THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS TO UNTAUGHT LOVERS OF THE ART Author of "Studies in tbe Wagnerian Drama," " Notes on Cultivation of Choral Music," "Tbe Pbilbarmonic Society of New York" ttc. FOURTEENTH EDITION NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1908 COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS TO W. J. HENDERSON WHO HAS HELPED ME TO RESPECT MUSICAL CRITICISM AUTHOR'S NOTE THE author is beholden to the Messrs. Harper & Brothers for permission to use a small portion of the material in Chapter I., the greater part of Chapter IV., and the Plates which were printed originally in one of their publications ; also to the publishers of " The Looker-On " for the privilege of reprinting a portion of an essay written for them entitled " Singers, Then and Now." CONTENTS Introduction Purpose and scope of this book Not written for pro- fessional musicians, but for untaught lovers of the art neither for careless seekers after diversion unless they be willing to accept a higher conception of what ' ' enter- tainment " means The capacity properly to listen to mu- sic as a touchstone of musical talent It is rarely found in popular concert-rooms Travellers who do not see and listeners who do not hear Music is of all the arts that which is practised most and thought about least Popular ignorance of the art caused by the lack of an object for comparison How simple terms are confounded by lit- erary men Blunders by Tennyson, Lamb, Coleridge, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, F. Hopkinson Smith, Bran- der Matthews, and others A warning against pedants and rhapsodists Page 3 Recognition of Musical Elements The dual nature of music Sense-perception, fancy, and imagination Recognition of Design as Form in its primary stages The crude materials of music The co- ordination of tones Rudimentary analysis of Form Comparison, as in other arts, not possible Recognition of the fundamental elements Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm The value of memory The need of an inter- IX CHAP. I. CHAP. II. CHAP. II. CHAP. III. Contents mediary Familiar music best liked Interrelation of the elements Repetition the fundamental principle of Form Motives, Phrases, and Periods A Creole folk-tune an- alyzed Repetition at the base of poetic forms Refrain and Parallelism Key-relationship as a bond of union Symphonic unity illustrated in examples from Beethoven The C minor symphony and " Appassionata " sonata The Concerto in G major The Seventh and Ninth sym- phonies Page 15 The Content and Kinds of Music How far it is necessary for the listener to go into musi- cal philosophy Intelligent hearing not conditioned upon it Man's individual relationship to the art Musicians proceed on the theory that feelings are the content of mu- sic The search for pictures and stories condemned How composers hear and judge Definitions of the capacity of music by Wagner, Hauptmann, and Mendelssohn An ut- terance by Herbert Spencer Music as a language Ab- solute music and Programme music The content of all true art works Chamber music Meaning and origin of the term Haydn the servant of a Prince The charac- teristics of Chamber music Pure thought, lofty imagina- tion, and deep learning Its chastity Sympathy between performers and listeners essential to its enjoyment A correct definition of Programme music Programme music defended The value of titles and superscriptions Judg- ment upon it must, however, go to the music, not the com- mentary Subjects that are unfit for music Kinds of Pro- gramme music Imitative music How the music of birds has been utilized The cuckoo of nature and Beethoven's cuckoo Cock and hen in a seventeenth century compo- sition Rameau's pullet The German quail Music that is descriptive by suggestion External and internal attri- butes Fancy and Imagination Harmony and the major and minor mode Association of ideas Movement delin- Contents eated Handel's frogs Water in the "Hebrides" over- ture and "Ocean" symphony Height and depth illus- trated by acute and grave tones Beethoven's illustration of distance His rule enforced Classical and Romantic music Genesis of the terms What they mean in litera- ture Archbishop Trench on classical books The au- thor's definitions of both terms in music Classicism as the conservative principle, Romanticism as the progres- sive, regenerative, and creative A contest which stim- ulates life. , Page 36 The Modern Orchestra Importance of the instrumental band Some things that can be learned by its study The orchestral choirs Disposition of the players Model bands compared De- velopment of instrumental music The extent of an or- chestra's register The Strings : Violin, Viola, Violon- cello, and Double-bass Effects produced by changes in manipulation The wood-winds: Flute, Oboe, English horn, Bassoon, Clarinet The Brass . French Horn, Trum- pet and Cornet, Trombone, Tuba The Drums The Con- ductor Rise of the modern interpreter The need of him His methods Scores and Score-reading. . . Page 71 At an Orchestral Concert " Classical " and " Popular " as generally conceived Symphony Orchestras and Military bands The higher forms in music as exemplified at a classical concert Symphonies, Overtures, Symphonic Poems, Concertos, etc. A Symphony not a union of unrelated parts History of the name The Sonata form and cyclical compositions The bond of union between the divisions of a Symphony Material and spiritual links The first movement and the XI CHAP. III. CHAP. IV. CHAP. V. Xll CHAP. V. CHAP. VI. Contents sonata form "Exposition, illustration, and repetition" The subjects and their treatment Keys and nomen- clature of the Symphony The Adagio or second move- ment The Scherzo and its relation to the Minuet The Finale and the Rondo form The latter illustrated in out- line by a poem Modifications of the symphonic form by Beethoven, Schumann, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Saint- Saens and Dvorak Augmentation of the forces Sym- phonies with voices The Symphonic Poem Its three characteristics Concertos and Cadenzas M. Ysaye's opinion of the latter Designations in Chamber music The Overture and its descendants Smaller forms : Ser- enades, Fantasias, Rhapsodies, Variations, Operatic Ex- cerpts Page 122 At a Pianoforte Recital The Popularity of Pianoforte music exemplified in M, Paderewski's recitals The instrument A universal me- dium of music study Its defects and merits contrasted Not a perfect melody instrument Value of the percus- sive element Technique ; the false and the true estimate of its value Pianoforte literature as illustrated in recitals Its division, for the purposes of this study, into four periods : Classic, Classic-romantic, Romantic, and Bravura Precursors of the Pianoforte The Clavichord and Harp- sichord, and the music composed for them Peculiarities of Bach's style His Romanticism Scarlatti's Sonatas The Suite and its constituents Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue, Minuet, and Gavotte The technique of the period How Bach and Handel played Beethoven and the Sonata Mozart and Beethoven as pianists The Romantic composers Schumann and Chopin and the forms used by them Schumann and Jean Paul Chopin's Preludes, Etudes, Nocturnes, Ballades, Polonaises, Ma- zurkas, Krakowiak The technique of the Romantic pe- Contents riod "Idiomatic" pianoforte music Development of the instrument The Pedal and its use Liszt and his Hungarian Rhapsodies. Page 154 At the Opera Instability of popular taste in respect of operas Our lists seldom extend back of the present century The peo- ple of to-day as indifferent as those of two centuries ago to the language used Use and abuse of foreign lan- guages The Opera defended as an art-form Its origin in the Greek tragedies Why music is the language of emo- tion A scientific explanation Herbert Spencer's laws Efforts of Florentine scholars to revive the classic tragedy result in the invention of the lyric drama The various kinds of Opera : Opera seria. Opera buffa. Opera semiseria, French grand Optra, and Opera comique Operettas and musical farces Romantic Opera A popular conception of German opera A return to the old terminology led by Wagner The recitative : Its nature, aims, and capaci- ties The change from speech to song The arioso style, the accompanied recitative and the aria Music and dra- matic action Emancipation from set forms The orches- tra The decay of singing Feats of the masters of the Roman school and La Bastardella Degeneracy of the Opera of their day Singers who have been heard in New York Two generations of singers compared Grisi, Jenny Lind, Sontag, La Grange, Piccolomini, Adelina Patti, Nilsson, Sembrich, Lucca, Gerster, Lehmann, Melba, Eames, Calve, Mario, Jean and Edouard de Reszke Wagner and his works Operas and lyric dramas Wag- ner's return to the principles of the Florentine reformers Interdependence of elements in a lyric drama Forms and the endless melody The Typical Phrases : How they should be studied. . Page 202 Xlll CHAP. VI. CHAP. VII. XIV Contents Choirs and Choral Music CHAP. Value of chorus singing in musical culture Schu- VIII. mann's advice to students Choristers and instrumental- istsAmateurs and professionals Oratorio and Mdnner- gesang The choirs of Handel and Bach Glee Unions, Male Clubs, and Women's Choirs Boys' voices not adapt- ed to modern music Mixed choirs American Origin of amateur singing societies Priority over Germany The size of choirs Large numbers not essential How choirs are divided Antiphonal effects Excellence in choir sing- ing Precision, intonation, expression, balance of tone, enunciation, pronunciation, declamation The cause of monotony in Oratorio performances A capella music Genesis of modern hymnology Influence of Luther and the Germans Use of popular melodies by composers The chorale Preservation of the severe style of writing in choral music Palestrina and Bach A study of their styles Latin and Teuton Church and individual Mo- tets and Church Cantatas The Passions The Oratorio Sacred opera and Cantata Epic and Drama Charac- teristic and descriptive music The Mass : Its seculariza- tion and musical development The dramatic tendency illustrated in Beethoven and Berlioz Page 253 CHAP. IX. Musician, Critic and Public Criticism justified Relationship between Musician, Critic and Public To end the conflict between them would result in stagnation How the Critic might escape The Musician prefers to appeal to the public rather than to the Critic Why this is so Ignorance as a safeguard against and promoter of conservatism Wagner and Haydn The Critic as the enemy of the charlatan Temp- tations to which he is exposed Value of popular appro- Contents bation Schumann's aphorisms The Public neither bad judges nor good critics The Critic's duty is to guide pop- ular judgment Fickleness of the people's opinions Taste and judgment not a birthright The necessity of antece- dent study The Critic's responsibility Not always that toward the Musician which the latter thinks How the newspaper can work for good Must the Critic be a Musi- cian ? Pedants and Rhapsodists Demonstrable facts in criticism The folly and viciousness of foolish rhapsody The Rev. Mr. Haweis cited Ernst's violin Intelligent rhapsody approved Dr. John Brown on Beethoven The Critic's duty Page 297 PLATES I. VIOLIN (CLIFFORD SCHMIDT). II. VIOLON- CBLLO (VICTOR HERBERT). III. PICCOLO FLUTE (C. KURTH, JUN.). IV. OBOE (JOSEPH ELLBR). V. ENGLISH HORN (JOSEPH ELLER). VI. BASSOON (FEDOR BERNHARDI). VII. CLARINET (HENRY KAISER). VIII. BASS CLARINET (HENRY KAISER). IX. FRENCH HORN (CARL PIEPBR). X. TROM- BONE (J. PFEIFFENSCHNEIDER). XI. BASS TUBA (ANTON REITER). XII. THE CONDUCTOR'S SCORE. Page 325 INDEX. Page 351 XV CHAP. IX. How to Listen to Music Introduction '""PHIS book has a purpose, which is 1 as simple as it is plain ; and an un- pretentious scope. It does not aim to edify either the musical professor or the musical scholar. It comes into the presence of the musical student with all becoming modesty. Its business is with those who love music and present them- selves for its gracious ministrations in Concert-Room and Opera House, but have not studied it as professors and scholars are supposed to study. It is not for the careless unless they be will- ing to inquire whether it might not be well to yield the common conception of entertainment in favor of the higher enjoyment which springs from serious contemplation of beautiful things ; but if they are willing so to inquire, they The book's appeal. CHAP. I. Talent in listening. How to Listen to Music shall be accounted the class that the author is most anxious to reach. The reasons which prompted its writing and the laying out of its plan will presently appear. For the frankness of his dis- closure the author might be willing to apologize were his reverence for music less and his consideration for popular affectations more ; but because he is convinced that a love for music carries with it that which, so it be but awak- ened, shall speedily grow into an honest desire to know more about the beloved object, he is willing to seem unamiable to the amateur while arguing the need of even so mild a stimulant as his book, and ingenuous, mayhap even childish, to the professional musician while try- ing to point a way in which better ap- preciation may be sought. The capacity properly to listen to music is better proof of musical talent in the listener than skill to play upon an instrument or ability to sing accept- ably when unaccompanied by that ca- pacity. It makes more for that gentle- ness and refinement of emotion, thought, and action which, in the highest sense Introduction of the term, it is the province of music to promote. And it is a much rarer ac- complishment. I cannot conceive any- thing more pitiful than the spectacle of men and women perched on a fair ob- servation point exclaiming rapturously at the loveliness of mead and valley, their eyes melting involuntarily in ten- derness at the sight of moss-carpeted slopes and rocks and peaceful wood, or dilating in reverent wonder at mountain magnificence, and then learning from their exclamations that, as a matter of fact, they are unable to distinguish be- tween rock and tree, field and forest, earth and sky ; between the dark - browns of the storm-scarred rock, the greens of the foliage, and the blues of the sky. Yet in the realm of another sense, in the contemplation of beauties more ethereal and evanescent than those of nature, such is the experience which in my capacity as a writer for news- papers I have made for many years. A party of people blind to form and color cannot be said to be well equipped for a Swiss journey, though loaded down CHAP. I. Ill equipped listeners. How to Listen to Music CHAP. I. Popular ignorance of music. with alpenstocks and Baedekers ; yet the spectacle of such a party on the top of the Rigi is no more pitiful and anom- alous than that presented by the major- ity of the hearers in our concert-rooms. They are there to adventure a journey into a realm whose beauties do not dis- close themselves to the senses alone, but whose perception requires a co-opera- tion of all the finer faculties ; yet of this they seem to know nothing, and even of that sense to which the first appeal is made it may be said with profound truth that " hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." Of all the arts, music is practised most and thought about least. Why this should be the case may be ex- plained on several grounds. A sweet mystery enshrouds the nature of music. Its material part is subtle and elusive. To master it on its technical side alone costs a vast expenditure of time, pa- tience, and industry. But since it is, in one manifestation or another, the most popular of the arts, and one the enjoy- ment of which is conditioned in a pecul- iar degree on love, it remains passing Introduction strange that the indifference touching its nature and elements, and the charac- ter of the phenomena which produce it, or are produced by it, is so general. I do not recall that anybody has ever tried to ground this popular ignorance touch- ing an art of which, by right of birth, everybody is a critic. The unamiable nature of the task, of which I am keenly conscious, has probably been a bar to such an undertaking. But a frank diag- nosis must precede the discovery of a cure for every disease, and I have un- dertaken to point out a way in which this grievous ailment in the social body may at least be lessened. It is not an exaggeration to say that one might listen for a lifetime to the po- lite conversation of our drawing-rooms (and I do not mean by this to refer to the United States alone) without hearing a symphony talked about in terms indic- ative of more than the most superficial knowledge of the outward form, that is, the dimensions and apparatus, of such a composition. No other art provides an exact analogy for this phenomenon. Everybody can say something contain- CHAP. I. Paucity of intelligent comment. 8 CHAP. I. Want of a model. Simple terms con- founded. How to Listen to Music ing a degree of appositeness about a poem, novel, painting, statue, or build- ing. If he can do no more he can go as far as Landseer's rural critic who objected to one of the artist's paintings on the ground that not one of the three pigs eating from a trough had a foot in it. It is the absence of the standard of judgment employed in this criticism which makes significant talk about mu- sic so difficult. Nature failed to pro- vide a model for this ethereal art. There is nothing in the natural world with which the simple man may com- pare it. It is not alone a knowledge of the constituent factors of a symphony, or the difference between a sonata and a suite, a march and a mazurka, that is rare. Unless you chance to be listen- ing to the conversation of musicians (in which term I wish to include amateurs who are what the word amateur implies, and whose knowledge stands in some respectable relation to their love), you will find, so frequently that I have not the heart to attempt an estimate of the pro- portion, that the most common words Introduction in the terminology of the art are mis- applied. Such familiar things as har- mony and melody, time and tune, are continually confounded. Let us call a distinguished witness into the box ; the instance is not new, but it will serve. What does Tennyson mean when he says : "All night have the roses heard The flute, violin, bassoon ; All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd To the dancers dancing in tune ? " Unless the dancers who wearied Maud were provided with even a more extraordinary instrumental outfit than the Old Lady of Banbury Cross, how could they have danced "in tune?" Musical study of a sort being almost as general as study of the " three Rs," it must be said that the gross forms of ignorance are utterly inexcusable. But if this is obvious, it is even more obvi- ous that there is something radically wrong with the prevalent systems of musical instruction. It is because of a plentiful lack of knowledge that so much that is written on music is with- CHAP. I. Tune and time. 10 How to Listen to Music CHAP. I. Blunders of poets and essayists. out meaning, and that the most foolish kind of rhapsody, so it show a colloca- tion of fine words, is permitted to mas- querade as musical criticism and even analysis. People like to read about music, and the books of a certain Eng- lish clergyman have had a sale of stu- pendous magnitude notwithstanding they are full of absurdities. The clergy- man has a multitudinous companion- ship, moreover, among novelists, essay- ists, and poets whose safety lies in more or less fantastic generalization when they come to talk about music. How they flounder when they come to detail ! It was Charles Lamb who said, in his " Chapter on Ears," that in voices he could not distinguish a soprano from a tenor, and could only contrive to guess at the thorough-bass from its being " su- pereminently harsh and disagreeable ; " yet dear old Elia may be forgiven, since his confounding the bass voice with a system of musical short-hand is so de- lightful a proof of the ignorance he was confessing. But what shall the troubled critics say to Tennyson's orchestra consisting Introduction ll of a flute, violin, and bassoon ? Or to Coleridge's " loud bassoon," which made the wedding-guest to beat his breast? Or to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's pianist who played " with an airy and bird - like touch ? " Or to our own clever painter-novelist who, in " Snub- bin' through Jersey," has Brushes bring out his violoncello and play " the sym- phonies of Beethoven " to entertain his fellow canal-boat passengers ? The ten- dency toward realism, or " veritism," as it is called, has brought out a rich crop of blunders. It will not do to have a character in a story simply sing or play something ; we must have the names of composers and compositions. The ge- nial gentleman who enriched musical lit- erature with arrangements of Beetho- ven's symphonies for violoncello without accompaniment has since supplemented this feat by creating a German fiddler who, when he thinks himself unnoticed, plays a sonata for violin and contralto voice ; Professor Brander Matthews permits one of his heroines to sing Schumann's " Warum?" and one of his heroes plays " The Moonlight Concer- CHAP. I. Literary realism and musi- cal termi- nology. 12 CHAP. I. A popular need. How to Listen to Music to ; " one of Ouida's romantic creatures spends hours at an organ " playing the grand old masses of Mendelssohn ; " in " Moths " the tenor never wearies of singing certain "exquisite airs of Pal- estrina," which recalls the fact that an indignant correspondent of a St. Lou- is newspaper, protesting against the Teutonism and heaviness of an orches- tra conductor's programmes, demanded some of the " lighter " works of " Ber- lioz and Palestrina." Alas ! these things and the many oth- ers equally amusing which Mr. G. Suth- erland Edwards long ago catalogued in an essay on " The Literary Maltreatment of Music " are but evidences that even cultured folk have not yet learned to talk correctly about the art which is prac- tised most widely. There is a greater need than pianoforte teachers and sing- ing teachers, and that is a numerous com- pany of writers and talkers who shall teach the people how to listen to music so that it shall not pass through their heads like a vast tonal phantasmagoria, but provide the varied and noble de- lights contemplated by the composers. Introduction Ungracious as it might appear, it may yet not be amiss, therefore, at the very outset of an inquiry into the proper way in which to listen to music, to utter a warning against much that is written on the art. As a rule it will be found that writers on music are divided into two classes, and that neither of these classes can do sfiuch good. Too often they are either pedants or rhapsodists. This division is wholly natural. Mu- sic has many sides and is a science as well as an art. Its scientific side is that on which the pedant generally ap- proaches it. He is concerned with forms and rules, with externals, to the forgetting of that which is inexpressibly nobler and higher. But the pedants are not harmful, because they are not inter- esting ; strictly speaking, they do not write for the public at all, but only for their professional colleagues. The harmful men are the foolish rhapsodists who take advantage of the fact that the language of music is indeterminate and evanescent to talk about the art in such a way as to present themselves as persons of exquisite sensibilities rather CHAP. I. A warning against writers. Pedants and rhap- sodists. How to Listen to Music CHAP. I. than to direct attention to the real nat- ure and beauty of music itself. To them I shall recur in a later chapter de- voted to musical criticism, and haply point out the difference between good and bad critics and commentators from the view -point of popular need and popular opportunity. II Recognition of Musical Elements MUSIC is dual in its nature; it is material as well as spiritual. Its material side we apprehend through the sense of hearing, and comprehend through the intellect ; its spiritual side reaches us through the fancy (or imagi- nation, so it be music of the highest class), and the emotional part of us. If the scope and capacity of the art, and the evolutionary processes which its history discloses (a record of which is preserved in its nomenclature), are to be understood, it is essential that this duality be kept in view. There is something so potent and elemental in the appeal which music makes that it is possible to derive pleasure from even an unwilling hearing or a hearing unaccompanied by effort at analysis; The nature of music. i6 CHAP. II. Necessity of intelli- gent hear- ing. How to Listen to Music but real appreciation of its beauty, which means recognition of the quali- ties which put it in the realm of art, is conditioned upon intelligent hearing. The higher the intelligence, the keener will be the enjoyment, if the former be directed to the spiritual side as well as the material. So far as music is merely agreeably co-ordinated sounds, it may be reduced to mathematics and its practice to handi- craft. But recognition of design is a condition precedent to the awakening of the fancy or the imagination, and to achieve such recognition there must be intelligent hearing in the first instance. For the purposes of this study, design may be held to be Form in its primary stages, the recognition of which is pos- sible to every listener who is fond of music ; it is not necessary that he be learned in the science. He need only be willing to let an intellectual process, which will bring its own reward, ac- company the physical process of hear- ing. Without discrimination it is impossi- ble to recognize even the crude materials Recognition of Musical Elements of music, for the first step is already a co-ordination of those materials. A tone becomes musical material only by association with another tone. We might hear it alone, study its quality, and determine its degree of acuteness or gravity (its pitch, as musicians say), but it can never become music so long as it remains isolated. When we recog- nize that it bears certain relationships with other tones in respect of time or tune (to use simple terms), it has be- come for us musical material. We do not need to philosophize about the nat- ure of those relationships, but we must recognize their existence. Thus much we might hear if we were to let music go through our heads like water through a sieve. Yet the step from that degree of discrimination to a rudimentary analysis of Form is ex- ceedingly short, and requires little more than a willingness to concentrate the attention and exercise the memory. Everyone is willing to do that much while looking at a picture. Who would look at a painting and rest satisfied with the impression made upon the sense of CHAP. II. Tones and musical material. The begin- nings of Form. i8 CHAP. II. Compari- son with a, model not possible. How to Listen to Music sight by the colors merely ? No one, surely. Yet so soon as we look, so as to discriminate between the outlines, to observe the relationship of figure to figure, we are indulging in intellectual exercise. If this be a condition prece- dent to the enjoyment of a picture (and it plainly is), how much more so is it in the case of music, which is intangible and evanescent, which cannot pause a moment for our contemplation without ceasing to be ? There is another reason why we must exercise intelligence in listening, to which I have already alluded in the first chapter. Our appreciation of beauty in the plastic arts is helped by the cir- cumstance that the critical activity is largely a matter of comparison. Is the picture or the statue a good copy of the object sought to be represented ? Such comparison fails us utterly in music, which copies nothing that is tangibly present in the external world. It is then necessary to associate the intellect with sense perception in listen- ing to music. How far is it essential that the intellectual process shall go? Recognition of Musical Elements This book being for the untrained, the question might be put thus : With how little knowledge of the science can an intelligent listener get along ? We are concerned only with his enjoyment of music or, better, with an effort to in- crease it without asking him to be- come a musician. If he is fond of the art it is more than likely that the capac- ity to discriminate sufficiently to recog- nize the elements out of which music is made has come to him intuitively. Does he recognize that musical tones are related to each other in respect of time and pitch? Then it shall not be difficult for him to recognize the three elements on which music rests Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm. Can he recog- nize them with sufficient distinctness to seize upon their manifestations while music is sounding ? Then memory shall come to the aid of discrimina- tion, and he shall be able to appreciate enough of design to point the way to a true and lofty appreciation of the beau- tiful in music. The value of memory is for obvious reasons very great in mu- sical enjoyment. The picture remains CHAP. II. What de- gree of knowledge is neces- sary? The Ele- ments. Value of memory. 20 How to Listen to Music CHAP. II. An inter- mediary necessary. upon the wall, the book upon the li- brary shelf. If we have failed to grasp a detail at the first glance or reading, we need but turn again to the picture or open the book anew. We may see the picture in a changed light, or read the poem in a different mood, but the outlines, colors, ideas are fixed for fre- quent and patient perusal. Music goes out of existence with every perform- ance, and must be recreated at every hearing. Not only that, but in the case of all, so far as some forms are concerned, and of all who are not practitioners in others, it is necessary that there shall be an intermediary between the com- poser and the listener. The written or printed notes are not music; they are only signs which indicate to the per- former what to do to call tones into ex- istence such as the composer had com- bined into an art-work in his mind. The broadly trained musician can read the symbols ; they stir his imagination, and he hears the music in his imagi- nation as the composer heard it. But the untaught music-lover alone can get Recognition of Musical Elements nothing from the printed page ; he must needs wait till some one else shall again waken for him the " Sound of a voice that is still." This is one of the drawbacks which are bound up in the nature of music; but it has ample compensation in the unusual pleasure which memory brings. In the case of the best music, familiar- ity breeds ever-growing admiration. New compositions are slowly received ; they make their way to popular appre- ciation only by repeated performances ; the people like best the songs as well as the symphonies which they know. The quicker, therefore, that we are in rec- ognizing the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic contents of a new composi- tion, and the more apt our memory in seizing upon them for the operation of the fancy, the greater shall be our pleas- ure. In simple phrase Melody is a well- ordered series of tones heard succes- sively ; Harmony, a well-ordered series heard simultaneously ; Rhythm, a sym- metrical grouping of tonal time units 21 CHAP. II. The value of memory. Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm. 22 CHAP. II. Compre- hensiveness of Melody. Repetition. How to Listen to Music vitalized by accent. The life-blood of music is Melody, and a complete con- ception of the term embodies within it- self the essence of both its companions. A succession of tones without harmonic regulation is not a perfect element in music ; neither is a succession of tones which have harmonic regulation but are void of rhythm. The beauty and ex- pressiveness, especially the emotional- ity, of a musical composition depend upon the harmonies which either ac- company the melody in the form of chords (a group of melodic intervals sounded simultaneously), or are latent in the melody itself (harmonic intervals sounded successively). Melody is Har- mony analyzed ; Harmony is Melody synthetized. The fundamental principle of Form is repetition of melodies, which are to music what ideas are to poetry. Melo- dies themselves are made by repetition of smaller fractions called motives (a term borrowed from the fine arts), phrases, and periods, which derive their individuality from their rhythmical or intervallic characteristics. Melodies are Recognition of Musical Elements 2 3 not all of the simple kind which the musically illiterate, or the musically ill- trained, recognize as " tunes," but they all have a symmetrical organization. The dissection of a simple folk-tune may serve to make this plain and also indicate to the untrained how a single feature may be taken as a mark of identification and a holding-point for the memory. Here is the . melody of a Creole song called sometimes Pov* piti Lolotte, sometimes Pov' piti Momzelle Zizi, in the patois of Louisiana and Martinique : CHAP. II. A melody analysed. lyiMt^j^ * r u . J B J j j j-p-j F N i i \\ m i i ^5- ~ff. ^j j. mm 0^~ L ''ij ''.i * B* 1 - J *'' LJ ' i JTT"i HP i M i I^F^ i i j n i ^-H 1 J -*Jj*-*i |*-jj^-J j m \j J a j J j *|| It will be as apparent to the eye of one who cannot read music as it will to his ear when he hears this melody played, that it is built up of two groups of notes only. These groups are marked off by the heavy lines across the staff called bars, whose purpose it is to indicate CHAP. II. Motives, phrases, and periods. How to Listen to Music rhythmical subdivisions in music. The second, third, fifth, sixth, and seventh of these groups are repetitions merely of the first group, which is the germ of the melody, but on different degrees of the scale ; the fourth and eighth groups are identical and are an appendage hitched to the first group for the pur- pose of bringing it to a close, supplying a resting-point craved by man's innate sense of symmetry. Musicians call such groups cadences. A musical analyst would call each group a motive, and say that each successive two groups, begin- ning with the first, constitute a phrase, each two phrases a period, and the two periods a melody. We have therefore in this innocent Creole tune eight mo- tives, four phrases, and two periods ; yet its material is summed up in two groups, one of seven notes, one of five, which only need to be identified and re- membered to enable a listener to recog- nize something of the design of a com- poser if he were to put the melody to the highest purposes that melody can be put in the art of musical composi- tion. Recognition of Musical Elements Repetition is the constructive princi- ple which was employed by the folk- musician in creating this melody ; and repetition is the fundamental principle in all musical construction. It will suf- fice for many merely to be reminded of this to appreciate the fact that while the exercise of memory is a most necessary activity in listening to music, it lies in music to make that exercise easy. There is repetition of motives, phrases, and periods in melody ; repetition of melodies in parts ; and repetition of parts in the wholes of the larger forms. The beginnings of poetic forms are also found in repetition ; in primitive poetry it is exemplified in the refrain or burden, in the highly developed poe- try of the Hebrews in parallelism. The Psalmist wrote : " O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure." Here is a period of two members, the latter repeating the thought of the for- mer. A musical analyst might find in it an admirable analogue for the first period of a simple melody. He would CHAP. II. Repetition in music. Repetition in poetry. 26 How to Listen to Music CHAP. II. Key rela- tionship. The rhythmical stamp. divide it into four motives : " Rebuke me not | in thy wrath | neither chasten me | in thy hot displeasure," and point out as intimate a relationship between them as exists in the Creole tune. The bond of union between the motives of the melody as well as that in the poe- try illustrates a principle of beauty which is the most important element in musical design after repetition, which is its necessary vehicle. It is because this principle guides the repetition of the tone-groups that together they form a melody that is perfect, satisfying, and reposeful. It is the principle of key- relationship, to discuss which fully would carry me farther into musical science than I am permitted to go. Let this suffice : A harmony is latent in each group, and the sequence of groups is such a sequence as the experience of ages has demonstrated to be most agreeable to the ear. In the case of the Creole melody the listener is helped to a quick apprecia- tion of its form by the distinct physiog- nomy which rhythm has stamped upon it ; and it is by noting such a character- Recognition of Musical Elements istic that the memory can best be aided in its work of identification. It is not necessary for a listener to follow all the processes of a composer in order to en- joy his music, but if he cultivates the habit of following the principal themes through a work of the higher class he will not only enjoy the pleasures of memory but will frequently get a glimpse into the composer's purposes which will stimulate his imagination and mightily increase his enjoyment. There is nothing can guide him more surely to a recognition of the princi- ple of unity, which makes a symphony to be an organic whole instead of a group of pieces which are only ex- ternally related. The greatest exem- plar of this principle is Beethoven ; and his music is the best in which to study it for the reason that he so frequently employs material signs for the spiritual bond. So forcibly has this been im- pressed upon me at times that I am almost willing to believe that a keen analytical student of his music might arrange his greater works into groups of such as were in process of composi- 2 7 CHAP. II. The prin- ciple of Unity. 28 How to Listen to Music CHAP. II. A rhyth- mical mo- tive pur- sued. tion at the same time without refer- ence to his personal history. Take the principal theme of the C minor Sym- phony for example : Allegro con brio. ^ V / This simple, but marvellously preg- nant, motive is not only the kernel of the first movement, it is the fundamental thought of the whole symphony. We hear its persistent beat in the scherzo as well : L Allegro. ff and also in the last movement : Allegro. More than this, we find the motive haunting the first movement of the Recognition of Musical Elements 29 pianoforte sonata in F minor, op. 57, known as the " Sonata Appassionata," now gloomily, almost morosely, procla- mative in the bass, now interrogative in the treble : if ' poco rit. CHAP. II. Schindler relates that when once he asked Beethoven to tell him what the F minor and the D minor (Op. 31, No. 2) sonatas meant, he received for an answer only the enigmatical remark : " Read Shakespeare's ' Tempest.' " Many a stu- dent and commentator has since read the " Tempest " in the hope of finding a clew to the emotional contents which Beethoven believed to be in the two works, so singularly associated, only to find himself baffled. It is a fancy, which rests perhaps too much on outward things, but still one full of suggestion, that had Beethoven said : " Hear my C minor Symphony," he would have given a better starting-point to the imagina- Relation- ships in Beethoven * works. How to Listen to Music CHAP. II. The C mi- nor Sym- phony and ' ' Appas- sionato. " sonata. tion of those who are seeking to know what the F minor sonata means. Most obviously it means music, but it means music that is an expression of one of those psychological struggles which Beethoven felt called upon more and more to delineate as he was more and more shut out from the companionship of the external world. Such struggles are in the truest sense of the word tem- pests. The motive, which, according to the story, Beethoven himself said in- dicates, in the symphony, the rappings of Fate at the door of human existence, is common to two works which are also related in their spiritual contents. Sin- gularly enough, too, in both cases the struggle which is begun in the first movement and continued in the third, is interrupted by a period of calm reas- suring, soul-fortifying aspiration, which in the symphony as well as in the so- nata takes the form of a theme with va- riations. Here, then, the recognition of a simple rhythmical figure has helped us to an appreciation of the spiritual unity of the parts of a symphony, and provided a commentary on the poetical Recognition of Musical Elements contents of a sonata. But the lesson is not yet exhausted. Again do we find the rhythm coloring the first movement of the pianoforte concerto in G major : Symphony, concerto, and sonata, as the sketch-books of the master show, were in process of creation at the same time. Thus far we have been helped in identifying a melody and studying re- lationships by the rhythmical structure of a single motive. The demonstration might be extended on the same line into Beethoven's symphony in A major, in which the external sign of the poeti- cal idea which underlies the whole work is also rhythmic so markedly so that Wagner characterized it most hap- pily and truthfully when he said that it was "the apotheosis of the dance." Here it is the dactyl, U U, which in 3 1 CHAP. II. Beethoven's G major Concerto. His Sev- enth Sym- phony. 3 2 How to Listen to Music CHAP. II. Use of a dactylic figure. one variation, or another, clings to us almost as persistently as in Hood's " Bridge of Sighs : " " One more unfortunate Weary of breath, Rashly importunate, Gone to her death." We hear it lightly tripping in the first movement : gentle, sedate, tender, measured, through its combination with a spondee in the second : J /3|J J; cheerily, merrily, jocosely happy in the Scherzo : J J; hymn-like in the Trio : and wildly bacchanalian when subjected to trochaic abbreviation in the Finale : JTJ-3 Intervallic characteristics may place the badge of relationship upon melodies Recognition of Musical Elements 33 as distinctly as rhythmic. There is no more perfect illustration of this than that afforded by Beethoven's Ninth Sym- phony. Speaking of the subject of its finale, Sir George Grove says : CHAP. II. Intervallic character- istics. "And note while listening to the simple tune itself, before the variations begin how -very simple it is ; the plain diatonic scale, not a single chro- matic interval, and out of fifty-six notes only three not consecutive."* Earlier in the same work, while com- bating a statement by Lenz that the re- semblance between the second subject of the first movement and the choral mel- ody is a " thematic reference of the most striking importance, vindicating the unity of the entire work, and placing the whole in a perfectly new light," Sir George says : The melo- dies in Beethoven s Ninth Symphony. " It is, however, very remarkable that so many of the melodies in the Symphony should consist of consecutive notes, and that in no less than four of them the notes should run up a portion of the scale and down again apparently pointing to a consistent condition of Beethoven's mind through- out this work." * " Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies," p. 374. 34 How to Listen to Music CHAP. II. Melodic likenesses. Like Goethe, Beethoven secreted many a mystery in his masterpiece, but he did not juggle idly with tones, or select the themes of his symphonies at hap-hazard; he would be open to the charge, however, if the resemblances which I have pointed out in the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, and those disclosed by the following melodies from his Ninth, should turn out through some incomprehensible revelation to be mere coincidences : From the first movement: J dolcc. fl From the second : EIS2 1 I 1 J J pp j. f ? i i jetc. \-L.. E. .p. -if y j |f j j B> | /. 4 etc. -f o / X"^ J. f /^^^ -^- fc; ^^. etc. i/ f t *!r i>\rtf$ r r nf j rTr Recognition of Musical Elements The choral melody : etc. From a recognition of the beginnings of design, to which identification of the composer's thematic material and its simpler relationships will lead, to so much knowledge of Form as will enable the reader to understand the later chap- ters in this book, is but a step. 35 CHAP. II. Design and Form. Metaphys- ics to be avoided ktrtin. III The Content and Kinds of Music BEARING in mind the purpose of this book, I shall not ask the reader to accompany me far afield in the region of aesthetic philosophy or musical metaphysics. A short excur- sion is all that is necessary to make plain what is meant by such terms as Absolute music, Programme music, Classical, Romantic, and Chamber music and the like, which not only confront us continually in discussion, but stand for things which we must know if we would read programmes understandingly and appreciate the various phases in which music presents itself to us. It is inter- esting and valuable to know why an art- work stirs up pleasurable feelings within us, and to speculate upon its relations to the intellect and the emotions; but the The Content and Kinds of Music circumstance that philosophers have never agreed, and probably never will agree, on these points, so far as the art of music is concerned, alone suffices to remove them from the field of this dis- cussion. Intelligent listening is not conditioned upon such knowledge. Even when the study is begun, the questions whether or not music has a content beyond itself, where that content is to be sought, and how defined, will be decided in each case by the student for himself, on grounds which may be said to be as much in his nature as they are in the argument. The attitude of man toward the art is an individual one, and in some of its aspects defies explanation. The amount and kind of pleasure which music gives him are frequently as much beyond his understanding and control as they are beyond the under- standing and control of the man who sits beside him. They are consequences of just that particular combination of material and spiritual elements, just that blending of muscular, nervous, and cerebral tissues, which make him what 37 CHAP. III. Personal equation in judgment. CHAP. III. A musical fluid. How to Listen to Music he is, which segregate him as an individ- ual from th? mass of humanity. We speak of persons as susceptible or insus- ceptible to music as we speak of good and poor conductors of electricity ; and the analogy implied here is particularly apt and striking. If we were still using the scientific terms of a few decades ago I should say that a musical fluid might yet be discovered and its laws correlated with those of heat, light, and electricity. Like them, when reduced to its lowest terms, music is a form of motion, and it should not be difficult on this analogy to construct a theory which would ac- count for the physical phenomena which accompany the hearing of music in some persons, such as the recession of blood from the face, or an equally sudden suf- fusion of the same veins, a contraction of the scalp accompanied by chilliness or a prickling sensation, or that rough- ness of the skin called goose-flesh, " flesh moved by an idea, flesh horripilated by a thought." It has been denied that feelings are the content of music, or that it is the mis- sion of music to give expression to feel- The Content and Kinds of Music ings; but the scientific fact remains that the fundamental elements of vocal music pitch, quality, and dynamic in- tensity are the results of feelings work- ing upon the vocal organs; and even if Mr. Herbert Spencer's theory be re- jected, it is too late now to deny that music is conceived by its creators as a language of the emotions and so applied by them. The German philosopher Herbarth sought to reduce the ques- tion to an absurdity by expressing sur- prise that musicians should still believe that feelings could be " the proximate cause of the rules of simple and double counterpoint ; " but Dr. Stainer found a sufficient answer by accepting the proposition as put, and directing at- tention to the fact that the feelings of men having first decided what was pleasurable in polyphony, and the rules of counterpoint having afterward been drawn from specimens of pleasurable polyphony, it was entirely correct to say that feelings are the proximate cause of the laws of counterpoint. It is because so many of us have been taught by poets and romancers to think 39 CHAP. III. Origin of musical elements. Feelings and coun- terpoint. 4 CHAP. III. How com- posers hear music. How to Listen to Music that there is a picture of some kind, or a story in every piece of music, and find ourselves unable to agree upon the picture or the story in any given case, that confusion is so prevalent among the musical laity. Composers seldom find difficulty in understanding each other. They listen for beauty, and if they find it they look for the causes which have produced it, and in appre- hending beauty and recognizing means and cause they unvolitionally rise to the plane whence a view of the com- poser's purposes is clear. Having grasped the mood of a composition and found that it is being sustained or va- ried in a manner accordant with their conceptions of beauty, they occupy themselves with another kind of dif- ferentiation altogether than the misled disciples of the musical rhapsodists who overlook the general design and miss the grand proclamation in their search for petty suggestions for pict- ures and stories among the details of the composition. Let musicians testify for us. In his romance, " Ein Gliick- licher Abend," Wagner says : The Content and Kinds of Music " That which music expresses is eternal and ideal. It does not give voice to the passion, the love, the longing of this or the other individual, under these or the other circumstances, but to passion, love, longing itself." Moritz Hauptmann says : " The same music will admit of the most varied verbal expositions, and of not one of them can it be correctly said that it is exhaustive, the right one, and contains the whole significance of the music. This significance is contained most definitely in the music itself. It is not music that is ambiguous ; it says the same thing to everybody ; it speaks to mankind and gives voice only to human feelings. Ambiguity only then makes its appearance when each person attempts to formulate in his manner the emotional impression which he has received, when he attempts to fix and hold the ethereal essence of music, to utter the unutterable." Mendelssohn inculcated the same les- son in a letter which he wrote to a young poet who had given titles to a number of the composer's " Songs Without Words," and incorporated what he conceived to be their senti- ments in a set of poems. He sent his work to Mendelssohn with the request that the composer inform the writer 4 1 CHAP. III. Wagner's axiom. Haupt- mann s. Mendels- sohn's. CHAP. III. The " Songs without Words." The tonal language. How to Listen to Music whether or not he had succeeded in catching the meaning of the music. He desired the information because " music's capacity for expression is so vague and indeterminate." Mendels- sohn replied : "You give the various numbers of the book such titles as ' I Think of Thee,' ' Melancholy,' 4 The Praise of God,' ' A Merry Hunt.' I can scarcely say whether I thought of these or other things while composing the music. Another might find 4 1 Think of Thee ' where you find 4 Melan- choly,' and a real huntsman might consider 4 A Merry Hunt ' a veritable ' Praise of God.' But this is not because, as you think, music is vague. On the contrary, I believe that musical expression is altogether too definite, that it reaches regions and dwells in them whither words cannot follow it and must necessarily go lame when they make the attempt as you would have them do." If I were to try to say why musi- cians, great musicians, speak thus of their art, my explanation would be that they have developed, farther than the rest of mankind have been able to develop it, a language of tones, which, had it been so willed, might have been developed so as to fill the place now occupied by The Content and Kinds of Music articulate speech. Herbert Spencer, though speaking purely as a scientific investigator, not at all as an artist, de- fined music as " a language of feelings which may ultimately enable men vividly and completely to impress on each other the emotions they experi- ence from moment to moment." We rely upon speech to do this now, but ever and anon when, in a moment of emotional exaltation, we are deserted by the articulate word we revert to the emotional cry which antedates speech, and find that that cry is universally un- derstood because it is universally felt. More than speech, if its primitive ele- ment of emotionality be omitted, more than the primitive language of gesture, music is a natural mode of expression. All three forms have attained their pres- ent stage of development through con- ventions. Articulate speech has led in the development; gesture once occupied a high plane (in the pantomimic dance of the ancients) but has now retrograded ; music, supreme at the outset, then neg- lected, is but now pushing forward into the place which its nature entitles it to 43 CHAP. III. Herbert Spencers definition. Natural expression. 44 CHAP. III. Absolute music. How to Listen to Music occupy. When we conceive of an art- work composed of such elements, and foregoing the adventitious helps which may accrue to it from conventional idi- oms based on association of ideas, we have before us the concept of Absolute music, whose content, like that of every noble artistic composition, be it of tones or forms or colors or thoughts expressed in words, is that high ideal of goodness, truthfulness, and beauty for which all lofty imaginations strive. Such art- works are the instrumental composi- tions in the classic forms; such, too, may be said to be the high type of ideal- ized " Programme " music, which, like the " Pastoral" symphony of Beethoven, is designed to awaken emotions like those awakened by the contemplation of things, but does not attempt to depict the things themselves. Having men- tioned Programme music I must, of course, try to tell what it is; but the exposition must be preceded by an ex- planation of a kind of music which, be- cause of its chastity, is set down as the finest form of absolute music. This is Chamber music. The Content and Kinds of Music In a broad sense, but one not em- ployed in modern definition, Chamber music is all music not designed for per- formance in the church or theatre. (Out-of-door music cannot be consid- ered among these artistic forms of aris- tocratic descent.) Once, and indeed at the time of its invention, the term meant music designed especially for the delec- tation of the most eminent patrons of the art the kings and nobles whose love for it gave it maintenance and en- couragement. This is implied by the term itself, which has the same etymol- ogy wherever the form of music is cultivated. In Italian it is Musica da Camera; in French, Musique de Cham- bre ; in German, Kammermusik. All the terms have a common root. The Greek Kapdpa signified an arch, a vaulted room, or a covered wagon. In the time of the Prankish kings the word was applied to the room in the royal palace in which the monarch's private property was kept, and in which he looked after his private affairs. When royalty took up the cultivation of music it was as a pri- vate, not as a court, function, and the CHAP. III. Chamber music. History of the term. 4 6 CHAP. III. Haydn a. servant. Beethoven's Chamber music. How to Listen to Music concerts given for the entertainment of the royal family took place in the king's chamber, or private room. The musi- cians were nothing more nor less than servants in the royal household. This relationship endured into the present century. Haydn was a Hausojficier of Prince Esterhazy. As vice-chapelmas- ter he had to appear every morning in the Prince's ante-room to receive orders concerning the dinner-music and other entertainments of the day, and in the certificate of appointment his conduct is regulated with a particularity which we, who remember him and reverence his genius but have forgotten his mas- ter, think humiliating in the extreme. Out of this cultivation of music in the private chamber grew the characteris- tics of Chamber music, which we must consider if we would enjoy it ourselves and understand the great reverence which the great masters of music have always felt for it. Beethoven was the first great democrat among musicians. He would have none of the shackles which his predecessors wore, and com- pelled aristocracy of birth to bow to The Content arid Kinds of Music aristocracy of genius. But such was his reverence for the style of music which had grown up in the chambers of the great that he devoted the last three years of his life almost exclusively to its composition ; the peroration of his proclamation to mankind consists of his last quartets the holiest of holy things to the Chamber musicians of to- day. Chamber music represents pure thought, lofty imagination, and deep learning. These attributes are encour- aged by the idea of privacy which is inseparable from the form. Composers find it the finest field for the display of their talents because their own skill in creating is to be paired with trained skill in hearing. Its representative pieces are written for strings alone trios, quartets, and quintets. With the strings are sometimes associated a pianoforte, or one or more of the solo wind instruments oboe, clarinet, or French horn ; and as a rule the com- positions adhere to classical lines (see Chapter V.). Of necessity the mod- esty of the apparatus compels it to fore- 47 CHAP. III. The character' istics of Chamber music. 4 8 CHAP. III. Pro- gramme music. How to Listen to Music go nearly all the adventitious helps with which other forms of composition gain public approval. In the delinea- tive arts Chamber music shows analogy with correct drawing and good com- position, the absence of which cannot be atoned for by the most gorgeous coloring. In no other style is sym- pathy between performers and listeners so necessary, and for that reason Cham- ber music should always be heard in a small room with performers and listen- ers joined in angelic wedlock. Com- munities in which it flourishes under such conditions are musical. Properly speaking, the term Pro- gramme music ought to be applied on- ly to instrumental compositions which make a frank effort to depict scenes, incidents, or emotional processes to which the composer himself gives the clew either by means of a descriptive title or a verbal motto. It is unfortu- nate that the term has come to be loose- ly used. In a high sense the purest and best music in the world is program- matic, its programme being, as I have said, that "high ideal of goodness, The Content and Kinds of Music truthfulness, and beauty" which is the content of all true art But the origin of the term was vulgar, and the most contemptible piece of tonal imitation now claims kinship in the popular mind with the exquisitely poetical creations of Schumann and the " Pastoral " sym- phony of Beethoven ; and so it is be- come necessary to defend it in the case of noble compositions. A programme is not necessarily, as Ambros asserts, a certificate of poverty and an admission on the part of the composer that his art has got beyond its natural bounds. Whether it be merely a suggestive title, as in the case of some of the composi- tions of Beethoven, Schumann, and Men- delssohn, or an extended commentary, as in the symphonic poems of Liszt and the symphonies of Berlioz and Raff, the programme has a distinct value to the composer as well as the hearer. It can make the perceptive sense more im- pressible to the influence of the music ; it can quicken the fancy, and fire the imagination ; it can prevent a gross mis- conception of the intentions of a com- poser and the character of his composi- 49 CHAP. III. The value of super- scriptions. CHAP. III. The rule of judg- ment. Kinds of Pro- gramme music. How to Listen to Music tion. Nevertheless, in determining the artistic value of the work, the question goes not to the ingenuity of the pro- gramme or the clearness with which its suggestions have been carried out, but to the beauty of the music itself irre- spective of the verbal commentary ac- companying it. This rule must be maintained in order to prevent a deg- radation of the object of musical ex- pression. The vile, the ugly, the pain- ful are not fit subjects for music ; music renounces, contravenes, negatives itself when it attempts their delineation. A classification of Programme music might be made on these lines : I. Descriptive pieces which rest on imitation or suggestion of natural sounds. II. Pieces whose contents are purely musical, but the mood of which is sug- gested by a poetical title. III. Pieces in which the influence which determined their form and de- velopment is indicated not only by a title but also by a motto which is relied upon to mark out a train of thought for the listener which will bring his fancy The Content and Kinds of Music into union with that of the composer. The motto may be verbal or pictorial. IV. Symphonies or other composite works which have a title to indicate their general character, supplemented by explanatory superscriptions for each portion. The first of these divisions rests upon the employment of the lowest form of conventional musical idiom. The ma- terial which the natural world provides for imitation by the musician is exceed- ingly scant. Unless we descend to mere noise, as in the descriptions of storms and battles (the shrieking of the wind, the crashing of thunder, and the roar of artillery invaluable aids to the cheap descriptive writer), we have little else than the calls of a few birds. Nearly thirty years ago Wilhelm Tap- pert wrote an essay which he called " Zooplastik in Tonen." He ransacked the musical literature of centuries, but in all his examples the only animals the voices of which are unmistakable are four fowls the cuckoo, quail (that is the German bird, not the American, which has a different call), the cock, and CHAP. III. Imitation of natural sounds. CHAP. III. The night- infule. Tktcat. The cuckoo How to Listen to Music the hen. He has many descriptive sounds which suggest other birds and beasts, but only by association of idea ; separated from title or text they sug- gest merely what they are musical phrases. A reiteration of the rhythmi- cal figure called the " Scotch snap," breaking gradually into a trill, is the common symbol of the nightingale's song, but it is not a copy of that song ; three or four tones descending chromat- ically are given as the cat's mew, but they are made to be such only by plac- ing the syllables Mi-au (taken from the vocabulary of the German cat) under them. Instances of this kind might be called characterization, or descrip- tion by suggestion, and some of the best composers have made use of them, as will appear in these pages presently. The list being so small, and the lesson taught so large, it may be well to give a few striking instances of absolutely im- itative music. The first bird to collabo- rate with a composer seems to have been the cuckoo, whose notes Cnck - oo ! The Content and Kinds of Music 53 had sounded in many a folk-song ere Beethoven thought of enlisting the lit- tle solo performer in his " Pastoral " symphony. It is to be borne in mind, however, as a fact having some bearing on the artistic value of Programme music, that Beethoven's cuckoo changes his note to please the musician, and, in- stead of singing a minor third, he sings a major third thus : Cuck - oo ! As long ago as 1688 Jacob Walter wrote a musical piece entitled " Gallina et Gallo," in which the hen was delin- eated in this theme : a. Gallina. rrr rr S CHAP. III. Cock and hen. Bf> r while the cock had the upper voice in the following example, his clear chal- lenge sounding above the cackling of his mate : 54 How to Listen to Music CHAP. III. i The quail. OaUo. fMffi ,r r^p j gj-O- * i~> m - f-^ m m m m ^-U ^- \r r r 1 -^ g r^^m-f^ f- .... FfcBl- f\ *-* m m m m i ' r JL=- - "- r i -=-r d The most effective use yet made of the song of the hen, however, is in " La Poule," one of Rameau's " Pieces de Clavecin," printed in 1736, a delightful composition with this subject : Fzfe^-1 ^J JJ-MlB^ J*J*J*-M *rr= HW + m * \* 44* tf \prjf* Co co co co co co codai, etc. The quail's song is merely a mono- tonic rhythmical figure to which Ger- man fancy has fitted words of pious ad- monition : E/ i > .ft > i 1 i fej^l Furch-te Gott! Lo - be Gottl The paucity of examples in this de- partment is a demonstration of the state- The Content and Kinds of Music ment made elsewhere that nature does not provide music with models for imi- tation as it does painting and sculpture. The fact that, nevertheless, we have come to recognize a large number of idioms based on association of ideas stands the composer in good stead whenever he ventures into the domain of delineative or descriptive music, and this he can do without becoming crudely imitative. Repeated experiences have taught us to recognize resemblances between sequences or combinations of tones and things or ideas, and on these analogies, even though they be purely conventional (that is agreed upon, as we have agreed that a nod of the head shall convey assent, a shake of the head dissent, and a shrug of the shoulders doubt or indifference), the composers have built up a voluminous vocabulary of idioms which need only to be helped out by a suggestion to the mind to be eloquently illustrative. " Sometimes hearing a melody or harmony arouses an emotion like that aroused by the con- templation of a thing. Minor harmo- nies, slow movements, dark tonal col- CHAP. III. Conven- tional idioms. Associa- tion of ideas. CHAP. III. Fancy and imagina- tion. How to Listen to Music orings, combine directly to put a mu- sically susceptible person in a mood con- genial to thoughts of sorrow and death ; and, inversely, the experience of sor- row, or the contemplation of death, cre- ates affinity for minor harmonies, slow movements, and dark tonal colorings. Or we recognize attributes in music possessed also by things, and we consort the music and the things, external attri- butes bringing descriptive music into play, which excites the fancy, internal attributes calling for an exercise of the loftier faculty, imagination, to discern their meaning." * The latter kind is delineative music of the higher order, the kind that I have called idealized programme music, for it is the imag- ination which, as Ruskin has said, " sees the heart and inner nature and makes them felt, but is often obscure, mysteri- ous, and interrupted in its giving out of outer detail," which is " a seer in the prophetic sense, calling the things that are not as though they were, and for- ever delighting to dwell on that which * " Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," p. 22. The Content and Kinds of Music is not tangibly present." In this kind of music, harmony, the real seat of emo- tionality in musir, is an eloquent factor, and, indeed, there is no greater mystery in the art, which is full of mystery, than the fact that the lowering of the second tone in the chord, which is the starting- point of harmony, should change an ex- pression of satisfaction, energetic action, or jubilation into an accent of pain or sorrow. The major mode is " to do," the minor, " to suffer : " Hur - rah ! A - las! How near a large number of sugges- tions, which are based wholly upon ex- perience or association of ideas, lie to the popular fancy, might be illustrated by scores of examples. Thoughts of re- ligious functions arise in us the moment we hear the trombones intone a solemn phrase in full harmony; an oboe melody in ?ixth-eighth time over a drone bass bri-ngs up a pastoral picture of a shep- herd playing upon his pipe ; trumpets and drums suggest war, and so on. The 57 CHAP. III. Harmony and emo- tionality. Major and minor. CHAP. III. Music and movement. Handel's frogs. How to Listen to Music delineation of movement is easier to the musician than it is to the poet. Handel, who has conveyed the sensation of a " darkness which might be felt," in a chorus of his " Israel in Egypt," by means which appeal solely to the im- agination stirred by feelings, has in the same work pictured the plague of frogs with a frank naivett which almost up- sets our seriousness of demeanor, by suggesting the characteristic movement of the creatures in the instrumental ac- companiment to the arioso, " Their land brought forth frogs," which begins thus: Andante. e^ etc. We find the gentle flux and reflux of water as if it were lapping a rocky shore in the exquisite figure out of The Content and Kinds of Music 59 which Mendelssohn constructed his " Hebrides " overture : CHAP. III. The move- ment of water. High and low. k g S( --=r^r- m f~T == ^' | 1 i t r * r ^^^ m n, t> ^fc_r_iL^ I h: + * *> 571 ~f5~ Po 1 I*? *' e& _ -P ..-- _ -| 1 1 and in fancy we ride on mighty surges when we listen to the principal subject of Rubinstein's " Ocean " symphony : ^ i&i-^ K&-*J *) - 8^ 'nip " 3 ft In none of these instances can the com- poser be said to be imitative. Music cannot copy water, but it can do what water does, and so suggest water. Some of the most common devices of composers are based on conceptions that are wholly arbitrary. A musical tone cannot have position in space such as is indicated by high or low, yet so famil- iar is the association of acuteness of pitch with height, and gravity of pitch with depth, that composers continually 6o CHAP. III. Ascent, de- scent, and distance delineated. How to Listen to Music delineate high things with acute tones and low things with grave tones, as wit- ness Handel in one of the choruses of " The Messiah : " Glo-ry to God in the highest, 1 and peace on earth. Similarly, too, does Beethoven de- scribe the ascent into heaven and the de- scent into hell in the Credo of his mass in D. Beethoven's music, indeed, is full of tone-painting, and because it ex- emplifies a double device I make room for one more illustration. It is from the cantata " Becalmed at Sea, and a Prosperous Voyage," and in it the com- poser pictures the immensity of the sea by a sudden, extraordinary spreading out of his harmonies, which is musical, and dwelling a long time on the word " distance " (Weite), which is rhetorical: ' H> IS ..K= fff -rrw In der un-ge-hen - 'ren "Wei g_E % t gb: dim. - - - te. 1 The Content and Kinds of Music The extent to which tone-painting is justified is a question which might profitably concern us ; but such a dis- cussion as it deserves would far exceed the limits set for this book, and must be foregone. It cannot be too forcibly urged, however, as an aid to the listener, that efforts at musical cartooning have never been made by true composers, and that in the degree that music attempts simply to copy external things it falls in the scale of artistic truthfulness and value. Vocal music tolerates more of the descriptive element than instrumen- tal because it is a mixed art ; in it the purpose of music is to illustrate the poetry and, by intensifying the appeal to the fancy, to warm the emotions. Every piece of vocal music, moreover, carries its explanatory programme in its words. Still more tolerable and even righteous is it in the opera where it is but one of several factors which labor together to make up the sum of dra- matic representation. But it must ever remain valueless unless it be idealized. Mendelssohn, desiring to put Bully Bot- tom into the overture to " A Midsummer 6l CHAP. III. Bald imi- tation bad art. Vocal mu- sic and de- lineation. 62 CHAP. III. Beethoven's canon. The " Pas- toral" symphony. How to Listen to Music Night's Dream," did not hesitate to use tones which suggest the bray of a don- key, yet the effect, like Handel's frogs and flies in " Israel," is one of absolute musical value. The canon which ought continually to be before the mind of the listener is that which Beethoven laid down with most painstaking care when he wrote the " Pastoral " symphony. Desiring to inform the listeners what were the images which inspired the va- rious movements (in order, of course, that they might the better enter into the work by recalling them), he gave each part a superscription thus : I. " The agreeable and cheerful sensations awa- kened by arrival in the country. II. " Scene by the brook." III. " A merrymaking of the country folk." IV. "Thunder-storm." V. "Shepherds' song feelings of charity com- bined with gratitude to the Deity after the storm." In the title itself he included an ad- monitory explanation which should have everlasting validity: "Pastoral Sym- phony ; more expression of feeling than painting." How seriously he thought The Content and Kinds of Music 63 on the subject we know from his sketch- CHAP. books, in which occur a number of notes, III. some of which were evidently hints for superscriptions, some records of his convictions on the subject of descriptive music. The notes are reprinted in Not- tebohm's "Zweite Beethoveniana," but I borrow Sir George Grove's transla- tion: " The hearers should be allowed to discover the Beethoven's notes on situations." descriptive " Sinfonia caracteristica, or a recollection of coun- music. try life." "All painting in instrumental music, if pushed too far, is a failure." " Sinfonia pastorella. Anyone who has an idea of country life can make out for himself the inten- tions of the author without many titles." " People will not require titles to recognize the general intention to be more a matter of feeling than of painting in sounds." " Pastoral symphony : No picture, but something in which the emotions are expressed which are aroused in men by the pleasure of the country (or), in which some feelings of country life are set forth."* * " Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies," by George Grove, C.B. , 2d ed., p. 191. 6 4 CHAP. III. Classic and Romantic. How to Listen to Music As to the relation of programme to music Schumann laid down an admi- rable maxim when he said that while good music was not harmed by a de- scriptive title it was a bad indication if a composition needed one. There are, among all the terms used in music, no words of vaguer meaning than Classic and Romantic. The idea which they convey most widely in con- junction is that of antithesis. When the Romantic School of composers is dis- cussed it is almost universally presented as something opposed in character to the Classical School. There is little harm in this if we but bear in mind that all the terms which have come into use to describe different phases of musical development are entirely artificial and arbitrary that they do not stand for anything absolute, but only serve as platforms of observation. If the terms had a fixed meaning we ought to be able, since they have established them- selves in the language of history and criticism, to describe unambiguously and define clearly the boundary which separates them. This, however, is im- The Content and Kinds of Music possible. Each generation, nay, each decade, fixes the meaning of the words for itself and decides what works shall go into each category. It ought to be possible to discover a principle, a touch- stone, which shall emancipate us from the mischievous and misleading notions that have so long prompted men to make the partitions between the schools out of dates and names. The terms were borrowed from liter- ary criticism ; but even there, in the words of Archbishop Trench, "they either say nothing at all or say some- thing erroneous." Classical has more to defend it than Romantic, because it has greater antiquity and, in one sense, has been used with less arbitrariness. " The term," says Trench, " is drawn from the political economy of Rome. Such a man was rated as to his income in the third class, such another in the fourth, and so on, and he who was in the high- est was emphatically said to be of the class, classi- cus, a class man, without adding the number as in that case superfluous ; while all others were infra classem. Hence by an obvious analogy the best authors were rated as classici, or men of the high- est class ; just as in English we say ' men of rank ' CHAP. III. Trench's definition of ' ' classi- cal." 66 CHAP. III. Romantic in litera- ture. How to Listen to Music absolutely for men who are in the highest ranks of the State." Thus Trench, and his historical defi- nition, explains why in music also there is something more than a lurking sug- gestion of excellence in the conception of " classical ; " but that fact does not put away the quarrel which we feel exists between Classic and Romantic. As applied to literature Romantic was an adjective affected by certain poets, first in Germany, then in France, who wished to introduce a style of thought and expression different from that of those who followed old models. Intrinsically, of course, the term does not imply any such opposition but only bears witness to the source from which the poets drew their inspiration. This was the imaginative literature of the Middle Ages, the fantastical stories of chivalry and knighthood written in the Romance, or Romanic languages, such as Italian, Spanish, and Provencal. The principal elements of these stories were the marvellous and the supernatural. The composers whose names first spring The Content and Kinds of Music into our minds when we think of the Romantic School are men like Mendels- sohn and Schumann, who drew much of their inspiration from the young writers of their time who were making war on stilted rhetoric and conventionalism of phrase. Schumann touches hands with the Romantic poets in their strivings in two directions. His artistic conduct, especially in his early years, is inex- plicable if Jean Paul be omitted from the equation. His music rebels against the formalism which had held despotic sway over the art, and also seeks to dis- close the beauty which lies buried in the world of mystery in and around us, and give expression to the multitude of emo- tions to which unyielding formalism had refused adequate utterance. This, I think, is the chief element of Roman- ticism. Another has more of an exter- nal nature and genesis, and this we find in the works of such composers as Von Weber, who is Romantic chiefly in his operas, because of the supernaturalism and chivalry in their stories, and Men- delssohn, who, while distinctly Roman- tic in many of his strivings, was yet so CHAP. III. Schumann and Jean Paul. Weber's operas. Mendels- sohn. 68 CHAP. III. A defini- tion of " Classi- cal" in music. The crea- tive and conserva- tive prin- ciples. How to Listen to Music great a master of form, and so attached to it, that the Romantic side of him was not fully developed. If I were to attempt a definition it would be this : Classical composers are those of the first rank (to this extent we yield to the ancient Roman conception) who have developed music to the high- est pitch of perfection on its formal side and, in obedience to generally accepted laws, preferring aesthetic beauty, pure and simple, over emotional content, or, at any rate, refusing to sacrifice form to characteristic expression. Romantic composers are those who have sought their ideals in other regions and striven to give expression to them irrespective of the restrictions and limitations of form and the conventions of law com- posers with whom, in brief, content out- weighs manner. This definition pre- sents Classicism as the regulative and conservative principle in the history of the art, and Romanticism as the pro- gressive, regenerative, and creative principle. It is easy to see how the no- tion of contest between them grew up, and the only harm which can come from The Content and Kinds of Music such a notion will ensue only if we shut our eyes to the fact that it is a contest between two elements whose very op- position stimulates life, and whose union, perfect, peaceful, mutually supplement- al, is found in every really great art- work. No law which fixes, and hence limits, form, can remain valid forever. Its end is served when it enforces it- self long enough to keep lawlessness in check till the test of time has deter- mined what is sound, sweet, and whole- some in the innovations which are always crowding eagerly into every creative activity in art and science. In art it is ever true, as Faust concludes, that " In the beginning was the deed." The laws of composition are the prod- ucts of compositions; and, being such, they cannot remain unalterable so long as the impulse freshly to create remains. All great men are ahead of their time, and in all great music, no matter when written, you shall find instances of pro- founder meaning and deeper or newer feeling than marked the generality of contemporary compositions. So Bach frequently floods his formal utterances CHAP. III. Musical laws of ne- cessity pro- gressive. Bach and Romanti- cism. 7 CHAP. III. Creation and con- servation. How to Listen to Music with Romantic feeling, and the face of Beethoven, serving at the altar in the temple of Beauty, is transfigured for us by divine light. The principles of crea- tion and conservation move onward to- gether, and what is Romantic to-day be- comes Classic to-morrow. Romanticism is fluid Classicism. It is the emotional stimulus informing Romanticism which calls music into life, but no sooner is it born, free, untrammelled, nature's child, than the regulative principle places shackles upon it ; but it is enslaved only that it may become and remain art. IV The Modern Orchestra THE most eloquent, potent, and capa- ble instrument of music in the world is the modern orchestra. It is the instrument whose employment by the classical composers and the geniuses of the Romantic School in the middle of our century marks the high tide of the musical art. It is an instrument, moreover, which is never played upon without giving a great object-lesson in musical analysis, without inviting the eye to help the ear to discern the cause of the sounds which ravish our senses and stir up pleasurable emotions. Yet the popular knowledge of its constituent parts, of the individual value and mission of the factors which go to make up its sum, is scarcely greater than the popu- lar knowledge of the structure of a sym- 7 1 The orches- tra as an instrument. CHAP. IV. What may be heard from a band. How to Listen to Music phony or sonata. All this is the more deplorable since at least a rudimentary knowledge of these things might easily be gained, and in gaining it the student would find a unique intellectual enjoy- ment, and have his ears unconscious- ly opened to a thousand beauties in the music never perceived before. He would learn, for instance, to distinguish the characteristic timbre of each of the instruments in the band ; and after that to the delight found in what may be called the primary colors he would add that which comes from analyzing the vast number of tints which are the prod- ucts of combination. Noting the ca- pacity of the various instruments and the manner in which they are employed, he would get glimpses into the mental workshop of the composer. He would discover that there are conventional means of expression in his art analogous to those in the other arts ; and collating his methods with the effects produced, he would learn something of the crea- tive artist's purposes. He would find that while his merely sensuous enjoy- ment would be left unimpaired, and the The Modern Orchestra 73 emotional excitement which is a legiti- mate fruit of musical performance un- checked, these pleasures would have others consorted with them. His intel- lectual faculties would be agreeably excited, and he would enjoy the pleas- ures of memory, which are exemplified in music more delightfully and more frequently than in any other art, be- cause of the rdle which repetition of parts plays in musical composition. The argument is as valid in the study of musical forms as in the study of the orchestra, but it is the latter that is our particular business in this chapter. Everybody listening to an orchestral concert recognizes the physical forms of the violins, flutes, cornets, and big drum ; but even of these familiar instru- ments the voices are not always recog- nized. As for the rest of the harmoni- ous fraternity, few give heed to them, even while enjoying the music which they produce ; yet with a few words of direction anybody can study the in- struments of the band at an orchestral concert. Let him first recognize the fact that to the mind of a composer an CHAP. IV. Familiar instru- ments. 74 CHAP. IV. The in- strumental choirs. How to Listen to Music orchestra always presents itself as a combination of four groups of instru- ments choirs, let us call them, with un- willing apology to the lexicographers. These choirs are : first, the viols of four sorts violins, violas, violoncellos, and double-basses, spoken of collectively as the "string quartet ; " second, the wind instruments of wood (the " wood-winds " in the musician's jargon) flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons ; third, the wind instruments of brass (the "brass") trumpets, horns, trombones, and bass tuba. In all of these subdivisions there are numerous variations which need not detain us now. A further subdivision - might be made in each with reference to the harmony voices (showing an anal- ogy with the four voices of a vocal choir soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass) ; but to go into this might make the exposition confusing. The fourth " choir " (here the apology to the lexi- cographers must be repeated with much humility and earnestness) consists of the instruments of percussion the kettle- drums, big drum, cymbals, triangle, bell chime, etc. (sometimes spoken of collec- The Modern Orchestra lively in the United States as " the bat- tery"). The disposition of these instruments in our orchestras is largely a matter of individual taste and judgment in the conductor, though the general rule is exemplified in the plan given herewith, showing how Mr. Anton Seidl has ar- ranged the desks for the concerts of the Philharmonic Society of New York. Mr. Theodore Thomas's arrangement differed very little from that of Mr. Seidl, the most noticeable difference being that he placed the viola-players beside the second violinists, where Mr. Seidl has the violoncellists. Mr. Seidl's purpose in making the change was to gain an increase in sonority for the vio- la part, the position to the right of the stage (the left of the audience) enabling the viola-players to hold their instru- ments with the F-holes toward the lis- teners instead of away from them. The relative positions of the harmonious bat- talions, as a rule, are as shown in the diagram. In the foreground, the vio- lins, violas, and 'cellos ; in the middle distance, the wood-winds ; in the back- 77 CHAP. IV. Haw or- chestras are seated. Plan of the New York Philhar- monic, CHAP. IV. So/o in- struments. How to Listen to Music ground, the brass and the battery ; the double-basses flanking the whole body. This distribution of forces is dictated by considerations of sonority, the most assertive instruments the brass and drums being placed farthest from the hearers, and the instruments of the viol tribe, which are the real backbone of the band and make their effect by a massing of voices in each part, having the place of honor and greatest advan- tage. Of course it is understood that I am speaking of a concert orchestra. In the case of theatrical or operatic bands the arrangement of the forces is de- pendent largely upon the exigencies of space. Outside the strings the instruments are treated by composers as solo instru- ments, a single flute, oboe, clarinet, or other wind instrument sometimes do- ing the same work in the development of the composition as the entire body of first violins. As a rule, the wood-winds are used in pairs, the purpose of this being either to fill the harmony when what I may call the principal thought of the composition is consigned to a The Modern Orchestra particular choir, or to strengthen a voice by permitting two instruments to play in unison. Each choir, except the percussion in- struments, is capable of playing in full harmony ; and this effect is frequently used by composers. In " Lohengrin," which for that reason affords to the am- ateur an admirable opportunity for or- chestral study, Wagner resorts to this device in some instances for the sake of dramatic characterization. Elsa, a dreamy, melancholy maiden, crushed under the weight of wrongful accusa- tion, and sustained only by the vision of a seraphic champion sent by Heaven to espouse her cause, is accompanied on her entrance and sustained all through her scene of trial by the dulcet tones of the wood-winds, the oboe most often carrying the melody. Lohengrin's su- perterrestrial character as a Knight of the Holy Grail is prefigured in the har- monies which seem to stream from the violins, and in the prelude tell of the bringing of the sacred vessel of Christ's passion to Monsalvat ; but in his chival- ric character he is greeted by the mili- 79 CHAP. IV. Groupings for har- mony ef- fects. Wagner's instrumen- tal charac- terisation. 8o CHAP. IV. An instru- mental language. Number of instru- ments How to Listen to Music tant trumpets in a strain of brilliant puissance and rhythmic energy. Com- posers have studied the voices of the instruments so long and well, and have noted the kind of melodies and harmo- nies in which the voices are most effec- tive, that they have formulated what might almost be called an instrumental language. Though the effective capac- ity of each instrument is restricted not only by its mechanics, but also by the quality of its tones a melody conceived for one instrument sometimes becoming utterly inexpressive and unbeautiful by transferrence to another the range of effects is extended almost to infinity by means of combination, or, as a painter might say, by mixing the colors. The art of writing effectively for instru ments in combination is the art of in- strumentation or orchestration, in which Berlioz and Wagner were Past Grand Masters. The number of instruments of each kind in an orchestra may also be said to depend measurably upon the music, or the use to which the band is to be put. Neither in instruments nor in numbers The Modern Orchestra is there absolute identity between a dramatic and a symphonic orchestra. The apparatus of the former is general- ly much more varied and complex, be- cause of the vast development of variety in dramatic expression stimulated by Wagner. The modern symphony, especially the symphonic poem, shows the influ- ence of this dramatic tendency, but not in the same degree. A comparison between model bands in each depart- ment will disclose what is called the normal orchestral organization. For the comparison (see page 82), I select the bands of the first Wagner Festival held in Bayreuth in 1876, the Philhar- monic Society of New York, the Bos- ton Symphony Orchestra, and the Chi- cago Symphony Orchestra. Instruments like the corno di bas- setto, bass trumpet, tenor tuba, contra- bass tuba, and contra-bass trombone are so seldom called for in the music played by concert orchestras that they have no place in their regular lists. They are employed when needed, however, and the horns and other instruments are 8i CHAP. IV. Symphony and dra- matic or- chestras. Instru- ments rarely used. 82 CHAP. IV. Orchestras compared. The string quartet. How to Listen to Music multiplied when desirable effects are to be obtained by such means. Instruments. First violins Second violins Violas Violoncellos Double-basses Flutes Oboes English horn Clarinets Basset-horn Bassoons Trumpets or cornets . . Horns Trombones Bass trumpet Tenor tubas Bass tubas Contra-bass tuba Contra-bass trombone . Tympani (pairs) Bass drum Cymbals (pairs) Harps 16 16 12 12 8 3 3 I 3 i 3 8 3 i 2 2 I I 2 I I 6 fc-s 2 5 PL, g 18 18 16 H 10 8 8 3 2 I 3 o 3 4 4 3 o 2 2 I O 2 I I I 16 16 10 10 9 3 3 i 3 o 3 4 4 3 i 4 i o i 2 I I 2 The string quartet, it will be seen, makes up nearly three-fourths of a well- balanced orchestra. It is the only choir which has numerous representation of The Modern Orchestra its constituent units. This was not al- ways so, but is the fruit of development in the art of instrumentation which is the newest department in music. Vocal music had reached its highest point be- fore instrumental music made a begin- ning as an art. The former was the pampered child of the Church, the lat- ter was long an outlaw. As late as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in- strumentalists were vagabonds in law, like strolling players. They had none of the rights of citizenship; the relig- ious sacraments were denied them ; their children were not permitted to in- herit property or learn an honorable trade ; and after death the property for which they had toiled escheated to the crown. After the instruments had achieved the privilege of artistic utter- ance, they were for a long time mere slavish imitators of the human voice. Bach treated them with an insight into their possibilities which was far in ad- vance of his time, for which reason he is the most modern composer of the first half of the eighteenth century ; but even in Handel's case the rule was to CHAP. IV. Old laws against instrumen- talists. Early in- strumenta- tion. How to Listen to Music CHAP. IV. Handel's orchestra. The mod- ern band. treat them chiefly as supports for the voices. He multiplied them just as he did the voices in his choruses, consort- ing a choir of oboes and bassoons, and another of trumpets of almost equal numbers with his violins. The so-called purists in England talk a great deal about restoring Handel's orchestra in performances of his orato- rios, utterly unmindful of the fact that to our ears, accustomed to the myriad- hued orchestra of to-day, the effect would seem opaque, heavy, unbalanced, and without charm were a band of oboes to play in unison with the vio- lins, another of bassoons to double the 'cellos, and half a dozen trumpets to come flaring and crashing 'into the mu- sical mass at intervals. Gluck in the opera, and Haydn and Mozart in the symphony, first disclosed the charm of the modern orchestra with the wind in- struments apportioned to the strings so as to obtain the multitude of tonal tints which we admire to-day. On the lines which they marked out the progress has been exceedingly rapid and far- reaching. The Modern Orchestra In the hands of the latter-day Ro- mantic composers, and with the help of the instrument-makers, who have marvellously increased the capacity of the wind instruments, and remedied the deficiencies which embarrassed the Classical writers, the orchestra has de- veloped into an instrument such as never entered the mind of the wildest dreamer of the last century. Its range of expression is almost infinite. It can strike like a thunder-bolt, or murmur like a zephyr. Its voices are multitu- dinous. Its register is coextensive in theory with that of the modern piano- forte, reaching from the space immedi- ately below the sixth added line under the bass staff to the ninth added line above the treble staff. These two ex- tremes, which belong respectively to the bass tuba and piccolo flute, are not at the command of every player, but they are within the capacity of the in- struments, and mark the orchestra's boundaries in respect of pitch. The gravest note is almost as deep as any in which the ordinary human ear can de- tect pitch, and the acutest reaches the CHAP. IV. Capacity of the orchestra. The ex- tremes of range. 86 CHAP. IV. The viols. How to Listen to Music same extremity in the opposite direc- tion. With all the changes that have come over the orchestra in the course of the last two hundred years, the string quar- tet has remained its chief factor. Its voice cannot grow monotonous or cloy- ing, for, besides its innate qualities, it commands a more varied manner of ex- pression than all the other instruments combined. The viol, which term I shall use generically to indicate all the in- struments of the quartet, is the only instrument in the band, except the harp, that can play harmony as well as mel- ody. Its range is the most extensive ; it is more responsive to changes in ma- nipulation ; it is endowed more richly than any other instrument with varie- ties of timbre ; it has an incomparable facility of execution, and answers more quickly and more eloquently than any of its companions to the feelings of the player. A great advantage which the viol possesses over wind instruments is that, not being dependent on the breath of the player, there is practically no limit to its ability to sustain tones. The Modern Orchestra It is because of this long list of good qualities that it is relied on to provide the staff of life to instrumental music. The strings as commonly used show four members of the viol family, distin- guished among themselves by their size, and the quality in the changes of tone which grows out of the differences in size. The violins (Appendix, Plate I.) are the smallest members of the family. Historically they are the culmination of a development toward diminutiveness, for in their early days viols were larger than they are now. When the violin of to-day entered the orchestra (in the score of Monteverde's opera " Orfeo ") it was specifically described as a " little French violin." Its voice, Berlioz says, is the " true female voice of the orchestra." Generally the violin part of an orches- tral score is two-voiced, but the two groups may be split into a great num- ber. In one passage in " Tristan und Isolde " Wagner divides his first and second violins into sixteen groups. Such divisions, especially in the higher regions, are productive of entrancing effects. CHAP. IV. The vitlin. 88 CHAP. IV. Violin e/ects. Pizzicato. How to Listen to Music The halo of sound which streams from the beginning and end of the " Lohengrin " prelude is produced by this device. High and close harmonies from divided violins always sound ethe- real. Besides their native tone quality (that resulting from a string stretched over a sounding shell set to vibrating by friction), the violins have a number of modified qualities resulting from changes in manipulation. Sometimes the strings are plucked (pizzicato), when the result is a short tone something like that of a banjo with the metallic clang omitted ; very dainty effects can thus be produced, and though it always seems like a degradation of the instru- ment so pre-eminently suited to a broad singing style, no less significant a sym- phonist than Tschaikowsky has writ- ten a Scherzo in which the violins are played pizzicato throughout the move- ment. Ballet composers frequently re- sort to the piquant effect, but in the larger and more serious forms of com- position the device is sparingly used. Differences in quality and expressive- ness of tone are also produced by varied The Modern Orchestra methods of applying the bow to the strings : with stronger or lighter press- ure ; near the bridge, which renders the tone hard and brilliant, and over the end of the finger-board, which softens it ; in a continuous manner (legato), or detached (staccato]. Weird effects in dramatic music are sometimes pro- duced by striking the strings with the wood of the bow, Wagner resorting to this means to delineate the wicked glee of his dwarf Mime, and Meyerbeer to heighten the uncanniness of Nelusktfs wild song in the third act of " L'Afri- caine.' ; Another class of effects results from the manner in which the strings are " stopped " by the fingers of the left hand. When they are not pressed firmly against the finger - board but touched lightly at certain places called nodes by the acousticians, so that the segments below the finger are permitted to vibrate along with the upper por- tion, those peculiar tones of a flute-like quality called harmonics or flageolet tones are produced. These are oftener heard in dramatic music than in sym- phonies ; but Berlioz, desiring to put CHAP. IV. ' ' Col legno daW area . " Harmonics. 9 CHAP. IV. Vibrato. "Con sordino. ' How to Listen to Music Shakespeare's description of Queen Mab, " Her wagon-spokes made of long spinner's legs ; The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers ; The traces, of the smallest spider's web ; The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams " into music in his dramatic symphony, " Romeo and Juliet," achieved a mar- vellously filmy effect by dividing his violins, and permitting some of them to play harmonics. Yet so little was his ingenious purpose suspected when he first brought the symphony forward in Paris, that one of the critics spoke con- temptuously of this effect as sounding " like an ill-greased syringe." A quiver- ing motion imparted to the fingers of the left hand in stopping the strings produces a tremulousness of tone akin to the vibrato of a singer ; and, like the vocal vibrato, when not carried to ex- cess, this effect is a potent expression of sentimental feeling. But it is much abused by solo players. Another modi- fication of tone is caused by placing a tiny instrument called a sordino, or mute, upon the bridge. This clamps The Modern Orchestra the bridge, makes it heavier, and checks the vibrations, so that the tone is muted or muffled, and at times sounds mys- terious. These devices, though as a rule they have their maximum of effectiveness in the violins, are possible also on the violas, violoncellos, and double-basses, which, as I have already intimated, are but violins of a larger growth. The pizzicato is, indeed, oftenest heard from the double-basses, where it has a much greater eloquence than on the violins. In music of a sombre cast, the short, deep tones given out by the plucked strings of the contra-bass sometimes have the awfulness of gigantic heart- throbs. The difficulty of producing the other effects grows with the increase of difficulty in handling the instruments, this being due to the growing thickness of the strings and the wideness of the points at which they must be stopped. One effect peculiar to them all the most used of all effects, indeed, in dra- matic music is the tremolo, produced by dividing a tone into many quickly reiterated short tones by a rapid motion 9 1 CHAP. IV. Pizzicato on the basses. Tremok. 9 2 CHAP. IV. The viola. How to Listen to Music of the bow. This device came into use with one of the earliest pieces of dra- matic music. It is two centuries old, and was first used to help in the mu- sical delineation of a combat. With scarcely an exception, the varied means which I have described can be detected by those to whom they are not already familiar by watching the players while listening to the music. The viola is next in size to the violin, and is tuned at the interval of a fifth lower. Its highest string is A, which is the second string of the violin, and its lowest C. Its tone, which sometimes contains a comical suggestion of a boy% voice in mutation, is lacking in incisive- ness and brilliancy, but for this it com- pensates by a wonderful richness and filling quality, and a pathetic and inimi- table mournfulnessin melancholy music. It blends beautifully with the violon- cello, and is often made to double that instrument's part for the sake of color effect as, to cite a familiar instance, in the principal subject of the Andante in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. The strings of the violoncello (Plate The Modern Orchestra II.) are tuned like those of the viola, but an octave lower. It is the knee-fiddle (viola da gamba) of the last century, as the viola is the arm-fiddle (viola da brac- cio), and got its old name from the posi- tion in which it is held by the player. The 'cello's voice is a bass it might be called the barytone of the choir and in the olden time of simple writing, lit- tle else was done with it than to double the bass part one octave higher. But modern composers, appreciating its marvellous capacity for expression, which is next to that of the violin, have treated it with great freedom and inde- pendence as a solo instrument. Its tone is full of voluptuous languor. It is the sighing lover of the instrumental com- pany, and can speak the language of tender passion more feelingly than any of its fellows. The ravishing effect of a multiplication of its voice is tellingly exemplified in the opening of the over- ture to " William Tell," which is written for five solo 'celli, though it is oftenest heard in an arrangement which gives two of the middle parts to violas. When Beethoven wished to produce the emo- 93 CHAP. IV. The violon- cello. Violoncello effects. 94 CHAP. IV. Thcdmtble- fau. How to Listen to Music tional impression of a peacefully rip- pling brook in his " Pastoral " sym- phony, he gave a murmuring figure to the divided violoncellos, and Wagner uses the passionate accents of four of these instruments playing in harmony to support Siegmund when he is pouring out the ecstasy of his love in the first act of " Die Walkiire." In the love scene of Berlioz's " Romeo and Juliet " symphony it is the violoncello which personifies the lover, and holds con- verse with the modest oboe. The patriarchal double-bass is known to all, and also its mission of providing the foundation for the harmonic struct- ure of orchestral music. It sounds an octave lower than the music written for it, being what is called a transposing instrument of sixteen-foot tone. Solos are seldom written for this instrument in orchestral music, though Beethoven, with his daring recitatives in the Ninth Symphony, makes it a mediator between the instrumental and vocal forces. Dra- gonetti (1763-1846) and Bottesini (1823- 1889), tw Italians, won great fame as solo players on the unwieldy instru- The Modern Orchestra ment. The latter used a small bass viol, and strung it with harp strings ; but Dragonetti played a full double- bass, on which he could execute the most difficult passages written for the violoncello. Since the instruments of the wood- wind choir are frequently used in solos, their acquaintance can easily be made by an observing amateur. To this division of the orchestra belong the gentle accents in the instrumental lan- guage. Violent expression is not its province, and generally when the band is discoursing in heroic style or giving voice to brave or angry emotion the wood-winds are either silent or are used to give weight to the body of tone rather than color. Each of the instru- ments has a strongly characteristic voice, which adapts itself best to a cer- tain style of music ; but by use of dif- ferent registers and by combinations among them, or with the instruments of the other choirs, a wide range of ex- pression within the limits suggested has been won for the wood-winds. The flute, which requires no descrip- 95 CHAP. IV. The wood- winds. CHAP. IV. Tktfiute. How to Listen to Music tion, is, for instance, an essentially soul- less instrument ; but its marvellous agil- ity and the effectiveness with which its tones can be blended with others make it one of the most useful instruments in the band. Its native character, heard in the compositions written for it as a solo instrument, has prevented it from being looked upon with dignity. As a rule, brilliancy is all that is expected from it. It is a sort of soprano leggiero with a small range of superficial feel- ings. It can sentimentalize, and, as Dryden says, be " soft, complaining," but when we hear it pour forth a veri- table ecstasy of jubilation, as it does in the dramatic climax of Beethoven's overture " Leonore No. 3," we marvel at the transformation effected by the composer. Advantage has also been taken of the difference between its high and low tones, and now in some roman- tic music, as in Raff's " Lenore " sym- phony, or the prayer of Agathe in " Der Freischiitz," the hollowness of the low tones produces a mysterious effect that is exceedingly striking. Still the fact remains that the native voice of the in- The Modern Orchestra strument, though sweet, is expression- less compared with that of the oboe or clarinet. Modern composers some- times write for three flutes ; but in the older writers, when a third flute is used, it is generally an octave flute, or pic- colo flute (Plate III.) a tiny instrument whose aggressiveness of voice is out of all proportion to its diminutiveness of body. This is the instrument which shrieks and whistles when the band is playing at storm-making, to imitate the noise of the wind. It sounds an octave higher than is indicated by the notes in its part, and so is what is called a transposing instrument of four-foot tone. It revels in military music, which is proper, for it is an own cousin to the ear-piercing fife, which annually makes up for its long silence in the noisy days before political elections. When you hear a composition in march time, with bass and snare drum, cymbals and trian- gle, such as the Germans call " Turk- ish " or " Janizary " music, you may be sure to hear also the piccolo flute. The flute is doubtless one of the oldest instruments in the world. The 97 CHAP. IV. The pic- colo flute. CHAP. IV. The story of the flute. Reed in- struments. How to Listen to Music primitive cave-dwellers made flutes of the leg -bones of birds and other ani- mals, an origin of which a record is pre- served in the Latin name tibia. The first wooden flutes were doubtless the Pandean pipes, in which the tone was produced by blowing across the open ends of hollow reeds. The present method, already known to the ancient Egyptians, of closing the upper end, and creating the tone by blowing across a hole cut in the side, is only a modification of the method pursued, according to classic tradition, by Pan when he breathed out his dejection at the loss of the nymph Syrinx, by blow- ing across the tuneful reeds which were that nymph in her metamorphosed state. The flute or pipe of the Greeks and Romans was only distantly related to the true flute, but was the ancestor of its orchestral companions, the oboe and clarinet. These instruments are sounded by being blown in at the end, and the tone is created by vibrating reeds, whereas in the flute it is the re- sult of the impinging of the air on the The Modern Orchestra edge of the hole called the embouchure, and the consequent stirring of the col- umn of air in the flue of the instrument. The reeds are thin slips or blades of cane. The size and bore of the in- struments and the difference between these reeds are the causes of the differences in tone quality between these relatives. The oboe or hautboy, English horn, and the bassoon have what are called double reeds. Two narrow blades of cane are fitted closely together, and fastened with silk on a small metal tube extending from the upper end of the instrument in the case of the oboe and English horn, from the side in the case of the bassoon. The reeds are pinched more or less tightly between the lips, and are set to vibrat- ing by the breath. The oboe (Plate IV.) is naturally as- sociated with music of a pastoral char- acter. It is pre-eminently a melody in- strument, and though its voice comes forth shrinkingly, its uniqueness of tone makes it easily heard. It is a most lov- able instrument. " Candor, artless grace, soft joy, or the grief of a fragile being 99 CHAP. IV. Double reeds. The oboe. 1OO CHAP. IV. The Eng- lish horn. How to Listen to Music suits the oboe's accents," says Berlioz. The peculiarity of its mouth-piece gives its tone a reedy or vibrating quality totally unlike the clarinet's. Its natural alto is the English horn (Plate V.), which is an oboe of larger growth, with curved tube for convenience of manipulation. The tone of the English horn is fuller, nobler, and is very attractive in mel- ancholy or dreamy music. There are few players on the English horn in this country, and it might be set down as a rule that outside of New York, Bos- ton, and Chicago, the English horn parts are played by the oboe in America. No melody displays the true character of the English horn better than the Ranz des Vaches in the overture to Ros- sini's " William Tell "that lovely Al- pine song which the flute embroiders with exquisite ornament. One of the noblest utterances of the oboe is the melody of the funeral march in Beet- hoven's " Heroic " symphony, in which its tenderness has beautiful play. It is sometimes used effectively in imitative music. In Haydn's " Seasons," and also in that grotesque tone poem by The Modern Orchestra Saint-Saens, the " Danse Macabre," it gives the cock crow. It is the timid oboe that sounds the A for the orchestra to tune by. The grave voice of the oboe is heard from the bassoon (Plate VI.), where, without becoming assertive, it gains a quality entirely unknown to the oboe and English horn. It is this quality that makes the bassoon the humorist par excellence of the orchestra. It is a reedy bass, very apt to recall to those who have had a country education the squalling tone of the homely instrument which the farmer's boy fashions out of the stems of the pumpkin-vine. The humor of the bassoon is an unconscious humor, and results from the use made of its abysmally solemn voice. This solemnity in quality is paired with as- tonishing flexibility of utterance, so that its gambols are always grotesque. Brahms permits the bassoon to intone the Fuchslied of the German students in his " Academic " overture. Beethoven achieves a decidedly comical effect by a stubborn reiteration of key-note, fifth, and octave by the bassoon under a rus- 101 CHAP. IV. The bassoon. An orches- tral hu- morist. 102 CHAP. IV. Supernatu- ral effects. How to Listen to Music tic dance intoned by the oboe in the scherzo of his " Pastoral " symphony ; and nearly every modern composer has taken advantage of the instrument's grotesqueness. Mendelssohn intro- duces the clowns in his " Midsummer- Night's-Dream " music by a droll dance for two bassoons over a sustained bass note from the violoncellos ; but when Meyerbeer wanted a very different ef- fect, a ghastly one indeed, in the scene of the resuscitation of the nuns in his " Robert le Diable," he got it by taking two bassoons as solo instruments and using their weak middle tones, which, Berlioz says, have " a pale, cold, ca- daverous sound." Singularly enough, Handel resorted to a similar device in his "Saul," to accompany the vision of the Witch of Endor. In all these cases a great deal de- pends upon the relation between the character of the melody and the nature of the instrument to which it is set. A swelling martial fanfare may be made ab- surd by changing it from trumpets to a weak-voiced wood-wind. It is only the string quartet that speaks all the musical The Modern Orchestra languages of passion and emotion. The double-bassoon is so large an instrument that it has to be bent on itself to bring it under the control of the player. It sounds an octave lower than the written notes. It is not brought often into the orchestra, but speaks very much to the purpose in Brahms's beautiful variations on a theme by Haydn, and the glorious finale of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. The clarinet (Plate VII.) is the most eloquent member of the wood -wind choir, and, except some of its own mod- ifications or the modifications of the oboe and bassoon, the latest arrival in the harmonious company. It is only a little more than a century old. It has the widest range of expression of the wood-winds, and its chief structural dif- ference is in its mouth-piece. It has a single flat reed, which is much wider than that of the oboe or bassoon, and is fastened by a metallic band and screw to the flattened side of the mouth-piece, whose other side is cut down, chisel shape, for convenience. Its voice is rich, mellow, less reedy, and much fuller and more limpid than the voice of the oboe, 103 CHAP. IV. The double bassoon. The clarinet. 104 How to Listen to Music CHAP. IV. The bass clarinet. Lips and reeds. which Berlioz tries to describe by anal- ogy as " sweet-sour." It is very flexible, too, and has a range of over three and a half octaves. Its high tones are some- times shrieky, however, and the full beauty of the instrument is only dis- closed when it sings in the middle reg- ister. Every symphony and overture contains passages for the clarinet which serve to display its characteristics. Clarinets are made of different sizes for different keys, the smallest being that in E-flat, with an unpleasantly piercing tone, whose use is confined to military bands. There is also an alto clarinet and a bass clarinet (Plate VIII.). The bell of the latter instrument is bent upward, pipe fashion, and its voice is peculiarly impressive and noble. It is a favorite solo instrument in Liszt's sym- phonic poems. The fundamental principle of the in- struments last described is the produc- tion of tone by vibrating reeds. In the instruments of the brass choir, the duty of the reeds is performed by the lips of the player. Variety of tone in respect of quality is produced by variations in The Modern Orchestra size, shape, and modifications in parts like the bell and mouth-piece. The forte of the orchestra receives the bulk of its puissance from the brass instruments, which, nevertheless, can give voice to an extensive gamut of sentiments and feelings. There is nothing more cheery and jocund than the flourishes of the horns, but also nothing more mild and soothing than the songs which some- times they sing. There is nothing more solemn and religious than the harmony of the trombones, while " the trumpet's loud clangor " is the very voice of a war- like spirit. All of these instruments have undergone important changes within the last few score years. The classical com- posers, almost down to our own time, were restricted in the use of them be- cause they were merely natural tubes, and their notes were limited to the notes which inflexible tubes can produce. Within this century, however, they have all been transformed from imperfect diatonic instruments to perfect chro- matic instruments ; that is to say, every brass instrument which is in use now can give out all the semitones within its 105 CHAP. IV. The brass instru- ments. Improve- ments in brass in- struments. io6 CHAP. IV. Valves and slides. The French horn. How to Listen to Music compass. This has been accomplished through the agency of valves, by means of which differing lengths of the sono- rous tube are brought within the com- mand of the players. In the case of the trombones an exceedingly venerable means of accomplishing the same end is applied. The tube is in part made double, one part sliding over the other. By moving his arm, the player length- ens or shortens the tube, and thus chang- ing the key of the instrument, acquires all the tones which can be obtained from so many tubes of different lengths. The mouth-pieces of the trumpet, trom- bone, and tuba are cup -shaped, and larger than the mouth-piece of the horn, which is little else than a flare of the slender tube, sufficiently wide to receive enough of the player's lips to form the embouchure, or human reed, as it might here be named The French horn (Plate IX.), as it is called in the orchestra, is the sweetest and mellowest of all the wind instru- ments. In Beethoven's time it was but little else than the old hunting-horn, which, for the convenience of the The Modern Orchestra mounted hunter, was arranged in spiral convolutions that it might be slipped over the head and carried resting on one shoulder and under the opposite arm. The Germans still call it the Waldhorn, i.e., " forest horn ; " the old French name was cor de chasse, the Italian corno di caccia. In this instru- ment formerly the tones which were not the natural resonances of the har- monic division of the tube were helped out by partly closing the bell with the right hand, it having been discovered accidentally that by putting the hand into the lower end of the tube the flar- ing part called the bell the pitch of a tone was raised. Players still make use of this method for convenience, and sometimes because a composer wishes to employ the slightly muffled effect of these tones ; but since valves have been added to the instrument, it is possible to play a chromatic scale in what are called the unstopped or open tones. Formerly it was necessary to use horns of different pitch, and composers still respect this tradition, and designate the key of the horns which they wish to 107 CHAP. IV. Manipula- tion of the French horn. Kinds of horns. io8 CHAP. IV. The trumpet. The cornet. How to Listen to Music have employed ; but so skilful have the players become that, as a rule, they use horns whose fundamental tone is F for all keys, and achieve the old purpose by simply transposing the music as they read it. If these most graceful instruments were straightened out they would be seventeen feet long. The con- volutions of the horn and the many turns of the trumpet are all the fruit of neces- sity ; they could not be manipulated to produce the tones that are asked of them if they were not bent and curved. The trumpet, when its tube is length- ened by the addition of crooks for its lowest key, is eight feet long; the tuba, sixteen. In most orchestras (in all of those in the United States, in fact, ex- cept the Boston and Chicago Orches- tras and the Symphony Society of New York) the word trumpet is merely a euphemism' for cornet, the familiar lead- ing instrument of the brass band, which, while it falls short of the trumpet in the quality of its tone, in the upper reg- isters especially, is a more easily ma- nipulated instrument than the trumpet, and is preferable in the lower tones. The Modern Orchestra Mendelssohn is quoted as saying that the trombones (Plate X.) " are too sacred to use often." They have, in- deed, a majesty and nobility all their own, and the lowest use to which they can be put is to furnish a flaring and noisy harmony in an orchestral tutti. They are marvellously expressive in- struments, and without a peer in the whole instrumental company when a solemn and spiritually uplifting effect is to be attained. They can also be made to sound menacing and lugubrious, de- vout and mocking, pompously heroic, majestic, and lofty. They are often the heralds of the orchestra, and make so- norous proclamations. The classic composers always seemed to approach the trombones with marked respect, but nowadays it requires a very big blue pencil in the hands of a very un- compromising conservatory professor to prevent a student engaged on his Opus i from keeping his trombones going half the time at least. It is an old story how Mozart keeps the instruments silent through three-fourths of his immortal " Don Giovanni," so that they may 109 CHAP. IV. The trombone. Trombont effects. 1)0 CHAP. IV. The tuba. Instru- ments of percussion. How to Listen to Music enter with overwhelming impressive, ness along with the ghostly visitor of the concluding scene. As a rule, there are three trombones in the modern orches- tra two tenors and a bass. Formerly there were four kinds, bearing the names of the voices to which they were supposed to be nearest in tone-quality and compass soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. Full four-part harmony is now per- formed by the three trombones and the tuba (Plate XI.). The latter instru- ment, which, despite its gigantic size, is exceedingly tractable can " roar you as gently as any sucking dove." Far- away and strangely mysterious tones are got out of the brass instruments, chiefly the cornet and horn, by almost wholly closing the bell. The percussion apparatus of the mod- ern orchestra includes a multitude of instruments scarcely deserving of de- scription. Several varieties of drums, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, steel bars (Glockenspiel), gongs, bells, and many other things which we are now inclined to look upon as toys, rather than as musical instruments, are brought into The Modern Orchestra play for reasons more or less fantastic. Saint-Saens has even utilized the bar- barous xylophone, whose proper place is the variety hall, in his " Danse Mac- abre." There his purpose was a fan- tastic one, and the effect is capital. The pictorial conceit at the bottom of the poem which the music illustrates is Death, as a skeleton, seated on a tomb- stone, playing the viol, and gleefully cracking his bony heels against the marble. To produce this effect, the composer uses the xylophone with capi- tal results. But of all the ordinary in- struments of percussion, the only one that is really musical and deserving of comment is the kettle-drum. This in- strument is more musical than the others because it has pitch. Its voice is not mere noise, but musical noise. Kettle-drums, or tympani, are generally used in pairs, though the vast multipli- cation of effects by modern composers has resulted also in the extension of this department of the band. It is seldom that more than two pairs are used, a good player with a quick ear being able to accomplish all that Wagner asks of ill CHAP. IV. The xylophone. Kettle- drums. 112 CHAP. IV. P/utuTs tuning device. How to Listen to Music six drums by his deftness in changing the pitch of the instruments. This work of tuning is still performed gen- erally in what seems a rudimentary way, though a German drum-builder named Pfund invented a contrivance by which the player, by simply pressing on a balanced pedal and watching an indicator affixed to the side of the drums, can change the pitch to any de- sired semitone within the range of an octave. The tympani are hemispherical brass or copper vessels, kettles in short, cov- ered with vellum heads. The pitch of the instrument depends on the tension of the head, which is applied generally by key -screws working through the iron ring which holds the vellum. There is a difference in the size of the drums to place at the command of the player the octave from F in the first space below the bass staff to F on the fourth line of the same staff. Formerly the purpose of the drums was simply to give emphasis, and they were then uni- formly tuned to the key-note and fifth of the key in which a composition was The Modern Orchestra set. Now they are tuned in many ways, not only to allow for the frequent change of keys, but also so that they may be used as harmony instruments. Berlioz did more to develop the drums than any composer who has ever lived, though Beethoven already manifested appreciation of their independent musi- cal value. In the last movement of his Eighth Symphony and the scherzo of his Ninth, he tunes them in octaves, his purpose in the latter case being to give the opening figure, an octave leap, of the scherzo melody to the drums solo. The most extravagant use ever made of the drums, however, was by Berlioz in his " Messe des Morts," where he called in eight pairs of drums and ten players to help him to paint his tonal picture of the terrors of the last judgment. The post of drummer is one of the most dif- ficult to fill in a symphonic orchestra. He is required to have not only a per- fect sense of time and rhythm, but also a keen sense of pitch, for often the com- poser asks him to change the pitch of one or both of his drums in the space of a very few seconds. He must then CHAP. IV. Pitch of the drums. Qualifica- tions of a drummer. How to Listen to Music CHAP. IV. The bass drum. The conductor. be able to shut all other sounds out of his mind, and bring his drums into a new key while the orchestra is playing an extremely nice task. The development of modern orches- tral music has given dignity also to the bass drum, which, though definite pitch is denied to it, is now manipulated in a variety of ways productive of striking effects. Rolls are played on it with the sticks of the kettle-drums, and it has been emancipated measurably from the cymbals, which in vulgar brass -band music are its inseparable companions. In the full sense of the term the or- chestral conductor is a product of the latter half of the present century. Of course, ever since concerted music be- gan, there has been a musical leader of some kind. Mural paintings and carv- ings fashioned in Egypt long before Apollo sang his magic song and " Ilion, like a mist, rose into towers," show the conductor standing before his band beating time by clapping his hands ; and if we are to credit what we have been told about Hebrew music, The Modern Orchestra Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, when they stood before their multitudinous choirs in the temple at Jerusalem, pro- moted synchronism in the performance by stamping upon the floor with lead- shodden feet. Before the era which de- veloped what I might call "star" con- ductors, these leaders were but captains of tens and captains of hundreds who accomplished all that was expected of them if they made the performers keep musical step together. They were time- beaters merely human metronomes. The modern conductor is, in a sense not dreamed of a century ago, a mediator between the composer and the audi- ence. He is a virtuoso who plays upon men instead of a key -board, upon a hundred instruments instead of one. Music differs from her sister arts in many respects, but in none more than in her dependence on the intermediary who stands between her and the people for whose sake she exists. It is this in- termediary who wakens her into life. " Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter," CHAP. IV. Time-beat- ers *nd in- terpreters. CHAP. IV. Tkt con- ductor a necessity. How to Listen to Music is a pretty bit of hyperbole which in- volves a contradiction in terms. An un- heard melody is no melody at all, and as soon as we have music in which a num- ber of singers or instrumentalists are employed, the taste, feeling, and judg- ment of an individual are essential to its intelligent and effective publication. In the gentle days of the long ago, when suavity and loveliness of utterance and a recognition of formal symmetry were the " be-all and end-all " of the art, a time- beater sufficed to this end ; but now the contents of music are greater, the vessel has been wondrously widened, the lan- guage is become curiously complex and ingenious, and no composer of to-day can write down universally intelligible signs for all that he wishes to say. Someone must grasp the whole, ex- pound it to the individual factors which make up the performing sum and pro- vide what is called an interpretation to the public. That someone, of course, is the con- ductor, and considering the progress that music is continually making it is not at all to be wondered at that he has The Modern Orchestra become a person of stupendous power in the culture of to-day. The one singu- larity is that he should be so rare. This rarity has had its natural consequence, and the conductor who can conduct, in contradistinction to the conductor who can only beat time, is now a "star." At present we see him going from place to place in Europe giving concerts in which he figures as the principal at- traction. The critics discuss his " read- ings " just as they do the performances of great pianists and singers. A hun- dred blowers of brass, scrapers of strings, and tootlers on windy wood, labor be- neath him transmuting the composer's mysterious symbols into living sound, and when it is all over we frequently find that it seems all to have been done for the greater glory of the conductor instead of the glory of art. That, how- ever, is a digression which it is not nec- essary to pursue. Questions and remarks have fre- quently been addressed to me indica- tive of the fact that there is a wide- spread popular conviction that the mission of a conductor is chiefly orna- 117 CHAP. IV. " Star " conductors. Mistaken popular notions. n8 CHAP. IV. What the conductor does. How to Listen to Music mental at an orchestral concert. That is a sad misconception, and grows out of the old notion that a conductor is only a time-beater. Assuming that the men of the band have played sufficiently together, it is thought that eventually they might keep time without the help of the conductor. It is true that the greater part of the conductor's work is done at rehearsal, at which he enforces upon his men his wishes concerning the speed of the music, expression, and the balance of tone between the different instruments. But all the injunctions given at rehearsal by word of mouth are reiterated by means of a system of signs and signals during the concert perform- ance. Time and rhythm are indicated by the movements of the baton, the former by the speed of the beats, the latter by the direction, the tones upon which the principal stress is to fall being indicated by the down-beat of the bat- on. The amplitude of the movements also serves to indicate the conductor's wishes concerning dynamic variations, while the left hand is ordinarily used in pantomimic gestures to control indi- The Modern Orchestra vidual players or groups. Glances and a play of facial expression also assist in the guidance of the instrumental body. Every musician is expected to count the rests which occur in his part, but when they are of long duration (and some- times they amount to a hundred meas- ures or more) it is customary for the conductor to indicate the entrance of an instrument by a glance at the player. From this mere outline of the communi- cations which pass between the con- ductor and his band it will be seen how indispensable he is if music is to have a consistent and vital interpretation. The layman will perhaps also be enabled, by observing the actions of a conductor with a little understanding of their purposes, to appreciate what critics mean when they speak of the " magnetism " of a leader. He will un- derstand that among other things it means the aptitude or capacity for cre- ating a sympathetic relationship be- tween himself and his men which en- ables him the better by various devices, some arbitrary, some technical and con- ventional, to imbue them with his CHAP. IV. Rests and cues. Personal magnet- ism. 120 CHAP. IV. The score. Its ar- rangement. How to Listen to Music thoughts and feelings relative to a com- position, and through them to body them forth to the audience. What it is that the conductor has to guide him while giving his mute com- mands to his forces may be seen in the reproduction, in the Appendix, of a page from an orchestral score (Plate XII.). A score, it will be observed, is a repro- duction of all the parts of a composition as they lie upon the desks of the players. The ordering of these parts in the score has not always been as now, but the plan which has the widest and longest approval is that illustrated in our exam- ple. The wood-winds are grouped to- gether on the uppermost six staves, the brass in the middle with the tympani separating the horns and trumpets from the trombones, the strings on the lower- most five staves. The example has been chosen because it shows all the instru- ments of the band employed at once (it is the famous opening tutti of the tri- umphal march of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony), and is easy of comprehen- sion by musical amateurs for the reason that none of the parts requires transpo- The Modern Orchestra sition except it be an octave up in the case of the piccolo, an instrument of four-foot tone, and an octave down in the case of the double-basses, which are of sixteen-foot tone. All the other parts are to be read as printed, proper attention being given to the alto and tenor clefs used in the parts of the trombones and violas. The ability to " read score " is one of the most essential attributes of a conductor, who, if he have the proper training, can bring all the parts together and reproduce them on the pianoforte, transposing those which do not sound as written and reading the different clefs at sight as he goes along. 121 CHAP. IV. Score reading. 122 Classical and Popu- lar. At an Orchestral Concert IN popular phrase all high-class music is " classical," and all concerts at which such music is played are " classi- cal concerts." Here the word is con- ceived as the antithesis of " popular," which term is used to designate the or- dinary music of the street and music- hall. Elsewhere I have discussed the true meaning of the word and shown its relation to " romantic " in the terminol- ogy of musical critics and historians. No harm is done by using both " classi- cal " and " popular " in their common significations, so far as they convey a difference in character between con- certs. The highest popular conception of a classical concert is one in which a complete orchestra performs sympho- nies and extended compositions in allied At an Orchestral Concert forms, such as overtures, symphonic poems, and concertos. Change the composition of the instrumental body, by omitting the strings and augmenting the reed and brass choirs, and you have a military band which is best employed in the open air, and whose programmes are generally made up of compositions in the simpler and more easily compre- hended forms dances, marches, fan- tasias on popular airs, arrangements of operatic excerpts and the like. These, then, are popular concerts in the broad- est sense, though it is proper enough to apply the term also to concerts given by a symphonic band when the pro- gramme is light in character and aims at more careless diversion than should be sought at a " classical " concert. The latter term, again, is commended to use by the fact that as a rule the music performed at such a concert ex- emplifies the higher forms in the art, classicism in music being defined as that principle which seeks expression in beauty of form, in a symmetrical or- dering of parts and logical sequence, " preferring aesthetic beauty, pure and 12 3 CHAP. V. Orchestras and mili- tary bands. 12 4 How to Listen to Music CHAP. V. The Sym- phony. Mistaken ideas about the for rn simple, over emotional content," as I have said in Chapter III. As the highest type of instrumental music, we take the Symphony. Very rarely indeed is a concert given by an organization like the New York and London Philharmonic Societies, or the Boston and Chicago Orchestras, at which the place of honor in the scheme of pieces is not given to a symphony. Such a concert is for that reason also spoken of popularly as a "Symphony concert," and no confusion would nec- essarily result from the use of the term even if it so chanced that there was no symphony on the programme. What idea the word symphony conveys to the musically illiterate it would be difficult to tell. I have known a professional writer on musical subjects to express the opinion that a symphony was noth- ing else than four unrelated composi- tions for orchestra arranged in a certain sequence for the sake of an agreeable contrast of moods and tempos. It is scarcely necessary to say that the writer in question had a very poor opinion of the Symphony as an Art-form, and be- At an Orchestral Concert lieved that it had outlived its usefulness and should be relegated to the limbo of Archaic Things. If he, however, trained in musical history and familiar with musical literature, could see only four unrelated pieces of music in a sym- phony by Beethoven, we need not mar- vel that hazy notions touching the nat- ure of the form are prevalent among the untaught public, and that people can be met in concert-rooms to whom such words as " Symphony in C minor," and the printed designations of the dif- ferent portions of the work the " move- ments," as musicians call them are ut- terly bewildering. The word symphony has itself a sin- gularly variegated history. Like many another term in music it was borrowed by the modern world from the ancient Greek. To those who coined it, how- ever, it had a much narrower meaning than to us who use it, with only a con- ventional change in transliteration, now. By avfj,(f>Q>via the Greeks simply ex- pressed the concept of agreement, or consonance. Applied to music it meant first such intervals as unisons; then CHAP. V. History of the term. 126 CHAP. V. Changes in meaning. Handets " Pastoral Sympho- ny." How to Listen to Music the notion was extended to include consonant harmonies, such as the fifth, fourth, and octave. The study of the ancient theoreticians led the musicians of the Middle Ages to apply the word to harmony in general. Then in some inexplicable fashion it came to stand as a generic term for instru- mental compositions such as toccatas, sonatas, etc. Its name was given to one of the precursors of the pianoforte, and in Germany in the sixteenth cen- tury the word Symphoney came to mean a town band. In the last century and the beginning of this the term was used to designate an instrumental intro- duction to a composition for voices, such as a song or chorus, as also an in- strumental piece introduced in a choral work. The form, that is the extent and structure of the composition, had noth- ing to do with the designation, as we see from the Italian shepherds' tune which Handel set for strings in " The Messiah ; " he called it simply pifa, but his publishers called it a " Pastoral symphony," and as such we still know it. It was about the middle of the eigh- At an Orchestral Concert teenth century that the present signifi- cation became crystallized in the word, and since the symphonies of Haydn, in which the form first reached perfection, are still to be heard in our concert- rooms, it may be said that all the mas- terpieces of symphonic literature are current. I have already hinted at the fact that there is an intimate relationship between the compositions usually heard at a clas- sical concert. Symphonies, symphonic poems, concertos for solo instruments and orchestra, as well as the various forms of chamber music, such as trios, quartets, and quintets for strings, or pianoforte and strings, are but different expressions of the idea which is best summed up in the word sonata. What musicians call the " sonata form " lies at the bottom of them all even those which seem to consist of a single piece, like the symphonic poem and overture. Pro- vided it follow, not of necessity slav- ishly, but in its general structure, a cer- tain scheme which was slowly developed by the geniuses who became the law- givers of the art, a composite or cyclical" 127 CHAP. V. The allied forms. Sonata form. 128 How to Listen to Music CHAP. V. Symphony, sonata, and concerto. What a symphony composition (that is, one composed of a number of parts, or movements) is, as the case may be, a symphony, concerto, or sonata. It is a sonata if it be written for a solo instrument like the pianoforte or organ, or for one like the violin or clarinet, with pianoforte accompaniment. If the accompaniment be written for or- chestra, it is called a concerto. A sonata written for an orchestra is a symphony. The nature of the interpreting medium naturally determines the exposition of the form, but all the essential attributes can be learned from a study of the sym- phony, which because of the dignity and eloquence of its apparatus admits of a wider scope than its allies, and must be accepted as the highest type, not merely of the sonata, but of the instrumental art. It will be necessary presently to point out the more important modifica- tions which compositions of this charac- ter have undergone in the development of music, but the ends of clearness will be best subserved if the study be con- ducted on fundamental lines. The symphony then, as a rule, is a composition for orchestra made up of At an Orchestral Concert four parts, or movements, which are not only related to each other by a bond of sympathy established by the keys chosen but also by their emotional contents. Without this higher bond the unity of the work would be merely mechanical, like the unity accomplished by sameness of key in the old-fashioned suite. (See Chapter VI.) The bond of key-relation- ship, though no longer so obvious as once it was, is yet readily discovered by a musician ; the spiritual bond is more elusive, and presents itself for recogni- tion to the imagination and the feelings of the listener. Nevertheless, it is an element in every truly great symphony, and I have already indicated how it may sometimes become patent to the ear alone, so it be intelligently employed, and enjoy the co-operation of memory. It is the first movement of a sym- phony which embodies the structural scheme called the "sonata form." It has a triple division, and Mr. Edward Dannreuther has aptly denned it as "the triune symmetry of exposition, illustration, and repetition." In the first division the composer introduces 129 CHAP. V. The bond of unity be- tween the parts. Thefirst movement. 130 How to Listen to Music CHAP. V. Exposition of subjects. Repetition of the first subdivi- the melodies which he has chosen to be the thematic material of the move- ment, and to fix the character of the entire work ; he presents it for identifi- cation. The themes are two, and their exposition generally exemplifies the principle of key-relationship, which was the basis of my analysis of a simple folk tune in Chapter II. In the case of the best symphonists the principal and second subjects disclose a contrast, not violent but yet distinct, in mood or character. If the first is rhythmically energetic and assertive masculine, let me say the second will be more sedate, more gentle in utterance feminine. After the two subjects have been in- troduced along with some subsidiary phrases and passages which the com- poser uses to bind them together and modulate from one key into another, the entire division is repeated. That is the rule, but it is now as often " hon- ored in the breach" as in the observ- ance, some conductors not even hesi- tating to ignore the repeat marks in Beethoven's scores. The second division is now taken up. CHAP. V. At an Orchestral Concert 131 In it the composer exploits his learn- ing and fancy in developing his the- matic material. He is now entirely free to send it through long chains of keys, to vary the harmonies, rhythms, and instrumentation, to take a single pregnant motive and work it out with all the ingenuity he can muster ; to force it up " steep-up spouts " of passion and let it whirl in the surge, or plunge it into " steep-down gulfs of liquid fire," and consume its own heart. Techni- cally this part is called the " free fan- tasia " in English, and the Durch- fuhrung " working out " in German. I mention the terms because they some- times occur in criticisms and analyses. It is in this division that the genius of a composer has fullest play, and there is no greater pleasure, no more delight- ful excitement, for the symphony-lover than to follow the luminous fancy of Beethoven through his free fantasias. The third division is devoted to a repe- Repetition. tition, with modifications, of the first division and the addition of a close. First movements are quick and ener- getic, and frequently full of dramatic The free fantasia or ' ' working- out " por- tion. CHAP. V. Introduc- tions. Keys and Titles. How to Listen to Music fire. In them the psychological story is begun which is to be developed in the remaining chapters of the work its sorrows, hopes, prayers, or com- munings in the slow movement ; its madness or merriment in the scherzo; its outcome, triumphant or tragic, in the finale. Sometimes the first move- ment is preceded by a slow introduc- tion, intended to prepare the mind of the listener for the proclamation which shall come with the Allegro. The key of the principal subject is set down as the key of the symphony, and unless the composer gives his work a special title for the purpose of providing a hint as to its poetical contents (" Eroica," " Pastoral," " Faust," " In the Forest," " Lenore," " Pathtique," etc.), or to characterize its style (" Scotch," " Ital- ian," " Irish," " Welsh," " Scandina- vian," " From the New World "), it is known only by its key, or the number of the work (opus) in the composer's list. Therefore we have Mozart's Symphony "in G minor," Beethoven's "in A major," Schumann's "in C," Brahms's " in F," and so on. At an Orchestral Concert The second movement in the sym- phonic scheme is the slow movement. Musicians frequently call it the Adagio, for convenience, though the tempi of slow movements ranges from extremely slow (Largo) to the border line of fast, as in the case of the Allegretto of the Sev- enth Symphony of Beethoven. The mood of the slow movement is frequent- ly sombre, and its instrumental coloring dark ; but it may also be consolatory, contemplative, restful, religiously uplift- ing. The writing is preferably in a broadly sustained style, the effect being that of an exalted hymn, and this has led to a predilection for a theme and variations as the mould in which to cast the movement. The slow move- ments of Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies are made up of varia- tions. The Scherzo is, as the term implies, the playful, jocose movement of a sym- phony, but in the case of sublime ge- niuses like Beethoven and Schumann, who blend profound melancholy with wild humor, the playfulness is some- times of a kind which invites us to CHAP. V. The second movement. Variations. The Scherzo. J34 CHAP. V. Genesis f the Scherzo. The Trio. How to Listen to Music thoughtfulness instead of merriment. This is true also of some Russian com- posers, whose scherzos have the desper- ate gayety which speaks from the music of a sad people whose merrymaking is not a spontaneous expression of exu- berant spirits but a striving after self-for- getfulness. The Scherzo is the successor of the Minuet, whose rhythm and form served the composers down to Beet- hoven. It was he who substituted the Scherzo, which retains the chief formal characteristics of the courtly old dance in being in triple time and having a sec- ond part called the Trio. With the change there came an increase in speed, but it ought to be remembered that the symphonic minuet was quicker than the dance of the same name. A tendency toward exaggeration, which is patent among modern conductors, is threaten- ing to rob the symphonic minuet of the vivacity which gave it its place in the scheme of the symphony. The entrance of the Trio is marked by the introduc- tion of a new idea (a second minuet) which is more sententious than the first part, and sometimes in another key, At an Orchestral Concert the commonest change being from minor to major. The final movement, technically the Finale, is another piece of large dimen- sions in which the psychological drama which plays through the four acts of the symphony is brought to a conclu- sion. Once the purpose of the Finale was but to bring the symphony to a merry end, but as the expressive capac- ity of music has been widened, and mere play with aesthetic forms has given place to attempts to convey sentiments and feelings, the purposes of the last move- ment have been greatly extended and varied. As a rule the form chosen for the Finale is that called the Rondo. Borrowed from an artificial verse-form (the French Rondeau}, this species of composition illustrates the peculiarity of that form in the reiteration of a strophe ever and anon after a new theme or episode has been exploited. In modern society verse, which has grown out of an ambition to imitate the ingenious form invented by me- diaeval poets, we have the Triolet, which may be said to be a rondeau in minia- CHAP. V. The Finale. Rondo form. How to Listen to Music CHAP. V. A Rondo pattern, in poetry* Other forms for the Finale. ture. I choose one of Mr. H. C. Bun- ner's dainty creations to illustrate the musical refrain characteristic of the rondo form because of its compactness. Here it is : " A pitcher of mignonette In a tenement's highest casement : Queer sort of a flower-pot yet That pitcher of mignonette Is a garden in heaven set, To the little sick child in the basement The pitcher of mignonette, In the tenement's highest casement." If now the first two lines of this poem, which compose its refrain, be permitted to stand as the principal theme of a mu- sical piece, we have in Mr. Bunner's triolet a rondo in nuce. There is in it a threefold exposition of the theme alter- nating with episodic matter. Another form for the finale is that of the first movement (the Sonata form), and still another, the theme and variations. Beet- hoven chose the latter for his " Ero- ica," and the choral close of his Ninth, Dvorak, for his symphony in G major, and Brahms for his in E minor. I am attempting nothing more than a At an Orchestral Concert characterization of the symphony, and the forms with which I associated it at the outset, which shall help the un- trained listener to comprehend them as unities despite the fact that to the care- less hearer they present themselves as groups of pieces each one of which is complete in itself and has no connec- tion with its fellows. The desire of composers to have their symphonies ac- cepted as unities instead of compages of unrelated pieces has led to the adop- tion of various devices designed to force the bond of union upon the atten- tion of the hearer. Thus Beethoven in his symphony in C minor not only connects the third and fourth move- ments but also introduces a reminis- cence of the former into the midst of the latter ; Berlioz in his " Symphonic Fantastique," which is written to what may be called a dramatic scheme, makes use of a melody which he calls " Vidte fixe" and has it recur in each of the four movements as an episode. This, however, is frankly a symphony with programme, and ought not to be treated as a modification of the pure form. CHAP. V. Organic Unities. Haw en- forced. Berlioz's "idle fixe.' How to Listen to Music CHAP. V. Recapitu- lation of themes. Introduc- tion of voices Dvorak in his symphony entitled " From the New World," in which he has striven to give expression to the American spirit, quotes the first period of his principal subject in all the subsequent movements, and then sententiously re- capitulates the principal themes of the first, second, and third movements in the finale ; and this without a sign of the dramatic purpose confessed by Ber- lioz. In the last movement of his Ninth Symphony Beethoven calls voices to the aid of his instruments. It was a daring innovation, as it seemed to disrupt the form, and we know from the story of the work how long he hunted for the connecting link, which finally he found in the instrumental recitative. Having hit upon the device, he summons each of the preceding movements, which are purely instrumental, into the presence of his augmented forces and dismisses it as inadequate to the proclamation which the symphony was to make. The double-basses and solo barytone are the spokesmen for the tuneful host. He thus achieves the end of connecting At an Orchestral Concert the Allegro, Scherzo, and Adagio with each other, and all with the Finale, and at the same time points out what it is that he wishes us to recognize as the in- spiration of the whole ; but here, again, the means appear to be somewhat ex- traneous. Schumann's example, how- ever, in abolishing the pauses between the movements of the symphony in D minor, and having melodic material common to all the movements, is a plea for appreciation which cannot be mis- understood. Before Schumann Men- delssohn intended that his "Scotch" symphony should be performed with- out pauses between the movements, but his wishes have been ignored by the conductors, I fancy because he having neglected to knit the movements to- gether by community of ideas, they can see no valid reason for the aboli- tion of the conventional resting-places. Beethoven's augmentation of the symphonic forces by employing voices has been followed by Berlioz in his " Romeo and Juliet," which, though called a " dramatic symphony," is a mixture of symphony, cantata, and 139 CHAP. V. Abolition of pauses. Beethoven's " choral" symphony followed. 140 CHAP. V. Increase in the number of move- ments. How to Listen to Music opera; Mendelssohn in his "Hymn of Praise" (which is also a composite work and has a composite title " Sym- phony Cantata "), and Liszt in his " Faust " symphony, in the finale of which we meet a solo tenor and chorus of men's voices who sing Goethe's Cho- rus mysticus. A number of other experiments have been made, the effectiveness of which has been conceded in individual in- stances, but which have failed perma- nently to affect the symphonic form. Schumann has two trios in his sym- phony in B-flat, and his E-flat, the so- called " Rhenish," has five movements instead of four, there being two slow movements, one in moderate tempo (Nicht schnell), and the other in slow (Feierlich). In this symphony, also, Schumann exercises the license which has been recognized since Beethoven's time, of changing the places in the scheme of the second and third move- ments, giving the second place to the jocose division instead of the slow. Beethoven's " Pastoral " has also five movements, unless one chooses to take At an Orchestral Concert the storm which interrupts the " Merry- making of the Country Folk " as stand- ing toward the last movement as an in- troduction, as, indeed, it does in the composer's idyllic scheme. Certain it is, Sir George Grove to the contrary notwithstanding, that the sense of a disturbance of the symphonic plan is not so vivid at a performance of the "Pastoral" as at one of Schumann's " Rhenish, " in which either the third movement or the so-called " Cathedral Scene " is most distinctly an interloper. Usually it is deference to the demands of a " programme " that influences com- posers in extending the formal boun- daries of a symphony, and when this is done the result is frequently a work which can only be called a symphony by courtesy. M. Saint-Saens, however, attempted an original excursion in his symphony in C minor, without any dis- coverable, or at least confessed, pro- grammatic idea. He laid the work out in two grand divisions, so as to have but one pause. Nevertheless in each division we can recognize, though as through a haze, the outlines of the fa- 141 CHAP. V. Further extension of bound- aries. 142 CHAP. V. Saint- Saens^s C minor symphony. The Symphonic Poem. How to Listen to Music miliar symphonic movements. In the first part, buried under a sequence of time designations like this: Adagio Allegro moderate Poco adagio, we dis- cover the customary first and second movements, the former preceded by a slow introduction ; in the second divis- ion we find this arrangement: Allegro moderate Presto Maestoso Allegro, this multiplicity of terms affording only a sort of disguise for the regulation scherzo and finale, with a cropping out of reminiscences from the first part which have the obvious purpose to im- press upon the hearer that the sym- phony is an organic whole. M. Saint- Saens has also introduced the organ and a pianoforte with two players into the instrumental apparatus. Three characteristics may be said to distinguish the Symphonic Poem, which in the view of the extremists who fol- low the lead of Liszt is the logical out- come of the symphony and the only expression of its aesthetic principles consonant with modern thought and feeling. First, it is programmatic that is, it is based upon a poetical idea, At an Orchestral Concert H3 a sequence of incidents, or of soul- states, to which a clew is given either by the title or a motto ; second, it is compacted in form to a single move- ment, though as a rule the changing phases delineated in the separate move- ments of the symphony are also to be found in the divisions of the work marked by changes in tempo, key, and character ; third, the work generally has a principal subject of such plas- ticity that the composer can body forth a varied content by presenting it in a number of transformations. The last two characteristics Liszt has carried over into his pianoforte con- certo in E-flat. This has four distinct movements (viz.: I. Allegro maestoso; II. Quasi adagio ; III. Allegretto vivace, scherzando ; IV. Allegro marziale anima- td), but they are fused into a continuous whole, throughout which the principal thought of the work, the stupendously energetic phrase which the orchestra proclaims at the ooitset, is presented in various forms to make it express a great variety of moods and yet give unity to the concerto. " Thus, by means of this CHAP. V. Its charac- teristics. Liszt's first piano- forte con- certo. 144 CHAP. V. Other cyclical forms. Pianoforte and orches- tra. How to Listen to Music metamorphosis," says Mr. Edward Dann- reuther, " the poetic unity of the whole musical tissue is made apparent, spite of very great diversity of details ; and Coleridge's attempt at a definition of poetic unity unity in multiety is car- ried out to the letter." It will readily be understood that the other cyclical compositions which I have associated with a classic concert, that is, compositions belonging to the category of chamber music (see Chapter III.), and concertos for solo instruments with orchestral accompaniment, while con- forming to the scheme which I have outlined, all have individual character- istics conditioned on the expressive ca- pacity of the apparatus. The modern pianoforte is capable of asserting itself against a full orchestra, and concertos have been written for it in which it is treated as an orchestral integer rather than a solo instrument. In the older conception, the orchestra, though it frequently assumed the privilege of in- troducing the subject-matter, played a subordinate part to the solo instrument in its development. In violin as well as At an Orchestral Concert pianoforte concertos special opportu- nity is given to the player to exploit his skill and display the solo instrument free from structural restrictions in the cadenza introduced shortly before the close of the first, last, or both move- ments. Cadenzas are a relic of a time when the art of improvisation was more generally practised than it is now, and when performers were conceded to have rights beyond the printed page. Solely for their display, it became cus- tomary for composers to indicate by a hold (/cs) a place where the perform- er might indulge in a flourish of his own. There is a tradition that Mo- zart once remarked : " Wherever I smear that thing," indicating a hold, "you can do what you please;" the rule is, however, that the only priv- ilege which the cadenza opens to the player is that of improvising on mate- rial drawn from the subjects already developed, and since, also as a rule, composers are generally more eloquent in the treatment of their own ideas than performers, it is seldom that a cadenza CHAP. V. Cadenzas. Improvisa- tions by the player. 146 How to Listen to Music CHAP. V. M. Ysaye's opinion of Cadenzas. Concertos. contributes to the enjoyment afforded by a work, except to the lovers of tech- nique for technique's sake. I never knew an artist to make a more sensible remark than did M. Ysaye, when on the eve of a memorably beautiful perform- ance of Beethoven's violin concerto, he said: "If I were permitted to consult my own wishes I would put my violin under my arm when I reach the fermate and say : ' Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the cadenza. It is pre- sumptuous in any musician to think that he can have anything to say after Beethoven has finished. With your permission we will consider my cadenza played.'" That Beethoven may him- self have had a thought of the same nature is a fair inference from the cir- cumstance that he refused to leave the cadenza in his E-flat pianoforte con- certo to the mercy of the virtuosos but wrote it himself. Concertos for pianoforte or violin are usually written in three movements, of which the first and last follow the sym- phonic model in respect of elaboration and form, and the second is a brief move- At an Orchestral Concert ment in slow or moderate time, which has the character of an intermezzo. As to the nomenclature of chamber music, it is to be noted that unless connected with a qualifying word or phrase, " Quartet " means a string quartet. When a piano- forte is consorted with strings the work is spoken of as a Pianoforte Trio, Quar- tet, or Quintet, as the case may be. The form of the overture is that of the first movement of the sonata, or sym- phony, omitting the repetition of the first subdivision. Since the original pur- pose, which gave the overture its name \Ouverture = aperture, opening), was to introduce a drama, either spoken or lyrical, an oratorio, or other choral composition, it became customary for the composers to choose the subjects of the piece from the climacteric moments of the music used in the drama. When done without regard to the rules of con- struction (as is the case with practically all operetta overtures and Rossini's) the result is not an overture at all, but a pot- pourri, a hotch-potch of jingles. The present beautiful form, in which Beet- hoven and other composers have shown H7 CHAP. V. Chamber music. The Over- ture. Pot-pourris, 148 CHAP. V. Old sty Us offfoer- txres. The Prelude. Glmck'i principle. How to Listen to Music that it is possible to epitomize an entire drama, took the place of an arbitrary scheme which was wholly aimless, so far as the compositions to which they were attached were concerned. The earliest fixed form of the over- ture is preserved to the current lists of to-day by the compositions of Bach and Handel. It is that established by Lully, and is tripartite in form, consisting of a rapid movement, generally a fugue, pre- ceded and followed by a slow movement which is grave and stately in its tread. In its latest phase the overture has yielded up its name in favor of Prelude (Ger- man, Vorspiel), Introduction, or Sym- phonic Prologue. The finest of these, without borrowing their themes from the works which they introduce, but using new matter entirely, seek to fulfil the aim which Gluck set for himself, when, in the preface to "Alceste," he wrote : " I imagined that the overture ought to prepare the audience for the action of the piece, and serve as a kind of argument to it," Concert overtures are compositions designed by the com- posers to stand as independent pieces in- At an Orchestral Concert stead of for performance in connection with a drama, opera, or oratorio. When, as is frequently the case, the composer, nevertheless, gives them a descriptive title ("Hebrides," " Sakuntala "), their poetical contents are to be sought in the associations aroused by the title. Thus, in the instances cited, " Heb- rides" suggests that the overture was designed by Mendelssohn to reflect the mood awakened in him by a visit to the Hebrides, more particularly to Fingal's Cave (wherefore the overture is called the " Fingal's Cave " overture in Ger- many) " Sakuntala " invites to a study of Kalidasa's drama of that name as the repository of the sentiments which Goldmark undertook to express in his music. A form which is variously employed, for solo instruments, small combina- tions, and full orchestra (though seldom with the complete modern apparatus), is the Serenade. Historically, it is a contemporary of the old suites and the first symphonies, and like them it consists of a group of short pieces, so arranged as to form an agreeable con- 149 CHAP. V. ti-e iii'.t:. Serenades. 150 CHAP. V. The Ser- enade in Shake- speare. Out-of- doors How to Listen to Music trast with each other, and yet convey a sense of organic unity. The character of the various parts and their order grew out of the purpose for which the serenade was originated, which was that indicated by the name. In the last century, and earlier, it was no uncom- mon thing for a lover to bring the tribute of a musical performance to his mistress, and it was not always a " woful ballad " sung to her eyebrow. Frequently musicians were hired, and the tribute took the form of a nocturnal concert. In Shakespeare's " Two Gen- tlemen of Verona," Proteus, prompting Thurio what to do to win Silvia's love, says: " Visit by night your lady's chamber window With some sweet concert : to their instruments Tune a deploring dump ; the night's dread silence Will well become such sweet complaining griev- ance." It was for such purposes that the serenade was invented as an instru- mental form. Since they were to play out of doors, Sir Thurio s musicians would have used wind instruments in- At an Orchestral Concert stead of viols, and the oldest serenades are composed for oboes and bassoons. Clarinets and horns were subsequently added, and for such bands Mozart wrote serenades, some of which so closely approach the symphony that they have been published as symphonies. A ser- enade in the olden time opened very properly with a march, to the strains of which we may imagine the musicians approaching the lady's chamber win- dow. Then came a minuet to prepare her ear for the " deploring dump " which followed, the " dump " of Shake- speare's day, like the " dumka" of ours (with which I am tempted to associate it etymologically), being a mournful piece of music most happily character- ized by the poet as a " sweet complain- ing grievance." Then followed another piece in merry tempo and rhythm, then a second adagio, and the entertainment ended with an allegro, generally in march rhythm, to which we fancy the musicians departing. The order is exemplified in Beethoven's serenade for violin, viola, and violoncello, op. 8, which runs thus : March; Adagio ; Minuet ; Adagio with CHAP. V. Old forms. The "Dump." Beethoven's Serenade, op. 8. CHAP. V. The Orchtitrml Suite. Ballet music. How to Listen to Music episodic Scherzo ; Polacca; Andante (va- riations), the opening march repeated. The Suite has come back into favor as an orchestral piece, but the term no longer has the fixed significance which once it had. It is now applied to al- most any group of short pieces, pleas- antly contrasted in rhythm, tempo, and mood, each complete in itself yet dis- closing an aesthetic relationship with its fellows. Sometimes old dance forms are used, and sometimes new, such as the polonaise and the waltz. The bal- let music, which fills so welcome a place in popular programmes, may be looked upon as such a suite, and the rhythm of the music and the orchestral coloring in them are frequently those peculiar to the dances of the countries in which the story of the opera or drama for which the music was written plays. The bal- lets therefore afford an excellent oppor- tunity for the study of local color. Thus the ballet music from Massenet's " Cid " is Spanish, from Rubinstein's " Fera- mors " Oriental, from " Aida " Egyptian Oriental rhythms and colorings being those most easily copied by composers. At an Orchestral Concert The other operatic excerpts common to concerts of both classes are either be- tween-acts music, fantasias on operatic airs, or, in the case of Wagner's contribu- tions, portions of his dramas which are so predominantly instrumental that it has been found feasible to incorporate the vocal part with the orchestral. In ballet music from the operas of the last century, some of which has been preserved to the modern concert-room, local color must not be sought. Gluck's Greeks, like Shakespeare's, danced to the rhythms of the seventeenth century. Vestris, whom the people of his time called " The god of the dance," once complained to Gluck that his " Iphignie en Aulide " did not end with a chaconne, as was the rule. " A chaconne ! " cried Gluck ; " when did the Greeks ever dance a chaconne ? " " Didn't they? Didn't they ? " answered Vestris ; " so much the worse for the Greeks. " There ensued a quarrel. Gluck became incensed, withdrew the opera which was about to be produced, and would have left Paris had not Marie Antoinette come to the rescue. But Vestris got his chaconne. CHAP. V. Operatic excerpts. Gluck and Vestris. 154 Mr. Pade- rewski s concerts. VI At a Pianoforte Recital NO clearer illustration of the magi- cal power which lies in music, no more convincing proof of the puis- sant fascination which a musical artist can exert, no greater demonstration of the capabilities of an instrument of music can be imagined than was af- forded by the pianoforte recitals which Mr. Paderewski gave in the United States during the season of 1895-96. More than threescore times in the course of five months, in the principal cities of this country, did this wonder- ful man seat himself in the presence of audiences, whose numbers ran into the thousands, and were limited only by the seating capacity of the rooms in which they gathered, and hold them spellbound from two to three hours by At a Pianoforte Recital the eloquence of his playing. Each time the people came in a gladsome frame of mind, stimulated by the recol- lection of previous delights or eager expectation. Each time they sat listen- ing to the music as if it were an evangel on which hung everlasting things. Each time there was the same growth in enthusiasm which began in deco- rous applause and ended in cheers and shouts as the artist came back after the performance of a herculean task, and added piece after piece to a programme which had been laid down on generous lines from the beginning. The careless saw the spectacle with simple amaze- ment, but for the judicious it had a wondrous interest. I am not now concerned with Mr. Paderewski beyond invoking his aid in bringing into court a form of entertain- ment which, in his hands, has proved to be more attractive to the multitude than symphony, oratorio, and even opera. What a world of speculation and curi- ous inquiry does such a recital invite one into, beginning with the instrument which was the medium of communica- '55 CHAP. VI. Pianoforte recitals. CHAP. VI. The piano- forte s un- derlying principles. Their Genesis. How to Listen to Music tion between the artist and his hearers ! To follow the progressive development of the mechanical principles underlying the pianoforte, one would be obliged to begin beyond the veil which separates history from tradition, for the first of them finds its earliest exemplification in the bow twanged by the primitive savage. Since a recognition of these principles may help to an understand- ing of the art of pianoforte playing, I enumerate them now. They are : 1. A stretched string as a medium of tone production. 2. A key-board as an agency for ma- nipulating the strings. 3. A blow as the means of exciting the strings to vibratory action, by which the tone is produced. Many interesting glimpses of the human mind and heart might we have in the course of the promenade through the ancient, mediaeval, and modern worlds which would be necessary to disclose the origin and growth of these three principles, but these we must fore- go, since we are to study the music of the instrument, not its history. Let the At a Pianoforte Recital knowledge suffice that the fundamental principle of the pianoforte is as old as music itself, and that scientific learning, inventive ingenuity, and mechanical skill, tributary always to the genius of the art, have worked together for cen- turies to apply this principle, until the instrument which embodies it in its highest potency is become a veritable microcosm of music. It is the visible sign of culture in every gentle house- hold ; the indispensable companion of the composer and teacher; the in- termediary between all the various branches of music. Into the study of the orchestral conductor it brings a trans- lation of all the multitudinous voices of the band ; to the choir-master it rep- resents the chorus of singers in the church-loft or on the concert-platform ; with its aid the opera director fills his imagination with the people, passions, and pageantry of the lyric drama long before the singers have received their parts, or the costumer, stage manager, and scene - painter have begun their work. It is the only medium through which the musician in his study can CHAP. VI. Signifi- cance of the pianoforte. CHAP. VI. Defects of the pianoforte. How to Listen to Music commune with the whole world of music and all its heroes ; and though it may fail to inspire somewhat of that sym- pathetic nearness which one feels tow- ard the violin as it nestles under the chin and throbs synchronously with the player's emotions, or those wind instru- ments into which the player breathes his own breath as the breath of life, it surpasses all its rivals, save the organ, in its capacity for publishing the grand harmonies of the masters, for uttering their " sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies." This is one side of the picture and serves to show why the pianoforte is the most universal, useful, and necessary of all musical instruments. The other side shows its deficiencies, which must also be known if one is to appreciate right- ly the many things he is called upon to note while listening intelligently to pianoforte music. Despite all the skill, learning, and ingenuity which have been spent on its perfection, the pianoforte can be made only feebly to approximate that sustained style of musical utterance which is the soul of melody, and finds At a Pianoforte Recital its loftiest exemplification in singing. To give out a melody perfectly, presup- poses the capacity to sustain tones with- out loss in power or quality, to bind them together at will, and sometimes to intensify their dynamic or expressive force while they sound. The tone of the pianoforte, being produced by a blow, begins to die the moment it is cre- ated. The history of the instrument's mechanism, and also of its technical manipulation, is the history of an effort to reduce this shortcoming to a mini- mum. It has always conditioned the character of the music composed for the instrument, and if we were not in danger of being led into too wide an excursion, it would be profitable to trace the parallelism which is disclosed by the mechanical evolution of the in- strument, and the technical and spirit- ual evolution of the music composed for it. A few points will be touched upon presently, when the intellectual activity invited by a recital is brought under consideration. It is to be noted, further, that by a beautiful application of the doctrine of CHAP. VI. Lack of i6o CHAP. VI. The percussive element. Melody with drum- teats. How to Listen to Music compensations, the factor which limits the capacity of the pianoforte as a mel- ody instrument endows it with a merit which no other instrument has in the same degree, except the instruments of percussion, which, despite their useful- ness, stand on the border line between savage and civilized music. It is from its relationship to the drum that the pianoforte derives a peculiarity quite unique in the melodic and harmonic family. Rhythm is, after all, the start- ing-point of music. More than melody, more than harmony, it stirs the blood of the savage, and since the most vital forces within man are those which date back to his primitive state, so the sense of rhythm is the most universal of the musical senses among even the most cultured of peoples to-day. By them- selves the drums, triangles, and cym- bals of an orchestra represent music but one remove from noise ; but everybody knows how marvellously they can be utilized to glorify a climax. Now, in a very refined degree, every melody on the pianoforte, be it played as deli- cately as it may, is a melody with drum- At a Pianoforte Recital beats. Manufacturers have done much toward eliminating the thump of the hammers against the strings, and famil- iarity with the tone of the instrument has closed our ears against it to a great extent as something intrusive, but the blow which excites the string to vibra- tion, and thus generates sound, is yet a vital factor in determining the character of pianoforte music. The recurrent pulsations, now energetic, incisive, reso- lute, now gentle and caressing, infuse life into the melody, and by emphasizing its rhythmical structure (without un- duly exaggerating it), present the form of the melody in much sharper outline than is possible on any other instru- ment, and much more than one would expect in view of the evanescent char- acter of the pianoforte's tone. It is this quality, combined with the mechanism which places all the gradations of tone, from loudest to softest, at the easy and instantaneous command of the player, which, I fancy, makes the pianoforte, in an astonishing degree, a substitute for all the other instruments. Each in- strument in the orchestra has an idiom, CHAP. VI. Rhythmi- cal accent- uation. A univer- sal substir tute. l62 CHAP. VI. The in- strument's mechanism. How to Listen to Music which sounds incomprehensible when uttered by some other of its fellows, but they can all be translated, with more or less success, into the language of the pianoforte not the quality of the tone, though even that can be suggested, but the character of the phrase. The pi- anoforte can sentimentalize like the flute, make a martial proclamation like the trumpet, intone a prayer like the churchly trombone. In the intricacy of its mechanism the pianoforte stands next to the organ. The farther removed from direct utter- ance we are the more difficult is it to speak the true language of music. The violin player and the singer, and in a less degree the performers upon some of the wind instruments, are obliged to form the musical tone which, in the case of the pianist, is latent in the instru- ment, ready to present itself in two of its attributes in answer to a simple pressure upon the key. The most un- musical person in the world can learn to produce a series of tones from a piano- forte which shall be as exact in pitch and as varied in dynamic force as can At a Pianoforte Recital Mr. Paderewski. He cannot combine them so ingeniously nor imbue them with feeling, but in the simple matter of producing the tone with the attributes mentioned, he is on a level with the greatest virtuoso. Very different is the case of the musician who must exercise a distinctly musical gift in the simple evocation of the materials of music, like the violinist and singer, who both form and produce the tone. For them com- pensation flows from the circumstance that the tone thus formed and produced is naturally instinct with emotional life in a degree that the pianoforte tone knows nothing of. In one respect, it may be said that the mechanics of pianoforte playing represent a low plane of artistic ac- tivity, a fact which ought always to be remembered whenever the temptation is felt greatly to exalt the technique of the art; but it must also be borne in mind that the mechanical nature of simple tone production in pianoforte playing raises the value of the emotional qual- ity which, nevertheless, stands at the command of the player. The emotional 163 CHAP. VI. Tone for- mation and production. Technical manipula- tion. 164 CHAP. VI. Touch and emotional- ity. The tech- nical cult. How to Listen to Music potency of the tone must come from the manner in which the blow is given to the string. Recognition of this fact has stimulated reflection, and this in turn has discovered methods by which temperament and emotionality may be made to express themselves as freely, convincingly, and spontaneously in pianoforte as in violin playing. If this were not so it would be impossible to explain the difference in the charm exerted by different virtuosi, for, it has frequently happened that the best- equipped mechanician and the most in- tellectual player has been judged in- ferior as an artist to another whose gifts were of the soul rather than of the brains and fingers. The feats accomplished by a piano- forte virtuoso in the mechanical depart- ment are of so extraordinary a nature that there need be small wonder at the wide prevalence of a distinctly techni- cal cult. All who know the real nature and mission of music must condemn such a cult. It is a sign of a want of true appreciation to admire technique for technique's sake. It is a mistaking At a Pianoforte Recital of the outward shell for the kernel, a means for the end. There are still many players who aim to secure this admira- tion, either because they are deficient in real musical feeling, or because they believe themselves surer of winning ap- plause by thus appealing to the lowest form of appreciation. In the early part of the century they would have been handicapped by the instrument which lent itself to delicacy, clearness, and gracefulness of expression, but had little power. Now the pianoforte has become a thing of rigid steel, enduring tons of strain from its strings, and hav- ing a voice like the roar of many waters; to keep pace with it players have be- come athletes with " Thews of Anakim And pulses of a Titan's heart." They care no more for the " mur- murs made to bless," unless it be occa- sionally for the sake of contrast, but seek to astound, amaze, bewilder, and confound with feats of skill and endur- ance. That with their devotion to the purely mechanical side of the art they 165 CHAP. VI. A low form of art. i66 CHAP. VI. Technical skill a matter of course. The plan of study in this chap- ter. How to Listen to Music are threatening to destroy pianoforte playing gives them no pause whatever. The era which they illustrate and adorn is the technical era which was, is, and ever shall be, the era of decay in artistic production. For the judicious technique alone, be it never so marvel- lous, cannot serve to-day. Its posses- sion is accepted as a condition precedent in the case of everyone who ventures to appear upon the concert-platform. He must be a wonder, indeed, who can dis- turb our critical equilibrium by mere digital feats. We want strength and velocity of finger to be coupled with strength, velocity, and penetration of thought. We want no halting or lisp- ing in the proclamation of what the composer has said, but we want the contents of his thought, not the hollow shell, no matter how distinctly its out- lines be drawn. The factors which present themselves for consideration at a pianoforte re- cital mechanical, intellectual, and emo- tional can be most intelligently and profitably studied along with the devel- opment of the instrument and its music. At a Pianoforte Recital All branches of the study are invited by the typical recital programme. The essentially romantic trend of Mr. Pad- erewski's nature makes his excursions into the classical field few and short ; and it is only when a pianist undertakes to emulate Rubinstein in his historical recitals that the entire pre-Beethoven vista is opened up. It will suffice for the purposes of this discussion to imagine a programme containing pieces by Bach, D. Scarlatti, Handel, and Mo- zart in one group ; a sonata by Beetho- ven ; some of the shorter pieces of Schumann and Chopin, and one of the transcriptions or rhapsodies of Liszt. Such a scheme falls naturally into four divisions, plainly differentiated from each other in respect of the style of com- position and the manner of performance, both determined by the nature of the instrument employed and the status of the musical idea. Simply for the sake of convenience let the period repre- sented by the first group be called the classic ; the second the classic-roman- tic ; the third the romantic, and the last the bravura. I beg the reader, how- 167 CHAP. VI. A typical scheme of pieces. Periods in pianoforte music. i68 CHAP. VI. Predeces- sors of the pia.no- /rte. How to Listen to Music ever, not to extend these designations beyond the boundaries of the present study ; they have been chosen arbitra- rily, and confusion might result if the attempt were made to apply them to any particular concert scheme. I have chosen the composers because of their broadly representative capacity. And they must stand for a numerous epigonoi whose names make up our concert lists : say, Couperin, Rameau, and Haydn in the first group; Schubert in the sec- ond ; Mendelssohn and Rubinstein in the third. It would not be respectful to the memory of Liszt were I to give him the associates with whom in my opinion he stands ; that matter may be held in abeyance. The instruments for which the first group of writers down to Haydn and Mozart wrote, were the immediate pre- cursors of the pianoforte the clavi- chord, spinet, or virginal, and harpsi- chord. The last was the concert instrument, and stood in the same rela- tionship to the others that the grand pianoforte of to-day stands to the up- right and square. The clavichord was At a Pianoforte Recital generally the medium for the compos- er's private communings with his muse, because of its superiority over its fel- lows in expressive power; but it gave forth only a tiny tinkle and was inca- pable of stirring effects beyond those which sprang from pure emotionality. The tone was produced by a blow against the string, delivered by a bit of brass set in the farther end of the key. The action was that of a direct lever, and the bit of brass, which was called the tangent, also acted as a bridge and measured off the segment of string whose vibration produced the desired tone. It was therefore necessary to keep the key pressed down so long as it was desired that the tone should sound, a fact which must be kept in mind if one would understand the shortcomings as well as the advantages of the instru- ment compared with the spinet or harp- sichord. It also furnishes one explana- tion of the greater lyricism of Bach's music compared with that of his con- temporaries. By gently rocking the hand while the key was down, a tremu- lous motion could be communicated to 169 CHAP. VI. The Clavi- chord. ' Bebung. " CHAP. VI. Quilled in- struments. How to Listen to Music the string, which not only prolonged the tone appreciably but gave it an expres- sive effect somewhat analogous to the vibrato of a violinist. The Germans called this effect Bebung, the French Balancement, and it was indicated by a row of dots under a short slur written over the note. It is to the special fond- ness which Bach felt for the clavichord that we owe, to a great extent, the can- tabile style of his music, its many- voicedness and its high emotionality. The spinet, virginal, and harpsichord were quilled instruments, the tone of which was produced by snapping the strings by means of plectra made of quill, or some other flexible substance, set in the upper end of a bit of wood called the jack, which rested on the far- ther end of the key and moved through a slot in the sounding-board. When the key was pressed down, the jack moved upward past the string which was caught and twanged by the plec- trum. The blow of the clavichord tan- gent could be graduated like that of the pianoforte hammer, but the quills of the other instruments always plucked the At a Pianoforte Recital strings with the same force, so that me- chanical devices, such as a swell-box, similar in principle to that of the or- gan, coupling in octaves, doubling the strings, etc., had to be resorted to for variety of dynamic effects. The char- acter of tone thus produced determined the character of the music composed for these instruments to a great extent. The brevity of the sound made sus- tained melodies ineffective, and encour- aged the use of a great variety of em- bellishments and the spreading out of harmonies in the form of arpeggios. It is obvious enough that Bach, being one of those monumental geniuses that cast their prescient vision far into the future, refused to be bound by such me- chanical limitations. Though he wrote Clavier, he thought organ, which was his true interpretative medium, and so it happens that the greatest sonority and the broadest style that have been de- veloped in the pianoforte do not ex- haust the contents of such a composi- tion as the " Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue." The earliest music written for these CHAP. VI. Tone of the karfst- chord and spinet. Back's "Music ef thefut- 172 CHAP. VI. Scarlattfs sonatas. How to Listen to Music instruments music which does not en- ter into this study was but one remove from vocal music. It came through compositions written for the organ. Of Scarlatti's music the pieces most familiar are a Capriccio and Pastorale which Tausig rewrote for the piano- forte. They were called sonatas by their composer, but are not sonatas in the modern sense. Sonata means "sound-piece," and when the term came into music it signified only that the composition to which it was applied was written for instruments instead of voices. Scarlatti did a great deal to develop the technique of the harpsi- chord and the style of composing for it. His sonatas consist each of a single movement only, but in their structure they foreshadow the modern sonata form in having two contrasted themes, which are presented in a fixed key-rela- tionship. They are frequently full of grace and animation, but are as purely objective, formal, and soulless in their content as the other instrumental com- positions of the epoch to which they belong. At a Pianoforte Recital The most significant of the composi- tions of this period are the Suites, which because they make up so large a per- centage of Clavier literature (using the term to cover the pianoforte and its pred- ecessors), and because they pointed the way to the distinguishing form of the subsequent period, the sonata, are deserv- ing of more extended consideration. The suite is a set of pieces in the same key, but contrasted in character, based upon certain admired dance-forms. Originally it was a set of dances and nothing more, but in the hands of the composers the dances underwent many modifications, some of them to the obvious detriment of their national or other distinguish- ing characteristics. The suite came into fashion about the middle of the seventeenth century and was also called Sonata da Camera and Balletto in Italy, and, later, Partita in France. In its fun- damental form it embraced four move- ments: I. Allemande. II. Courante. III. Sarabande. IV. Gigue. To these four were sometimes added other dances the Gavotte, Passepied, Branle, Min- uet, Bourr6e, etc. but the rule was that CHAP. VI. The suite. Its history andform. 174 CHAP. VI. The bond between the movements. The Allemandt. How to Listen to Music they should be introduced between the Sarabande and the Gigue. Sometimes also the set was introduced by a Prelude or an Overture. Identity of key was the only external tie between the vari- ous members of the suite, but the com- posers sought to establish an artistic unity by elaborating the sentiments for which the dance-forms seemed to offer a vehicle, and presenting them in agree- able contrast, besides enriching the primitive structure with new material. The suites of Bach and Handel are the high-water mark in this style of com- position, but it would be difficult to find the original characteristics of the dances in their settings. It must suffice us briefly to indicate the characteristics of the principal forms. The Allemande, as its name indicates, was a dance of supposedly German origin. For that reason the German composers, when it came to them from France, where the suite had its origin, treated it with great partiality. It is in moderate tempo, common time, and made up of two periods of eight meas- ures, both of which are repeated. It At a Pianoforte Recital 1 75 begins with an upbeat, and its metre, to use the terms of prosody, is iambic. The following specimen from Mer- senne's " Harmonic Universelle," 1636, well displays its characteristics : i/&(b X? if r r ~^~\ r " ' r r j r i CHAP. VI. Iambics in music and poetry. =1 - r* i ' ' i i i i i i 1 ' ' i i 1 i i i P r ^ r~i M rj : n : r^pr ^ r rn | 1 1 1 p 1 jHf-i M 1 [= j._r- r ^-f-p^^p-f^^ \ \ \ nT f ' * r j tip f g gJcrHI ! i M p - 1 i 77 T 7~ F ^fl Robert Burns's familiar iambics, " Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Boon, How can ye bloom sae fair ? How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae fu' o' care ! " might serve to keep the rhythmical characteristics of the Allemande in mind were it not for the arbitrary changes made by the composers already hinted at. As it is, we frequently find the stately movement of the old dance CHAP. VI. The Courante, How to Listen to Music broken up into elaborate, but always quietly flowing, ornamentation, as indi- cated in the following excerpt from the third of Bach's English suites: ,~, IJ W-^-j * u=*. etc. The Courante, or Corrente (" Teach lavoltas high and swift corantos," says Shakespeare), is a French dance which was extremely popular in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries a polite dance, like the minuet. It was in triple time, and its movement was bright and brisk, a merry energy being imparted to the measure by the prevailing figure, a dotted quarter-note, an eighth, and a quarter in a measure, as illustrated in the following excerpt also from Mersenne : At a Pianoforte Recital The suite composers varied the move- ment greatly, however, and the Italian Corrente consists chiefly of rapid run- ning passages. The Sarabande was also in triple time, but its movement was slow and stately. In Spain, whence it was derived, it was sung to the accompaniment of casta- nets, a fact which in itself suffices to in- dicate that it was originally of a lively character, and took on its solemnity in the hands of the later composers. Han- del found the Sarabande a peculiarly admirable vehicle for his inspirations, and one of the finest examples extant figures in the triumphal music of his "Almira," composed in 1704: m ** "- / r j. 177 CHAP. VI. Sarabande. A Sara- bande by Handel. J7 8 CHAP. VI. How to Listen to Music ...... 4, .j- shn ij D j--j ] & <=*-* 3- i r~ r~ j ^ r- r . y=fe I / 1 dtm. D. O. 1 3E Seven years after the production of " Almira," Handel recurred to this beautiful instrumental piece, and out of it constructed the exquisite lament be- ginning " Lascia ch'io pianga " in his opera " Rinaldo." Great Britain's contribution to the Suite was the final Gigue, which is our jolly and familiar friend the jig, and in all probability is Keltic in origin. It is, as everybody knows, a rollicking measure in 6-8, 12-8, or 4-4 time, with twelve triplet quavers in a measure, and needs no description. It remained a favorite with composers until far into the eighteenth century. Shakespeare proclaims its exuberant lustiness when At a Pianoforte Recital he makes Sir Toby Belch protest that had he Sir Andrew's gifts his " very walk should be a jig." Of the other dances incorporated into the suite, two are deserving of special mention be- cause of their influence on the music of to-day the Minuet, which is the par- ent of the symphonic scherzo, and the Gavotte, whose fascinating movement is frequently heard in latter-day operet- tas. The Minuet is a French dance, and came from Poitou. Louis XIV. danced it to Lully's music for the first time at Versailles in 1653, and it soon became the most popular of court and society dances, holding its own down to the beginning of the nineteenth cen- tury. It was long called the Queen of Dances, and there is no one who has grieved to see the departure of gal- lantry and grace from our ball-rooms but will wish to see Her Gracious Maj- esty restored to her throne. The rnu- sic of the minuet is in 3-4 time, and of stately movement. The Gavotte is a lively dance-measure in common time, beginning, as a rule, on the third beat. Its origin has been traced to the moun- 179 CHAP. VI. The Minuet. The Gavotte. i8o CHAP. VI. Technique of the Clavier players. How to Listen to Music tain people of the Dauphine" called Gavots whence its name. The transference of this music to the modern pianoforte has effected a vast change in the manner of its perform- ance. In the period under considera- tion emotionality, which is considered the loftiest attribute of pianoforte playing to-day, was lacking, except in the case of such masters of the clavichord as the great Bach and his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, who inherited his father's preference for that instru- ment over the harpsichord and piano- forte. Tastefulness in the giving out of the melody, distinctness of enuncia- tion, correctness of phrasing, nimble- ness and lightness of finger, summed up practically all that there was in virtuoso- ship. Intellectuality and digital skill were the essential factors. Beauty of tone through which feeling and tem- perament speak now was the product of the maker of the instrument, except again in the case of the clavichord, in which it may have been largely the creation of the player. It is, therefore, not surprising that the first revolution At a Pianoforte Recital in technique of which we hear was ac- complished by Bach, who, the better to bring out the characteristics of his poly- phonic style, made use of the thumb, till then considered almost a useless member of the hand in playing, and bent his fingers, so that their move- ments might be more unconstrained. Of the varieties of touch, which play such a role in pianoforte pedagogics to-day, nothing was known. Only on the clavichord was a blow delivered directly against the string, and, as has already been said, only on that instru- ment was the dynamic shading regu- lated by the touch. Practically, the same touch was used on the organ and the stringed instruments with key-board. When we find written praise of the old players it always goes to the fluency and lightness of their fingering. Han- del was greatly esteemed as a harpsi- chord player, and seems to have in- vented a position of the hand like Bach's, or to have copied it from that master. Forkel tells us the movement of Bach's fingers was so slight as to be scarcely noticeable ; the position of his CHAP. VI. Change in technique. BacKs touch. l82 CHAP. VI. Handel's playing. Scarlatti's style. How to Listen to Music hands remained unchanged throughout, and the rest of his body motionless. Speaking of Handel's harpsichord play- ing, Burney says that his fingers "seemed to grow to the keys. They were so curved and compact when he played that no motion, and scarcely the fingers themselves, could be discovered." Scarlatti's significance lies chiefly in an extension of the technique of his time so as to give greater individuality to the instrument. He indulged freely in brill- iant passages and figures which some- times call for a crossing of the hands, also in leaps of over an octave, repetition of a note by different fingers, broken chords in contrary motion, and other devices which prefigure modern piano- forte music. That Scarlatti also pointed the way to the modern sonata, I have already said. The history of the sonata, as the term is now understood, ends with Beethoven. Many sonatas have been written since the last one of that great master, but not a word has been added to his proclamation. He stands, therefore, as a perfect exemplar of the At a Pianoforte Recital second period in the scheme which we have adopted for the study of piano- forte music and playing. In a general way a sonata may be described as a composition of four movements, con- trasted in mood, tempo, sentiment, and character, but connected by that spirit- ual bond of which mention was made in our study of the symphony. In short, a sonata is a symphony for a solo instru- ment. When it came into being it was little else than a convenient formula for the expression of musical beauty. Haydn, who perfected it on its formal side, left it that and nothing more. Mozart poured the vessel full of beauty, but Beethoven breathed the breath of a new life into it. An old writer tells us of Haydn that he was wont to say that the whole art of composing consisted in taking up a subject and pursuing it. Having invented his theme, he would begin by choosing the keys through which he wished to make it pass. " His exquisite feeling gave him a perfect knowl- edge of the greater or less degree of effect which 183 CHAP. VI. The sonata. Haydn, 184 CHAP. VI. Beethoven. Mozart's manner of playing. How to Listen to Music one chord produces in succeeding another, and he afterward imagined a little romance which might furnish him with sentiments and colors." Beethoven began with the sentiment and worked from it outwardly, modify- ing the form when it became necessary to do so, in order to obtain complete and perfect utterance. He made spirit rise superior to matter. This must be borne in mind when comparing the technique of the previous period with that of which I have made Beethoven the representative. In the little that we are privileged to read of Mozart's style of playing, we see only a reflex of the players who went before him, sav- ing as it was permeated by the warmth which went out from his own genial personality. His manipulation of the keys had the quietness and smoothness that were praised in Bach and Handel. "Delicacy and taste," says Kullak, "with his lifting of the entire technique to the spiritual aspi- ration of the idea, elevate him as a virtuoso to a height unanimously conceded by the public, by con- noisseurs, and by Artists capable of judging. Cle- menti declared that he had never heard any one At a Pianoforte Recital play so soulfully and charmfully as Mozart ; Dit- tersdorf finds art and taste combined in his play- ing ; Haydn asseverated with tears that Mozart's playing he could never forget, for it touched the heart. His staccato is said to have possessed a peculiarly brilliant charm." The period of C. P. E. Bach, Haydn, and Mozart is that in which the piano- forte gradually replaced its predeces- sors, and the first real pianist was Mo- zart's contemporary and rival, Muzio dementi. His chief significance lies in his influence as a technician, for he opened the way to the modern style of play with its greater sonority and ca- pacity for expression. Under him pas- sage playing became an entirely new thing ; deftness, lightness, and fluency were replaced by stupendous virtuoso- ship, which rested, nevertheless, on a full and solid tone. He is said to have been able to trill in octaves with one hand. He was necessary for the adequate in- terpretation of Beethoven, whose music is likely to be best understood by those who know that he, too, was a superb pianoforte player, fully up to the re- quirements which his last sonatas make '85 CHAP. VI. dementi. Beethoven as a fianist. i86 CHAP. VI. Beethoven's technique. Expression supreme. How to Listen to Music upon technical skill as well as intellect- ual and emotional gifts. Czerny, who was a pupil of Beethoven, has preserved a fuller account of that great composer's art as a player than we have of any of his predecessors. He de- scribes his technique as tremendous, bet- ter than that of any virtuoso of his day. He was remarkably deft in connecting the full chords, in which he delighted, without the use of the pedal. His man- ner at the instrument was composed and quiet. He sat erect, without movement of the upper body, and only when his deafness compelled him to do so, in order to hear his own music, did he con- tract a habit of leaning forward. With an evident appreciation of the necessi- ties of old-time music he had a great admiration for clean fingering, especi- ally in fugue playing, and he objected to the use of Cramer's studies in the in- struction of his nephew by Czerny be- cause they led to what he called a " sticky " style of play, and failed to bring out crisp staccatos and a light touch. But it was upon expression that he insisted most of all when he taught. At a Pianoforte Recital More than anyone else it was Beet- hoven who brought music back to the purpose which it had in its first rude state, when it sprang unvolitionally from the heart and lips of primitive man. It became again a vehicle for the feelings. As such it was accepted by the romantic composers to whom he belongs as father, seer, and prophet, quite as intimately as he belongs to the classicists by reason of his adherence to form as an essential in music. To his contemporaries he appears as an image- breaker, but to the clearer vision of to- day he stands an unshakable barrier to lawless iconoclasm. Says Sir George Grove, quoting Mr. Edward Dannreu- ther, in the passages within the inverted commas : "That he was no wild radical altering for the mere pleasure of alteration, or in the mere search for originality, is evident from the length of time during which he abstained from publishing, or even composing works of pretension, and from the like- ness which his early works possess to those of his predecessors. He began naturally with the forms which were in use in his days, and his alteration of them grew very gradually with the necessities of his expression. The form of the sonata is ' the i8 7 CHAP. VI. Music and emotion. Beethoven ci Roman- ticist. i88 CHAP. VI. Schumann and Chopin. How to Listen to Music transparent veil through which Beethoven seems to have looked at all music.' And the good points of that form he retained to the last the ' triune sym- metry of exposition, illustration, and repetition,' which that admirable method allowed and enforced but he permitted himself a much greater liberty than his predecessors had done in the relationship of the keys of the different movements, and parts of movements, and in the proportion of the clauses and sections with which he built them up. In other words, he was less bound by the forms and musical rules, and more swayed by the thought which he had to express, and the directions which that thought took in his mind." It is scarcely to be wondered at that when men like Schumann and Chopin felt the full force of the new evangel which Beethoven had preached, they proceeded to carry the formal side of poetic expression, its vehicle, into re- gions unthought of before their time. The few old forms had now to give way to a large variety. In their work they proceeded from points that were far apart Schumann's was literary, Cho- pin's political. In one respect the lists of their pieces which appear most fre- quently on recital programmes seem to hark back to the suites of two centu- At a Pianoforte Recital ries ago they are sets of short composi- tions grouped, either by the composer (as is the case with Schumann) or by the performer (as is the case with Chopin in the hands of Mr. Paderew- ski). Such fantastic musical miniatures as Schumann's " Carnaval " and " Papil- lons" are eminently characteristic of the composer's intellectual and emotional nature, which in his university days had fallen under the spell of literary ro- manticism. While ostensibly studying jurispru- dence at Heidelberg, Schumann de- voted seven hours a day to the piano- forte and several to Jean Paul. It was this writer who moulded not only Schumann's literary style in his early years, but also gave the bent which his creative activity in music took at the outset. To say little, but vaguely hint at much, was the rule which he adopted ; to remain sententious in expression, but give the freest and most daring flight to his imagination, and spurn the con- ventional limitations set by rule and cus- tom, his ambition. Such fanciful and symbolical titles as " Flower, Fruit, and 189 CHAP. VI. Jean Paul's influence. 190 CHAP. VI. Schumann's inspira- tions. Chopin's music. How to Listen to Music Thorn Pieces," "Titan," etc., which Jean Paul adopted for his singular mixt- ures of tale, rhapsody, philosophy, and satire, were bound to find an imitator in so ardent an apostle as young Schu- mann, and, therefore, we have such com- positions as " Papillons," " Carnaval," " Kreisleriana," " Phantasiestiicke," and the rest. Almost always, it may be said, the pieces which make them up were composed under the poetical and emotional impulses derived from liter- ature, then grouped and named. To understand their poetic contents this must be known. Chopin's fancy, on the other hand, found stimulation in the charm which, for him, lay in the tone of the piano- forte itself (to which he added a new loveliness by his manner of writing), as well as in the rhythms of the popular dances of his country. These dances he not only beautified as the old suite writers beautified their forms, but he utilized them as vessels which he filled with feeling, not all of which need be accepted as healthy, though much of it is. As to his titles, " Preludes " is At a Pianoforte Recital purely an arbitrary designation for compositions which are equally indefi- nite in form and character; Niecks compares them very aptly to a portfolio full of drawings " in all stages of ad- vancement finished and unfinished, complete and incomplete compositions, sketches and mere memoranda, all mixed indiscriminately together." So, too, they appeared to Schumann: " They are sketches, commencements of studies, or, if you will, ruins, single eagle-wings, all strangely mixed to- gether." Nevertheless some of them are marvellous soul-pictures. The " fitudes " are studies intended to develop the technique of the pianoforte in the line of the composer's discoveries, his method of playing extended arpeg- gios, contrasted rhythms, progressions in thirds and octaves, etc., but still they breathe poetry and sometimes passion. Nocturne is an arbitrary, but expres- sive, title for a short composition of a dreamy, contemplative, or even elegiac, character. In many of his nocturnes Chopin is the adored sentimentalist of boarding - school misses. There is 191 CHAP. VI. Preludes. Etudes. Nocturnes. 192 CHAP. VI. The Polonaise. The Mazurka. How to Listen to Music poppy in them and seductive poison for which Niecks sensibly prescribes Bach and Beethoven as antidotes. The term ballad has been greatly abused in litera- ture, and in music is intrinsically un- meaning. Chopin's four Ballades have one feature in common they are writ- ten in triple time ; and they are among his finest inspirations. Chopin's dances are conventionalized, and do not all speak the idiom of the peo- ple who created their forms, but their original characteristics ought to be known. The Polonaise was the stately dance of the Polish nobility, more a march or procession than a dance, full of gravity and courtliness, with an im- posing and majestic rhythm in triple time that tends to emphasize the second beat of the measure, frequently synco- pating it and accentuating the second half of the first beat : etc. J. National color comes out more clearly in his Mazurkas. Unlike the Polonaise this was the dance of the common peo- At a Pianoforte Recital pie, and even as conventionalized and poetically refined by Chopin there is still in the Mazurka some of the rude vigor which lies in its propulsive rhythm : etc. J J J|orJ3J. The Krakowiak (French Cracovienne, Mr. Paderewski has a fascinating speci- men in his " Humoresques de Concert," op. 14) is a popular dance indigenous to the district of Cracow, whence its name. Its rhythmical elements are these : |JJJJ|JJJJ jand/ J J* In the music of this period there is noticeable a careful attention on the part of the composers to the peculiari- ties of the pianoforte. No music, save perhaps that of Liszt, is so idiomatic. Frequently in Beethoven the content of the music seems too great for the medium of expression ; we feel that the thought would have had better expres- sion had the master used the orchestra instead of the pianoforte. We may CHAP. VI. The Krakowiak. Idiomatic music. 194 CHAP. VI. Content higher than idiom. How to Listen to Music well pause a moment to observe the development of the instrument and its technique from then till now, but as condemnation has already been pro- nounced against excessive admiration of technique for technique's sake, so now I would first utter a warning against our appreciation of the newer charm. " Idiomatic of the pianoforte " is a good enough phrase and a useful, indeed, but there is danger that if abused it may bring something like discredit to the instrument. It would be a pity if music, which contains the loftiest attributes of artistic beauty, should fail of apprecia- tion simply because it had been ob- served that the pianoforte is not the most convenient, appropriate, or effec- tive vehicle for its publication a pity for the pianoforte, for therein would lie an exemplification of its imperfec- tion. So, too, it would be a pity if the opinion should gain ground that music which had been clearly designed to meet the nature of the instrument was for that reason good pianoforte music, i.e., "idiomatic" music, irrespective of its content. At a Pianoforte Recital In Beethoven's day the pianoforte was still a feeble instrument compared with the grand of to-day. Its capac- ities were but beginning to be ap- preciated. Beethoven had to seek and invent effects which now are known to every amateur. The instrument which the English manufacturer Broad- wood presented to him in 1817 had a compass of six octaves, and was a whole octave wider in range than Mozart's pianoforte. In 1793 dementi extended the key-board to five and a half oc- taves ; six and a half octaves were reached in 1811, and seven in 1851. Since 1851 three notes have been added without material improvement to the instrument. This extension of compass, however, is far from being the most important improvement since the clas- sic period. The growth in power, so- nority, and tonal brilliancy has been much more marked, and of it Liszt made striking use. Very significant, too, in their relation to the development of the music, were the invention and improvement of the pedals. The shifting pedal was invented CHAP. VI. Develop- ment of the pianoforte. The Pedals. 196 CHAP. VI. Shifting pedal. Damper pedal. How to Listen to Music by a Viennese maker named Stein, who first applied it to an instrument which he named " Saiten-harmonika." Before then soft effects were obtained by inter- posing a bit of felt between the hammers and the strings, as may still be seen in old square pianofortes. The shifting pedal, or soft pedal as it is popularly called, moves the key-board and action so that the hammer strikes only one or two of the unison strings, leaving the other to vibrate sympathetically. Beet- hoven was the first to appreciate the possibilities of this effect (see the slow movement of his concerto in G major and his last sonatas), but after him came Schumann and Chopin, and brought pedal manipulation to perfection, especi- ally that of the damper pedal. This is popularly called the loud pedal, and the vulgarest use to which it can be put is to multiply the volume of tone. It was Chopin who showed its capacity for sustaining a melody and enriching the color effects by releasing the strings from the dampers and utilizing the ethe- real sounds which rise from the strings when they vibrate sympathetically. At a Pianoforte Recital It is no part of my purpose to indulge in criticism of composers, but some- thing of the kind is made unavoidable by the position assigned to Liszt in our pianoforte recitals. He is relied upon to provide a scintillant close. The pianists, then, even those who are his professed admirers, are responsible if he is set down in our scheme as the exemplar of the technical cult. Tech- nique having its unquestioned value, we are bound to admire the marvellous gifts which enabled Liszt practically to sum up all the possibilities of pianoforte mechanism in its present stage of con- struction, but we need not look with unalloyed gratitude upon his influence as a composer. There were, I fear, two sides to Liszt's artistic character as well as his moral. I believe he had in him a touch of charlatanism as well as a mag- nificent amount of artistic sincerity just as he blended a laxity of moral ideas with a profound religious mysti- cism. It would have been strange in- deed, growing up as he did in the whited sepulchre of Parisian salon life, if he had not accustomed himself to 1 97 CHAP. VI. Liszt. Adttal character. 198 How to Listen to Music CHAP. VI. Liszt's Hungarian. Rhapsodies. sacrifice a little of the soul of art for the sake of vainglory, and a little of its poetry and feeling to make display of those dazzling digital feats which he in- vented. But, be it said to his honor, he never played mountebank tricks in the presence of the masters whom he re- vered. It was when he approached the music of Beethoven that he sank all thought of self and rose to a peerless height as an interpreting artist. Liszt's place as a composer of original music has not yet been determined, but as a transcriber of the music of others the givers of pianoforte recitals keep him always before us. The showy Hungarian Rhapsodies with which the majority of pianoforte recitals end are, however, more than mere transcrip- tions. They are constructed out of the folk-songs of the Magyars, and in their treatment the composer has frequently reproduced the characteristic perform- ances which they receive at the hands of the Gypsies from whom he learned them. This fact and the belief to which Liszt gave currency in his book " Des Bohmiens et de leur musique en Hon- At a Pianoforte Recital grie " have given rise to the almost uni- versal belief that the Magyar melodies are of Gypsy origin. This belief is er- roneous. The Gypsies have for centu- ries been the musical practitioners of Hungary, but they are not the compos- ers of the music of the Magyars, though they have put a marked impress not only on the melodies, but also on popu- lar taste. The Hungarian folk-songs are a perfect reflex of the national char- acter of the Magyars, and some have been traced back centuries in their lit- erature. Though their most marked melodic peculiarity, the frequent use of a minor scale containing one or even two superfluous seconds, as thus : may be said to belong to Oriental mu- sic as a whole (and the Magyars are Orientals), the songs have a rhythmical peculiarity which is a direct product of the Magyar language. This peculiarity consists of a figure in which the empha- sis is shifted from the strong to the 199 CHAP. VI. Gypsies and Magyars. Magyar scales. 2OO CHAP. VI. The Scotch snap. Gypsy epics. How to Listen to Music weak part by making the first take only a fraction of the time of the second, thus : n. s j. In Scottish music this rhythm also plays a prominent part, but there it falls into the beginning of a measure, whereas in Hungarian it forms the mid- dle or end. The result is an effect of syncopation which is peculiarly force- ful. There is an indubitable Oriental relic in the profuse embellishments which the Gypsies weave around the Hungarian melodies when playing them ; but the fact that they thrust the same embellishments upon Spanish and Russian music, in fact upon all the mu- sic which they play, indicates plainly enough that the impulse to do so is na- tive to them, and has nothing to do with the national taste of the countries for which they provide music. Liszt's con- fessed purpose in writing the Hunga- rian Rhapsodies was to create what he called " Gypsy epics." He had gath- ered a large number of the melodies without a definite purpose, and was At a Pianoforte Recital 20 1 pondering what to do with them, when CHAP. it occurred to him that VI. " These fragmentary, scattered melodies were the wandering, floating, nebulous part of a great whole, that they fully answered the conditions for the production of an harmonious unity which would comprehend the very flower of their essential prop- erties, their most unique beauties," and " might be united in one homogeneous body, a complete work, its divisions to be so arranged that each song would form at once a whole and a part, which might be severed from the rest and be examined and enjoyed by and for itself ; but which would, none the less, belong to the whole through the close affinity of subject matter, the similarity of its inner nature and unity in development." * The basis of Liszt's Rhapsodies being thus distinctively national, he has in a manner imitated in their character and tempo the dual character of the Hunga- rian national dance, the Czardas, which The consists of two movements, a Lassu, or Czardas. slow movement, followed by a Friss. These alternate at the will of the dancer, who gives a sign to the band when he wishes to change from one to the other. * Weitzmann, *' Geschichte des Clavierspiels," p. 197. 202 Instability of taste. VII At the Opera POPULAR taste in respect of the opera is curiously unstable. It is surprising that the canons of judgment touching it have such feeble and fleeting authority in view of the popularity of the art-form and the despotic hold which it has had on fashion for two centuries. No form of popular entertainment is acclaimed so enthusiastically as a new opera by an admired composer; none forgotten so quickly. For the spoken drama we go back to Shakespeare in the vernacular, and, on occasions, we revive the masterpieces of the Attic poets who flourished more than two millenniums ago ; but for opera we are bounded by less than a century, unless occasional performances of Gluck's " Orfeo " and Mozart's " Figaro," " Don Giovanni," At the Opera and " Magic Flute " be counted as sub- missions to popular demand, which, un- happily, we know they are not. There is no one who has attended the opera for twenty-five years who might not be- wail the loss of operas from the current list which appealed to his younger fancy as works of real loveliness. In the sea- son of 1895-96 the audiences at the Met- ropolitan Opera House in New York heard twenty-six different operas. The oldest were Gluck's " Orfeo " and Beet- hoven's " Fidelio," which had a single experimental representation each. After them in seniority came Donizetti's " Lu- cia di Lammermoor," which is sixty-one years old, and has overpassed the aver- age age of " immortal " operas by from ten to twenty years, assuming Dr. Hans- lick's calculation to be correct. The composers who wrote operas for the generation that witnessed Adelina Patti's ctibut at the Academy of Music, in New York, were Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Meyerbeer. Thanks to his progressive genius, Verdi is still alive on the stage, though nine-tenths of the operas which made his fame and fortune 203 CHAP. VII. The age of operas. Decima- tion of the operatic list. 204 CHAP. VII. Depend- ence on singers. An un- stable art-form. How to Listen to Music have already sunk into oblivion ; Mey- erbeer, too, is still a more or less potent factor with his " Huguenots," which, like " Lucia," has endured from ten to twenty years longer than the average " immortal ; " but the continued exist- ence of Bellini and Donizetti seems to be as closely bound up with that of two or three singers as was Meleager's life with the burning billet which his mother snatched from the flames. So far as the people of London and New York are concerned whether or not they shall hear Donizetti more, rests with Mes- dames Patti and Melba, for Donizetti spells " Lucia; " Bellini pleads piteously in " Sonnambula," but only Madame Nevada will play the mediator between him and our stiff-necked generation. Opera is a mixed art-form and has ever been, and perhaps must ever be, in a state of flux, subject to the changes of taste in music, the drama, singing, act- ing, and even politics and morals ; but in one particular the public has shown no change for a century and a half, and it is not quite clear why this has not given greater fixity to popular appre- At the Opera elation. The people of to-day are as blithely indifferent to the fact that their operas are all presented in a foreign tongue as they were two centuries ago in England. The influence of Wagner has done much to stimulate a serious attitude toward the lyric drama, but this is seldom found outside of the audi- ences in attendance on German repre- sentations. The devotees of the Latin exotic, whether it blend French or Italian (or both, as is the rule in New York and London) with its melodic perfume, enjoy the music and ignore the words with the same nonchalance that Addison made merry over. Addison proves to have been a poor prophet. The great-grand- children of his contemporaries are not at all curious to know " why their fore- fathers used to sit together like an audi- ence of foreigners in their own coun- try, and to hear whole plays acted be- fore them in a tongue which they did not understand." What their great- grandparents did was also done by their grandparents and their parents, and may be done by their children, grand- children, and great-grandchildren after 205 CHAP. VII. Careless- ness of the public. Addison's criticism. 206 CHAP. VII. Indiffer- ence to the words Past and fresent. How to Listen to Music them, unless Englishmen and Americans shall take to heart the lessons which Wagner essayed to teach his own peo- ple. For the present, though we have abolished many absurdities which grew out of a conception of opera that was based upon the simple, sensuous delight which singing gave, the charm of music is still supreme, and we can sit out an opera without giving a thought to the words uttered by the singers. The popular attitude is fairly represented by that of Boileau, when he went to hear " Atys " and requested the box-keeper to put him in a place where he could hear Lully's music, which he loved, but not Quinault's words, which he despised. It is interesting to note that in this respect the condition of affairs in Lon- don in the early part of the eighteenth century, which seemed so monstrously diverting to Addison, was like that in Hamburg in the latter part of the seven- teenth, and in New York at the end of the nineteenth. There were three years in London when Italian and English were mixed in the operatic representa- tions. At the Opera " The king or hero of the play generally spoke in Italian and his slaves answered him in English ; the lover frequently made his court and gained the heart of his princess in a language which she did not understand." At length, says Addison, the audience got tired of understanding half the opera, " and to ease themselves entirely of the fatigue of thinking, so ordered it that the whole opera was performed in an unknown tongue." There is this difference, however, be- tween New York and London and Ham- burg at the period referred to : while the operatic ragout was compounded of Ital- ian and English in London, Italian and German in Hamburg, the ingredients here are Italian, French, and German, with no admixture of the vernacular. Strictly speaking, our case is more des- perate than that of our foreign predeces- sors, for the development of the lyric dra- ma has lifted its verbal and dramatic ele- ments into a position not dreamed of two hundred years ago. We might endure with equanimity to hear the chorus sing " La soupe aux choux se fait dans la marmite, Dans la marmite on fait la soupe aux choux " 207 CHAP. VII. Polyglot opera. Perversions of texts. "Robert le Diable." 208 CHAP. VII. 'Fidelia. ' How to Listen to Music at the beginning of " Robert le Diable," as tradition says used to be done in Paris, but we surely ought to rise in rebellion when the chorus of guards change their muttered comments on Pizarro's furious aria in "Fidelio" from to " Er spricht von Tod und Wunde ! " " Er spricht vom todten Hunde / " as is a prevalent custom among the ir- reverent choristers of Germany. Addison confesses that he was often afraid when seeing the Italian perform- ers " chattering in the vehemence of ac- tion," that they were calling the audi- ence names and abusing them among themselves. I do not know how to measure the morals and manners of our Italian singers against those of Addi- son's time, but I do know that many of the things which they say before our very faces for their own diversion are not complimentary to our intelligence. I hope I have a proper respect for Mr. Gilbert's "bashful young potato," but I do not think it right while we are sympathizing with the gentle passion of At the Opera Siebel to have his representative bring an offering of flowers and, looking us full in the face, sing : " Le palate d'amor, O carifior ! " It isn't respectful, and it enables the cynics of to-day to say, with the poetas- ters and fiddlers of Addison's day, that nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense. Operatic words were once merely stalking-horses for tunes, but that day is past. We used to smile at Brignoli's " Ah si! ah si! ah si/" which did service for any text in high passages ; but if a composer should, for the accommodation of his music, change the wording of the creed into " Credo, non credo, non credo in unum Deum," as Porpora once did, we should all cry out for his excommunication. As an art-form the opera has fre- quently been criticised as an absurdity, and it is doubtless owing to such a con- viction that many people are equally in- different to the language employed and the sentiments embodied in the words. Even so serious a writer as George 209 CHAP. VII. 'Faust." Porpora s "Credo," 21O CHAP. VII. Are words un- essential f "II Trova- tore." How to Listen to Music Hogarth does not hesitate in his " Me- moirs of the Opera" to defend this care- less attitude. " The words of an air are of small importance to the comprehension of the business of the piece," he says ; " they merely express a sentiment, a reflection, a feeling ; it is quite enough if their general import is known, and this may most frequently be gathered from the situation, aided by the character and ex- pression of the music." I, myself, have known an ardent lover of music who resolutely refused to look into a libretto because, being of a lively and imaginative temperament, she preferred to construct her own plots and put her own words in the mouths of the singers. Though a con- stant attendant on the opera, she never knew what " II Trovatore " was about, which, perhaps, is not so surprising after all. Doubtless the play which she had fashioned in her own mind was more comprehensible than Verdi's med- ley of burnt children and asthmatic dance rhythms. Madame de Stae'l went so far as to condemn the German com- posers because they " follow too closely the sense of the words," whereas the At the Opera Italians, " who are truly the musicians of nature, make the air and the words conform to each other only in a general way." Now the present generation has wit- nessed a revolution in operatic ideas which has lifted the poetical elements upon a plane not dreamed of when opera was merely a concert in cos- tume, and it is no longer tolerable that it be set down as an absurdity. On the contrary, I believe that, looked at in the light thrown upon it by the history of the drama and the origin of music, the opera is completely justified as an art-form, and, in its best estate, is an entirely reasonable and highly ef- fective entertainment. No mean place, surely, should be given in the estima- tion of the judicious to an art-form which aims in an equal degree to charm the senses, stimulate the emotions, and persuade the reason. This, the opera, or, perhaps I would better say the lyric drama, can be made to do as effi- ciently as the Greek tragedy did it, so far as the differences between the civili- zations of ancient Hellas and the nine- 211 CHAP. VII. The opera defended as an art- form. 212 CHAP. VII. The classic tragedy. Genesis of the Greek plays. How to Listen to Music teenth century will permit. The Greek tragedy was the original opera, a fact which literary study would alone have made plain even if it were not clearly of record that it was an effort to restore the ancient plays in their integrity that gave rise to the Italian opera three cen- turies ago. Every school-boy knows now that the Hellenic plays were simply the final evolution of the dances with which the people of Hellas celebrated their re- ligious festivals. At the rustic Bac- chic feasts of the early Greeks they sang hymns in honor of the wine-god, and danced on goat-skins filled with wine. He who held his footing best on the treacherous surface carried home the wine as a reward. They contended in athletic games and songs for a goat, and from this circumstance scholars have surmised we have the word trag- edy, which means " goat-song." The choric songs and dances grew in variety and beauty. Finally, somebody (tradi- tion preserves the name of Thespis as the man) conceived the idea of intro- ducing a simple dialogue between the At the Opera strophes of the choric song. Generally this dialogue took the form of a recital of some story concerning the god whose festival was celebrating. Then when the dithyrambic song returned, it would either continue the narrative or com- ment on its ethical features. The merry-makers, or worshippers, as one chooses to look upon them, mani- fested their enthusiasm by imitating the appearance as well as the actions of the god and his votaries. They smeared themselves with wine-lees, colored their bodies black and red, put on masks, covered themselves with the skins of beasts, enacted the parts of nymphs, fauns, and satyrs, those creatures of primitive fancy, half men and half goats, who were the representatives of natural sensuality untrammelled by convention- ality. Next, somebody (Archilocus) sought to heighten the effect of the story or the dialogue by consorting it with in- strumental music ; and thus we find the germ of what musicians not news- paper writers call melodrama, in the very early stages of the drama's de- 21 3 CHAP. VII. Mimicry and dress. Melodrama. 214 CHAP. VII. Factors in ancient tragedy. Operatic elements. How to Listen to Music velopment. Gradually these simple rustic entertainments were taken in hand by the poets who drew on the legendary stores of the people for sub- jects, branching out from the doings of gods to the doings of god-like men, the popular heroes, and developed out of them the masterpieces of dramatic poetry which are still studied with amazement, admiration, and love. The dramatic factors which have been mustered in this outline are these : 1. The choric dance and song with a religious purpose. 2. Recitation and dialogue. 3. Characterization by means of imi- tative gestures pantomime, that is and dress. 4. Instrumental music to accompany the song and also the action. All these have been retained in the modern opera, which may be said to differ chiefly from its ancient model in the more important and more in- dependent part which music plays in it. It will appear later in our study that the importance and inde- pendence achieved by one of the ele- At the Opera ments consorted in a work by nature composite, led the way to a revolution having for its object a restoration of something like the ancient drama. In this ancient drama and its precursor, the dithyrambic song and dance, is found a union of words and music which scientific investigation proves to be not only entirely natural but inevitable. In a general way most people are in the habit of speaking of music as the language of the emotions. The ele- ments which enter into vocal music (of necessity the earliest form of music) are unvolitional products which we must conceive as co-existent with the beginnings of human life. Do they then antedate articulate speech ? Did man sing before he spoke ? I shall not quarrel with anybody who chooses so to put it. Think a moment about the mechan- ism of vocal music. Something occurs to stir up your emotional nature a great joy, a great sorrow, a great fear; instantly, involuntarily, in spite of your efforts to prevent it, maybe, muscular actions set in which proclaim the emo- 215 CHAP. VII. Words and music united. Physiology of singing. 2l6 CHAP. VII. Herbert Spencer's laws. How to Listen to Music tion which fills you. The muscles and organs of the chest, throat, and mouth contract or relax in obedience to the emotion. You utter a cry, and accord- ing to the state of feeling which you are in, that cry has pitch, quality (timbre the singing teachers call it), and dy- namic intensity. You attempt to speak, and no matter what the words you utter, the emotional drama playing on the stage of your heart is divulged. The man of science observes the phe- nomenon and formulates its laws, say- ing, for instance, as Herbert Spencer has said: "All feelings are muscular stimuli ;" and, " Variations of voice are the physiological results of variations of feeling." It was the recognition of this extraordinary intimacy between the voice and the emotions which brought music all the world over into the service of religion, and provided the phenomenon, which we may still observe if we be but minded to do so, that mere tones have sometimes the sanctity of words, and must as little be changed as ancient hymns and prayers. The end of the sixteenth century saw At the Opera a coterie of scholars, art-lovers, and amateur musicians in Florence who de- sired to re-establish the relationship which they knew had once existed be- tween music and the drama. The re- vival of learning had made the classic tragedy dear to their hearts. They knew that in the olden time trag- edy, of which the words only have come down to us, had been musical throughout. In their efforts to bring about an intimacy between dramatic poetry and music they found that noth- ing could be done with the polite mu- sic of their time. It was the period of highest development in ecclesiastical music, and the climax of artificiality. The professional musicians to whom they turned scorned their theories and would not help them ; so they fell back on their own resources. They cut the Gordian knot and invented a new style of music, which they fancied was like that used by the ancients in their stage- plays. They abolished polyphony, or contrapuntal music, in everything ex- cept their choruses, and created a sort of musical declamation, using variations of 21 7 CHAP. VII. Invention of Italian opera. Musical declama- tion. 2l8 CHAP. VII. The music of the Flor- entine re- formers. The solo style, har- mony, and declama- tion. How to Listen to Music pitch and harmonies built up on a sim- ple bass to give emotional life to their words. In choosing their tones they were guided by observation of the vocal inflections produced in speech under stress of feeling, showing thus a recog- nition of the law which Herbert Spen- cer formulated two hundred and fifty years later. The music which these men pro- duced and admired sounds to us mo- notonous in the extreme, for what little melody there is in it is in the choruses, which they failed to emancipate from the ecclesiastical art, and which for that reason were as stiff and inelastic as the music which in their controversies with the musicians they condemned with vigor. Yet within their invention there lay an entirely new world of music. Out of it came the solo style, a song with instrumental accompaniment of a kind unknown to the church composers. Out of it, too, came harmony as an in- dependent factor in music instead of an accident of the simultaneous flow of melodies ; and out of it came declama- tion, which drew its life from the text. At the Opera The recitatives which they wrote had the fluency of spoken words and were not retarded by melodic forms. The new style did not accomplish what its creators hoped for, but it gave birth to Italian opera and emancipated music in a large measure from the formalism that dominated it so long as it belonged exclusively to the composers for the church. Detailed study of the progress of opera from the first efforts of the Floren- tines to Wagner's dramas would carry us too far afield to serve the purposes of this book. My aim is to fix the attitude proper, or at least useful, to the opera audience of to-day. The excursion into history which I have made has but the purpose to give the art-form a reputable standing in court, and to explain the motives which prompted the revolution accomplished by Wagner. As to the elements which compose an opera, only those need particular attention which are illustrated in the current repertory. Unlike the opera audiences of two centuries ago, we are not required to distinguish carefully between the vari- 219 CHAP. VII. Fluent rec- itatives. Predeces- sors of Wagner. 220 CHAP. VII. Old oper- atic dis- tinctions. Opera tuffa. Opera seria. Recitative. How to Listen to Music ous styles of opera in order to under- stand why the composer adopted a par- ticular manner and certain fixed forms in each. The old distinctions between Opera seria, Opera buffa, and Opera semi- seria perplex us no more. Only because of the perversion of the time-honored Italian epithet buffa by the French mon- grel Ope'ra bouffe is it necessary to ex- plain that the classic Opera buffa was a polite comedy, whose musical integu- ment did not of necessity differ from that of Opera seria except in this that the dialogue was carried on in " dry " recitative (recitative secco, or parlante) in the former, and a more measured decla- mation with orchestral accompaniment (recitative stromentatd) in the latter. So far as subject-matter was concerned the classic distinction between tragedy and comedy served. The dry recitative was supported by chords played by a double- bass and harpsichord or pianoforte. In London, at a later period, for reasons of doubtful validity, these chords came to be played on a double-bass and violon- cello, as we occasionally hear them to- day. At the Opera 221 Shakespeare has taught us to accept CHAP. an infusion of the comic element in VII. plays of a serious cast, but Shake- speare was an innovator, a Romanticist, and, measured by old standards, his dramas are irregular. The Italians, who followed classic models, for a rea- son amply explained by the genesis of the art-form, rigorously excluded com- edy from serious operas, except as in- termezzi, until they hit upon a third classification, which they called Opera Opera sem- semiserza, in which a serious subject iseria. was enlivened with comic episodes. Our dramatic tastes being grounded in Shakespeare, we should be inclined to put down " Don Giovanni " as a ' ' Don Gio- musical tragedy ; or, haunted by the vanni." Italian terminology, as Opera semiseria ; but Mozart calls it Opera buff a, more in deference to the librettist's work, I fancy, than his own, for, as I have suggested elsewhere,* the musician's * " But no real student can have studied the score deep- ly, or Kstened discriminatingly to a good performance, without discovering that there is a tremendous chasm be- tween the conventional aims of the Italian poet in the book of the opera and the work which emerged from the 222 CHAP. VII. An Optra tufa. How to Listen to Music imagination in the fire of composition went far beyond the conventional fancy of the librettist in the finale of that most wonderful work. It is well to remember that " Don Giovanni " is an Opera buffa when watching the buffooneries of Leporello, composer's profound imagination. Da Ponte contem- plated a dramma giocoso ; Mozart humored him until his imagination came within the shadow cast before by the catastrophe, and then he transformed the poet's comedy into a tragedy of crushing power. The climax of Da Ponte's ideal is reached in a picture of the dissolute Don wrestling in idle desperation with a host of spec- tacular devils, and finally disappearing through a trap, while fire bursts out on all sides, the thunders roll, and Leporello gazes on the scene, crouched in a comic atti- tude of terror, under the table. Such a picture satisfied the tastes of the public of his time, and that public found nothing incongruous in a return to the scene im- mediately afterward of all the characters save the repro- bate, who had gone to his reward, to hear a description of the catastrophe from the buffoon under the table, and platitudinously to moralize that the perfidious wretch, having been stored away safely in the realm of Pluto and Proserpine, nothing remained for them to do ex- cept to raise their voices in the words of the " old song," " Questo i il fin di chi fa mal : E dei perfidi la morte Alia vita i sempre ugual." " New York Musical Season, 1889-90." At the Opera for that alone justifies them. The French have Grand Optra, in which everything is sung to orchestra accom- paniment, there being neither spoken dialogue nor dry recitative, and Optra comique, in which the dialogue is spoken. The latter corresponds with the honor- able German term Singspiel, and one will not go far astray if he associate both terms with the English operas of Wal- lace and Balfe, save that the French and Germans have generally been more deft in bridging over the chasm between speech and song than their British rivals. Optra comique has another char- acteristic, its denouement must be happy. Formerly the Theatre national de I'Optra- Comique in Paris was devoted exclu- sively to Optra comique as thus defined (it has since abolished the distinction and Grand Optra may be heard there now), and, therefore, when Ambroise Thomas brought forward his " Mig- non," Goethe's story was found to be changed so that Mignon recovered and was married to Wilhelm Meister at the end. The Germans are seldom pleased with the transformations which their 223 CHAP. VII. French Grand Opira. Optra mique. "Mignon.' 224 CHAP. VII. Faust:' 1 Grosse Opcr. Comic opera and operetta. How to Listen to Music literary masterpieces are forced to un- dergo at the hands of French librettists. They still refuse to call Gounod's " Faust " by that name ; if you wish to hear it in Germany you must go to the theatre when " Margarethe " is per- formed. Naturally they fell indig- nantly afoul of " Mignon," and to pla- cate them we have a second finale, a denouement allemand, provided by the authors, in which Mignon dies as she ought. Of course the Grosse Oper of the Germans is the French Grand Optra and the English grand opera but all the English terms are ambiguous, and everything that is done in Covent Gar- den in London or the Metropolitan Opera House in New York is set down as " grand opera," just as the vilest imi- tations of the French vaudevilles or Eng- lish farces with music are called " comic operas." In its best estate, say in the delightful works of Gilbert and Sullivan, what is designated as comic opera ought to be called operetta, which is a piece in which the forms of grand opera are imitated, or travestied, the dialogue is At the Opera spoken, and the purpose of the play is to satirize a popular folly. Only in method, agencies, and scope does such an oper- etta (the examples of Gilbert and Sulli- van are in mind) differ from comedy in its best conception, as a dramatic com- position which aims to " chastise manners with a smile " (" Ridendo castigat mores"']. Its present degeneracy, as illustrated in the Optra bonffe of the French and the concoctions of the would-be imitators of Gilbert and Sullivan, exemplifies lit- tle else than a pursuit far into the depths of the method suggested by a friend to one of Lully's imitators who had ex- pressed a fear that a ballet written, but not yet performed, would fail. " You must lengthen the dances and shorten the ladies' skirts," he said. The Ger- mans make another distinction based on the subject chosen for the story. Spohr's " Jessonda," Weber's " Frei- schutz," " Oberon," and " Euryanthe," Marschner's " Vampyr," " Templer und Jiidin," and " Hans Heiling " are "Ro- mantic" operas. The significance of this classification in operatic literature may be learned from an effort which I 225 CHAP. VII. Opira bouffe. Romantic operas. 226 CHAP. VII. Modern designa- tions. German opera and Wagner. How to Listen to Music have made in another chapter to dis- cuss the terms Classic and Romantic as applied to music. Briefly stated, the operas mentioned are put in a class by themselves (and their imitations with them) because their plots were drawn from the romantic legends of the Middle Ages, in which the institutions of chiv- alry, fairy lore, and supernaturalism play a large part. These distinctions we meet in reading about music. As I have intimated, we do not concern ourselves much with them now. In New York and London the people speak of Italian, English, and German opera, referring generally to the language employed in the perform- ance. But there is also in the use of the terms an underlying recognition of differences in ideals of performance. As all operas sung in the regular seasons at Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera House are popularly spoken of as Italian operas, so German opera popu- larly means Wagner's lyric dramas, in the first instance, and a style of perform- ance which grew out of Wagner's in- fluence in the second. As compared At the Opera with Italian opera, in which the princi- pal singers are all and the ensemble noth- ing, it means, mayhap, inferior vocalists but better actors in the principal parts, a superior orchestra and chorus, and a more conscientious effort on the part of conductor, stage manager, and ar- tists, from first to last, to lift the gen- eral effect above the conventional level which has prevailed for centuries in the Italian opera houses. In terminology, as well as in artistic aim, Wagner's lyric dramas round out a cycle that began with the works of the Florentine reformers of the sixteenth century. Wagner called his later operas Musikdramcn, wherefore he was sound- ly abused and ridiculed by his critics. When the Italian opera first appeared it was called Dramma per musica, or Melodramma, or Tragedia per musica, all of which terms stand in Italian for the conception that Musikdrama stands for in German. The new thing had been .in existence for half a century, and was already on the road to the degraded level on which we shall find it when we come to the subject of operatic singing, 227 CHAP. VII. Wagner's "Musik- drama." 228 CHAP. VII. Modern Italian ter- minology. Recitative. How to Listen to Music before it came to be called Opera in musica, of which " opera " is an abbrevi- ation. Now it is to be observed that the composers of all countries, having been taught to believe that the dra- matic contents of an opera have some significance, are abandoning the vague term " opera " and following Wagner in his adoption of the principles underly- ing the original terminology. Verdi called his " Aida " an Opera in quattro atti, but his " Otello " he Designated a lyric drama (Dramma lirico), his " Falstaff " a lyric comedy (Commedia lirica), and his example is followed by the younger Italian composers, such as Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and Puccini. In the majority of the operas of the current list the vocal element illustrates an amalgamation of the archaic recita- tive and aria. The dry form of rec- itative is met with now only in a few of the operas which date back to the last century or the early years of the present. " Le Nozze di Figaro," " Don Giovanni," and " II Barbiere di Siviglia" are the most familiar works in which it At the Opera is employed, and in the second of these it is used only by the bearers of the comedy element. The dissolute Don chatters glibly in it with Zerlina, but when Donna Anna and Don Ottavio converse, it is in the recitativo stromen- tato. In both forms recitative is the vehicle for promoting the action of the play, preparing its incidents, and paving the way for the situations and emotional states which are exploited, promul- gated, and dwelt upon in the set music pieces. Its purpose is to maintain the play in an artificial atmosphere, so that the transition from dialogue to song may not be so abrupt as to disturb the mood of the listener. Of all the factors in an opera, the dry recitative is the most monotonous. It is not music, but speech about to break into music. Un- less one is familiar with Italian and desirous of following the conversation, which we have been often told is not necessary to the enjoyment of an opera, its everlasting use of stereotyped falls and intervallic turns, coupled with the strumming of arpeggioed cadences on 229 CHAP. VII. The object of recita- tive. 230 CHAP. VII. Defects of the recitative. What it can do. How to Listen to Music the pianoforte (or worse, double-bass and violoncello), makes it insufferably wearisome to the listener. Its expres- sion is fleeting only for the moment. It lacks the sustained tones and struct- ural symmetry essential to melody, and therefore it cannot sustain a mood. It makes efficient use of only one of the fundamental factors of vocal music variety of pitch and that in a rudi- mentary way. It is specifically a prod- uct of the Italian language, and best adapted to comedy in that language. Spoken with the vivacity native to it in the drama, dry recitative is an im- possibility in English. It is only in the more measured and sober gait proper to oratorio that we can listen to it in the vernacular without thought of incon- gruity. Yet it may be made most ad- mirably to preserve the characteristics of conversation, and even illustrate Spencer's theory of the origin of music. Witness the following brief example from " Don Giovanni," in which the vi- vacity of the master is admirably con- trasted with the lumpishness of his ser- vant: At the Opera 23 1 Sempre totto wee. DON GIOVANNI. LEPOKELLO. CHAP. VII. An exam- ple from Mozart. Its charac- teristics. 1/wLi. B S* P^J.UU^ U |- Le-po-rel - lo, o - ve tei? Son qui per Le - po - rel - lo, where are you ? I'm here and D. G. LEP. u u ' a * z ^* * F 5=3 dw - jrra - zi - a! e vo - i? Son-qui. Chi mote's the pit-y! and you. Sir? Here too. Who's ^ r D.G. m g ^ -p V _g g [.._ u . U u 9- U # #~^ mor - to, voi o, U vec - chiol Ohe do- been killed, yon or the old one ? What a ^. .^. LEP. P f g P U | n | . =f==lcz man - da da be tia 1 U vec - chin. Bra - vo ! ques - tion, you boo - by ! the old one. Bra - vo ! Of course it is left to the intelligence and taste of the singers to bring out the effects in a recitative, but in this speci- men it ought .to be noted how slug- gishly the disgruntled Leporello replies to the brisk question of Don Giovanni, how correct is the rhetorical pause in " you, or the old one ? " and the greater sobriety which comes over the manner of the Don as he thinks of the murder just committed, and replies, "the old one." I am strongly inclined to the belief 232 CHAP. VII. Recitative of some sort necessary. The speak- ing voice in opera. How to Listen to Music that in one form or the other, preferably the accompanied, recitative is a neces- sary integer in the operatic sum. That it is possible to accustom one's self to the change alternately from speech to song we know from the experiences made with German, French, and Eng- lish operas, but these were not true lyric dramas, but dramas with inci- dental music. To be a real lyric drama an opera ought to be musical through- out, the voice being maintained from beginning to end on an exalted plane. The tendency to drop into the speaking voice for the sake of dramatic effect shown by some tragic singers does not seem to me commendable. Wagner relates with enthusiasm how Madame Schroeder-Devrient in " Fidelio " was wont to give supreme emphasis to the phrase immediately preceding the trumpet signal in the dungeon scene ("Another step, and you are dead!"} by speaking the last word " with an awful accent of despair." He then comments : " The indescribable effect of this manifested itself to all like an agonizing plunge from one sphere into At the Opera another, and its sublimity consisted in this, that with lightning quickness a glimpse was given to us of the nature of both spheres, of which one was the ideal, the other the real." I have heard a similar effect produced by Herr Niemann and Madame Leh- mann, but could not convince myself that it was not an extremely venture- some experiment. Madame Schroeder- Devrient saw the beginning of the modern methods of dramatic expres- sion, and it is easy to believe that a sudden change like that so well de- fined by Wagner, made with her sweep- ing voice and accompanied by her plastic and powerful acting, was really thrilling; but, I fancy, nevertheless, that only Beethoven and the intensity of feeling which pervades the scene saved the audience from a disturbing sense of the incongruity of the performance. The development which has taken place in the recitative has not only as- sisted in elevating opera to the dignity of a lyric drama by saving us from al- ternate contemplation of the two spheres of ideality and reality, but has also made the factor itself an eloquent vehi- 2 33 CHAP. VII. Wagner and Schroeder- Devrient. Early forms. 234 CHAP. VII. The dia- logue of the Floren- tines. An ex- amplefrom Peri. How to Listen to Music cle of dramatic expression. Save that it had to forego the help of the instru- ments beyond a mere harmonic sup- port, the stilo rappresentativo, or musica parlante, as the Florentines called their musical dialogue, approached the sus- tained recitative which we hear in the oratorio and grand opera more closely than it did the recitativo secco. Ever and anon, already in the earliest works (the " Eurydice " of Rinuccini as com- posed by both Peri and Caccini) there are passages which sound like rudimen- tary melodies, but are charged with vital dramatic expression. Note the following phrase from Orpheus 's mono- logue on being left in the infernal re- gions by Venus, from Peri's opera, per- formed A.D. 1600, in honor of the marriage of Maria de' Medici to Henry IV. of France : E voi, deh per pie - to, del mio mar - ti re m Ohe nel mi - te - ro cor di - mo - rae -ter - no. La crt - ma - te al mio pian-to om bre d'in-fer - no! At the Opera Out of this style there grew within a decade something very near the arioso, and for all the purposes of our argu- ment we may accept the melodic de- vices by which Wagner carries on the dialogue of his operas as an uncircum- scribed arioso superimposed upon a foundation of orchestral harmony ; for example, Lohengriris address to the swan, Elsas account of her dream. The greater melodiousness of the recitative stromentato, and the aid of the orchestra when it began to assert itself as a factor of independent value, soon enabled this form of musical conversation to become a reflector of the changing moods and passions of the play, and thus the value of the aria, whether considered as a solo, or in its composite form as duet, trio, quartet, or ensemble, was lessened. The growth of the accompanied recita- tive naturally brought with it emanci- pation from the tyranny of the classical aria. Wagner's reform had nothing to do with that emancipation, which had been accomplished before him, but went, as we shall see presently, to a liberation of the composers from all 2 35 CHAP. VII. Develop- ment of the The aria supplanted. 236 How to Listen to Music CHAP. the formal dams which had clogged VII. the united flow of action and music. We should, however, even while admir- ing the achievements of modern com- posers in blending these elements (and I know of no more striking illustration than the scene of the fat knight's dis- comfiture in Ford's house in Verdi's " Falstaff ") bear in mind that while we may dream of perfect union between words and music, it is not always possi- Music and ble that action and music shall go hand action. in hand. Let me repeat what once I wrote in a review of Cornelius's opera, " Der Barbier von Bagdad : " * " After all, of the constituents of an opera, action, at least that form of it usually called incident, is most easily spared. Progress in feeling, develop- ment of the emotional element, is indeed essential to variety of musical utterance, but nevertheless all great operas have demonstrated that music is more potent and eloquent when proclaiming an emo- tional state than while seeking to depict progress toward such a state. Even in the dramas of Wag- ner the culminating musical moments are pre- dominantly lyrical, as witness the love -duet in '[Tristan,' the close of ' Das Rheingold,' Sieg- * " Review of the New York Musical Season, 1889- 9," P- 75- At the Opera mund's song, the love-duet, and Wotan's farewell in ' Die Walkiire,' the forest scene and final duet in ' Siegfried,' and the death of Siegfried in 'Die Gotterdammerung.' It is in the nature of music that this should be so. For the drama which plays on the stage of the heart, music is a more truthful language than speech ; but it can stimulate movement and prepare the mind for an incident better than it can accompany movement and incident. Yet music that has a high degree of emotional expressiveness, by diverting attention from externals to the play of passion within the breasts of the persons can sometimes make us for- get the paucity of incident in a play. ' Tristan und Isolde ' is a case in point. Practically, its out- ward action is summed up in each of its three acts by the same words : Preparation for a meeting of the ill-starred lovers ; the meeting. What is out- side of this is mere detail ; yet the effect of the tragedy upon a listener is that of a play surcharged with pregnant occurrence. It is the subtle al- chemy of music that transmutes the psychological action of the tragedy into dramatic incident." For those who hold such a view with me it will be impossible to condemn pieces of set forms in the lyric drama. Wagner still represents his art -work alone, but in the influence which he exerted upon contemporaneous com- posers in Italy and France, as well as 237 CHAP. VII. How music can replace incident. Set forms not to be condemned. 2 3 8 How to Listen to Music CHAP. VII. Wagner's influence. His or- chestra. Germany, he is quite as significant a figure as he is as the creator of the Musikdrama. The operas which are most popular in our Italian and French reper- tories are those which benefited by the liberation from formalism and the ex- altation of the dramatic idea which he preached and exemplified such works as Gounod's " Faust," Verdi's " Aida " and "Otello," and Bizet's " Carmen." With that emancipation there came, as was inevitable, new conceptions of the province of dramatic singing as well as new convictions touching the mission of the orchestra. The instruments in Wagner's latter-day works are quite as much as the singing actors the ex- positors of the dramatic idea, and in the works of the other men whom I have mentioned they speak a language which a century ago was known only to the orchestras of Gluck and Mozart with their comparatively lim- ited, yet eloquent, vocabulary. Coupled with praise for the wonderful art of Mesdames Patti and Melba (and I am glad to have lived in their generation, though they do not represent my ideal At the Opera 2 39 in dramatic singing), we are accustomed CHAP. to hear lamentations over the decay of VII. singing. I have intoned such jeremiads myself, and I do not believe that music is suffering from a greater want to-day than that of a more thorough train- ing for singers. I marvel when I read that Senesino sang cadences of fifty Vocal seconds' duration ; that Ferri with a feats. single breath could trill upon each note of two octaves, ascending and descend- ing, and that La Bastardella's art was equal to a perfect performance (perfect in the conception of her day) of a flour- ish like this : r r f f- r^F^T La Bastar- della's flourish. ^p ^ yj *^~ r-^gS? Ejjjjj 1 *j , ~ ~ , 1 ' ^ |J^ J !^*I|-J 240 CHAP. VII. Character of the op era a century and a half ago. How to Listen to Music MM=ggig^^ I marvel, I say, at the skill, the gifts, and the training which could accom- plish such feats, but I would not have them back again if they were to be em- ployed in the old service. When Sene- sino, Farinelli, Sassarelli, Ferri, and their tribe dominated the stage, it strutted with sexless Agamemnons and Caesars. Telemachus, Darius, Nero, Cato, Alex- ander, Scipio, and Hannibal ran around on the boards as languishing lovers, clad in humiliating disguises, singing woful arias to their mistress's eye- brows arias full of trills and scales and florid ornaments, but void of feeling as a problem in Euclid. Thanks very largely to German influences, the opera At the Opera is returning to its original purposes. Music is again become a means of dra- matic expression, and the singers who appeal to us most powerfully are those who are best able to make song subserve that purpose, and who to that end give to dramatic truthfulness, to effective elocution, and to action the attention which mere voice and beautiful utter- ance received in the period which is called the Golden Age of singing, but which was the Leaden Age of the lyric drama. For seventy years the people of New York, scarcely less favored than those of London, have heard nearly all the great singers of Europe. Let me talk about some of them, for I am trying to establish some ground on which my readers may stand when they try to form an estimate of the singing which they are privileged to hear in the opera houses of to-day. Madame Malibran was a member of the first Italian com- pany that ever sang here. Madame Cinti-Damoreau came in 1844, Bosio in 1849, Jenny Lind in 1850, Sontag in 1853, Grisi in 1854, La Grange in 1855, 241 CHAP. VII. Music and dramatic expression. Singers heard in New York. 2 4 2 CHAP. VII. Grisi. How to Listen to Music Frezzolini in 1857, Piccolomini in 1858, Nilsson in 1870, Lucca in 1872, Titiens in 1876, Gerster in 1878, and Sembrich in 1883. I omit the singers of the German opera as belonging to a different cate- gory. Adelina Patti was always with us until she made her European debut in 1 86 1, and remained abroad twenty years. Of the men who were the ar- tistic associates of these prime donne, mention may be made of Mario, Bene- detti, Corsi, Salvi, Ronconi, Formes, Brignoli, Amadeo, Coletti, and Cam- panini, none of whom, excepting Mario, was of first-class importance compared with the women singers. Nearly all of these singers, even those still living and remembered by the younger generation of to-day, exploited their gifts in the operas of Rossini, Bel- lini, Donizetti, the early Verdi, and Mey- erbeer. Grisi was acclaimed a great dramatic singer, and it is told of her that once in " Norma " she frightened the tenor who sang the part of Pollio by the fury of her acting. But measured by the standards of to-day, say that set by Calve's Carmen, it must have been a At the Opera CHAP. VII. "Jenny simple age that could be impressed by the tragic power of anyone acting the part of Bellini's Druidical priestess. The surmise is strengthened by the cir- cumstance that Madame Grisi created a sensation in " II Trovatore " by show- ing signs of agitation in the tower scene, walking about the stage during Man- ricos " Ah ! che la morte ognora" as if she would fain discover the part of the castle where her lover was imprisoned. The chief charm of Jenny Lind in the mem- ory of the older generation is the pa- thos with which she sang simple songs. Mendelssohn esteemed her greatly as a woman and artist, but he is quoted as once remarking to Chorley : " I cannot think why she always prefers to be in a bad theatre." Moscheles, recording his impressions of her in Meyerbeer's " Camp of Silesia " (now " L'Etoile du Nord"), reached the climax of his praise in the words : " Her song with the two concertante flutes is perhaps the most incredible feat in the way of bravura singing that can possibly be heard." She was credited, too, with fine powers as an actress; and that she possessed 2 43 244 CHAP. VII. Lilli Lehmann. Sontag. How to Listen to Music them can easily be believed, for few of the singers whom I have mentioned had so early and intimate an association with the theatre as she. Her repugnance to it in later life she attributed to a preju- dice inherited from her mother. A vastly different heritage is disclosed by Ma- dame Lehmann's devotion to the drama, a devotion almost akin to religion. I have known her to go into the scene-room of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and search for mimic stumps and rocks with which to fit out a scene in " Siegfried/' in which she was not even to appear. That, like her super- human work at rehearsals, was " for the good of the cause," as she expressed it. Most amiable are the memories that cluster around the name of Sontag, whose career came to a grievous close by her sudden death in Mexico in 1854. She was a German, and the early part of her artistic life was influenced by German ideals, but it is said that only in the music of Mozart and Weber, which aroused in her strong national emotion, did she sing dramatically. For the rest she used her light voice, At the Opera which had an extraordinary range, brill- iancy, and flexibility, very much as Patti and Melba use their voices to-day in mere unfeeling vocal display. " She had an extensive soprano voice," says Ho- garth ; " not remarkable for power, but clear, brill- iant, and singularly flexible ; a quality which seems to have led her (unlike most German singers in general) to cultivate the most florid style, and even to follow the bad example set by Catalan i, of seek- ing to convert her voice into an instrument, and to astonish the public by executing the violin variations on Rode's air and other things of that stamp." Madame La Grange had a voice of wide compass, which enabled her to sing contralto roles as well as soprano, but I have never heard her dramatic powers praised. As for Piccolomini, read of her where you will, you shall find that she was " charming." She was lovely to look upon, and her acting in soubrette parts was fascinating. Until Melba came Patti was for thirty years peer- less as a mere vocalist. She belongs, as did Piccolomini and Sontag, to the comic genre ; so did Sembrich and Gerster, the latter of whom never knew it. I well remember how indignant she 2 45 CHAP. VII. La Grange. Piccolo- mini. Adelina Patti. 246 CHAP. VII. Gerster. Lucca and Nilsson. Sembrich. How to Listen to Music became on one occasion, in her first American season, at a criticism which I wrote of \\erAmina in "La Sonnam- bula," a performance which remains among my loveliest and most fragrant recollections. I had made use of Cata- lani's remark concerning Sontag : " Son genre est petit, mats elle est unique dans son genre," and applied it to her style. She almost flew into a passion. " Mon genre est grand ! " said she, over and over again, while Dr. Gardini, her hus- band, tried to pacify her. " Come to see my Marguerite next season." Now, Gounod's Marguerite does not quite be- long to the heroic roles, though we can all remember how Lucca thrilled us by her intensity of action as well as of song, and how Madame Nilsson sent the blood out of our cheeks, though she did stride through the opera like a com- bination of the grande dame and Ary Scheffer's spirituelle pictures ; but such as it is, Madame Gerster achieved a success of interest only, and that be- cause of her strivings for originality. Sembrich and Gerster, when they were first heard in New York, had as much At the Opera execution as Melba or Nilsson ; but their voices had less emotional power than that of the latter, and less beauty than that of the former beauty of the kind that might be called classic, since it is in no way dependent on feeling. Patti, Lucca, Nilsson, and Gerster sang in the operas in which Melba and Eames sing to-day, and though the standard of judgment has been changed in the last twenty -five years by the growth of German ideals, I can find no growth of potency in the performances of the representative women of Italian and French opera, except in the case of Madame Calv6. For the development of dramatic ideals we must look to the singers of German affiliations or ante- cedents, Mesdames Materna, Lehmann, Sucher, and Nordica. As for the men of yesterday and to-day, no lover, I am sure, of the real lyric drama would give the declamatory warmth and gracefulness of pose and action which mark the performances of M. Jean de Reszke for a hundred of the high notes of Mario (for one of which, we are told, he was wont to reserve his powers 2 47 CHAP. VII. Melba and Eames. Calvt. Dramatic singers. %*l>b<' * -J - 1 *- * |k * ^ ^ *\ He trust - ed in God that he would de- h F m T= - * r r T^ r i* U fc ..".,_U U U J- y 1 liv - er Him, let him de - liv - er him 1 ; C r r~l ^ ^ =i= if he de - light in him. of boastfulness and conscious strength in a '*'*' e h^ x u r -g ^ 1 ^ ^^^-y- Let us break their bonds a - sun - der. and learn to admire as we ought to admire the declamatory strength and 274 CHAP. VIII. Medieeval music. Madrigals. How to Listen to Music truthfulness so common in Handel's choruses. There is very little cultivation of choral music of the early ecclesiastical type, and that little is limited to the Church and a few choirs specially organ- ized for its performance, like those that I have mentioned. This music is so foreign to the conceptions of the ordi- nary amateur, and exacts so much skill in the singing of the intervals, lacking the prop of modern tonality as it does, that it is seldom that an amateur body can be found equal to its performance. Moreover, it is nearly all of a solemn type. Its composers were churchmen, and when it was written nearly all that there was of artistic music was in the service of the Church. The secular music of the time consisted chiefly in Madrigals, which differed from ecclesi- astical music only in their texts, they be- ing generally erotic in sentiment. The choristers of to-day, no less than the public, find it difficult to appreciate them, because they are not melodic in the sense that most music is nowadays. In them the melody is not the privileged Choirs and Choral Music possession of the soprano voice. All the voices stand on an equal footing, and the composition consists of a weav- ing together, according to scientific rules, of a number of voices counter- point as it is called. Our hymn -tunes are homophonic, based upon a melody sung by one voice, for which the other voices provide the harmony. This style of music came into the Church through the German Reformation. Though Calvin was a lover of music he restricted its practice among his followers to unisonal psal- mody, that is, to certain tunes adapted to the versified psalms sung without ac- companiment of harmony voices. On the adoption of the Genevan psalter he gave the strictest injunction that neither its text nor its melodies were to be al- tered. " Those songs and melodies," said he, " which are composed for the mere pleasure of the ear, and all they call ornamental music, and songs for four parts, do not behoove the majesty of the Church, and cannot fail greatly to displease God." Under the influence of the German reformers music was in a very different 2 75 CHAP. VIII. Homopho- nic hymns. Calvin's restrictive influence. 276 CHAP. VIII. Luther and the German Church. A German mass. Secular tunes used. How to Listen to Music case. Luther was not only an amateur musician, he was also an ardent lover of scientific music. Josquin des Pres, a contemporary of Columbus, was his greatest admiration ; nevertheless, he was anxious from the beginning of his work of Church establishment to have the music of the German Church Ger- man in spirit and style. In 1525 he wrote : " I should like to have a German mass, and I am indeed at work on one ; but I am anxious that it shall be truly German in manner. I have no objec- tion to a translated Latin text and Latin notes ; but they are neither proper nor just (aber es lautet nicht artig noch rechtschaffen} ; text and notes, accent, melodies, and demeanor must come from our mother tongue and voice, else will it all be but a mimicry, like that of the apes." In the Church music of the time, com- posed, as I have described, by a scientific interweaving of voices, the composers had got into the habit of utilizing secu- lar melodies as the foundation on which to build their contrapuntal structures. I have no doubt that it was the spirit which speaks out of Luther's words which brought it to pass that in Ger- Choirs and Choral Music many contrapuntal music with popular melodies as foundations developed into the chorale, in which the melody and not the counterpoint was the essential thing. With the Lutheran Church came con- gregational singing ; with congrega- tional singing the need of a new style of composition, which should not only make the participation of the people in the singing possible, but should also stimulate them to sing by freeing the familiar melodies (the melodies of folk- songs) from the elaborate and ingenious, but soulless, counterpoint which fettered them. The Flemish masters, who were the musical law-givers, had been using sec- ular tunes for over a century, but only as stalking-horses for counterpoint ; and when the Germans began to use their tunes, they, too, buried them beyond rec- ognition in the contrapuntal mass. The people were invited to sing paraphrases of the psalms to familiar tunes, it is true, but the choir's polyphony went far to stifle the spirit of the melody. Soon the free spirit which I have repeatedly referred to as Romanticism, and which 2 77 CHAP. VIII. Congrega- tionalsing- ing. Counter- point. 2 7 8 CHAP. VIII. The first fongrega- tional hymns. The Church and con- servatism. How to Listen to Music was powerfully encouraged by the Ref- ormation, prompted a style of composi- tion in which the admired melody was lifted into relief. This could not be done until the new style of writing in- vented by the creators of the opera (see Chapter VII.) came in, but as early as 1568 Dr. Lucas Ostrander published fifty hymns and psalms with music so arranged " that the congregation may join in singing them." This, then, is in outline the story of the beginning of modern hymnology, and it is recalled to the patrons of choral concerts whenever in Bach's " Passion Music " or in Men- delssohn's "St. Paul" the choir sings one of the marvellous old hymns of the German Church. Choral music being bound up with the Church, it has naturally participated in the conservatism characteristic of the Church. The severe old style has sur- vived in the choral compositions of to- day, while instrumental music has grown to be almost a new thing within the cen- tury which is just closing. It is the se- vere style established by Bach, however, not that of Palestrina. In the Church Choirs and Choral Music compositions prior to Palestrina the emo- tional power of harmony was but little understood. The harmonies, indeed, were the accidents of the interweaving of melodies. Palestrina was among the first to feel the uplifting effect which might result from a simple sequence of pure consonant harmonies, and the three chords which open his famous " Stabat Mater" 5fe e Sta - bat ma - ter are a sign of his style as distinct in its way as the devices by means of which Wagner stamps his individuality on his phrases. His melodies, too, compared with the artificial motivi of his predeces- sors, are distinguished by grace, beauty, and expressiveness, while his command of aetherial effects, due to the manner in which the voices are combined, is abso- lutely without parallel from his day to this. Of the mystery of pure beauty he enjoyed a wonderful revelation, and has 279 CHAP. VIII. Harmony and emo- tion. Palestrina s " Stabat Mater" Character- istics of his music. 280 CHAP. VIII. Palestrintfs music not dramatic. A church- man. Effect of the Refor- mation. How to Listen to Music handed it down to us in such works as the " Stabat Mater," " Missa Papae Mar- celli," and the " Improperia." This music must not be listened to with the notion in mind of dramatic ex- pression such as we almost instinctively feel to-day. Palestrina does not seek to proclaim the varying sentiment which underlies his texts. That leads to indi- vidual interpretation and is foreign to the habits of churchmen in the old con- ception, when the individual was com- pletely resolved in the organization. He aimed to exalt the mystery of ihe service, not to bring it down to popular comprehension and make it a personal utterance. For such a design in music we must wait until after the Reforma- tion, when the ancient mysticism began to fall back before the demands of rea- son, when the idea of the sole and suffi- cient mediation of the Church lost some of its power in the face of the growing conviction of intimate personal relation- ship between man and his creator. Now idealism had to yield some of its dominion to realism, and a more rugged art grew up in place of that which had Choirs and Choral Music been so wonderfully sublimated by mys- ticism. It is in Bach, who came a century after Palestrina, that we find the most eloquent musical proclamation of the new regime, and it is in no sense dis- respectful to the great German master if we feel that the change in ideals was accompanied with a loss in sensuous charm, or pure aesthetic beauty. Effect has had to yield to idea. It is in the flow of the voices, the color effects which result from combination and registers, the clarity of the harmonies, the repose- fulness coming from conscious ease of utterance, the loveliness of each individ- ual part, and the spiritual exaltation of the whole that the aesthetic mystery of Palestrina's music lies. Like Palestrina, Bach is the culmina- tion of the musical practice of his time, but, unlike Palestrina, he is also the starting-point of a new development. With Bach the old contrapuntal art, now not vocal merely but instrumental also and mixed, reaches its climax, and the tendency sets in which leads to the highly complex and dramatic art of to- 28l CHAP. VIII. The source of beauty in Pales- trind's music. Bach. 282 CHAP. VIII. Bach a German Protestant. Church and indi- vidual. How to Listen to Music day. Palestrina's art is Roman ; the spirit of restfulness, of celestial calm, of supernatural revelation and supernal beauty broods over it. Bach's is Gothic rugged, massive, upward striving, hu- man. In Palestrina's music the voice that speaks is the voice of angels ; in Bach's it is the voice of men. Bach is the publisher of the truest, tenderest, deepest, and most individual religious feeling. His music is pecul- iarly a hymning of the religious sen- timent of Protestant Germany, where salvation is to be wrought out with fear and trembling by each individual through faith and works rather than the agency of even a divinely constituted Church. It reflects, with rare fidelity and clearness, the essential qualities of the German people their warm sympa- thy, profound compassion, fervent love, and sturdy faith. As the Church fell into the background and the individual came to the fore, religious music took on the dramatic character which we find in the " Passion Music " of Bach. Here the sufferings and death of the Saviour, none the less an ineffable mys- Choirs and Choral Music tery, are depicted as the most poignant experience of each individual believer, and with an ingenuousness that must forever provoke the wonder of those who are unable to enter into the Ger- man nature. The worshippers do not hesitate to say : " My Jesus, good- night ! " as they gather in fancy around His tomb and invoke sweet rest for His weary limbs. The difference between such a proclamation and the calm voice of the Church should be borne in mind when comparing the music of Palestrina with that of Bach ; also the vast strides made by music during the intervening century. Of Bach's music we have in the rep- ertories of our best choral societies a number of motets, church cantatas, a set- ting of the " Magnificat," and the great mass in B minor. The term Motet lacks somewhat of definiteness of the usage of composers. Originally it seems likely that it was a secular composition which the Netherland composers enlisted in the service of the Church by adapting it to Biblical and other religious texts. Then it was always unaccompanied. In 28 3 CHAP. VIII. Ingenuous- ness of feeling. The motet. 284 CHAP. VIII. Church cantatas. The "Pas- sions." How to Listen to Music the later Protestant motets the chorale came to play a great part ; the various stanzas of a hymn were given differ- ent settings, the foundation of each be- ing the hymn tune. These were inter- spersed with independent pieces, based on Biblical words. The Church Cantatas (Kirchencanta- teri) are larger services with orchestral accompaniment, which were written to conform to the various religious festi- vals and Sundays of the year ; each has for a fundamental subject the theme which is proper to the day. Again, a chorale provides the musical founda- tion. Words and melody are retained, but between the stanzas occur recita- tives and metrical airs, or ariosos, for solo voices in the nature of commenta- ries or reflections on the sentiment of the hymn or the gospel lesson for the day. The " Passions " are still more ex- tended, and were written for use in the Reformed Church in Holy Week. As an art-form they are unique, com- bining a number of elements and hav- ing all the apparatus of an oratorio Choirs and Choral Music plus the congregation, which took part in the performance by singing the hymns dispersed through the work. The service (for as a service, rather than as an oratorio, it must be treated) roots in the Miracle plays and Myste- ries of the Middle Ages, but its origin is even more remote, going back to the custom followed by the primitive Christians of making the reading of the story of the Passion a special service for Holy Week. In the Eastern Church it was introduced in a simple dramatic form as early as the fourth century A.D., the treatment being somewhat like the ancient tragedies, the text being intoned or chanted. In the Western Church, until the sixteenth century, the Passion was read in a way which gave the ser- vice one element which is found in Bach's works in an amplified form. Three deacons were employed, one to read (or rather chant to Gregorian melodies) the words of Christ, anoth- er to deliver the narrative in the words of the Evangelist, and a third to give the utterances and exclamations of the Apostles and people. This was 285 CHAP. VIII. Origin of the " Pas- sions. " Early Holy Week ser- vices. 286 CHAP. VIII. The ser- vice ampli- fied. BacKs settings. How to Listen to Music the Cantus Passionis Domini nostri Jesu Christe of the Church, and had so strong a hold upon the tastes of the people that it was preserved by Luther in the Reformed Church. Under this influence it was speedily amplified. The successive steps of the progress are not clear, but the choir seems to have first succeeded to the part formerly sung by the third deacon, and in some churches the whole Passion was sung antiphonally by two choirs. In the seventeenth century the intro- duction of recitatives and arias, distrib- uted among singers who represented the personages of sacred history, in- creased the dramatic element of the service which reached its climax in the " St. Matthew " setting by Bach. The chorales are supposed to have been in- troduced about 1704. Bach's " Passions " are the last that figure in musical his- tory. That " according to St. John " is performed occasionally in Germany, but it yields the palm of excellence to that " according to St. Matthew," which had its first performance on Good Fri- day, 1729, in Leipsic. It is in two parts, Choirs and Choral Music which were formerly separated by the sermon, and employs two choirs, each with its own orchestra, solo singers in all the classes of voices, and a harpsi- chord to accompany all the recitatives, except those of Jesus, which are distin- guished by being accompanied by the orchestral strings. In the nature of things passions, ora- torios, and their secular cousins, canta- tas, imply scenes and actions, and there- fore have a remote kinship with the lyric drama. The literary analogy which they suggest is the epic poem as contra- distinguished from the drama. While the drama presents incident, the oratorio relates, expounds, and celebrates, pre- senting it to the fancy through the ear instead of representing it to the eye. A great deal of looseness has crept into this department of music as into every other, and the various forms have been approaching each other until in some cases it is become difficult to say which term, opera or oratorio, ought to be ap- plied. Rubinstein's " sacred operas " are oratorios profusely interspersed with stage directions, many of which are im- 287 CHAP. VIII. Oratorio*. Sacred oferas. 288 CHAP. vm. Imjhumcf of the Oatrck G r igvt of the How to Listen to Music possible of scenic realization. Their whole purpose is to work upon the imagination of the listeners and thus open gate-ways for the music. Ever since its composition, Saint - Saens's " Samson and Delilah " has held a place in both theatre and concert-room. Liszt's "St. Elizabeth" has been found more effective when provided with pictorial accessories than without. The greater part of " Elijah " might be presented in dramatic form. Confusing and anomalous as these things are, they find their explanation in the circumstance that the oratorio never quite freed itself from the influence of the people's Church plays in which it had its beginning. As a distinct art- form it began in a mixture of artistic entertainment and religious worship provided in the early part of the six- teenth century by Filippo Neri (now a saint) for those who came for pious in- struction to his oratory (whence the name). The purpose of these entertain- ments being religious, the subjects were Biblical, and though the musical prog- ress from the beginning was along the Choirs and Choral Music line of the lyric drama, contempora- neous in origin with it, the music natu- rally developed into broader forms on the choral side, because music had to make up for the lack of pantomime, cos- tumes, and scenery. Hence we have not only the preponderance of choruses in the oratorio over recitative, arias, duets, trios, and so forth, but also the adherence in the choral part to the old manner of writing which made the ex- pansion of the choruses possible. Where the choruses left the field of pure reflec- tion and became narrative, as in " Israel in Egypt," or assumed a dramatic char- acter, as in the " Elijah," the composer found in them vehicles for descriptive and characteristic music, and so local color came into use. Characterization of the solo parts followed as a matter of course, an early illustration being found in the manner in which Bach lifted the words of Christ into prominence by sur- rounding them with the radiant halo which streams from the violin accom- paniment. In consequence the singer to whom was assigned the task of sing- ing the part of Jesus presented himself 289 CHAP. VIIL 290 CHAP. VIII. The chorus in opera and ora- torio. The Mass. How to Listen to Music to the fancy of the listeners as a repre- sentative of the historical personage as the Christ of the drama. The growth of the instrumental art here came admirably into play, and so it came to pass that opera and oratorio now have their musical elements of ex- pression in common, and differ only in their application of them opera fore- going the choral element to a great ex- tent as being a hindrance to action, and oratorio elevating it to make good the absence of scenery and action. While oratorios are biblical and legendary, cantatas deal with secular subjects and, in the form of dramatic ballads, find a delightful field in the world of romance and supernaturalism. Transferred from the Church to the concert-room, and considered as an art- form instead of the eucharistic office, the Mass has always made a strong ap- peal to composers, and half a dozen masterpieces of missal composition hold places in the concert lists of the singing societies. Notable among these are the Requiems of Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi, and the Solemn Mass in D by Choirs and Choral Music Beethoven. These works represent at one and the same time the climax of ac- complishment in the musical treatment and the secularization of the missal text. They are the natural outcome of the ex- pansion of the office by the introduction of the orchestra into the Church, the departure from the a capella style of writing, which could not be consorted with the orchestra, and the growth of a desire to enhance the pomp of great occasions in the Church by the produc- tion of masses specially composed for them. Under such circumstances the devotional purpose of the mass was lost in the artistic, and composers gave free reign to their powers, for which they found an ample stimulus in the missal text. The first effect, and the one which largely justifies the adherents of the old ecclesiastical style in their crusade against the Catholic Church music of to-day, was to make the masses senti- mental and operatic. So little regard was had for the sentiment of the words, so little respect for the solemnity of the sacrament, that more than a century ago 291 CHAP. VIII. Secular- ization of the Mass. Sentimen- tal masses. 292 CHAP. VIII. Mozart and the Mass. The masses for the dead. How to Listen to Music Mozart (whose masses are far from being models of religious expression) could say to Cantor Doles of a Gloria which the latter showed him, " Sist ja alles nix" and immediately sing the music to "Hoi's der Geier, das geht flink ! " which words, he said, went better. The liberty begotten by this license, though it tended to ruin the mass, considered strictly as a liturgical service, developed it musically. The masses for the dead were among the earliest to feel the spirit of the time, for in the sequence, Dies irce, they con- tained the dramatic element which the solemn mass lacked. The Kyrie, Credo, Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei are purely lyrical, and though the evolu- tionary movement ended in Beethoven conceiving certain portions (notably the Agnus Dei} in a dramatic sense, it was but natural that so far as tradition fixed the disposition and formal style of the various parts, it should not be dis- turbed. At an early date the compos- ers began to put forth their powers of description in the Dies ir&, however, and there is extant in a French mass an Choirs and Choral Music 2 93 amusing example of the length to which tone-painting in this music was carried by them. Gossec wrote a Re- quiem on the death of Mirabeau which became famous. The words, Quantus tremor est futurus, he set so that on each syllable there were repetitions, staccato, of a single tone, thus : CHAP. VIII. Gossec s Requiem. W *M Vh~1 1 1 4 1 4 4 44 4444 \J W-J-JL-J. -J.-J.jL..'- 'iLJ-S-i J5--5--S5- ' f}f) Quaii - - tus tre - - - mor, gji^F^^S j I* 1 H Jjp3=j==^-j=iL^ etc. p^F"^"^ i*^^7""i 1 1-5 1 r^ -rrr jljji '^iii aii^ M^B^^V f ^ j j j j ->i-|j-i^=^j j^ s ; ;^^ f-'ff rr_L, ^_jLLf_g_c-t-f This absurd stuttering Gossec de- signed to picture the terror inspired by the coming of the Judge at the last trumpet. The development of instrumentation placed a factor in the hands of these writers which they were not slow to utilize, especially in writing music for The orches- tra in the Mass. 294 How to Listen to Music CHAP. VIII. Beethoven and Berlioz. Berlioz's Requiem. the Dies ires, and how effectively Mo- zart used the orchestra in his Requiem it is not necessary to state. It is a safe assumption that Beethoven's Mass in D was largely instrumental in inspiring Berlioz to set the Requiem as he did. With Beethoven the dramatic idea is the controlling one, and so it is with Berlioz. Beethoven, while showing a reverence for the formulas of the Church, and respecting the tradition which gave the Kyrie a triple division and made fugue movements out of the phrases " Cum sane to spiritu in gloria Dei pair is Amen," " Et vitam venturi" and " Osanna in excelsis" nevertheless gave his com- position a scope which placed it beyond the apparatus of the Church, and filled it with a spirit that spurns the limita- tions of any creed of less breadth and universality than the grand Theism which affectionate communion with nat- ure had taught him. Berlioz, less religious, less reverential, but equally fired by the solemnity and majesty of the matter given into his hands, wrote a work in which he placed his highest conception of the awfulness Choirs and Choral Music of the Last Judgment and the emotions which are awakened by its contempla- tion. In respect of the instrumentation he showed a far greater audacity than Beethoven displayed even in the much- mooted trumpets and drums of the Ag- nus Dei, where he introduces the sounds of war to heighten the intensity of the prayer for peace, " Dona nobis pacem" This is talked about in the books as a bold innovation. It seems to have es- caped notice that the idea had occurred to Haydn twenty-four years before and been realized by him. In 1796 Haydn wrote a mass, " In Tempore Belli," the French army being at the time in Stey- ermark. He set the words, " Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi" to an accompan- iment of drums, "as if the enemy were already heard coming in the distance." He went farther than this in a Mass in D minor, when he accompanied the Be- nedictus with fanfares of trumpets. But all such timid ventures in the use of in- struments in the mass sink into utter insignificance when compared with Ber- lioz's apparatus in the Tuba mirum of his Requiem, which supplements the or- 295 CHAP. VIII. Dramatic effects in Haydn's masses. Berlioz's orchestra. 296 CHAP. VIII. How to Listen to Music dinary symphonic orchestra, some of its instruments already doubled, with four brass bands of eight or ten instruments each, sixteen extra drums, and a tam- tam. IX Musician, Critic, and Public I HAVE been told that there are many people who read the news- papers on the day after they have at- tended a concert or operatic represen- tation for the purpose of finding out whether or not the performance gave them proper or sufficient enjoyment. It would not be becoming in me to inquire too curiously into the truth of such a statement, and in view of a de- nunciation spoken in the introductory chapter of this book, I am not sure that it is not a piece of arrogance, or impu- dence, on my part to undertake in any way to justify any critical writing on the subject of music. Certain it is that some men who write about music for the newspapers believe, or affect to believe, that criticism is worthless, and 297 The news- papers and the public. 298 CHAP. IX. Relation- ship be- tween musician, critic, and public. How to Listen to Music I shall not escape the charge of incon- sistency, if, after I have condemned the blunders of literary men, who are lay- men in music, and separated the major- ity of professional writers on the art into pedants and rhapsodists, I never- theless venture to discuss the nature and value of musical criticism. Yet, surely, there must be a right and wrong in this as in every other thing, and just as surely the present structure of so- ciety, which rests on the newspaper, invites attention to the existing rela- tionship between musician, critic, and public as an important element in the question How to Listen to Music. As a condition precedent to the dis- cussion of this new element in the case, I lay down the proposition that the relationship between the three factors enumerated is so intimate and so strict that the world over they rise and fall together ; which means that where the people dwell who have reached the highest plane of excellence, there also are to be found the highest types of the musician and critic ; and that in the degree in which the three factors, Musician, Critic, and Public 299 which united make up the sum of mu- sical activity, labor harmoniously, con- scientiously, and unselfishly, each striv- ing to fulfil its mission, they advance music and further themselves, each bearing off an equal share of the good derived from the common effort. I have set the factors down in the order which they ordinarily occupy in popu- lar discussion and which symbolizes their proper attitude toward each other and the highest potency of their collab- oration. In this collaboration, as in so many others, it is conflict that brings life. Only by a surrender of their functions, one to the other, could the three apparently dissonant yet essen- tially harmonious factors be brought into a state of complacency ; but such complacency would mean stagnation. If the published judgment on composi- tions and performances could always be that of the exploiting musicians, that class, at least, would read the news- papers with fewer heart-burnings ; if the critics had a common mind and it were followed in concert - room and opera- house, they, as well as the musicians, CHAP. IX. The need and value of conflict. 300 CHAP IX. The critic an hh' tnaelite. How to Listen to Music would have need of fewer words of dis- placency and more of approbation ; if, finally, it were to be brought to pass that for the public nothing but amiable di- version should flow simultaneously from platform, stage, and press, then for the public would the millennium be come. A religious philosopher can transmute Adam's fall into a blessing, and we can recognize the wisdom of that dispensa- tion which put enmity between the seed of Jubal, who was the " father of all such as handle the harp and pipe," and the seed of Saul, who, I take it, is the first critic of record (and a vigorous one, too, for he accentuated his unfavorable opinion of a harper's harping with a javelin thrust). We are bound to recognize that be- tween the three factors there is, ever was, and ever shall be in sacula seeculorum an irrepressible conflict, and that in the nature of things the middle factor is the Ishmaelite whose hand is raised against everybody and against whom every- body's hand is raised. The compla- cency of the musician and the indiffer- ence, not to say ignorance, of the public Musician, Critic, and Public ordinarily combine to make them allies, and the critic is, therefore, placed be- tween two millstones, where he is vigor- ously rasped on both sides, and whence, being angular and hard of outer shell, he frequently requites the treatment received with complete and energetic reciprocity. Is he therefore to be pit- ied ? Not a bit ; for in this position he is performing one of the most significant and useful of his functions, and disclos- ing one of his most precious virtues. While musician and public must per- force remain in the positions in which they have been placed with relation to each other it must be apparent at half a glance that it would be the simplest matter in the world for the critic to ex- tricate himself from his predicament. He would only need to take his cue from the public, measuring his commen- dation by the intensity of their applause, his dispraise by their signs of displeas- ure, and all would be well with him. We all know this to be true, that people like to read that which flatters them by echoing their own thoughts. The more delightfully it is put by the writer the 301 CHAP. IX. The critit not to be pitied. How he might extricate himself. 3 02 CHAP. IX. The public like to be flattered. Thf critic generally outsfoken. How to Listen to Music more the reader is pleased, for has he not had the same idea? Are they not his ? Is not their appearance in a public print proof of the shrewdness and sound- ness of his judgment? Ruskin knows this foible in human nature and con- demns it. You may read in " Sesame and Lilies : " " Very ready we are to say of a book, ' How good this is that's exactly what I think ! ' But the right feeling is, ' How strange that is ! I never thought of that before, and yet I see it is true ; or if I do not now, I hope I shall, some day.' But whether thus submissively or not, at least be sure that you go at the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours. Judge it afterward if you think yourself qualified to do so, but ascertain it first." As a rule, however, the critic is not guilty of the wrong of speaking out the thought of others, but publishes what there is of his own mind, and this I laud in him as a virtue, which is praisewor- thy in the degree that it springs from loftiness of aim, depth of knowledge, and sincerity and unselfishness of purpose. Let us look a little into the views which our factors do and those which they ought to entertain of each other. Musician, Critic, and Public The utterances of musicians have long ago made it plain that as between the critic and the public the greater meas- ure of their respect and deference is given to the public. The critic is bound to recognize this as entirely natural ; his right of protest does not accrue until he can show that the deference is ignoble and injurious to good art. It is to the public that the musician appeals for the substantial signs of what is called success. This appeal to the jury instead of the judge is as characteristic of the conscientious composer who is sincere- ly convinced that he was sent into the world to widen the boundaries of art, as it is of the mere time-server who aims only at tickling the popular ear. The reason is obvious to a little close thinking : Ignorance is at once a safe- guard against and a promoter of con- servatism. This sounds like a paradox, but the rapid growth of Wagner's music in the admiration of the people of the United States might correctly be cited as a proof that the statement is true. Music like the concert fragments from Wagner's lyric dramas is accepted 303 CHAP. IX. Musician and public. The office of igno- rance. 34 CHAP. IX. Popularity of Wag- ner's music not a sign of intelli- gent appre- ciation. How to Listen to Music with promptitude and delight, because its elements are those which appeal most directly and forcibly to our sense- perception and those primitive tastes which are the most readily gratified by strong outlines and vivid colors. Their vigorous rhythms, wealth of color, and sonority would make these fragments far more impressive to a savage than the suave beauty of a symphony by Haydn ; yet do we not all know that while whole-hearted, intelligent enjoyment of a Haydn symphony is conditioned up- on a considerable degree of culture, an equally whole-hearted, intelligent ap- preciation of Wagner's music presup- poses a much wider range of sympathy, a much more extended view of the ca- pabilities of musical expression, a much keener discernment, and a much pro- founder susceptibility to the effects of harmonic progressions ? And is the conclusion not inevitable, therefore, that on the whole the ready acceptance of Wagner's music by a people is evi- dence that they are not sufficiently cult- ured to feel the force of that conserva- tism which made the triumph of Wag- Musician, Critic, and Public ner consequent on many years of agita- tion in musical Germany? In one case the appeal is elemental ; in the other spiritual. He who wishes to be in advance of his time does wisely in going to the people instead of the critics, just as the old fogy does whose music belongs to the time when sen- suous charm summed up its essence. There is a good deal of ambiguity about the stereotyped phrase " ahead of one's time." Rightly apprehended, great geniuses do live for the future rather than the present, but where the public have the vastness of appetite and scant- ness of taste peculiar to the ostrich, there it is impossible for a composer to be ahead of his time. It is only where the public are advanced to the stage of intelligent discrimination that a Ninth Symphony and a Nibelung Tetralogy are accepted slowly. Why the charlatan should profess to despise the critic and to pay homage only to the public scarcely needs an explanation. It is the critic who stands between him and the public he would victimize. Much of the disaffection be- CHAP. IX. ' ' Ahead of one s time." The charlatan. 306 How to Listen to Music CHAP. IX. Influenc- ing the critics. tween the concert-giver and the concert- reviewer arises from the unwillingness of the latter to enlist in a conspiracy to deceive and defraud the public. There is no need of mincing phrases here. The critics of the newspaper press are besieged daily with requests for notices of a complimentary character touching persons who have no honest standing in art. They are fawned on, truckled to, cajoled, subjected to the most seduc- tive influences, sometimes bribed with woman's smiles or manager's money and why ? To win their influence in favor of good art, think you ? No ; to feed vanity and greed. When a critic is found of sufficient self-respect and character to resist all appeals and to be proof against all temptations, who is quicker than the musician to cite against his opinion the applause of the public over whose gullibility and igno- rance, perchance, he made merry with the critic while trying to purchase his independence and honor ? It is only when musicians divide the question touching the rights and merits of public and critic that they seem able Musician, Critic, and Public to put a correct estimate upon the value of popular approval. At the last the best of them are willing, with Ferdi- nand Hiller, to look upon the public as an elemental power like the weather, which must be taken as it chances to come. With modern society resting upon the newspaper they might be willing to view the critic in the same light ; but this they will not do so long as they adhere to the notion that criti- cism belongs of right to the professional musician, and will eventually be handed over to him. As for the critic, he may recognize the naturalness and reason- ableness of a final resort for judgment to the factor for whose sake art is (i.e., the public), but he is not bound to admit its unfailing righteousness. Up- on him, so he be worthy of his office, weighs the duty of first determining whether the appeal is taken from a lofty purpose or a low one, and whether or not the favored tribunal is worthy to try the case. Those who show a will- ingness to accept low ideals cannot ex- act high ones. The influence of their applause is a thousand-fold more injuri- 37 CHAP. IX. The -public an ele- mental force. Critic and public. 3 o8 CHAP. IX. Schumann and popular approval Deprecia- tion of the critic. How to Listen to Music ous to art than the strictures of the most acrid critic. A musician of Schu- mann's mental and moral stature could recognize this and make it the basis of some of his most forcible aphorisms : " ' It pleased,' or ' It did not please,' say the peo- ple ; as if there were no higher purpose than to please the people." " The most difficult thing in the world to endure is the applause of fools ! " The belief professed by many musi- cians professed, not really held that the public can do no wrong, unquestion- ably grows out of a depreciation of the critic rather than an appreciation of the critical acumen of the masses. This de- preciation is due more to the concrete work of the critic (which is only too often deserving of condemnation) than to a denial of the good offices of crit- icism. This much should be said for the musician, who is more liable to be misunderstood and more powerless against misrepresentation than any other artist. A line should be drawn between mere expression of opinion and criticism. It has been recognized for Musician, Critic, and Public ages you may find it plainly set forth in Quintilian and Cicero that in the long run the public are neither bad judges nor good critics. The distinc- tion suggests a thought about the differ- ence in value between a popular and a critical judgment. The former is, in the nature of things, ill considered and fleeting. It is the product of a momen- tary gratification or disappointment. In a much greater degree than a judgment based on principle and precedent, such as a critic's ought to be, it is a judgment swayed by that variable thing called fashion " Qual pikm al vento" But if this be so we ought plainly to understand the duties and obligations of the critic ; perhaps it is because there is much misapprehension on this point that critics' writings have fallen under their own condemnation. I conceive that the first, if not the sole, office of the critic should be to guide public judg- ment. It is not for him to instruct the musician in his art. If this were always borne in mind by writers for the press it might help to soften the asperity felt by the musician toward the critic ; and 309 CHAP. IX. Value of public opinion. Duties of the critic. 310 CHAP. IX. The musi- cian s duty toward the critic. The critic should steady pub- lic judg- ment. How to Listen to Music possibly the musician might then be persuaded to perform his first office tow- ard the critic, which is to hold up his hands while he labors to steady and dignify public opinion. No true artist would give up years of honorable esteem to be the object for a moment of fever- ish idolatry. The public are fickle. " The garlands they twine," says Schu- mann, " they always pull to pieces again to offer them in another form to the next comer who chances to know how to amuse them better." Are such gar- lands worth the sacrifice of artistic honor ? If it were possible for the critic to withhold them and offer instead a modest sprig of enduring bay, would not the musician be his debtor? Another thought. Conceding that the people are the elemental power that Hiller says they are, who shall save them from the changeableness and in- stability which they show with relation to music and her votaries ? Who shall bid the restless waves be still ? We, in America, are a new people, a vast hotch- potch of varied and contradictory ele- ments. We are engaged in conquering Musician, Critic, and Public a continent ; employed in a mad scram- ble for material things ; we give feverish hours to win the comfort for our bodies that we take only seconds to enjoy ; the moments which we steal from our labors we give grudgingly to relaxation, and that this relaxation may come quickly we ask that the agents which produce it shall appeal violently to the faculties which are most easily reached. Under these circumstances whence are to come the intellectual poise, the refined taste, the quick and sure power of analysis which must precede a correct estimate of the value of a composition or its per- formance ? " A taste or judgment," said Shaftesbury, " does not come ready formed with us into this world. Whatever principles or materials of this kind we may possibly bring with us, a legitimate and just taste can neither be begotten, made, conceived, or produced without the antecedent labor and pains of criticism." Grant that this antecedent criticism is the province of the critic and that he approaches even remotely a fulfilment of his mission in this regard, and who shall venture to question the value and 3 11 CHAP. IX. Taste and judgment must be achieved. 3 12 CHAP. IX. Compara- tive quali- fications of critic and pitblic. The critic's responsi- bilities. How to Listen to Music the need of criticism to the promotion of public opinion? In this work the critic has a great advantage over the musician. The musician appeals to the public with volatile and elusive sounds. When he gets past the tympanum of the ear he works upon the emotions and the fancy. The public have no time to let him do more ; for the rest they are will- ing to refer him to the critic, whose business it is continually to hear music for the purpose of forming opinions about it and expressing them. The critic has both the time and the obliga- tion to analyze the reasons why and the extent to which the faculties are stirred into activity. Is it not plain, therefore, that the critic ought to be better able to distinguish the good from the bad, the true from the false, the sound from the meretricious, than the unindividualized multitude, who are already satisfied when they have felt the ticklings of pleasure? But when we place so great a mission as the education of public taste before the critic, we saddle him with a vast re- sponsibility which is quite evenly divided Musician, Critic, and Public between the musician and the public. The responsibility toward the musician is not that which we are accustomed to hear harped on by the aggrieved ones on the day after a concert. It is toward the musician only as a representative of art, and his just claims can have nothing of selfishness in them. The abnormal sensitiveness of the musician to criti- cism, though it may excite his commis- eration and even honest pity, should never count with the critic in the per- formance of a plain duty. This sensi- tiveness is the product of a low state in music as well as criticism, and in the face of improvement in the two fields it will either disappear or fall under a kill- ing condemnation. The power of the press will here work for good. The newspaper now fills the place in the musician's economy which a century ago was filled in Europe by the courts and nobility. Its support, indirect as well as direct, replaces the patronage which erstwhile came from these power- ful ones. The evils which flow from the changed conditions are different in ex- tent but not in kind from the old. Too 3*3 CHAP. IX. Toward the musician. Position and power of the news- paper. CHAP. IX. The musi- cian should help to ele- vate the standard of criticism. How to Listen to Music frequently for the good of art that sup- port is purchased by the same crookings of " the pregnant hinges of the knee " that were once the price of royal or noble condescension. If the tone of the press at times becomes arrogant, it is from the same causes that raised the voices and curled the lips of the petty dukes and princes, to flatter whose van- ity great artists used to labor. The musician knows as well as any- one how impossible it is to escape the press, and it is, therefore, his plain duty to seek to raise the standard of its utter- ances by conceding the rights of the critic and encouraging honesty, fearless- ness, impartiality, intelligence, and sym- pathy wherever he finds them. To this end he must cast away many antiquated and foolish prejudices. He must learn to confess with Wagner, the arch-enemy of criticism, that " blame is much more useful to the artist than praise," and that " the musician who goes to de- struction because he is faulted, deserves destruction." He must stop the conten- tion that only a musician is entitled to criticise a musician, and without abat- Musician, Critic, and Public ing one jot of his requirements as to knowledge, sympathy, liberality, broad- mindedness, candor, and incorruptibility on the part of the critic, he must quit the foolish claim that to pronounce upon the excellence of a ragout one must be able to cook it ; if he will not go farther he must, at least, go with the elder D' Israeli to the extent of saying that " the talent of judgment may exist separately from the power of execu- tion." One need not be a composer, but one must be able to feel with a com- poser before he can discuss his produc- tions as they ought to be discussed. Not all the writers for the press are able to do this ; many depend upon ef- frontery and a copious use of technical phrases to carry them through. The musician, alas ! encourages this method whenever he gets a chance ; nine times out of ten, when an opportunity to re- view a composition falls to him, he ap- proaches it on its technical side. Yet music is of all the arts in the world the last that a mere pedant should discuss. But if not a mere pedant, then neither a mere sentimentalist. CHAP. IX. A critic must not necessarily be a musi- cian. Pedantry not wanted. 316 CHAP. IX. Intelligence versus emotional' ism. Personal equation. How to Listen to Music " If I had to choose between the merits of two classes of hearers, one of whom had an intelligent appreciation of music without feeling emotion ; the other an emotional feeling without an intelligent analysis, I should unhesitatingly decide in favor of the intelligent non-emotionalist. And for these rea- sons : The verdict of the intelligent non-emotion- alist would be valuable as far as it goes, but that of the untrained emotionalist is not of the smallest value ; his blame and his praise are equally un- founded and empty." So writes Dr. Stainer, and it is his emotionalist against whom I uttered a warning in the introductory chapter of this book, when I called him a rhapsodist and described his motive to be prima- rily a desire to present himself as a per- son of unusually exquisite sensibilities. Frequently the rhapsodic style is adopted to conceal a want of knowl- edge, and, I fancy, sometimes also be- cause ill -equipped critics have per- suaded themselves that criticism being worthless, what the public need to read is a fantastic account of how music af- fects them. Now, it is true that what is chiefly valuable in criticism is what a man qualified to think and feel tells us he did think and feel under the inspira- Musician, Critic, and Public tion of a performance ; but when car- ried too far, or restricted too much, this conception of a critic's province lifts personal equation into dangerous promi- nence in the critical activity, and depre- ciates the elements of criticism, which are not matters of opinion or taste at all, but questions of fact, as exactly demonstrable as a problem in mathe- matics. In musical performance these elements belong to the technics of the art. Granted that the critic has a cor- rect ear, a thing which he must have if he aspire to be a critic at all, and the possession of which is as easily proved as that of a dollar-bill in his pocket, the questions of justness of intonation in a singer or instrumentalist, balance of tone in an orchestra, correctness of phrasing, and many other things, are mere determinations of fact ; the facul- ties which recognize their existence or discover their absence might exist in a person who is not " moved by con- cord of sweet sounds " at all, and whose taste is of the lowest type. It was the acoustician Euler, I believe, who said that he could construct a so- CHAP. IX. Exact criticism. CHAP IX. The Rhap- sadists. An English exemplar. How to Listen to Music nata according to the laws of mathe- matics figure one out, that is. Because music is in its nature such a mystery, because so little of its philos- ophy, so little of its science is popularly known, there has grown up the tribe of rhapsodical writers whose influence is most pernicious. I have a case in mind at which I have already hinted in this book that of a certain English gentle- man who has gained considerable emi- nence because of the loveliness of the subject on which he writes and his deftness in putting words together. On many points he is qualified to speak, and on these he generally speaks enter- tainingly. He frequently blunders in details, but it is only when he writes in the manner exemplified in the fol- lowing excerpt from his book called " My Musical Memories," that he does mischief. The reverend gentleman, talking about violins, has reached one that once belonged to Ernst. This, he says, he sees occasionally, but he never hears it more except " In the night . . . under the stars, when the moon is low and I see the dark ridges of the Musician, Critic, and Public clover hills, and rabbits and hares, black against the paler sky, pausing to feed or crouching to listen to the voices of the night. . . . " By the sea, when the cold mists rise, and hol- low murmurs, like the low wail of lost spirits, rush along the beach. . . . " In some still valley in the South, in midsum- mer. The slate-colored moth on the rock flashes suddenly into crimson and takes wing ; the bright lizard darts timorously, and the singing of the grass- hopper " Well, the reader, if he has a liking for such things, may himself go on for quantity. This is intended, I fancy, for poetical hyperbole, but as a matter of fact it is something else, and worse. Mr. Haweis does not hear Ernst's vio- lin under any such improbable condi- tions ; if he thinks he does he is a proper subject for medical inquiry. Neither does his effort at fine writing help us to appreciate the tone of the in- strument. He did not intend that it should, but he probably did intend to make the reader marvel at the exquisite sensibility of his soul to music. This is mischievous, for it tends to make the in- judicious think that they are lacking in musical appreciation, unless they, too, 3*9 CHAP. IX. Ernst's violin. Mischiev- ous writ- ing. 320 CHAP. IX. Musical sensibility and sanity. A place for rhapsody. How to Listen to Music can see visions and hear voices and dream fantastic dreams when, music is sounding. When such writing is popu- lar it is difficult to make men and women believe that they may be just as suscep- tible to the influence of music as the child Mozart was to the sound of a trumpet, yet listen to it without once feeling the need of taking leave of their senses or wandering away from sanity. Moreover, when Mr. Haweis says that he sees but does not hear Ernst's violin more, he speaks most undeserved dis- praise of one of the best violin players alive, for Ernst's violin now belongs to and is played by Lady Hall6 she that was Madame Norman-Neruda. Is there, then, no place for rhapsodic writing in musical criticism ? Yes, de- cidedly. It may, indeed, at times be the best, because the truest, writing. One would convey but a sorry idea of a com- position were he to confine himself to a technical description of it the number of its measures, its intervals, modula- tions, speed, and rhythm. Such a de- scription would only be comprehensible to the trained musician, and to him Musician, Critic, and Public would picture the body merely, not the soul. One might as well hope to tell of the beauty of a statue by reciting its di- mensions. But knowledge as well as sympathy must speak out of the words, so that they may realize Schumann's lovely conception when he said that the best criticism is that which leaves after it an impression on the reader like that which the music made on the hearer. Read Dr. John Brown's account of one of Hallo's recitals, reprinted from " The Scotsman," in the collection of essays entitled " Spare Hours," if you would see how aptly a sweetly sane mind and a warm heart can rhapsodize without the help of technical knowledge : " Beethoven (Dr. Brown is speaking of the So- nata in D, op. 10, No. 3) begins with a trouble, a wandering and groping in the dark, a strange emergence of order out of chaos, a wild, rich con- fusion and misrule. Wilful and passionate, often harsh, and, as it were, thick with gloom ; then comes, as if ' it stole upon the air,' the burden of the theme, the still, sad music Largo mesto so human, so sorrowful, and yet the sorrow overcome, not by gladness but by something better, like the sea, after a dark night of tempest, falling asleep in the young light of morning, and ' whispering how 321 CHAP. IX. Intelligent rhapsody. Dr. Brown and Beethoven. 322 CHAP. IX. Apollo and the critic a fable. The critic's duty to ad- mire. How to Listen to Music meek and gentle it can be.' This likeness to the sea, its immensity, its uncertainty, its wild, strong glory and play, its peace, its solitude, its un- searchableness, its prevailing sadness, comes more into our minds with this great and deep master's works than any other." That is Beethoven. Once upon a time it is an ancient fable a critic picked out all the faults of a great poet and presented them to Apollo. The god received the gift graciously and set a bag of wheat be- fore the critic with the command that he separate the chaff from the kernels. The critic did the work with alacrity, and turning to Apollo for his reward, received the chaff. Nothing could show us more appositely than this what criticism should not be. A crit- ic's duty is to separate excellence from defect, as Dr. Crotch says ; to admire as well as to find fault. In the propor- tion that defects are apparent he should increase his efforts to discover beauties. Much flows out of this conception of his duty. Holding it the critic will bring besides all needful knowledge a fulness of love into his work. " Where Musician, Critic, and Public sympathy is lacking, correct judgment is also lacking," said Mendelssohn. The critic should be the mediator between the musician and the public. For all new works he should do what the sym- phonists of the Liszt school attempt to do by means of programmes ; he should excite curiosity, arouse interest, and pave the way to popular comprehen- sion. But for the old he should not fail to encourage reverence and admira- tion. To do both these things he must know his duty to the past, the present, and the future, and adjust each duty to the other. Such adjustment is only possible if he knows the music of the past and present, and is quick to per- ceive the bent and outcome of novel strivings. He should be catholic in taste, outspoken in judgment, unaltera- ble in allegiance to his ideals, unswerv- able in integrity. 3 2 3 CHAP. IX. A mediator between musician and public. Essential virtues. PLATES PLATE 1 VIOLIN (CLIFFORD SCHMIDT) PLATE II PLATE III PICCOLO FLUTE (C. KURTH, JUN.) PLATE TV OBOE (JOSEPH ELLER) PLATE V ENGLISH HORN (JOSEPH ELLER) PLATE VI BASSOON (FEDOR BERNHARDI) PLATE VII CLARINET (HENRY KAISER) PLATE VIII BASS CLARINET (HENRY KAISER) PLATE IX FRENCH HORN (CARL PIEPER) PLATE TROMBONE (J. PFEIFFENSCHNEIDER) PLATE XI BASS TUBA (ANTON REITER) PLATE XII Flauto piccolo, Flauti. Oboi. Clarinetti b C. Fagotti. Contrafagotto. Corn! la C. Trombe ! C. Timpani la C. G. Trombone Alto. Trombone Tenure. Trombone Batio. Violino I . I Violino D. Viola. Violoncello. Basso. .Allegro. J.*t. fe rtfii-lttfi M jy or jy 7 ff * jy sr 3 jtr W^ ^ F^'^ m ^ i L ^^ m m THE CONDUCTOR'S SCORE FIRST PAGE, FINALE OF BEETHOVEN'S C MINOR SYMPHONY INDEX ABSOLUTB music, 36 Academy of Music, New York, 203 Adagio, in symphony, 133 Addison, 205, 206, 208 Allegro, in symphony, 132 Allemande, 173, 174 Alto clarinet, 104 Alto, male, 260 Amadeo, 241 Ambros, August Wilhelm, 49 Antiphony, 267 Archilochus, 213 Aria, 235 Arioso, 235 Asaph, 115 BACH, C. P. E., 180, 185 Bach, Johann Sebastian, 69, 83, 148, 167, 169, 170, 171, 174, 176, 180, 181, 184, 192, 257, 259, 267, 268, 278, 281, 282, 283, 286, 287, 289 ; his music, 281 et seq. ; his technique as player, 180, 181, 184 ; his choirs, 257, 259 ; com- pared with Palestrina, 278 ; ' Magnificat," 283; Mass in B minor, 283 ; Chromatic Fan- tasia and Fugue, 171 ; Suites, 174, 176 ; ll St. Matthew Pas- sion," 267, 278, 282, 286, 289 ; Motet, "Sing ye to the Lord," 268; "St. John Passion, 1 ' 286 Balancement, 170 Balfe, 223 Ballade, 192 Ballet music, 152 Balletto, 173 Bass clarinet, 104 Bass trumpet, 81, 82 Basset horn, 82 Bassoon, 74, 82, 99, 101 et seq. Bastardella, T_,a, 239 Bayreuth Festival orchestra, 81, 82 Bebung, 169, 170 Beethoven, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33- 34- 35. 44, 46, 47. 49- S3, 6 - 62, 63, 70, 92, 94, 101, 102, 103, 106, 113, 120, 125, 131, 132, 133, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 146, 147, 151, 167, 182, 184, 186, 187, 193, 195, 196, 203, 208, 232, 292, 321, 322 ; likenesses in his melodies, 33, 34 ; unity in his works, 27, 28, 29 ; his chamber music, 47 ; his sonatas, 182 ; his democ- racy, 46 ; not always idiomat- ic, 193 ; his pianoforte, 195 ; his pedal effects, 196; missal compositions, 292, 294 ; his overtures, 147 ; his free fan- 352 Index tasias, 131 ; his technique as a player, 186; " Eroica " sym- phony, 100, 132, 136 ; Fifth symphony, 28, 29, 30, 31, 92, 103, 120, 125, 133 ; " Pastoral" symphony, 44, 49, 53, 62, 63, 94, 102, 132, 140, 141 ; Seventh symphony, 31, 32, 132, 133; Eighth symphony, 113; Ninth symphony, 33, 34, 35. 94, 133, 136, 138, 305 ; Sonata, op. 10, No. 3, 321 ; Sonata, op. 31, No. 2, 29; Sonata "Appassi- onata," 29, 30, 31 ; Pianoforte concerto in G, 31 ; Pianoforte concerto in E-flat, 146 ; Violin concerto, 146 ; ' ' Becalmed at Sea," 60 ;" Fidelio," 203, 208, 232 ; Mass in D, 60, 292, 294 ; Serenade, op. 8, 151 Bell chime, 74 Bellini, 203, 204, 242, 245 ; u La Sonnambula," 204, 245 ; " Nor- ma," 242 Benedetti, 242 Berlin Singakademie, 262 Berlioz, 49, 80, 87, 89, 90, 94, 100, 102, 104, 113, 137, 138, 139, 294, 295 ; " L'icUe fixe" 137 ; '' Symphonic Fantastique," 137; "Romeo and Juliet," 90, 94, 139; Requiem, 113, 294, 295 Bizet, " Carmen," 238, 242 Boileau, 206 Bosio, 241 Boston Symphony Orchestra, 81, 82, 108 Bottesini, 94 Bourree, 173 Brahm's "Academic overture," 101 Branle, 173 Brass instruments, 74, 104 // seq. Brignoli, 209, 242 Broadwood's pianoforte, 195 Brown, Dr. John, 321 Bully Bottom in music, 61 Bunner, H. C., 136 Burns's " Ye flowery banks," 175 CACCINI, " Eurydice," 234 Cadences, 23 Cadenzas, 145 Calve, Emma, 242, 247 Calvin and music, 275 Campanini, 242 Cantatas, 290 Cat's mew in music, 52 Catalan!, 245, 246 Chaconne, 153 Chamber music, 36, 44 et seq., 144 Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 81, 82, 108 Choirs, 253 et seq.\ size of, 257 et seq,, 264, 271 ; men's, 255, 260; boys', 261 ; women's, 261 ; mixed, 262, 264 ; division of, 260, 266 ; growth of, in Ger- many, 262 ; history of, in Amer- ica, 263 ; in Cincinnati, 264 ; contralto voices in, 270 Choirs, orchestral, 74 Chopin, 167, 188, 190, 191, 192, Index 353 196 ; his romanticism, 188 ; Preludes, 190; Etudes, 191; Nocturnes, 191 ; Ballades, 192 ; Polonaises, 192 ; Mazurkas, 192 ; his pedal effects, 196 Choral music, 253 et seq.; anti- phonal, 267 ; mediaeval, 274 ; Calvin on, 275 ; Luther's influ- ence on, 276 ; congregational, 277 ; secular tunes in, 276, 277 ; Romanticism, influence on, 277; preponderance in orato- rio, 289 ; dramatic and descrip- tive, 289 Chorley, H. F. , on Jenny Lind's singing, 243 Church cantatas, 284 Cicero, 309 Cincinnati, choirs in, 264 Cinti-Damoreau, 241 Clarinet, 47, 74, 78, 82, 103 etseq., IS* Classical concerts, 122 etseq. Classical music, 36, 64, 122 etseq. Clavichord, 168, 181 Clavier, 171, 173 Clementi, 185, 195 Cock, song of the, 51, 53, 54 Coleridge, n, 144 Coletti, 242 Comic opera, 224 Composers, how they hear music, 40 Concerto, 128, 144 et sty. Conductor, 114 et seq. Content of music, 36 et seq. Contra-bass trombone, 81, 82 Contra-bass tuba, 81, 82 Co-ordination of tones, 17 Coranto, Corrente, 173, 176 Cornelius, " Barbier von Bag- dad," 236 Cornet, 73, 82, 108 Corno di bassetto, 81, 82 Corsi, 242 Couperin, 168 Courante, 173, 176 Covent Garden Theatre, London, 224, 226 Cowen, " Welsh " and " Scandi- navian " symphonies, 132 Cracovienne, 193 Creole tune analyzed, 23, 24 Critics and criticism, 13, 297 et seq. Crotch, Dr., 322 Cuckoo, 51, 52, 53 Cymbals, 74, 82 Czardas, 201 Czerny, 186 DACTYLIC metre, 31 Dance, the ancient, 43, 212 Dannreuther, Edward, 129, 144, 187 Depth, musical delineation of, S9,6o De Reszke, Edouard, 248 De Reszke, Jean, 247 Descriptive music, 51 et seq. Design and form, 16 De Stael, Madame, 210 D'Israeli, 315 Distance, musical delineation of, 60 Dithyramb, 212, 213 354 Index " Divisions," 265 Doles, Cantor, 292 Donizetti, 203, 204, 242; "Lu- cia," 203, 204 Double-bass, 74, 78, 82, 94 Double-bassoon, 103 Dragonetti, 94 Dramatic ballads, 290 Dramatic orchestras, 81, 82 Dramma per musica, 227, 249 Drummers, 113 Drums, 73, 74, 82, no et seq. Duality of music, 15 " Dump' 1 and Dumka, 151 Durchfiihrung, 131 DvoMk, symphonies, " From the New World," 132, 138 ; in G major, 136 EAMES, EMMA, 247 Edwards, G. Sutherland, 12 Elements of music, 15, 19 Emotionality in music, 43 English horn, 82, 99, 100 English opera, 223 Ernst's violin, 320 Esterhazy, Prince, 46 Euler, acoustician, 317 Expression, words of, 43 FAMILIAR music best liked, 21 Fancy, 15, 16, 58 Farinelli, 240 Fasch.C. F.,262 Feelings, their relation to music, 38 et seq., 215, 216 Ferri, 239, 240 Finale, symphonic, 135 First movement in symphony, 131 Flageolet tones, 89 Florentine inventors of the op- era, 217, 227, 234, 249 Flute, 73, 74, 78, 82, 95 etseq. Form, 16, 17, 22, 35 Formes, 242, 248 Frederick the Great, 263 Free Fantasia, 131 French horn, 47, 106 et seq, Frezzolini, 242 Friss, 201 Frogs, musical delineation of, 58. 62 "GALLINA ET GALLO," S3 Gavotte, 173, 179 German opera, 226 Gerster, Etelka, 242, 245 Gesture, 43 Gigue, 173, 174, 178 Gilbert, W. S. , 208, 224 Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas, 224 Glockenspiel, HO Gluck, 84, 148, 153, 202, 203, 238 ; his dancers, 153 ; his orches- tra, 238; "Alceste," 148; " Iphigenie en Aulide," 153; " Orfeo," 202, 203 Goethe, ?4, 140, 223 Goldmark, " Sakuntala " over- ture, 149 Gong, no Gossec, Requiem, 293 Gounod, " Faust," 209, 224, 238, 246 Index 355 Grand Optra, 223, 224 Greek Tragedy, 211 ft seq. Grisi, 241, 242 Grosse Oper, 224 Grove, Sir George, 33, 63, 141, 187 Gypsy music, 198 et seq. HALLK, Lady, 320 Hamburg, opera in, 206, 207 Handel, 58, 60, 62, 83, 102, 126, 148, 174, 177, 178, iSi, 182, 184, 256, 257, 258, 259, 265, 272 ; his orchestra, 84 ; his suites, 174 ; his overtures, 148 ; his tech- nique as a player, 181, 182, 184 ; his choirs, 257 ; Commemo- ration, 258 ; his tutti, 258 ; % " Messiah," 60, 126, 256, 257, 265, 272 ; '' Saul," 102 ; " Al- mira," 177; " Rinaldo," 178; " Israel in Egypt," 58, 62, 257, 259, 289 ; " Lascia cK 1 io pi- anga," 178 Hanslick, Dr. Eduard, 203 Harmonics, on violin, 89 Harmony, 19, 21, 22, 218 Harp, 82 Harpsichord, 168, 170 Hauptmann, M. , 41 Hautboy, 99 Haweis, the Rev. Mr., 318 et seq. Haydn, 46, 84, 100, 127, 168, 183, 295 ; his manner of composing, 183 ; dramatic effects in his masses, 295 ; " Seasons," 100 Hebrew music, 114 ; poetry, 25 Height, musical delineation of, 59. 60 Heman, 115 Hen, song of, in music, 52, 53, 54 Herbarth, philosopher, 39 Hiller, Ferdinand, 307, 310 Hiller, Johann Adam, 258 Hogarth, Geo., " Memoirs of the Opera," 210, 245 Horn, 82, 105, io6etsfg., 151 Hungarian music, 198 et seq. Hymn-tunes, history of, 275 IAMBICS, 175 *' Idle fixe," Berlioz's, 137 Identification of themes, 35 Idiomatic pianoforte music, 193, 194 Idioms, musical, 44, 51, 55 Imagination, 15, 16, 58 Imitation of natural sounds, 51 Individual attitude of man tow- ard music, 37 Instrumental musicians, former legal status of, 83 Instrumentation, 71 etseq.; in the mass, 293 et seq. Intelligent hearing, 16, 18, 37 Intermediary necessary, 20 Intermezzi, 221 Interrelation of musical ele- ments, 22 JANIZARY music, 97 Jean Paul, 67, 189, 190 Jeduthun, 115 356 Index Jig. 179 Judgment, 311 KALIDASA, 149 Kettle-drums, in et seq. Key relationship, 26, 129 Kinds of music, 36 et seq, Kirchencantaten, 284 Krakowiak, 193 Kullak, 184 LABLACHB, 248 La Grange, 241, 245 Lamb, Charles, 10 Language of tones, 42, 43 Lassu, 20 1 Laws, musical, mutability of, 69 Lehmann, Lilli, 233, 244, 247 Lenz, 33 Leoncavallo, 228 Lind, Jenny, 241, 243 Liszt, 132, 140, 142, 143, 167, 168, *93i J 97. 1 9%> 228 ; his music, 168, 193, 197 ; his transcrip- tions, 167 ; his rhapsodies, 167, 198 ; his symphonic poems, 142; " Faust" symphony, 132, 140 ; Concerto in E-flat, 143 ; " St Elizabeth," 288 Literary blunders concerning music, 9, 10, IT, 12 Local color, 152, 153 London opera, 206, 207, 226 Louis XIV. , 179 Lucca, Pauline, 242, 246, 247 Lully, his overtures, 148 ; min- uet, 179 ; " Atys," 206 Luther, Martin, 276 Lyric drama, 231, 234, 237, 251 MADRIGAL, 274 Magyar music, 198 et seq, Major mode, 57 Male alto, 260 Male chorus, 255, 260 Malibran, 241 Mannergesang, 255, 260 Marie Antoinette, 153 Mario, 242, 247, 271 Marschner, "Hans Heiling," 225; ''Templer und Jiidin," 225 ; " Vampyr," 225 ; his op- eras, 248 Mascagni, 228 Mass, the, 290 et seq. Massenet, " Le Cid," 152 Materials of music, 16 Materna, Amalia, 247 Matthews, Brander, 11 Mazurka, 192 Melba, Nellie, 204, 238, 245, 247, 271 Melody, 19, 21, 22, 24 Memory, 19, 21, 73 Mendelssohn, 41, 42, 49, 59, 61, 67, 102, 409, 132, 139, 140, 149, 168, 243, 278, 288, 289, 322 ; on the content of music, 41, 42 ; his Romanticism, 67 ; on the use of the trombones, 109 ; opinion of Jenny Lind, 243 ; " Songs without Words," 41 ; " Hebrides " overture, 59, 149 ; '* Midsummer Night's Dream," 61, 102 ; " Scotch " symphony, Index 357 132, 139 ; " Italian " symphony, 132 ; " Hymn of Praise," 140 ; "St. Paul," 278; "Elijah," 288, 289 Mersenne, " Harmonic univer- selle," 175, 176 Metropolitan Opera House, New York, 203, 224, 226, 244 Meyerbeer, 89, 102, 203, 204, 208, 242, 243, 244; "L'Africaine," 89; "Robert le Diable," 102, 208, 244; "Huguenots," 204; " L'Etoile du Nord," 243 Military bands, 123 Minor mode, 57 Minuet, 134, 151, 173, 179 Mirabeau, 293 Model, none in nature for music, 8, 180 Monteverde, " Orfeo," 87 Moscheles, on Jenny Lind's sing- ing. 243 Motet, 283 Motives, 22, 24 Mozart, 84, 109, 132, 145, 151, 168, 183, 184, 195, 202, 203, 221, 224, 228, 230, 238, 244, 265, 292 ; his pianoforte technique, 184 ; on Doles's mass, 292 ; his or- chestra, 238 ; his edition of Handel's " Messiah," 265 ; on cadenzas, 145 ; his pianoforte, 195 ; his serenades, 151 ; " Don Giovanni," 109, 202, 221, 222, 228, 230 ; " Magic Flute," 203 ; G-minor symphony, 132; " Fi- garo," 202, 228 Musica parlante, 234 Musical instruction, deficiencies in, 9 Musician, Critic, and Public, 297 MusiMrama, 227, 238, 249 NERI, FILIPPO, 288 Nevada, Emma, 204 Newspaper, the modern, 297, 298, 313 New York Opera, 206, 226, 241 Niecks, Frederick, 192 Niemann, Albert, 233 Nightingale, in music, 52 Nilsson, Christine, 242, 246, 247 Nordica, Lillian, 247 Norman-Neruda, Madame, 320 Notes not music, 20 Nottebohm, " Beethoveniana," 63 OBOE, 47, 74, 78, 82, 84, 98 et seq. Opera, descriptive music in, 61 ; history of, 202 et seq. ; language of, 205 ; polyglot performances of, 207 et seq. ; their texts per- verted, 207 et seq. words of, 209, 210 ; elements in, 214 ; in- vention of, 216 et seq. ; varie- ties of, 220 et seq. ; comic ele- ments in, 221 ; action and incident in, 236 ; singing in, 239 ; singers compared, 241 et seq. Optra bouffe, 220, 221, 225 Opera buffa, 220 Oplra comique, 223 Optra^ Grand, 223 Opera in music a, 228 358 Index Opera semiseria, 221 Opera seria, 220 Opus, 132 Oratorio, 256, 287 et seq. Orchestra, 71 et seq. Ostrander, Dr. Lucas, 278 " Ouida," 12 Overture, 147 et seq., 174 PADEREWSKI, his recitals, 154 et seq. ; his Romanticism, 167 ; " Krakowiak," 193 Painful, the, not fit subject for music, 50 Palestrina and Bach, 278 et seq. ; his music, 279^ seq. ; " Stabat Mater," 279, 280 ; " Imprope- ria," 280 ; " Missa Papae Mar- celli," 280 Pandean pipes, 98 Pantomime, 43 Parallelism, 25 Passepied, 173 " Passions," 284 et seq. Patti, Adelina, 203, 204, 238, 242, 245- 247 Pedals, pianoforte, 195, 196 Pedants, 13, 315 Percussion instruments, no et seq. Peri, " Eurydice," 234 Periods, musical, 22, 24 Perkins, C. C., 263 Pfund, his drums, 112 Philharmonic Society of New York, 76, 77, 81, 82 Phrases, musical, 22, 24 Physical effects of music, 38 Pianoforte, history and descrip- tion of, 154 et seq. ; its music, 154 et seq. , 166 et seq. ; concer- tos, 144 ; trios, 147 Piccolo flute, 85, 97 Piccolomini, 242, 245 Pictures in music, 40 Pi/a, Handel's, 126 Pizzicato, 88, 91 Plancon, 248 Polonaise, 192 Polyphony and feelings, 39 Popular concerts, 122 Porpora, 209 " Pov piti Momzelle Zizi," 23 Preludes, 148, 174 Programme music, 36, 44, 48 et seq., 64, 142 Puccini, 228 QUAIL, call of, in music, 51, 54 Quartet, 147 Quilled instruments, 170 Quinault, " Atys," 206 Quintet, 147 Quintillian, 309 RAFF, 49, 96, 132 ; " Lenore " symphony, 96, 132 ; " Im Walde " symphony, 132 Rameau, 168 Recitative, 219, 220, 228 et seq. Reed instruments, 98 et seq. Reformation, its influence on music, 275, 278, 280 Refrain, 25 Register of the orchestra, 85 Repetition, 22, 25 Index 359 Rhapsodists among writers, 13, 315 et seq. Rhythm, 19, 21, 26, 160 " Ridendo castigat mores," 225 Rinuccini, " Eurydice," 234 Romantic music, 36, 64 et seq., 71. 277 Romantic opera, 225 Ronconi, 242 Rondeau and Rondo, 135 Rossini, 147, 228, 242 ; his over- tures, 147; "II Barbiere," 228 ; " William Tell," 93, 100 Rubinstein, 59, 152, 167, 168, 287 ; his historical recitals, 167 ; his sacred operas, 287 ; " Ocean " symphony, 59 ; " Feramors," 152 Ruskin, John, 302 Russian composers, 134 SACRKD OPBRAS, 287 Saint-Saens, " Danse Macabre," 101, in ; symphony in C mi- nor, 141 ; " Samson and Deli- lah," 288 Salvi, 242 Sarabande, 173, 174, 177 Sassarelli, 240 Scarlatti, D. , 167, 172, 182 ; his technique, 172 ; ' ' Capriccio " and " Pastorale," 172 Scheffer, Ary, 246 Scherzo, 133, 179 Schroder-Devrient, 232 Schubert, 168 Schumann, 49, 64, 132, 133, 139, 140, 141, 167, 188, 189, 190, 196, 254, 308, 310 ; his Romanticism, 188 ; and Jean Paul, 189 ; his pedal effects, 196 ; on popular judgment, 308, 310 ; symphony in C, 132 ; symphony in D mi- nor, 139 ; symphony in B-flat, 140; "Rhenish" symphony, 140, 141; "Carnaval," 189, 190 ; " Papillons," 189, 190 ; " Kreisleriana," 190 ; " Phan- tasiestucke," 190 Score, 120 " Scotch snap," 52, 200 Second movement in symphony, 133 Seidl, Anton, 77 Sembrich, Marcella, 242, 245 Senesino, 239, 240 Sense-perception, 18 Serenade, 149 et seq. Shaftesbury, Lord, 311 Shakespeare, his dances, 153, 179 ; his dramas, 202 ; a Ro- manticist, 221 ; " Two Gentle- men of Verona," 150 ; Queen Mab, 90 Singing, physiology of, 215, 218 ; operatic, 239 ; choral, 268 Singing Societies, 253 et seq. Singspiel, 223 Smith, F. Hopkinson, II Sonata da Camera, 173 Sonata, 127, 182, 183 Sonata form, 127 et seq. Sontag, 241, 244, 245, 246 Sordino, 90 Space, music has no place in, 59 Speech and music, 43 3 6 Index Spencer, Herbert, 39, 43, 216, 218, 230 Spinet, 168, 170 Spohr, " Jessonda," 225 Stainer, Dr., 39, 316 Stein, pianoforte maker, 196 Stilo rappresentativo, 234 Stories, in music, 40 Strings, orchestral, 74, 82, 86 tt seq., 102 Sucher, Rosa, 247 Suite, 129, 152, 173 et seq. Symphonic poem, 142 Symphonic prologue, 148 Symphony, 124 et seq., 183 Syrinx, 98 TALENT in listening, 4 Tambourine, no Tappert, " Zooplastik in T6- nen," 51 Taste, 311 Technique, 163 et seq. Tennyson, 9 Terminology, musical, 8 Theatre natienale de FOpera- Comique, 223 Thespis, 212 Thomas, " Mignon," 223 Tibia, 98 Titiens, 242 Tonal language, 42, 43 Tones, co-ordination of, 17 Touch, 163 et seq. Tragedia per musica, 227 Tremolo, 91 Trench, Archbishop, 65, 66 Triangle, 74, no Trio, 134 Triolet, 136 Trombone, 82, 105, 106, 109 et seq. Trumpet, 105, 108 Tschaikowsky, 88, 132 ; " Sym- phonic Pathe'tique," 132 Tuba, 82, 85, 106, 108 " Turkish " music, 97 Tympani, 82, in et seq. UGLY, the, not fit for music, 50 United States, first to have am- ateur singing societies, 257, 262 ; spread of choral music in, 263 Unity in the symphony, 27, 137 VAUDBVILLBS, 224 Verdi, 152, 203, 210, 228, 236, 238, 242, 243; " Aida," 152, 228, 238 ; " II Trovatore," 210, 243 ; " Otello," 228, 238 ; " Falstaff," 228, 236 ; Requiem, 290 Vestris, 153 Vibrato, 90 Vile, the, unfit for music, 50 Viola, 74, 77, 82, 92, 93 Viole da braccio, 93 Viole da gamba, 93 Violin, 73,74, 77, 82, 86 et seq., 144, 162 Violin concertos, 145 Violoncello, 74, 77, 82, 92, 93, 94 Virginal, 168, 170 Vocal music, 61, 215 Vorspiel^ 148 Index 361 WAGNBR, 41, 79, 80, 81, 88, 89, 94, in, 205, 206, 219, 226, 227, 232, 235, 237, 238, 244, 248, 249, 250, 251, 303, 305, 314 ; on the content of music, 41 ; his in- strumentation, 80, in ; his dramas, 219, 226, 227, 248 ; Musikdrama, 227, 249 ; his di- alogue, 235 ; his orchestra, 238, 250 ; his operas, 248 ; his theo- ries, 249 ; endless melody, 250 ; typical phrases, 250 ; ' ' lead- ing motives," 250 ; popularity of his music, 303 ; on criticism, 314; " Flying Dutchman," 248; " Tannhauser," 248 ; " Lohen- grin,' 1 79, 88, 235, 248; "Die Meistersinger," 249; " Tristan und Isolde," 87, 237, 249 ; " Rheingold," 237 ;" Die Wal- kure," 94, 237; "Siegfried," 337, 244 ; " Die Gotterdamme- ning," 237 ; " Ring of the Nibelung," 249, 251, 305; " Parsifal," 249 Waldhorn, 107 Wallace, W. V., 223 Walter, Jacob, 53 Water, musical delineation of, 58,59 Weber, 67, 96, 244, 248 ; his Ro- manticism, 67; " Der Freis- chutz," 96, 225 ; " Oberon," 225; " Euryanthe," 225 Weitzmann, " Geschichte des Clavierspiels, " 201 Welsh choirs, 255 Wood- wind instruments, 74, 77, 78,95 XYLOPHONE, in YSAYE, on Cadenzas, 146 University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed.