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* * * * *
THE ART OF MUSIC
The Art of Music
A Comprehensive Library of Information
for Music Lovers and Musicians
Editor-in-Chief
DANIEL GREGORY MASON
Columbia University
Associate Editors
EDWARD B. HILL LELAND HALL
Harvard University Past Professor, Univ. of Wisconsin
Managing Editor
CÉSAR SAERCHINGER
Modern Music Society of New York
In Fourteen Volumes
Profusely Illustrated
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC
[Illustration]
Garden Concert
_Painting by Antoine Watteau_
THE ART OF MUSIC: VOLUME THREE
Modern Music
Being Book Three of
A Narrative History of
Music
Department Editors:
EDWARD BURLINGAME HILL
AND
ERNEST NEWMAN
Music Critic, 'Daily Post,' Birmingham, England
Author of 'Gluck and the Opera,' 'Hugo Wolf,' 'Richard Strauss,' etc.
Introduction by
EDWARD BURLINGAME HILL
Instructor in Musical History, Harvard University
Formerly Music Critic, 'Boston Evening Transcript'
Editor, 'Musical World,' etc.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC
Copyright, 1915, by
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC, Inc.
[All Rights Reserved]
MODERN MUSIC
INTRODUCTION
The direct sources of modern music are to be found in the works of
Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt, and Wagner. This assertion savors of truism,
but, since the achievement of these four masters in the enlargement
of harmonic idiom, in diversity of formal evolution, and in intrinsic
novelty and profundity of musical sentiment and emotion remains so
unalterably the point of departure in modern music, reiteration
is unavoidable and essential. It were idle to deny that various
figures in musical history have shown prophetic glimpses of the
future. Monteverdi's taste for unprepared dissonance and instinct
for graphic instrumental effect; the extraordinary anticipation of
Liszt's treatment of the diminished seventh chord, and the enharmonic
modulations to be found in the music of Sebastian Bach, the presages
of later German romanticism discoverable in the works of his ill-fated
son Wilhelm Friedemann, constitute convincing details. The romantic
ambitions of Lesueur as to program-music found their reflection in
the superheated imagination of Berlioz, and the music-drama of Wagner
derives as conclusively from _Fidelio_ as from the more conclusively
romantic antecedents of _Euryanthe_. But, despite their illuminating
quality, these casual outcroppings of modernity do not reverse the
axiomatic statement made above.
The trend of modern music, then, may be traced first along the path of
the pervasive domination of Wagner; second, the lesser but no less
tenacious influence of Liszt; it includes the rise of nationalistic
schools, the gradual infiltration of eclecticism leading at last to
recent quasi-anarchic efforts to expand the technical elements of music.
I
If the critics of the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries
have successfully exposed not only the æsthetic flaws in Wagner's
theory of the music-drama, but also his own obvious departures in
practice from pre-conceived convictions, as well as the futility of
much of his polemic and philosophical writings, European composers
of opera, almost without exception, save in Russia, have frankly
adopted his methods in whole or in part. Bruckner, Bungert, d'Albert,
Schillings, Pfitzner, Goldmark, Humperdinck, Weingartner, and Richard
Strauss in Germany; Saint-Saëns (in varying degree), Chabrier, Lalo,
Massenet (temporarily), Bruneau and Charpentier (slightly), d'Indy,
Chausson, and Dukas in France; Verdi (more remotely), Puccini, and
possibly Wolf-Ferrari in Italy; Holbrooke in England, are among the
more conspicuous whose obligation to Wagner is frankly perceptible.
In Germany the most prominent contributors to dramatic literature,
aside from Cornelius, with _Der Barbier von Bagdad_, and Goetz with
_Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung_, have been Goldmark, Humperdinck,
and Richard Strauss. The latter, with an incredibly complex system
of leading motives, an elaborately contrapuntal connotation of
dramatic situations, aided by an intensely psychological orchestral
descriptiveness, has reached the summit of post-Wagnerian drama.
His later dramatic experiments--a ruthless adaptation of Molière's
_Bourgeois gentilhomme_, containing the one-act opera _Ariadne auf
Naxos_, and the ballet 'The Legend of Joseph'--are distinctly less
representative examples of his dramatic resourcefulness. In France,
the Wagnerian influence is typified in such works as Chabrier's
_Gwendoline_, d'Indy's _Fervaal_, and to a lesser extent Chausson's
_Le Roi Arthus_. Bruneau's realistic operas and Charpentier's
sociological _Louise_ belong, first of all, to the characteristically
French lyric drama in which the Wagnerian element is relatively
unimportant. In Debussy's _Pelléas et Mélisande_, Dukas' _Ariane et
Barbe-bleue_, Ravel's _L'Heure espagnole_, and Fauré's _Pénélope_,
we find a virtually independent conception of opera which may be
almost described as anti-Wagnerian. In Italy, the later Verdi shows
an independent solution of dramatic problems, although conscious of
the work of Wagner. Puccini is the successor of Verdi, rather than
the follower of Wagner, although his use of motives and treatment of
the orchestra shows at least an unconscious assimilation of Wagnerian
practice, Mascagni and Leoncavallo are virtually negligible except for
their early successes, and one or two other works. Younger composers
like Montemezzi and Zadonai are beginning to claim attention, but
Wolf-Ferrari, combining Italian instinct with German training, seems
on the way to attain a renascence of the _opera buffa_, provided that
he is not again tempted by the sensational type represented by 'The
Jewels of the Madonna.' Opera in England has remained an exotic, save
for the operettas of Sullivan, despite the efforts of British composers
to vitalize it. Holbrooke's attempt to produce an English trilogy seems
fated to join previous failures, notwithstanding his virtuosity and his
dramatic earnestness. Russian composers for the stage have steadily
resisted the invasion of Wagnerian methods. Adhering, first of all, to
the tenets of Dargomijsky, individuals have gradually adopted their own
standpoint. The most characteristic works are Borodine's _Prince Igor_,
Rimsky-Korsakoff's _Sniégourutchka_, _Sadko_, _Mlada_, _Le Coq d'Or_,
and Moussorgsky's _Boris Godounoff_ and _Khovanshchina_.
In the field of orchestral composition, the acceptance of Wagner's
procedure in orchestration is even more universal than his dramatic
following. If his system follows logically from the adoption of valve
horns and valve trumpets, the enlargement of wind instrument groups
and the subdivision of the strings, its far-reaching application is
still a matter of amazement to the analyst. Even if it be granted that
Wagner himself predaciously absorbed individual methods of treatment
from Weber, Meyerbeer, Berlioz, and Liszt, the ultimate originality of
his idiom justified his manifold obligations. German composers, except
among the followers of Brahms, appropriated his extension of orchestral
effect as a matter of course, the most notable being Bruckner,
Goldmark, Humperdinck, Mahler, and Strauss. If the two latter in turn
can claim original idioms of their own, the antecedents of their
styles are none the less evident. French composers from Saint-Saëns
to Dukas have made varying concessions to his persuasive sonorities;
even the stanch Rimsky-Korsakoff fell before the seduction of Wagnerian
amplitude and variety of color. Glazounoff, Taneieff, Scriabine, and
other Russians followed suit. Among English composers, Elgar and
Bantock fell instinctively into line, followed in some degree by
William Wallace and Frederick Delius. If Holbrooke is more directly a
disciple of Richard Strauss, that fact in itself denotes an unconscious
acknowledgment to Wagner.
If Liszt has had a less all-embracing reaction upon modern composers,
his sphere of influence has been marked and widely extended. To begin
with, his harmonic style has been the subject of imitation second
only to Wagner up to the advent of Richard Strauss and Debussy. His
invention of the structurally elastic symphonic poem remains the
sole original contribution in point of form which the nineteenth
century can claim. For even the cyclic sonata form of Franck is
but a modification of the academic type, and was foreshadowed by
Beethoven and Schumann. The vast evolution of structural freedom,
the infinite ramifications of subtle and dramatic program-music, and
the resultant additions of the most stimulating character to modern
musical literature rest upon the courageous initiative of Liszt. In
France, Saint-Saëns' pioneer examples, though somewhat slight in
substance, prepared the way for César Franck's _Les Éolides_ and _Le
Chasseur maudit_, Duparc's _Lénore_, d'Indy's _La forêt enchantée_,
the programmistic _Istar_ variations, _Jour d'été à la Montagne_,
Dukas' _L'Apprenti-sorcier_, Debussy's _Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un
faune_ and the Nocturnes (programmistic if impressionistic), Florent
Schmitts' _Tragédie de Salomé_, and Roussel's _Evocations_. In
Germany, Richard Strauss' epoch-making series of tone-poems, from
_Macbeth_ to _Also sprach Zarathustra_, combine descriptive aptitude
and orchestral brilliance with a masterly manipulation of formal
elements. Weingartner's _Die Gefilde der Seligen_ and Reger's Böcklin
symphonic poems may be added to the list. In Russia, Balakireff's
_Thamar_, Borodine's 'Sketch from Central Asia,' Rimsky-Korsakoff's
_Scheherezade_ (although a suite), Glazounoff's _Stenka Razine_ and
other less vital works, Rachmaninoff's 'Isle of the Dead,' Scriabine's
'Poem of Ecstasy' and 'Poem of Fire' mark the path of evolution.
Smetana's series of six symphonic poems entitled 'My Home' result
directly from the stimulus of Liszt. In Finland, Sibelius' tone-poems
on national legendary subjects take a high rank for their poetic and
dramatic qualities. If in England, Bantock's 'Dante and Beatrice,'
'Fifine at the Fair' and other works, Holbrooke's 'Queen Mab,'
Wallace's 'François Villon,' Delius' 'Paris' and Elgar's 'Falstaff'
exhibit differing degrees of merit, the example of Liszt is still
inspiriting. Moreover, the Lisztian treatment of the orchestra,
emphasizing as it does a felicitous employment of instruments of
percussion, has proved a remarkable liberating force, especially in
Russia and France. Liszt's piano idiom has been assimilated even more
widely than in the case of the symphonic poem and orchestral style.
Smetana, Saint-Saëns, Balakireff, and Liapounoff occur at once as
salient instances.
The contributory reaction of Berlioz and Chopin upon modern music has
been relatively less direct, if still apparent. It was exerted first in
fertile suggestions to Wagner and Liszt at a susceptible and formative
stage in their careers. Both have played some part in the awakening
of Russian musical consciousness, Berlioz through his revolutionary
orchestral style and programmistic audacity, Chopin through his
insinuating pianistic idiom, which we find strongly reflected in the
earlier works of Scriabine. Some heritage of Berlioz can undoubtedly be
traced in the music of Gustav Mahler, although expressed in a speech
quite alien to that of the French pioneer of realism.
It may be remarked in passing that the influence of Brahms has been
intensive rather than expansive. This statement is entirely compatible
with a just appraisal of the worth and profundity of his music, nor
can it in any way be interpreted as a detraction of his unassailable
position. But in consideration of the absence of the coloristic and
extreme subjective elements in Brahms' style, and in view of its
conserving and reactionary force, the great symphonist cannot be
regarded as specifically modernistic. Still, with his extraordinary
cohesiveness of form and vital rhythmic progress, both in symphonic
writing, chamber music and piano pieces, Brahms has affected
Reger, Weingartner and Max Bruch in Germany, but also Glazounoff,
Rachmaninoff, Medtner, Parry, and others outside of it.
With the four symphonies of Brahms the long evolution of the classic
form in Germany has apparently come to an end with an involuntary
recognition that little more could be attained upon conventional lines.
The symphonies of Bruckner emphasize this realization. Following in
Wagner's orchestral footsteps, both their structure and their ideas are
of unequal value, in which separate movements not infrequently rise to
sublimity of expression and dramatic fervor. While opinion is still
divided as to the merit of Mahler's ten symphonies, they represent
isolated instances of powerfully conceived and tenaciously executed
works whose orchestral eloquence is in singularly apt conformity with
their substance. After a precocious and conservative symphony, composed
at the age of nineteen, which pleased Brahms, Richard Strauss waited
twenty years before attempting in the _Symphonia Domestica_ so elastic
a form as almost to escape classification in this type. Despite much
foolish controversy over the programmistic features of this work, its
brilliant musical substance, its fundamental and logical coherence,
and the remarkable plastic coördination of its themes constitute it a
unique experiment in free symphonic structure. In France, the symphony
has evolved a type somewhat apart from the Teutonic example, although
an outcome of it, namely, the cyclical, in which its themes are
derived from generative phrases. After three innocuous specimens (one
unpublished) Saint-Saëns' third symphony shows many of the attributes
of classicality. César Franck's symphony in D minor embodies most of
his best qualities, together with much structural originality. Lalo's
more fragile work in G minor displays a workmanship and individuality
which entitles it to record. Chausson's Symphony in B-flat, despite its
kinship with Franck, possesses a significance quite beyond its actual
recognition. D'Indy, after composing an excellent cyclic work upon a
French folk-song, produced his instrumental masterpiece with a second
in B-flat, which for logical structure and fusion of classic elements
with modernistic sentiment deserves to be classed as one of the finest
of its time. If Russian symphony composers have not as a whole reached
as high a mark as in the freer and more imaginative forms, nevertheless
Rimsky-Korsakoff, Borodine, Balakireff, Glazounoff, Rachmaninoff, and
Taneieff have displayed sympathy with classic ideals, and have achieved
excellent if not surpassing results within these limits. The symphonies
of Parry, Cowen and others in England have enlarged little upon the
conventional scope. Elgar raised high hopes with his first symphony
in A-flat, but speedily dismissed them with his second in E-flat.
Sibelius, in Finland, having given proof of his uncommon creative force
and delineative imagination in his tone-poems, has also exhibited
unusual originality and vitality in his four symphonies. The last of
these virtually departs from a genuine symphonic form, but its novelty
alike in ideas and treatment suggests that he, too, demands greater
elasticity of resource. For the problem of combining the native style
and technical requirements of the symphony with modern sentiment is one
of increasing difficulty.
The field of piano music, chamber works, songs and choral works is of
too wide a range for detailed indication of achievement. The piano
music of Balakireff, Liapounoff, Rachmaninoff, Scriabine, of Grieg, of
Franck, Debussy, Dukas, and Ravel, of Cyril Scott and others merits a
high place. The chamber music of Smetana, Dvořák, Grieg (despite its
shortcomings), Franck, d'Indy, Fauré, Ravel, of Wolf, Strauss and Reger
deserves an equal record. The songs of Wolf and Strauss, of Duparc,
Fauré and Debussy, of Moussorgsky, of Sibelius; the choral works of
Franck, d'Indy, Pierné, Schmitt, of Delius, Bantock, Elgar and other
Englishmen are conspicuous for technical and expressive mastery.
II
Apart from the general assimilation of the innovating features due
to Wagner and Liszt, the most striking factor in musical evolution
of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been the rise
of nationalistic schools of composition. These have deliberately
cultivated the use of native folk-song and dance-rhythms, and in the
case of operas and symphonic poems have frequently drawn upon national
legend for subjects. One of the earliest of these groups was the
Bohemian, whose leader, Smetana, already mentioned in connection with
the symphonic poem, chamber and piano music, also won a distinguished
place by his vivacious comic opera 'The Bartered Bride,' known abroad
chiefly by its inimitable overture. If Dvořák promised to be a worthy
disciple of a greatly talented pioneer, his abilities were diffused by
falling a victim to commissions from English choral societies, and in
endeavoring to emulate Brahms. In reality he was most significant when
unconscious, as in the Slavic Dances and his naïve and charming Suite,
op. 39, although his symphony 'From the New World' and certain chamber
works based upon negro themes are as enduring as anything he composed.
Hampered by a truly Schubertian lack of self-criticism, his path toward
oblivion has been hastened by this fatal defect, although his national
flavor and piquant orchestral color deserve a juster fate.
In the Scandinavian countries Grieg, and, to a lesser degree, Nordraak,
as well as Svendsen and Sinding tempered nationality with German
culture. Grieg, the more dominant personality, was a born poet, and
imparted a truly national fervor to his songs and piano pieces. In the
sonata form he was pathetically inept, despite the former popularity of
his chamber works and piano concerto. Certain mannerisms in abuse of
sequence, and a too persistent cultivation of small forms, have caused
his works to lose ground rapidly; nevertheless Grieg has given a poetic
and nationalistic savor to his best music that makes it impossible to
overlook its value.
A coterie of accomplished and versatile musicians which yields to none
for intrinsic charm, vitality, and poetic spontaneity is that of the
so-called Neo-Russians, self-styled 'the Invincible Band.' Resenting
Rubinstein's almost total surrender to Teutonic standards, and scorning
Tschaikowsky as representing a pitiable compromise between Russian and
German standpoints, they revolted against conventional technique with
as great pertinacity as did Galileo, Peri, Caccini, and Monteverdi in
the late sixteenth century. Their æsthetic foster-father, Balakireff,
for a time dominated the studies and even supervised the composition
of the members--Borodine, Cui, Moussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakoff.
Ultimately, each followed his own path, though not without a certain
community of ideal. Aiming to continue the work of Glinka and
Dargomijsky, both in opera and instrumental music, they wished to
use folk-songs for themes and to utilize national legends or fairy
stories. But they could not resist the alien form of the symphonic
poem, and with it the orchestra of Liszt, and, while they opposed the
Wagnerian dramatic forms, one at least, Rimsky-Korsakoff, could not
withstand the palpable advantages of the Wagnerian orchestra. Their
works combined the elements of western and oriental Russia, adhered
largely to folk-song or elements of its style, and in the opera
embodied folk-dances, semi-Pagan worship and ceremonial with striking
nationalistic effect. Many of their orchestral pieces have taken place
in the international repertory of orchestras; of the operas a smaller
number have penetrated to European theatres. While the nationalistic
operas of Rimsky-Korsakoff are little known beyond Russia, they show
his talent in a broadly humanistic and epic standpoint, hardly hinted
at in his orchestral works. Moussorgsky's _Boris Godounoff_, one of
the finest operas since Wagner, claims attention from the fact that it
attains dramatic vitality from a standpoint diametrically opposed to
Wagner. The influence of _Boris Godounoff_ is palpable as forming the
subtle dramatic idiom of _Pelléas et Mélisande_.
Glazounoff, Taneieff, and Glière represent the cosmopolitan element
among Russian composers of to-day. Of these Glazounoff is the most
notable. His early symphonic poem, _Stenka Razine_, gave promise of
an original and brilliant career, but instead he has become steadily
more reactionary. Among his eight symphonies there is scarcely one that
is preëminent from beginning to end. His ballets, _Raymonda_, 'The
Seasons,' and 'Love's Ruses,' have been surpassed by younger men. His
violin concerto is among his most able works. A master of technique and
structure and a remarkably erudite figure, his lack of progressiveness
has been against him. A younger composer, Tcherepnine, is known for
his skillful ballets, 'Narcissus,' 'Pan and Echo,' and 'The Pavilion
of Armida,' which incline, nevertheless, towards the conventional.
Rachmaninoff is also of reactionary tendencies, although his piano
concertos and his fine symphonic poem, 'The Isle of the Dead,' have
shown his distinction.
The rise of the modern French school, largely owing to a patriotic
reaction after the Franco-Prussian war and the liberal policies of the
National Society, has brought about one of the most fertile movements
in modern music. The transition from the operas of Gounod, Thomas,
Bizet, and the early Massenet to those of Chabrier, Lalo, d'Indy,
Bruneau, Charpentier, Debussy, Dukas, Ravel, and Fauré is remarkable
for its concentrated progress in dramatic truthfulness. Similarly,
beginning with the eclectic and facile Saint-Saëns, the more romantic
and fearless Lalo, and the mystic Franck, through the audacious
Chabrier and the suave and poetic Fauré, including the serious and
devoted followers of Franck, d'Indy, Duparc, de Castillon, Chausson,
and Lekeu, the versatile Dukas, to the epoch-making Debussy with the
younger men like Ravel, Schmitt and Roussel, French instrumental music
has developed, on the one hand, a fervently classic spirit despite its
modernism and, on the other, an impressionistic exoticism which is
without parallel in modern music. Aside from a vitally new harmonic
idiom, which in Debussy reaches its greatest originality despite
d'Indy, Fauré, and the later developments of Ravel, the attainment of
racially distinct dramatic style in such works as Debussy's _Pelléas
et Mélisande_, Dukas' _Ariane et Barbe-bleue_, Ravel's _L'Heure
espagnole_, and Fauré's _Pénélope_ is one of the crowning achievements
of this group. Furthermore, following the examples of the younger
Russians, the ballets of _Jeux_ and _Khamma_ by Debussy, _La Péri_
by Dukas, _La Tragédie de Salomé_ by Florent Schmitt, _Le Festin
de l'Arraignée_ by Roussel, _Orphée_ by Roger-Ducasse, and, most
significant of all, _Daphnis et Chloé_ by Maurice Ravel, have given a
remarkable impetus to a genuine choreographic revival.
There has been no nationalistic development in England comparable to
that in other countries, although there has been no lack of serious and
sustained effort to be both modern and individual. The most important
of British composers is undoubtedly Elgar, who has attained something
like independence with his brilliant and well-made orchestral works,
and more especially for his oratorio 'The Dream of Gerontius.' If
Elgar only carried on further a systematized use of the leading motive
as suggested by Liszt in his oratorios, it was done with a dramatic
resource and eloquence which made the method his own. Bantock, gifted
with an orchestral perception above the average, showing a natural
aptitude for exoticism, achieved a successful fusion of eclectic
elements with individuality in his three-part setting of the Rubaîyat
of Omar Khayyám. Other choral works and orchestral pieces have met
with a more uncertain reception. William Wallace has been conspicuous
for his imaginative symphonic poems, and the insight of his essays on
music. Frederick Delius, partly German, has maintained a personal and
somewhat detached individuality in orchestral, choral and dramatic
works of distinctive value. Josef Holbrooke has been mentioned already
for his unusual mastery of orchestral technique, and his courageous
and ambitious attempts in opera. Many younger composers are striving
to be personal and independent, though involuntarily affected by one
or another of existent currents in modern music. Of these Cyril Scott
attempts a praiseworthy modernistic and impressionistic sentiment, in
which he leans heavily on Debussy's harmonic innovations. Thus, while
English composers have been active, they have fallen to the ready
temptations of eclecticism, a growing force in music of to-day, and in
consequence their art has not the same measure of nationalistic import
as in Russia, France, and Germany.
III
In the meantime, as the musical world has moved forward in respect
to structure from the symphony to the symphonic poem, followed by
its logical sequence the tone-poem, in which the elements of various
forms have been incorporated, so has there been progress and even
revolution in the technical material of music itself. Dargomijsky was
probably the pioneer in using the whole-tone scale, as may be seen
in the third act of his opera 'The Stone Guest,' composed in 1869.
Rimsky-Korsakoff elaborated on his foundation as early as 1880 in
his opera _Sniégourutchka_. Moussorgsky showed unusually individual
harmonic tendencies, as the first edition of _Boris Godounoff_ before
the revisions and alterations by Rimsky-Korsakoff clearly demonstrate.
After casual experiments by Chabrier, d'Indy, and Fauré, Debussy
founded an original harmonic system, in which modified modal harmony,
a remarkable extension of whole-tone scale chords, the free use of
ninths, elevenths and thirteenths are the chief ingredients. Dukas
has imitated Debussy to some extent, Ravel owes much to him; both
have developed independently, Ravel in particular has approached if
not crossed the boundaries of poly-harmony. Scriabine, following the
natural harmonic heritage of the Russians, has evolved an idiom of
his own possessing considerable novelty but disfigured by monotony,
in that it consists chiefly of transpositions of the thirteenth-chord
with the alteration of various constituent intervals. What he might not
have accomplished can only be conjectured, since his career has been
terminated by his sudden death. Although Richard Strauss has greatly
enlarged modern harmonic resource, his results must be regarded on the
whole as a by-product of his contrapuntal virtuosity. In his treatise
on harmony Schönberg refers to his 'discovery' of the whole-tone scale
long after both Russians and French had used it, but it is noteworthy
that Schönberg arrived at the conception of this scale and its chords
with an absolute and unplagiaristic independence.
The most recent developments affecting the technical character of music
are poly-harmony, or simultaneous use of chords in different keys, and
free dissonant counterpoint. Striking instances of the former type
of anarchic experiment may be found in the music of Igor Stravinsky,
whose reputation has been made by the fantastic imagination and the
dramatic sincerity of his ballets 'The Bird of Fire,' _Petrouchka_,
'The Ceremonial of Spring,' and 'The Nightingale.' In these he has
mingled Russian and French elements, fusing them into a highly personal
and extremely dissonant style, which in its pungent freedom and
ingenious mosaic of tonalities is both highly diverting and poignantly
expressive. Stravinsky is one of the most daring innovators of to-day,
and both his dramatic vitality and the audacity of his musical
conceptions mark him as a notable figure from whom much may be expected.
If Maurice Ravel, as shown in his ballet _Daphnis et Chloé_, was a
pioneer in poly-harmony, Alfred Casella, of Italian parentage but of
French education, has gone considerably further. Similar tendencies may
be found in the music of Bartók, Kodály and other Hungarians.
It seemed formerly that Strauss had pushed the dissonant contrapuntal
style as far as it could go, but his style is virtually conventional
beside that of the later Schönberg. Schönberg has already passed
through several evolutionary stages, but his mature idiom abjures
tonality to an incredible extent, and he forces the procedures of free
counterpoint to such audacious disregard of even unconventional euphony
that few can compass his musical message. Time may prove, however, that
tonality is a needless convention, and it is possible to declare that
there is nothing illogical in his contrapuntal system. It lies in the
extravagant extension of principles of dissonance which have already
been accepted. It is indubitable that Schönberg succeeds in expressing
moods previously unknown to musical literature, and it is conceivable
that music may encompass unheard-of developments in this direction,
just as poly-harmony has already proved extremely fruitful.
The developments of poly-harmony and dissonant contrapuntal style
prophesy the near inadequacy of our present musical scale. Busoni and
others have long since advocated a piano in which the sharps and
flats should have separate keys. As music advanced from the modes to
the major and minor keys, and finally to the chromatic scale, so the
necessity for a new scale may constitute logically the next momentous
problem in musical art.
Within recent years, the barriers of nationalism have become relaxed.
An almost involuntary interchange of idioms has caused music to
take on an international character despite a certain maintenance of
racial traits. Eclecticism is becoming to a certain extent universal.
Achievement is too easily communicable from one country to another. In
some respects music was more interesting when it was more parochial.
To prophesy that music is near to anarchy is to convict one's self of
approaching senility, for the ferment of the revolutionary element has
always existed in art. Since the time of Wagner and Liszt, however,
musical development has proceeded with such extreme rapidity as to
endanger the endurance of our traditional material. Poly-harmony,
dissonant counterpoint and the agitation for a new scale are suspicious
indications. Disregarding the future, however, let us realize that the
diversity and complexity of modern music is enthralling, and that most
of us can readily endure it as it now is for a little longer.
EDWARD BURLINGAME HILL.
May, 1915.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME THREE
PAGE
Introduction by Edward Burlingame Hill vii
CHAPTER
I. BY- AND AFTER-CURRENTS OF THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT 1
Introductory; the term 'modern'--The 'old-romantic'
tradition and the 'New German' school--The followers
of Mendelssohn: Lachner, F. Hiller, Rietz, etc.; Carl
Reinecke--Disciples of Schumann: Robert Volkmann;
Bargiel, Kirchner and others; the Berlin circle;
the musical genre artists: Henselt, Heller, etc.
(pianoforte); Jensen, Lassen, Abt, etc. (song)--The
comic opera and operetta: Lortzing, Johann Strauss,
etc.--French eclecticism in symphonic and operatic
composition: Massenet--Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Godard, etc.
II. THE RUSSIAN ROMANTICISTS 37
Romantic Nationalism in Russian Music--Pathfinders; Cavos
and Verstovsky--Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka; Alexander
Sergeyevitch Dargomijsky--Neo-Romanticism in Russian
music; Anton Rubinstein--Peter Ilyitch Tschaikowsky.
III. THE MUSIC OF MODERN SCANDINAVIA 59
The rise of national schools in the nineteenth
century--Growth of national expression in Scandinavian
lands--Music in modern Denmark--Sweden and her music--The
Norwegian composers; Edvard Grieg--Sinding and other
Norwegians--The Finnish Renaissance: Sibelius and others.
IV. THE RUSSIAN NATIONALISTS 107
The founders of the 'Neo-Russian' nationalistic school:
Balakireff; Borodine--Moussorgsky--Rimsky-Korsakoff,
his life and works--César Cui and other nationalists,
Napravnik, and others.
V. THE MUSIC OF CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA 137
The border nationalists; Alexander Glazounoff, Liadoff,
Liapounoff, etc.--The renaissance of Russian church
music; Kastalsky and Gretchaninoff--The new eclectics:
Arensky, Taneieff, Ippolitoff-Ivanoff, Glière, Rachmaninoff
and others--Scriabine and the radical foreign influence;
Igor Stravinsky.
VI. MUSICAL DEVELOPMENT IN BOHEMIA AND HUNGARY 165
Characteristics of Czech music; Friedrich Smetana--Antonin
Dvořák--Zdenko Fibich and others; Joseph Suk and
Vitešlav Novák--Historical sketch of musical endeavor
in Hungary--Ödön Mihálovich, Count Zichy and Jenö
Hubay--Dohnányi and Moór; 'Young Hungary': Weiner, Béla
Bartók and others.
VII. THE POST-CLASSICAL AND POETIC SCHOOLS OF MODERN GERMANY 201
The post-Beethovenian tendencies in the music of Germany
and their present-day significance; the problem of modern
symphonic form--The academic followers of Brahms: Bruch
and others--The modern 'poetic' school: Richard Strauss
as symphonic composer--Anton Bruckner, his life and
works--Gustav Mahler--Max Reger--Draeseke and others.
VIII. GERMAN OPERA AFTER WAGNER AND MODERN GERMAN SONG 238
The Wagnerian after-current: Cyrill Kistler; August
Bungert, Goldmark, etc.; Max Schillings, Eugen
d'Albert--The successful post-Wagnerians in the lighter
genre: Götz, Cornelius and Wolf; Engelbert Humperdinck
and fairy opera; Ludwig Thuille; Hans Pfitzner; the
_Volksoper_--Richard Strauss as musical dramatist--Hugo
Wolf and the modern song; other contemporary German
lyricists--The younger men: Klose, Hausegger, Schönberg,
Korngold.
IX. THE FOLLOWERS OF CÉSAR FRANCK 277
The foundations of modern French nationalism: Berlioz;
the operatic masters: Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Franck, etc.;
conditions favoring native art development--The pioneers
of ultra-modernism: Emanuel Chabrier and Gabriel
Fauré--Vincent d'Indy: his instrumental and his dramatic
works--Other pupils of Franck: Ernest Chausson; Henri
Duparc; Alexis de Castillon; Guy Ropartz.
X. DEBUSSY AND THE ULTRA-MODERNISTS 317
Impressionism in Music--Claude Debussy, the pioneer of
the 'atmospheric' school; his career, his works and his
influence--Maurice Ravel, his life and work--Alfred
Bruneau; Gustave Charpentier--Paul Dukas--Miscellany;
Albert Roussel and Florent Schmitt.
XI. THE OPERATIC SEQUEL TO VERDI 366
The musical traditions of modern Italy--Verdi's heirs:
Boito, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Wolf-Ferrari,
Franchetti, Giordano, Orefice, Mancinelli--New paths;
Montemezzi, Zandonai and de Sabbata.
XII. THE RENAISSANCE OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IN ITALY 385
Martucci and Sgambati--The symphonic composers: Zandonai,
de Sabbata, Alfano, Marinuzzi, Sinigaglia, Mancinelli,
Floridia; the piano and violin composers: Franco da
Venezia, Paolo Frontini, Mario Tarenghi; Rosario Scalero,
Leone Sinigaglia; composers for the organ--The song
writers: art songs; ballads.
XIII. THE ENGLISH MUSICAL RENAISSANCE 409
Social considerations; analogy between English and
American conditions--The German influence and its
results: Sterndale Bennett and others; the first group of
independents: Sullivan, Mackenzie, Parry, Goring Thomas,
Cowen, Stanford and Elgar--The second group: Delius and
Bantock; McCunn and German; Smyth, Davies, Wallace and
others, D. F. Tovey; musico-literary workers, musical
comedy writers--The third group: Vaughan Williams,
Coleridge-Taylor and W. Y. Hurlstone; Holbrooke, Grainger,
Scott, etc.; Frank Bridge and others; organ music, chamber
music, songs.
LITERATURE FOR VOLS. I, II AND III 445
INDEX FOR VOLS. I, II AND III 491
ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME THREE
The Garden Concert; painting by Watteau (in colors) _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
French Eclectics (Lalo, Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Godard) 30
Russian Romanticists (Glinka, Dargomijsky, Rubinstein,
Tschaikowsky) 48
Edvard Grieg 90
Jean Sibelius 104
Neo-Russian Composers (Moussorgsky, Balakireff, Borodine,
Rimsky-Korsakoff) 122
Contemporary Russian Composers (Rachmaninoff, Glazounoff,
Rebikoff, Glière) 150
Bohemian Composers (Smetana, Dvořák, Fibich, Suk) 178
Hungarian Composers (Count Zichy, Jenö Hubay, Dohnányi, Moór) 192
Modern German Symphonic and Lyric Composers (Mahler,
Bruckner, Draeseke, Wolf) 202
Richard Strauss 214
Max Reger 226
Modern German Musical Dramatists (Humperdinck,
Thuille, Pfitzner, Goldmark) 246
Modern French Composers (Chabrier, d'Indy, Charpentier, Ravel) 298
Claude Debussy 334
Contemporary Italian Composers (Mascagni, Wolf-Ferrari,
Puccini, Zandonai) 372
Modern British Composers (Bantock, Sullivan, Parry, Elgar) 424
MODERN MUSIC
CHAPTER I
BY- AND AFTER-CURRENTS OF THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT
Introductory; the term 'modern'--The 'old-romantic' tradition
and the 'New German' school--The followers of Mendelssohn:
Lachner, F. Hiller, Rietz, etc.; Carl Reinecke--Disciples of
Schumann: Robert Volkmann; Bargiel, Kirchner and others; the
Berlin circle; the musical _genre_ artists: Henselt, Heller,
etc. (pianoforte); Jensen, Lassen, Abt, etc. (song)--The
comic opera and operetta: Lortzing, Johann Strauss, and
others--French eclecticism in symphonic and operatic
composition: Massenet--Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Godard, etc.
The term 'Modern Music,' which forms the title of this volume, is
subject to several interpretations. Just as in the preceding volume we
were obliged to qualify our use of the words 'classic' and 'romantic,'
partly because all such nomenclature is more or less arbitrary, partly
because of the fusion of styles and dove-tailing of periods which may
be observed in the history of any art, so it now becomes necessary to
define the word 'modern' in its present application.
Now 'modern' may mean merely _new_ or _up-to-date_. And in that
sense it may indicate any degree of newness: it may include the last
twenty-five years or the last century, or it may be made to apply
to contemporaneous works only. But in another sense--that generally
accepted in connection with music--it means 'advanced,' progressive, or
unprecedented in any other period. Here, too, we may understand varying
degrees of modernity. The devotees of the most recent development,
impatient of the usual broad application of the term, have dubbed their
school the 'futurist.' In fact, any of these characterizations, whether
in a time sense or a quality sense, are merely relative. Wagner's
disciples, disdainful of the romanticists, called his music the 'music
of the future.' Now, alas, critics classify him as a romantic composer!
Bach, on the other hand, long popularly regarded as an archaic bugaboo,
is now frequently characterized as a veritable modern. 'How modern that
is!' we exclaim time and again, while listening to an organ toccata or
fugue arranged by Busoni! Beethoven, the great classic, is in his later
period certainly more 'modern' than many a romanticist--Mendelssohn,
for instance, or even Berlioz--though only in a harmonic sense, for he
had not the command of orchestral color that the great and turbulent
Frenchmen made accessible to the world.
The newness of the music is thus seen to have little to do with its
modernity. Even the word 'contemporary' gives us no definite clue, for
there are men living to-day--like Saint-Saëns--whose music is hardly
modern when compared to that of a Wolf, dead these twelve years, or his
own late countrymen Chabrier and Fauré--not to speak of the recently
departed Scriabine with his _clavier à lumière_.
But it is quite impossible to include in such a volume as this only
the true moderns--in the æsthetic sense. We should have to go back to
Beethoven with his famous chord comprising every degree of the diatonic
scale (in the Ninth Symphony), or at least to Chopin, according to
one interpretation. According to another we should have to exclude
Brahms and all his neo-classical followers who content themselves
with composing in the time-honored forms. (Since there will always
be composers who prefer to devote themselves to the preservation and
continuation of formal tradition, this 'classical' drift will, as
Walter Niemann remarks, be a 'modernism' of all times.) Brahms has, as
a matter of fact, been disposed of in the preceding volume, but the
inclusion in the present volume of men like Volkmann, Lachner, etc.,
some of whom were born long before Brahms, calls for an apology. It
is merely a matter of convenience, just as the treatment of men like
Glinka and Gade in connection with the nationalistic developments of
the later nineteenth century is merely an expedient. Such chronological
liberties are the historian's license. We have, to conclude, simply
taken the word modern in its widest and loosest sense, both as regards
time and quality, and we shall let the text explain to what degree
a composer justifies his position in the volume. We may say at the
outset that all the men reviewed in the present chapter would have been
included in Volume II but for lack of space.
In Volume II the two great movements known as the classic and the
romantic have been fairly brought to a close. Brahms and Franck on the
one side, Wagner and Liszt on the other, may be considered to have
concluded the romantic period as definitely as Beethoven concluded
the classic. Like him, too, they not only surveyed but staked out the
path of the future. But no great art movement is ever fully concluded.
(It has been said by æsthetic philosophers that we are still in the
era of the Renaissance.) Just as in the days of Beethoven there lived
the Cherubinis, the Clementis, the Schuberts (as regards the symphony
at least) who trod in the great man's footsteps or explored important
by-paths, in some respects supplemented and completed his work; so
there are by- and after-currents of the Romantic Movement which also
cannot be ignored. They are represented by men like Lachner, Ferdinand
Hiller, Reinecke and Volkmann in Germany; by Saint-Saëns, Massenet
and Lalo in France; Gade in Denmark.[1] Some of their analogous
predecessors have all but passed from memory, perhaps their own works
will soon disappear from the current répertoire. Especially in the
case of the Germans (whose country has certainly suffered the strain
of over-cultivation and over-production, and which has produced in
this age the particular brand known as 'kapellmeister music') is this
likely. But it must be borne in mind that these composers had command
of technical resources far beyond the ken of their elder brothers; also
that, by virtue of the more subjective qualities characteristic of the
music of their period, as well as the vastly broadened musical culture
of this later day, they were able to appeal more readily to a very wide
audience.
The historical value of these men lies in their exploitation of
these same technical resources. They thoroughly grasped the formulæ
of their models; what the pioneers had to hew out by force, these
followers acquired with ease. They worked diligently within these
limits, exhausting the possibilities of the prescribed area and proving
the ground, so to speak, so that newcomers might tread upon it with
confidence. They were not as uncompromising, perhaps, as the pioneers
and high-priests themselves and therefore fused styles that others
thought irreconcilable. What seemed iconoclastic became commonplace
in their hands. Thus their eclecticism opened the way for new
originalities; their very conservatism induced progress.
I
Germany, it will be remembered, was, during Wagner's lifetime, divided
into two camps: the classic-romantic Mendelssohn-Schumann school
which later rallied about the person of Brahms, on the one hand, and
the Wagner-Liszt, sometimes called the late-romantic or 'New German'
school, on the other. The adherents of the former are those whom
we have called the poets, the latter the painters, in music; terms
applying rather to the manner than to the matter, since the 'painters,'
for another reason--namely, because they believed that a poetic idea
should form the basis of the music and determine its forms--might with
equal rights call themselves 'poets.' And, indeed, their followers, the
'New Germans,' among whom we reckon Mahler and Strauss, constitute what
in a later chapter we have called the 'poetic' school of contemporary
Germany.
Few musicians accepted Wagner's gospel in his lifetime. Raff and other
Liszt disciples, the Weimar group, in other words, were virtually the
only ones. A host, however, worshipped the names of Mendelssohn and
Schumann. They gathered in Leipzig, their citadel, where Mendelssohn
reorganized the Gewandhaus concerts in 1835,[2] and founded the Royal
Conservatory in 1843, and in the Rhine cities, where Schumann's
influence was greatest. These men flourished during the very time that
Wagner was the great question of the day. While preaching the gospel of
romanticism, they also upheld the great classic traditions. The advent
of Brahms, indeed, brought a revival of pure classic feeling. This
persists even to-day in the works of men whose romantic inspirations,
akin to Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Chopin, find expression in forms of
classic cast.
Both Schumann and Wagner were reformers interested in the broadening
of musical culture, the improvement of taste, and the establishment of
a standard of artistic propriety--Wagner on the stage, Schumann in the
concert room. The former was successful, the latter only partially so.
For, while the standards of the concert room are much higher to-day
than they were in Schumann's day, musical taste in the home, which
should be guided by these standards, has, if anything, deteriorated.
The reason for this lies primarily in one of the inevitable
developments of musical romanticism itself--the _genre_ tendency;
secondarily, in the fact that, while the Wagnerians were propagandists,
writers of copious polemics and agitators, the classic romanticists
were purely professional musicians who disdained to write, preferring
deeds to words (and incidentally doing far too much), or else, like
Hiller, were _feuilletonists_, pleasant gossips about their art and
nothing more.
The development of the small forms, the miniature, the _genre_ in
short, and the corresponding decay of the larger forms was perhaps
the most outstanding result of the romantic movement. Wagner alone,
the dramatic romanticist, continued to paint large canvases, frescoes
in vivid colors. The 'poetic' romanticists were of a lyric turn, and
required compact and intimate forms of expression. They had created the
song, they had built up a new piano literature out of small pieces,
miniatures like Schubert's 'Musical Moments,' Schumann's 'Fantasy
Pieces,' Mendelssohn's 'Songs without Words,' Field's 'Nocturnes,'
Chopin's Dances, Preludes, and Études. Franz, Jensen, Lassen, and
others continued the song; Brahms, with his _Intermezzi_; Henselt,
Heller, and Kirchner, with his piano miniatures, the piano piece. The
first degenerated into Abt, Curschmann, and worse, the second into the
type of thing of which 'The Last Hope' and 'The Maiden's Prayer' were
the ultimate manifestations. Sentiment ran over in small gushes and
drippings, even the piano study was made the vehicle for a sigh. The
sonata of a former day became a sonatina or an 'impromptu' of one kind
or another.
The parallel thing now happened in other fields. The concert overture
of Mendelssohn had in a measure displaced the symphony. What has been
called the '_genre_ symphony' of Mendelssohn, Schumann, _et al._ was
also in the direction of minimization. Even Brahms in his gigantic
works emphasizes the tendency by the intermezzo character of his slow
movements, by the orchestral filigree partaking of the chamber music
style. Now came the revival of the orchestral suite by Lachner and
Raff, the sinfonietta, and the serenade for small orchestra. Again we
sense the same trend in the appearance of the choral ballad and in the
tremendous output of small dramatic cantatas for mixed or men's voices.
In France, instrumental literature during the nineteenth century had
been largely tributary to that of Germany, just as its opera earlier in
the century was of Italian stock. But the development of the 'grand'
opera of Meyerbeer, on the one hand, and the _opéra comique_, on the
other, had produced a truly Gallic form of expression, of which the
romanticism of the century made use. Gounod and his colleagues of the
lyric drama; Bizet, the genius of his generation, with his sparkling
rhythms, his fine tunes and his orchestral freshness; Délibes and David
with their oriental color, compounded a new French idiom which already
found a quasi-symphonic expression in the _L'Arlésienne_ suites of
Bizet. Berlioz stands as a colossus among his generation and to this
day has perhaps not been quite assimilated by his countrymen. The
Germans have profited from his orchestral reforms at least as much
as the French. But he gave the one tremendous impetus to symphonic
composition, stimulated interest in Beethoven and Weber and so pointed
the way for his younger compatriots. Already _he_ speaks of Saint-Saëns
as an accomplished musician.
Saint-Saëns is, indeed, the next great exponent of the classic
tradition as well as the earliest disciple of the late romantic school
of Liszt and Wagner in France. Beside him, Massenet, no less great as
technician, forms the transition to modernism on the operatic side,
while Lalo and Godard devote themselves to both departments. César
Franck, the Belgian, stands aloof in his ascetic isolation as the real
creator of the modern French idiom.
II
We shall now consider some of these 'transition' composers in detail;
first the Germans, then the French.
Certain attributes they all have in common. Most of them lived long
and prospered, enjoying a wide influence or popularity in their
day; Lachner and Reinecke both came near to ninety; Volkmann near
eighty; Saint-Saëns is still hale at eighty. All of them were highly
productive: Hiller, Reinecke, Raff, and Lachner surpassed 200 in their
opus-numbers; Saint-Saëns has gone well over a hundred; and Massenet
has written no less than twenty-three operas alone. Nearly all of them
were either virtuosos or conductors: Hiller, Reinecke, Saint-Saëns,
Bülow, Henselt, Heller were brilliant pianists; Lachner, Saint-Saëns,
and Widor also organists; Godard a violinist. The first four of these
were eminent conductors. Most of them were pedagogues besides; some,
such as Reinecke, Hiller, Jadassohn, Rietz, and Massenet, among the
most eminent of their generation.
Franz Lachner is the oldest of them. He was born, 1803, in Rain (Upper
Bavaria), and died, 1890, in Munich. Thus he came near filling out
four-score and ten, antedating Wagner by ten years and surviving him by
seven. His career came into actual collision with that of the Bayreuth
master too, since the latter's coming to Munich as the favorite of
the newly ascended King Ludwig II forced Lachner from his autocratic
position as general musical director.
Many forces must have reacted upon an artist whose life thus spans
the ages. He was a friend of Schubert in Vienna, where he became
organist in 1824, and is said to have found favor even with Beethoven.
Sechter and Abbé Stadler gave him the benefit of their learning.
After holding various conductor's posts in Vienna and in Mannheim
he finally found his way to Munich, where he had already brought
out his D minor symphony with success. As court kapellmeister he
conducted the opera, the church performances of the royal chapel
choir and the concerts of the Academy, meanwhile creating a long
series of successful works, nearly all of which exhibit his astounding
contrapuntal skill. His seven orchestral suites, a form which he and
Raff revived, occupy a special place in orchestral literature, as a
sort of direct continuation of Bach's and Händel's instrumental works.
They are veritable treasure stores of contrapuntal art. Perhaps another
generation will appreciate them better; to-day they have fallen into
neglect. This is even more true of his eight symphonies, four operas,
two oratorios, etc. Of his chamber music (piano quartets, string
quartets, quintets, sextets, nonet for wind, etc.), his piano pieces
and songs, influenced by Schubert, some few numbers have survived.
Most prominent in Mendelssohn's immediate train is Ferdinand Hiller.
His junior only by two years (he was born Oct. 24, 1811, in Frankfurt),
he followed closely in the footsteps of that master. Like him, he came
of Jewish and well-to-do parents; like him, he had the advantage of
an early training, a broad culture and wide travel. A pupil of Hummel
and a brilliant pianist, he was presented to Beethoven in Vienna; in
Paris he hobnobbed with Cherubini, Rossini, Chopin, Liszt, Meyerbeer
and Berlioz, taught and concertized; in Milan he produced an opera
(_Romilda_) by the aid of Rossini. Mendelssohn, already his friend,
brought out his oratorio 'Jerusalem Destroyed' at the Gewandhaus in
1840, and in 1843-44 (after a sojourn in Rome) he himself directed
the Gewandhaus concerts made famous by Mendelssohn. Shortly after,
he inaugurated a series of subscription concerts in Dresden, also
conducting a chorus, and there brought out two operas (_Traum in der
Christnacht_, 1845, and _Konradin_, 1847). Finally he did for Cologne
what Mendelssohn had done for Leipzig by organizing the conservatory
and the Gewandhaus concerts: he established the Cologne conservatory
(1850) and became conductor of the _Konzertgesellschaft_ and the
_Konzertchor_, both of which participated in the famous Gürzenich
concerts and the Rhenish music festivals. The eminence of his position
may be deduced from the fact that in 1851-52 he was asked to direct the
Italian opera in Paris. As teacher and pianist he was no less renowned.
For that reason alone history cannot ignore him.
As a composer Hiller illustrates what we have said of the degeneration
of the early romantic school into musical _genre_, though as a
contemporary of Mendelssohn he must be reckoned as a by-rather than a
post-romantic. He commanded only the small forms, in which, however,
he displayed great technical finish, polished grace and a 'clever
pedantry.' In short piano pieces, _Rêveries_ (of which he wrote four
series), impromptus, rondos, marches, waltzes, variations, and études
he was especially happy. An F-sharp major piano concerto, sonatas
and suites, as well as his chamber works (violin and 'cello sonatas,
trios, quartets, etc.), are grateful and pleasing in their impeccable
smoothness. But his six operas, two oratorios, three symphonies
and other large works have gone the way of oblivion. His numerous
overtures, cantatas, choral ballads, vocal quartets, duets and songs
stamp him as a real, miniature-loving romantic. In productivity, too,
he remains true to the breed; his opus numbers exceed two hundred.
Hiller died in Cologne in 1885.
Another friend of Mendelssohn was Julius Rietz (1812-77), whose
brother Eduard, the violinist, had been the friend of the greater
master's youth. He, too, after conducting in Düsseldorf, came to the
Leipzig Gewandhaus as Gade's successor in 1848, took Mendelssohn's
place as municipal musical director and taught at the conservatory
until he became court kapellmeister and head of the conservatory in
Dresden. His editorial work, the complete editions of the works of
Bach, Händel, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Mozart, published by the
house of Breitkopf and Härtel, are important. His compositions are
wholly influenced by Mendelssohn.
Among the few who actually had the benefit of Mendelssohn's personal
tuition is Richard Wüerst (1824-81), whose activities were, however,
centred in Berlin, where he was musical director from 1874, royal
professor from 1877, and a member of the Academy. His second
symphony (op. 21) was prize-crowned in Cologne and his cantata, _Der
Wasserneck_, is a grateful composition for mixed chorus. Several of his
songs also have become popular.
Karl Reinecke is less exclusive in his influence. He divides his
allegiance at least equally between Mendelssohn and Schumann. He is
the example _par excellence_ of the professional musician, the cobbler
who sticks to his last. He did not, like Hiller, indulge in literary
chit-chat about his art, confining himself to writings of pedagogical
import. He learned his craft from his father, an excellent musician
and drill-master, and never had to go outside his home for direct
instruction. Thus he became an accomplished pianist (unrivalled at
least in one department--Mozart), at nineteen appeared as virtuoso in
Sweden and Denmark, and in 1846-48 was court pianist to King Christian
VIII. After spending some time in Paris he joined Hiller's teaching
staff in Cologne conservatory, then held conductor's posts in Barmen
and Breslau, and finally (1860) occupied Mendelssohn's place at the
Gewandhaus in Leipzig. There, when the new building was dedicated
in 1884, his bust in marble was placed beside those of Mendelssohn
and Schumann, and not till 1885 was he dethroned from his seat of
authority--with the advent of Nikisch. At the conservatory, too, his
activity was continuous from 1860 on--as instructor in piano and free
composition. From 1897 to his retirement in 1902 he was director of
studies.
Reinecke was born in 1824 at Altona, near Hamburg, and enjoyed the
characteristic longevity of the 'transition' composers, living well
into the neighborhood of ninety. In fecundity he surpasses even Hiller,
for his works number well-nigh three hundred. Besides Mendelssohnian
perfection, well-rounded classic form and fine organization in
workmanship, flavored with a touch of Schumannesque subjectivity,
Reinecke shows traces of more advanced influences. The idioms of Brahms
and even the 'New Germans' crept into his work as time went on. Of
course, since Reinecke was a famous pedagogue, his piano compositions
(sonatas for two and four hands, sonatinas, fantasy pieces, caprices,
and many other small forms) enjoyed a great reputation as teaching
material, which somewhat overshadowed their undoubted intrinsic value
as music. His four piano concertos are no longer heard, nor are those
for violin, for 'cello, and for harp. But his chamber music--the
department where thorough musicianship counts for most--is no doubt
the most staple item in his catalogue. There are a quintet, a quartet,
seven trios, besides three 'cello sonatas, four violin sonatas, and
a fantasy for violin and piano, also a sonata for flute. His most
popular and perhaps his best work are the _Kinderlieder_, 'of classic
importance in every sense, easily understood by children and not
without interest for adults.'[3] Again it is the miniature form that
prevails. Similarly in the orchestral field, the overtures (_Dame
Kobold_, _Aladin_, _Friedensfeier_, _Festouvertüre_, _In memoriam_) and
the serenade for string orchestra have outlasted the three symphonies,
while the operas ('King Manfred,' 1867, three others, and the
_singspiel_ 'An Adventure of Händel'), as well as an oratorio, masses,
etc., have already faded from memory, though the smaller choral works,
with orchestra and otherwise (including the Fairy Poems for women's
voices and the cycle _Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe_), still maintain
themselves in the repertoire of German societies.
Salomon Jadassohn (1831-1902) was still more of a pedagogue and less
of a composer. Yet he wrote copiously, over one hundred works being
published. It is to be noted that he was a pupil of Liszt as well as
Moritz Hauptmann, but he gravitated to Leipzig and lived there from
1852 on. He has a particular fondness for the canon form and makes his
chief mark in orchestral and chamber music. But his teaching manuals on
harmony and counterpoint are his real monument.
III
Undoubtedly the most important contemporary of Brahms, following in
tracks of Schumann, was Robert Volkmann. His acquaintance with Schumann
was the predominating stimulus of his artistic career, and, since
Brahms is too big and independent a genius to deserve the epithet,
Volkmann may count as the Düsseldorf master's chief epigone. He was
but five years younger than Schumann, being born April 6, 1815, at
Lommatzsch in Saxony, the son of a cantor, who instructed him in piano
and organ playing. He studied theory with Anacker in Freiberg and K.
F. Becker in Leipzig. He taught in Prague (1839) and Budapest (1842),
lived in Vienna 1854-58, and again in Prague, where he was professor
of harmony and counterpoint at the National Academy of Music, and died
in 1893.
His first published work, the 'Fantasy Pictures' for piano, appeared in
1839 in Leipzig. Unlike most other composers of this group, he managed
to give his larger forms a permanent value; his two symphonies, in B
major (op. 44) and D minor (op. 53) respectively, are still frequently
played. Especially the last contains matter that is imbued with real
feeling and effectively handled. His three serenades for string
orchestra (opera 62, 63, and 69, the last with 'cello obbligato) are
no less pleasing, and, in spite of the tribute which Volkmann pays to
Schumann in all his works, even original. Of other instrumental music
there are two overtures, the piano trio in B minor, which first made
Volkmann's name more widely known, together with two string quartets
in A minor and G minor, one other trio and four more quartets, a
'cello concerto, a romance each for 'cello and violin (with piano),
a _Konzertstück_ for piano and a number of small works for piano as
well as for violin and piano. Among his vocal compositions two masses
for men's voices and a number of secular pieces for solo voice with
orchestral accompaniment are the most important.
Woldemar Bargiel (1828-97), Theodor Kirchner (1824-1903), Karl
Grädener (1812-83), and Albert Dietrich (b. 1829) are all disciples
of Schumann. The first, a stepbrother of Clara Schumann, is perhaps
the most important. He worked chiefly with the orchestra and chamber
combinations, his overture to 'Medea' and his trios being most
noteworthy, but he contributed to choral and solo song literature as
well. Kirchner is known for his finely emotional piano miniatures (some
accompanied by string instruments) as well as for chamber music and
songs. Grädener, too, composed in all these forms, and Dietrich, who
was court kapellmeister in Oldenburg and was in close personal touch
with Schumann in Düsseldorf, left symphonies, overtures, chamber music
and songs altogether in the spirit of the great arch-romantic.
The composers so far discussed constitute what is sometimes called
the Leipzig circle. While they can not in any sense be considered
as radicals, and, indeed, were frequently attacked as conservative
or academic by the followers of the more radical wing which made
its headquarters at Weimar, they appear distinctly progressive when
compared with the ultra-conservative group of composers centred in
Berlin, who made it their particular duty to uphold tradition and to
apply their energies to the creation of choral music of rather antique
type. 'It may be that the attitude of certain Berlin masters,' says
Pratt,[4] 'like Grell, Dehn, and Kiel, serve a useful purpose as a
counterpoise to the impulsive swing of style away from the traditions
of the old vocal counterpoint. They certainly helped to keep musical
education from forgetting solid structure in composition amid its
desires to exploit impressionistic and sensational devices. Probably
this reactionary influence did good in the end, though its intolerant
narrowness exasperated the many who were eagerly searching out new
paths. It at least resulted in making Berlin a centre for choral music
of a severe type, for able teachers of the art of singing, for musical
theory and for scholarly investigators of musical history.' It may be
added that the Royal Academy was the stronghold of this extreme 'right
wing,' and that the chief institutions which helped to uphold old
vocal traditions were the _Singakademie_, the _Domchor_, the _Institut
für Kirchenmusik_ (later merged into the _Hochschule für Musik_). The
Conservatory, founded in 1850 by Marx, Kullak, and Stern, and the _Neue
Akademie der Tonkunst_, established in 1855 by Theodor Kullak, also
acquired considerable importance.
Eduard August Grell (1800-86) gave proof of his contrapuntal genius in
a series of sacred works including a sixteen-part mass, an oratorio,
and a Te Deum, besides many songs and motets. He assisted Rungenhagen
in conducting the _Singakademie_ from 1832, becoming sole conductor and
teacher of composition at the Academy in 1851, and was a musician of
very wide influence. Siegfried Dehn (1799-1858) is chiefly important
as teacher of a number of the composers mentioned in this chapter and
as the author of treatises. Friedrich Kiel (1821-85), whose requiem in
F minor has been called among all later works of this class the most
worthy successor of those of Mozart and Cherubini, has also written
a _Missa Solemnis_, an oratorio _Christus_, and another Requiem (A
minor)--works which attest above all the writer's polyphonic skill,
and which prove the appropriateness of applying such a style to modern
works of devotional character. Kiel's _Stabat mater_, _Te Deum_, 130th
Psalm and two-part motets for women's voices, as well as his chamber
music and piano pieces, are all worthy of consideration. Karl Friedrich
Rungenhagen (d. 1851) and August Wilhelm Bach (d. 1869), both noted
as composers of choral music, may complete our review of the 'Berlin
circle.'
There remain to be mentioned those specialists who are concerned almost
exclusively with the two most characteristic mediums of the romantic
_genre_--the piano piece and the song. Schumann and Chopin had brought
the miniature piano composition to its highest plane of expression
and the most advanced technical standard, which even the dramatic
imagination and the virtuoso brilliance of Liszt could not surpass.
They and such milder romanticists as Mendelssohn and John Field had
brought this class of music within the reach of amateurs, Schumann even
within that of the child. Brahms, with no thought of the dilettante,
had intensified this form of expression, making a corresponding
demand upon technical ability. It remained for men like Adolf Henselt,
Stephen Heller, and Theodor Kullak to popularize the new pianistic
idiom, as Clementi, Hummel, and Moscheles had popularized that of the
classics. These are the real workers in _genre_, monochrome genre, with
their pictorial description, their somewhat bourgeois romanticism and
sometimes maudlin sentimentality. Even their études are cast in an easy
lyrical vein which was made to convey the pretty sentiment.
Henselt (1814-89) was an eminent pianist, born in Silesia, pupil of
Hummel and Sechter in Vienna. After 1838 he lived in St. Petersburg.
Pieces like the _Poème d'amour_ and the 'Spring Song' are comparable
to Mendelssohn's 'Songs without Words,' but they are more richly
embroidered and of a fuller sonority. His F minor concerto is justly
famous. Stephen Heller (1814-88) was also famous as a concert pianist.
Of his compositions, to the number of 150, all for his own instrument,
many are truly and warmly poetic in content. Though lacking Schumann's
passion and Chopin's harmonic genius, he surpasses Mendelssohn in
the originality and individuality of his ideas. In a number of his
things, probably pot-boilers, he leans dangerously to the salon type
of composition, with which many of his immediate followers flooded
the market. We are all familiar with the album-leaf, fly-leaf,
mood-picture, fairy and flower piece variety of piano literature, as
well as the pseudo-nature study, the travel picture in which the Rhine
and its castles and Loreley, the Alps and its cowbells, Venice with its
barcarolles and Naples with its tarantellas figure so conspicuously.
Kullak (1818-82), already mentioned as the founder of the _Neue
Akademie_ of Berlin and famous both as pianist and teacher, wrote some
130 works, most of which is in the _salon_ type or in the form of
brilliant fantasias and paraphrases, less important, perhaps, than
his études ('School of Octave Playing,' etc.). The piano technicians
Henri Hertz (1803-88), Sigismund Thalberg (1812-71), Karl Klindworth
(b. 1830), Karl Tausig (1841-71), Nicolai Rubinstein (1835-81), brother
of Anton and founder of the Moscow conservatory, and Hans von Bülow, of
whom we shall speak later, might all be mentioned in this connection,
though their work as virtuosi, teachers, and editors is of greater
moment than their efforts as original composers.
The song engaged the exclusive activity of numberless composers of this
period, and perhaps to a great extent with as untoward results as the
piano piece. But there are, on the other hand, men like Eduard Lassen
(1830-1904), Adolf Jensen (1837-79), and Wilhelm Taubert (1811-91)
whose work, in part at least, will take a place beside that of the
great romantics. Robert Franz, by far the most important of these, has
been treated in Volume II (p. 289). Taubert is to-day chiefly known for
his 'Children's Songs,' full of ingenuous charm and sincere feeling.
It should not be forgotten, however, that their composer wrote a half
dozen operas, incidental music for Euripides' 'Medea' and Shakespeare's
'Tempest,' as well as symphonies, overtures, chamber, piano and choral
works. Berlin, his birthplace, remained his headquarters. Here he
conducted the court concerts, the opera and the _Singakademie_, and was
the president of the musical section in the Senate of the Royal Academy.
Adolf Jensen, in Hugo Riemann's judgment, is much more than Franz
entitled to the lyric mantle of Schumann. His songs, appearing in
modest series bearing no special title, have in them much real poetic
imagination. They are unmistakably influenced by Wagner. Books 4, 6,
and 22, as well as the two cycles _Dolorosa_ and _Erotikon_, are picked
by Naumann as especially noteworthy. The popular _Lehn' deine Wang_ is
most frequently sung, but is one of the less meritorious of Jensen's
songs. The composer has also been successful with pianoforte works,
his sonata op. 25 and the pieces of opera 37, 38, and 42 being worthy
essays along the lines of Schumann. An eminently aristocratic character
and a profound subjective expression are their distinguishing features,
together with the soft beauty of their melodic line. Jensen was a
native of Königsberg (1837), and spent some years in Russia in order
to earn sufficient money to live near Schumann in Düsseldorf, but the
tragic end of the latter frustrated this plan. Hence he followed a call
to conduct the theatre orchestra in Posen, later going to Copenhagen,
Königsberg, Berlin, Dresden, and Graz. He died in Baden-Baden in 1879.
Lassen, another song-writer of distinction, came more definitely
under the Liszt influence and will therefore be treated with the 'New
Germans' in another section.
The degeneration of the song, corresponding to that of the small
piano forms, is to be noted in the productions of such men as Franz
Abt (1819-85) and Karl Friedrich Curschmann (1804-41). Abt is among
song-writers the typical _Spiessbürger_, the middle-class Philistine
dear to the _Männerchor_ member's heart. His songs are of that popular
melodiousness which at its best flavors of the folk-song and at its
worst of the music hall. Of the former variety are '_Wenn die Schwalben
heimwärts ziehn_' and '_Gute Nacht, mein herziges Kind_.' All of
Abt's songs and vocal quartets are of the more or less saccharine
sentimentality which for a time was such an appealing factor in
American popular music. Indeed, when Abt visited the United States in
1872 he was received with extraordinary acclaim.
Curschmann's songs are perhaps slightly superior in musical value, and
at one time were equally popular, but they are not as near to becoming
folk-songs as are some of Abt's. Many others might be mentioned among
the purveyors of this sentimental stuff. If, as Naumann says, Taubert
and his kind are the musical bourgeoisie, these are the small middle
class. Arno Kleffel (b. 1840), Louis Ehlert (1825-84), Heinrich Hofmann
(1842-1902), Alexander von Fielitz (b. 1860) may be regarded as
standing on the border line of the two provinces.
Much more worthy, from a purely musical standpoint, are the frank
expressions of good humor and hilarity, the light rhythmic sing-song
of the comic opera and the operetta represented by Lortzing and Johann
Strauss (Jr.), respectively. Albert Lortzing (1801-51) revived or
perpetuated in a new (and more engaging) form the singspiel of J. A.
Hiller and Dittersdorf, the _genre_ which, as we remember, had its
origin in the ballad operas of eighteenth-century England. For all
his lightheartedness and ingenuousness, and despite his indebtedness
to Italy and the _opéra comique_, Lortzing belongs to the Romantic
movement. Bie is of that opinion and says of him: 'He was at bottom
a tender and lightly sentimental nature running over with music and
winning his popularity in the _genre_ of the bourgeois song and
the heart-quality chorus.' Born as the son of an actor, travelling
around from theatre to theatre, learning to play various instruments,
appearing in juvenile rôles, becoming actor, singer and conductor by
turns, Lortzing fairly absorbed the ingredients that go to make the
successful provider of light amusement. Successful he was only in
an artistic sense--economically always 'down on his luck.' He began
to compose early and turned out operas by the dozen, all dialogue
operas or _singspiele_, writing (or adapting) both words and music.
Not till 1835 did he make a hit--with _Die beiden Schützen_. _Zar und
Zimmermann_, _Der Wildschütz_, _Undine_ (a romantic fairy opera), and
_Der Waffenschmied_ are the most successful of his works, and still
live as vigorous an existence in Germany as the Gilbert and Sullivan
operas do in England. He became more and more popular as time went on,
for he had no successful imitator. No one after him managed to write
such dear old songs, such funny ensembles, and such touching scenes of
every-day life. No one, in short, could make people laugh and cry by
turns with such perfect musical art. He is a classic, as classic in his
form as Dittersdorf; but, as Bie says, Mozart, Schubert, and Weber had
lived, and, for Lortzing, not in vain.
In this department, too, we must record a degeneration. It was
accomplished notably by Victor Nessler (1841-90), whose _Trompeter von
Säkkingen_ still haunts the German opera houses, while its most popular
number, _Behüt dich Gott_, is still a leading 'cornet solo,' zither
selection, and hurdy-gurdy favorite.
Johann Strauss (1825-1899)[5] might be denied a place in many a serious
history. But let us not forget that a large part of the public, when
you say 'Strauss,' still think of him instead of Richard! And neither
let us forget Brahms' remark about the 'Blue Danube' waltz--that he
wished he might have written so beautiful a melody--was quite sincere.
The 'Blue Danube' has become the second Austrian national anthem--or
at least the leading Viennese folk-song. 'Artist's Life,' 'Viennese
Blood,' '_Bei uns z'Haus_,' '_Man lebt nur einmal_' (out of which
Taussig made one of the most brilliant of concert pieces)--these
waltzes are hardly less beloved of the popular heart--and feet
unspoiled by one-step or tango. In his operettas, too, whose style is
similar to that of Offenbach and Lecocq (see II, p. 392 ff.), Strauss
remains the 'waltz king': the pages of _Die Fledermaus_ ('The Bat'),
'The Gypsy Baron,' and 'The Queen's Lace Handkerchief' teem with
fascinating waltz rhythms. Strauss is as inimitable in his way as
Lortzing was in his--to date he has no serious rival, unless it be the
composer of _Rosenkavalier_ himself. Karl Millöcker[6] (1842-99) with
the 'Beggar Student' and Franz von Suppé (1819-1895) with _Das Mädchen
vom Lande_, _Flotte Bursche_, etc., come nearest to him in reputation.
The latter should be remembered for more serious work as well, and the
still popular 'Poet and Peasant' overture. He was the teacher of the
American Reginald de Koven.
IV
If Leipzig represents the centre, and Berlin the right wing, the group
of Liszt disciples gathered together in Weimar must be taken as the
'left' of the romantic schools. Out of this wing has grown the new
German school which is still in the heyday of its glory and among whose
adherents may be reckoned most of the contemporary German composers.
We have mentioned in this chapter only two of the older disciples of
this branch, namely Raff (who has already been noticed in Vol. II), and
Lassen, who is most widely known as a song-writer. The rest we defer to
a later chapter.
Joseph Joachim Raff was born at Lachen, on Zürich lake, in 1822.
The son of an organist, he first became an elementary teacher. His
first encouragement came from Mendelssohn, but his hope to be able
to study with that master was never realized. Bülow and Liszt were
also helpful to him, but many disappointments beset his path. He
followed Liszt to Weimar in 1850, became a collaborator on the _Neue
Zeitschrift für Musik_, and championed Wagner in a brochure entitled
'The Wagner Question' (1854). In the course of his sixty years (he
died in Frankfurt in 1882) he turned out what is perhaps the largest
number of works on record. His opus numbers go far beyond 200--even
the indefatigable Riemann does not attempt a complete summary of
them. There are 11 symphonies, 3 orchestral suites, 5 overtures and
orchestral works; concertos, sonatas, etc., for various instruments; 8
string quartets, a string sextet and an octet, piano trios, quartets,
and every kind of smaller form imaginable. The piano pieces flavor in
many cases of the salon. The songs, duets, vocal quartets and choruses
are chiefly remarkable for their great number. His opera 'King Alfred'
never got beyond Weimar, while some of his six others (comic, lyric,
and grand) were not even performed. Out of all this mass only the
_Wald_ and _Leonore_ symphonies have stood the test of time, and even
these are rapidly fading.
Yet Raff was in some ways an important man. His extraordinary and
extremely fruitful talent was subjected to the changing influences of
the neo-classic and the late romantic school. If the Mendelssohnian
model led him to emphasize the formalistic elements in his work, he
soon realized that perfect form was only a means and not an end.
That emotion, mood, and expression were not to be subordinated to it
he learned from Liszt. Hence his works, descriptive in character as
their titles imply, show the conflict between form and content which
had already become a problem with Berlioz. His symphonies, now purely
descriptive (a development starting with the pastoral symphony of
Beethoven), now dramatic (with Berlioz's _Fantastique_ as the model),
are mildly programmistic and colorful, but have neither the sweep of
imagination of Berlioz nor the daring brilliance of Liszt.
At any rate Raff had considerable influence upon others--Edward
MacDowell among them. He 'proved,' as it were, the methods of the new
German school along mediocre lines. He was a pioneer and not a mere
camp follower as most of his contemporaries.
Hans von Bülow's (1830-94) importance as pianist, conductor, and
editor overshadows his claim as a creative musician. As such he has
left music for Shakespeare's 'Julius Cæsar,' a symphonic mood-picture
'Nirvana,' an orchestral ballad 'The Singer's Curse,' and copious
piano works. Their style is what may be expected from their creator's
close associations with Liszt and Wagner, which are too well known for
comment. He became Liszt's pupil in 1853 (marrying his daughter Cosima
in 1857)[7] and was Wagner's staunchest champion as early as 1849. In
his later years he gave evidence of a broad catholicity and progressive
spirit by making propaganda for Brahms and propitiating the youthful
Richard Strauss. In his various executive activities he accomplished
miracles for the cause of musical culture, and as conductor of the
Meiningen and the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra laid the foundation of
the contemporary conductor's art.
Eduard Lassen (1830-1904), who, through Liszt's influence, was made
musical director at the Weimar court in 1858, becoming Hofkapellmeister
in 1861, is chiefly known for his pleasing songs. His early training
was received at the Conservatory, where he won the _prix de Rome_ in
1851. The fact that his songs betray at times an almost Gallic grace is
therefore not surprising. He wrote, besides two operas (_Frauenlob_ and
_Le Captif_), music for Hebbel's _Nibelungen_ (11 'character pieces'
for orchestra), for Sophokles' 'Œdipus Colonos,' and for Goethe's
'Faust'; also symphonies, overtures, cantatas, etc.
C. S.
V
Turning to France, we have as the leading 'transition' composers
Massenet, Saint-Saëns, and Lalo, three musicians strangely difficult
to classify. They remain on the margin of all the turbulent movements
in modern musical evolution. Each pursued his own way and the only
point of contact between the three, outside of their uniformly friendly
relations, is their individual isolation. Each might have turned
to the other for sympathy in his loneliness. No doubt the spoiled
and successful Massenet, the skeptical and mocking Saint-Saëns, and
the noble and sensitive Lalo must have felt alone in the attacks or
indifference of their fellow artists. Yet, aloof as they were, each
in his way has been an important influence on French music. Massenet
by the essentially French character of his melody, Saint-Saëns by his
eminently Latin sense of form, and Lalo by the picturesque fondness
for piquant rhythms, have each woven themselves into the very texture
of modern French music, Saint-Saëns and Lalo in particular being
propagandists for the new and vital growth of the symphonic forms
in Paris during the last three decades. If there is less of the
spectacular and the intense in their productions, there are qualities
that make for a certain recognition and popularity over a relatively
longer space of time. There is nothing enigmatic or revolutionary with
either. Each expressed himself with varying degrees of sincerity in an
idiom which, without pointing to the future, is nevertheless of the
time in which it was written. If there are retrogressive qualities in
Saint-Saëns, it must not be forgotten that he is one of the significant
exponents of the symphonic poem. If Massenet attempted no revolutionary
harmonic procedure, he nevertheless made a certain type of lyric opera
all his own. If Lalo was content to compose in the conventional form
known as symphony, concerto, quartet, etc., he none the less endowed
them with a quality immediately personal and not present heretofore in
these forms. They are all intimately related to French music as it has
been and as it will be.
'I was born,' wrote Jules-Émile-Frédéric Massenet (1842-1912) in an
article appearing in 'Scribner's Magazine,' 'to the sound of hammers
of bronze.' With this stentorian statement, which would have better
served to inaugurate the biography of a Berlioz or a Benvenuto Cellini,
Massenet tells us the bare facts of a more or less colorless life. With
the exception of a few hard years during his apprenticeship at the
Conservatoire, Massenet remains for well over a quarter of a century
the idol, or rather the spoiled child, of the Parisian public. His
reputation abroad is considerably less, the rôle of his elegant or
superficial art being taken in Germany and America by Sig. Puccini.
Nevertheless, even to the American public, little interested in the
refined neuroticism of this child of the Second Empire, Massenet is not
devoid of a certain charm.
To obtain an adequate idea of his importance among the group of
composers of the late nineteenth century it is necessary to close
one's ears against the railing of the snobbish élite. There is much
in Massenet to criticize. If one thinks merely of the spirit which
actuates his productions, one is very apt to be condemnatory. When one
considers, however, a fluid and elegant technique such as was his,
an amazing power of production that recalls the prolific masters of
the Renaissance, and a power not only to please but even to dictate
to the fickle operatic tastes of a quarter-century, one must stop
one's criticism to murmur one's admiration. Massenet has probably
never been justly appraised. Among his compatriots the critics allied
with the young school are so vituperative as to render their opinions
valueless. His admirers show an equal lack of proportion, being
ofttimes friends rather than well equipped critics. Any just observer
of musical history, however, must stop to consider the qualities of a
man that could retain his hold upon the sympathies of a public rather
distinguished for the fickleness and injustice of its tastes. To find
the work that best exemplifies the Massenetian qualities among an opus
that includes twenty-four operas, seven orchestral suites, innumerable
songs, some chamber music, and some incidental music for various
popular productions, is not easy.
Let us pass his operas in rapid review. The first dramatic work of
any importance is _Le Roi de Lahore_, given for the first time in
April, 1877. In this opera, as in _Hérodiade_, which followed it four
years later, there is much that has become permanently fixed in the
concert répertoire. It is doubtful whether either will ever regain
its place in the theatre. With _Manon_, however, an opéra comique in
five acts, Massenet inaugurates a success that was to be undimmed
until his death in 1912. _Manon_, since its production in 1884, has
enjoyed a remarkable career of more than 1,200 productions in Paris.
It is typical, as regards the text, of the successful libretto that
the composer of _Werther_, of _Le Jongleur de Nôtre Dame_, and _Thaïs_
was to employ. Massenet in his attitude toward adaptable literary
material may be said to have had his ear to the ground. It is not
surprising, therefore, that the passionate novelette of the Abbé
Prévost should have attracted him, and in _Manon_ one may observe
the characteristics of the Massenetian heroine that were to make him
so popular among the sensitive, subtle, spoiled, and restless women
of our time. One enthusiastic biographer asserts that Massenet has
taken one masterpiece to make another. Although one must acknowledge
the undoubted charm of this fragile little opera, one cannot consider
it on the same intellectual plane as that sincere epic of a young
sentimentalist of the late eighteenth century. Throughout the five
acts are scenes or parts of scenes that show Massenet at his best.
Technically speaking, however, the work is often inferior to the one
or two little masterpieces composed later on. In it a certain crudity
and hesitation of technique are often apparent. The casual mingling of
musical declamation with spoken dialogue is often unsatisfactory if
not absolutely distasteful. It is in the splendid love-scene of Saint
Sulpice that the composer first gives a revelation of his remarkable
powers as a musico-dramatic artist.
In 1892 at Vienna was presented a work that Massenet was never to
surpass: _Werther_. This work has never attained the popularity
of _Manon_, but it is infinitely superior in every detail. In it
Massenet has achieved an elastic musical declamation that is almost
unique in the history of opera. Throughout, with absolute deference
to the principles of diction, the solo voice sings a sort of melodic
recitative skillfully accompanied by a transparent yet marvellously
colored orchestra. The comparative lack of success of _Werther_ is
no doubt due to the sentimentalization of a tale already morbid
when fresh from the pen of Goethe. Naturally in adapting it to the
stage, and especially to the French stage, the idyllic charm of
Goethe's extraordinary tale has been lost. Also, the glamour of its
quasi-autobiographical connection with a great poet has entirely
vanished. With all these qualifications, one must nevertheless--if his
opinion be not too influenced by musical snobbishness--acknowledge
_Werther_ to be a lyric work of the greatest importance.
There is only one other work that could add to Massenet's reputation
or show another facet of his genius, _Le Jongleur de Nôtre Dame_. This
work, founded upon a legend of the Middle Ages adapted with taste and
discretion by Maurice Lena of the University of Paris, is a treasure
among short operas. The skeptical box-holder of the theatre rejoices
in the fact that there is no woman's rôle. The three brief acts centre
about the routine of a monastery and the apparition of the Virgin.
Massenet has treated this innocent historiette with a tenderness and
care that belie the casual overproduction that characterized his career.
After _Le Jongleur_ one is face to face with a sad succession of
hastily composed, often mediocre, stage pieces. Upon the occasion of
the presentation of the posthumous opera _Cleopatra_ at Monte Carlo
in 1914, friendly critics pointed to the renewal of Massenet's genius.
An examination of _Cleopatra_, however, reveals a deplorable use of
conventional procedures with certain disagreeable mannerisms of the
composer at their worst. _Panurge_, presented in 1913, is a better
work. No doubt in composing it Massenet wished to achieve a French
_Meistersinger_. He has fallen far short of this and one is forced to
confess that the Gallic cock crows in a shrill and fragile falsetto.
Among Massenet's orchestral suites, it would be unjust to omit mention
of the _Scènes Alsaciennes_. Also one can separate from the quantity
of stage music composed for various dramatic pieces _Les Erynnies_,
composed for the drama of Leconte de Lisle. An examination of the
cantatas, 'Eve' in particular, is interesting as evidence of Massenet's
extraordinary virtuosity.
So much for the actual works. When one considers the influence of
Massenet upon the new musical school that sprang up in France after
Franck, one can hardly exaggerate it. Among his pupils are many of the
distinguished young musical Nihilists of to-day, for, if we admit the
meretricious aims of Massenet in contemporary music, it is impossible
not to admit, too, that he possessed one of the most certain techniques
for the stage since Rameau. Absolutely conversant with the exactions of
dramatic composition, one might say that in each bar of music he was
haunted by the foot-lights. Musically speaking, the modelling of the
Massenetian melody is characterized by an elegance that is sickly and
cloying. Towards the end of his career there was no need to subject
his music to the polishing that other composers find necessary. His
mannerisms resolved themselves into tricks. The effect of these tricks
was so certain as to enable this skillful juggler to intersperse pages
of absolutely meaningless filling. In one department of technique,
however, one can think of little but praise--that is Massenet's clear
and sonorous orchestration. He is one of the shining examples of that
economy of resources to be observed in present-day French composers.
His orchestra is that of the classics, and yet he seems to endow it
with possibilities for color and dramatic expression unknown in France,
at least in the domain of theatrical composition, before his appearance.
His dominant fault is a nervous and ever-present desire to please at
all costs. He had an uncanny power of estimating the receptivity of
audiences and was careful not to go beyond well-defined limits. In
_Esclarmonde_ there is a timid attempt to acclimate the procedures of
Richard Wagner to the stage of the Opéra Comique. We cannot share the
enthusiasm of some of Massenet's critics for this empty and inflated
imitation. It is not good Massenet, and it is poor Wagnerism, for the
real Massenet, say what you will, is the Massenet of a few scenes
of _Manon_, of the delicate moonlight reverie of _Werther_, and the
cloying Meditation from _Thaïs_. The mistake of critics in appraising a
composer like Massenet is that they assume that there is a platinum bar
to standardize musical ideals. Massenet set himself to do something. He
wanted to please. Haunted by the sufferings of his student life at the
Conservatoire, he wanted to be successful; he was eminently so. If his
means of obtaining this success seem questionable to those of us who
believe in a continuous evolution of art, when we are confronted with
the industry, the achievement, and the mastery of technical resources
that are to be observed in Massenet, we must unwillingly acclaim him a
genius.
We have already referred to Massenet's prodigious output. Besides
his 23 operas his works include 4 oratorios and biblical dramas,
his incidental music to any number of plays, his suites, overtures,
chamber music, piano pieces and four volumes of songs, as well as _a
capella_ choruses. Massenet was a native of Montaud, near St.
Étienne (Loire), studied at the Conservatoire with Laurent (piano),
Reber (harmony), and Ambroise Thomas (composition). He captured the
prix de Rome in 1863 with the cantata _David Rizzio_.
[Illustration]
French Eclectics:
Édouard Lalo Benjamin Godard
Camille Saint-Saëns Jules Massenet
VI
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was born October 9th, 1835, in Paris.
He lives to-day (1915) in possession of all his powers as an artist
and a witty pamphleteer. In some respects Saint-Saëns may be dubbed
a musical Voltaire. A master of all the forms peculiar to symphonic
music, he has never succeeded in endowing his work with any quality
save clarity and brilliance. One would almost think at times that
he deliberately stifled emotional elements in himself of which he
disapproved. There is scarcely any department of music for which he has
not written. Symphonies, chamber music, songs, operas and a ballet, and
all this in quantity. Saint-Saëns, too, has undeniably lofty musical
standards. Prolific, like Massenet, too prolific, in fact, for the
subtle, sensitive taste of our time, Saint-Saëns seems rather to defy
the public than to make any effort to please. His skill as a technician
and his extraordinary abilities as a virtuoso have won him immediate
recognition with musicians. In examining the whole of his work, there
are only four orchestral pieces which have enduring qualities. These
are the four symphonic poems in which Saint-Saëns pays an eloquent
tribute to the form espoused by his friend Franz Liszt. Of these, the
finest is _Phaëton_. Strange to say, the best known of this tetralogy
of masterpieces is not the best. Beside the magnificently picturesque
_Phaëton_ the _Danse macabre_ seems a drab and inelegant humoresque.
After _Phaëton_, _Le Rouet d'Omphale_ must be given the place of
distinction in the long list of Saint-Saëns's compositions. In it the
composer has given us a witty delineation of the irresistible powers of
seduction of a truly feminine woman. The delicate orchestral texture
entirely made up of crystalline timbres marks Saint-Saëns as one of the
surest and most skillful manipulators of the modern orchestra since
Wagner. As is characteristic of many French composers, there is a
remarkable economy of means. Small aggregations of instruments achieve
brilliant and compelling sonorities.
In the operatic field, Saint-Saëns is not happy. Here all of his
reactionary neo-classicism found its full vent, and we are shocked to
see a musician of Saint-Saëns's taste and intelligence employing the
pompous conventionalities of the opera of 1850. 'Samson and Delilah,'
however, has found its way into the répertoire no doubt on account of
its fluent melodic structure and its agreeable exoticism. No matter
what his technical excellences, one is conscious, with Saint-Saëns,
of a certain sterility. Sometimes his music is so imitative of the
classics as to be absolutely devoid of any reason for being. Bach and
Mendelssohn are his great influences and Liszt and Berlioz have had
a great part in the formation of his orchestral technique. M. Schuré
remarks aptly: 'One notices with him a subtle and lively imagination,
a constant aspiration to strength, to nobility, to majesty. From his
quartets and his symphonies are to be detached grandiose moments
and rockets of emotion which disappear too quickly. But it would be
impossible to find the individuality which asserts itself in the
ensemble of his works. One does not feel there the torment of a soul or
the pursuit of an ideal. It is the Proteus, multiform and polyphonic,
of music. Try to seize him, and he changes into a siren. Are you under
the charm? He undergoes a change into a mocking bird. You believe
that you have got him at last, then he climbs into the clouds like a
hypogriff. His own nature is best discerned in certain witty fantasies
of a skeptical and mordant character, like the _Danse macabre_ and the
_Rouet d'Omphale_.' When one considers that Saint-Saëns has been before
the public ever since the sixties, a period in which musical evolution
has undergone the most rapid and surprising changes, it is not strange
that he eludes characterization. He is a musician who has, as Mr.
Schuré so aptly says, refused to set himself the narrow and rocky
path of an ideal. He has consistently avoided extremes. Side by side
with Saint-Saëns the modernist, the champion of the symphonic poem,
is Saint-Saëns the anti-Wagnerian. He is one of the great pillars,
however, in the remarkable edifice of French symphonic music.
With Romain Bussine, in 1872, Saint-Saëns founded the Société
Nationale, an organization which was to have the most far-reaching
influence on the development of French music. Like Lalo, Saint-Saëns
worked for a sort of protective tariff to keep French symphonic music
from being overwhelmed by the more experienced Teuton neighbors. As a
pamphleteer and propagandist, Saint-Saëns is full of verve and always
has the last word. He was one of the first to appreciate Wagner,
but later, feeling that the popularity of the master of Bayreuth
might overwhelm young French composers, he withdrew his sympathetic
allegiance.
Édouard-Victor-Antoine Lalo was born in Lille in 1822. This modest,
aristocratic, and noble-minded musician has scarcely enjoyed his just
due even in this late day. He died, exhausted, in 1892. His whole
artistic career was ill-fated. His opera, _Le Roi d'Ys_, and his ballet
_Namouna_ were both indifferently successful if not absolute failures.
It is doubtful if Lalo ever recovered from the disappointment and
overwork that attended the composition and production of _Namouna_.
Without hesitation we should characterize these two works as his most
important. There is an excellent symphony in G minor, a concerto for
'cello, the _Symphonie Espagnole_ for violin and orchestra, and a
concerto for piano, all of an equally lofty musical texture. It is
difficult to class Lalo with any group of musicians. He was mildly
influenced by Wagner, as were all young musicians of his time, and yet
_Le Roi d'Ys_ is absolutely his own. Lalo came of Spanish parentage.
It is probable that a certain sort of atavism is responsible for the
constant suggestion of the subtle monotony of Spanish rhythms in his
music. He is too distinct a Latin to be overwhelmed by Wagner.
It is very probable that Lalo will never be genuinely popular. The
_Symphonie Espagnole_ is in the répertoire of every virtuoso violinist.
The same may be said of the concerto for 'cello, and yet it is doubtful
if the layman of symphonic concerts would complain were he never
again to hear anything of Lalo. This is due to a certain aristocratic
aloofness, and emotional reserve, and an ever-present sense of
proportion dear only to the élite.
Lalo's influence was not in itself far-reaching. A sincere, splendidly
developed artist, he had none of the qualities that make disciples. As
one of a group of musicians, however, that were to play an important
rôle in saving French music from foreign domination and in finding an
idiom characteristic and worthy of a country possessed of the artistic
traditions of France, Lalo cannot be overestimated. As a member of
the Armingaud quartet he worked fervently to create a taste for
symphonic music. His own dignified symphonic productions supplemented
this necessary work of propaganda, for it must not be forgotten that
for almost a century before the advent of César Franck there was no
French symphonic music. The French genius, insofar as it expressed
itself in music at all, turned rather to the historical opera so
pompously fashioned, or the witty and amusing opéra comique. Lalo must
be considered with Saint-Saëns and Franck as one of the pioneers in
making a regenerate Parisian taste. His life is colorless and offers
little to the critic in interpretation of his musical ideals. Lalo
composed silently, with conviction, and without self-consciousness. He
was singularly without theories. Concrete technical problems absorbed
him, and in the refinement and nobility of his music is to be found
the most eloquent essay upon the rôle of an artist who seeks sincere
self-expression rather than general recognition.
As a leaven to the frivolous musical tastes prevalent in the French
capital before the last three decades Lalo has played his part nobly.
He will always be admired by all sincere musicians. His art is
complete, devoid of mannerisms, plastically perfect, and yet without
the semblance of dryness. In his symphony one will observe an unerring
sense of form, an exquisite clarity of orchestration, and a happy
choice of ideas suitable for development, _Le Roi d'Ys_ is scarcely
a masterpiece. The text is constructed from a pretty folk-story,
is not very dramatic and occasionally gives one the impression of
amateurishness and puerility. The music is exquisite and makes
one regret that Lalo could not have found other and more suitable
vehicles for his dramatic genius. _Namouna_ is a sparkling, colorful
ballet. When it was revived some years ago, a more propitious public
enthusiastically revised the adverse verdict of 1882.
Little may be said of Benjamin Godard (1849-95) except that he
wrote much, too much perhaps, in nearly all forms: symphonies (with
characteristic titles, such as the 'Gothic,' 'Oriental,' _Symphonie
légendaire_), concertos for violin and for piano, orchestral
suites, dramatic overture, symphony, a lyric scene, chamber music,
piano pieces, over a hundred songs, etc. Few of these are heard
nowadays, even in France perhaps. Neither are his operas, _Pédro de
Zalaméa_ (1884), _Jocelyn_ (1888), _Dante et Béatrice_ (1890), _Ruy
Blas_ (1891), _La Vivandière_ (1895), and _Les Guelfes_ (1902).
_Jocelyn_--and, indeed, its composer--are perpetuated by the charmingly
sentimental _Berceuse_, beloved of amateur violinists. Godard studied
composition with Reber and violin with Vieuxtemps at the Conservatoire.
He won the _grand prix_ for composition awarded by the city of
Paris with the dramatic symphony 'Tasso.' This, like the _Symphonie
légendaire_, employs a chorus and solo voices in combination with the
orchestra.
Two composers, noted especially for their organ works, should
be mentioned in conclusion: Alexandre Guilmant (born 1837) and
Charles-Marie Widor (born 1845). Both made world-wide reputations as
virtuosos upon the organ, the former in the _Trinité_, the latter in
_St. Sulpice_ in Paris. Guilmant has travelled over the world and
received the world's plaudits; Widor has remained in Paris while droves
of pupils from all over the globe have gone back to their homes and
have spread his fame. Both have composed copiously for the organ,
Guilmant more exclusively so, also editing and arranging a great deal
for his instrument. Widor has written two symphonies, choral works,
chamber music, and piano pieces, songs, etc., even a ballet, _La
Korrigane_, two grand operas, _Nerto_ and _Les Pêcheurs de St. Jean_,
a comic opera and a pantomime, _Jeanne d'Arc_. He is César Franck's
successor as professor of organ at the Conservatoire, and since 1891
has taken Dubois' place in the chair of composition.
C. C.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The last-named is treated with his compatriots in a succeeding
chapter.
[2] The Gewandhaus Concerts properly date from 1763, when regular
performances began under J. A. Hiller, though not given in the building
known as the Gewandhaus until 1781. At that time the present system
of government by a board of directors began. The conductors during
the first seventy years were, from 1763: J. A. Hiller (d. 1804); from
1785, J. G. Schicht (d. 1823); from 1810, Christian Schulz (d. 1827);
and from 1827, Christian August Pohlenz (d. 1843). The standard of
excellence was already famous. But in 1835 Mendelssohn brought new
éclat and enterprise, especially as he soon had the invaluable help
of the violinist David. The list of conductors has been from 1835:
Mendelssohn (d. 1847); from 1843, Ferdinand Hiller (d. 1885); from
1844, Gade (d. 1890); from 1848, Julius Rietz (d. 1877); from 1860,
Reinecke; and from 1895, Arthur Nikisch.--Pratt, 'The History of Music.'
[3] Naumann: _Musikgeschichte_, new ed. by E. Schmitz, 1913.
[4] Waldo Selden Pratt: 'The History of Music,' New York, 1908.
[5] Strauss' father, Johann, Sr. (1804-1849), was, with his waltzes and
the wonderful travelling orchestra that played them, as much the hero
of the day as his son. The son first established an orchestra of his
own, but after his father's death succeeded him as leader of the older
organization.
[6] Karl Millöcker, b. Vienna, 1842; d. 1899, Baden, near Vienna.
[7] He was divorced from her in 1869 and she became the wife of Richard
Wagner in the following year.