rosy hue; they do not possess the
deep, summery complexion of Schubert’s. The small opus has become the
ancestor of a small literature, and many of our contemporary musicians
have walked in the way of the Brahms waltzes.”
Elsewhere he says of the Love Song Waltzes for mixed quartet, with
four-handed piano accompaniment: “Schumann and Chopin have themselves
scarcely succeeded in arriving at a more intellectual and poetic form
of the dance.” And remember Ehlert wrote of Brahms: “His fancy is
lacking in melodic tide,” and also, “Brahms’ music has no profile; ...
by this remark I do not mean absolute censure, for, like Handel, one
can have too much profile, too much nose and chin, and too little of
the full glance of the eye.”
I transcribe all this to show you the impression made upon his doubting
contemporaries by this richly gifted composer.