CHAPTER III

THE MUSIC OF MODERN SCANDINAVIA

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.

The most striking characteristic of the music of the nineteenth century

has doubtless been its astonishing enrichment in technical means. Its

next most striking characteristic is easily its growth in national

expression. National art-music in the modern sense was almost unknown

before the nineteenth century. The nearest thing to it was a 'Turkish

march' in a Mozart operetta or sonata, or an 'allemand' or 'schottisch'

in a French suite. The national differences in eighteenth century music

were differences of school, not of nationality. It is true that Italian

music usually tended to lyricism, French to dexterity of form, and

German to technical solidity; it is true further that these qualities

corresponded in a rough way to the characteristics of the respective

nations. But all three used one and the same musical system; they

differed not so much in their music as in the way they treated their

music.

In the nineteenth century the national feeling found expression as

it never had before. The causes of this were numerous, but the most

important were two of a political nature: First, the spread of the

principles of the French Revolution made democracy a far more general

fact than it had ever been before; political authority and moral

influence shifted more and more from the rulers to the people and

the character of the ordinary men and women became more and more

the character of the nation. Second, the resistance called forth

by Napoleon's wars of aggression aroused national consciousness as

it had never been aroused before. Napoleon, with a solid national

consciousness behind him, was invincible until he found a national

consciousness opposed to him--in Spain in 1809, in Russia in 1812, and

in Germany in 1813. Only the sense of nationality had been able to

preserve nations; and it was the sense of nationality that thereafter

continued to maintain them.

To these two political causes we may perhaps add a third cause--one

of a technical-musical character. With the early Beethoven the old

classical system of music had reached its apogee. When this was once

complete and firmly implanted in people's consciousness contrasting

sorts of music could be clearly apperceived. Once the logical course

of classical development was finished, men's minds were free to look

elsewhere for beauties of another sort. So when a political interest

in the common people led men to investigate the people's folk-songs,

musical consciousness was at the same time prepared to appreciate the

striking differences between art-music and folk-music.

Now all the national music of the nineteenth century is based in a very

real sense on the folk-music of the people. The music of the eighteenth

century could not be truly national, because it was supported chiefly

by the aristocracy, and an art will inevitably tend to express the

character of the people who pay its bills. The differences between the

aristocracy of one nation and that of another are largely superficial.

The court of Louis XV was distinguished from that of Frederick the

Great chiefly by the cut of the courtiers' clothes. But the France of

1813 was distinguished from the Germany of 1813 by the mould of the

national soul. And the national soul can be seen very imperfectly in

the official art of a nation; it must be sought for in the popular

art--in the myths, the fairy tales, the ballads, and the folk-songs. So

when the newly awakened national consciousness began to demand musical

expression, it inevitably sought its materials in the music of the

people.

I

In the eighteenth century this popular music was thought too crude to

be of artistic value. The snobbishness of political life was reflected

in the prevailing attitude toward art. Because the people's melodies

were different from the accepted music they were held to be wrong. Or

rather, one may say that cultivated people hardly dreamed of their

existence. Gradually, in the latter half of the eighteenth century,

scholars became aware of the value of popular art. Herder was the first

important man to discover it in Germany, and he passed his appreciation

of it on to Goethe. By the opening of the nineteenth century the

appreciation of folk-art was well under way. Collections of folk-songs

and folk-poetry were appearing, and their high artistic value was being

recognized. With the first decade of the century the impulse reached

the Scandinavian lands, and their national existence in art began.

These countries had of course been free from the immediate turmoil of

the Napoleonic wars. They had suffered, as all Europe had suffered,

but they had not been obliged to defend their nationality with their

blood. Denmark and Norway-Sweden had been for centuries substantially

independent, and Finland, which had been in loose subjugation

alternately to Sweden and Russia, was practically independent for some

time until a political pact between Napoleon and the Czar Alexander

made her a grand duchy of Russia; but even as a part of the Russian

Empire she suffered no violation of her national individuality

until late in the nineteenth century. Political independence and

geographical isolation had left the northern nations somewhat turgid

and provincial. Their artistic life had been largely borrowed. The

various courts had their choirs and kapellmeisters, usually imported

from Germany. Native composers were infrequent; composition was largely

in the hands of second-rate musicians from Germany who had migrated

that they might be larger fish in a smaller puddle. And the composition

was, of course, entirely in the foreign style. Stockholm and Copenhagen

had their opera in the latter half of the eighteenth century, but

the works performed were chiefly French and Italian. These imported

works set the standard for most of the native musical composition.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century German influence began to

predominate, especially in Denmark, where the German _Singspiel_ took

root and enjoyed a long and prosperous career. The German influence

was much more proper to the Scandinavian lands than that of France

or Italy, but it had not the slightest relation to a national art.

Danish stories occasionally appeared in the subject matter, but the

music was substantially that of Reichardt and Zelter in Germany.

In Sweden the course of events was the same. Occasionally national

subject matter appeared in operatic librettos, but in the music never.

Sweden, which up to the beginning of the nineteenth century continued

to be a force in European political affairs, had naturally enjoyed a

considerable degree of intercourse with other nations, and was all

the more influenced by them in her art. Norway and Finland, however,

were completely isolated, and received their musical ministrations

not at second hand but at third. In all these countries there was a

considerable degree of musical life (choirs, orchestras, and dramatic

works), but this was almost wholly confined to the large cities. Yet

all these nations had the possibilities of a rich artistic life--in

national traditions, in folk-song, and in a common sensitiveness of the

racial soul. All four nations are distinctly musical, and in Denmark

and Finland especially the solo or four-part song was cultivated

lovingly in the home and in the smaller communities.

From their isolation and provincialism the Scandinavian countries were

awakened, not by direct, but by reflex impulse. The vigorous national

life of other European lands gradually stimulated a sympathetic

movement in the two Scandinavian peninsulas. Denmark saw its first good

collection of folk-songs in 1812-14, Sweden in 1814-16. In 1842 came A.

P. Berggreen's famous collection of Danish songs, and about the same

time the 540 Norse folk-songs and dances gathered and edited by Ludwig

Lindeman. Doubtless this interest had some political significance.

But far more important than these was the appearance in 1835 of the

first portion of the _Kalevala_, the Finnish national epic, which has

since taken its place beside the Iliad and the _Nibelungenlied_ as

one of the greatest epics of all time. This remarkable poem seems to

have been genuinely popular in origin. It remained in the mouths and

hearts of the people throughout the centuries, almost unknown to the

scholars. A Finnish physician, Elias Lönnrot, made it his life work to

collect and piece together the fragments of the great poem. In 1835

he published thirty-five runes, and in 1849 a new edition containing

fifty--all taken down directly from the peasants' lips. This work had

a decided political significance. It intensified and solidified the

national consciousness, tending to counterbalance the influence of the

Swedish language, which until then had been unquestionedly that of the

cultivated classes; later it formed a buffer to the Russian language

which the Czar attempted to force upon the Finns by imperial edict. It

served to arouse the national feeling to such a pitch that Finland has

in recent years been the chief thorn in the Czar's side. And this fact,

as we shall see, helped to give the Finnish music of the last three

decades its intense national character.

The distinctly national movement in Scandinavian countries began, as we

have said, in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Its growth

thereafter was steady and uninterrupted and was aided by the generous

spread of choral and symphonic music. In the first stage the music

written was based chiefly on German models, but it was written more

and more by native Scandinavians. In the second stage (roughly the

second third of the century) the native composers wrote music that was

based on the national folk-music, but timidly and vaguely. In the third

stage, the folk-tunes were frankly utilized, the national scales and

rhythms were deliberately and continuously called into service, and the

whole musical output given a character homogeneously and distinctively

national. It was in this stage that the Scandinavian music became

known to the world at large. Grieg, a man of the highest talent,

possibly of genius, made himself one of the best loved composers of the

nineteenth century, and awakened a widespread taste for the exotic.

Together with Tschaikowsky the Russian he made nationalism in music a

world-wide triumph. After his success it was no longer counted against

a composer that he spoke in a strange tongue. The very strangeness

of the tongue became a source of interest; and if there was added

thereto a strong and beautiful musical message the new composer usually

had easy sailing. The outward success of Grieg doubtless stimulated

musical endeavor in Scandinavian lands, and enabled the world at large

to become familiar with many minor talents whose reputations could

otherwise not have passed beyond their national borders. Finally,

there has arisen in Finland the greatest and most individual of all

Scandinavian composers, and one of the most powerful writers of music

in the modern world--Jean Sibelius. In him the most intense nationalism

speaks with a universal voice.

The folk-music which made this Scandinavian nationalism possible is

rich and extensive. Apparently it is of rather recent growth, but this

fact is offset by the isolation of the countries in which it developed.

It is of pure Germanic stock (with the exception of certain Eastern

influences in the music of Finland). Yet it has a marked individuality,

a perfume of its own. This is the more remarkable as we discover

that in external qualities it exhibits only slight differences from

the German folk-song. The individuality is not obvious, as with the

Russian or Hungarian folk-music, but subtly resident in a multitude

of details which escape analysis. Not only is the Scandinavian music

clearly distinct from that of the other Germanic lands, but the music

of each of the four countries is subtly distinguished from that of all

the others. The Danish is most like the ordinary German folk-song with

which we are familiar. It is not rich in extent or variety of mood. Its

chief qualities are a discreet playfulness and a gentle melancholy. In

formal structure it is good but not distinguished. It is predominantly

vocal; in old and characteristic dances Denmark is lacking. The

Swedish folk-music is in every way richer. It does not attain to the

extremes of animal and spiritual expression, like the Russian, but

within its fairly broad limits it can show every variety of feeling.

Even in its liveliest moments it reveals something of the predominant

northern melancholy, but the dances, which are numerous and spirited,

reveal a buoyant health. The thin veil of melancholy which has been

so often noticed is not nearly so prominent as a certain refined

sensuality. Sweden, more than any of the other Scandinavian lands, has

known periods of cosmopolitan luxury. She has become a citizen of the

world, with something of the man-of-the-world's self-indulgence and

self-consciousness. So her folk-songs frequently reveal an exquisite

sense of form which seems French rather than Germanic.

The Norse folk-song naturally shows a close relationship with that

of Sweden, but in every point of difference it tends straight away

from the German. Norway has for centuries been a primitive country in

its material conditions; a country of tiny villages, of valleys for

months isolated one from the other; a country of pioneer virtues and

individualistic values. Large cities are few; the ordinary machinery

of civilization is even yet limited. The economic activities are still

in great measure primitive, and much of the work is out of doors, as

in shipping, fishing and pasturing. The scenery is among the grandest

in the world. So it is not surprising that the Norwegian folk-music is

vigorous and sometimes a little crude, and that it reveals an intense

feeling for nature. The people are deeply religious and filled with

the stern Protestant sense of a personal relation with God. The tender

and mystic aspects of the music are less easy to account for; many of

the songs are an intimate revelation of subtle mood, and others show

a tonal vagueness which in modern times is called 'impressionistic.'

More than the Swedish songs they are spontaneous and poetic. If they

reflect nature it is in her personal aspect. They show not so much the

Norwegian mountains as the fog which covers the mountains. They sing

not so much the old Vikings as the quiet people who have settled down

to fishing and trading when their wanderings are over. They reveal not

the face of nature, but her bosom on which lonely men may rest.

The Finnish music is of a mixed stock. Primarily it is an adaptation

of the Swedish, and the greater number of Finnish songs are externally

of Swedish mould. But Lapland has also contributed her child-like

melodies. The true Finnish music, however, is that drawn from the

legendary sources of the original race. The melodies of the old runes

retain their primitive aspects, and are unlike those of any other

nation. They are doubtless the very melodies to which the _Kalevala_

was originally sung. Externally monotonous and heavy, they reveal

strange beauties on closer examination. They are distinguished by many

repetitions of the same note, by irregular or ill-defined metre, and by

a long and sinuous melodic line. Another typical sort of melody is the

'horn-call,' developed from the original blasts of the hunting-horn.

The theme of the trio of the scherzo of Sibelius' second symphony

is typical of the rune melody. Finally the Russian influence may be

felt in many of the older Finnish tunes--in uncertain tonality and a

peculiar use of the minor. This mixture of musical forces is indicative

of the ethnological and social mixture which is the Finnish race. The

Finns are primarily a Mongolian people. From the Laplanders to the

north they received what that simple people had to give. For centuries

they were under the domination of Sweden; Swedish was the language

of their literature and their cultured conversation, and Swedish was

their official civilization. A considerable accession of Swedish

immigrants and infusion of Swedish blood left their affairs in the

control of Germanic influences. (It is on this account that the Finnish

is included in a chapter on Scandinavian music.) Finally, a nearness

to Russia and an intermittent subjugation to the Czardom brought into

their midst Russian influences which were assimilated flexibly but

incompletely. In the late nineteenth century Finland experienced a

renaissance of national feeling. The genuine Finnish language gained

the uppermost, and provided a rallying point for the resistance to

the Czar's attempted Russianization of his duchy. Finnish traditions

displaced those of the Vikings. And Finland began to stand forth as

an oriental nation with a heroic background. Therefore, though her

music developed largely out of Germanic materials, it has become, under

Sibelius (himself of Teutonic blood), a thing apart.

The use of folk-music on the part of the Scandinavian composers seems

to have been less deliberate and conscious than in the case of the

'neo-Russian' nationalists.[10] In the earliest composers who can be

regarded as national it is scarcely to be noticed. For some years after

Danish music began to have a national character the actual presence

of folk-elements was to be detected only on close examination. Such

a careful writer as Mr. Finck indignantly denies that Grieg made

any deliberate use of folk-music. In his view the melodies of the

people are so inferior to those of Grieg that to suggest the latter's

indebtedness is something in the nature of blasphemy. Nevertheless, in

the process of nationalizing the northern music the patriotic composers

introduced the spirit and the technical materials of the folk-music

into conscious works of art. Just what the process was is hardly to

be known, even by the composers themselves. We know that Grieg was an

ardent nationalist and studied and admired the folk-songs. To what

extent he imitated or borrowed folk-melodies for his compositions is

not of first importance. Probably, with the best of the nationalists,

the process was one of saturating themselves in the music of their

native land and then composing personally, and from the heart. At all

events, it is certain that the influence of any folk-music, deeply

studied, is too pervasive for a sensitive composer to escape.

Since the first third of the nineteenth century the Scandinavian

composers have been heavily influenced by the prevailing German musical

forces. German musicians were frequent visitors or sojourners in

Scandinavian cities, and the musicians of the northern lands sought

their education almost exclusively in Germany. Hence Scandinavian music

has reflected closely the changes of fashion that prevailed to the

south. Mendelssohn and Schumann (through the work of Gade) were the

first dominating influences. Chopin influenced their style of pianistic

writing, and Wagner and Liszt in due time influenced their harmonic

procedure. Music dramas were written quite in the Wagnerian style, and

a minor impulse toward programme music came from Berlioz and Liszt.

In the art of instrumentation Wagner and Strauss received instant

recognition and imitation--an imitation which soon became a schooling

and developed into a pronounced native art. Even Brahms had his share

in the work, primarily in the shorter piano pieces which have been so

distinctive a part of the Scandinavian musical output, and latterly in

the 'absolute' polyphonic work of Alfvén, Stenhammar and Norman.

But though all these strands are distinctly discernible, that which

gives the Scandinavian tonal art a right to a separate existence is a

contribution of its own. In the larger and more ambitious forms the

Scandinavian composers have usually not been at their best or most

distinctive. It is the smaller forms--songs, piano pieces, orchestral

pictures, etc.--which have carried the music of the Northland

throughout Europe and America. In these we best see the distinguishing

Scandinavian traits. First there is an impressionism, a dexterity in

the creation of specific mood or atmosphere, which preceded the recent

craze for these qualities. The music of Grieg, simple as it seems to

us now, was in its time a sort of gospel of what could be done with

music on the intimate or pictorial sides. Vagueness, mystery, poetry

spoke to us out of this music of the north. Next there was a feeling

for nature, for pictorial values, for delineative music in its more

romantic terms, which had not been found in the more strenuous program

music of the Germans. The 'Sunrise' of Grieg's 'Peer Gynt Suite'

attuned many thousands of ears to the beauty of natural scenery as

depicted in music. Finally there was a feeling for tonal qualities

as such, which the modern French school has developed to an almost

unbelievable extent. The tone of the piano became an intimate part

of the poetry of northern piano pieces. Further, the school of Grieg

has shown an astonishing talent in the handling of orchestral color.

Brilliant and poetic instrumentation has been one of the chief glories

of the northern school. It was the romantic impulse that was behind

all the best work, and accordingly the formal element does not bulk

large in Scandinavian music. But there is often a wonderful finesse,

polish and dexterity which reveals an exquisite sense of structure and

workmanship, especially in the smaller forms. Vocal music, especially

before the opening of the twentieth century, flourished, and the songs

of certain northern composers have taken their place beside the best

beloved lyric works of Germany. Finally, there are brilliant exceptions

to the statement that the best northern work has been achieved in the

smaller forms; the concertos of Grieg, the symphonic pieces of Sinding,

and the symphonies and tone-poems of Sibelius, strike an epic note in

modern music.

II

The early history of Danish music is that of any royal court of

post-Renaissance times. Foreign composers and performers were invited

to the capital, and when the lower classes had been unusually well

drained of their earnings history recorded a 'brilliant musical age.'

In the eighteenth century there was a royal opera, performing French

and Italian pieces. From time to time various choral or instrumental

societies were founded. In the conventional sense the musical life

of Copenhagen was flourishing. But in all this there was no trace of

national Danish music.

The first composer who may be called truly national began working

after a thorough Germanizing of the country's musical taste had taken

place. This man was Johann Peter Emilius Hartmann (1805-1900). His

extensive work was hardly known outside the limits of his native

land. The few examples which were played in Germany were speedily

forgotten. But he gradually came to be recognized as the great national

composer of Denmark. Though a large part of his student years was

spent in his native land, he was at first under the influence of

the fashionable composers of the time, such as Marschner, Spontini,

Spohr and Auber. But, though not a student of Danish folk-songs, he

gradually came to feel the individuality of the national music, and

in 1832 made himself a national spokesman with his _melodrame_ 'The

Golden Horns,' to Oehlenschlager's text. His opera, 'Little Christine,'

to Andersen's story, performed in 1846, was thoroughly national and

popular in spirit. His output was astonishingly large and varied.

He wrote for nearly every established form, symphonies, overtures,

songs, choral pieces, religious and secular, sonatas as well as short

romantic pieces for the piano, works for organ and violin, ballets,

and picturesque orchestral poems. His nationalism does not appear

consistently in his work; he seems to have made it no creed; perhaps

he only imitated it from Weber and Chopin. But when he chose to work

with national materials he came nearer to the popular spirit than any

other composer of the time, barring the two or three great ones of

whom Weber is the type. His facility was great, his themes pregnant

and arresting. He revealed an energetic structural power, and together

with fine polyphonic ability a mastery of romantic suggestion in the

style of Mendelssohn. But it is chiefly by his native feeling for

the folk-style that he established himself as the first Scandinavian

nationalist in music. Grieg wrote of him: 'The dreams of our younger

generation of northern men were his from the time he reached maturity.

The best and deepest thoughts which moved a later generation of more or

less important spirits were spoken first in him, and found their first

echo in us.'

But it was Niels W. Gade (1817-1890) who represented the Danish

school in the eyes of the outside world. This was due chiefly to his

strategic position as friend of Mendelssohn and, after Mendelssohn's

death, director of the Gewandhaus orchestra in Leipzig. At bottom

he was thoroughly a German of the conservative romantic school. His

excellence in the eyes of the time consisted in his ability at writing

Mendelssohn's style of music with almost Mendelssohn's charm and

finish. But he was also the Dane, and in subtle wise he managed to

impregnate his music with Danish musical feeling. His eight symphonies

had a high standing in his day, the first and last being typically

national in character, serving, in fact, as a sort of propaganda for

the national school that was to come. But Gade was more thoroughly

national in some of his choral ballads and dramatic cantatas, such as

'Calamus,' 'The Erlking's Daughter,' 'The Stream,' and others; and

especially in his orchestral suite, 'A Summer Day in the Country,' and

his suite for string orchestra, _Holbergiana_. His personality was not

so vigorous as that of Hartmann; his culture was more conservative and

classical; the shadow of Mendelssohn prevented the more aggressive

national utterance that might have been desired. But what he did he did

well, and his immense influence on the future of Scandinavian music was

established through his masterful fusing of the best German classic

manner of the time with popular national materials.

Among the Danish composers of the same time we may mention Emil

Hartmann (1836-1898), son of the great Hartmann, prolific composer of

orchestral pieces, chamber music, and operas of professedly national

character; Peter A. Heise (1830-1870), composer of songs to some of the

best national lyric poetry of the time; and August Winding (1835-1899),

composer of piano, orchestral and chamber music in which national color

and folk humor were discreetly brought to the foreground.

In recent times the Danish school, of the four Scandinavian branches,

has been least national in intent. Foreign gods have exercised their

sway in one fashion or another. Nor can we say that the absolute value

of the more recent works is distinguished. Among the half dozen Danish

composers who have attained to eminence there is none who can be

considered the equal of either Gade or Hartmann in personal ability.

Much of the best efforts of the younger men has gone to larger forms,

in which either their creative inspiration or their formal mastery

has proved insufficient. Among them there are four of marked ability:

August Enna, in opera; Asger Hamerik, in symphonic music; P. E.

Lange-Müller, in lyric and piano works; and Carl Nielsen, in chamber

music.

August Enna (born 1860) is the most prolific and successful of

Denmark's opera composers. Chiefly self-taught, but mainly German in

his influences, he has written some ten operas in which one influence

or style after another is evident. 'Cleopatra,' after Rider Haggard's

story, is ambitious and theatric, but it reveals, alongside of

frank Wagnerism, the ghost of Meyerbeer and of Italian opera of the

'transition period' of the 'eighties. 'Aucassin and Nicolette' attempts

the quaint and naïve style which is supposed to comport with the late

Middle Ages; it has a distinction of its own, but too often it is mere

conventional romantic opera. The fairy operas after Andersen--'The

Little Match Girl' and 'The Princess of the Peapod'--are in more

congenial style, but lack the necessary consistent manner of light

fantasy. The truth is that Enna, with marked abilities, is limited to

the expression of tender sentiment, gentle melancholy, and personal,

intimate moods. His invention is happy, though uneven; his use of

the orchestra colorful but not always in taste. He lacks the ability

to conceive and carry out a large work in a consistent and elevated

manner. He fails in that ultimate test of the thorough workman--the

ability to execute a whole work in a consistent and homogeneous style.

The trouble is not with his operatic instinct, which is sufficiently

vivid; nor with his melodic invention as such, for this is often fresh

and charming. But his musicianship and his inspiration have not proven

equal to the task he has set himself.

Asger Hamerik (born 1843) has undertaken an equally big task in the

field of symphonic music. He plans on a large scale, but it can hardly

be said that he thinks likewise. We may note a 'Poetic' symphony, a

'Tragic' symphony, a 'Lyric' symphony, a 'Majestic' symphony, and a

choral symphony, among several others. Of his two operas, one, 'The

Vendetta,' received a performance in Milan. There is considerable

choral and chamber music, and in particular a 'Northern' orchestral

suite by which his artistic personality may be best known. But he has

at bottom little of the national feeling. He is facilely eclectic,

but with no individual or consistent binding principle. He has a

romanticism that recalls Dvořák's--graceful, mildly sensuous, pleasing

rather than inspiring; he has further a marked gift as an instrumental

colorist. But his harmony is conventional, and his thematic ideas

are usually undistinguished. Finally, his structural power is not

sufficient to raise his musical material to a high artistic plane.

Hamerik is out of the main line of Scandinavian national music, but

has not been able to make a place for himself in music universal.

Much more to the purpose in intent and achievement is P. E.

Lange-Müller (born 1850). He reveals a graceful sense of form and a

sincere emotional feeling in his smaller works for piano and voice.

His harmony is conservative and sometimes disappointing; but whenever

he strikes the tender mood of folk-music he saves himself with a touch

of poetry. But he is rather a follower of the old school of German

romanticism than of Scandinavian nationalism. The four-act opera, _Frau

Jeanna_, is content with an unobtrusive lyric style, but the lyricism

is not exalted enough to sustain such a large-scale work. The melodrama

_Middelalderlig_, of more recent date, shows much poetic color but a

fundamental lack of invention. In the larger works he is at his best

in the fairy-comedy, 'Once upon a Time.' His symphony 'In Autumn,' his

orchestral suite, 'Alhambra,' and 'Niels Ebbesen' for chorus, have met

with indifferent success. Lange-Müller is primarily a lyric composer

for voice and piano, and in this field he shows a sort of grace and

tenderness which we shall meet with frequently in recent Swedish music.

A sincere and able, yet austere, composer is Carl Nielsen (born 1865).

His music is, with that of the Swede Alfvén, less programmistic and

more 'absolute' than we shall meet with in any other distinguished

Scandinavian musician of modern times. The national element in his work

is almost _nil_. A master of counterpoint, and a vigorous innovator in

the modern Russian style, he commands respect rather than love. His

output includes more than half a dozen symphonies, a number of works

for string quartet and violin, some large compositions for chorus and

orchestra, and a four-act opera, 'Saul and David.' It is by this that

he is best known. This is a work to command respectful attention from

musicians, but hardly enthusiastic applause from ordinary audiences.

The writing shows great musical knowledge, careful and ample ability in

counterpoint and in modulation of the complex modern sort, a certain

unity of style, and a command of special emotional color. But the work

is perhaps rather that of the symphonist than of the operatic poet. His

instrumentation, unlike his harmony, is conservative. His workmanship

is thorough, and his musicianship wide and soundly based.

Among the minor names there are several who deserve mention for one

reason or another. Ludolf Nielsen (born 1876) is a thorough classicist

at heart, though he has become known in Germany through his symphonic

poems 'In Memoriam,' _Fra Bjaergene_, and 'Summer Night Moods.' He

is more than usually talented, but very conservative in his style.

His themes are interesting though not striking, and his product is

sufficiently inspired with human feeling to be preserved from pedantry.

Hakon Börresen (born 1876) has distinguished himself with many songs

which preserve the national tradition established for Norway by Grieg

and Sinding. His chamber music has revealed harmonic invention and

tender coloring which show him to be one of the chosen of the younger

Danish composers. Finally, we may mention Otto Malling (born 1848), an

able writer for organ and string quartet; Victor Bendix (born 1851),

well known in Denmark for a number of symphonies which combine delicate

poetry with structural beauty; Ludvig Schytte (born 1848), prolific

writer of piano pieces, and Cornelius Rübner, who commands respect for

solidly classic workmanship. These latter men are of the old school. Of

the younger generation in Denmark we are hardly justified in hoping for

works of great distinction, unless a possible exception may be made in

the case of Börresen. For, speaking broadly, the national impulse has

departed from Danish composition.

III

Though Scandinavian art was first brought to the attention of the

world at large through the Norwegians (Grieg in music and Ibsen

in literature), Sweden has in more recent years held her share of

international attention. After Ibsen the Swede Strindberg was perhaps

the most talked-of dramatist in Europe. Still more recently the novels

of Selma Lagerlöf and the sociological writings of Ellen Key have been

widely translated and read, not only in European lands, but in America

also. Strindberg was a supreme artist, a personality of an intensity

equalling Nietzsche and of a spiritual variety suggesting that of

Goethe. The strain of violent morbidity in his _Weltanschauung_ was a

purely personal and not at all a national matter. As executive artist

he showed an almost classic balance and control. Selma Lagerlöf is

sane and finely poised, and Ellen Key has by her moderation and her

clearness of intellectual vision made herself a leader in a department

of modern sociological study which more than any other is apt to be

treated sentimentally and hysterically. Poise and artistic control are,

in fact, to be noticed generally in modern Swedish art, and especially

in music. The cosmopolitan character of Swedish political history is

here seen in its results. Someone has called Stockholm 'the Paris of

the north.' The epithet is just: grace, conscious artistry, sensuous

self-indulgence, are to be found in Swedish music in a degree that

contrasts markedly with the militant self-expression of the Norwegian

school. Without losing its national qualities the art of modern Sweden

has spoken the easy language of the European capitals.

Sweden's story is like Denmark's: first a thorough Germanization of

her music, then a gradual growth of the national tone. This tone

grew in every case out of the early German romanticism. The first

great Swedish composer and the earliest romanticist was Franz Berwald

(1796-1868). His position in Sweden is somewhat analogous to that held

in Denmark by Hartmann. His output was large, and in the largest forms.

He undertook symphonic works which until his time had been neglected

in his native land. Without being known much outside Sweden he gained

a place in the hearts of his countrymen which he has held ever since.

His most popular work was his _Symphonie Sérieuse_ in G minor, composed

in 1843, sincere, poetic and musicianly. The influence of Schumann is

predominant. A considerable quantity of symphonic and chamber music,

reflecting chiefly Beethoven and Mendelssohn, gained him a position as

the foremost symphonic writer of his time. An early violin concerto,

composed in 1820, reveals him as a sincere student of Beethoven,

youthful, romantic and progressive. Out of half a dozen operas we may

mention _Estrella de Soria_, a romantic work of large proportions,

built on the Parisian model (though showing the homely influence of

Weber)--with hunting chorus, grand ballet, and all. That he was not

unconscious of his nationality is proved by the names of some of

his choral compositions, such as _Gustav Adolph bei Lützen_, 'The

Victory of Karl XII at Narwa,' and the _Nordische Phantasiebilder_. A

'symphonic poem,' _En landtlig Bröllopfest_, makes extensive use of

Swedish melodies, but the style is not a national one, and the themes

are merely utilized without being developed. As a highly trained and

spontaneous worker in the early romantic style Berwald performed a

great service in awakening musical consciousness in his native land.

But here ends his national significance.

Berwald's tendency was represented in the following generation by

Albert Rubenson (1826-1901), a less talented but very able composer.

He came from the Leipzig school and was thoroughly Germanized, but

like Berwald devoted some attention to Swedish subjects. Ludwig

Normann (1831-1885) anticipated the modern Swedish composers in his

preference for the smaller forms. In his piano music he is tender and

idyllic, delighting in detail and suggestive device, something of a

poet and tone-painter. Mendelssohn is the chief influence in his piano

work. Though this is thin in style, it is rich in charming melody and

is carried out with a fine polish. In his larger works, such as the

symphony in E-flat major (1840), he is still the melodist; his writing

is fresh and even original, but his scoring is without distinction.

His romantic overtures are in the Mendelssohnian manner, with romantic

color in the fashion of the time.

One of the most talented of the early Swedish composers was Ivan

Hallström (1826-1901), who may be said to have been the first

truly national composer of his land. He appreciated the artistic

possibilities of the national folk-song and made its use in his music

a chief tenet in his artistic creed. This was preëminently true in

his operas--such as _Den Bergtagna_, _Die Gnomenbraut_, _Der Viking_,

and _Neaga_. The last-named is a romantic work teeming with color and

poetry, with traces of Wagnerian influence, but with much vigor, beauty

and depth. Some of these works have been favorably received in Germany,

but they are not sufficiently personal and dramatic to justify a long

life. The Swedish folk-song was carried into symphonic and chamber

music by J. Adolph Hägg (born 1850), a disciple of Gade and an able and

fruitful composer of symphonies and sonatas, and romantic pieces for

piano, which are filled with romantic and local color.

But the early musical generation, of which Hallström may be considered

one of the last, was more distinctive and national in its songs than

in its instrumental works. The first half of the nineteenth century

may be called the golden age of the Swedish _Lied_. It was a time of

choral societies, some of which became famous throughout the continent.

Otto Lindblad (1809-1864) was a leader and prolific composer for such

societies. It is to his credit to have composed the official national

song of Sweden. But the great lyric genius of Sweden was Adolph Fr.

Lindblad (1801-1879), who is commonly called 'the Swedish Schubert.'

His genius was tender and elegiac, responding sensitively to the colors

of nature, and, thanks to the art of Jenny Lind, it became familiar to

concert-goers in many lands.

Swedish music of modern times has maintained a wide variety of forms

and styles. The national feeling is still strong, though some of

the ablest work is being done in an 'absolute' idiom. On the whole

the recent Swedish school is best represented to the outside world

by Petersen-Berger with his short and graceful piano pieces, and by

Sjögren with his songs. In opera Sweden has approached an international

standing, but has not quite attained it. Her opera is represented at

its best by Andreas Hallén (born 1846), who used national tone-material

with Wagnerian technique. Like most other northern musicians of his

time he went to Leipzig for his training and sought in Germany for

his beacon lights. After returning to his native land he became

indispensable in its musical life, serving as director of the Stockholm

Philharmonic Society and of the Stockholm opera. Besides songs and

choral works he wrote a number of symphonic pieces of a high order,

filled with Swedish melody and Swedish color. The Swedish Rhapsodies

opus 23, based entirely upon well-known national songs, are of a

solid technique and agreeable variety; the themes themselves are

little developed, but by their scoring and their juxtaposition they

become fused into an admirable whole. The _Sommersaga_, opus 36,

lacks specific Swedish color, but is an attractive and able work in

the older romantic style. The _Toteninsel_, opus 45, is an ambitious

symphonic poem. The themes are arresting, the development powerful,

and the harmony energetic, but the work lacks the dithyrambic quality

demanded of tone-poems in recent times, and hence seems outmoded. In

'The Music of the Spheres,' dating from 1909, we discover an admirable

adaptation and fusion of modern harmonic technique, but the ideas and

the construction speak of a bygone age. In all these works Hallén

was mainly under the influence of Liszt. In the operas, on which his

reputation chiefly rests, he was at first wholly Wagnerian. His first

work for the stage, 'Harald the Viking,' though presumably Swedish, is

utterly Wagnerian in treatment. Were it not that Wagnerian imitation

cannot be truly creative, this work would surely take a high rank,

for it is powerful, dramatic, and admirably scored. The national

tone becomes more marked in the later operas--_Hexfällen_ (1896),

_Waldemarskatten_ (1899) and _Waldborgsmässa_ (1901). The Wagnerian

leit-motif and Wagnerian harmony are still present, but the Swedish

material has suitably modified the general style. In _Waldemarskatten_,

which is of a light romantic tone, one even feels that the composer

has despaired of being successful in the highest musical forms and

has made a compromise in the direction of easy popularity. But the

work is filled with beautiful passages. In the spots where Hallén

imitates folk-song or folk-dance, he is fresh and inspiring. His

musical treatment is never highly personal; on the other hand he shows

most valuable qualities--vigor, passion, folk-feeling, and above all

dramatic sense. His scoring, too, is rich and colorful.

Perhaps the best known and most typical of the modern Swedes is Emil

Sjögren (born 1853), the undisputed master of the modern Swedish

art-song. No other composer of his land is so individual as he. No

other is more specifically Swedish, in perfumed grace and sensuous

tenderness. Yet he is by no means a salon composer. His work is

energetic, showing at times even a touch of the noble and heroic. His

nationalism does not consist so much in his use of actual Swedish

material as in his finely racial manner of treatment. In his short

piano pieces--cycles, novelettes, landscape pictures, etc.--he has

impregnated the salon manner of a Mendelssohn with something of the

color and personal feeling of a Grieg. His choral works are highly

prized in Sweden. His work in the classical forms, chiefly for violin

and piano, are conservative in form and (until recently) in harmony.

But it is in his songs that Sjögren has expressed himself most

perfectly. These are very numerous and show a wide range of emotional

expression. Beyond a doubt they are thoroughly successful only in

the tenderer and intimate moods. They reveal a psychological power

recalling that of Schumann, and an impressionistic harmonic perfume

similar to that in Grieg's best work. In the brief strophe form Sjögren

shows himself master of the exquisite form which distinguishes the

Swedish folk-song. In his early period his accompaniment followed

closely the regular voice-part, and his harmony, while always

personal, was simple. A middle period shows a perfect blending of

voice and piano, with freedom and variety in each, much pianistic

resourcefulness, and a remarkable melodic gift. Since this period his

harmony has undergone a striking change. He has evidently sat at the

feet of the modern French masters, and has adopted an idiom which is

complex and difficult. He has managed to keep it original and personal,

but it is to be doubted whether the recent songs will ever hold a

permanent place beside the lovely ones of the middle period.

Of almost equal personal distinction and importance is Wilhelm

Petersen-Berger (born 1867), a master of romantic piano music in the

smaller forms, and a national voice to his native land. His work is

varied. There is chamber music such as the E minor violin sonata. There

is a 'Banner Symphony' (1904) and one entitled _Sonnenfärd_ (1910).

There are male choruses, such as _En Fjällfärd_, and orchestral works

such as the 'May Carnival in Stockholm,' together with at least four

operas--_Sveagaldrar_ (1897), _Das Glück_ (1902), _Ran_ (1903) and

_Arnljot_ (1907). Finally there are the piano pieces, a rich and varied

list ranging all the way from the simplest of 'parlor melodies' to

large tone poems and concert works. Some of the piano pieces bear such

titles as 'To the Roses,' 'Summer Song,' and 'Lawn Tennis.' Others are

ambitiously named 'Northern Rhapsody' (with orchestra) and 'Swedish

Summer.' With some of these works Petersen-Berger takes a place

beside the ablest and most poetic modern writers for the pianoforte.

Landscape, story and mood are here expressed, with a technique ranging

from that of Schumann's 'Children's Pieces' all the way to the modern

idiom of Ravel. If some of the pieces seem cheap and sentimental let

it be remembered that they are replacing much less attractive things

written by third rate men, and are helping to raise the taste of the

'ordinary music-lover' as Mendelssohn's 'Songs without Words' did half

a century before. His melody is truly lyric and his harmony truly

impressionistic. His genius for the piano is proved by his ability to

get full and colorful effects out of a style of writing which on paper

looks thin. Though sentimentality abounds, the spirit is fundamentally

vigorous and healthy and at times approaches something like tragic

dignity. The 'Northern Rhapsody' is a wholly admirable treatment of

folk-tunes on a large scale and with the idiom of pianistic virtuosity.

The songs are often charming, though on the whole less satisfactory

than the piano pieces. When he writes simply he shows almost flawless

taste and artistic selection. When he aims at the mood of high

tragedy, as in the songs from Nietzsche, he is sometimes unexpectedly

successful. The Nietzsche songs, radical in technique, are moving and

impressive. In his large works Petersen-Berger is not so successful.

His _Sonnenfärd_ symphony is lyric, rather than orchestral. It is

lacking in structural power, and in the broad spiritual sweep which

such a large-scale work must have. But here again his charming melody

almost saves the day. The opera _Arnljot_ can hardly be called a

success; it is long and ambitious, but thinly written, undramatic, and

not very pleasing.

In direct contrast to Petersen-Berger is Hugo Alfvén (born 1872),

Sweden's most important contrapuntist. In him the national influence

is reduced to a minimum, though it is sometimes to be noticed in a

certain manner of forming themes and moulding cadences. Swedish color

is, however, noticeable in certain works specifically national. The

_Midsommarvaka_ is built upon Swedish tunes, organized and developed in

the spirit of the classic composers. The whole spirit is intellectual

and technical, but this has its agreeable side in the composer's

ability to build up long sustained passages. The 'Upsala Rhapsody,'

opus 24, is merely an excuse for the technical manipulation of a

collection of rather cheap melodies. The symphonies are more able and

even less interesting. The solidity and complexity of the polyphonic

style excite admiration, but the themes are without distinction and

the total effect is pedantic. In his songs, however, Alfvén gives us a

surprise. His power of development here becomes something like poetic

greatness, especially where the form is free enough to give the work a

symphonic character. The voice part is unconventional, declamatory and

impressive, and the accompaniment varied and impressive. Altogether,

these songs are among the most admirable which modern Scandinavian has

given us.

Among the other able composers of modern Sweden we should mention Tor

Aulin (born 1866), who has consecrated his lyric and poetic talent

chiefly to the violin; Erik Akerberg (born 1860), whose classical

predilections have led him to choral and symphonic work; and Wilhelm

Stenhammar (born 1871). The last is one of the ablest of modern Swedish

composers, a man whose talents have by no means been adequately

recognized, and a genius, perhaps, who is destined to out-strip his

better-known contemporaries. The list of his works includes two

operas, _Tirfing_ (1898) and 'The Feast at Solhaug' (the libretto

from Ibsen's play); string quartets, sonatas and concertos for piano

and violin; large choral works, songs, and ballads with orchestral

accompaniment. The piano concerto, opus 23, ranks with Grieg's finest

orchestral works. The themes, not always remarkable, are lifted into

the extraordinary by Stenhammar's brilliant handling of them. The A

minor quartet, opus 25, shows great beauty of simple material, and an

intellectual and technical dominance which lift it quite above the

usual Swedish chamber music. The sonata for violin and piano, opus 19,

is a fine work, simple, fresh, original and charming. In much of the

instrumental music the idiom is advanced, with the emphasis thrown on

the voice leading rather than on the harmony; but it cannot easily be

referred to a single school, for it is always personal and individually

expressive. When we come to a work like _Midvinter_, opus 24, a tone

poem for large orchestra, we are at the summit of modern Scandinavian

romantic writing. This work is a masterpiece. The themes, says the

composer in a note, were taken down by ear from the fiddler Hinns

Andersen, except for one, a traditional Christmas hymn which is sung

by a chorus obbligato. The counterpoint in this work is masterly, the

animal vigor overwhelming. At no point is the composer found wanting

in structural power or invention. On the whole, no modern Scandinavian

composer, unless it be Sinding, approaches Stenhammar in the fusing of

fresh poetry with strong intellectual and technical control. But not

only has he written some of Scandinavia's finest chamber and symphonic

music; he has written also at least one opera which stands out from

among its contemporaries as genius stands out from imitation. This is

'The Feast at Solhaug,' opus 6, dated 1896, and performed at the Berlin

Royal Opera House in 1905. This work is utterly lyrical and utterly

national; it is doubtful if there is a more thoroughly Swedish work in

the whole list of modern Scandinavian music. In the vulgar sense it

is not dramatic; it has little concern for square-cornered emotions

and startling confrontations. Its melody, which is astonishingly

abundant, is always spontaneous and always expressive. The discreetly

managed accompaniment is unfailingly resourceful in supplying color and

emotional expression. We can say without hesitation that there has been

no more beautiful dramatic work in the whole history of Scandinavian

opera.

IV

Norway, as it seems, has always been a nation of great individuals.

In her early history she was as isolated socially as she was

geographically. Though nominally a part of the Swedish Empire, she

always maintained a large measure of independence, and strengthened

the barrier of high mountains with a more impassable barrier of

neighborhood jealousy. Life was difficult among the mountains and

fjords, and each man was obliged to depend upon his own courage and

energy. Luxury was unknown. Even civilization was primitive. Hence,

when Norway began to attain artistic expression in the nineteenth

century she was as provincial as a little village in the middle west of

America. But her life, while simple, was intense, and the narrowness

of the spiritual environment fostered a broad culture of the soul.

Norway became a nation of laborers, of poets, of thinkers, and of

religious seers. The very friction that opposed the current made it

give out more light.

Ibsen, the first supreme genius of Norway in the arts, wrote equally

from Norway's traditional past and from Norway's circumscribed present.

Out of the combination of the two he created 'Brand,' one of the

noblest poetic tragedies of modern times. His later social dramas,

as we know, altered the theatre of the whole world. Beside Ibsen was

Björnson, only second to him in poetry and drama. And it was during

Ibsen's early years that Norway began to attain self-expression in

music. The first composer of national significance was Waldemar Thrane

(1790-1828), composer of overtures, cantatas, and dances, and of the

music to Bjerragaard's 'Adventure in the Mountains.' But the fame of

Norway was first carried outside the peninsula by Ole Bull (1810-1880),

the virtuoso violinist who, after touring through all the capitals of

Europe, settled down in Pennsylvania as the founder of a Norwegian

colony. His compositions for the violin had an influence out of all

proportion to their inherent value. He was a romantic voice out of the

north to thousands who had never thought of music except in terms of

Mendelssohn and Händel. His Fantasies and Caprices for the violin were

filled with national melodies and national color. He was an ardent

patriot, and through his national theatre in Bergen, no less than

through his music and playing, awakened his countrymen to artistic

self-consciousness.

Of far wider power as a composer was Halfdan Kjerulf (1815-1863),

a composer of songs which stand among the best in spontaneity and

delicate charm. His charming piano pieces in the small forms were

filled with romantic color. In his many songs, simple, yet varied and

original, he showed a power of evoking emotional response that forces

one to compare his talent with that of Schubert. With him we should

mention E. Neupert (1842-1888), who carried the romanticism of Weber

and Mendelssohn into Norway, in a long and varied list of chamber and

orchestral music; M. A. Udbye (1820-1889), composer of Norway's first

opera _Fredkulla_; and O. Winter-Hjelm (born 1837), who was a generous

composer of songs, choral and orchestral pieces in the conservative

romantic style of Germany. Johann D. Behrens (1820-1890) proved himself

a valuable conductor and composer for Norway's unbelievably numerous

male singing societies.

But the greatest composer of the older romantic period was Johan

Svendsen (born 1840). He was solidly grounded in the methods and

ideals of Schumann, Mendelssohn, Gade and even Brahms, and remained

always true to their vision. A specific national composer he was not,

but with discreet coloring he treated national subjects in such works

as the 'Norwegian Rhapsody,' the 'Northern Carnival,' the legend for

orchestra _Zorahayde_, and the prelude to Björnson's _Sigurd Slembe_.

In the classical forms he wrote two symphonies and a number of string

quartets of marked value. As a colorist he must be highly ranked. But

his color is not so much that of nationality as that of romanticism

in the conventional sense. His virtues were the romantic virtues of

sensuous beauty, discreet eloquence, and somewhat self-conscious

emotion. But Norway found her true national propagandist in Richard

Nordraak (1842-1866). This man, who died at the age of twenty-four,

was a remarkably talented musician, and an unrestrained enthusiast

for the integrity of his native land, both in politics and in art. It

is said that his meeting with Grieg in Copenhagen in 1864, and their

later friendly intercourse, determined the latter to the strenuously

national aspirations which he later carried to such brilliant

fruition. The funeral march which Grieg inscribed to him after his

death is one of his deepest and most moving works. Nordraak's few

compositions--incidental music to two of Björnson's plays, piano pieces

and songs--show his effort after purely national coloring, but have

otherwise no very high value.

The great apostle of Norwegian nationalism was of course Grieg. His

place among the composers of whom we are now speaking was partly that

of good angel and partly that of press agent. The other Scandinavian

composers have basked to a great extent in the light which he shed,

have taken their inspiration from him, and have learned invaluable

lessons in the art of musical picture painting. He was by no means

merely a nationalist. Besides acquainting the world with the beautiful

peculiarities of Norwegian folk-song and with the fancied beauties of

northern scenery, he showed composers in every part of the world how

to use the melodic peculiarities of these songs to build up a strange

and enchanting harmony, capable of calling forth mysterious pictures

of the earth and sea and their superhuman inhabitants. Grieg was the

first popular impressionist. He helped to shift the emphasis from the

technical and emotional aspects of music to its specific pictorial

and sensuous aspects. And he prepared the world at large for the idea

of musical nationalism, which has become one of the two most striking

facts of present-day music.

When we say that Grieg was the first popular impressionist we do not

mean that he was more able or original than certain others who were

working with the same tendencies at the same time. His popularity

resulted to a great extent from the form and manner in which he worked.

His piano music was admirably suited to making a popular appeal. It was

often short and easy; it was nearly always melodious and clear. Its

picturesque titles suggested a reason for its unusual turns of harmony

and phrase. It was never so radical in its originality as to leave the

mind bewildered. Hence Grieg became extremely popular among amateurs

and casual music-lovers. His piano pieces became _Hausmusik_ as those

of Mendelssohn had been a generation before. The 'impressionistic'

effect was usually produced by simple means--a slight alteration of

the familiar form of cadence, a gentle blurring of the major and

minor modes, an extended use of secondary sevenths and other orthodox

dissonances. These interested the musical amateur without repelling

him, and, when listened to in association with the picturesque titles,

suggested all sorts of delightful sensuous things, such as the mist

on the mountains, the sunlight over the fjords, or the heavy green of

the seaside pines. This musical style of Grieg's was expertly managed;

it was unquestionably individual and was matured to a point where it

showed no relapses to the style out of which it had developed. As

an orchestral colorist Grieg was talented and original, but by no

means revolutionary. He chose _timbres_ with a nice sense of their

picturesque values, but in orchestration he is not a long step ahead of

the Mendelssohn of the overtures.

[Illustration: Edvard Grieg at the Piano]

_After a photograph from life_

Edvard Hagerup Grieg, the son of Alexander Grieg, was born in Bergen,

Norway, in 1843. He was descended from Alexander Greig (the spelling of

the name was changed later to accommodate the Norwegian pronunciation),

a merchant of Aberdeen, who emigrated from Scotland to Norway soon

after the battle of Culloden, in 1746. His father and his grandfather

before him served as British consul at Bergen. His mother was a

daughter of Edvard Hagerup, for many years the mayor of Bergen, the

second city of Norway. It was from her that Grieg inherited both his

predisposition for music and his intensely patriotic nature. She was

a loyal daughter of Norway and was possessed of no small musical

talent, which her family was glad to cultivate, sending her to Hamburg

in her girlhood for lessons in singing and pianoforte playing. These

she supplemented later by further musical studies in London, and she

acquired sufficient skill to enable her to appear acceptably as a

soloist at orchestral concerts in Bergen. It was a home surcharged with

a musical atmosphere into which Edvard Grieg was born; and his mother

must have dreamed of making him a musician, for she began to give him

pianoforte lessons when he was only six years old.

Though he disliked school (he appears to have been a typical youngster

in his predilection for truancy), the boy made commendable progress

in his music and even tried his hand at little compositions of his

own; but before his fifteenth year there was no serious thought of

a musical career for him. In that year Ole Bull, the celebrated

violinist, visited his father's house, and, having heard the lad play

some of his youthful pieces, prevailed upon his parents to send him

to Leipzig that he might become a professional musician. It was all

arranged very quickly one summer afternoon; the fond parents needed

little coaxing, and to the boy 'it seemed the most natural thing in

the world.' Matriculated at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1858, young

Grieg at first made slow progress. He studied harmony and counterpoint

under Hauptmann and Richter, composition under Rietz and Reinecke, and

pianoforte playing under Wenzel and Moscheles. At the conservatory at

that time were five English students, among them Arthur Sullivan, J.

F. Barnett, and Edward Dannreuther, who subsequently became leaders

in the musical life of London; and their unstinting toil and patience

in drudgery inspired the young Norwegian to greater concentration of

effort than his frail physique could stand. Under the strain he broke

down completely. An attack of pleurisy destroyed his left lung and thus

his health was permanently impaired. He was taken home to Norway,

where it was necessary for him to remain the greater part of a year to

recuperate. But as soon as he was able he returned to Leipzig; he was

graduated with honors in 1862.

At Leipzig Grieg came strongly under the sway of Mendelssohn and

Schumann. He did not escape from that influence when he went to

Copenhagen in 1863 to study composition informally with Niels Gade.

While Grieg always held Gade in high esteem, the two musicians really

had little in common, and the slight influence of the Dane was speedily

superseded by that of Nordraak, with whom Grieg now came in contact.

Nordraak was ambitious to produce a genuinely national Norwegian

music, and, brief as their friendship was, it served to set Grieg,

whose talents lay in the same direction, on the right path. Now fairly

launched upon the career of a piano virtuoso and composer, he became

a 'determined adversary of the effeminate Scandinavianism which was a

mixture of Gade and Mendelssohn,' and with enthusiasm entered upon the

work of developing independently in artistic forms the musical idioms

of his people. In 1867 Grieg was married to Nina Hagerup, his cousin,

who had inspired and who continued to inspire many of his best songs,

and whose singing of them helped to spread her husband's fame in many

European cities. In 1867 also he founded in Christiania a musical union

of the followers of the new Norse school, which he continued to conduct

for thirteen years.

Besides the giving of concerts in the chief Scandinavian and German

cities and making an artistic pilgrimage to Italy Grieg at this period

was increasingly industrious in composition. He was remarkably active

for a semi-invalid. He had found himself; and he continued to develop

his creative powers in the production of music that was not only

nationally idiomatic, but thoroughly suffused with the real spirit

of his land and his people. In 1868 Liszt happened upon his first

violin sonata (opus 8) and forthwith sent him a cordial letter of

commendation and encouragement, inviting him to Weimar. This letter

was instrumental in inducing the Norwegian government to grant him a

sum of money that enabled him to go again to Rome in 1870. There he

met Liszt and the two musicians at once became firm friends. At their

second meeting Liszt played from the manuscript Grieg's piano concerto

(opus 16), and when he had finished said: 'Keep steadily on; I tell you

you have the capability, and--do not let them intimidate you!' The big,

great-hearted Liszt feared that the frail little man from the far north

might be in danger of intimidation; but his spirit was brave enough at

all times--though he wrote to his parents: 'This final admonition was

of tremendous importance to me; there was something in it that seemed

to give it an air of sanctification.' Thenceforward the recognition of

his genius steadily increased. In 1872 he was appointed a member of

the Swedish Academy of Music; in 1883 a corresponding member of the

Musical Academy at Leyden; in 1890 of the French Academy of Fine Arts.

In 1893 the University of Cambridge conferred on him the doctorate

in music, at the same time that it honored by the bestowal of this

degree Tschaikowsky, Saint-Saëns, Boito, and Max Bruch. Except when

on concert tours his later years were spent chiefly at his beautiful

country home, the villa Troldhaugen near Bergen, and there he died on

September 4, 1907, after an almost constant fight with death for more

than forty-five years.

Hans von Bülow called Grieg the Chopin of the North, and the

convenience of the sobriquet helped to give it a wider popular

acceptance than it deserved, for in truth the basis for such a

comparison is rather slight. Undoubtedly Chopin's bold new harmony was

one of the sub-conscious forces that helped to shape Grieg's musical

genius. His mother had appreciated and delighted in Chopin's music at

a time when it was little understood and much underrated; and from

childhood Chopin was Grieg's best-loved composer. In his student days

he was deeply moved by the 'intense minor mood of the Slavic folk-music

in Chopin's harmonies and the sadness over the unhappy fate of his

native land in his melodies.' It is certain that there is a certain

kinship in the musical styles of the two men, in their refinement,

in the kind and even the degree of originality with which each has

enriched his art, in many of their aims and methods. While Grieg never

attained to the heights of Chopin in his pianoforte music, he surpassed

his Polish predecessor in the ability to handle other instruments as

well as in his songs, of which he published no fewer than one hundred

and twenty-five.

These songs we hold to constitute Grieg's loftiest achievement; and

in all his music he is first of all the singer--amazingly fertile

in easily comprehensible and alluring melodies. He patterned these

original melodies after the folk-songs of that Northland he loved so

ardently, just as he often employed the rhythms of its folk-dances;

and by these means he imparted to his work a fascinating touch of

strangeness and succeeded in evoking as if by magic the moods of the

land and the people from which he sprang. On the wings of his music we

are carried to the land of the fjords; we breathe its inspiriting air,

and our blood dances and sings with its lusty yet often melancholy sons

and daughters. Much as there is of Norway in his compositions, there is

still more of Grieg. His melodies are his own and more enchanting than

the folk-songs which provided their patterns; and as a harmonist he is

both bold and skillful.

Grieg's place, as may be gathered from what has already been said,

is in the small group of the world's greatest lyricists. He wrote no

operas and he composed no great symphonies. His physical infirmity

militated against the sustained effort necessary for the creation of

works in these kinds; but it is also plain from the work he did when

at his best that his inclination and his powers led him into other

fields. He possessed the dramatic qualities and ability only slightly,

the epic still less, though it cannot be denied that in moments of rare

exaltation he was 'a poet of the tragic, of the largely passionate and

elemental.' His nearest approach to symphonic breadth is to be found

in his pianoforte concerto, which Dr. Niemann pronounces the most

beautiful work of its kind since Schumann, his sonatas for violin and

pianoforte, his string quartet and his 'Peer Gynt' music. Yet these

beautiful and stirring compositions are, after all, only lyrics of a

larger growth. Grieg himself knew well his powers and his limitations,

and he was as modest as he was candid when he wrote: 'Artists like Bach

and Beethoven erected churches and temples on the heights. I wanted, as

Ibsen expresses it in one of his last dramas, to build dwellings for

men in which they might feel at home and happy. In other words, I have

recorded the folk-music of my land. In style and form I have remained a

German romanticist of the Schumann school; but at the same time I have

dipped from the rich treasures of native folk-song and sought to create

a national art out of this hitherto unexploited expression of the

folk-soul of Norway.' The spirit of the man recalls the pretty little

quatrain of Thomas Bailey Aldrich:

'I would be the lyric,

Ever on the lip,

Rather than the epic

Memory lets slip.'

And this is not to disparage pure and simple song. It is enough for

Edvard Grieg's lasting fame that he did have in rare abundance the pure

lyric quality--that close and delicate touch upon the heart strings

which makes them vibrate in sympathy with all the little importances

and importunities of individual human life.

V

The one Norwegian composer, besides Grieg, who has attained an

international position, is Christian Sinding (born 1856). He is

consciously and genuinely national, but in almost every other way is a

complement and contrast to the other northern master. Where Grieg is

best in the idyllic, Sinding is best in the heroic. Sinding is apt to

be trivial where Grieg is at his best--namely, in the smaller forms.

On the other hand, Sinding is noble and inspiring in works too long

for Grieg to sustain. In Sinding the Wagnerian influence is marked

and inescapable. He, like Grieg, is most at home when working with

native material--the sharp rhythms, short periods and angular line of

the Norwegian folk-song--but he develops it objectively where Grieg

developed it intensively. Sinding need not work from the pictorial;

Grieg was obliged to. Sinding's speech is much more cosmopolitan,

his harmony less pronounced, his form more conventional. At times he

attains a high level of emotional expression. On the other hand, he

has written much, and his reputation has suffered thereby. Frequently

he is uninspired. But the sustained magnificence of his orchestral and

chamber music has done much to offset the prevailing idea that the

northern composers could work only in the parlor or _genre_ style. He

sounds the epic and heroic note too often and with too much inspiration

to permit us to question the greatness of his art.

He has worked in most of the established forms. His D minor symphony,

opus 21, is one of the noblest in all Scandinavian music. His symphonic

poem, 'Perpetual Motion,' with its inexhaustible energy and its

glittering orchestral color, takes a high rank in modern orchestral

music. His chamber music--quartets, quintets, trios, violin sonatas,

etc.--is distinguished by melodic inspiration, vigorous counterpoint,

and sustained structural power. His piano concerto and two violin

concertos, and his grandiose E-flat minor variations for two pianos,

have taken a firm place in concert programmes. As a piano composer in

the smaller forms he is of course less personal, less distinguished,

than Grieg. But every piano student knows his _Frühlingsrauschen_

and _Marche Grotesque_. As a song composer he may justly be ranked

second to Grieg in all the Scandinavian lands. His power and sincerity

in the shorter strophic song is astonishing; his strophes have the

cogency and finish of the Swedish folk-song combined with the intensity

and sincerity of the Norwegian. In his longer songs he is noble and

dramatic; he is a master of poignant emotional expression and of

sustained and mounting energy. Two of his familiar songs--'The Mother'

and 'A Bird Cried'--are masterpieces of the first rank. Sinding's

harmony is vigorous. An 'impressionist' in the modern sense of the

term he is not. He loves the use of marked dissonance for specific

effect; his harmonic style is broad, solidly based, square-cornered.

It is regrettable, perhaps, that he did not work more in opera; his

only dramatic work, 'The Holy Mountain,' was performed in Germany early

in 1914. But this fact doubtless furnishes us the reason, for Norway

does not offer a career for an opera composer, who must depend for his

success on great wealth and large cities. As it is, Sinding has made a

high, perhaps a permanent, place for himself in chamber and orchestral

music.

Johan Selmer (born 1844) has taken a place as the most radical of

the 'new romanticists' in Norway. His work is extensive and varied,

and is most impressive in the larger forms. He has written a series

of symphonic poems, several large choral works, many part songs and

ballads, and the usual quota of _Lieder_. His chief influences were

Wagner, Liszt, and Berlioz. He can hardly be called a nationalist in

music, for his work shows little northern feeling except where he

makes use of specific Norwegian tunes; indeed he seems equally willing

to get his local color from Turkey or Italy. His work is thoroughly

disappointing; modelling himself on the giants, he has been obliged to

make himself a gigantic mask of paper. Neither his melodic inspiration,

his structural power, nor his technical learning was equal to the task

he set himself. His chief orchestral work, 'Prometheus,' opus 50, is

ridiculously inadequate to its grandiose subject. His _Finnländischer

Festklang_ is the most ordinary sort of rhapsody on borrowed material.

Of his other works we need only say that they reveal abundantly

the effect of large ambitions on a little man. Along with Selmer

we may mention three opera composers of Norway, none sufficiently

distinguished to carry his name beyond the national border: Johannes

Haarklou (born 1847), Cath. Elling (born 1858) and Ole Olsen (born

1850). The last, though yet 'unproduced' as a dramatic composer,

deserves to be better known than he is. His symphonic and piano music

is pleasing without being distinguished; but the operas _Lajla_ and

_Hans Unversagt_ are charmingly colorful and melodic, revealing musical

scholarship and fine emotional expression. Finally we may mention

Johann Halvorsen (born 1864), a follower of Grieg and an able composer

for violin and male chorus.

One of the most promising of the younger Norwegians was Sigurd Lie

(1871-1904), whose early death cut off a career which bade fair to

be internationally distinguished. Surely he would have been one of

the most national of Norwegian composers. His list of works, brief

because of ill health, includes a symphony in A minor, a symphonic

march, an oriental suite for orchestra, a piano quintet, a goodly list

of short piano pieces, and many songs and choral works. He used the

Norwegian folk-song intensively, combining its spirit with that of the

old ecclesiastical tone. He was a true poet of music; his moods were

usually mystic, gray and religious, and his effects, even in simple

piano pieces, were obtained with astonishing sureness. His harmony,

though not radical, was personal and highly expressive. His songs,

much sung in his native land, reveal a genius for precise and poignant

expression.

One of the most popular of Norway's living composers for the piano is

Halfdan Cleve (born 1879), writer of numerous works of which those in

the large forms are most important. Cleve is cosmopolitan, enamored

of large effects, and of dazzling virtuosity. His technique is varied

and exceedingly sure, but he lacks the appealing loveliness which has

brought reputation to the works of so many of his countrymen. More

popular is Agathe Backer-Gröndahl (born 1847), industrious writer of

piano pieces in the smaller forms. Outwardly a classicist, she has

drunk of the lore of Grieg and has achieved charming and able works,

distinguished by delicate feeling and care for detail. Her children's

songs are altogether delightful. But when she attempts longer works her

inspiration is apt to fail her.

Perhaps the most original and personal composer after Grieg and Sinding

is Gerhard Schjelderup (born 1859), a tone poet of much technical

ability and genuine national feeling. His songs and ballads are very

fine, striking the heroic note with sincerity and conviction. In his

simple songs and piano pieces, Schjelderup's innate feeling for the

folk-tone makes him utterly successful. In his operas, 'Norwegian

Wedding,' 'Beyond Sun and Moon,' 'A People in Distress,' and his

incidental music, he lacks the dramatic and structural power for long

sustained passages; but his genius for expressive simplicity has filled

these works with beauties. Schjelderup's symphonies and chamber music

have made a place for themselves in European concert halls equally by

their freshness of feeling and by their excellence of technique.

VI

Finland's music, centred in its capital Helsingfors, was from the first

under German domination. The national spirit, as we have seen, grew

up under the inspiration of the _Kalevala_, then newly made known to

literature. The first national composer of note was Frederick Pacius

(1809-1891), born in Hamburg, but regarded as the founder of the

national Finnish school. He was under the Mendelssohnian domination,

but gave no little national color to his music and helped to centre the

growing national consciousness. Besides symphonies, a violin concerto

and male choruses, he wrote an opera 'King Karl's Hunt,' and several

_Singspiele_ which contained national flavor without any specific

national material. To Pacius Finland owes her official national

anthem. Other Finnish composers of note were Karl Collan (1828-1871),

F. von Schantz (1835-1865) and C. G. Wasenus. The Wagnerian influence

first penetrated the land of lakes in the works of Martin Wegelius

(1846-1906), able composer of operas, piano and orchestral music, and

choral works. But the first specific national tendency in Finnish music

is due to Robert Kajanus (born 1856), who achieved the freshness and

primitive force of the national folk-song in works of Wagnerian power

and scope. Besides his piano and lyric pieces we possess several

symphonic poems of his--including _Aino_ and _Kullervo_--all markedly

national in feeling.

Among the modern Finnish composers of second rank Armas Järnefelt (born

1869) is distinguished. In orchestral suites, symphonic poems (for

example, the _Heimatklang_), overtures, choral works, piano pieces,

and songs, he has shown spontaneity and technical learning. Poetic

feeling and sensitive coloring are marked in his work. Much the same

can be said of Erik Melartin (born 1875), except that his genius is

more specifically lyric. His songs reflect the energy and freshness

of a race just coming to consciousness. His smaller piano pieces show

somewhat the salon influence of Sweden, but in all we feel that the

artist is speaking. Ernst Mielck (1877-1899) had made a place for

himself with his symphony and other orchestral works when death cut

short his career. Oscar Merikanto (born 1868) has written, besides

one opera, many songs and piano pieces, most of them conventional and

undistinguished, and Selim Palmgren (born 1878) has already attained a

wide reputation.

In Sibelius we meet one of the most powerful composers in modern

music. Masterpiece after masterpiece has come from his pen, and the

works which fall short of distinction are few indeed. He is at once

the most national and the most personal composer in the whole history

of Scandinavian music. His style is like no one else's; his themes,

his mode of development, his harmonic 'atmosphere,' and his orchestral

coloring are quite his own. But his materials are, with hardly an

exception, drawn from the literature and folk-lore of the Finnish

nation; his melodies, when not closely allied to the folk-melodies of

his land, are so true to their spirit that they evoke instant response

in his countrymen's hearts; and the moods and emotions which he

expresses are those that are rooted deepest in the Finnish character.

This powerful national tradition and feeling of which he is the

spokesman he has vitalized with a creative energy which is equalled

only by the few greatest composers of the world to-day. He has touched

no department of music which he has not enriched with powerful and

original works. As an innovator, pure and simple, he seems likely to

prove one of the most productive forces in modern music. No deeper,

more moving voice has ever come out of the north; only in modern Russia

can anything so distinctly national and so supremely beautiful be found.

Jean Sibelius was born in Finland in 1865 and at first studied for the

law. Shifting to music, he entered the conservatory at Helsingfors

and worked under Wegelius. Later he studied in Berlin and thereafter

went to Vienna. Here, under Goldmark, he developed his taste for

powerful instrumental color, and under Robert Fuchs his concern for

finely wrought detail. But even in his early works there was little

of the German influence to be traced beyond thorough workmanship.

With his symphonic poem, _En Saga_, opus 9, he became recognized as

a national composer. The Finns, longing for self-expression, looked

to him eagerly. They had, as Dr. Niemann[11] has put it, been made

silent heroes by their struggles with forest, plain, cataract and

sea, and by the bitter recent political conflict with Russia. And,

as always happens in such cases, they sought to give expression to

their suppressed national ideals in art. Sibelius's symphonic poem,

_Finlandia_, is a thinly veiled revolutionary document and his great

male chorus, 'The Song of the Athenians' (words by the Finnish poet

Rydberg), gave verbal expression to the thoughts of the patriots of

the nation. The former piece has explicitly been banned in Finland by

Russian edict because of its inflammatory influence on the people.

But all this has not made Sibelius a political figure such as Wagner

became in 1848. He has worked industriously and copiously at his music,

watching it go round the civilized world, keeping himself aloof the

while from outward turmoil, though his personal sympathies are known to

be strongly nationalistic.

It was the symphonic poems which first made Sibelius a world-figure.

These include a tetralogy, _Lemminkäinen_, consisting of 'Lemminkäinen

and the Village Maidens,' 'The River of Tuonela,' 'The Swan of

Tuonela,' and 'Lemminkäinen's Home-faring'; _Finlandia_, _En Saga_,

'Spring Song,' and the more recent 'Spirits of the Ocean' and

'Pohjola's Daughter.' The _Lemminkäinen_ series is based on the

Kalevala tale, which narrates the adventures of the hero Lemminkäinen,

his departure to the river of death (Tuonela), his death there, and

the magic by which his mother charmed his dismembered limbs to come

together and the man to come to life. Of the four separate works which

make up the series 'The Swan of Tuonela' is the most popular. It was

in this that Sibelius's original mastery of orchestral tone was first

made known to foreign audiences. With its enchanting theme sung by

the English horn it weaves a long, slow spell of the utmost beauty.

_Finlandia_ tells of the struggles of a submerged nation; the early

parts of the work are filled with passionate excitement and military

bustle; then there emerges the motive of all this struggle--a majestic

chorale melody, scored with the strings in all their resonance, a

song at once of battle and of devotion, a melody for whose equal we

must go to Beethoven and Wagner. _En Saga_, the earliest of the great

nationalistic works, is without a definite program, but is dramatic in

the highest degree. It is a masterpiece of free form, with its long,

swelling climaxes and passionate adagios, surrounded by a haze of

shimmering tone-color, as though the bard were singing his story among

the fogs of the northern cliffs. The national character of these works

is quite as marked in their themes as in their subject-matter. Sibelius

is fond of the strange rhythms of the old times--3/4, 7/4, 2/2, or 3/2

time. His accent is almost crudely exaggerated. His original themes are

so true to the national character that they seem made of one piece with

the folk-tunes. The mood of these works is rarely gay; the animation

is primitive and savage. The prevailing spirit is one of loneliness

and gloom. In the symphonic poems, which grow increasingly free in

harmony, we see in all its glory the orchestral scoring which is one of

Sibelius's chief claims to fame. It is no mere virtuoso brilliancy, as

is often the case with Rimsky-Korsakoff. It is always an accentuation

of the character of the music with the character of the tone of the

instrument chosen. It is color from a heavy palette, chosen chiefly

from the deeper shades, showing its contrast in modulation of tones

rather than high lights, yet kept always free of the turgid and muddy.

The same qualities are shown in the four symphonies. Of these the last

is a thing of revolutionary import--a daring work whose full meaning

to the future of music has not begun to be appreciated. The other

three are perhaps less symphonies than symphonic rhapsodies. They seem

to imply a program, being filled with episodes, dramatic, epic, and

lyrical, interspersed with recitative and legend-like passages. But,

however free the form, the architecture is cogent. In his development

work Sibelius is always masterly. Some of the passages, like the main

theme of the first movement of the first symphony, or the slow movement

from the same, are amazing in their imaginative power and beauty. The

fourth symphony is a work apart. In the first and second movements the

harmony is quite as radical as anything in modern German or French

music. It is, in fact, hardly harmony at all, but the free interplay of

monophonic voices.

[Illustration: Jean Sibelius]

_After a photo from life (1913)_

From this method, which at the present moment is almost Sibelius's

private property, the composer extracts a quality of poetry which is

impressive in its suggestions of great things beyond.

Some of Sibelius's best music has been written to accompany dramatic

performances. That for Adolph Paul's play, 'King Christian II,'

has been widely played as an orchestral suite. The introduction is

especially fine. The warm and sweetly melancholy nocturne, the 'Elegy'

for strings, and the profoundly moving Dance of Death are all movements

of rare beauty. The lovely _Valse Triste_, a mimic drama in itself,

written for Järnefelt's play, _Kuolema_, has carried his reputation

far and wide, as the C sharp minor prelude carried Rachmaninoff's, or

the 'Melody in F' Rubinstein's. There are, further, two orchestral

suites from the accompanying music to Maeterlinck's 'Pelléas and

Mélisande,' and Procopé's 'Belshazzar's Feast.' For orchestra we may

further mention the _Karelia_ Overture, the _Scènes historiques_, the

Dance-Intermezzo, 'Pan and Echo,' the melancholy waltzes to accompany

Strindberg's 'Snowwhite,' the two canzonettas for small orchestras, the

Romance in C major for string orchestra, the short symphonic poem, 'The

Dryads,' and the Funeral march.

The violin concerto, one of the most difficult of the kind in

existence, has already gained its place among the standard concert

pieces for the instrument. It shows deep feeling and national color,

especially in the rhythmically vigorous finale. The string quartet,

_Voces Intimæ_, opus 56, is a masterly work in a reserved style. The

first three movements are said to have as a sort of program certain

chapters from Swedenborg. The piano music is generally on a lower

plane. To a great extent it recalls Schumann and Tschaikowsky; in

such works as the _Characterstücke_, opera 5, 24, 41, and 58, in the

sonatina, opus 67, and in the rondinos, opus 68, we find little that

can be called original. But we must remember that in these pieces

Sibelius was writing music to appeal to the people, and has succeeded

to a remarkable degree in raising the general standard of taste in

his native land. For his most personal piano work we must look to

his transcriptions of Finnish tunes, especially 'The Fratricide' and

'Evening Comes.'

In his songs for solo voice Sibelius has achieved remarkable things.

The remarkable 'Autumn Evening' is a sort of free recitative, always

verging on melody, accompanied by suggestive descriptive figures in the

piano part. Here we see in germ one of his most important contributions

to modern music--an emphasis on expressive monody. The ballad, _Des

Fahrmanns Braut_, which has been arranged for orchestral accompaniment,

is weaker musically, but shows the same genius for expressive melodic

recitative. And not the least important and characteristic part of

Sibelius's work has been in the form of male choruses. Of these we may

mention 'The Origin of Fire' and 'The Imprisoned Queen,' both with

orchestral accompaniment, and, above all, the magnificent 'Song of the

Athenians,' which has come to have a national significance among the

Finns. As we look over this remarkable list of works, from the great

symphonic forms down to brief songs, and note the quantity of germinal

originality they contain, their high poetry, their universal beauty and

intense national expression, we must adjudge Sibelius to be a master

with a creative vitality which cannot be matched by more than half a

dozen composers writing to-day.

H. K. M.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] See Chapter IV.

[11] Walter Niemann: _Die Musik Skandinaviens_.