BRAHMS, WAGNER, AND LISZT
Brahms as a song-writer--Classification of Brahms’ songs; the
‘folk-songs’; analysis of Brahms’ songs--Wagner’s songs; Liszt
as a song-writer.
I
When we come to Brahms we find perhaps the only song-writer besides
Schubert whose truly memorable songs number more than fifty. Brahms’
song product is amazing in its richness, its creativeness, its high
average of excellence. A modern taste, often misled by mere obvious
effectiveness, has pronounced these songs dull. This notion prevails
almost universally among the superficial, and many an appreciative
critic has joined in the chorus with grudging reservations. The student
in particular is likely to be frightened away from the Brahms songs by
this bogey of ‘dullness’ as well as by the very considerable difficulty
which they offer to the singer who is inadequately prepared. But in
most cases those who accept this opinion have never studied the Brahms
songs and have not allowed themselves to become familiar with their
beauties. Certainly, even though certain temperaments may admit the
charge of ‘dullness’ against much of the Brahms symphonic and chamber
music, the charge will hold least of all against the songs. Here we
find Brahms the romanticist, the composer who was master of the art of
obtaining sensuous beauty of melody and richly colored harmony. We must
never forget that Brahms was hailed by Schumann as the great continuer
of the romantic tradition for which he himself had fought so hard and
so well. If, in his maturity, Brahms came to regard form and artistic
control at a higher value than his contemporaries did, it was not
because his romantic invention became exhausted. From the beginning of
his life to the end he was possessed of a rich fund of lovely musical
ideas, and his last works (_vide_ the later Rhapsodies and the Gypsy
Songs) are even more romantic than the first. Brahms was a ‘classic’
solely because he chose to be. It would perhaps be truest to say that
he was romanticist in his musical ideas and classicist in his treatment
of them. However, such bandying of terms only tends to obscure the
facts. Let us get to the songs.
Because Brahms worked with more care and reserve than most of his
contemporaries, he must be approached with some care by the student.
Doubtless, if one unfamiliar with his work turned over his songs at
random the result would be somewhat discouraging. There is so much
more there than meets the eye that much of his work is certainly
uninteresting to the superficial glance. But there are many songs which
must make an instant appeal by their sheer loveliness. Let the student
who sincerely wishes to appreciate Brahms begin with these songs. Let
us make out a provisional list of them. It would include: ‘In Strange
Lands,’ opus 3; ‘Rest, My Love,’ opus 33; the ‘Folksong’ in opus 7;
‘The Sorrowful One,’ the ‘Serenade,’ and ‘Longing,’ from opus 14; ‘Hey,
Bow and Arrow,’ opus 33; ‘Sunday,’ opus 47; the famous Cradle Song,
opus 49; ‘Remembrance,’ opus 63; ‘The Lover’s Oath,’ opus 69; ‘Vain
Serenade,’ opus 84; ‘The Virgin’s Lullaby,’ opus 91; the Sapphic Ode,
opus 94; and every one of the Gypsy Songs, opus 103. To call any of
these songs ‘dull’ is rank foolishness. Their beauty appeals instantly
even to a listener who is in no wise a technical musician. Sentiment,
passion, military frenzy and simple high spirits are expressed in these
songs. They are in some cases as simple as anything by Schubert, as
popular in character as any folk-song. Let the student learn to know
and love some of these and he will have little difficulty with the more
elaborate songs later on.
The first quality that appeals straight to the heart in many of the
Brahms songs is their large element of the folk-song. Many of the
lyrics bear the title _Volkslied_, being musical settings of popular
poems, treated in the popular vein. Brahms was devoted to folk-music
and understood the value of the musical units it contains in such
profusion. A large proportion of his music, if analyzed to its
essentials, will show the folk-song as its base. His elaborate songs,
however abstruse and self-conscious, may be called only a _development_
of the folk-song. The development is managed with the consummate art
of the trained musician; but the stuff of the song is in almost every
case a musical unit which makes an instant appeal. The student is very
foolish if he sees only the development and not the beautiful music
beneath it.
In a large proportion of his songs Brahms has given the best of his
profound musical learning--always in due proportion and without
obtrusion of detail. His management of polyphonic parts, in the bass or
in the inner voices, is unequalled by any song-writer--save, perhaps,
Franz--and his range of expression is vastly wider than that of Franz.
His complication and intertwining of rhythms is highly developed, as
in his symphonic music. His harmony is often bold, though never at the
expense of cogency. Whether he is simple or complex his musicianship
is working every moment. It is this, in the last analysis, which we
mean by technical mastery. The real test of technical excellence is
not the applying of rules out of the harmony book. The real test
is a human one. Read or play a number of songs by some second-rate
composer--Gounod, for instance. Then take up Brahms’ songs. By the
time you have done thirty or forty by Gounod you are deathly sick of
the same harmonies, the same melodic phrases, the same way of placing
the parts. In Brahms’ songs you will never be allowed to sleep; you are
never sure that the conventional thing is coming next. Your interest
is not allowed to flag. Brahms is almost never commonplace. But this
does not mean that he obviously avoids the obvious, as is the fashion
among lesser composers of modern times. It means that his musicianship
is so rich and resourceful that he can always find some fitting thing
to do that a minor composer would not have thought of. Test out this
statement with some concrete instance. Take one of the simplest of
Brahms’ melodies--the famous cradle song, opus 49. No tune could
be simpler. Any second-rate composer would have supplied it with a
conventional accompaniment of bass and treble chords. Most composers
would have regarded such a song as a trifle to be tossed off before
breakfast. But it is evident that Brahms bestows as much care upon this
as upon his most elaborate lyric. There is not a single unusual or
strained chord in the accompaniment. Yet there is not a measure without
its elements of variety and interest. The gentle syncopation, as of
the rocking of the cradle, is always present; always shows some motion
and variety. Yet the whole song is managed without any straining for
effect, without letting the varied accompaniment overshadow the simple
melody.
Brahms has carried into his romantic song-writing a classic regard for
form. In the more general sense this means that he always observed
artistic proportion, giving unity and body to his melodies, and curbing
the exuberant imagination which in so many song-writers makes the parts
attempt to be more important than the whole. Concretely considered,
we find that Brahms nearly always held to the strophic form, seeing
his poems as stanzas which could be set to the same melody. In some
cases, as in his first song, ‘Faithfulness,’ he treated the last
strophe somewhat differently from the others. A few of his songs are
_durchkomponiert_, after the manner of Schubert. But in general he felt
his songs to be far more musical architecture and less mere running
comment on the words. Certainly every one of his songs would be a
satisfactory piece of pure music, apart from the text and apart from
the special meaning conveyed. His regard for form makes this possible.
Sometimes the form is hard to analyze, not coinciding with any set
formula, but the sense of form, of architecture, of proportion, of
restraint is always there. Some have said that Brahms’ songs are mere
instrumental compositions with words added. As a final criticism this
is certainly unjust. But it has a certain superficial justification,
for Brahms certainly had less regard for the words themselves than any
other great song-writer. He is not unwilling to force the text into
the form necessary to fit the music. Sometimes he consistently and
deliberately misplaces accents, as in the first line of the song, _Wie
bist du, meine Königin_, which with Brahms’ music reads, ‘_Wie_ bist
du, _mei_ne Köni_gin_.’ He is very free with slurred notes and shows
not the slightest hesitation in putting two notes to one syllable in
measure after measure. The music has its own architecture, derived
from formal or melodic considerations and not from considerations
of the text. Of course, this is not the result of carelessness on
Brahms’ part, nor a belittling of the importance of the words. It
was merely that Brahms regarded his songs as interpretive music, and
not as ‘heightened speech.’ In this he differed from nearly every
great song-writer, and put himself in opposition to the taste of the
time. For those who feel Schumann’s scrupulous regard for the text
this will rank as a fault, a blot on the beauty of Brahms’ songs. The
student should decide the matter for himself. At any rate, the fact
points to the peculiar interpretation which Brahms’ songs demand--an
interpretation which involves firm, reserved, controlled modelling
rather than minute emphasis on the parts. Out of this regard for the
design as a whole rather than from the direct meaning of the details
will come the interpretive truth of the song.
Because Brahms’ songs represent the purely musical and formal, as well
as the interpretive, they are one of the most valuable of studies
for the advanced pupil. A singer’s art cannot be complete as long
as the effective interpretation of Brahms’ songs remains a mystery
to him. Not to attempt to understand and love them, because of the
myth of dullness, is a sin against artistic open-mindedness which
no music-lover should be guilty of. Indeed, if we can manage to
escape for a time in our souls from the trend of the time toward the
spectacular, the sensuous and the sensual, the easy and effective,
we shall find in Brahms a song-writer like no other who ever lived,
save only Schubert. Brahms has treated almost every kind of sentiment
and emotion successfully. His melodies are lovely in the extreme,
his accompaniments are an endless delight to the careful pianist;
his musical procedure is never conventional yet always appropriate;
his music has a wholesomeness and dignity unsurpassed in all song
literature. Other song-writers surpass Brahms in certain qualities. But
it is doubtful if any, except Schubert, can be regarded as his equal in
the combining of such a large number of first-rate qualities and in the
quantity of first-rate songs produced.
II
We may conveniently divide the Brahms songs into two classes--the
‘folk-songs,’ written usually to anonymous popular poems and preserving
the simplicity and directness of the true folk-song; and the art-songs
which make use of all the resources of elaboration and organization
at the command of that master craftsman. Some of the opus numbers
contain ‘folk-songs’ entirely or in large proportion. (Brahms wrote
but one cycle in the strict sense, and usually followed no scheme of
grouping.) But a folk-like song may appear anywhere in his song output.
The type of folk-feeling in Brahms is almost exclusively German. There
is scarcely the slightest attempt at ‘local color’ in the whole of
Brahms’ music. Even the Gypsy songs, though they somehow attain an
exotic flavor, make use of none of the conventional musical formulas
of Hungarian music. Moreover, while the ‘folk-songs’ are distinctly
German, they are also distinctly Brahms. The composer never lost his
individuality in any single work. The accompaniments to these songs are
usually simple, but they are never merely conventional. They show a
nice adaptation of the style of the piano part to the character of the
melody and of the song as a whole, and continually present unobtrusive
elements of interest in detail.
These ‘folk-songs’ are numerous. From opus 7 we may select two very
beautiful songs for special mention--namely, the _Volkslied_ and ‘The
Mournful One,’ the latter one of Brahms’ finest expressive melodies.
Opus 14 is a treasure. ‘Before the Window’ is a thing of great beauty.
‘Going to My Sweetheart’ has a humorous touch, which Brahms could get
inimitably. But it is very restrained; the melody is so very simple
that for a moment it seems almost trivial. The ‘Serenade’ and ‘Longing’
from the same group are delightful. From opus 47 we should mention
‘Sunday’ and from opus 48 ‘Joy Hath Left Me,’ a fine song in the style
of an old German chorale. In opus 69 are an exquisite ‘Lament’ and the
delicious song, ‘The Lover’s Oath.’ ‘The Maiden,’ in opus 95, is a
dialogue between the girl and the reflection of her face in the water.
The words are a Servian popular poem and the music is in an irregular
metre which is peculiar to the Slavic races. Brahms’ last group of
lyrics, the Gypsy Songs, opus 103, are beyond all praise. These eight
songs, written when the composer was past middle age, have all the fire
and ardor of early youth just awakened to its powers. There is in them
a frenzy of animal spirits which befits their Gypsy words. In them we
seem to hear the message of that fine Hungarian song:
‘Brechen muss das Herz vor freude oder Leid;
Das allein heisst bei den Ungarn Fröhlichkeit.’
The Gypsy Songs, all in strophic form, are very short. Into a few
seconds of melody Brahms injects his musical message. Not a note is
wasted. The mood is carried over with perfect accuracy and conviction.
The songs are all nicely contrasted. Each might be a tiny movement
from a symphony, _multum in parvo_. There is an _allegro agitato_, an
_allegretto_, an _allegro giocoso_, a _vivace grazioso_, an _andantino
grazioso_, and so on. Each song has a very distinct ‘style,’ as
modern critics would say. The mood is established at the first note
and maintained until the last. The melodies themselves are altogether
charming. But a mere knowledge of the melodies will not suggest the
thrilling effect which these songs make when well sung in a large hall.
The startling effectiveness of many of the Brahms songs is the best
answer to the charge that Brahms is academic and pedantic. It is hard
to select any best out of these eight songs. ‘The Nut Brown Lad’ is
perhaps the most popular of them, but the charm of each is so distinct
that a comparison is difficult. ‘Three Roses in a Row’ is a delicate
melody of great beauty. The vigorous ‘Hey, Ye Gypsies!’ and the furious
‘Red Evening Clouds’ which closes the series, are overflowing with
animal spirits.
Of the pieces which are more specifically art-songs we must admit a
gradual change in character corresponding to the general change in
Brahms’ music from the ‘romantic’ to the ‘classic.’ Of course, this
change has been overemphasized in superficial Brahms criticism. It
was not so much Brahms who changed; it was the lay of the land. Music
became much more sensuous and free and formless. Brahms became still
more himself. The revolutionary Brahms of 1850 was a conservative
Brahms in 1880. But, undoubtedly, where Schumann expected him to look
forward, Brahms chose in many things to look backward--or, rather,
perhaps, to look inward. And so we feel in Brahms’ music as a whole
that it becomes stranger and more reserved as the man matures. He
became more interested in the things that had ceased to interest the
rabble, and less interested in the things which scores of new and
radical composers were beginning to do very well. And we can feel this
change in his songs. The earliest ones--in opus 3--are filled with the
joy of spontaneous creation. The so-called ‘classic’ virtues seemed
the last things the composer was thinking about. But the songs were
in a pretty strict strophic form and their intelligence was at least
equal to their exuberance. And it was these formal and intellectual
qualities, and not the others, which were to receive the chief emphasis
and intensification as the composer matured. To Schumann, Brahms was
the continuer of Schumann. To the world he became the continuer of
Beethoven.
The songs of opus 3 are filled with physical energy. ‘Fidelity,’ the
first of them, with its accompaniment of throbbing triplets, seems to
tap some hidden source of power like a huge dynamo. We cannot see the
source but we know there is much more where that came from. ‘Love and
Spring’ suggests certain of the later Brahms qualities and the song
from ‘Ivan’ seems like a shooting arrow in the vigor and directness
of its expression. The same physical energy is shown in the ‘Spanish
Song,’ in bolero tempo, in opus 6; and the peculiarly rich Brahms
modulation is again revealed in ‘As the Clouds.’ The ‘Nightingale’ song
from the same group is the first to foreshadow the increased technical
elaboration which Brahms was later to give his accompaniments. Here
the fluttering triplets in the piano are meant to suggest the winging
of the birds, but it is easy to see that the purely technical problem
which they created had fascinated the composer. And, except for
this technical care, such an accompaniment would have overbalanced
the melody. The _Anklänge_ of opus 7 has an elaborate syncopated
accompaniment which shows the continuation of the technical concern;
‘The Return,’ from the same series, is another example of Brahms’
unsurpassed power to pour great energy into small compass. In opus 19
there are two more songs of the highest quality. One is ‘The Smith,’ to
Uhland’s words, perhaps the shortest of all Brahms’ songs and certainly
one of the most overwhelmingly effective. The maiden who speaks in
Uhland’s delicious poem tells admiringly of her lover, who is a smith
and who works all day amid the grime and the sparks. The melody, with
that strange and very Brahmsian avoidance of the regular balancing of
phrases which seems physically to condense great energy in a small
compass, seems a succession of hammer blows. Each note has a ponderous
weight of its own, but a weight which is followed by a fine rebound.
The accompaniment, which is obviously intended to suggest flying
sparks, is magically adapted to the peculiarities of the pianoforte.
The short postlude, and, indeed, the whole of the accompaniment, is
strikingly Wagnerian, recalling very closely the Valkyrie’s cry in
_Die Walküre_. Such a detail is only one more proof of the foolishness
of the artificial rivalry which stupid critics set up between Wagner
and Brahms. The two men were great artists working in very different
lines. As for their musical ideas, they could almost, at times, have
been interchanged. The second remarkable song of opus 19 is the ‘Æolian
Harp,’ one of the three or four most admired of all Brahms’ lyrics.
This is one of the few that are in quite free form. It is almost a
_scena_ rather than a song, since it opens with a recitative and is
interrupted in the middle with free declamation. The Æolian harp sings
in the west wind the lament of a Greek boy who had been taken to a
distant land. Here Brahms’ marvellously colored harmonies have created
a peculiar beauty which quite escapes analysis.
As we come to the more mature work we find the mere animal spirits less
frequently in the foreground. We feel more and more the qualities of
control and dominant intellectuality. Not that these songs are better
than their predecessors, for some of the earliest ones are finished
masterpieces which could hardly be improved. Nor (let it be repeated)
does Brahms’ fund of musical ideas become less fresh or less charming.
But the composer had begun to show at their best the qualities which
have chiefly given him a place in modern music. The second song of
opus 32 is a triumphant justification of this mature Brahms. The song
is entitled only with a number, but it can be known by its first line,
_Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen!_ Here is intellectuality in song writing
at its best. Brahms never wrote a finer song; few composers, if any,
have done so. Its popularity may always be limited, but it is surely
one of the great songs of musical literature. Here, as nowhere else,
Brahms has observed the rhythmic and quantitative values of his text
to the last letter. The words, which are in a moody, reflective vein,
are treated almost in declamatory fashion. Every rise or fall of the
voice finds its expression in the melodic line of the voice part. The
tempo is a slow 3/2, and through this winds the melody, now breaking
off suddenly, as though gasping for breath, now rising sharply, as
though choked with pain. If it were pure declamation, it could not be
more faithful to the words; if it were pure melody, it could not be
more faithful to the spirit. The accompaniment, answering the voice
part simply but intensely, and providing a noble bass for the musical
texture to be woven upon, shows Brahms’ finest qualities of restraint
and perfect fitness. Here is a song which is never exhausted. Let the
student play and sing it every day, it will still have something to
teach him. Hardly less noble is another song in the same group, _So
steh’n wir, ich und meine Weide_. Its theme has all the dignity of a
great andante fugue subject by Bach. The treatment of the piano part,
with its definite melody in the bass forming an answer and a sort of
canon with the voice, is superb. We may also mention in this opus
number the much overrated song, _Wie bist du meine Königin_, a piece
which has doubtless gained its popularity by its passionate fervor, but
which in musical beauty and artistic fitness is far inferior to Brahms’
best work.
[Illustration: Famous Modern Singers.
Top: Nellie Melba and Marcella Sembrich
Bottom: Lilli Lehmann and Ernestine Schumann-Heink]
Opus 33 comprises a large number of romances from L. Tieck’s
_Magelone_. These songs, which incline to be long and somewhat
pretentious, do not maintain the high standard usual with Brahms. There
are here rather too much sound and fury. We may, however, mention three
which are very fine: ‘Hey, Bow and Arrow,’ a song made of fire and
steel; ‘Is It Sorrow?’ deeply emotional; and the lovely ‘Rest, Sweet
Love.’ From now on we have merely a steady stream of songs with words
garnered from here and there, the music of a very high standard of
workmanship and the interest often hidden to the superficial glance.
Each song has its individuality which must be sought out by the
student. A commentary on all the songs would fill many pages. In opus
43 we find the fine song, ‘With Eternal Love,’ and the barbaric ballad,
‘The Song of Herr von Falkenstein.’ Such intentional crudity as
Brahms puts into this latter song should redeem him from any suspicion
of pedantry. The ‘Magyar Love Song’ of opus 46 treats the words with
unusual freedom even for Brahms. The same can be said for ‘Gold
Outweighs Love,’ in opus 48. Opus 49 offers us an interesting song, ‘On
Sunday Morning,’ and the famous Lullaby. In opus 57 we have ‘Motionless
Air,’ and in opus 58 ‘Oh, Come, Holy Summer Night,’ both fine enough to
be the masterpieces of another man’s output, though they are Brahms’
second best. ‘Twilight Falls,’ of opus 59, is a deeply tragic piece in
the folk-mood. In opus 63 we have one song which shows us Brahms as the
most thorough technician. The ‘Consolation of Spring’ makes the most
elaborate use of syncopation and mixed rhythms, accompanying the 6/4
voice part with a piano part practically in 3/2. ‘Remembrance,’ from
the same group, is worth knowing, and ‘O, Would I Knew the Returning
Road’ is one of the sweetest of Brahms’ songs.
In opus 66 is one of the daintiest and most humorous of the songs, a
duet to folk-words, which might be sung as a solo--‘Have a Care.’ ‘I
Call from the Bank,’ in opus 69, is Brahms once more in the generous
world of romance. ‘The Maiden’s Curse,’ in the same group, is a fine
tragic song set to a Servian folk-poem. It is an interesting question
here whether Brahms did not fail entirely to catch the spirit of the
words. The maiden, in a dialogue with her mother, curses her lover,
who has prevented her from finishing the washing. She hopes he may be
hanged (upon her white breast), chained (in her white arms), drowned
(in her love), and so on. The point of the song is the double meaning
of the curses. Brahms has treated the words as the passionate rhetoric
of love. But it is probable that the poem, in its true spirit, is a
comic song. The second part of each curse should probably be delivered
_sotto voce_, so that the mother shall not hear. In such a reading
there would be a delightful comic contrast between the coarse hussy
which the girl pretends to be and the sentimental love-sick maiden that
she is. Brahms makes no sort of distinction between the two parts of
the curses and the song in his hands attains a certain tragic intensity
by virtue of the girl’s defiance of her mother.
In opus 71 are ‘To the Moon’ and the _Minnelied_, one of the most
admired of Brahms’ songs. In sheer beauty, however, this is inferior
to the lovely lyric in opus 72, _O, kühler Wald_. Opus 84 contains
Brahms’ most spirited comic song, the delightful ‘Vain Serenade,’ the
high spirits of which make it an irresistible concert number. Two fine
folk-songs are to be found in opus 85, a Servian ‘Maiden’s song,’ and
_Ade_, from the Bohemian. Opus 94 contains the famous ‘Sapphic Ode.’[28]
Here we find, in the simple melody (as apart from the song as a whole),
Brahms’ intellectuality and sensuous beauty fused into a perfect whole.
Over it all is that fine artistic reserve which Brahms was so master
of and which makes the music so fitting an expression of Greek verse.
Among others of the later songs we should mention two Heine songs,
‘Death Is the Cool Night’ and the ‘Sea Journey.’
Brahms’ songs are as permanent a part of concert programs as those
of Schubert or Franz. If they are not as popular in the looser sense
of the word, it is because concert audiences are not yet as a whole
willing to give the necessary attention to them. For, while the Brahms
songs are emphatically not dull, they do demand careful listening.
Without doubt their popularity will grow steadily. And this will be the
best of events both for audiences and for singers. He who has learned
to listen to Brahms’ songs will never again be quite so indulgent with
what is cheap and facile. And the singer who has learned how to make
effective the striking qualities hidden in a Brahms song will find
himself equipped with a power and dignity in his work which he could
hardly get in any other way.
III
Wagner’s songs are few. They comprise only those written during
his early years in Paris, when for a time he hoped to make himself
a fashion in Parisian drawing rooms, and those written under the
influence of Mathilde Wesendonck in the late fifties, when he was
planning ‘Tristan.’ The former group, being composed at the time when
he was writing ‘The Flying Dutchman’ and being, moreover, designed for
a debased public taste, can by no means be ranked with his typical
work. The songs it contains are not great. But Wagner’s genius was
too imperative to blot itself out at any time and these early lyrics
show evidences of the artistic energy which was later to flower in
‘The Ring.’ The earliest known of Wagner’s songs is ‘The Fir Tree,’
written in 1838 in Königsberg. It has little more than historic
interest. In Paris he wrote the ‘Three Melodies,’ which are still
occasionally sung and will repay a little study. The lullaby, _Dors,
mon enfant_, is marked with a suavity in the melody and a variety in
the accompaniment which betray with certainty the touch of the true
musician. The second ‘melody,’ called ‘The Rose,’ is rather too sweet
but is saved by its interesting accompaniment. ‘Waiting’ is vigorous in
conception and execution. But the best of Wagner’s Parisian songs is
‘The Two Grenadiers,’ composed to a French version of Heine’s famous
poem, to which Schumann wrote his popular setting. Wagner’s method is
more dramatic than Schumann’s. It gives a much more important function
to the accompaniment, which is something approaching the ‘orchestral
comment’ of his later theories. At times the voice part is freely
declamatory. Throughout it is kept remarkably free from the running
comment of the piano. The long crescendo up to the final lines is
managed with skill. For these lines the Marseillaise is used, as in
Schumann’s setting, but only in the accompaniment, the voice singing
an independent part. Here we have something approaching a true _leit
motif_ used in a way foreshadowing the later revolutionary music
dramas. The introduction of the Marseillaise by both Schumann and
Wagner must be regarded purely as a coincidence, since the songs, as it
happens, were written in the same year.
The ‘Five Poems,’ to words by Mathilde Wesendonck, are, with one
exception, songs of the first rank. This exception is the ‘Sorrows,’
which is a bit pompous and rings insincere. ‘The Angel’ is a simple
melody with a soft, flowing accompaniment much in the style of the
‘Lohengrin’ music. ‘Stand Still’ is a vigorous and dramatic song,
combining both the lyrical and the declamatory elements. The two
remaining songs will always be masterpieces of the first order. They
are regarded as ‘studies’ for the Tristan music and both contain
motives from ‘Tristan’ or harmonic peculiarities which mark them
out unmistakably. _Träume_ (‘Dreams’), the better known of the two,
weaves a wonderful sensuous spell about the listener. Its melody is
constructed in a peculiar manner which we sometimes meet in Brahms--a
sort of telescoping of successive phrases, so as to bind the parts
more cogently and increase the emphasis of the whole. The harmony is a
wonderful series of melting chords, culminating in ecstatic chromatic
modulations on the words:
‘Sanft an deiner Brust verglühen
Und dann sinken in die Gruft.’
The other ‘Tristan’ song is _Im Treibhaus_ (‘In the Hothouse’). It
contains two of the ‘Tristan’ motives, slightly altered, those of the
wounded Tristan and Tristan’s longing. The harmony in this song is
exceedingly delicate and chromatic--revolutionary for its time. Here
the chromatic development toward which composers had half consciously
striven for two centuries at last attained a complete development. The
lyric must rank as one of the wonders of modern song literature.
Liszt’s songs also we may roughly divide into two classes--those of
the Paris period and those of the Weimar period. More than Wagner,
Liszt wrote his French songs in the taste of the time and the nation.
As one of the pets of the capital he was sure to be heard gladly by
the Parisians and his wonderful instinct for pleasing made him write
naturally in a style which we cannot usually differentiate from the
style of native song writers. _Comment!_ for instance, is as French a
song as though its composer had never travelled beyond the Parisian
fortifications. Its sensitive feeling for the words, its delicate use
of the accompaniment in the thin French style, mark it as utterly
un-German. The most striking of the Parisian songs is _Enfant, so
j’étais roi_, to words by Victor Hugo. It is elaborate and pretentious,
but it has a good deal of real power. On the whole, however, Liszt’s
French songs are without the very qualities which make the later German
songs so valuable--chiefly the dramatic and the declamatory values.
Not all these German songs are of high rank, though we may select
a dozen or so which are the work of genius. The cheapness which so
often entered into the rest of Liszt’s work, finds its way now and
then into the songs, but on the whole this department of his creative
activity maintains a higher average than any other. Cheapness enters
somewhat into two of the earlier German songs, ‘The Fisher Boy’ and
‘The Shepherd,’ both to words by Schiller. The accompaniments are
graphically descriptive. Caring little for the formal unity of the
songs, Liszt introduced the description suggested by the words whenever
the suggestion came. In fact, the songs are really declamations for
the voice with a running comment in the piano. They are far superior
to the longer declamatory songs of Schubert, which were little more
than pretentious recitatives; they raise the declamation into real
melody and the descriptive comment into real music. But these songs
are far surpassed by some of the Weimar period. ‘The Loreley,’ to
Heine’s words, is one of the most elaborate descriptive songs ever
written. The opening lines are freely declaimed to a suggestive
accompaniment. When the description of the Rhine enters--_die Luft ist
kühl und es dunkelt_--we hear a lovely 9/8 motive set over an arpeggio
accompaniment which strikingly suggests the calm flowing river. The
music becomes deeper and richer as the Loreley enters the action. The
passage where the fisher is dragged into the depths of the water is
treated with free and impressive dramatic power. Then the Rhine once
more flows quietly over the place where the man was drowned and the
lovely river theme returns once more, deepening into silence as the
darkness falls. This song illustrates almost at its best the principle
of the descriptive song, the principle held by many that the effect
of _the whole_ is to be gained by treating _each part_ with fidelity.
It is interesting to compare this setting with the simple folk-like
setting provided by Silcher and universally sung. The latter makes
a very regular strophic melody serve for all the stanzas. The two
settings are both wonderful and in very different ways. A choice
between the two must be a matter of individual taste. It will be a
nice exercise for the student to study the two and choose, on personal
grounds, between them.
Fine as ‘The Loreley’ is, Liszt has written two ballads which are
finer. His setting of ‘The King of Thule,’ from Goethe’s ‘Faust,’ is
almost beyond praise. In this he uses a brief suggestive phrase in
the accompaniment which becomes the germ of the whole ballad, being
repeated in many connotations and moods. ‘The Ancestral Tomb,’ to
Uhland’s words, perhaps suffers just a trifle from the pompous, but is
nevertheless one of the best ballads (or, more properly, romances) that
we have. The old warrior, the last of his race, goes to his ancestral
tomb, in which one stone vault is still empty. He hears the voices of
his fathers singing an impressive and mysterious song of family pride.
The voices cease and he lays himself in the empty vault and dies.
Suggestions of unguessed mystery and grandeur hang over the ballad.
In addition to these larger compositions, Liszt achieved what might
reasonably have been considered an impossibility for him--the pure
lyric. Some of his settings are almost flawless. Heine’s _Du bist wie
eine Blume_ has never received such fine music at the hands of another
composer. The opening and typical phrase seems to contain the essence
of the religious sentimentalism of Heine’s words. ‘Mignon’s Song’
commences with a phrase, set over an altered chord, which has become
famous for its accurate delineation of a mood in a few notes. Perhaps
the most impressive of his brief lyrics is _Der du von dem Himmel
bist_. Liszt’s simple setting of this poem is finer, if possible, than
Schubert’s. _Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam_ and _Im Rhein, im schönen
Strome_ present many elements of beauty and interest. But the most
typical and possibly the finest of all Liszt’s songs is ‘The Three
Gypsies,’ to Lehnau’s words. In the poem the speaker tells of having
passed along a country road and having seen three gypsies, one smoking,
one fiddling, and one sleeping. In the music each of the gypsies is
carefully differentiated. The characterization in this song is beyond
all praise. The voice part is an eloquent declamation, rising here and
there into inspired melody. For the basic theme, the theme of the joy
of life, Liszt has a magnificent Hungarian melody, surely one of the
finest he ever used. The song is one of the most effective of concert
pieces.
In spite of his comparatively small output, Liszt’s songs are of great
importance in the history of song writing. He, better than any other,
fused the declamatory and the lyrical--truth to the words and truth
to the emotions. He several times struck the grand note as few purely
lyrical composers (not even Schubert) have been able to do. In the
development of the piano part along the purely descriptive side no
composer has gone beyond Liszt.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).