THE CLASSIC CHOPIN
That Chopin is a classic need not be unduly insisted upon; he is
classic in the sense of representing the best in musical literature;
but that he is of a classical complexion as a composer from the
beginning of his career may seem in the nature of a paradox.
Nevertheless, it is a thesis that can be successfully maintained
now, since old party lines have been effaced. To battle seriously
for such words as Classic or Romantic or Realism is no longer
possible. Cultured Europe did so for a century, as it once
wrangled over doctrinal points; as if the salvation of mankind
depended upon the respective verbal merits of transubstantiation
or consubstantiation. Only yesterday that ugly word "degeneracy,"
thanks to quack critics and charlatan "psychiatrists," figured as
a means of estimating genius. This method has quite vanished
among reputable thinkers, though it has left behind it another
misunderstood vocable--decadence. Wagner is called decadent. So is
Chopin. While Richard Strauss is held up as the prime exponent of
musical decadence. What precisely is decadent? Says Havelock Ellis:
"Technically, a decadent style is only such in relation to a
classic style. It is simply a further development of a classic
style, a further specialisation, the homogeneous, in Spencerian
phraseology, having become heterogeneous. The first is beautiful
because the parts are subordinated to the whole; the second is
beautiful because the whole is subordinated to the parts.... Swift's
prose is classic, Pater's decadent.... Roman architecture is
classic, to become in its Byzantine developments completely
decadent, and Saint Mark's is the perfected type of decadence in
art; pure early Gothic, again, is strictly classic in the highest
degree because it shows an absolute subordination of detail to the
bold harmonies of structure, while the later Gothic ... is
decadent.... All art is the rising and falling of the slopes of a
rhythmic curve between these two classic and decadent extremes."
I make this quotation for it clearly sets forth a profound but not
widely appreciated fact. In art, as in life, there is no absolute.
Perhaps the most illuminating statement concerning the romantic
style was uttered by Theophile Gautier. Of it he wrote (in his essay
on Baudelaire): "Unlike the classic style it admits shadow." We need
not bother ourselves about the spirit of romanticism; that has been
done to the death by hundreds of critics. And it is a sign of the
times that the old-fashioned Chopin is fading, while we are now
vitally interested in him as a formalist. Indeed, Chopin the
romantic, poetic, patriotic, sultry, sensuous, morbid, and Chopin
the pianist, need not enter into our present scheme. He has appeared
to popular fancy as everything from Thaddeus of Warsaw to an exotic
drawing-room hero; from the sentimental consumptive consoled by
countesses to the accredited slave of George Sand. All this is truly
the romantic Chopin. It is the obverse of the medal that piques
curiosity. Why the classic quality of his compositions, their
clarity, concision, purity, structural balance, were largely missed
by so many of his contemporaries is a mystery. Because of his
obviously romantic melodies he was definitely ranged with the most
extravagant of the romantics, with Berlioz, Schumann, Liszt; but, as
a matter of fact, he is formally closer to Mendelssohn. His original
manner of distributing his thematic material deceived the critics.
He refused to join the revolutionists; later in the case of Flaubert
we come upon an analogous condition. Hailed as chief of the
realists, the author of Madame Bovary took an ironic delight in
publishing Salammbo, which was romantic enough to please that prince
of romanticists, Victor Hugo. Chopin has been reproached for his
tepid attitude toward romanticism, and also because of his rather
caustic criticisms of certain leaders. He, a musical aristocrat _pur
sang_, held aloof, though he permitted himself to make some sharp
commentaries on Schubert, Schumann, and Berlioz. Decidedly not a
romantic despite his romantic externalism. Decidedly a classic
despite his romantic "content." Of him Stendhal might have written:
a classic is a dead romantic. (Heine left no epic, yet he is an
indubitable classic.) Wise Goethe said: "The point is for a work to
be thoroughly good and then it is sure to be classical."
But it is not because of the classicism achieved by the pathos of
distance that Chopin's special case makes an appeal. It is Chopin as
a consummate master of music that interests us. In his admirable
Chopin the Composer, Edgar Stillman Kelley considers Chopin and puts
out of court the familiar "gifted amateur," "improvisatore of
genius," and the rest of the theatrical stock description by proving
beyond peradventure of a doubt that Frederic Francois Chopin was not
only a creator of new harmonies, inventor of novel figuration, but
also a musician skilled in the handling of formal problems, one
grounded in the schools of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven; furthermore,
that if he did not employ the sonata form in its severest sense, he
literally built on it as a foundation. He managed the rondo with
ease and grace, and if he did not write fugues it was because the
fugue form did not attract him. Perhaps the divination of his own
limitations is a further manifestation of his extraordinary genius.
This does not imply that Chopin had any particular genius in
counterpoint, but to deny his mastery of polyphony is a grave
error. And it is still denied with the very evidence staring his
critics in the face. Beethoven in his sonatas demonstrated his
individuality, though coming after Mozart's perfect specimens in
that form. Chopin did not try to bend the bow of Ulysses, though
more than a word might be said of his two last Sonatas--the first is
boyishly pedantic, and monotonous in key-contrast, while the 'cello
and piano sonata hardly can be ranked as an exemplar of classic
form.
Of the Etudes Kelley says:
"In this group of masterpieces we find the more desirable features
of the classical school--diatonic melodies, well-balanced phrase and
period-building--together with the richness afforded by chromatic
harmonies and modulatory devices heretofore unknown."
Indeed, a new system of music that changed the entire current of the
art. It was not without cause that I once called Chopin the "open
door"; through his door the East entered and whether for good or for
ill certainly revolutionised Western music. Mr. Hadow is right in
declaring that "Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, are not as far from
each other as the music of 1880 from that of 1914." And Chopin was
the most potent influence, in company with Beethoven and Wagner, in
bringing about that change. I say in company with Beethoven and
Wagner, for I heartily agree with Frederick Niecks in his recent
judgment:
"I consider Chopin to be one of the three most powerful factors in
the development of nineteenth-century music, the other two being, of
course, Beethoven and Wagner. The absolute originality of Chopin's
personality, and that of its expression through novel harmony,
chromaticism, figuration justifies the assertion. And none will deny
the fact who takes the trouble to trace the Polish master's
influence on his contemporaries and successors. The greatest and
most powerful composers came under this influence, to a large
extent, by the process of infiltration."
Kelley gives us chapter and verse in the particular case of Wagner
and his absorption of the harmonic schemes of Chopin, as did the
late Anton Seidl many times for my particular benefit.
However, this only brings us to Chopin the innovator, whereas it is
the aspect of the classic Chopin which has been neglected. "As far
back as 1840 Chopin was employing half-tones with a freedom that
brought upon him the wrath of conservative critics," writes Hadow,
who admires the Pole with reservations, not placing him in such
august company as has Kelley and Niecks. True, Chopin was a pioneer
in several departments of his art, yet how few recognised or
recognise to-day that Schumann is the more romantic composer of the
pair; his music is a very jungle of romantic formlessness; his
Carneval the epitome of romantic musical portraiture--with its
"Chopin" more Chopin than the original. Contrast the noble Fantasy
in C, Opus 17 of Schumann, with the equally noble Fantasy in F
minor, Opus 49 of Chopin, and ask which is the more romantic in
spirit, structure, and technique. Unquestionably to Schumann would
be awarded the quality of romanticism. He is more fantastic, though
his fantasy is less decorative; he strays into the most delightful
and umbrageous paths and never falters in the preservation of
romantic atmosphere. Now look on the other picture. There is Chopin,
who, no matter his potentialities, never experimented in the larger
symphonic mould, and as fully imbued with the poetic spirit as
Schumann; nevertheless a master of his patterns, whether in
figuration or general structure. His Mazourkas are sonnets, and this
Fantasy in F minor is, as Kelley points out, a highly complex rondo;
as are the Ballades and Scherzos. Beethoven, doubtless, would have
developed the eloquent main theme more significantly; strictly
speaking, Chopin introduces so much new melodic material that the
rondo form is greatly modified, yet never quite banished. The
architectonics of the composition are more magnificent than in
Schumann, although I do not propose to make invidious comparisons.
Both works are classics in the accepted sense of the term. But
Chopin's Fantasy is more classic in structure and sentiment.
The Sonatas in B flat minor and B minor are "awful examples" for
academic theorists. They are not faultless as to form and do sadly
lack organic unity. Schumann particularly criticises the Sonata Opus
35 because of the inclusion of the Funeral March and the homophonic,
"invertebrate" finale. But the two first movements are distinct
contributions to Sonata literature, even if in the first movement
the opening theme is not recapitulated. I confess that I am glad it
is not, though the solemn title "Sonata" becomes thereby a mockery.
The composer adequately treats this first motive in the development
section so that its absence later is not annoyingly felt. There are,
I agree with Mr. Kelley, some bars that are surprisingly like a
certain page of Die Goetterdaemmerung, as the Feuerzauber music may be
noted in the flickering chromaticism of the E minor Concerto; or as
the first phrase of the C minor Etude, Opus 10, No. 12, is to be
found in Tristan and Isolde--Isolde's opening measure, "Wer wagt
mich zu hoehnen." (The orchestra plays the identical Chopin phrase.)
This first movement of the B flat minor Sonata--with four bars of
introduction, evidently suggested by the sublime opening of
Beethoven's C minor Sonata, Opus 111, does not furnish us with as
concrete an example as the succeeding Scherzo in E flat minor, (for
me) one of the most perfect examples of Chopin's exquisite formal
sense. While it is not as long-breathed as the C sharp minor
Scherzo, its concision makes it more tempting to the student. In
character stormier than the Scherzo, Opus 39, its thematic economy
and development--by close parallelism of phraseology, as Hadow
points out--reveal not only a powerful creative impulse, but
erudition of the highest order. No doubt Chopin did improvise
freely, did come easily by his melodies, but the travail of a giant
in patience--again you think of Flaubert--is shown in the polishing
of his periods. He is a poet who wrote perfect pages.
The third Scherzo, less popular but of deeper import than the one
in B flat minor, is in spirit splenetic, ironical, and passionate,
yet with what antithetic precision and balance the various and
antagonistic moods are grasped and portrayed. And every measure
is logically accounted for. The automatism inherent in all passage
work he almost eliminated, and he spiritualised ornament and
arabesque. It is the triumph of art over temperament. No one has
ever accused Chopin of lacking warmth; indeed, thanks to a total
misconception of his music, he is tortured into a roaring tornado by
sentimentalists and virtuosi. But if he is carefully studied it will
be seen that he is greatly preoccupied with form--his own form, be
it understood--and that the linear in nearly all of his compositions
takes precedence over colour. I know this sounds heretical. But
while I do not yield an iota in my belief that Chopin is the most
poetic among composers (as Shelley is among poets, and Vermeer is
the painter's painter) it is high time that he be viewed from a
different angle. The versatility of the man, his genius as composer
and pianist, the novelty of his figuration and form dazzled his
contemporaries or else blinded them to his true import. Individual
as are the six Scherzos--two of them are in the Sonatas--they
nevertheless stem from classic soil; the scherzo is not new with
him, nor are its rhythms. But the Ballades are Chopinesque to the
last degree, with their embellished thematic cadenzas, modulatory
motives, richly decorated harmonic designs, and their incomparable
"content"; above all, in their amplification of the coda, a striking
extension of the postlude, making it as pregnant with meaning as the
main themes. The lordly flowing narration of the G minor Ballade;
the fantastic wavering outlines of the second Ballade--which on
close examination exhibits the firm burin of a masterful etcher; the
beloved third Ballade, a formal masterpiece; and the F minor
Ballade, most elaborate and decorative of the set--are there, I ask,
in all piano literature such original compositions? The four
Impromptus are mood pictures, highly finished, not lacking boldness
of design, and in the second, F sharp major, there are fertile
figurative devices and rare harmonic treatment. The melodic
organ-point is original. Polyphonic complexity is to be found in
some of the Mazourkas. Ehlert mentions a "perfect canon in the
octave" in one of them (C sharp minor, Opus 63).
Of the Concertos there is less to be said, for the conventional form
was imposed by the title. Here Chopin is not the Greater Chopin,
notwithstanding the beautiful music for the solo instrument. The
sonata form is not desperately evaded, and in the rondo of the E
minor Concerto he overtops Hummel on his native heath. As to the
instrumentation I do not believe Chopin had much to do with it; it
is the average colourless scoring of his day. Nor do I believe with
some of his admirers that he will bear transposition to the
orchestra, or even to the violin. It does not attenuate the power
and originality of his themes that they are essentially of the
piano. A song is for the voice and is not bettered by orchestral
arrangement. The same may be said of the classic concertos for
violin. With all due respect for those who talk about the Beethoven
Sonatas being "orchestral," I only ask, Why is it they sound so
"unorchestral" when scored for the full battery of instruments? The
Sonata Pathetique loses its character thus treated. So does the A
flat Polonaise of Chopin, heroic as are its themes. Render unto the
keyboard that which is composed for it. The Appassionata Sonata in
its proper medium is as thrilling as the Eroica Symphony. The
so-called "orchestral test" is no test at all; only a confusion of
terms and of artistic substances. Chopin thought for the piano; he
is the greatest composer for the piano; by the piano he stands or
falls. The theme of the grandiose A minor Etude (Opus 25, No. 11) is
a perfect specimen of his invention; yet it sounds elegiac and
feminine when compared with the first tragic theme of Beethoven's C
minor Symphony.
The Allegro de Concert, Opus 46, is not his most distinguished work,
truncated concerto as it is, but it proves that he could fill a
larger canvas than the Valse. In the Mazourkas and Etudes he is
closer to Bach than elsewhere. His early training under Elsner was
sound and classical. But he is the real Chopin when he goes his own
way, a fiery poet, a bold musician, but also a refined, tactful
temperament, despising the facile, the exaggerated, and bent upon
achieving a harmonious synthesis. Truly a classic composer in his
solicitude for contour, and chastity of style. The Slav was tempered
by the Gallic strain. Insatiable in his dreams, he fashioned them
into shapes of enduring beauty.
You would take from us the old Chopin, the greater Chopin, the
dramatic, impassioned poet-improvisatore, I hear some cry! Not in
the least. Chopin is Chopin. He sings, even under the fingers of
pedants, and to-day is butchered in the classroom to make a holiday
for theorists. Nevertheless, he remains unique. Sometimes the whole
in his work is subordinated to the parts, sometimes the parts are
subordinated to the whole. The romantic "shadow" is there, also the
classic structure. Again let me call your attention to the fact that
if he had not juggled so mystifyingly with the sacrosanct tonic and
dominant, had not distributed his thematic material in a different
manner from the prescribed methods of the schools, he would have
been cheerfully, even enthusiastically, saluted by his generation.
But, then, we should have lost the real Chopin.