PRELUDES AND STUDIES.
Preludes and St
MUSICAL THEMES
BY
W. J. HENDERSON
AUTHOR OF "TUB STOKV OF MUSIC "
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 and 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
LONDON AND BOMBAY
1901
Copyright, 1891, BV
W. J. HENDERSON
First Edition, October, 1891
Reprinted, October, 1S92, September, 1894
November. 1897, and March, 1901
T«ow mmcioit
WKTIHO «H0 lOOKBiNOINO CO«««lf
MW YORK
Go
MY DEAR FRIEND AND FELLOW LABORER
H. E. KREHBIEL
" To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying ' Amen ' to
what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your
soul alive."— Robert Louis Stevenson
PREFATORY NOTE.
The " Study of ' Der Ring des Nibelungen ' "
now appears in its completed form for the first
time. Parts of it have been printed in the col-
umns of the New York Times, but much, if not
most, of it was written expressly for this vol-
ume. The articles under the general heading of
" Wagneriana " are republished from the Times.
My thanks are due to the editor and the pro-
prietor of that journal for liberty to treat these
essays as my personal property. The first and
second parts of the paper on " The Evolution
of Piano Music," are taken from lectures deliv-
ered before the students of the New York Col-
lege of Music. In its completed form this essay
is practically new, and the major portion of it
has not been in type before. The study of
Schumann's symphonic music was written for
this volume.
W. J. Henderson.
CONTENTS.
/
A Study of "Der Ring des Nibelungen." fAGK
I. — The Story. . . , 3
II. — The Philosophy and the Humanity 34
III. — Some Objections to Leit-Motiven 50
IV. — Comments and Commentators 63
Wagnerian a.
I.— The Book of "Parsifal" 87
II.— A Study in "Tristan" 105
III. — The Endurance of Wagner's Works. 116
The Evolution of Piano Music.
I. — Laying the Foundations 125
II. — Development of the Technique 150
III. — The Modern Concerto 174
IV. — Some Living Players 185
Schumann and the Programme-symphony 203
A STUDY OF "DER RING DES NI-
BELUNGEN."
A STUDY OF "DER RING DES NI-
BELUNGEN."
I. — The Story.
Why is it that the Nibelungen music-dramas,
constructed on methods wholly opposed to those
with which generations of opera-goers are famil-
iar, often moving on planes of gloom and trag-
edy, offering none of the glitter and complex
movement of spectacular operas, frequently illus-
trated in music prolific in harshness and discord,
have taken such a hold on the public mind wher-
ever they have had a fair hearing ?
The answer is simple. They are great dra-
matic poems set to music. Wagner was, first,
last, and all the time, a lyric dramatist ; and
though this present epoch, still bearing in mind
the old-fashioned libretto, which had little or no
dramatic force and no poetic strength, insists
upon estimating the value of the man's work
chiefly by his scores, it can hardly be doubted
4 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
that the future will award him a rank as a libret-
tist equal to that which he holds in music. The
prophet is not without honor in his own coun-
try. There his dramas are regarded as great
works. Elsewhere the exclamation of the anti-
Wagnerite continually is, " I do not like Wag-
ner's music." He seldom troubles himself to
express an opinion as to the libretto, though
the entire Wagnerian system rests upon the
proposition that the music must be subservient
to the book. Operas, such as " Euryanthe,"
have succeeded by sheer force of musical ex-
cellence in spite of bad librettos ; but this does
not shake Wagner's position. It is possible to
have music without a libretto ; further than
that, it is possible to have music with a libretto
and nothing more, as in the cantata and oratorio.
But the moment we adopt the apparatus of the
theatre we assume the form of the drama, and
it is obvious that Wagner is right in asserting
that with the form we must take also the sub-
stance. That the lovers of the operatic stage
are generally falling into Wagner's way of think-
ing is indicated by the fact that the operas
which have attained or retained favor of late
years are those which have dramatic librettos.
" Aida," " Otello," " The Queen of Sheba,"
may be mentioned among those which have
THE STORY. 5
achieved success ; " Faust," " La Juive," " Les
Huguenots," among those which have kept it.
On the other hand, an operatic season which
relies for its attractiveness on " Lucia," " La
Traviata," and their kind, unless succored by
the factitious aid of some renowned singer, is
doomed to disaster. There is nothing in the
plays to interest the auditors, and in the present
state of public taste they will not sit through
three hours of inanity to hear three or four in-
spired numbers, unless those numbers are to be
delivered with matchless eloquence.
An art work must be viewed through its de-
sign. To enter upon the consideration of any
creation of the human mind with a pre-estab-
lished hostility to the plan on which it is con-
structed, is not only ungenerous, but unjust.
The primary postulate of the Wagner theory is
best expressed in Hamlet's words : " The play's
the thing." Let us then review the story of the
Nibelung's ring.
" From the womb of night and of death," says
Wagner, allowing his mystical fancy free play,
"there sprang a race who dwelt in Nibelheim
(Nebelheim, the place of mists), that is, in dim
subterranean chasms and caves. They were
called Nibelungen. Like worms in a dead body,
they swarmed in varying, reckless activity,
6 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
through the entrails of the earth ; they wrought
in metals — heated and purified them. Among
them Alberich gained possession of the bright
and beautiful gold of the Rhine — the Rheingold
— drew it up out of the depths of the waters,
and made from it, with great and cunning art, a
ring, which gave him power over all his race, the
Nibelungen. Thus he became their master, and
forced them henceforth to labor for him alone,
and so collected the inestimable treasure of the
Nibelungen, the chief jewel of which was the
Tarnhelm (helmet), by means of which one
could assume any figure that he chose, and
which Alberich had compelled his own brother,
Regin, to forge for him. Thus equipped, Al-
berich strove for the mastery of the world and
all that was in it. The race of the giants —
the insolent, the mighty, the primeval race —
was disturbed in its savage ease ; its enormous
strength, its simple wit were not enough to con-
tend against Alberich's ambitious cunning. The
giants saw with apprehension how the Nibel-
ungen forged wondrous weapons, which, in the
hands of human heroes, should bring about the
ruin of the giant race. The race of the gods,
rapidly rising to omnipotence, made use of this
conflict. Wotan agreed with the giants that
they should build for the gods a castle, from
THE STORY. 7
which they might order and rule the world in
safety, but after it was done the giants demanded
the treasure of the Nibelungen as their reward.
The great cunning of the gods succeeded in the
capture of Alberich, and he was compelled to
give the treasure as a ransom for his life. The
ring alone he sought to keep, but the gods,
knowing well that the secret of his power lay in
this, took the ring from him. Then he laid a
curse upon it, that it should prove the ruin of all
who should possess it. Wotan gave the treas-
ure to the giants, but the ring he kept to insure
his own omnipotence. The giants, however,
forced it from him by their threats, and Wo-
tan yielded at the advice of the three Fates
(Nornen), who warned him of the approaching
downfall of the gods."
This is Wagner's own picturesque version of
that part of the Nibelungen story on which the
whole of his tetralogy is based. Let us go back
to the great original source of this tale. In
the translation of the Volsunga Saga, made by
Eirikr Magnusson and the poet, William Morris,
Regin, son of Hreidmar, and foster-father of
Sigurd (Siegfried), tells the youth his story. He
was one of three brothers, the other two being
Fafnirand Otter. Regin himself was a cunning
smith. Otter was a fisherman who lay on the
8 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
river bank disguised in an otter skin. Fafnir
was of the three " the greatest and grimmest.''
" Now," says Regin, " there was a dwarf called
Andivari [Alberich], who ever abode in that
force [waterfall, from the Icelandic fori] which
was called Andivari's force, in the likeness of
a pike, and got meat for himself, for many
fish there were in the force. Now, Otter, my
brother, was ever wont to enter into the force and
bring fish a-land, and lay them one by one on
the bank. And so it befell that Odin, Loki, and
Hoenir, as they went their ways, came to Andi-
vari's force, and Otter had taken a salmon and
ate it slumbering upon the river bank. Then
Loki took a stone and cast it at Otter, so that he
got his death thereby. The gods were well con-
tent with their prey and fell to flaying off the
otter's skin. And in the evening they came to
Hreidmar's house and showed him what they
had taken ; thereon he laid hands on them and
doomed them to such ransom, as that they
should fill the otter skin with gold, and cover it
over with red gold. So they sent Loki to gather
gold together for them. He came to Ran [God-
dess of the Sea] and got her net, and went forth-
with to Andivari's force, and cast the net before
the pike, and the pike ran into the net and was
taken. Then said Loki :
THE STORY. 9
" ' What fish of all fishes
Swims strong in the flood,
But hath learnt little wit to beware ?
Thine head must thou buy
From abiding in hell,
And find me the wan waters' flame.'
" He answered :
" ' Andivari folk call me,
Call Oinn my father,
Over many a force have I fared ;
For a Norn of ill luck
This life on me lay
Through wet ways ever to wade.'
" So Loki beheld the gold of Andivari, and
when he had given up the gold he had but one
ring left and that also Loki took from him ;
then the dwarf went into a hollow of the rocks
and cried out that the gold ring, yea, and all of
the gold withal, should be the bane of every
man who should own it thereafter.
" Now the gods rode with the treasure to
Hreidmar, and fulfilled the otter skin and set
it on its feet, and they must cover it utterly
with gold ; but when this was done then Hreid-
mar came forth and beheld yet one of the muzzle
hairs and bade them cover that withal. Then
Odin drew the ring, Andivari's loom, from his
10 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
hand and covered up the hair therewith. Then
sang Loki :
" ' Gold enow, gold enow,
A great weregild, thou hast,
That my head in good hap I may hold ;
But thou and thy son
Are naught fated to thrive ;
The bane shall it be of you both.'
" Thereafter," says Regin, " Fafnir slew his
father and murdered him, nor got I aught of
the treasure. And so evil he grew that he fell
to lying abroad, and begrudged any share in the
wealth to any man, and so became the worst of
all worms, and even now lies brooding upon
that treasure ; but for me, I went to the King
and became his master-smith ; and thus is the
tale told of how I lost the heritage of my father
and the weregild for my brother."
Then Sigurd bids Regin, whom the reader
will readily identify with Mime, to weld him a
sword that he may do great deeds therewith.
To which Regin replies :
" Trust me well herein ; and with that same
sword shalt thou slay Fafnir."
This story, as well as the others employed to
form a ground-work for the Nibelungen Tetral-
ogy, Wagner has modified to suit his own pur-
THE STORY. II
poses, but without changing the ethical condi-
tions lea ^ 3Tng^tot he " Gotterdamm erung ," or
final decline of the gods. The rising of the cur-
tain in " Das Rheingold " reveals the depths of
the Rhine, with the three Rhine daughters,
Woglinde, Wellgunde, and Flosshilde, sporting
in their native element. Alberich, the dwarf,
the Andivari of the Volsunga Saga, ascends for
the first time from the nether gloom of Nibel-
heim, and, though a subterranean personage,
has no trouble whatever in breathing and speak-
ing in the watery waste. He is infatuated with
the beauty of the maidens and seeks to capture
one of them. They elude him with taunts and
gibes, which inflame him to fury. He reviles
them bitterly. Suddenly a glow breaks through
the waters. " Look, sisters," cries Woglinde,
" the wakener laughs in the deep." The sisters
greet the flaming treasure, for this is the glow of
the wondrous Rhinegold, and shout together :
Rheingold ! Rheingold ! Leuchtende Lust !
Wie lachst du so hell und hehr.
Which is, being interpreted, " Rhinegold ! glit-
tering joy ! How laughest thou, so bright and
holy." Alberich, astonished by the glow, asks
what causes it. The maidens inquire where in
the world he came from that he never heard of
12 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
the Rhinegold, and they proceed to expatiate on
its beauties and its power. Tppy tell him that
he shall be mightiest of all living who can fash-
ion a ring_from this gold, but they add that only
one who renounces love forever can accomplish
this. Alberich, after a minute's meditation,
shouts7~" Hear me, ye floods ! Love I renounce
forever." Seizing the gold, he disappears in the
depths below. The maidens dive, wailing, into
the deeper waters, and the scene changes.
In the background is Walhalla, the new castle
built for the gods by the giants. Fricka, the
Goddess of Marriage, lies asleep by the side of
her spouse, Wotan. Between them and the
castle lies the valley of the Rhine. Wotan
awakes and salutes the new castle. Fricka re-
minds him that he has promised the giants
Freia, her sister, the Goddess of Eternal Youth,
as the reward of their labors. Wotan frankly
admits that he never had any idea of giving her
up. She now appears, demanding protection,
being closely pursued by the giants, Fafner and
Fasolt. Wotan tells them to seek other guer-
don, as he will not give up Freia. Fasolt re-
minds Wotan of the fact that it is dangerous
for him to break a contract. " What thou art,"
he says, " art thou only by treaties conformable,
well defined as thy might." The giants insist
THE STORY. 1 3
on their reward. Froh and Donner, the broth-
ers of Freia, interpose and threaten violence.
Finally Wotan admits that he is forced to keep
his contract, but his spirits rise when he be-
holds Loge, or Loki, approaching. Loge is the
cunning counsellor of the gods, who is in his
heart plotting for their downfall. He has been
searching for some substitute to offer the giants
instead of Freia. He finally tells the story
of Alberich's theft of the gold, and says he
has promised the Rhine daughters to speak
to Wotan about the outrage. The giants are
alarmed at this additional power gained by their
natural enemies, the dwarfs, and Loge increases
their fears, as well as excites the ambition of
Wotan, by describing the wonderful power of
the Ring of the Nibelungen. The giants de-
clare that they will accept the Rhinegold instead
of Freia, and carry her off to be held as hostage
till Wotan shall have decided.
Loge and Wotan descend through the cavern-
ous passage to Nibelheim. The scene changes
and the caves of the earth are revealed. Alberich
enters dragging Mime. The latter has just
made the wonderful tarn helm which enables
the wearer to become invisible or assume any
shape. Alberich takes the tarn helm away
from Mime and disappears in a column of smoke
14 " DEN RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
after beating his unhappy brother. Wotan and
Loge arrive, and Mime tells them of Alberich's
power. The latter returns, driving his Nibel-
ung slaves before him. He tells Wotan and
Loge that he will master the whole world, and
that even the gods will become his subjects.
Loge induces Alberich to give an exhibition of
the tarn helmet's powers. The dwarf changes
himself to a serpent, and then to a toad. When
he has accomplished the second transformation
Loge sets his foot on him, while Wotan seizes
the helmet. They bind Alberich and drag him
away.
The scene of action is once more the plain
before Walhalla. The two gods appear drag-
ging Alberich. He asks what ransom they
demand, and they name the gold. He gives
this readily, because he knows where to get
more. Wotan demands the ring, and on Albe-
rich's refusing to give it up, tears it from his fin-
ger. Then the Nibelung lays his curse upon
the ring and disappears. The giants approach
with Freia. Fasolt demands her ransom and
Wotan points to the hoard. The giants meas-
ure off a space as broad and as high as the god-
dess. The tarn helm has to be thrown in to
make the pile good. One little crevice lets the
light through, and the giants demand that the
THE STORY. I 5
ring shall be placed there. Wotan refuses, but
Erda (Mother-Earth) rises out of the ground,
warns him against the curse, and foretells the
downfall of the gods. She sinks and Wotan
tosses the ring to the giants, releasing Freia.
Alberich's curse begins to operate at once. The
giants quarrel. Fafner slays Fasolt, and goes
off with the hoard, the tarn helm, and the ring.
Wotan is filled with gloomy thoughts, but is in-
spired with the idea of creating a race of demi-
gods who shall defend him against his enemies.
Donner mounts a rock and swings his hammer.
Black clouds descend : lightning flashes, and
thunder peals. The clouds disappear, revealing
the arch of a glorious rainbow spanning the sil-
ver valley of the haunted Rhine. Wotan, in a
speech of sublime majesty, summons his wife to
come and dwell with him in Walhalla, thus for
the first time naming the new castle. The gods
move toward their new abode. The Rhine
daughters in the waters below cry to Wotan to
restore their ring. He bids them cease their
cfcrmor, and the gods and goddesses march tri-
umphantly on the rainbow into Walhalla as the
final curtain descends.
This drama plays the part of a " prologue in
heaven." It is the key to all that follows, and
I have, therefore, given its story more fully than
1 6 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
I need to give those of the other three dramas.
My dear friend and fellow-laborer, H. E. Kreh-
biel, has clearly demonstrated the fact that the
true hero of the tragedy of " The Nibelung's
Ring " is Wotan, and the real plot is concerned
with his struggles to free himself from the inev-
itable retribution that must follow a crime. At
the very outset of the " Rhinegold " we behold
in Wotan a tragic hero, a victim of remorseless
fate. Jealous of the growth of the darker pow-
ers, he has offered the giants a bribe that he
does not mean to pay. This is the secret of the
whole tragedy. This making of a false promise
is the beginning of the downfall of the^Esir;
for Wotan's power is based upon the inviola-
bility of his word. It is this which causes the
astonishment of the giants when Wotan bids
them dismiss the idea of obtaining Freia.
" What!" they exclaim, "will you dare to break
a contract ? What you are, you are by the sa-
credness of contracts."
This single error is the basis of Wotan's de-
struction. A brilliant novelist of our time has
written these words : " This is the greatest
evil which lies in evil, that the ashes of past
guilt are too often the larvae of fresh guilt, and
one crime begets a brood which, brought to
birth, will strangle the life in which they were
THE STORY. 1 7
conceived." Wotan, finding that there is no es-
cape, turns for help and advice to Loge, the God
of Evil, the spirit of flickering, treacherous fire,
the master of cunning and deceit ; and he in-
troduces to gods and giants the lust for gold.
Loge seeks the downfall of the gods. Therefore,
he induces Wotan to avoid the crime of break-
ing a contract by committing that of robbery.
The giants are willing to accept the Rhinegold
and the ring in lieu of Freia. In order to get
the Rhinegold, Wotan must take it by force from
Alberich, and thus the crime is begotten of the
false promise, the inviolability of Wotan's god-
hood is shattered, and the " Gotterdammerung,"
the decline of the gods, is brought within appre-
ciable distance. The fact that Alberich curses
the ring, which thenceforward becomes fatal to
all who hold it instead of giving them the
power of the world, gains in significance when
viewed from this stand-point. It is not a mere
decree of destruction against some of those
whom Wotan is to create for his own help, but
it is also a formulation of the principle of retri-
butive justice which is to work out the god's fate.
It endows the stolen thing with the power of
punishing the theft — that misdeed for which
Wotan suffers, the wrong which he vainly strives
to right. It is for this reason that Erda, the
1 8 " DER RING DES NIBELC/NGEN."
wisest of the earth, rises to warn the god, say-
ing:
Heed my warning, Wotan !
Flee the curse of the ring !
Irretrievable,
Darkest destruction
With it thou wilt win.
And before sinking again she says :
A day of gloom
Dawns for the godly ;
I warn thee, beware of the ring.
When Erda has sunk into the earth once more
Wotan is wrapped in thought. He may not
take the ring away from Fafner, who now holds
it, because he is forbidden to use force where
he has made a contract ; but he may create a
race of demi-gods, one of whom, working as a
free agent, shall secure the ring and return it to
its rightful owners, the Rhine maidens. Then
for the first time he names the new castle Wal-
halla, and Fricka asks the meaning of that
name. Wotan replies :
What mighty in fear
I made to my mind
Shall, if safe to success,
Soon be made clear to thy sense.
THE STORY. 1 9
Now, who is to right a wrong done by
Wotan ? Obviously only the person whom he
has in mind in this speech, a being who is of his
own blood. By Wotan's seed alone can Wotan's
sin be atoned. The ethical significance of this
idea is the key to all that follows " Das Rhein-
gold/' It is the only apology for the humanly
unholy relations of Siegmund and Sieglinde ; *
and it is the explanation of the failure of the
god's plan through the sin of Siegfried in " Die
Gotterdammerung," which sin is brought about
by the machinations of Alberich's son, Hagen.
The sacrifice of Siegmund is not understood,
I fear, even by many of Wagner's admirers.
Wotan's plan of restitution through a free agent
is good, but the troubled and hampered god
does not carry it out successfully. Siegmund
is a failure because he is not a free agent, and
* I am not bound to defend Wagner's morals. The relations
between Siegmund and Sieglinde are outrageous, in spite of
the logical demand that Wotan's wrong should be atoned for
by Wotan's blood. It is a pity that Wagner could not have
found means to avoid this difficulty. It is like other errors, in
that it leads the erring one still farther astray ; for it results in
Siegfried's marrying his half-aunt. Siegmund and Sieglinde are
children of Wotan ; so is BrUnnhilde ; hence she is their half-
sister, and her relation to their son, Siegfried, becomes pain-
fully obvious. This comes of dealing with mythologies, which
are proverbially improper.
20 " DER RING DES NIBELC7NGEN."
it is Fricka who, in her indignation at outraged
marriage ties, lays her finger upon the weak
spot in Wotan's plan. Here is the passage *
which explains the issue of the combat in " Die
Walkure:"
WOTAN.
A hero we need
Who, free from the word of the gods,
Is loose from the grasp of their law.
Such one alone
Can accomplish the deed
That, though of need to the gods,
May not by a god be outwrought.
Fricka.
By dense enigmas
Thou wouldst fain daze me.
What high deeds, then,
Can heroes accomplish
That must be gainsaid to the gods —
Through whose will alone they can work ?
* It is a curious fact that some of those scenes in which the
most important elements of the plot of the Nihelung tetralogy
are exposed are talky, tiresome, and undramatic We are told
by those whom I call extreme Wagnerites that the music sus-
tains the interest. They ought to comprehend that this is
simply an adaptation to their needs of the view of the Ital-
ianissimi, who contend that the music should be the princi-
pal object of interest all the time. Let us admit the truth :
Wagner is sometimes a German dramatist and writes talk, talk,
talk.
THE STORY. 21
WOTAN.
Their own good courage
Thou countest as naught.
Fricka.
Who breathed this courage in them ?
Whose brightness breaks from their glance ?
Beneath thy shelter
Great is their strength,
Stirred by thy spirit,
Upward they strive.
Thou urgest them onward —
So blatantly boastest thou oft.
With new deceit
Thou wouldst deceive me ?
By new devices
Seek to avoid me ?
But for this Volsung
In vain dost thou plead :
In him I find but thyself;
From thee alone his defiance.
She also shows her knowledge of the fact
that Wotan placed the sword in the tree in
Hunding's house on purpose for Siegmund and
then led him there to get it and find Sieglinde.
Hence, when Wotan tells Brtinnhilde the whole
story of the theft of the Rhinegold, the en-
mity of Alberich, and the events preceding
22 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
" Die Walkiire," he concludes with these hope«
less words :
O stress of the gods !
O shamefullest need !
In loathing seeing
Always myself
In all whatsoever I work !
But the other, for whom I search,
The other I never shall see.
Himself must the fearless one fashion,
Since I none but serfs can knead.
Briinnhilde asks whether Siegmund is not a
free agent. Wotan answers that he himself
dwelt in the forest with Siegmund and fanned
the flames in his breast. He says :
I fondly fancied
Myself to befool,
Yet how lightly Fricka
Found out the lie !
To its farthest depths
She fathomed the shame,
And her will to work I was forced.
Briinnhilde asks if he will remove his protec-
tion from Siegmund, and then Wotan answers
with the key-note speech of the whole tragedy.
THE STORY. 2$
He declares in despair that he cannot escape
the consequences of his crime ; his efforts are
vain ; he abandons the work, and awaits but the
end. For that Alberich will provide. This
attitude of Wotan explains the majestic dignity
of his suffering while inflicting the punishment
on the disobedient Valkyr. She has striven to
save Siegmund, thereby making a movement
toward continuing the existence of Wotan's
wrong-doing and toward fixing more firmly upon
him and all the other gods the inevitable retri-
bution that must follow. Her punishment is
not the outcome of a father's wrath against a
disobedient child, but is the result of Wotan's
surrender to the demands of that eternal jus-
tice of which he and all the other gods are sub-
jects.
From this time on to the end of the tragedy,
Wotan stands aside and allows the human forces
to have free sway. Siegfried knows no Wotan ;
he knows no god's will. He is a free agent.
Wotan is a wanderer on the face of the earth,
watching the progress of events with which he
is powerless to interfere. Alone and as a free
agent, at the suggestion of Wotan's enemy, Mime,
Siegfried slays Fafner. Then with the knowl-
edge imparted by the bird, he obtains the Rhine-
gold, seeks and wins Brunnhilde. Of his free
24 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
will he fulfils Wotan's prophecy made in the
closing scene of "Die Walkure :"
He who the point
Of my spear shall fear
Shall pass not the wall of fire.
Oh, the ineffable beauty of " Siegfried ! "
This is the immortal epic of the world's youth,
the song of spring-time, young manhood, love,
and unspeakable bliss. It is this marvellous
fairy tale that the opponents of Wagner have
chosen to ridicule, because of its talking bird
and its cumbersome dragon. Oh, the folly of
prejudice !
Behold young Siegfried grown to manhood
under the care of Mime, the brother of Al-
berich. The dwarf is aiming at the recovery
of the ring, the tarn helm, and the gold, which
Fafner, now become " the worst of all worms,''
is guarding in a cave in the forest. Mime pro-
poses to have Siegfried slay the dragon, after
which he himself will slay " Siegfried." But
the poor dwarf cannot weld the sword of Sieg-
mund, which is necessary to his plan. Sieg-
fried arrives, and after some by-play, examines
the sword which Mime has been forging, and
rails at its weakness. Mime endeavors to calm
him. Siegfried expresses his dislike of the
THE STORY. 2$
dwarf, and inquires who were his father and
mother. Mime declares that he himself was
both. Siegfried cannot be deceived thus, and
finally wrings the truth from Mime, who pro-
duces the pieces of Siegmund's sword in sup-
port of his statement. Siegfried orders him to
weld the pieces, and then rushes out into the
forest. Wotan disguised as the Wanderer
comes to the cave and enters into a long dis-
cussion with Mime. The outcome of it all is
that Wotan prophesies that the sword must be
welded by a hero who knows not fear. Wotan
disappears, leaving Mime in despair. Siegfried
returns and finds Mime hidden under the anvil
in abject terror, caused by his own fancies.
Siegfried asks him if he has welded the sword,
but Mime tells him he has one thing yet to
learn, namely, fear. Mime tries to teach him
what fear is, and seeks to frighten him by de-
scribing the dragon Fafner. Siegfried, instead
of being alarmed, is eager to meet his foe, and
demands the sword. Mime confesses that he
cannot weld it, whereupon Siegfried proceeds
to do the work himself. Then follows the
great scene of the welding of the sword. When
the sword is finished, Siegfried, with one
mighty blow, cleaves the anvil, and, as the
orchestra bursts into a prestissimo of tremen-
26 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
dous energy, stands brandishing the sword and
shouting while the curtain falls.
The second act reveals Alberich, the Nibel-
ung, in the depths of the forest gloom near
Fafner's cave, awaiting an opportunity to seize
the treasure. Malice and greed are breathed
through the music. The wind rushes through
the forest and a dim light grows. Wotan
enters. Alberich and Wotan express their
hatred of one another, the music graphically
illustrating the dignity of the one and the mal-
ice of the other. Wotan departs ; Alberich
conceals himself, and Siegfried enters with
Mime. The latter hopes that both the dragon
and the hero will die in the impending combat
and departs saying so.
Siegfried, alone in the forest, lies down under
a tree. Then comes the " Waldweben" — forest
weaving — the voices of the woods, often played
in concert. It is one of the most masterly
tone-pictures in existence. Siegfried wonders
who his mother was and how she looked. He
tries vainly by means of a reed flute to imitate
the voices of the birds and so understand them.
Failing in this he winds a blast upon his horn,
which brings the dragon, Fafner, from his
lair. Siegfried fears him not, but boldly at-
tacks and slays him. The blood spurts upon
THE STORY. 27
the hero's hand and he puts it to his lips. At
once he can understand the language of the
birds. A bird tells him to get the treasure
from the cave. He enters it. Alberich and
Mime appear. The ineffably lovely music be-
comes harsh and scolding. The dwarfs quarrel
and separate as Siegfried returns with the ring
and tarn helmet. Mime comes back and tries
to induce Siegfried to take poison which he
has prepared, but the bird warns him, and,
moreover, Mime unconsciously betrays himself.
Siegfried slays him. Again the hero lies under
the tree and the voices of the forest speak to
him. The bird tells him of Briinnhilde and
leads him away in search of her as the curtain
falls.
The third act opens with portentous music.
The awful strife between the might of youth
and love and the powers of darkness is ap-
proaching its climax. The rising of the curtain
discloses a rocky mountain. The shadows of
night are on the hills, and the elements are at
war. Wotan appears and invokes the goddess
Erda — old Mother-Earth. From her he seeks
to know how to save the gods from destruction.
She cannot aid him, and, weary of increasing
strife, he renounces the empire of the world.
Siegfried enters and Wotan blocks his wav with
28 " DER RING DES NIB E LUNG 'EN."
his spear. With a single blow Siegfried shatters
the spear of the ruler of the gods, and destroys
therewith the old order of things. Crying, " In
vain ! I cannot prevent thee," Wotan flies.
An ominous glow grows upon the scene. The
mystic powers of nature array themselves
against the hero's progress. The strength of
matter girds itself to meet the might of spirit.
Fire and smoke roll down the mountain till the
very world seems ablaze at Siegfried's feet.
But still that giant heart knows no fear. Thun-
dering notes of defiance from his horn, he
plunges into the flames and disappears ; but
the echoing notes of the horn return to say that
he is not vanquished.
The storm of fire sinks. The glory of the
dawn surrounds the hills and the rising mists
disclose the noble form of the Valkyr asleep be-
neath her shield. Siegfried approaches. The
tremendous moment is at hand. He stoops
and cuts the fastenings of her armor, which,
falling aside, reveals, wrapped in the softest
drapery, a perfect woman, nobly planned. The
soul of the invincible youth is transformed into
the spirit of the captive, but conquering man.
" A touch — a kiss — the charm is snapped/
Briinnhildc awakes to salute the earth, the sun,
the gods, and to fall upon the breast of her hero-
THE STORY. 2g
lover, while their voices mingle in the passion-
ate strains of fierce, overmastering love. The
manhood of Siegfried and the womanhood of
Brtinnhilde are accomplished. The perfect race
is come to rule the world. The old gods are
to die and be forgotten.
The final tragedy opens with a scene in which
the " dark fates weave the web of life and
death." The Norns, the Fates of northern
mythology, wind a rope of sand and foretell the
downfall of the gods. This scene is frequently
omitted in the performances of the work. Dra-
matically it is ineffective, though its music is
rich. Siegfried and Brunnhilde, who have been
dwelling together in the Valkyr's cave, come
out, and the woman sends her hero forth in
search of new adventures. Just why she should
do so I have never quite understood. I am told
by superior minds that it is done in order that
he may win a name worthy of a Valkyr's
reverence ; but when he arrives at the Castle of
the Gibichungs on the Rhine, whither he at
once goes, he is already known there as a most
tremendous hero, though no one except Hagen,
son of Alberich and vassal of King Gunther, is
acquainted with the history of his life. One
must recall the fact that Siegfried is the great
heroic figure of mediaeval German lore in order
30 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
to understand the honor he at once receives
from the retainers of Gunther. Hagen has
proposed to Gunther that when Siegfried ar-
rives, Gutrune, the king's sister (a charming and
much-wronged girl, by the way), shall give him
one of those magic drinks which abound in
opera, and cause him to fall in love with her.
Then Gunther is to have Briinnhilde as his
queen. Gutrune falls desperately in love with
Siegfried the minute she sees him and adminis-
ters the potion willingly. Siegfried is won and
agrees to go through the fire and get Briinnhilde,
whom he as once forgets, for Gunther, with
whom he swears an oath of brotherhood. Sieg-
fried puts on the tarn helm and assumes the
likeness of Gunther. He goes to Briinnhilde,
tears from her finger the ring of Rhinegold
which in his own person he had given her, and
proclaims her Gunther's bride.
In the second act Siegfried, Gunther, and
Briinnhilde arrive at Castle Gibichung. As soon
as Briinnhilde sees Siegfried in his proper form
with the ring on his finger, she proclaims to the
assembly that she has been betrayed by him.
Siegfried, still under the potion's influence,
swears he does not know her. She swears he
is the man who penetrated to her rocky abode.
Siegfried says that she is crazy, which assertion
THE STORY. 3 1
temporarily allays suspicion, and the hero goes
on with the wedding festivities attending his
union with Gutrune. Gunther, Briinnhilde, and
Hagen remain and decide, on Hagen's sugges-
tion, that for his treachery Siegfried must die.
Briinnhilde reveals the fact that she did not
make Siegfried's back invulnerable, knowing
that he would never turn it on a foe.
In the third act Siegfried is hunting on the
banks of the Rhine. The Rhine maidens ap-
pear and try to get the ring from him. He
keeps it, and they depart foretelling his impend-
ing doom. Hagen, Gunther, and the vassals
appear. To cheer, the gloomy Gunther, Sieg-
fried tells the story of his youth. He cannot
quite recall his meeting with Briinnhilde, and
here Hagen, whose whole object is to get the
ring, the tarn helm, and the gold once more into
Nibelung hands, steps in with another drink,
which makes the hero remember. For the first
time Gunther sees the extent of the treachery.
Siegfried at an opportune moment in his story
is stabbed in the back with a spear by Hagen,
and dies breathing the name of Briinnhilde.
The vassals take up the body and in stricken
silence bear it away over the moonlit hills to
Gibichung.
Arriving there Gunther and Hagen quarrel
32 " DER RING DES NIBEIL'NGEN."
over the possession of the ring, and the former
is killed. Briinnhilde learns the plot of which
she and Siegfried were the victims. She causes
his body to be placed on a funeral pyre. She
proclaims his greatness, announces the downfall
of the gods, and hurls herself into the flames
with the corpse. The Rhine rises, and the fatal
ring is engulfed by the waters and thus restored
to the Rhine maidens. Hagen rushes into the
water after it and is drowned. The flames of the
funeral pyre ascend to the skies and fire Wal-
halla. Wotan and the gods are destroyed, and
the great tragedy is ended.
It is reserved for Briinnhilde, who knows the
dread significance of the events of her time, to
act the final and crowning scene in the drama of
deeds which Wotan had begun but was powerless
to finish. She it is who puts the torch to the
pyre and fires Walhalla. The reign of the gods
ends, and henceforward there is a new order of
things. The ring goes back to its rightful
owners and thus is restitution made. But
Wotan does not escape retribution. He is the
victim of fate and carries down the gods with
him in one general fall. Thus does this tre-
mendous tragedy work itself out, revealing to
us as its hero a god who forgot the essential
nature of his godhood, transgressed the law by
THE STORY. 33
which he was, and fell a victim to outraged
justice.
There are those who seek to ridicule this
tragedy because it contains supernatural impos-
sibilities, some of which belong to the fairy
tales of our childhood. The magic ring and
tarn helm, the lumbering dragon, the bird that
sings German words, the marvellous drinks of
Hagen — these are things over which Wagner's
opponents make merry, and which they call
upon his friends to defend. I shall not defend
them. I agree with the anti-Wagnerites. They
are as puerile as the family relations in the
tetralogy are repulsive. I grant all these things.
But is there nothing left ? Is there nothing
under the surface of the mighty tragedy on
which these things float like fallen leaves upon
an ocean ?
II. — The Philosophy and the Humanity.
I DO not propose to enter into an extended
discussion of the merits of the tragedy. I shall
simply point out some features of its strength,
and perchance touch upon certain defects which
are worthy of consideration.
In "Das Rheingold" we make our first ac-
quaintance with Wagner's mythological adapta-
tions in their primeval condition. The gods
of the Norse mythology were not immortal, but
gifted with extraordinary length of days. Their
fellow-creatures in the world were inferior be-
ings, always at war with them, but equally
gifted in respect to longevity. The true myth
is a deification of a human type. Jupiter and
Hercules, Wotan and Thor, Isis and Osiris are
human types idealized and exalted into godhood.
They are heroic in person, essential in emotion,
elementary in action. Civilization tends to av-
erage men. A common culture imposed upon
a body of people reduces elementary inequal-
ities to a general level, and tends to the con-
THE PHILOSOPHY AND THE HUMANITY. 35
cealment of individual characteristics because it
represses the display of them. Wagner has
shown a fine perception of these truths in his
Nibelungen works. The artificiality of civiliza-
tion is wholly absent. The foul is foul and the
fair is fair. The springs of action are laid bare.
Every personage is as transparent as a child.
The substructure of humanity is unearthed. In
Wotan we have a large mind dominated by the
lust of power; in Alberich a small one. Loge
is the personification of primal cunning and
treachery. And so it is with each of the other
personages. Every one is a characterization,
and their deeds are in accord with their hearts.
The atmosphere of unreality which surrounds
these personages does not mar their poetic
value, any more than the supernatural envi-
ronment of Milton's arch fiend mars his. As
Lucifer impresses himself upon us as an ideal-
ized type and the central figure of the "Paradise
Lost," so does Loge remain in our minds as the
weaver of the plot of the tetralogy. He stands
forth conspicuously as one of the most interest-
ing characters in dramatic fiction, and beyond
a question one of the few fine character stud-
ies in opera. Around him the events of the
story of " Das Rheingold," the germ of the
whole tragedy, revolve with a consistent coher-
36 " DER RING DES NIB E LUNG EN. 1 '
ency that is as admirable as it is unsurpassed in
operatic literature. His final words, while they
assist in destroying the completeness of " Das
Rheingold " as a play, are eminently fitting as
the conclusion in the first act of a drama whose
chief events are yet to come, and whose founda-
tion he has laid.
But in all probability there is no feature of
Wagner's poetry that will strike the average
reader with more force than his treatment of
the passion of love. " Let us reconstruct this
world," says Taine, writing of Shakespeare, " so
as to find in it the imprint of its Creator. A
poet does not copy at random the manners
which surround him ; he selects from this vast
material, and involuntarily brings upon the
stage the moods of the heart and the conduct
which best suit his talent." Wagner could not
brook the shackles of conventionality. The
" moods of the heart and the conduct " which
best suited his talent were not those of modern
courts and society. In his reconstruction of the
world he felt that the limits of established cus-
toms were too small for him. He would be
hampered by no religious or social dogmas, by
no small corollaries of clothes-philosophy. Ele-
mental passions, free and fierce and blazing as
the first sunlight, were to be the tremendous
THE PHILOSOPHY AND THE HUMANITY. 27
moving forces of his dramas. To disrobe them
of all the purple and fine linen of convenient
codes and reveal them in the heroic and chaste
glory of their perfect nakedness he went back
into the realm of fable, seized upon the shadowy
myths and made them men and women.
The love of Wagner's elementary beings is like
lightning in its suddenness and fierceness. As
Taine says of the lovers of the Shakespearean
drama : " They cannot but love, and they
must love till death. But this first look is an
ecstasy ; and this sudden approach of love is a
transport." Shakespeare and Wagner are alike
in their treatment of what we call love at first
sight. The latter exposes his idea of it in
" The Flying Dutchman," in " Lohengrin," in
"Tristan and Isolde;" and in the Nibelungen
series we have two magnificent pictures of it in
the meeting of Siegmund with Sieglinde and of
Siegfried with Briinnhilde. Siegmund lies
fainting upon Hunding's hearth. Sieglinde
enters, and, without seeing her, he cries for
water. She gives him drink. Having finished
the draught, he turns his head, sees her face for
the first time, and gazes long upon her. He
speaks to her :
Cool is the draught of thy bountiful cup ;
Vigor returns to my tottering limbs ;
38 " DER RING DES MB E LUNG EM."
My heart is made strong, and my eyes grow glad
With the gladness of thine. Now speak me the name
Of the woman who lifts me again to life.
SlEGLlNDE. Hunding's the house and I am his wife;
Welcome art thou to rest till he comes.
SiEGMUND. Weaponless I and wounded. I pray that
I be not unwelcome to Hunding, thy lord.
Sieglinde [anxiously]. Where thou art wounded now
tell me at once.
She offers him mead to drink. He begs her
to sweeten the draught with her own lips.
Then, conscious of the misfortune that ever fol-
lows him, he would leave her. But she bids
him stay, for she, too, is a child of sorrow.
Thus in a few moments mutual sympathy and
confidence and a hunger for each other's society
are established between them. The stronger
nature draws the weaker to it like a magnet.
The woman, having lulled her husband to sleep
with a draught of herbs, returns to Siegmund.
She tells him where there is a weapon with
which he can meet Hunding in battle. Al-
ready she believes in her soul that this is the
hero who shall draw it forth from its oaken
sheath whence none other could take it. lie
clasps her in his arms. The spring night
breaks upon them in all its glory. The man
bursts into a triumphant love-song, full of the
THE PHILOSOPHY AND THE HUMANITY. 39
vigor of youth, strong with the power of mature
passion.
Winter storms have fled in the smile of May,
In glory of light arises the spring ;
Wafted with wind and wonder along his way
Through woods and meadows that breathe and
sing.
" Nay, 'tis true," says Rosalind ; " there never
was anything so sudden but the fight of two
rams and Caesar's thrasonical brag of ' I came, I
saw, and overcame ; ' for your brother and my
sister no sooner met but they looked, no sooner
looked but they loved, no sooner loved but
they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked
one another the reason, no sooner knew the
reason but they sought the remedy.''
In " Siegfried " we find the passion of love
treated again in a similar manner. No sooner
does the young hero look upon the sleeping
form of Brunnhilde than he feels a thrill he
never felt before. For the first time in his life
he is frightened, and he calls upon his mother.
Then he summons Brunnhilde to awake. He
kisses her, crying :
Thus drink I the sweetness of life from her lips,
Though drinking I die.
40 " DER RING DES NI BE LUNG EN."
She awakes, and in a single moment is trans-
formed into a heroic, love-absorbed woman. To
him alone, she says, could she have awakened.
Her love had been a prophecy, and she had
been his in soul before ever their eyes had
met. The drama ends with one of the most
tremendous outpourings of human passion ever
couched in language. This, indeed, is the
apotheosis of love. The manhood of Siegfried
and the womanhood of Briinnhilde are accom-
plished. The race has come at last that shall
supersede the sin-stricken gods. Human love
is henceforth to be the well - spring of ex-
istence. It has been objected that Wagner's
love is a mere passion. In " Die Walkiire "
and " Tristan " there is support for this objec-
tion ; but in "The Flying Dutchman," " Tann-
hauser," " Die Meistersinger," " Siegfried," and
" Die Gotterdammerung" Wagner proclaims in
immortal tones his theory of life. It is the
theory celebrated in Goethe's " Faust," where
the poet sings, " The woman-soul ever leadeth
us upward and on." Even in those stories
of Wagner's which are indefensible on moral
grounds this theory is to some extent a key to
the personal force of his heroines. They may
stagger blindly into dark ways in their love,
but their influence over man is always inspiring.
THE PHILOSOPHY AND THE HUMANITY. 41
They ennoble his manhood and mould his hero-
ism. Wagner's hero is always greater because
of his heroine.
Closely related to the two great love episodes
in the tragedy is the death of Siegfried. This
incident of " Die Gotterdammerung " is not
only the most poetic and moving thing in the
whole series of dramas, but one of those most
true to nature. It has been noted to the poet's
discredit that after utterly forgetting Briinn-
hilde and becoming faithless to her, Siegfried
all at once remembers her. Critics who take
this ground must be unfamiliar with the work-
ings of memory. The truth is, that Wagner has
so constructed this scene that it would have
been marvellous if Siegfried had not remem-
bered. The poet's well-known fondness for
metaphysics will easily account for his skill
here. He was undoubtedly well acquainted
with the psychology of the memory and pre-
pared his drama accordingly. Siegfried's sud-
den remembrance of Briinnhilde is the result
of the operation of the laws of association ; not
of one law, but all of them at once. Aristotle
laid down three relations as constituting the
law of mental re-presentation : contiguity in
time and space, resemblance, and contrariety.
Modern psychologists have found other rela-
42 " DER R7A r G DES ArfBELL/ATGEAr."
tions and ramifications of them which more
fully account for the phenomena of reproduc-
tion in the mind. Contiguity in space is a
primary element in the revival of mental pict-
ures. The recollection of the physical appear-
ance of Lime-Rock Light recalls the whole of
Newport harbor. Contiguity of time is an-
other primary element. As Noah Porter puts
it : " When a single event is thought of which
occurred upon some day of my life made mem-
orable by joy or sorrow, that event suggests the
others which occurred in connection with itself
— either before or after — till the whole history
of the day has passed in review before the eye
of the mind." The relation of contrast is subtly
employed in this scene, but it is discernible.
The fact that the circumstances which he is re-
lating are so different from those under which
he claimed the hand of Gutrune, must have its
influence on Siegfried's memory. The relation
of cause and effect is forcible here. The whole
history of his victory over Fafner and his sub-
sequent understanding of the language of the
bird is a series of powerful causes of which the
effect was his discovery and love of Briinnhilde.
In fact, the whole scene appears to have been
written with the law of redintegration in view*.
This law is that the " mind tends to act a^ain
THE PHILOSOPHY AND THE HUMANITY. 43
more readily in a manner or form which is sim-
ilar to any in which it has acted before in any
defined exertion of its energy."
Thus we have, as already noted, a powerful
operation of all the laws of association. Con-
tiguity in space is suggested by the fire. What
was in this fire ? The mental image of Briinn-
hilde is at once conjured up. Contiguity in time
is the property of the whole series of events.
It is impossible for him to remember the do-
ings of that day without recalling their climax.
The relations of contrast and cause and effect
we have already noted. In fact the events were
as closely united as the facts of that science
which Carlyle ridicules as " common-school log-
ic, where the truths all stand in a row, each
holding by the skirts of the other." No draught
of magic could still the memory thus awakened.
And the poet was here wonderfully aided by
the musician. Instead of writing new music for
the death of Siegfried, Wagner, with one of his
mightiest strokes of genius, has set this death
scene to the music of the love duet between
Siegfried and Brunnhilde, thus telling us in the
highest language of emotion the feelings that
were welling up in the soul of the dying hero.
The laws of association renewed for him the
scene and its heart-throbs, and the orchestra re-
44 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
veals for us what is passing in the inner man.
The love of Briinnhilde is once more the mov-
ing power of his life, and triumphs over him even
in the hour of death. In my early study of the
Nibelung tragedy it always seemed to me that
an unhappy blot on this scene was Hagen's
presentation to Siegfried of the drink with the
juice of an herb in it. If, however, Hagen's
words are to be taken literally, it is not a blot.
He says — I quote the Metropolitan Opera-
House libretto —
Drink first, hero,
From my horn :
I mingled an herb with the draught
To awaken and hold thy remembrance,
That past things may be apparent.
From this speech it is plain that Wagner
wishes us to understand that Siegfried's power of
recalling his relations with Briinnhilde had been
literally put to sleep by Gutrune's potion, and
that Hagen is now administering a drink to coun-
teract the effect of the former and " awaken "
the reproductive power of the man's mind. To
be sure, this is a nice point ; for we may read-
ily wonder why Gutrune's drink did not para-
lyze the man's entire memory, and not simply
that part of it relating to his Valkyr bride,
THE PHILOSOPHY AND THE HUMANITY. 45
and we may ask why he could not recall her if
he was able to recall the events leading up to her.
But if we accept the fable of a magic drink at
all, we have no right to put fanciful limitations
to its powers. It is just as reasonable to believe
in a potion that could suspend part of a man's
memory as one that could put the whole of
it to sleep. So we must regard Hagen's drink
as the antidote to Gutrune's. It is adminis-
tered simply to remove the paralysis of en-
chantment from the man's mind, after which
removal his memory works according to the
laws of psychology.
To ask, however, what had become of Sieg-
fried's memory of Briinnhilde during the time
of his unholy infatuation for Gutrune is to dis-
play ignorance of a well-known problem of psy-
chology. Where an idea has its existence when
absent from a mind which subsequently recalls
it, is a question which the experts have not an-
swered. Dr. McCosh, writing in his " Scottish
Philosophy" of Sir William Hamilton, says:
" What is the state of an idea when not fall-
ing at the time under consciousness ? This is
a question which has often been put. Thus,
having seen the Crystal Palace of 185 1, the
question is put, What place has that idea in my
mind when I am not precisely thinking about
46 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
that object ? We must, of course, answer that
the idea can have no existence as an idea when
not before the consciousness. Still it must have
some sort of existence. There exists in the
mind a power to reproduce it according to the
laws of association." And on this recondite
point that is as far as the philosophers have been
able to go.
It would be easy to select other episodes in
these dramas as evidences of the author's poetic
power. But it is unnecessary. Looking upon
them as a whole, and comparing them with the
original Scandinavian legends from which they
were taken by the minnesingers, we are aston-
ished at the manner in which Wagner has mod-
ified them. According to the minnesingers
young Siegfried had a cloak, the gift of Alberich,
which made him invisible. In Wagner's hands
this becomes the tarn helmet, made of the
Rhine gold. It is a potent factor in the action
of the tetralogy, and Siegfried wrests it from
Fafncr with his sire's weapon, thus fulfilling a
part of his destiny. Again, the minnesingers
called Siegfried's sword Balmung, and according
to them it was forged for him by Wieland, the
Vulcan of the Teutonic gods. With Wagner
this sword becomes, not the giant toy of a fairy
tale, but a tremendous instrument in the hands
THE PHILOSOPHY AND THE HUMANITY. 47
of fate. It is the sword of the hero's father and
the gift of VVotan himself. It is a most impor-
tant part of Wotan's plans that the broken
sword shall be welded anew and wielded by a
hero who has the unmixed blood of the Vol-
sungs, and who knows no fear. With it he
brings down the kingdom of the gods at a single
blow and carves his way to the consummation
of human life.
With Odin or Wotan, at Walhalla in Asgard,
dwelt the Valkyrior, or choosers of the slain.
These Wotan sent forth to the fields of battle to
select those who should fall and lead them to
Walhalla. These sisters of war, as they were
sometimes called, watched over their warriors,
and sometimes listened to their wooing. Led
by Skulda, the youngest of the Fates, they
whirled through the dust and thunder of battle,
foremost in the fight, with flaming swords and
an awful accompaniment of meteors and light-
ning. Balder, the second son of Wotan, was the
fairest of the gods, and his death is the chief
event in Scandinavian mythology. It was fore-
ordained and prophetic of the final dissolution
of the gods. The story of Sigurd and the Ni-
flunga is a separate epic in the elder Edda.
Wagner has made the heroine of this tale and
the chief of the Valkyries one and the same per-
48 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
son — a pure and loving woman of god-like soul
and of celestial origin. Where did he get the
material for her? Not from the Nibelungen
Lied of the minnesingers, for their Briinnhilde
is simply the famed Queen of Isenland — a wo-
man of matchless courage and strength, every
suitor for whose hand must enter three contests
with her, and if vanquished suffer a cruel death.
No, this woman — outlined in the Edda — is made
flesh and blood for us by Wagner. Siegfried
and Balder he has moulded into one, and pro-
duced for us a personage more real than either
of the originals.
In short, a reading of the stories of the Scan-
dinavian bards and those of the German min-
strels shows conclusively that the humanity of
Wagner's people is his own. The northern
Scalds created tremendous myths. The spirit
of their poems is colossal. Passions and sweet-
ness stood side by side, and were delineated with
master-strokes. Lofty sentiment and heroic
deed were darkened by unspeakable crime and
black tragedy. The German bards denuded
these old poems of their glory and made their
personages small. The heroes and heroines of
the Sagas were enormous unrealities ; those
of the Nicbelungen Lied were almost preten-
tious nonentities. Wagner seized upon every
THE PHILOSOPHY AND THE HUMANITY. 49
trait of character and every incident that was
most human, and made masterly use of it. It
is the ease with which we recognize in the people
of " Der Ring des Nibelungen " primeval hu-
man types that makes us receptive of their influ-
ence and movable by their greatness.
4
III. — Some Objections to Leit-Motiven.
After several years of honest study of the
scores of Wagner's works, and after repeated
hearings of performances noble in spirit and ex-
ecution, the writer is convinced that the most
popular objection to the "music of the future"
is the tremendous demands it makes on the in-
telligence. The great public does not like to
think, especially about anything in the form of
a drama. It is an old story that the opera has
been regarded as a form of fashionable amuse-
ment, but that condition can hardly be said to
exist now. That view of the opera is held by a
minority. Even among the persons who figure
as members of " society " there are those who
take a thoughtful interest in the performance of
a Wagner-music drama. But they, like others,
are discouraged by the discovery that thought-
ful interest is not sufficient to enable them to
arrive at an intelligent appreciation of these
master-works of our time. They learn speedily
that these music-dramas require deep and con-
SOME OBJECTIONS TO LEIT-MOTIVEN. 5 1
tinuous study. In fact, outside of the fields of
politics and sociology, the lyric creations of
Richard Wagner and the philosophy of Herbert
Spencer offer the most considerable problems in
the intellectual life of our period. No subject in
the arts of painting, sculpture, or pure literature
has arisen which presents so many serious artis-
tic questions as these music-dramas. They are
questions which concern not only music, but
which reach out into the general constitution of
that abstract entity known as art, for as surely
as certain qualities are common to all the fine
arts, so surely does anything which touches the
fundamental principles of one branch reach those
of another. It is not a settled fact that Wagner's
reforms have disturbed the general laws of art
upon which music rests, but they are accused of
having done so, and hence the scope of the dis-
cussion.
The leit-motif system, which is the musical
life-blood of the fully-developed Wagner-music
drama, appears to be the root of all the evil,
for it is this which makes the demands upon
public thought, and it is this which is charged
with having transformed the operatic score into
symphony with declamatory and pantomimic ac-
companiment. That these charges seem to be
well founded when one first witnesses the per-
52 " DER RING DES NIBEZC/NGEN."
formance of a later Wagner drama is hard to
deny; and that the leit-motif system is not
without grave defects must be admitted by
every critic who is not committed to special
pleading of the Wagner cause. It is a pity that
anyone in the position of critic has ever as-
sumed this erroneous attitude, though it is easily
explicable on the ground that, in the face of ig-
norant and blatant opposition, the minor weak-
nesses of Wagner's works had to be ignored in
order that their stupendous excellences might be
preserved for the good of art.
The charge that the fully-developed Bayreuth
music-drama is an attempt to subsitute sym-
phony for opera is so foolish that it may be dis-
missed with few words. That certain themes
are repeated and sometimes subjected to signifi-
cant alterations of rhythm and harmony, need
not be denied. This is the only resemblance of
a Wagner score to a symphony. The working
out of thematic material in the free fantasia of a
symphony is so different in form and spirit from
the development to which Wagner subjects his
Brunnhilde and Siegfried motives that only
a superficial or prejudiced mind can confound
them. A far more important question is that
which arises from the fact that people cannot
recognize the design of the various leit-motiven
SOME OBJECTIONS TO LEIT-MOTIVEN. 53
by simply attending a performance of one of the
dramas. The extreme Wagnentes deny that this
is a fact ; but one has only to consult his own ex-
perience to realize that it is. Where is the per-
son who has ever at the first hearing of " Rhein-
gold " been able to identify and understand all
the leit-motiven ? But if they are not immedi-
ately and unavoidably intelligible, are not these
leit-motiven undramatic ? That is the serious
question. Is a playwright wise or skilful who
demands of his audience previous home study of
the play about to be witnessed for the first time ?
Would we tolerate any such demand if made by
Bronson Howard or Mr. Pinero ? A play should
be, according to all accepted laws of dramatic
art, a thing complete in itself. It should require
no explanatory notes in the programme and no
previous acquaintance with its subject matter in
order to be " understanded of the people." Now,
the only permissible form of opera is that which
can be received as a dr ammo, per musica — a play
expressed in music. If the opera does not meet
the requirements of a play, it is undoubtedly not
a perfect art form. The reforms of Gluck and
Wagner were designed to remove the artificial
formulas of schools which sacrificed truth to
sensuous beauty. But if Wagner demands of us
that we shall study his libretto phrase by phrase
54 " DER R/.VG DES NIBELUNGEN."
and his music measure by measure at home be-
fore going to hear the opera, does he not by this
confess to a certain grave radical weakness in his
system ? Some of Wagner's most eloquent and
thoughtful advocates take the ground that his
music produces high emotional results in those
who do not take the trouble to learn the leit-mo-
tiven, and the writer is prepared, by personal
observation and experience, to admit that this is
true. The intellectual gratification obtained from
an understanding of the motiven, say these ad-
vocates, is an added pleasure. But this is an
evasion. To listen to Wagner's music-dramas
without an understanding of the meaning of the
leit-motiven is not to justify his musical system,
but to ignore it. It is an endeavor to defend the
system by demonstrating that we can get along
without it. This will not do. Wagner's leit-
motiven have a purpose, and we must recognize
that purpose in order to appreciate his art form.
The true solution of this difficulty can be
reached only by widening our view of the sub-
ject so that the whole field of music is embraced
in it. The nature of music refutes the assump-
tion that any composition is to be heard once
and for all, as a play may be. Musical impres-
sions are fleeting; musical thoughts are elusive.
All music requires repetition. Does the world
SOME OBJECTIONS TO LEIT-MOTIVEN. 55
listen to a Beethoven symphony once and no
more ? Not at all. The treasures of absolute
music are revealed only by frequent perform-
ance ; and the same tiling is true of opera.
"Fidelio" and "Orfeo" arc not played once and
then done with ; nor are they put on for a single
run of one hundred nights. So we must view
these Wagner operas in the light of this general
character of music. We are to hear them again
and again, and at last, by continual comparison of
the text with the musical setting, arrive at a full
comprehension of the composer's meaning. This
is the artistic possibility which Wagner contem-
plated.
There is still, however, a difficulty. Music can
arouse emotion, and, in an indefinite way, also
express it. Where Wagner has sinned against
the nature of his art is in his attempts to make
music express purely mental processes. There
are several motiven, like that of the " Compact,"
whose meaning is entirely arbitrary. Wagner
has ruled that a certain combination of tones
shall indicate for his hearers the fact that Wotan
is bound by his celestial nature to stick to a bar-
gain. But music is not the language of bar-
gains, and not even so great a genius as Wagner
can make it so. You may learn the intended
meaning of this motif and accept it according to
50 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
the composer's intent, but whenever you hear it
you will, if you have a fine feeling for music,
regard it as a sort of musical Volapuk, a manu-
factured language. It seems to the writer, then,
that the leit motif system, while not truly dra-
matic, is truly musical ; that it is a satisfactory
working system for operatic music, and that its
only serious artistic defect arises from an abuse
of it.
Accepting the leit motif as a defensible art
form, everyone must be struck with its especial
fitness for the musical setting of " Der Ring des
Nibelungen." It is in the tetralogy that the
present writer finds the highest justification of
Wagner's system. In the overwhelming revela-
tion of its adaptation to his purposes is the
strongest plea for its existence. There is no
question that many of those composers who
have risen to the distinction in the field of opera
would have been hampered and discouraged by
the rigid requirements of the leit motif system.
But the time has gone by when the world be-
lieved in the inviolability of any special form.
We do not demand of the orchestral composer
to-day that he shall write symphonies, or else be
classed below the man who can produce capell-
meister music in the established classic mold.
We have come to understand that every artist
SOME OBJECTIONS TO LE IT-MOTIVE TV. $7
has a right to invent his own form. All that
we ask is that the form shall be the best that
can be designed for the artist's especial pur-
pose.
The great drama of the Nibelung's Ring is a
drama of development, and the leit motif system
is peculiarly suited to its needs. The develop-
ment of the Siegfried horn fanfare is one of
the evidences of this. It is used in the begin-
ning of Wagner's exposition of the character of
his hero to express his youth and enthusiasm.
It is then a bright and reckless challenge in six-
eight rhythm. In the " Gotterdammerung "
the same melody is used to express the mature
heroism of Siegfried. The alteration to which
the music is subjected is one of rhythm. The
motif changes from six-eight to common rhythm.
The effect produced is one of those which are
founded upon the nature of music. A six-eight
rhythm is light and tripping; a four - beat
rhythm is firm and solid. Here is a case, then,
in which the musical development of the motive
is thoroughly rational, because the physical con-
struction of the music is altered logically. Of
course, Wagner clings to his theory — the only
true one — that the music must express not the
physical attributes of the man, but his soul.
This is in accord with the composer's philosoph-
58 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
ical speculations on the essential nature of music
as the language of consciousness. Viewed from
the standpoint of the psychologist, music is cer-
tainly the language of the concept and descends
from its loftiest purpose when it is made to ex-
press ideas gathered through sense-perception.
No thoughtful person supposes that Beethoven
meant to photograph a thunderstorm in " The
Pastoral Symphony," or that Rubinstein tried
in his " Ocean Symphony " to paint the appear-
ance of the sea under varying conditions of
weather. These writers sought to raise in the
hearer's soul emotions similar to those raised in
their own souls by these natural phenomena.
So Wagner tries to convey to the hearer the
emotional content of Siegfried's soul. And how
does he do it ? By working out the Siegfried
motive symphonically ? Not at all ; but by sub-
jecting it to a simple rhythmical change which
alters and develops the character of the melo-
dy along the same lines as Siegfried's character
has altered and developed — from lightness and
ebulliency to firmness and solidity. This is one
of the artistic achievements, so simple in itself,
so striking in its results, that convince us that
Wagner was a genius, and that for his purposes
his form was the right one.
It is not necessary to trace this process in
SOME OBJECTIONS TO LEIT-MOTIVEN. 59
other motives. The unbiassed student of Wag-
ner will have no difficulty in discovering its em-
ployment in the changes to which the Rhine
daughters' music, the Walhalla, Brunnhilde, and
other motives are subjected. The changes are
not always rhythmical ; frequently they are
harmonic. In one case, as has been beautiful-
ly shown by Mr. Krehbiel, Wagner achieves a
remarkable effect by leaving the atmosphere of
modern music and plunging into the darkness
of the mediaeval style. He expresses the lack
of rest in the wandering of Wotan by a motive
which has no tonality, and which is, neverthe-
less, plainly a development of the Walhalla
theme. The fitness of this form of musical de-
velopment for a drama, which is in itself four
separate plays to be played on consecutive days,
is undeniable. It makes the music coherent and
connected, just as the story is. It establishes a
system of cross references which explains matters
to the auditor. It also is in itself an argument
against the dismemberment of the tetralogy. It
forbids, on artistic grounds, not only the concert
performance of excerpts, but the operatic per-
formance of any one drama of the series apart
from the rest. These things may be done on
the ground of expediency, but the very music it-
self cries out against them as sins against art.
DO " DER RING DES NIB E LUNG EN"
It is beyond doubt that music which is so
deep in its emotional significance and which is
worked out so logically in its development does
make those severe demands upon the intellect
which are urged against it. But, on the other
hand, when the leit motif system is attempted
in a drama where there is no development, or the
development is illogical, as in Franchetti's " As-
rael," for instance, the leit motiven become mere
labels, as some prejudiced persons say Wagner's
are. There is no significant development to the
Asrael motive, because Asrael is inconsistent.
His motive is nothing but a fixed formula, and
has no more true musical meaning than those
unhappy combinations of sounds which Wagner
tries to make representative of purely intellec-
tual processes. Franchetti's principal motives
are worked to death in " Asrael." He makes a
ballet out of one of them. Every auditor can
become acquainted with them in two hearings
of the opera. They are simplicity itself. But
Wagner has some motives which no auditor can
learn from hearing. He must either study his
score at home or have recourse to handbooks,
only to find that Wagner has had recourse to
arbitrary formation, and that some of his leit
motiven are, as his opponents unjustly say they
all are, mere labels without organic connection
SOME OBJECTIONS TO LEIT-MOTIVEN. 6 1
with the text. They become as algebraic letters,
and we hear the composer saying, " Let x equal
the Gods' stress."
Here, then, we find the real weakness in Wag-
ner's musical system. It is not that we must
listen to his dramas again and again with close
attention to the text ere we can learn the mean-
ing of his emotional motives, for we have seen
that the fundamental claim of music is to be
heard often, but it is because he has at times
striven to make music do what is not in its
power, and has thereby introduced into his
works an element of perplexity to the most
sympathetic and patient listener.
One point more is worth noting : the emo-
tionally truthful motives in Wagner's works are
always those that are most admirable as pure
music. It is not necessary to explain this state-
ment. Any person who wishes to put it to the
test should compare the compact motive with
the renunciation, for instance, or the Gods'
stress with the Love, or, in " Die Meister-
singer," the " Art Brotherhood," as it is called,
with the Longing. The brotherhood of art is
a delightful subject to express in music. Wag-
ner's leit motif for this purpose would do just
as well for the Brotherhood of Locomotive En-
gineers, and it is musically far inferior to those
62 " DER RING DES NIB E LUNGE N."
melodies which do truthfully convey to us the
emotions of Eva, Sachs, and Walther. When
one is confronted with these weaknesses in Wag-
ner's system, one feels like adopting the com-
fortable position, before mentioned, of enjoying
the music without bothering about the leit mo-
tiven. But they are like the ghosts in " Mac-
beth : " they will not down at one's bidding.
IV.— Comments and Commentators.
Wagner has the proud distinction of being
the one composer of our time who has given
rise to controversy. He has been abused with-
out mercy and praised without discrimination.
Nonsense has been written for and against him.
Some of his critics have found fault with him
for the very things which are to his credit ; others
have praised him for his errors. Perhaps no
country has won greater distinction for its in-
ability to view Wagner rationally than England.
This is, doubtless, owing to the fact that
Wagner's later works are not fairly known in
Great Britain. Nevertheless, I cannot refrain
from breaking lances with two English com-
mentators, one of whom bearded Wagner in his
lair.
When a man sets up a theory and undertakes
to make facts agree with it, he has a hard time.
The inductive method of reasoning is absolute
in its tyranny, and always crushes anyone who
undertakes to pierce its armor. The only per-
64 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
son who has any hope of success in science is he
who studies facts first and formulates his theory
on the results obtained. Precisely the same
method is to be used in studying the works of
great masters in art. The man who begins by
saying, " Wagner was not a great composer," and
then goes hunting for evidence to prove his state-
ment, is bound to come to grief. He should
begin by studying the works of Wagner, and
generalizations of an unimpeachable nature will
come to him, if he is a thinker. As Mr. Krehbiel
wisely said in one of his lectures, the only way
to find out what Wagner means is to go to
Wagner himself — to study him in his scores —
and not to accept second-hand evidence.
Sir Arthur Sullivan has set up the theory that
Wagner did not know how to make a libretto,
that he did not select the proper kind of ma-
terial for his stories, and that his verse is dog-
gerel. This is not a new attack on the genius of
Bayreuth, but it is unusual. The common plan
is to say that Wagner's music is bad, which is a
hard proposition to uphold. Some of Wagner's
music is harsh — that is a safer and surer assertion.
If Sir Arthur had said some of Wagner's libret-
to-writing is poor, he would have taken an un-
assailable ground, for no one who carefully reads
the book of " The Flying Dutchman " can fail to
COMMENTS AND COMMENTATORS. 65
perceive that some of it is very thin stuff indeed.
But that work was written when Wagner was
not yet free from the shackles of tradition in
opera making. However, this is the single book
which Sir Arthur praises, asserting that it is the
only one which could be successfully acted with-
out the music. This declaration is not worth
disputing. It shows a singular lack of compre-
hension of Wagner's purposes in aiming at an
indissoluble union of acting, poetry, music, and
painting in the art work of the future. If any
of the dramas of the trilogy could be taken out
and acted without the music, it would simply go
to show that the union was imperfect.
But Sir Arthur does not like his material. He
says : " He chose mythological and legendary
subjects, which have always taken an epic form,
for the very good reason that they are essentially
epic and not dramatic in character." A little
learning has been called a dangerous thing. Sir
Arthur must have a very little indeed to hazard
such a statement. It is not improbable that the
composer of " The Mikado " is aware that the
lyric drama of to-day originated in an attempt
at the resuscitation of the ancient Greek drama,
and that the little group of enthusiasts who met
at Bardi's palace in Florence, in the latter part
of the sixteenth century, proceeded, to the best
66 " DER RING DES N/BELC/NGEN.' 1
of their knowledge and belief, along the lines
laid down by the Greek masters. Every ref-
ormation in operatic art since their day has been
an attempt to escape from the domination of
mere vocal accomplishment, and to return to the
true basis of the lyric drama. The real ground-
work is to be found in the plays of the great
Greek tragedians, and their selection of material
does not support Sir Arthur's theory.
yEschylus is generally credited with being the
father of Greek tragedy. Strangely enough, his
masterpiece was a trilogy, composed of " Aga-
memnon," " The Choephorae," and the " Eume-
nides," in which is set forth a crime — the murder
of Agamemnon — and its consequences, very
much as Wagner tells the story of the theft
of the Rhinegold and its dread issue. Like
Wagner's work, this one contains two plots — one
celestial and the other terrestrial — and mingles
gods and mortals in the action. Moreover, the
Greek tragedian's work is wholly concerned with
those mythological and legendary characters
who, according to Sir Arthur, are "essentially
epic." Furthermore, /Eschylus, like Wagner,
used his dramas not only for the embodiment of
a national legend, but also for the propagation
of profound moral truths. Worse than this,
^Eschylus is believed to have written a tetralogy
COMMENTS AND COMMENTATORS. 67
on mythical events, of which " The Seven against
Thebes" is supposed to be the final drama.
But yEschylus does not stand alone as an op-
ponent of Sir Arthur's theory. After him came
Euripides, his mighty successor, who has been
called the "virtual founder of the romantic
drama." His method resembles Wagner's more
closely than that of ./Eschylus did in this : He
endeavored to make his heroic personages more
real, more like the men and women of every-day
life. And he helped himself in a most liberal
manner to that mythological and legendary
matter which, according to Sullivan, is so truly
epic.
His " Alcestis" differed from the normal type
of Greek tragedy in that it was not founded on
one of the great legends, but on one of the smaller
episodes of mythology. In the " Hippolytus"
he made use of one of the stories relating to
Artemis, a genuine out-and-out goddess. In
" Ion " the hero is a son of Creusa and the god
Apollo, and one of the characters is Athena, who
is also an important figure in the " Suppliants."
The "Heracles Mainomenos" begins with the
return of Heracles from Hades, whither he had
been sent to bring back Cerberus. His " Iphi-
genia in Tauris," " Iphigenia in Aulis," "Ores-
tes," and " Bacchai " all make use of mytholog-
68 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
ical or legendary material, in open defiance of Sir
Arthur's pretty theory.
But the moderns have broken faith with Sir
Arthur just as ruthlessly as the ancients; for
when Jacopo Peri wrote the first operas, he deli-
berately chose such subjects as " Daphne " and
" Eurydice," and Claudio Monteverde, the
Wagner of his time, wrote " Orfeo." And when
Gluck launched the first operatic reformation he
purposely selected Euripidean subjects, " Al-
ccstis," " Iphigenia in Aulis," and " Iphigenia in
Tauris," to which he added " Orpheus." It does
really seem as if no one had any consideration
for Sir Arthur. Even Mozart helped himself to
the legend of " Don Giovanni," Weber to that
of " Der Freischiitz," and Gounod to that of
" Faust," as expanded by Goethe. And even
Sir Arthur's own Shakespeare wrote " A Mid-
summer Night's Dream," of which the material
is excessively mythical.
All this goes to show that if you desire to cen-
sure a man's work you should find the real faults,
not set up a theory which has feet of clay.
However, Sir Arthur Sullivan does not stand
alone in his folly. Mr. Joseph Bennett can dis-
cover more faults in Wagner than Sir Arthur can,
and make far more ridiculous objections to his
work. In his "Letters from Bayreuth" he be-
COMMENTS AND COMMENTATORS. 69
wails in good set terms Wagner's lost opportu-
nities, and is grieved to the heart that Verdi did
not compose " Die Gotterdammerung." The
aged Italian maestro in his ripe years would cer-
tainly have written much fine music for the story,
but it is almost impossible to conceive of the
German master's stupendous dramatic poem dis-
sociated from his own vitalizing measures. Mr.
Bennett's particular grievance is that Wagner
did not write more choruses instead of permit-
ting Gunther's vassals to remain silent so much
of the time. " If the warriors may acclaim
Gunther and Briinnhilde," he asks, " why are
they silent when Hagen kills Siegfried ? Why
no exclamations as the hero's body is received
by the King's household ? Above all, why is
the stage filled with a crowd of dummies during
the magnificent and moving last scene ? The
absence of a chorus here is the very wantonness
of whim. It excites an annoying sense of in-
completeness, and makes us cry, even beneath
the roof of Wagner's theatre, ' Oh for a Verdi ! ' "
Alas, poor Joseph ! How shamefully Verdi
has betrayed your faith ! The ardent anti-Wag-
nerite must have forgotten all about "A'ida"
when he wrote these lines. When Rhadames
and A'ida are dying in the vault, the temple
above is " filled with a crowd of dummies," and
7<D " DE R RING DES NIB E LUNG EAT."
the only words uttered are a few broken expres-
sions of grief from the stricken Amneris. Of
course, poor Mr. Bennett could not have fore-
seen in 1876 the dreadful things Verdi was going
to do in "Otello," but it is a notable fact that
when Emelia alarms the household after Desde-
mona's murder, the members of the chorus ne-
glect their opportunities quite as shamefully as
Gunther's vassals. It was not Verdi that Mr.
Bennett had in his mind, it was Donizetti. He
would have cooked up a duet for Hagen and
Gunther over Siegfried's body, and would have
sent the dead hero back to the hall of the Gi-
bichungs to the strains of a martial chorus. And
then what a mad scene Briinnhilde would have
had over the bier ! " Spargi d'amaro " would
have been nowhere, and she would have had a
cadenza against time and a flute which would
have filled the air to bursting with ecstatic bra-
vas. And the chorus, instead of figuring as a
lot of dummies, would have remarked:
Oh, what a fatal event!
Dread fear covers all !
Night, conceal the sad misfortune
With thy thick, dark veil !
It seems strange that any thinking human be-
ing should write such puerile nonsense about a
COMMENTS AND COMMENTATORS. J I
great dramatic scene as Mr. Joseph Bennett has
written about Siegfried's death. Does it not
strike all of us that nothing could be so impres-
sive as the stricken speechlessness of the grim
warriors who cluster in the moonlight around
Siegfried's body ? Could any conversation go
on except that of those persons who will doubt-
less struggle to discuss-their dinner parties dur-
ing the blast of the last trumpet ? What choral
strains could possibly be written that would not
be an impertinence interposed between Sieg-
fried's last words and that more than human mu-
sic, the death march ? It is, indeed, curious that
Mr. Bennett should have chosen for condemna-
tion one of the highest examples of Wagner's fit-
ness for the production of an immortal tragedy.
The same writer complains a good deal about
the dramatic power of " Die Gdtterdammerung."
He says : " Had the master employed ever so
freely the splendid resources that lay ready to
his hand, it is doubtful whether the dramatic
power of ' Gotterdammerung ' would not have
put the music in a secondary place." Remarks
of this sort show how admirably Mr. Bennett
succeeded in his brutish determination to mis-
understand Wagner. To all who know that it
was the immovable belief of the master that the
business of the music was to explain and illustrate
72 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
the drama, and that it must consequently be in
the nature of things subservient, Mr. Bennett's
complaint is simply amusing. And we are still
more delighted when he proceeds to rank the
final drama of the Nibelung cyclus as third in
order of excellence, because " it presents little of
novelty."
He continues thus : »" According to a very
careful analysis by Herr von Wolzogen, there
are in ' Der Ring des Nibelungen ' ninety dis-
tinct motivi, of which thirty-five belong to
' Das Rhinegold,' twenty-two to ' Die Walkure,'
twenty to ' Siegfried,' and only thirteen to Got-
terdammerung,' which thus has, with small re-
lief, to bear the burden of constantly repeat-
ing themes already heard over and over again."
Now here, gentle reader, you have a capital plan
for estimating the comparative value of Wag-
ner's music-dramas. The master adopted a sys-
tem of leit motiven, and constructed the scores
of his operas out of themes having certain mean-
ings, ergo, the work which contains the most
motives has the most meanings, and is therefore
the best. Thus we effectually demonstrate that
" Tristan und Isolde," which contains a very
:mall number of leit motiven, is one of the poor-
est of all the master's productions.
In the drama called "Led Astray," after Hec-
COMMENTS AND COMMENTATORS. 7$
tor has poured out a long tirade against the im-
morality of the times, Rodolph says : " Bravo,
Hector, you talk like a book! The bar regrets
you; the pulpit has lost an ornament. Never-
theless, Hector, the world will go right on doing
just the same." Mr. Bennett talks like a book
— very much like a book. Nevertheless the
world will go right on regarding "Die Gotter-
dammerung"as the mightiest of the Nibelung
dramas, and there are some of us, not extreme
Wagnerites, who will continue to regard it not
only as the greatest of Richard Wagner's crea-
tions, but also as the grandest musical drama in
existence, and as one of the noblest productions
of the human intellect. And we shall do it
largely because of the manner in which the leit
motiven belonging to " Die WalkCire " and " Sieg-
fried " are repeated in such episodes as the hero's
narration of his early life, his dying speeches,
and his funeral march. We shall hold to our
belief because of the enormous effect of the
slight changes made by the master in some of
his themes. Who can withstand the overwhelm-
ing power of the alteration which appears in
Siegfried's motive of courage, always intoned by
the hero on his horn ? Wagner simply changes
the movement of the motive from six-eighth to
common time, and lo! the dashing, brilliant
74 " DER RING DES NIB E LUNG EM"
boldness of a reckless, enthusiastic boy becomes
the tremendous, irresistible heroism of a mature,
resolute, indomitable man.
So much for these two musical lights of Eng-
land. But elsewhere there are a few less dis-
tinguished writers who, by joining forces, con-
trive to keep up the old controversy about
Italian versus German opera. This warfare is
a curious thing. It is curious because the real
question is so often obscured. The real ques-
tion is obviously this : " What is opera ? "
Given a good working definition of opera as
a standard, there should be no serious difficul-
ty in testing each specimen by it. The result
would almost certainly be that the controversy,
as between Italian and German opera, would be
settled ; because we should find that some Ger-
man works were weak and some Italian works
strong. An attempt at a practical definition
was recently made by a New York newspaper
writer, who said that opera was " a setting for
wonderful voices and a medium for the bestowal
of pleasure through the agency of entrancing
harmonies. That's about what an opera is in-
tended to be." Who intended it to be that ?
Not the Italian enthusiasts who invented it, for
their views as to the nature and purpose of
opera are on record. The " entrancing har»
COMMENTS AND COMMENTATORS. 75
monies " part of the definition may at once be
dismissed. The writer evidently meant melo-
dies, for it is a well-known fact that the advo-
cates of the vocal display opera (" setting for
wonderful voices ") are opposed to intricate and
changeful harmony. The composers who in-
tended their operas to be settings for wonderful
voices are not quite as important as those who
intended theirs to be dramas with music em-
ployed to express and intensify the emotions
indicated by the text. Here is a list of the
most celebrated of each class, the former in the
first column, the latter in the second. The list,
of course, is not made arbitrarily, but is justified
by musical history, by the internal evidence of
the composers' works, and by the general ver-
dict of the musical world :
Scarlatti (A.),
Peri,
Piccini,
Monteverde
Pergolesi,
Lulli,
Jomelli,
Rameau,
Sacchini,
Gluck,
Paisiello,
Mozart,
Cimarosa,
Cherubini,
Marcello,
Spontini,
Lotti,
Beethoven,
Caldara,
Weber,
Buononcini,
Marschner,
Galuppi,
Me"hul,
76 " DER RING DES NZBELUNGEN."
Fux, Halevy,
Graun, Gounod,
Hasse, Bizet,
Handel, Wagner,
Rossini, Reyer,
Mercadante, Saint-Saens,
Pacini, Massenet,
Bellini, Lalo,
Donizetti, Rubinstein,
Meyerbeer, Boito,
Verdi (early), Ponchielli,
Thomas. Goldmark,
Franchetti,
Verdi (late).
There may easily be a difference of opinion
as to the place of Handel and Meyerbeer, but
the writer believes that he has good grounds for
placing them in the first class. Verdi belongs
to the first class by all his work up to " Aida,"
but that opera and " Otello " certainly put him
in the second ; consequently he is given a place
in each list. The weight of the authority of
great musicians seems to be considerably in
favor of the true musical drama. Counting
Verdi once in each class, there are six compo-
sers in the first division whose operas are per-
formed to-day, and twenty-one in the second
division, of whom eleven are living. There is
no living composer of celebrity still producing
COMMENTS AND COMMENTATORS. "J 7
operas intended to be simply a "setting for
wonderful voices." They are all sacrificing the
old-fashioned operatic formulas and fiorituri to
" alleged dramatic requirements."
There is nothing so absolutely unsatisfactory
as a contest over art, because where purposes
are diametrically opposed it is impossible for
the contending parties to understand one an-
other. The Wagnerite says he does not care
anything whatever about waltz tempi and sweet
melodies, which are as comprehensible to a child
as they are to an old man. He wants dramatic
truth, and if an ugly sentiment is to be uttered,
it must be expressed in dissonant music; for to
couch it in mellifluous measures would be an
absurdity. The anti-Wagnerite declares that
he goes to the opera for pleasure, and that his
pleasure consists in hearing beautiful tunes
beautifully sung. It is a curious fact — at any
rate, it seems to be a fact — that the bona fide
anti-Wagnerite never goes to a symphony or
chamber-music concert. If he did, he would,
in order to be consistent, be obliged to condemn
Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt, Chopin, Brahms,
Dvorak, Tschaikowsky, and Rubinstein for do-
ing the very same thing that Wagner did —
writing dissonant measures when it suited their
purpose to do so. But, as there is no blatant
78 " DER RING DES NIBELC/NGEN."
opposition to these composers, we are forced to
the conclusion that the anti-Wagnerites do not
go to hear their music, or else they are incon-
sistent, which is, of course, inconceivable.
What is the use of opposing Wagner, if he is
such a wretched composer ? Why not let him
sink into that obscurity which is the inevita-
ble doom of all false artists ? Does anyone sup-
pose for a moment that a great metropolitan
public can be forced to go and spend its money
on a pleasure which does not please it ? The
spectacle of three thousand intelligent citizens
of New York struggling for seats or standing
room in the Metropolitan Opera House, four
times a week, to hear operas which they do not
like, simply because a few "Wagner maniacs,"
as they are called, proclaim in the market
places that he is the greatest writer of lyric
dramas that ever lived, would be astounding.
Would any amount of shouting and gesticulat-
ing induce this public to conduct itself in a sim-
ilar manner with regard to the operas of Mich-
ael William Balfe? Not by any means. But,
on the other hand, why should a lover of the
mighty dramas of Wagner allow his choler to
rise when Italian opera is announced ? Is there
no balm in Gilcad ? Is there nothing good in
Italian opera, because it is conceived in a differ-
COMMENTS AND COMMENTATORS. Jg
ent spirit and written in a different style from
Wagner's works ? What folly ! What puerility
to make such an assertion ! Italian opera has
one merit which endears it to this public, and
with good reason. It cherishes an art whose
loveliness never grows old and whose attractions
never pall. " Age cannot wither nor custom
stale " its " infinite variety." I mean the art of
beautiful singing.
Without that art the opera must surely per-
ish. With it the Wagnerian artist can reach
real greatness. What would Sucher, Malten,
Lehmann, and the rest be without their voices
and their polished vocal art ? Yet all that these
people know about singing Italy taught them
directly or indirectly. It is not necessary for
the writer to reiterate his often-repeated esti-
mate of the value of Italian methods in singing.
Those methods speak for themselves through
the medium of the marvellous voices with which
the Creator gifted such singers as Patti and Al-
bani.
There would never be any controversy be-
tween Wagner and Italian opera if the contest-
ants would simply admit the purposes of each.
Wagner strove to unite poetry, painting, action,
and music in one coherent and vital dramatic
art. The purpose of the music is the same as
8o " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
that of the painting and the action — to illus-
trate and explicate the poem. This being so, it
is obvious that all set forms are illogical for the
purpose in hand, and all music which does not
sacrifice beauty to truth is false to the compos-
er's design. The purpose of the so-called Italian
opera is to produce — first, last, and all the time —
sweet melodies which can be sweetly sung. To
this end the dramatic poem is so constructed as
to admit a pleasing variety in the order of solos,
duets, trios, quartets, choruses, and ensembles,
and the orchestral portion of the work is treated
strictly as an accompaniment to the voices. If
any emotion demands a harsh and dissonant ut-
terance, it must be modified in such a way that
it can be expressed in song without interference
with the production of a beautiful tone. In
brief, the whole machinery of the opera of the
"Lucia," "La Traviata," and "II Trovatore"
school is constructed for the business of turn-
ing out good singing.
Now, what is the use of going over the old
argument that one is a true art form and the
other an intolerable hybrid ? Verdi has admitted
the truth of that argument. So have Gounod
and Boito and Reyer and Lalo and Franchetti
and Saint-Saens and Massenet, and other con-
temporaneous composers, who have demon-
COMMENTS AND COMMENTATORS. 8 1
strated in their works their belief that the true
principle was proclaimed by the inventors of
opera when they sought for it in the Greek
drama. Rossini practically admitted in " Will-
iam Tell " that the Neapolitan idea was a mis-
take. Donizetti and Bellini lived in the reign
of the great singers, and they wrote for them.
If they had lived till to-day they might have
followed Verdi and the rest of them.
If people who love Wagner would content
themselves with saying, " I do not like opera
which is essentially undramatic," and those who
love the Italian writers of the old style would
be satisfied to say, " I like opera in which there
is nothing but beautiful singing," and let the
matter rest there, how much more pleasant it
would be ! " But," says someone, " the persons
who write in the public prints will not let the
matter drop. Why do not they assume the at-
titude which you so heartily recommend ? "
Simply because, dear reader, it is the critic's
business to seek for the true, the beautiful, and
the good in art. To be sure, if he becomes a
controversialist, he is not holding the ideal po-
sition of a critic. If he becomes an out and out
partisan, he sacrifices himself. But, on the other
hand, the critic must eventually arrive at some
conclusions. He must possess some sort ofcon-
6
82 " DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN."
victions. He cannot forever be going about in-
quiring, " What is true art ? " The futility of
an examination which never reaches any results
is obvious. All that can be asked of the critic
is that he shall carefully and without prejudice
view both sides of the question before forming
an opinion. That, too, is all that can be asked
of the public. If the critic finds that a certain
form of art is based on false principles, but has
many beauties, he has no right to close his eyes
to its attractions. Neither has the non-profes-
sional critic — for every person who goes to the
opera is, of course, a critic in and for himself.
The ardent lover of Wagner has no right to say
that there is no merit in Italian opera. It is not
true. Therefore he has no right to view with
contempt those who prefer Italian opera to Ger-
man. They like good singing and they don't
care a rap about dramatic significance. There
are substantial arguments in favor of a love for
pure vocal technique, and the lover of Wagner,
if he is fair-minded, must recognize them.
If he feels that the lover of Italian opera is in
a benighted condition of musical taste, let him
calmly and sensibly endeavor to explain the
greatness of Wagner. If the lover of Italian
opera believes that his Wagnerite friend is in
outer darkness, where there is weeping and wail-
COMMENTS AND COMMENTATORS. 83
ing and gnashing of trombones, let him calmly
and sensibly endeavor to explain the greatness
of Donizetti. Let him lecture to his Wagner-
ite friend on " How to listen to Bellini." But,
for pity's sake, let them not go at one another
tooth and nail, as if the divine mysteries of mu-
sic were to be settled by the rules of the Mar-
quis of Queensberry. Exhibitions of wrath over
these things will never convince mankind that
one is seeking, as Matthew Arnold puts it, to
" learn and propagate the best that is known
and thought in the world."
WAGNERIANA.
I.— The Book of " Parsifal.**
Mr. John P. Jackson has written an admi-
rable introduction to his English version of
Wagner's " Parsifal." In that introduction Mr.
Jackson has made excellent use of Professor
Tappert's contributions to our knowledge of the
master's works. It is well known that the poem
of " Parsifal " was completed by Wagner in the
summer of 1877, or about a year after the first
Bayreuth festival, when the Nibelung tragedy
was revealed in its entirety. He read it on Sep-
tember 1 6th before the delegates from the Ger-
man Wagner societies which had made his dream
of a Wagner theatre an actual fact. " Rev-
erently we sat that afternoon," says Professor
Tappert, " in villa Wahnfried. It was an hour
that can never be forgotten. When the master
came to the third act, just to the place where the
coffin with Titurel's corpse is borne into the hall
by the Knights of the Grail, the sun was sinking
behind the trees in the Hof Garden. His last
beams, tremblingly, like greeting spirits, came
88 WAGNERTANA.
silently into the room and glorified the scene,
the waves of light resting like a halo around the
head of the composer." We can easily imagine
the effect of such a picture upon those who heard
for the first time this marvellous dramatic poem.
According to Edward Dannreuther, this scene
was foreshadowed on May 17th, when the master
read " Parsifal " to a circle of friends in Orme
Square, London. The book was published in
December, 1877. "But," says Mr. Jackson,
" the germ of the ' Parsifal ' music-drama was
born in Wagner's mind much earlier than 1877.
The first portions were the ' Abendmahl ' scene
and the ' Good Friday Magic' The latter is
thought to date from the year 1857. Professor
Tappert says: 'Wagner told me (in 1877) that
in the fifties, when in Zurich, he took possession
on a Good Friday of a charming new house, and
that, inspired by the beautiful spring weather,
he wrote out the sketch that very day of the
Good Friday music.'" From a letter of his to
Tichatschek (the tenor), dated Zurich, February
9, 1857, Professor Tappert believes that he is
justified in coming to the conclusion that 1857
is the date to be adopted. The passage in his
letter is quoted by Mr. Jackson, and reads : " At
Easter I shall take possession of a very charming
little villa near Zurich, with a pretty garden, in
THE BOOK OF "PARSIFAL." 89
a glorious position, just like I have so long de-
sired. There I shall soon get settled and begin
work in earnest." According to Mr. Dann-
reuther, Wagner began to sketch the music of
the separate acts of the work in his sixty-fifth
year. The sketch of the first act was completed
in the spring of 1878. The greater part of the
second act was outlined by the middle of June
and finished on October nth. The sketch of
the third act was begun after Christmas and com-
pleted in April, 1879. The master began the
instrumentation soon afterward, and finished it
at Palermo, January 13, 1882. The first per-
formance took place at Bayreuth on July 25,
1882, and in July and August of that year the
work was given sixteen times at Bayreuth. W.
S. B. Mathews witnessed the production of the
work there in 1884. He wrote : "'Parsifal,' as
given here, is a revelation. The performance is
of such a consistently elevated character, and so
easily carried out in every department, as to make
one realize that in his whole life he has never be-
fore witnessed an artistic presentation of opera."
But " Parsifal " is no opera. It is not even a
lyric drama. It is what the great tragedies of
the Greeks were — a religious ceremony. On
February 13, 1883, Wagner died in Venice. No
man ever went before his Maker with a nobler
90 WAGNERIANA.
offering than " Parsifal." In all his works Wag-
ner had preached the gospel of self-sacrifice. In
" Parsifal " he returned to that beautiful Chris-
tian mythology from which he had drawn his in-
spiration for "Tannhauser" and "Lohengrin,"
and gave to the world a passion play beside which
(considering the power of music) even the sacred
tragedy of Oberammergau must seem feeble.
It was while collecting the materials for
" Tannhauser " that Wagner read, among other
things, the mediaeval poem, " Der Wartburg-
krieg," which led him to study the personal
character of Wolfram von Eschenbach as well as
to perceive the availability of his " Parzival " for
dramatic purposes. It is aside from our direct
purpose, but extremely interesting, to note here
the astonishing extent of the preparatory stud-
ies which Wagner undertook in approaching all
of his great works, and the fidelity with which
he reproduced facts whenever it was possible.
Wolfram von Eschenbach did actually pass the
year 1204 at the Court of the Landgrave Herr-
mann of Thuringia, at the Castle Wartburg, near
Eisenach, where were also (according to the
poem) Walter von der Vogelweide, Reimar the
Elder, Henry of Rispach, Henry of Ofterdingen,
and Klingesor von Ungerland. Wolfram figures
in the " Wartburgkrieg " (the Wartburg contest)
THE BOOK OF "PARSIFAL." 9 1
as a legendary personage, but it is not at all im-
probable that he really did take part in such a
contest as Wagner has pictured in " Tannhauser."
The poet-composer, at any rate, has been so
truthful as to make the character of Wolfram in
the opera consistent with that of the real man,
and to make him utter sentiments which are
in keeping with those of Wolfram's writings.
Bayard Taylor says that he finds spiritual mean-
ing shining through the lines of " Parzival." It
appears to him to inculcate the doctrine that
" peace of soul comes only through faith and
obedience." This is not far from the doctrine
inculcated by Wagner's " Parsifal." Wolfram's
poem opens with an introduction in which the
merits of true womanhood are extolled in pref-
erence to mere beauty. This is the very heart
of the controversy in the contest of song in
" Tannhauser," and Wolfram takes the same
position there, opposing Tannhauser's rash ad-
vocacy of the delights of sensual love. It is not
strange that Wagner, whose life-work was large-
ly devoted to preaching the salvation of man
through the pure love of woman, should have
studied the works of Wolfram and drawn from
them, first " Lohengrin," and afterward the sacred
music-drama " Parsifal." It is a pity that we
know so little about Wolfram's life. That he
92 WAGNERIANA.
was a Bavarian is gathered from his own state-
ment (Stanza 12 1, Line 7, Canto Gurnemanz,
" Parzival"), and that he was poor and obliged
to subsist after the precarious fashion of mediaeval
minstrels, is tolerably well proved. These and
the few other facts mentioned are all that we
know of his history ; but his nobility of character
is established on foundations which cannot be
shaken. His great poem remained unpublished
until 1477, when it was given to the world in
two volumes under the title of " Partzifal und
Titurel."
The story of Parsifal and his relations with
the Knights of the Holy Grail is one of the
most beautiful of the tales of chivalresque ro-
mance. The romance literature of the mediae-
val ages is divided into several cycles, of which
one is known as the Arthurian. The five
stories in this cycle are those of Merlin, Perce-
val, the Grail, Launcelot, and Tristan. The
Perceval legend, with which we are now con-
cerned, rests upon the Grail story, which, there-
fore, demands our first consideration. It is said
to have been introduced into Spain by the
Arabs, who, of course, did not endow the cup
with the sacred power of the Christian legend.
According to Wolfram, Guyot de Provins
(flourished 1190-95), author of a poem about
THE BOOK OF "PARSIFAL:' 93
Perceval from which Wolfram translated much
of his own work, found an old black-letter man-
uscript in Arabic at Toledo. From this he
learned that one Flagetanis, a heathen, born be-
fore Christ, and celebrated for his knowledge of
the dark arts, had read in the stars that there
would appear a thing called the Gral, and that
whosoever should be called to its service would
be blessed. Guyot promptly went into exten-
sive researches for the purpose of ascertaining
whether anyone had ever been found worthy
of this service, and, as the house of Anjou was
in power, Guyot, after the manner of flattering
troubadours, proceeded to discover that in re-
mote times the Gral had been intrusted to the
keeping of one Titurel, a fabulous king of the
Anjou dynasty. It is doubtful whether Guyot
ever saw the black-letter manuscript except
with his mind's eye. Simrock, who translated
Wolfram's poem into modern German, thinks
that the Gral legend is of Provencal origin.
He quotes in evidence Dietz's " Etymologisches
Worterbuch der Romanischen Sprachen "
(1855), which says that "even now in Southern
France 'grazal,' 'grazau,' ' grial,' ' grau,' are
used for various kinds of vessels." Perplexity
has prevailed over all attempts at showing the
true meaning of the word " grail ; " but in view
94 WA GNERIA NA .
of the tenacity of archaic words among provin-
cial people, Simrock's evidence appears to the
writer to be excellent, especially when coupled
with the fact that in that Provencal version of
the story on which Guyot's poem is undoubt-
edly founded, and which therefore antedates
Wolfram's, the grail is a cup.
According to Wolfram, sixty thousand angels
who wished to drive God out of heaven made
a crown for Lucifer. When the archangel Mi-
chael dashed it from his head a stone fell out,
and this became the Grail. Robert de Borron,
a trouvere, born near Meaux, wrote (about
1170-80) the Provencal version which has been
referred to. It was called " Joseph of Arima-
thea," or "The History of the Holy Grail," and
in it Perceval (Wagner's Parsifal) was undoubt-
edly mentioned. Now, how did this hero of a
French romance come to be that of one of the
British Arthurian legends ? And here we are
confronted with evidence that seems to prove
Perceval to have been of British origin, for one
writer derives his name from " perchen," a root
signifying possession, and " mail" (initially in-
flected "vail"), a cup, and surmises that the
earliest form of the name was Percheuval,
meaning cup-holder or grail-keeper. Whether
this be the true explanation of the name or not,
THE BOOK OF "PARSIFAL." 95
it strikes us as being far more acceptable than
that which Wagner made for the purpose of his
drama, deriving the name from Arabic " Fal-
parsi," foolish pure one.
The exploits of Arthur were compiled by
Geoffrey of Monmouth. He died in 1 154, the
year in which Henry II. ascended the throne.
Henry was of the house of Anjou, and united
under his sceptre the crowns of England, Nor-
mandy, Anjou, and a great part of Southern
France. In his reign (1154-89) flourished Wal-
ter Map, an Archdeacon of Oxford. His chief
work, according to Professor Morley, consisted
in introducing the Holy Grail into the ro-
mances which existed before his time, and mak-
ing it the pivot around which they all revolved.
And here, as Professor Dippold notes in his
" Great Epics of Mediaeval Germany," we have
an explanation of the manner in which the
French and English versions of Perceval and
the Grail legend became intermingled. The
unification of England and parts of France un-
der one monarch was directly favorable to such
a result. It accounts for the fact, too, that al-
most simultaneously with Robert de Borron, as
far as we know now, Chretien de Troyes wrote
a " Conte de Graal." His poem does not give
a complete account of the adventures of Perce-
g6 WAGXERIANA.
val, and Wolfram, who mentions him, accuses
him of having incorrectly told the sacred story.
The Grail romance, as written by Borron,
does not mention the stone from Lucifer's
crown, which afterward became the sacred cup
used by Christ at the Last Supper. According
to tradition, Pilate permitted Joseph of Arima-
thea to take the body of Jesus down from the
cross, and gave him " son vaisseul," the sacred
cup, in which Joseph piously collected the Sav-
iour's blood, and the lance with which the
Master's side was pierced. Joseph and his
brother-in-law Bron (subsequently dubbed " le
roi pecheur ") went westward and the Grail was
transferred to the keeping of Bron, who became
the head of the line of Grail-warders. Borron,
the reader will note, did not discover any black-
letter manuscript with evidence that his sover-
eign's ancestors were the warders. Bron re-
mains on the Continent, while Alan, his son,
settles in Britain, where he becomes the father
of Perceval. Bron has kept the Grail and all
knowledge pertaining to it profoundly secret
from everyone save Alan. Perceval is to be the
third of the race to see the Grail, but after pass-
ing through a perilous quest. In the meantime
Perceval has become a knight of Arthur's round
table, and starts on his journey. After various
THE BOOK OF "PARSIFAL:' 9/
adventures he sees his grandfather, the Grail,
and the holy spear, without knowing in whose
presence he is, or making any inquiries. Here
we have the origin of the idea of Parsifal's be-
ing a guileless fool. In a second attempt the
knight is more successful. Bron reveals him-
self, explains the mysteries, and tells the pre-
cious truths which Joseph had ordered should
be told only to the third of his lineage. Bron
dies and Perceval becomes keeper of the Grail.
In this simple story, which is, of course, told
with a great elaboration of detail, are contained
the elements of the romance of Wolfram von
Eschenbach. There is a version of the tale in
the Welsh Mabinogion, which is thought by
some to be the primitive source of the Parsifal
legend. This story of " Peredur the Brave Son
of Evrawe " is found in the " Red Book of
Hergest," of which a translation is preserved in
the library of Jesus College, Oxford. Professor
Dippold gives a full review of this old epic in
his volume previously mentioned, and wisely
argues that if it were the primitive source of the
story it would be a much simpler version. It
is a long and complicated tale, and contains
abundant internal evidence that it has been sub-
jected to that accretive process through which
all legends pass with the advance of time.
7
98 WAGNER J ANA.
In Wolfram's epic Parzival is the son of
Gamuret and Herzoloide. Gam u ret is slain in
a tournament, and Herzoloide, fearing that her
son may meet with a similar fate, brings him up
in the forest of Soltane, in utter ignorance of
chivalry. But the youth one day sees three
knights, whom he takes for angels. They tell
him that if he wishes to become a hero of chiv-
alry he must go to King Arthur's Court. Her-
zoloide, sore at heart, is forced to yield to her
son's entreaties. Before letting him depart,
however, she dresses him in the costume of a
fool. After some stirring adventures he reaches
Arthur's Court, where his manly beauty com-
mands admiration in spite of his strange attire.
The youth becomes a knight and does some
brave deeds, after which he comes to the castle
of an old warrior named Gurnemanz, who gives
him much instruction. Parzival goes forward
again and eventually arrives at the castle of the
Grail. Here occurs a scene very similar to the
first scene in the castle in Wagner's drama.
The sacred lance, dripping with blood, is car-
ried around the hall, and Urepanse de Joie, the
purest of women, enters, bearing the Holy
Grail. The sacred stone is placed in front of
the lord of the castle, whose face shows that he
is suffering great agony, and the feast of the
THE BOOK OF "PARSIFAL." 99
Grail takes place. Parzival asks no questions
and learns nothing. Before departing he sees
in an adjoining room a very aged man (Titurel)
reposing on a bed. As he is leaving the castle
the next morning he is scolded by a knight for
not asking the question on which depends the
recovery of the sick lord of the Grail. He after-
ward learns where it is that he has been.
He returns to the Court of King Arthur and
is admitted to the fellowship of the Round
Table. At a feast there appears a woman called
Condrie la Sorciere, of dread appearance, the
terrible messenger of the Holy Grail, who over-
whelms Parzival with abuse because he did not
ask the question, and says to King Arthur:
The glory of the Table Round,
Its power, far and wide renowned,
By Percival has been impaired,
Since he its fellowship has shared.
At the same time Condrie summons the
Knights of the Round Table to set free the
maidens imprisoned in the magic Chateau Mer-
veilleux. Parzival renounces the Round Table,
believing himself unworthy, and departs in
quest of the Holy Grail. He falls in with a
hermit named Trevrecent, who tells him that
every Good Friday a dove descends from heaven
I CO WAGNERIANA.
and places a wafer on the Holy Grail, " by
which the latter receives the power of giving
eternal life, and providing its servants with all
kinds of meat and drink." Then the hermit
goes on to tell him that " Amfortas, the present
King of the Holy Grail, having yielded to the
allurement of forbidden love, had been severely
punished for his offence. In a combat with a
pagan he was wounded by a poisoned lance,
and since that time had been suffering intensely
and no one could cure him, while, on the other
hand, the sight of the Holy Grail prevented him
from dying. At last there appeared, the hermit
continues, a prophecy written on the Holy
Grail, saying that whenever a knight should
come and ask for the cause of the king's suffer-
ings, without being reminded of it, the king
would recover and his crown devolve on that
knight." Thus Parzival learns of his error.
He repents, and Trevrecent gives him absolu-
tion.
Much of the poem is now taken up with the
struggles between the good knights and the
powers of darkness, one of whose chief instru-
ments is the beautiful woman Orgueilleuse. She
tempts Gawain, but he conquers, and frees the
maidens imprisoned by the magician Klingschor
in the Chateau Merveilleux. Parzival, in the
THE BOOK OF "PARSIFAL." IOI
meantime, is engaged in other struggles, after
which he rides to Mont Salvage, prays before
the Holy Grail, and asks the suffering king the
all-important question. Amfortas recovers and
the crown is given to Parzival. And now we
have reviewed the entire material from which
Wagner made his marvellous music-drama.
Parsifal is a guileless fool because he was
brought up in ignorance of the world by his
mother, Heart of Sorrows. He, too, sees three
knights in the forest and fares forth after them.
But how Wagner has transformed all the rest of
his material ! The sacred spear is once more, as
it was in Chretien's poem, the lance which
wounded Amfortas and which alone can cure
him by its touch, but it is in the power of Kling-
sor, the magician. Condrie and Orgueilleuse
are moulded into one under the name of Kundry,
and it is Parsifal who withstands the temptation
instead of Gawain. He recovers the sacred
spear, and, by making with it the sign of the
cross, destroys the enchantment of the Chateau
Merveilleux. Enlightened by pity, he returns
after a long and weary search to the Graalburg
and heals the sufferer's wound. This enlighten-
ment by pity is a purely Wagnerian touch, for
pity is the ethical principle of Wagner's philoso-
pher, Arthur Schopenhauer. It was Hanslick
102 IV A GNERIA NA .
who first called attention to this beautiful em-
ployment of Schopenhauer's idea. It is unneces-
sary to speak at length of the sublime style in
which Wagner has treated the Grail supper and
the Good Friday spell, which are but scantily
outlined in the original. Nor is it necessary to
expatiate qn the manner in which, after trans-
ferring Gawain's temptation to Parsifal, he has
expanded and ennobled the scene. These dra-
matic pictures speak for themselves. How much,
too, has the poet composer deepened the char-
acter of Kundry by slightly changing an old
legend, according to which she was the daughter
of Herodias, cursed for having laughed at the
head of John the Baptist on a charger. Wagner
makes her a woman who laughed at Christ bear-
ing the cross. Thenceforward, smitten by His
glance, she is cursed with laughter, and wanders
through the world in search of her Redeemer.
After Parsifal has conquered Klingsor and dis-
enchanted his castle, Kundry, who has hitherto
known a divided service, seeks to become a vas-
sal of the Grail. On meeting Parsifal again,
this laughter-cursed woman weeps, and straight-
way he baptizes her and she is redeemed. Wol-
zogen points out that the union in Kundry's nat-
ure of hostile and helpful traits has its origin in
the Germanic Walkiire myths, and that Wagner
THE BOOK OF "PARSIFAL." 103
has preserved it for dramatic purposes. The re-
sult is a picture of emotional struggle such as
cannot be surpassed in the entire literature of
the stage. Her evil master, Klingsor, is the
" nameless enemy of the Grail," the chief of the
powers of darkness. He has been confounded
with Klingesor von Ungerland, the minnesinger.
That this is a mistake is shown by the fact that
the latter was a contemporary of Wolfram and
contended against him in song at the Wartburg
in 1204. The characters of Trevrecent, the holy
hermit, and Gurnemanz, the aged servitor of the
Grail and instructor in chivalry, are effectively
moulded into one by Wagner under the name of
the second.
Amfortas is said to have a double symbolism.
He is the personification of that suffering through
sin which has penetrated even the sacred com-
munity of the Knights of the Grail. All the
commentators say that he also typifies the suf-
ferings of Christ. Perhaps this was Wagner's
intention, but to the writer's mind Amfortas
more beautifully symbolizes the misery brought
upon mankind through yielding to the lusts of
the flesh, for it is Parsifal who represents the
Redeemer throughout the drama. He repre-
sents Him when he is anointed by Gurnemanz,
when his feet are washed by the repentant Kun-
1 04 WA GNERIA NA .
dry, and when he baptizes her in that sublime
scene which only a God-gifted genius could have
dared to place upon the modern stage. But
more than all, He surely is the Redeemer when
He touches Amfortas with the holy spear and
bids him
Be whole, forgiven, and absolved.
After quoting Voltaire's lament that the em-
pire of reason was driving " the airy reign of
fancy far away from the earth," Lord Wood-
houselee said : " It will require a genius of very
remarkable order ever to revive among the pol-
ished nations of Europe a fervid taste for the ro-
mance of literature." Lord Woodhouselee died
in the year in which Wagner was born. He could
not foresee the wonderful use to which Wagner
was to put the forgotten lays of Robert de Bor-
ron, Chretien de Troyes, and Wolfram von Es-
chenbach. Johannes Scherr calls Wolfram's
" Parzival " the first great work of German
idealism, and Vilmar classes it as a psychological
epic by the side of Goethe's " Faust." If these
estimates are just, where are we to place " Parsi-
fal," the inspired dramatic " Te Deum " of Rich-
ard Warner ?
II. — A Study in "Tristan."
After a very impressive performance of
Wagner's " Tristan and Isolde," as the curtain
was slowly descending before the dead bodies
of the Princess, her knightly lover, and the
faithful esquire, a young lady, well clad, and
bearing evidence in her face of having been
reared within the confines of civilization, arose
to depart, saying : " Isn't it silly ! "
If she had asserted that it was tiresome, one
might have set her down as of the number who
prefer the sprightly fancies of Charles H. Hoyt to
the masterful creations of William Shakespeare,
and, while admitting the possibility of a basis for
her judgment, have silently condoled with her
lack of aspiration. If she had declared that it
was immoral, one might have agreed with her
very heartily, and taken the comfortable ground
so judiciously staked out and claimed by learned
commentators, that we are not under the neces-
sity of discussing the morals of a tragedy in
order to estimate its value as an art work.
106 WAGNERIANA.
But to hold that " Tristan and Isolde," or its
fateful termination, is "silly," is assuming a
position which is tolerable to neither gods nor
men. The most adroit and well-equipped op-
ponent of Wagner's ideas could not demon-
strate that proposition without resorting to that
impregnable logic which is doubtless the famil-
iar weapon of the proponent, and which sums
up the be-all and the end-all in one word —
" because."
Fortunately, the value of " Tristan and
Isolde," literary, dramatic, tragic, musical,
moral or immoral, is not a matter for such easy
decision. The extreme Wagnerites, whose self-
contentment is enviable, have already decided
that this is Wagner's greatest work, and that it
must live even if the others should chance to
perish. The Italianissimi believe in their souls
— if they can ever find them without the aid of
a microscope — that this is Wagner's most fiend-
ish invention, and that it, sooner than anything
else he wrote, must give way to a restoration to
the musical throne of those royal tramps, " Sem-
iramide " and " Lucrezia Borgia." To those not
interested in the discussion of dramatico-musi-
cal art the heat of partisanship so constantly
displayed must be somewhat tiresome as well
as surprising. Thoughtful persons will wonder
A STUDY IN "TRISTAN." IOJ
why music lovers cannot seek for that which is
true, beautiful, and good in their art without wax-
ing angry in the search ; and those of less con-
siderate mood will inevitably quote the familiar
lines written for such occasions :
Strange all this difference should be
'Twixt tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee.
It is not my purpose at present to discuss
" Tristan and Isolde " in its entirety. This tre-
mendous tragedy would furnish material for
a volume, for it would be difficult to find an
art work produced by a master genius in such a
lofty and continued state of enthusiasm, devo-
tion, and self-abandonment. The life-blood of
Richard Wagner's genius was called upon to
shed its brightest drops for this achievement.
The man made unparalleled demands upon him-
self and met them with unsurpassed efforts.
He threw aside completely and forever every
prop and stay of tradition, and launched him-
self upon the fathomless sea of his own origi-
nality, caring not whether he swam or sank, but
ready to follow the needle of his theoretic com-
pass toward the new country to which he be-
lieved it pointed. He tells us that in the com-
position of this work he went far beyond his
theories: but after all he went only whither they
108 WAGNER1ANA.
led him. It is given to very few men to see the
ultimate, logical outcome of a theory, whether
it be of medicine, of art, or of conduct. It is
safe to say that Richard Wagner, toiling over
the score of " Lohengrin," never had a perfect
vision of the "Tristan " that was to be. And I
may be forgiven for indulging in the belief that
Wagner, penning the inspired pages of " Die
Gotterdammerung," made some allowance for
the variation of that theoretic compass which in
" Tristan " carried him out of the true course.
The dramatic weakness of " Tristan and
Isolde" is to be found in its second act. Ac-
cording to Quintilian, it was the custom of the
Greek and Roman masters of oratory to begin
with an exordium, then advance their argu-
ments with the weakest in the middle, and close
with a forcible peroration. " Tristan and
Isolde " is built on a plan resembling this, for
its weakest dramatic argument is in the middle
— the second act. But the purposes of the ora-
tor and of the dramatist are so dissimilar that
the plans and forms of the one will not fill the
requirements of the other. A successful trage-
dy begins with Fate pointing her inexorable
finger at an inevitable doom, and thencefor-
ward all incidents in the drama hurry the hero
and heroine toward the catastrophe. At the
A STUDY IN "TRISTAN." IO9
first glance it seems as if there were no tragedy
which could answer this demand with more
startling completeness than " Tristan and
Isolde." So far as its incidents are concerned
this is true. But there must be no turning
aside from the onward movement of the events,
no consideration of secondary matters ; and
this requirement is not met in " Tristan and
Isolde."
Mr. Krehbiel, who is one of the discriminating
lovers of the great German master, has pointed
out the defect of the second act of this tragedy.
He has said that the long passages of word-play
and metaphysical hair-splitting (these are not his
words) about night and day, and love and obliv-
ion, are poor dramatic material, and that half
an hour of this sort of thing is too much. This
is undeniably true. But the critic might have
gone further and said, that Wagner turned
aside from the straightforward development of
his plot to put into the mouths of his leading
personages philosophical utterances whose un-
derlying ideas are not essential elements of
the passion called love. Mr. Krehbiel has said
that the poet-composer here endeavored to lay
bare to us the workings of the hearts of his
characters. But speculations in pessimistic
philosophy, while they may be in touch with
IIO WAGNERIANA.
the spirit of gloom which pervades a tragedy,
are not likely to be the accompaniments of a
love scene, except in a state of cultivated civil-
ization so artificial as to be unimaginable any-
where outside of Boston or the famous Con-
cord School. Beyond doubt Swinburne made
his Iseult reach the kernel of the situation
when she checked Tristan's scholastic wooing
with the lines quoted by Mr. Krehbiel :
I have heard men sing of love a simpler way
Than these wrought riddles made of night and day.
In an article published in Scribner's Maga-
zine, W. F. Apthorp undertook to show the
metaphysical influences which governed Wag-
ner in his development of the scheme of a mu-
sic-drama to be called " Siegfried's Tod,'' but
which finally became the great Trilogy. These
influences were found in the pessimistic philos-
ophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, and are those
which operated upon Wagner's mind in the con-
struction of " Tristan and Isolde." Schopen-
hauer's ethics demand sympathy for suffering,
but above all else a mortification through ascet-
icism of the will to live. Our world, according
to this philosopher, is the very worst kind of a
world, and the oblivious night of non-existence
A STUDY IN " TRISTAN." Ill
is far preferable. Sympathy softens suffering;
asceticism destroys it by annihilating the will
to live. This is a complete negation of the
sensuous nature of man, and bears a strong re-
semblance to the Buddhistic doctrine of Nir-
vana — the final state of saints made pure by
asceticism, and translated into celestial uncon-
sciousness. The negation of the sensuous nat-
ure of man for some reason does not appear
to be successfully accomplished by Tristan or
Isolde, except in the latters death, which, like
the magnificent suicide of Brunnhilde, takes
place when she has nothing more to live for.
This pessimistic philosophy, dragged into the
love scene by the neck as it is, will not do Wag-
ner's bidding. For hearken to the prayer of
the lovers after their long-drawn discussion of
the evils of day and glories of night :
O sink' hernieder
Nacht der Liebe ;
gieb vergessen
dass ich lebe.
Which means, " Oh, sink down hither, night of
love, and grant me to forget that I live." If
anyone can reconcile a wish to forget that he is
alive with the presence in his soul of a tumult-
uous passion of love, stronger than honor, duty,
112 WAGNERIANA.
and friendship, let him do so. It is only the
overwhelming sense of guilt, the unutterable re-
morse following such love that can bring about
a full and perfect negation of the will to live.
The difficulty is that Arthur Schopenhauer's
philosophy, as set forth in his principal book,
" Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung," is a sub-
jective idealism, beginning with the proposition
"the world is my notion," and proceeding
thence to the construction of a system tolerat-
ing no realism, not even that of a man's own
body, which it regards as nothing but the will
objectified — the will become notion or represen-
tation. The absolute incompatibility of such a
system of philosophy with a love like that of
Tristan and Mark's queen is not hard to com-
prehend.
Nor is it difficult to discern that feature of
Schopenhauer's philosophy which gave the
whole an especial importance and favor in
Wagner's esteem. In Book III. of the work
above mentioned the metaphysician sets forth
a theory of art. Shorn of its philosophical ter-
minology, and presented as plainly as possible,
it is this : When the human mind rises from the
study of the location, period, causes, and ten-
dencies of things to the undivided examination
of their essence, and when, further, this consid-
A STUD Y W " TRISTAN'. " 1 1 3
eration takes place, not through the medium of
abstract thought, but in calm contemplation of
the immediately present natural object, then
the mind is brought face to face with eternal
Ideas. Art, the work of genius, repeats these
eternal Ideas, which are the essential and per-
manent things in the phenomena of the world.
In other words, art endeavors to exhibit to us
the eternal essence of things by means of proto-
types. And here we come upon the one feature
of Schopenhauer's system which Wagner suc-
cessfully used. His greatest characters stand
for the universal, primeval, and eternal essence
of manhood and womanhood, uncultivated, un-
civilized, unhampered. It is this which takes
hold upon our hearts, which thrills and renews
us, which fills us full to the lips with the enthu-
siasm of deathless youth.
And it is because Tristan and Isolde are two
fundamental universal types, representing to us
the unartificial man and woman, acting under
the influence of a purely natural and unrestrained
passion, that we are vexed and disappointed at
their long-winded word-splitting. You will find
no such blunder in the great love-duet of Sieg-
mund and Sieglinde, in " Die Walkure." No
sooner has Sieglinde told the story of the sword
in the tree, and expressed her longing for the
8
114 IV A GNERIA NA .
defender who should draw it forth, than Sieg-
mund snatches her to his bosom and cries :
He holds thee fast,
That friend for whom
Were weapon and wife appointed !
Deep in my bosom
Burns brightly the oath
That binds me forever to thee.
After he has continued in a similar strain for
a few lines the curtain falls, the moonlight
streams into the hall, Siegmund leads Sieglinde
to a seat, and sings to her that most marvellous
of all love's lullabies, beginning :
Winter storms have waned
'Fore the storms of May ;
In wondrous splendor
Wakens the spring.
No poet that ever lived sang a love-song with
more unerring instinct. Again, in " Siegfried,"
when the young hero comes at last to the fire-
girt Valkyr's rock-hewn bed-chamber, he dallies
with no philosophical distinctions, but speaks
out straight and true like a man :
On rapturous lips
My eyes look for pasture ;
With fathomless thirst
My mouth is on fire.
A STUDY IN "TRISTAN." 1 1 5
Not Swinburne, nor Baudelaire, nor Francois
Villon, nor all the " sad, bad, mad, glad " broth-
ers who have made love their life study, could
have written with more certain note. It is,
then, because these characters just named do
not smother love in philosophy, but treat it as
a plain, unadulterated condition of the heart,
which has always persistently refused to be
guided or influenced by reason, that they seem
to us to come nearer to being those funda-
mental types for which Wagner wisely sought.
When you get right down to the bottom of the
matter, the philosophizing of Tristan and his
lady love is almost as absurd as King Mark's
sermonizing after the discovery of their guilt.
The late John McCullough is credited with
saying that Hamlet was the one part in which
any good actor could make a hit if he would
only attend to the stage " business " and let the
metaphysics alone. Love is a good deal like
Hamlet. The metaphysics may be left for the
reflections of one's hours of solitude. In active
practice the " business " must absorb one's entire
attention.
III.— The Endurance of Wagner's Works.
It is frequently asserted by those who are not
in accord with Wagner's ideas of dramatic music
that his works are simply sensations of the day,
and that after a time this temporary craze will
pass by and the world will return to its old love
of Neapolitan opera. I am not prepared to as-
sert that the world will not tire of Wagner. The
constant endeavor of blind partisans to convince
music-lovers that he is the only composer worth
hearing, and that Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven
are antiquated and uninteresting, is enough to
make the world turn against the Bayreuth ge-
nius. But it seems to me that there is room
enough in the affection of the human race for all
that is good in music, and while I fail to see any
disposition to forget Wagner's mighty predeces-
sors, I am equally unable to perceive any evi-
dence that the world regards his works as a fancy
of the moment. They hold their possession of
the stage very firmly and are being performed in
more places now than ever before. As a proof
ENDURANCE OF WAGNER'S WORKS. \\J
that Wagner shows no signs of waning in public
estimation I think the chronological argument
is a good one. It is a common mistake to un-
derestimate Wagner's early works. That they
are really valuable creations may be demonstrated
in many ways, but perhaps the mere fact of en-
durance will strike the average thinker as forci-
bly as any argument. It is a common practice
to say that Mozart's " Don Giovanni " estab-
lishes its claim on immortality by the firm hold
it retains on public affection in spite of changes
in taste and the many other changes wrought,
as Carlyle has it, " not by time, but in time."
Shakespeare's claim is often put upon the same
ground. Well, it is four years more than a cen-
tury since " Don Giovanni" was first heard, and
that is a very long life for an opera.
How long has " Rienzi " held the stage ? The
latter end of the present year will witness the
forty -ninth anniversary of its production in
Dresden, under Wagner's own direction, in 1842.
But with most people " Rienzi " does not
count, because it is not genuine Wagner music.
It was written before his regeneration. Then
let us peep at the " Flying Dutchman," in which
the Wagner of the future is so clearly foreshad-
owed in leit motives, overture form, declama-
tion, instrumentation, and distribution of scenic
1 1 8 WA G NEK I A NA .
music. This romantic opera, as its maker called
it, was produced at the Royal Opera in Dresden
on January 1 1, 1843, with Wechter as the Dutch-
man and Mme. Schroder-Devrient as Senta. It
has, therefore, held the stage for forty-eight
years, and its hold appears to be quite as firm
now as at any time in the course of its existence.
Let us advance now to " Tannhauser," which
is still more Wagnerian. This work was brought
out at the Royal Opera in Dresden on Octo-
ber 20, 1845, and has therefore held the stage
forty-six years with constantly widening popu-
larity. It is to-day one of the standard operas
in the repertoire of the best opera-houses, and,
with a good cast, is always sure of a large audi-
ence. And next we come to " Lohengrin," which
may be regarded as fairly if not fully illustrating
Wagner's dramatic principles. It was produced
at Weimar, August 28, 1850, under the direction
of Franz Liszt, with Beck as Lohengrin, Milde
as Telramund, Hofer as the King, Frau Agathe
as Elsa, and Frau Fastinger as Ortrud. Its popu-
larity is very wide, and it is constantly growing.
Verdi's "Nabuco" was produced in 1842,
Mendelssohn's " Elijah " in 1846, Verdi's " Rigo-
letto" in 185 1, and Gounod's "Faust" in 1859.
" Nabuco " is dead to the world. " Rienzi " has
held the stage. Mendelssohn's " Elijah " is known
ENDURANCE OF WAGNER'S WORKS. 1 19
throughout the English and German-speaking
parts of the earth. Yet the " Flying Dutchman "
is three years older and " Tannhauser" one year.
No opera is better known and more justly ad-
mired than Gounod's " Faust," which contains
some of the most faithful dramatic music to be
found outside of Wagner ; yet " Rienzi " is sev-
enteen years older, the " Flying Dutchman "
sixteen, "Tannhauser" fourteen, and "Lohen-
grin" nine. And the world hears at least two
of these works almost, if not quite, as often as it
hears " Faust," one of the most popular operas
ever written.
As for Wagner's later works, those in which
his theories are more fully exemplified, it can be
said that they have held the stage a very respecta-
ble time in spite of constant vociferations on the
part of their opponents that they must soon go
to the grave. And to-day they are beginning to
carry the war into Africa. " Die Meistersinger "
has planted itself in the Italian camp beside
" Rienzi," the " Flying Dutchman," " Tann-
hauser," and " Lohengrin," and there is — O shade
of Chorley ! — talk of " Tristan und Isolde."
This last-named drama, the extreme illustra-
tion of Wagner's beliefs, has held the stage over
a quarter of a century, having been produced in
Munich, under the direction of Dr. von Bulow,
120 WAGNERIANA.
on June 10, 1865, with the following cast : Tris-
tan, Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld ; Kurvenal,
Mitterwurzer ; King Mark, Zottmayer; Isolde,
Mme. Schnorr von Carolsfeld; Brangane, Mile.
Deinet. "Die Meistersinger" has been before
the public with increasing favor since June 21,
1868, when it was brought out at Munich under
Von Biilow. And as for the Nibelung tetral-
ogy, the crowning glory of the lyric stage, that
operatic thing which makes the anti-Wagnerites
shudder, even that has clung to existence for
fifteen years, and is growing stronger and more
healthy every year.
The number of operas older than Wagner's
early works and still performed is surprisingly
small when one comes to think of it, and the
number preserving a wide popularity is smaller
still. Without taking the trouble to count them,
one may hazard the guess that there are not
more than twenty-five, and of these several, like
" Lucia," " Semiramide," and " Norma," are only
given in serious artistic communities for the pur-
pose of exploiting the special abilities of some
great vocalist. It seems fair to expect, then, as
Wagner's earlier works have kept their hold so
firmly, that his later ones will not fail to do so.
Let us remember that this very " Lohengrin,"
which is so melodious and so popular, was writ-
ENDURANCE OF WAGNER'S WORKS. 121
ten at a time when Wagner's mind was full of
his theories, for " Opera and Drama," as Mr.
Matthews cleverly notes in one of his books,
was published in 185 1, and the two works " may
well enough be accepted as mutually explana-
tory."
This point is worthy of note, because it is not
an uncommon mistake for lovers of the great
master to suppose that his earlier works do not
illustrate his ideas. Even in " Rienzi " the in-
dividuality of the man may be discovered. It
is well known that this work was written partly
at Meyerbeer, whose influence Wagner hoped
would secure a performance of it at the Paris
Grand Opera. As Mr. Matthews justly says,
Wagner might have met with more success if he
had not alarmed Meyerbeer with a prospect of
successful rivalry. In this very work, written
for the purpose of gaining an entrance where
Meyerbeer and Rossini were the rulers, the in-
dividuality of Wagner is at times apparent. Mr.
Matthews has already mentioned the evidences
of it, and we quote his words: "The recitative
is largely arioso, there are long passages of solil-
oquy or speech-making, and the harmony has
that mysterious coherence peculiar to Wagner's
manner of associating chords. Italian as it is,
' Rienzi ' could only have been written by
122 IV A GNERJA NA .
Wagner, and by him only at a time when, as
yet, he was feeling after the style which later he
completely attained."
In " The Flying Dutchman," however, Wag-
ner had done with Italianism forever. There is
not a solitary measure in the work that reminds
one of the Italian stage. Even the brisk little
march at the end of the first act is German. In
this work the future Wagner is promised. We
meet with the powerful declamatory arioso style,
the intimate association of musical phrases with
the ideas of the drama, the coherent and well-
fashioned book, the mythical personages, the
marvellous instrumentation — in short, the entire
apparatus of " Der Ring des Nibelungen " is
here in embryo, and in the music-dramas which
were written after it an observant person can
very easily trace the development of Wagner's
ideas.
THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
I.— Laying the Foundations.
If any music lover desires to take up one of
the most fascinating departments of the history
of the art, let him enter upon the study of the
evolution of piano music. He will find some
difficulty in the lack of good works treating of
the early writers. The best, however, is Weitz-
mann's " Geschichte des Clavierspiels und der
Clavierliteratur." Why it has not been trans-
lated I am unable to say. It certainly ought to
be. The facts in the following story of the be-
ginnings of piano music as far as Paradies are
given wholly on Weitzmann's authority, except
where otherwise stated.
In the early part of the fifteenth century
flourished the celebrated organists of the Church
of San Marco at Venice, and thither went great
numbers of students and famous musicians from
126 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
all parts of Europe. As far back as 1364 we find
that Francesco Landini, a blind poet and or-
ganist, was in high repute. But the first great
light of this Venetian school was Adrian Willaert,
born in 1480 at Bruges. It appears, according
to Weitzmann, that he did not escape the fate
of modern pianists. He had to teach young
ladies who wished to learn the fashionable in-
strument of the time, the monochord. In 1529
Elena, daughter of the poet Pietro Bimbo, wrote
to her father for permission to learn to play.
His reply is happily preserved. He says :
" As regards your request to be permitted to learn to
play the monochord, I reply that because of your tender
age it is impossible for you to know that such playing is
fit only for vain and frivolous women. I, however, de-
sire that you shall be the most amiable and the purest
girl on earth. Moreover, it would give you little pleas-
ure or fame to play ill ; but, in order to play well, you
would have to spend from ten to twelve years in prac-
tice without having time for anything else. Now, con-
sider whether this would be worth while. If your young
friends desire you to learn to play in order to give them
pleasure, say that you do not wish to make yourself
ridiculous before them, and be content with your scien-
tific studies and your fancy-work."
To Willaert is due the first movement of music
toward freedom from the old ecclesiastical modes,
LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS. \2"J
and his pupil, Cypriano di Rore, went far for-
ward in the study of chromatic music, publish-
ing in 1544 his "Chromatic Madrigals." Wil-
laert's fantasias and ricercari are for the most
part founded on original themes. In his strict-
ly contrapuntal music, however, he follows the
custom of his predecessors and uses the canti
fermi of the church. In his treatment he em-
ploys the dominant, sub-dominant, and octave,
and makes much use of imitation. Willaert's
successors, previously mentioned, all followed
his free style, and to their united labors we owe
the gradual liberation of instrumental music from
the vocal-ecclesiastical style. The first instru-
mental form to be clearly established was the
toccata, which, with its quick passages, was de-
signed for the speedily vanishing tones of the
clavichord. The first of these compositions to
be printed were those of Claudio Merulo, a
Venetian organist, published at Rome in 1598,
under the title of " Toccate d' Intavolature
d' Organo." The title, of course, implies that
they were designed especially for the organ. At
that time there was no distinct clavichord style,
however, and compositions for the organ and
piano of the period were pretty much alike in
treatment.
In Merulo's toccatas we find some connection
128 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
between the figured passages, and there is good
contrast between the melodic portions and the
passage work. Dr. Philip Spitta, in his great
" Life of Bach," says that Merulo found in the
toccata " a kind of composition in which he en-
deavored to give full play to the wealth of tone
possessed by the organ by alternating combina-
tions of brilliant running passages with sostenuto
sequences of harmonies." The canzona and
sonata (of that period) were developed by Andrea
and Giovanni Gabrielli. In their works the
melody became more important. In Giovanni's
canzone we meet with interesting forms, with es-
sentially melodic subjects always forming their
foundations, and with subject and counter-sub-
ject regularly alternating. The fugue, which has
become so important a study, was originally an
imitation of the voices in vocal music. Zarlino
christened it canon because it followed a canon,
or fixed law. The entrance into music of the
folk-song at the time of the Renaissance caused
a richer development of these old studies. The
instrumental writers began to take up the dance
forms of the people and to write courantes,
chaconnes, galliards, etc. These compositions
were received with favor. Subsequently the
giga was added, and a set of these dances was
called a suite or partita.
LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS. 1 29
At first, instrumental music was simply a
doubling of voice parts for the purpose of ac-
companiment. Then compositions were written
to be played or sung. Consequently we find
that in 1547 came the first publication, that of
Jacob Buus's " Ricercari da cantare e sonare."
Two years later Willaert's fantasies for three
voices (vocal or instrumental) were printed, and
in 155 1 was issued the " Intabulatura nova di
varie sorte di balli da sonare per Arpichordo,
Clavicembalo, Spinetti e Manachordi," by vari-
ous authors. The upper voice of the dances in
this collection is supported by a simple harmony
in chords. In later works the accompaniment
is worked out in a much more interesting man-
ner. These dances, too, were written in the
church modes, and have a very dry and eccle-
siastical air about them, as if they belonged to
some ancient religious ritual, which, indeed, all
dances originally did.
It was in Venice that the first systematic
organ and piano method appeared. It was
written by Girolamo di Ruta and was called
" Prima parte del Transilvano, dialogo sopra
il vero moro di sonar' organo ed instrumenti
da penna " (1593). The second part appeared
in 1609. "Transilvano" refers to the Prince
to whom it was dedicated. Di Ruta's work
9
130 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
teaches the keyboard, shows the position of the
hand and use of the fingers, explains the score,
and illustrates the necessity of his rules by toc-
catas original and selected. In the second part
he tells how to write a song, gives suggestions
for improvising, with examples, treats of the
church tones and the accompaniment of cho-
rals, and gives some suggestions about singing.
Weitzmann, however, gets a good deal better
information about fingering as it existed at that
time, and for a century later, from a book which
was published at Bologna in 1656, and reached
its fifth edition at Antwerp in 1690. It was
written by Lorenzo Penna, organist, and its title
is " Li Primi Albori Musicali." In it he lays
down the following rules :
In ascending, the fingers of the right hand
move one after the other — first the middle, then
the ring finger, again the middle, and so on in
alternation. Care must be taken that the fingers
do not strike against one another. In descend-
ing, the middle, followed by the index finger, is
used. The left hand simply reverses this pro-
cess. The rule for the position of the hands is
that they shall never lie lower than the fingers,
but shall be held high, with the fingers stretched
out.
In the following century, which brings us
LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS.
131
into the days of Handel and Bach, the fingering
is no more rational. There is an old work by J.
F. B. Caspar Majers, published at Nuremberg
in 1 74 1, and quoted approvingly by Matheson.
He gives the names of the white keys as c, d, e,
f, g, a, and so on through four octaves. He
gives the names of the black keys also. In giv-
ing his rules for fingering he numbers the thumb
o, the index finger 1, the middle finger 2, and so
to the end. This is notable as being similar to
the system employed in this country, where the
thumb is marked x and the index finger 1. In
Germany it is the rule to mark the thumb 1, the
index finger 2, etc. Majers's rules for fingering
are as follows :
Left
hand
you
take
Right
hand
you
take
'2ds ascending
2ds descending
3ds and 4ths
5ths and 6ths
7ths and 8ths
'2ds ascending
2ds descending
- 3ds and 4ths
5ths and 6ths
7ths and 8ths J
with
the
with
the
index and thumb,
middle and ring,
ring and index,
ring and thumb,
little and thumb,
middle and ring,
middle and index,
ring and index,
index and little,
little and thumb.
A little experimenting will show you how
different these rules are from those of to-day.
132 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
The first rational rules are those published
by Emanuel Bach, at Berlin, in 1753; but
the great Sebastian Bach's fingering was not
bound by such absurd laws as those of Ma-
jers's.
It is worth while to go back a little in order
to study the development of the harpsichord
style in Rome, where we first meet with the
works of Girolamo Frescobaldi (1 591 -1640).
He was a great organist, and in all of his com-
positions we find fugal writing, but his ricercari
show development of a fixed subject, while his
canzone contain bits of choral - like melody.
The principal melody of the canzona is always
recognizable. Again, his capriccii differ mate-
rially from those of his predecessors. The ca-
priccio before his time consisted of a movement
in common time in which different themes were
developed, followed by a second movement in
triple time, shorter and in the dance style. A
new movement of fugal character acted as coda
to the entire composition. The capriccii of
Frescobaldi are always based on a peculiar prel-
ude, containing some striking suggestions, and
here the composer especially distinguishes him-
self by the wealth of his inventive power and
by his treatment.
In his "Capriccio di Durezze" are examples
LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS. 1 33
of intentional harshness of harmony. In his
" Capriccio Chromatico con Ligaturi al Contra-
rio " there are passages of chromatic nature with
ascending resolutions, a piece of daring new at
that time. His contemporaries always used
the church scales ; but he made attempts tow-
ard approaching our present keys by use of the
leading tone. He was also the first who tried
to write music that could be easily read. He
published in 1615, at Rome, " Toccate e partite
d' intabulatura di cembalo." In this the notes
for the right hand were written on six, and
those for the left on eight lines.
Bernardo Pasquini, born 1637, died 17 10, was
one of the great lights of the Roman school in
the latter half of the seventeenth century. In
the few of his compositions which have been
printed there is shown a tendency to leave the
former strict style and to adopt a manner clearer
than that of Frescobaldi. His toccatas are no
longer contrapuntally written for four voices.
We occasionally find arpeggios in the full chord,
and sometimes an attempt to disguise and pro-
long the short tones of the clavichord by a sus-
tained trill. He writes flowing passages for both
hands, and in his fugues, which are formed
strictly according to rule, we find in the second
part some of the livelier passages of the first
134 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
introduced for the purpose of bringing the com-
position to an end.
This brings us to that point in the growth of
the Italian school from which the development
of the classical forms of piano music are dis-
tinctly traceable. We have seen that the ten-
dency of the school has been, first, to escape
from the fetters of the ecclesiastical modes and
to acquire the wealth of chromatics ; second, to
throw off the shackles of contrapuntal rules and
compose with freedom of style ; third, to aban-
don writing for four voices and to compose a
melody with subordinate yet independent ac-
companiment ; fourth, to employ contrasted
movements, and fifth, to establish the difference
between the technique of the organ and that of
the clavichord and harpsichord. The man who
completely established the tendencies of the
Italian school and fully achieved what his prede-
cessors had attempted was Domenico Scarlatti
(1683-1757).
Attempts had been made previous to his day
to establish equal temperament, rendering it
possible to play in all the modern keys. This
end was attained by Scarlatti's contemporaries,
Bach and Rameau. At the same time the in-
fluence of the Neapolitan school of opera com-
posers, founded by Alessandro Scarlatti, father
LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS. 1 35
of Domenico, was the ruling power in Italian
music, and the chief merit of this school was
the fluency of its melody. What could be more
natural than Domenico's endeavor to transfer
this melody to the instrument of which he was
master, and to enrich it with all those technical
embellishments in which he was an expert ?
This, then, is what Domenico Scarlatti accom-
plished. He settled for all time the dominance
of homophonic music over polyphonic in com-
positions for the piano. Langhans says perti-
nently, in his " History of Music," that Scarlatti
did not realize the significance of the sonata, but
commended his compositions of this class to the
indulgence of the public, with the remark that
" in them not deep design would be found, but
the ingenious pleasantry of art." " In fact,"
continues Langhans, " he makes more account
of technics than of intellectual contents ; yet by
his application of the principle of tripartition,
prescriptive for the modern sonata, and by a
number of effective innovations of a technical
kind, such as running passages in thirds and
sixths, the quick stroke of one and the same key
with different fingers, broken chords in contrary
motion for both hands, etc., he leads us directly
into the modern age." These things were neuf
and original.
I $6 THE EVOLUTION 1 OF PIANO MUSIC.
We must return to the indefatigable Weitz-
mann to get a more detailed account of this
man's work. The exhaustive German histo-
rian says that Scarlatti's compositions maintain
throughout a characteristic principal motive,
sustained by a well-elaborated bass. The first
movement of the real sonata form is outlined in
them. There are two parts, each of which is re-
peated. The first contains the exposition of the
thematic material of the composition. It begins
with the principal theme in the chief key, moves
to a related key in the following passage, and
closes with a cadence in the second key. If the
first part is in a major key, the dominant is used
for the modulatory passage by which the second
part is reached ; if it is in a minor key, then
the relative major or dominant minor is used.
The second part then develops the material of
the first, and modulates back to the fundamental
key, takes up the beginning of the composition,
or sometimes a later passage in the exposition,
repeats the motive of the first part in the origi-
nal key, and closes generally with a cadence like
that of the first part. An important peculiarity
of Scarlatti's form, foreshadowing that of much
later writers, is that frequently in the modula-
tory portion of the first part he introduces a new
thought, or second subject, essentially different
LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS. 1 37
from the first. Add to all these novelties in
treatment the fact that he was original, and even
daring, in his modulations and rhythms, and you
have a general view of the importance of Do-
menico Scarlatti.
There are three more composers of the Italian
school who may as well be mentioned here, be-
cause they bring us into direct connection with
our own times. The first of these is Francesco
Durante (1684-1755). He wrote studies in the
free style, consisting of flowing passages and
broken chords, sometimes for two, sometimes
for three, and even four, voices or parts, follow-
ing by a sort of divertimento for two voices, in
the same key, less laboriously worked out.
The second is Domenico Alberti (about 17 17
to about 1740). His compositions consisted of a
long allegro in two parts, in the sonata form al-
ready suggested, followed by another movement,
sometimes long and sometimes short, in the
same key. Alberti did not treat his accompa-
niment contrapuntally, but invented the well-
known Alberti bass. This was much easier
than the older basses, and the abuse of it did
much to retard the development of the left
hand. Pietro Domenico Paradies (1710-1792)
wrote twelve " Sonate di Gravicembalo." His
works are musically and technically far more val-
138 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
uable than those of Alberti. They consist of
two movements in the same key, but differing
in tempo. The first movement is the longer.
It is in two parts, the first of which regularly
closes in the dominant of the chief key. It is
either an allegro followed by a shorter move-
ment vivace, or it is an aria. Sometimes he be-
gins with an andante, followed by a minuette
or a giga. This composer's works were studied
by the celebrated Muzio Clementi. This mas-
ter taught John Field, one of whose pupils was
Alexander Villoing, the teacher of Anton Ru-
binstein.
It is necessary now to go back in order to
note the rise of the English, French, and Ger-
man schools. The English school of harpsi-
chord players and writers was very important
while it lasted, but it exerted no great or lasting
influence on the progress of art. The German
school, on the other hand, developed steadily
along a well-defined path, giving to the world
the works of Handel, Sebastian and Emanuel
Bach, who clearly defined the sonata form,
Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, after whom
came the modern romantic school. It seems
most convenient to dismiss the English school
before showing how the Germans, having learned
the arts of composition and performance of
LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS. 1 39
clavichord music from the Italians, proceeded
to advance in their own characteristic way. The
French school, which is of more importance than
the English, will also be considered.
It appears that in 1550 there were in the ser-
vice of Edward VI., in addition to singers, play-
ers of the lute, harp, flute, and rebek, trumpet-
ers, and drummers, three active virginal players,
and in 1575 Thomas Tallis and his famous
pupil, William Byrd, were organists to Queen
Elizabeth. There had been virginal playing in
England long before this, however. Even
Henry VIII. was a player, and a composer as
well, as may be seen by his " Pavane," tran-
scribed by J. Stafford Smith from the Arundel
collection, and printed in the " Musica Antiqua."
This royal composition was much like the Ve-
netian dances of the book of 1 5 5 1 , and the de-
velopment of virginal music in England seems
to have been similar to that of spinnet music in
Italy up to a certain point. In " Queen Eliz-
abeth's Virginal Book " are to be found speci-
mens of the writing of Tallis, Byrd, and their
contemporaries, Giles, Farnaby, Dr. Bull, and
others. Among these compositions we find
fantasias, which consisted of different motives
following one another in imitation and fugal
style, pavanes, galliards, and variations on folk
140 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
melodies. The first collection of virginal mu-
sic published in England was that known as
the " Parthenia," which appeared in 1611. The
music was written by Byrd, Bull, Orlando Gib-
bons, and others. It consisted of twenty-one
pieces, printed on six-line staves. These pieces
were preludes, pavanes, galliards, one fantasia
in four parts, and the " Queen's Command,"
by Gibbons, which was an air and variations.
These Englishmen were great players and com-
posers in their time, but they accomplished lit-
tle or nothing in the development of our extant
form and technique. It is safe to say that the
achievements of the French school deserve
more careful consideration, though, as we shall
presently see, the development of piano music
and piano playing passed from Italy to Ger-
many in the first half of the eighteenth century,
and was continued by the great Teutonic mas-
ters down to our time.
The first great light of the French clavecin
school was Francois Couperin, the second of the
name, born 1668, died 1733. He was a con-
temporary of Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-
1764), who was not only a great operatic com-
poser, but also a celebrated theorist. His
" Trait 6 d'Harmonie," published in 1722, con-
tains rules which form the basis of our present
LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS. 141
harmony. " Moreover, Rameau brought to per-
fection equal temperament, which we saw Zar-
lino beginning to study in Venice a century
and a half earlier. He divided the octave into
twelve equal half steps, thus removing the im-
pediments offered to the progress of instrumen-
tal music by instruments with a fixed tuning.
Bach had already brought equal temperament
into use in 1722, but it was only after the pub-
lication in 1737 of Rameau's ' Generation Har-
monique ' that scientists accepted this system
of tuning as the essential basis of music"
(" Story of Music," page 45). Couperin lived
hardly long enough to reap the benefits of Ra-
meau's achievements, but his immediate suc-
cessors showed the influence of the new theory.
Couperin published four volumes of " Pieces de
Clavecin." They were approved by Sebastian
Bach, who advised his pupils to study them.
He also published a notable technical work en-
titled " L'Art de toucher le Clavecin, y compris
huit Preludes."
His compositions were mostly suites, but the
form was very uncertain. Full harmony is rarely
found in Couperin's clavier movements. They
are usually contrapuntal, but the upper voice
carries the principal melody. His works contain
curious rhythmical oddities, which give them a
142 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
stiff, old-fashioned, angular movement. His
suites are a sort of refined ballet music, and the
movements are often distinguished by theatrical
titles, such as " La Majesteuse," " La Prude,"
" La Flattesse." The uncertainty of the form of
his suites is seen in the loose distribution of the
movements. For instance, one suite, the fifth
(A major), consists of an allemande, two cou-
rantes, a sarabande, a gigue, and six rondos, in-
termingled with numbers in free style. Dr.
Spitta says (" Life of Bach," vol. ii., page 86) :
" In spite of this he never entirely quits the
ground of the suite, for he keeps to the same key
throughout, even when he does not begin with
the usual pieces. But it is clear that he never
felt the necessity of welding together the various
constituent parts to one perfect whole of many
members." The chief significance of Couperin's
suites for us lies in the fact that the great Bach
studied them and imitated them. This accounts
for some of the peculiarities of his compositions
in this line. Couperin also wrote an allemande
for two claviers, which may have had some in-
fluence in producing Bach's double concerti. It
may as well be added here that Bach wiped out
the uncertainties of form in the suite, and in this,
as in other departments, established the model
for future composers. Louis Marchand (1669-
LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS. 1 43
1732) and his successor, Louis Claude Daquin,
were the other lights of the French school.
Rameau, before mentioned, published several
collections of compositions for the clavier, the
last of which, issued in Paris in 1741, was " Trois
concertos pour clavecin, violon et basse de viole."
As this was published after the time when the
development of piano music had fairly passed
over into Germany, it needs but to be mentioned.
There is an excellent edition by no less a master
than Johannes Brahms of some of Couperin's
compositions, and other works of the French
school can be found in E. Pauer's " Alte Clavier-
musik" and Weitzmann's " Geschichte des Cla-
vierspiels."
Let us now turn to an examination of the be-
ginning of the great German school. The early
masters of this school studied under the Italian
composers. It is not necessary to enter into this
matter in detail, but for the benefit of those who
would like a more extended account than will be
given here, it may be said that material is to be
found in Naumann's " History of Music," vol.
i., page 612 et seq. ; Weitzmann's "Geschichte
des Clavierspiels," page 34 et seq., and in vari<
ous parts of Spitta's " Life of Bach," which must
be discovered by searching the index. The
first of the Germans who studied under Italian
144 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
masters was Gallus (1550-91). He is supposed
to have been a pupil of Andrea Gabrielli. Ja-
cob Meiland (1542-77), Adam Gumpeltzhaimer
(1560-?), Christian Erbach (1 560-1628), Hans
Leo Hassler (1 564-161 2), and Gregor Aichinger
(1 565-1621) all studied under Venetian masters
and wrote in the Venetian style for organ and
harpsichord. Meiland, for instance, wrote what
Naumann calls " song- dances," which were gal-
liards, pavanes, etc., da cantare e sonare. Hass-
ler was probably the most talented composer of
all these, but his best works were canzonets
and madrigals for voices, and they became wide-
ly popular. Many Germans studied in Rome,
whither they were drawn by the fame of Caris-
simi and Frescobaldi, and it is among the pupils
of the latter that we find two of the important
predecessors of Bach. These were Johann Kas-
per von Kerl (1625-90) and Johann Jacob Fro-
berger (1610-67). It is not definitely proved
that Kerl studied under Frescobaldi, but his
eminence as an organist, together with the fact
that he studied in Rome and the internal evi-
dence of his works, makes it a safe inference
that he did so. Froberger, we know, went to
Rome on purpose to study under Frescobaldi.
Froberger excelled as both organist and cem-
balist. His writings display the finely developed
LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS. 145
contrapuntal and fugal style of his master, and
also a tendency to an excessive use of those spe-
cial kinds of ornamentation adapted to keyed
instruments. These ornaments, called agree-
ments, such as the " tremblement simple " (trill),
" autre cadence," " pince," " chute et pinc6,"
" coul6," " tierce coulee," etc., were cultivated
by the French, and Froberger is supposed to
have learned them while visiting Paris. He re-
jected the six- and eight-line staves and wrote on
a five-line staff as we do now, using indifferently
the C, F, or G clef. Two important works of
his were published at Mayence. The first was
called " Diverse curiose rarissime partite di toc-
cate, ricercate, capricci e fantaisie per gli amatori
di cembali, organi ed instromenti." The second,
a larger work (1714), was called : " Diverse in-
gegniosissime, rarissime, e non mai piu viste
curiose partite di toccate, canzone, ricercate, ale-
mande, correnti, sarabande e gigue di cembali,
organi e instrumenti." There is much charming
melody in these works, and Sebastian Bach es-
teemed them so highly that he wrote a prelude
and fugue in E flat on the Froberger model.
Dr. Spitta says that Froberger's toccatas " con-
tributed to the formation of the North German
fugue form, consisting of several sections." He
further says that " with regard to free organ com
146 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
position Froberger stands about half-way be-
tween the northern and southern masters." This
is less interesting to us than the fact that Fro-
berger was one of the earliest composers of pro-
gramme music. Dr. Spitta, in searching for the
model after which Bach built his " Capriccio
sopra la lontananza del suo fratello dilettissimo,"
mentions Kuhnau's six sonatas on biblical nar-
ratives and says they did not stand alone. He
quotes Matheson, who declared that Froberger
could tell whole histories on the clavier, "giving
a representation of the persons present and tak-
ing part in it, with all their natural characters."
Matheson says, moreover, that he possessed a
suite by this composer " in which the passage
across the Rhine of Count von Thurn, and the
danger he was exposed to from the river, is most
clearly set before our eyes and ears in twenty-
six little pieces." Of course these attempts at
characterization were imitations of the efforts of
Couperin. The force of their delineation must
have been much greater than that of any pro-
gramme music of our time, if Matheson speaks
truly. But Matheson had an active imagina-
tion.
George Muffat ( - l 7®4) and Heinrich
Franz von Biber (1648- 1705) must be men-
tioned, because the former, in his "Apparatus
LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS. 1 47
Musico - Organisticus," published at Augsburg
in 1695, proved himself to be a greater master
of bravura writing for keyed instruments than
either Frescobaldi or Merulo, and because Von
Biber, though a violinist, contributed greatly to
the development of the sonata form. His writ-
ings in this department show a well-considered
contrast in rhythm and tempo, but there is none
of that regulated distribution of keys which is
deemed indispensable to the modern sonata. •
The immediate predecessors of Bach were
organists of great ability and renown. They
can be traced in a direct line from Jan Pieters
Sweelinck (1 540-1621), a celebrated master of
the Netherlands school. Among the most not-
ed of them were Samuel Scheidt (1 587-1684),
Heinrich Scheidemann (1600- 1694), John Adam
Reincke (1623 -1722), Dietrich Buxtehude
( 1635-1707), and Johann Kuhnau (1667-1722).
The three last, as the dates show, were contem-
poraries of Bach, though older men, and exer-
cised marked influence on his development. He
was acquainted with all three personally, and
made long journeys in order to hear Reincke
and Buxtehude play the organ. Reincke was
an organist pure and simple, but Buxtehude was
also a fine player on the clavier and composed
some good music for the instrument. He ex-
143 THE EVOLUTION- OF PIANO MUSIC.
celled in the free style of writing, and his works
are imbued with deep poetical feeling.
Kuhnau is more important for our considera-
tion, because he advanced the development of
the sonata form in Germany. Some writers
have held that he was the inventor of the sonata
form in many parts, but it is more truthful to
say that he introduced it in his own country.
His first sonata is in three parts, and is found in
his work bearing this curious title : " The other
part of clavier exercise ; that is, seven parts from
re, mi, fa, or tertia minor tone, in addition to a
sonata in B ; written for the special delectation
of lovers of music." Kuhnau's sonatas do not
disclose a form growing out of the use of two or
more themes or subjects. They are monothe-
matic and consist of either fugato movements or
parts in the style of a suite.
This brings us down to music which still
figures in piano recitals. The growth of piano
music from this time is in one of its aspects the
development of the sonata form, of which the
history has been written in many places and is
familiar to most lovers of music. But there is
another aspect of the evolution of piano music,
which to my mind is quite as important as the
development of the form. This is the develop-
ment of the technique of the instrument, in-
LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS. 149
fluenced as it was by the musical tendencies of
the successive periods of musical history and
showing a singular but unmistakable reaction
upon them. Let us, then, review briefly the
condition of music before Bach established his
technique.
II.— Development of the Technique.
In the history of instrumental music there
are three great periods, not divided by distinct
lines, but gradually passing one into the other,
and overlapping. These three periods are the
Polyphonic, the Classic, and the Romantic. In
the early history of music the musical scholars
were all churchmen, and musical learning was
all expended upon church music. Musical
scholarship devoted all its energies to the pro-
duction of great works in counterpoint, till after
a time the masses of the church became unin-
telligible. The Lutheran chorale, the broad
hymn tune for congregational worship, which
came into prominence in the Reformation, con-
vinced the fathers of the Roman Church that a
simple style was necessary, and they took meas-
ures which led to its adoption. About the same
time a band of Florentine enthusiasts, in seek-
ing to resuscitate the dramatic recitation of the
Greek drama, gave to the world the modern
opera, and introduced a still simpler and more
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNIQUE. 1 5 1
beautiful vocal style than had hitherto been
known.
Before these changes took place instrumental
music was nothing but an echo of vocal music.
The instruments simply played the voice parts
of compositions written for singers. The mono-
chord, the piano of the time, was used for the
home practice of organists, and its style was
borrowed from the organ, which spoke only the
contrapuntal accents of the Church. When vo-
cal music assumed a simpler style, instrumental
music went on elaborating contrapuntal devices,
and this contrapuntal, or polyphonic, instru-
mental style reached its perfection in the hands
of Bach. In contrapuntal playing, in the simul-
taneous delivery of several melodies, Bach re-
mains the model in the history of music. He
brought the old style of performance to the
highest grade of finish ; but he was also instru-
mental in overthrowing it, for it was during his
time that the cantabile style of monophonic
playing began to supersede the old fugal man-
ner. The music of Bach's day gives abundant
evidence of being in a state of transition from
one period to the other. All through Handel's
" Messiah," for instance, you will find passages
built on scales, like those of Bach's successors,
mingled with passages in the fugal style. If
152 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
the reader will examine the tenor air, " Every
Valley," he will at once perceive the meaning
of my assertion.
Now what causes led to the transition from
the polyphonic, fugal style to the cantabile of
Emanuel Bach and Mozart ? The first was
the operatic aria. The aria da capo made its
appearance in Cavalli's " Giasone," which was
produced in 1649, anc ^ was afterward made
popular all over Europe by Alessandro Scar-
latti. The aria da capo was a simple song
form, consisting of a melody, a second melody,
and a return to the first. Its perspicuity and
symmetry pleased the public, and composers
for the clavier felt that it had emotional possi-
bilities not found in the fugal style. Evidence
of its immediate influence is found in the clavi-
chord works, already mentioned, of Bernardo
Pasquini (1637-17 10), who aimed at a more
flowing and vocal style than that of his prede-
cessors. The second cause was the complete
establishment by Domenico Scarlatti (1683—
1757) of the difference between the technique
of the organ and that of the piano, as described
in the previous chapter. And the third cause
was the immense reforms in fingering intro-
duced by Johann Sebastian Bach. He was
the Moses who led music out of the ecclesias-
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNIQUE. 1 53
tical wilderness. If you wish to understand
that new testament of which Beethoven was
the John and Wagner the Paul, you must go
back to the old testament and study Bach and
the prophets.
Previous to the time of Johann Sebastian
Bach the technique of the clavier was simply
obstructive to the progress of playing. It was
based upon illogical and arbitrary rules, which
had no foundation in the anatomical structure
of the hand. The old rules required the player
to use his fingers in ways contrary to the laws
of nature. To be sure, one can train his muscles
and ligaments to do abnormal things, as you
may learn from the performance of any acrobat ;
but playing a piano should not be the feat of a
contortionist. The rules set forth by Caspar
Majers in 1741 commanded the pianist to play
ascending seconds in the right hand with the
middle and ring fingers ; thirds and fourths with
the middle and index ; fifths and sixths with
the index and little; sevenths and eighths with
the little and thumb.
It is easy to perceive that such rules as these,
which, according to their date, were extant in
Bach's day, precluded the possibility of great
fluency and rapidity. A smooth legato style
could be obtained only at a moderate tempo.
154 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
Any attempt at rapidity would have been de«
structive of smoothness and would have resulted
in an uneven distribution of dynamic power and
a consequent disturbance of the symmetry of the
phrasing. The impulse which caused pianists
to break the shackles of these old rules was un-
doubtedly the growing influence of romanticism
in music. In the old polyphonic, ecclesiastical
style of composition for the clavier, when pieces
written for that instrument resembled in form
and content the organ fugues or contrapuntal
anthems of the Church, the player was compelled
to cultivate a technique which would enable
him to enunciate with his fingers the three or
four voice parts in which these contrapuntal
compositions were always written. D. Scarlatti
established the monophonic or single-voiced
style of composition. In plain words, he wrote
airs, composed of progressions of single notes,
for the right hand with accompaniments for the
left. His style of writing was learned by the
Germans, and Sebastian Bach, whose genius
exalted and moulded anew the entire formal ma-
terial of music as known in his day, effected in
some of his works, such as the " Chromatic Fan-
tasia and Fugue," an astounding combination of
the old and new styles. There are passages in
the composition named which lean far forward
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNIQUE. 1 55
into the present and resemble in style and spirit
some of the devices of Liszt.
In order to perform the new kind of music
Sebastian Bach was compelled to throw over
the stupid and illogical technique of his pre-
decessors. His son, Emanuel Bach, who was
not a great composer, but whose comprehension
and revelation of the genius of the clavier en-
title him to an honorable position on the page
of musical history, carried the development of
technique still further in his admirable search
after a fine legato style. In his epoch-making
book on " The True Manner of Playing the
Clavichord," he says : " Methinks music ought
principally to move the heart, and in this no
performer on the pianoforte will succeed by
merely thumping and drumming or by contin-
ual arpeggio playing. During the last few years
my chief endeavor has been to play the piano-
forte, in spite of its deficiency in sustaining
sound, as much as possible in a singing manner
and to compose for it accordingly. This is by
no means an easy task if we desire not to leave
the ear empty, or to disturb the noble simplicity
of the cantabile with too much noise." This art
of singing on the pianoforte is still one of the
great desiderata of a lofty style, and to-day no
higher praise can be awarded to any player'*
156 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
touch than to say that his cantabile made his
hearers forget that the pianoforte was not a pro-
ducer of sustained tones.
The whole structure of modern piano tech-
nique, which was over a century in the course
of development, rests upon the foundation of
the Bach legato ; for from this came our smooth
and equal scale and arpeggio playing, which is
one of the most salient features of our technique.
All the other features of modern technique are
derived either from this, or from the virtues of
the old polyphonic style. The Schumann tech-
nique is simply a rational development of a
blending of the two styles. Now let us see
wherein the mechanical wonder of Bach's revo-
lution lies.
Previous to his day players had used the
fingers in an outstretched position, the thumb
hanging down (Fig. 1). Bach at once per-
ceived that this position
of the hand was unnat-
ural, that it robbed the
fingers of their normal
power and left a valua-
F,G - '• ble ally unemployed. He,
therefore, began to make as free use of his
thumb as he did of the other fingers. But the
moment that he attempted to use the thumb he
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNIQUE. 1 57
was forced to change the position of the other
fingers and the old order of things was over-
thrown. For in order to play with the thumb
as well as the fingers, it was necessary, on ac-
count of the shortness of the former, to curve
the latter (Fig. 2). As Dr. Spitta puts it in
his great " Life of Bach,"
" This curving at once ex-
cluded all rigidity ; the
fingers remained in an
easy, elastic attitude,
ready for extension or F,G - 2 -
contraction at any moment, and they could
now hit the keys rapidly and accurately as they
hovered close over them. Thus by diligent
practice the greatest possible equality of touch,
strength, and rapidity was acquired in both
hands, and each was made quite independent
of the other."
Bach was not alone in the free use of the
thumb, for Francois Couperin (1668-1733), Jo-
hann Gottfried Walther, a contemporary of
Bach, Heinichen, and Handel, who was a great
clavier player, and whose hands were used in a
bent position, according to Chrysander, all em-
ployed the thumb in many ways ; but it was
Bach who systematically developed a method
of fingering based on the new style and who
158 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
handed down rules. Some of them have lived
until our day, for as Dr. Spitta says, " The
natural tendency of the thumb to bend toward
the hollow of the hand made it of admirable use
in passing it under the other fingers, or them
over it." It was Bach who refingered the scales
in accordance with this natural use of the thumb.
Now let us see how this innovation of Bach's
revolutionized the technique of piano playing
and the style of musical utterance employed by
writers for the piano. As soon as composers
found that the freedom of the hand facilitated
scale playing, they naturally began to write
extended melodies based on scales, a practice
already introduced in vocal music. The com-
plete beauty of this style is found in the works
of Mozart, who was the next great piano com-
poser after the Bachs. And we ought to notice
the interesting fact that the fondness for scale
passages fostered by Mozart's great virtuosity as
a pianist influenced his orchestral style and
even his operatic creations. We must remember
that Mozart's career began at the piano. Even
in Beethoven's time the use of the scale had not
palled upon composers, and some of the noblest
thoughts of the mighty Ludwig are built on sim-
ple scale passages. Of course in Beethoven's
early piano concertos, when he was still under
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNIQUE. 1 59
the influence of Mozart's genius, scale passages
and the running style prevail, and I think I do
not go too far in saying that there is nothing in
these works which cannot be performed with
the technique of Emanuel Bach.
Mozart followed the theory of Emanuel
Bach as to the singing character of the piano.
Jahn says : " Mozart's musical training was
founded on song — and his inclinations led him
to song — in a greater degree than was the case
with his two predecessors." Bearing in mind,
then, the influence of his early training as a
pianist and his later development as an operatic
composer, we see the logical tendency of Mo-
zart's technique. He demanded of the pianist
a perfect legato, a singing touch, and an unaf-
fected style. It is on record that he said as
much, and the internal evidence of his music
shows that he practised what he preached.
His beautiful fingering was the result of a close
study of Sebastian Bach and his son Eman-
uel. He carried forward the development of
the latter's technique, and is the connecting link
between him and Clementi. He demanded " a
quiet and steady hand, with its natural light-
ness, smoothness, and gliding rapidity so well
developed that the passages should flow like
oil." He required the delivery of every note,
l60 THE EVOLUTION OF PIAXO MUSIC.
grace, and accent with appropriate expression
and taste. He was opposed to over-rapidity of
execution and to violations of time. "Three
things," he said, " are necessary for a good per-
former ; " and he pointed to his head, his heart,
and his fingers. Thus we perceive that from
the moment that Bach threw off the shackles
of the old rules and made it possible by the use
of the thumb to play scale passages smoothly
and evenly, the genius of piano-music composers
led them in the direction of a singing style
based on the scale.
The next great change in the style of piano
composition and piano technique, for the two
things go hand in hand, came about in the
course of the supremacy of Muzio Clementi
(1752-1832). This man was in some respects
a repetition in musical history of Emanuel
Bach. He was not a great composer, not even
as good a composer as Emanuel, and his music
never figures in general concerts in our day any
more than that of Bach's son ; but he had the
keen insight of his predecessor into the nature
and possibilities of the instrument on which he
played. Given a different instrument in the
hands of such a man and you will have new
results. This is just what took place. The
prime cause of the vast difference between the
DEVELOPMENT OE THE TECHNIQUE. l6l
technique of Clementi and that of Mozart was
a difference of instruments. Clementi used the
English piano; Mozart, the Viennese. The
English piano, as Ernst Pauer has noted, had
thicker strings, and a richer tone, and its ham-
mer had a deeper fall. This made it " favor-
able to the sure execution of thirds, sixths, and
octaves, and to the clear and precise playing of
chords in succession ; the tone of the Vienna
piano, though thin and of shorter duration, was
highly agreeable, and its action was so light
that (as in the harpsichord) the most delicate
pressure produced a sound from the key.
. . . Clementi's piano was therefore favor-
able to a substantial and masculine treatment ;
while the Vienna piano responded best to a
rapid fluent style and to arpeggio playing."
In every art there come periods when its vo-
taries devote themselves wholly to the develop-
ment of its technique. I think we are passing
through such a stage in some arts to-day.
Poets are more concerned just now about the
music of their verse than about the vitality of
their thought. And when artists take up this
study of technique they almost invariably seek
to carry it beyond the domain of their art, as
did the ancient painter who painted grapes so
as to deceive the birds. That was great tech-
ii
1 62 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
nique, but it was not art at all. So the follow-
ers of Clementi have striven to make the piano
a rival of the orchestra, for he was the founder
of the school which aims at immense sonor-
ity and bewildering complexity. The Vienna
school aimed at retaining the character of the
piano as a chamber instrument. The more
powerful construction of the English piano
tempted Clementi to develop a larger style.
This could not be reached through the simple
scale passages and single-note progressions of
Mozart. If you wish to get a volume of tone
from a piano you must take notes by the hand-
ful. Consequently in Clementi's compositions
appear rapid passages in thirds, sixths, and oc-
taves. Moreover, he writes more extended
chords and demands of the player a muscular
power previously unknown. Clementi, as I
have said, was a piano technician pure and sim-
ple, and he wrote almost exclusively for his
chosen instrument. His exploration into its
resources developed a technique which is ample
for the performance of everything in piano mu-
sic up to the death of Beethoven. It is natural
that this man should have trained John Field,
the teacher of Alexander Villoing, who was the
only instructor of Anton Rubinstein.
We have now seen the transition from the
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNIQUE. 1 63
polyphonic style to the monophonic legato, and
we have seen added to that the use of chord
successions and the other elements of a sonorous
and masculine method. These two styles are
the foundation of our present technique, which
is the result of their natural and inevitable
union. For it was not to be supposed that
pianists would rest content with a division of
styles based on a difference of instruments.
The demand of the musical world for a piano
on which both styles could be employed with
equal facility and brilliancy was, of course, un-
avoidable, and the development of music com-
bining the two styles was bound to be, if any-
thing, a step in advance of the growth of the
means of execution.
I have said that the technique of Clementi
was sufficient for the performance of everything
up to the death of Beethoven. The emotional
content of the mighty Ludwig's works is, of
course, far more important than their technical
peculiarities. Indeed, in respect of technique,
Beethoven's sonatas and concertos show little
advance over the works of his predecessors.
All that is best in the styles of Bach, Mozart,
and Clementi is to be found in Beethoven's
works ; and that which is distinctively his own
is the spirit rather than the mechanism. He
1 64 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
certainly did, however, enrich the piano style
of his time by a freer use of polyphony than his
immediate predecessors had made. It was not
the ecclesiastical polyphony of the contrapun-
tists, but a modernized kind, the growth of an
adaptation of scholastic material to the needs of
romantic expression. The tremendous finale of
the sonata, opus III, is an example of Beetho-
ven's use of this style. Again, Beethoven's orig-
inality in rhythm demanded of pianists increased
attention to the distribution of accents ; and to
achieve the desired effects it was necessary to
be more careful in developing independence of
finger, a thing which in our day is a sine qua
non of piano-playing. Finally, the majestic dig-
nity of the musical utterance of these sonatas
and concertos called for a broader and nobler
tone-color and a more dramatic phrasing than
had hitherto been known to the piano. Even
in our day, with the superb instruments at our
command, and the entire resources of Liszt's
witchcraft in tone-color open to us, we cannot
exceed the requirements of Beethoven's works
in the details of sonority and variety of color.
This feature of their technical aspect points, as
all their other traits do, to the fact that the
child of the Bonngasse wrote not for a day, but
for all time.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNIQUE. l6$
Nevertheless, as far as the mere mechanics of
piano-playing are concerned, the technique of
Clementi's " Gradus ad Parnassum " suffices for
the performance of even the "Emperor" con-
certo. The technique of Schubert and Weber
was also based on Clementi's. The latter, how-
ever, showed some originality in the use of ex-
tended chords, and in his " Concertstuck " in-
troduced the octave glissando, a cheap virtuoso
trick. In general it may be accepted as an es-
tablished fact that all players and composers of
music in the classical style since Clementi have
based their technique on his " Gradus," and
those features of our modern playing which
cannot be found therein are the productions of
Liszt and the other romanticists. It is only in
the use of the damper pedal that players not
exclusively romantic have exceeded the limits
of Clementi's teaching.
The history of the use of the pedals would of
itself make a large and interesting chapter, but
must here be touched briefly. In the Ruckers
harpsichords an attempt to reach some of the
effects now attained by pedals was made " by
adding to the two unison strings of each note
a third of shorter length and finer wire, tuned
an octave higher," which increased the power
and brilliancy of the tone. There was a second
1 66 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
keyboard, and stops which controlled the action
of the jacks on the strings. Of course these
contrivances produced a very limited variety of
tone effects. I have tried them on a very ex-
cellent harpsichord of the Mozart period, for-
merly in the collection of M. Steinert, of New
Haven, and can testify that only a moderate in-
crease of tone and richness are obtained. If my
memory serves me rightly, in that particular in-
strument the necessity of moving stops with
the hands had been obviated by the introduc-
tion of pedals, which were invented by Hay-
ward, an Englishman, in 1670. Real piano and
forte pedals first appeared in 1783, when they
were patented by John Broadvvood. Naturally
pianists soon began to make use of them, and
we find very explicit directions for the use of
the pedals in Beethoven's piano concerto in G
and in the sonatas, opera 101, 106, 109, no, and
in. The piano pedal was extensively used by
the classic players, but it remained for Chopin to
show how both pedals could be employed alter-
nately or in combination for the production of
the most beautiful effects of tone-color. Liszt,
of course, elaborated this department of tech-
nique, as he did all others. It is hardly neces-
sary to remind the reader that in our day edu-
cated pianists use the pedals not to obtain
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNIQUE. 1 67
contrasts of loudness and softness, but entirely
in the production of tone-color. The infinite
variety of qualities of tone which contempo-
raneous artists, like D'Albert, Rummel, and
others, get out of a piano is wholly due to a
combination of many different kinds of touch
with changing uses of the pedals, employing
sometimes one, sometimes the other, now both,
and again neither. It was Chopin who revealed
the possibilities of the pedal, Liszt who per-
fected the powers of touch.
The whole character of our contemporary
technique is the result of romanticism in music.
It has come from the efforts of romantic writers
to imbue the piano with a greater power of
emotional utterance, to make it a dramatic force,
and, even more than that, a personality. Clas-
sicism means perfection of form, unfailing
beauty of thought and utterance. It is the
science of the beautiful in music. But roman-
ticism means personality, characterization, in-
dividual expression, even universal revelation;
and it has no hesitation in pouring for*h abrupl
rhythms, harsh dissonance, startling progressions,
when these speak the thought of the composer.
The repose and suavity, the serenity and the
dignity of all that was noblest in the age of
musical sculpture are exhibited by the romantic
1 68 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
school when required ; but its favorite moods
are hot, passionate, changeful, and irresistible.
For these the utterance of the piano had to l<e
widened. The polished legato of Mozart on a
scale basis could not serve all moods. The
rapid thirds, sixths, and chords of Clementi
were at hand and were needed, as also was the
broad phrase and great color of Beethoven.
But, with all these elements, the romanticists
cried for more. Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt
— two immortal composers and one the Stanley
of the piano — unlocked the treasures that lay
concealed in the instrument. The first and
second, having immortal creative genius to let
loose, developed technique along the lines sug-
gested by their own individualities ; the third,
having great gifts without the divine spark, de-
veloped technique in a direction suggested by
the various possibilities of the instrument as it
yielded up its hitherto unexplored territory to
him.
Schumann's ideas did not at first seem suited
to utterance through the medium of the piano;
yet it was equally evident that they were not
suited to any other instrument nor to the or-
chestra. The man spoke his new thought in a
new language, to which the piano had to adapt
itself as best it could. To speak the new tongue
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNIQUE. 169
the instrument was compelled to acquire a new-
articulation, which we call the Schumann tech-
nique. It is familiar enough to us now; but it
was strange and troublesome at first. The fun-
damental reason of this was Schumann's incom-
pleteness of training. He was not a thoroughly
schooled musician, and his technique was not
based, like Chopin's, on an exhaustive mastery
of all that had been done by his predecessors.
I am aware that these assertions are not new.
The same points have been brought out by
John Comfort Fillmore, whose " History of
Piano Music " I cheerfully commend to all stu-
dents of the divine art. But they are facts, and
must be repeated here. The new difficulties of
the Schumann technique consisted in obscure
and involved rhythms, in peculiar relations of
melodies to their accompaniments, in the un-
usual use of extended chords in difficult posi-
tions, and in the participation of both hands in
the delivery of the same phrase. This catalogue
of novelties does not look formidable at first
sight; but when one remembers that rhythm
is at the base of all music, and that any wide
change in it upsets the entire structure, then one
perceives that the strange Schumann rhythms,
with the other new things added, must have de-
manded execution hitherto unknown to the pi-
170 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
ano. It is now an accepted fact that mastery
of the Schumann technique can only be acquired
by means of special exercises not necessary to
the performance of piano music written before
Schumann's time.
If I was asked what one thing lay behind the
whole difference between Schumann's technique
and that of Chopin, I might answer rhythm.
That would not be strictly true, for no one thing
accounts for the whole difference. But the fact
is that while Schumann's rhythms are strange,
and sometimes almost insoluble, Chopin pre-
ferred forms built on some accepted rhythm,
such as the valse, mazourka, polonaise. The
disguise which he throws around these forms is
one of idea rather than of technique. The
Chopin technique, new, marvellous, and learned
as it is, never obtrudes itself. This, I think,
was because it was chiefly concerned with a re-
modelling of the principles of a beautiful legato
style. Chopin taught us how to play chromatic
passages in double thirds and other intervals
legato by putting the fifth finger under the
fourth and third in descending, and the third
and fourth over the fifth in ascending. He
wrote arpeggios dispersed in wide intervals or
so interspersed with passing notes that no ear-
lier rules of fingering would apply to them.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNIQUE. IJ I
He, therefore, made new rules by which the
novel successions could be performed with cer-
tainty. In other words, it was reserved for
Chopin to finally revolutionize the Bach
method of scale playing, which had held its
influence in music even to Beethoven's day.
Even the Clementi technique did not break
through the old limits ; on the contrary, it re-
mained within them. Its principles depended
on the construction of compositions from five-
finger passages, scales, and arpeggios. Its rules
required that a five-finger position once taken
should not be changed unnecessarily; that all
passages made from scales and arpeggios should
be fingered in the same way as the scales and
arpeggios when played as exercises; that the
thumb and little finger should not be used on
the black keys except under extraordinary de-
mand. Chopin overthrew all those rules and
introduced methods of fingering which would
have made Clementi stand aghast, but which
rendered the performance of the new music pos-
sible.
Liszt knew all that Schumann and Chopin
could teach him. Using their improvements in
the use of the fingers, together with his own de-
vices, he set out to make the piano the rival of
the orchestra in sonority, brilliancy, and variety
172 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
of tone. To him we owe the deep study of the
possibilities of the different kinds of touch. He
showed us how to acquire the greatest strength
and power of discriminative emphasis in the in-
dividual fingers. He developed the resources
of the loose wrist, showing how it could be em-
ployed to produce effects previously unknown.
He taught us to hold it higher than had before
been the custom and to have it quite flexible,
yet in such a position that the fingers had all
possible mechanical advantage for the produc-
tion of a powerful tone. The etudes which
Liszt composed for the use of piano students
are an epitome of modern technique. They
are a complete revelation of the resources of the
instrument. It is possible that the future may
witness a further development of piano tech-
nique ; but the instrument must first acquire
new powers. Looking back over what has
been done for the piano by inventive minds in
the last fifty years, who can say what the next
century may produce? Let us hope, however,
that one great evil will not come — the loss of
the character of the instrument.
The lesson of the growth of piano technique
is the same as that taught by the growth of or-
chestral technique and of vocal power. Look-
ing back over the history of music we find that
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNIQUE. 1 73
a very simple array of instruments sufficed for
the classic ideas of Mozart, while the tremen-
dous romantic conceptions of Wagner called
forth all the resources of the contemporaneous
instrumental army. Before romanticism got its
hand upon the pulse of opera, the rule of the
legato scale school extended even to the lyric
stage, and all Europe sat breathless at the feet
of that singer who could sing scales and trills
faster and more accurately than anyone else.
Romanticism introduced a sort of Schumann
technique into singing, and for a time the new
style was deemed foreign to the human voice.
Only a few years ago artists declared that they
could not sing " Tristan und Isolde." Now it
is familiar wherever music is truly known. The
whole development of technique in music has
been brought about by the requirements of ro-
mantic thought. Wagner epitomized the growth
in the words of Hans Sachs in " Die Meister-
singer : "
Nun sang er wie er musst' !
Und wie er musst', so konnt' er's.
Which may be translated freely thus :
He sang but as his thought compelled,
And from the need the power upwelled.
III. — The Modern Concerto.
The influence of romanticism in piano-music
did not cease with its effect on technique. It
caused also a revolution in form. It brought
about a new treatment of the sonata idea, chang-
ing the outward shape and intensifying the old
spirit of unity and continuity which underlay,
yet never fully dominated, the classic sonata
form. The new shape grew out of the old, yet
is different. Both are conspicuous examples of
adaptation to aesthetic purpose. The purposes
of the two are different, yet each originated in
the search after coherence.
The development of musical forms is one of
the most interesting studies in the realm of the
tone art. The significance of the developed
form, hovvever, is too often missed ; in fact it is
almost wholly overlooked by those who write
on the subject. The technical aspect of the
growth is that which seems to interest them
most, and in their consideration of it they are
led away from the more profitable examination
THE MODERN CONCERTO. 1 75
of the emotional causes which produced the
successive changes. A performance of the B-
minor piano concerto of Eugene d' Albert, with
the little giant himself as the solo player, caused
the writer to realize that there had come to be
an almost complete dissociation of modern ro-
mantic thought in music from classical forms.
That the D'Albert concerto is a remarkable
composition is a conclusion that cannot be
avoided when listening to it, and at its end one
is so influenced by its vigorous vitality that he
is ready to declare that it ought to live. One
has a similar feeling in listening to the piano
concerto of Richard Burmeister, one of the
loveliest compositions ever produced in America,
gentle and dignified as a statue of Diana, and
differing from the D'Albert work as Diana's
image from that of the Farnese Hercules. The
Burmeister concerto is romantic in spirit, but
leans toward classicism in form, while the
D'Albert composition at once raises the ques-
tion in the hearer's mind whether the composer
has not stepped beyond the domain of the piano,
or of the concerto, or of both.
The question is a natural one, but it is far
easier to ask than to answer. As to the domain
of the piano, I do not propose to enter upon a
discussion of that topic for the reason that we
176 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
know not what the future has in store for us.
Nor can I decide whether D'Albert has stepped
beyond the limits of the concerto. It is easier
for the metaphysician to find answers for the
theories of materialists than for the student of
musical progress to foretell at what point in-
strumental composition will find its limits.
One thing appears to be beyond doubt : the
D'Albert concerto is in a direct line of devel-
opment which has been going forward since
Mozart's time, and which may lead to the rec-
ognition of a new form distinct from the con-
certo.
The whole matter turns upon the question,
whether we are to recognize in the contempo-
raneous form set up by ultra-romanticists a pur-
pose wholly different from that of the conven-
tional concerto. The classical concerto was
designed to display the technical facility of the
performer and the resources of his instrument
without sacrifice of musical beauty and dignity.
Such a concerto as that of D'Albert relegates
technical achievements and musical beauty to a
secondary place. It makes them subservient
to the utterance of thoroughly dramatic ideas.
It elevates the orchestra to an equality with the
piano, and almost wholly deprives the latter of
its character as a solo instrument by denuding
THE MODER.V CO.VCERTO. 1/7
its part of what I must for lack of a better word
call pianism. The solo part has few or none of
those passages in which the special character of
the piano is made known. The instrument is
treated orchestrally, and its share of the con-
certo becomes part and parcel of the complete
utterance of the composer ; in fact he writes
simply a symphonic poem for two orchestras,
the piano being used as the second orchestra,
and the two instrumental factors being employed
with varying force. Sometimes it is the orches-
tra which is the chief speaker; again it is the
piano. And nearly every trace of the form of
the classical concerto has disappeared. The
new thing is, as I have intimated, an adaptation
of Liszt's contrivance, the symphonic poem, a
form based on the assumption that there is no
break between any two successive emotional
states ; hence there is no disconnection of the
several movements. If we choose to call such
a composition as D'Albert's a concerto, we must
admit that, while it is the descendant of the
Mozart form (which is a variety of the true
classic sonata), it is totaly changed in purpose,
shape, content, and technical treatment.
Writers on musical theory are fond of saying
that Mozart settled the form of the modern con-
certo, and then proceeding to give an account
12
178 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
of the concerto's growth, which conclusively
proves that the glorious boy did nothing of the
sort. Mozart laid the foundation of the modern
concerto by giving us a form absolutely perfect
for the purpose for which it was designed. The
purpose, however, is gone. We no longer aim
at a mere display of the power of an instrument
as an explicator and embellisher of ideas which
are admirable wholly for their pure euphonic
beauty. " Ausdruck der Empfindung " — expres-
sion of emotion — as Beethoven put it, is the
slogan of contemporaneous music.
Mozart made a form which in and for itself
was beautiful and unsurpassable. But when
Beethoven came as the culmination of the classic
and the father of the romantic school, the form
had to give way to variations made necessary by
the expression of new thoughts and the birth of
new purposes. These changes in form have
been going on ever since without cessation, and
it is impossible to say where they will end. The
Mozart form is not dead. There is no reason
why it should be. If any man to-day desires to
write a piano concerto in which there is to be an
exposition of pure euphonic beauty and perfect
symmetry, the perfect form is ready to his hand.
For his purpose he cannot in all probability in-
vent anything better than the Mozart model ;
THE MODERN CONCERTO. 1 79
but if he wishes to write in the spirit of his time,
there is nothing in the canons of art to forbid
his altering the old form or making a new one.
All that art demands of a form is that it shall
be the best for the purpose for which it was de-
signed.
It is not our purpose to enter into a review of
the steps in the development of the modern con-
certo. Those who care to look into the matter
will find sufficient information within easy reach.
It may not be unprofitable, however, to point
out one or two salient features. In the first place
modern composers, beginning with Beethoven,
have shown a tendency to abandon the cere-
monious introductory tutti, in which the or-
chestra made a prolonged announcement of the
themes.
Again, Beethoven set the fashion of writing
his own cadenzas, instead of leaving them to the
fancy of the performer. Furthermore, he intro-
duced the novelty of accompanying the cadenza
— or at least part of it — thereby completely
changing its character, purpose, and effect.
Mendelssohn went further, and placed the
cadenza of his violin concerto in the middle in-
stead of at the end of the first movement. All
composers, save one or two, since Mozart have
developed the orchestral part of the concerto,
1 80 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
thus leading up to the advent of genuinely
symphonic productions like D'Albert's.
The joining of the three conventional move-
ments of the concerto was suggested by Beet-
hoven when, for the sake of avoiding an inter-
ruption of his thought, he united the second and
third movements of the G and E flat major piano
concertos. Later writers, notably Liszt, went
further and joined all three movements. More-
over, the Abbe adopted the plan, employed by
Schumann in his D minor symphony, of carry-
ing forward the thematic germs of one move-
ment into the next. Liszt's A major concerto,
for instance, has several connected movements
built on the same melodic subjects through-
out.
Some commentators have denied Liszt's con-
certos the right to be classed as concertos. It
matters very little what they are called. They
certainly are not concertos of the same kind as
Mozart's were. Their object is wider, and their
shape is altered thereby. D'Albert's concerto is
a natural outgrowth of the developments we
have noted. He has abandoned the introductory
tutti, the separated movements, the formal, un-
accompanied cadenza of the first part, and the
difference of themes. His concerto has four con-
nected movements in which the same melodic
THE MODERN CONCERTO. l8l
material is employed, and his cadenza is placed
near the end of the whole work, where it is the
beginning of a climax simply stupendous in
technical difficulty and musical utterance.
If Liszt's so-called concertos are not concertos,
D'Albert's certainly is not. It may be that in
the future educated musical taste will decide to
apply the term concerto only to compositions in
the Mozartian, or, at any rate, the Beethovenian
form, and to give the new style a title of its own
which shall more aptly describe its character.
Musical nomenclature is very limited and often
inadequate, and it may be that none of us will
trouble ourselves much about the name of a com-
position as long as it is so charged with matter
as this piano work of D'Albert's. But com-
posers are certainly moving toward a very differ-
ent combination of the piano and orchestra from
that of so recent a time as Schumann's. Whether
the new style, so full of dramatic power, is better
than that of Beethoven's last period, or than
Schumann's, it is too soon to decide. It is
certainly more ambitious, and therein lies a
danger, for the fate of vaulting ambition is fa-
miliar.
One thing must undoubtedly be borne in mind
in considering this matter, and that is the splen-
did development of the piano. The resources
1 82 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
of the instrument, as every one must have real-
ized while listening to the piano performances
of the last few seasons, are now beyond the
fondest dreams of Beethoven and the wildest
imagination of Mozart. Rubinstein in one of his
concertos has set forth his idea that the piano is
the equal and the rival of the orchestra. There
is a substantial foundation for this thought. In
power the piano yields only to the boldest for-
tissimo of a full modern orchestra. In feeling
it gives way to the violin and 'cello, but in variety
and extent of tone-color and dynamic gradations
it surpasses them.
D'Albert has employed the solo instrument
with superb effect, both alone and in combina-
tions, in his B minor concerto. Some of his
passages — for instance, those in which stopped
horns accompany the piano, are marvellous in
their intensity. As we said before, the whole
work is surprising and masterful. If the ad-
vance of compositions for piano and orchestra
designed to embody the concentrated and com-
plex emotional feeling of the new romantic
school is to be along the line foreshadowed by
Beethoven and developed by Liszt, there is
probably no man living more competent to con-
duct the march of progress than that little giant
of the pianoforte, Eugene d'Albert ; and it is be-
THE MODERN CONCERTO. 1 83
yond question that the term concerto is both
feeble and inexpressive. I do not like the name
symphonic poem. It is awkward and mislead-
ing* y e t musical nomenclature is so barren that
I do not blame Liszt for adopting such a title.
It would certainly be a more fitting appellation
for such compositions as that of D'Albert than
concerto.
But by whatever name we may call these
works — and D'Albert's being in the direct
line of development will not be the last of
them — we must recognize the fact that they
open a field for the piano which no prophet
could have foreseen when Scarlatti was defining
the rudiments of technique, or even when Bach
was making those rules of fingering which we
still admire and practise. We have followed in
this review of the evolution of piano music a
long and marvellous series of advances. Look-
ing back over them we must perceive that the
tendency has always been toward greater power
and wider range of effects in technique, toward
concentration in ideas and intensification of
feeling. The natural results of these tenden-
cies, as exemplified first in the Clementi tech-
nique, afterward in the Schumann technique, in
the connected movements of the G and E flat
concertos of Beethoven, and later in the con-
1 84 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
tinuous movements and reiterated fundamental
melody of the Liszt concertos, are seen in such
a work as the B-minor concerto of D'Albert.
From the mountain spring to the sea is a far
cry ; but one can trace the river all the way.
IV.— Some Living Players.
It would be a pity to leave the piano without
a word or two about contemporaneous players.
All that we have been reviewing in the evo-
lution of piano music would be but a sealed
book to most of us were it not for the eloquent
exposition of the great performers of our day.
In a single chronological recital we get an in-
sight into the history of technical and aestheti-
cal development that no printed pages can give.
There are many persons in every audience, to
be sure, who do not get this insight, for the
piano is fashionable and many learn it simply
as an accomplishment.
But those who have some talent penetrate
deeper into the mysteries of the instrument and
learn to recognize some of the higher qualities
of technique, and even to catch an inkling of
the aesthetic basis of the player's work. This
insight into the inner consciousness of the piano
is becoming more widely spread, and the result
is that good piano-playing is beginning to get
1 86 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
something like real appreciation. The number
of those who can discriminate between mere
technical brilliancy and real musical feeling is
constantly growing, and any pianist who comes
before a musical public at the present day is
fairly sure of an intelligent hearing. This is a
good thing for the good players, but it is mani-
festly bad for the poor ones. As time passes
there is bound to be less and less toleration for
mediocrity and little pity for pretentious inca-
pacity. The pounders and the mutilators must
go to the wall and make room for those who
can speak distinctly, beautifully, and eloquently
through the medium of the most popular solo
instrument of our time.
Those who do so speak are, as intimated, the
greatest gainers from the development of public
taste. The number of persons who can tell the
differences between the playing of men like
D'Albert and Von Biilow is much larger than
it was a few years ago. This has come about
through the energetic and self-reliant attitude
of music lovers. The people who really know
and understand music are in the habit nowa-
days of thinking for themselves a good deal.
To be sure, they read much, and take their
Schur6 or Wolzogen in large doses, and they
look at the newspapers. But they reserve for
SOME LIVING PLAYERS. 1 87
themselves the liberty of taking everything on
trial and coming to their own conclusions at
last. The newspaper comments on current mu-
sical events are read by most lovers of music;
but, as a rule, they serve chiefly to stimulate the
readers to thoughtfulness and the formation of
their own opinions. It is a good thing that this
is so. The benefit of criticism is much greater
when it induces people to think independently
than when it gains blind adherence.
Among contemporaneous pianists conspicu-
ous figures are Von Biilow, D'Albert, Rummel,
Rosenthal, and — so far as America is concerned
— Joseffy. Dr. von Biilow is, perhaps, greater
for what he represents than for what he is. It
may be that we must view something of his
present through the roseate glory of his past ;
but standing at the summit of sixty-two years
of life and thirty -nine years of musical expe-
rience, resting upon the laurels of triumphant
victory in the battle of the new German school,
first for existence and then for supremacy,
wielding as executant, teacher, and conductor
an influence which radiates from Berlin to the
four corners of the earth, Dr. von Biilow looms
up as an intensely absorbing personality and a
conspicuously important figure in the musical
progress of the day.
1 88 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
Moritz Rosenthal is a pianistic whirlwind.
The impression he made on me at a first hearing
was that he literally paralyzed the sensibilities
of his audience. Stupefied by such an exhibi-
tion of technical perfection and physical power
as had not been known since the springtime of
Rubenstein, his first hearers momentarily forgot
that there was spirituality in music and went
mad over its bodily strength and beauty. Yet
Rosenthal's playing was far from being devoid
of musical feeling. Sometimes he was really
eloquent; but it seemed that his eloquence was
sporadic and governed largely by the mood of
the moment. This is not consistent with the
true artist's singleness of purpose. Again, there
were times when Rosenthal showed high intel-
ligence. His performance of Beethoven's sonata
in E flat major (No. 3) was more satisfactory to
the true musician than most of his other work.
He played the composition in a manly, straight-
forward, honest style, presenting the themes and
their development in a very intelligible manner.
It was a thoughtful interpretation, worthy not
only of an eminent pianist, but of a man of cult-
ure. Again, Rosenthal was sometimes a mu-
sical poet, as, for instance, when he played Cho-
pin's E minor concerto. He had penetrated to
the soul of that composition and knew how to
SOME LIVING PLAYERS. 1 89
lay it bare before his hearers. His exposition
of the themes was unsurpassed in its justice and
eloquence. His treatment of the involved pas-
sages was vital with the most subtle delicacy of
feeling, couched in a tone that was absolutely
caressing. His color was soft as September
haze and warm as June sunset; his touch was
as sweet and as moist as dew. But the entire
reserve of his technique was completely subor-
dinated to a faithful rendering of the composer's
poetry. It was a performance which made us
willing to accord him a position in the front
rank of pianists.
Yet when he played Schumann's " Carnaval,"
in a most uneven manner, he demonstrated that
he had not achieved greatness. He gave the
" Preambule" with superb breadth, dignity, and
volume of tone. The " Eusebius " he actually
interpreted, giving its delicious voice-parts their
relative value, imparting to the whole passage a
soft and organ-like tone-color, and imbuing it
with something of the wistful mysticism re-
vealed to us in that particular mood of his own
personality called by Schumann Eusebius. On
the other hand, he played the "Valse Alle-
mande " with a ridiculously affected tempo ru-
bato, and he fairly burlesqued the quiet humor
of the march of the " Davidsbiindler." What
190 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
was it that this brilliant young pianist most
lacked ? It was repose, without which no lofty
art-work is possible. Technically this failing
showed itself in a tendency to play many
phrases in a manner best described by that un-
pleasant word "jerky." ^sthetically it showed
itself in a want of even balance of ideas. But
Rosenthal is a thinker and a student ; his time
will come. I agree with Heinrich Ehrlich. Ros-
enthal has reached the topmost peak of virtu-
osity. There he will spread his wings for flight
toward the sky of musical feeling.
Eugene d'Albert I have already called the
little giant of the pianoforte. Here is a man
even smaller than Rosenthal, and with a tech-
nique as great as the Roumanian's. To describe
Rosenthal's technical ability would be to sum-
marize the entire field of piano mechanics as
known to the virtuosity of to-day. The same
thing is to be said of D'Albert, but something is
to be added. There is a greater man than Ro-
senthal behind the technique. There is a more
intense and vital individuality, a deeper and
subtler temperament, a more highly gifted and
roundly developed intellectuality. D'Albert is
not only a great pianist, but also a great musi-
cian. He is a thinker, an analyzer, an explica-
tor. The marvellous technique of the player
SOME LIVIMG PLAYERS. 191
renders the mechanical performance of any mu-
sic facile to him. The artistic temperament fills
the execution with passion and vitality. The
brain controls the whole and fashions it into
a well-rounded, luminous, influential exposition.
It is hardly necessary to mention specially any
details of D'Albert's style. One thing, however,
which struck me may be worth noting. His de-
licious tempo rubato undoibtedly puzzles some
of his hearers. He obeys the spirit, but not
the letter, of Chopin's injunction to preserve the
tempo with the left hand, letting the right some-
times run ahead and sometimes linger behind.
Whenever the chief thematic utterance passes
into the left hand, D'Albert transfers the tempo
rubato with it. The effect is striking. At times
it is dramatic. It adds to his work a variety of
fruitful nuances which to the untrained hearer
increase the complexity of his playing. But
complexity is often a feature of higher types in
art as well as in biology. D'Albert's supremacy
as a performer of Beethoven's concertos must
not be forgotten. His wonderful rendering of
the G major concerto ought to be long remem-
bered by lovers of piano music. It was ideal in
its perfection. In loftiness of conception it was
beautiful. In finish of technical treatment it
was wonderful. We hear much about the art of
192 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
singing on the pianoforte, but we seldom meet
with a genuine example. D'Albert's vocal pres-
entation of the second movement of this concer-
to transformed the piano into something almost
human ; and his treatment of the cadenza of
the first movement was in itself an education in
piano-playing. His performance of the " Em-
peror " concerto was another splendid achieve-
ment. The pianist did not astound with his
reading, but he certainly moved the heart and
fired the imagination. No one else whom I have
heard has played this loftiest poem of the piano
with such manliness, solidity, fidelity, and sym-
metry.
Yet there is something lacking in D'Albert.
He is, of course, not perfect. The same just-
ness of conception and rounded finish of pres-
entation as he showed in the Beethoven works
were not always conspicuous in his performances.
A few quotations from Adolf Christiani's inter-
esting book on the " Principles of Expression in
Pianoforte Playing" will be instructive here.
He says :
" Talent implies a peculiar aptitude for a
special employment ; hence pianistic talent im-
plies a peculiar aptitude for that particular
branch of musical art. ... A pianist may
be a great specialist without being much of a
SOME LIVING PLAYERS. 1 93
musician, but to be a truly great artist he should
be an accomplished musician also." He must
have emotion, which will make him all warmth
and feeling. Emotion is "that sixth sense,
' the power of conceiving and divining the beau-
tiful,' which is the exclusive gift of God to the
artist. ... It involves the germs and in-
stinct of several minor faculties, such as natural
taste and instinctive discrimination ; these, how-
ever, like talent, in order to become perfect, de-
pend on intellectual training. Then only does
natural taste become cultured refinement and in-
stinctive discrimination become sound judg-
ment."
" The term intelligence," the author contin-
ues, " presupposes capacity, and comprises all
musical attainments that are teachable. . . .
It requires each and every musical attainment
acquirable by the exercise of thought and mind,
including self-control, mastery of emotion, and
repose. Intelligence aids and corrects talent ;
it guides and regulates emotion, and directs
technique."
" Technique," he says further, " is, in a cer-
tain sense, the opposite of aesthetics ; inasmuch
as aesthetics have to do with the perceptions
of a work of art and technique with the em-
bodiment of it. . . . Therefore, technique
13
194 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
comprises more than mechanism. Mechanism
is merely the manual part of technique, not
requiring any directing thought ; technique,
however, requires thought. For example : as
to fingering, which precedes mechanism ; as to
tempo, which governs mechanism ; as to force,
which qualifies mechanism ; as to touch, which
ennobles mechanism."
Apply these considerations to D'Albert. In
emotion he is pre-eminent. He certainly has
the " power of conceiving and divining the
beautiful." And his natural taste has become
cultured refinement; his instinctive discrimina-
tion sound judgment. His special pianistic tal-
ent is beyond a moment's doubt. And his tech-
nique is gigantic. The only one of Christiani's
departments in which D'Albert is still lack-
ing is intelligence. He has not yet acquired
perfect self-control, mastery of emotion, and re-
pose. He is not always able to preserve the
delicate mental state of Chopin in his feminine
moods. Of Chopin in his masculine moods he
is a superb explicator. But D'Albert's fiery in-
dividuality breaks the bonds of Chopin, the
female, at times, and translates the ultra-refined
ideas into a sterner utterance than befits them,
and so shocks our sensibilities. We may readily
forgive him this, for his tremendous masculinity
SOME LIVING PLAYERS. 1 95
makes him a grand preacher of the gospel ac-
cording to Beethoven. He is very young, and
his blood is hot. The judgment is ripening, and
self-control, mastery of emotion, and repose will
come with the years. Repose is the consumma-
tion of artistic development. It is the child of
time and study. We must not demand it in a
mere youth. He must accomplish his develop-
ment normally. To have attained mastery of
emotion and repose at his age would presuppose
the quelling of the fire of youth. D'Albert is
already great. He will be greater if the world
does not spoil him, as it loves to spoil artists.
Perhaps the impulses in this little man are too
large to be checked by the world's adulation.
For the sake of art let us hope so.
Mr. Joseffy has always impressed the writer
as being deficient in elevation of sentiment. The
limitations of his technique cannot be at present
defined because he has of late sought to make
certain changes in its character. His playing
was formerly distinguished by crystalline purity
and clearness, coupled with a delicacy and neat-
ness which transformed everything he touched
into a sort of Queen Mab scherzo. But recently
Mr. Joseffy has aimed at breadth and power.
He is seeking for a deeper dramatic note, but I
am not quite sure that he is justified in doing
I96 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
so. It is better for the executive musician to be
perfect within a limited field than imperfect out-
side of it. But it is beyond dispute that Mr.
Joseffy has gained in depth and dignity in the
last ten years, and his future may demonstrate
that the line of his advance has been wisely
chosen. One thing is certain : he has fairly
earned a place in the front rank of pianists — a
fact which is more and more fully demonstrated
when he is brought into comparison with artists
acknowledged to be of the first order.
This study would be incomplete without some
reference to so noble an artist as Franz Rummel.
I confess without hesitation that I do not know
just where to place Rummel. If it were not for
a certain hardness of style, which obtrudes itself
at times, and which seems to me to be the out-
come of an over-elaborate adjustment of tech-
nical means with a view to reaching just the ex-
act effect sought by the player, I should put
Rummel ahead of all these pianists. Perhaps
he ought to be placed there anyhow. He cer-
tainly is a great pianist and belongs in the front
rank. His development has been notably sane
and logical. In former years he was all emo-
tion. He had no self-control, and his tem-
perament fairly ran away with him. All that is
past, however. I had the good fortune to hear
SOME LIVING PLAYERS. 1 97
htm frequently in the season of 1890-91, after
not hearing him for three years. It was im-
mediately evident that the old accusation of a
lack of symmetry and repose could no longer be
brought against him.
At the first concert in which I heard him he
played Beethoven's G major and Liszt's E flat
concertos. The newly developed qualities of
the artist's work were shown in a high light in
the first selection. His reading of the noble
composition was scholarly in its justice, master-
ful in its sympathetic warmth and wide scope of
feeling, luminous in the varied picturesqueness
of its color, and stamped with the finish of lofty
art in its dignity and repose. All the fiery im-
petuosity of the man's temperament remained.
His emotional force was as strong as it ever had
been, but the period of defiance of government
was passed. The emotional power was held in
the grasp of a strong and commanding intel-
ligence, which guided it with firmness and
wisdom. It would have been an impossibility
for any hearer to rightly measure the amount
of study and self-control displayed in such a per-
formance as Mr. Rummel gave on the occa-
sion under consideration. To approach such a
judgment would require an intimate acquaint-
ance with the pianist's methods of private labor
I98 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
as well as with the changeful nature of his strong
moods. But remembering that the player but
a few years ago had been a creature of unbridled
emotion, playing from impulse rather than idea,
I could not avoid marvelling at the breadth and
depth of artistic devotion which this growth,
accomplished in three years, plainly revealed.
Where Rummel seems to me to fall short of
the highest possible achievement is in the low-
est department of his art — technique. There is
a lack of spontaneity in his tone-color, beautiful
as it often is. The mechanism is too often ex-
posed. The effort of the player to accomplish
the design of the artist is betrayed.
As for Dr. Von Biilow, the special trait of his
ability which gives him his position is easily
discernible. Indeed, it is frequently obtrusive.
He is the highest living embodiment of musical
intelligence. He has acquired, in the most per-
fect degree, self-control, mastery of emotion, and
repose. It has been said that he is deficient in
emotion. Doubtless there is some truth in this.
The time has been when, if Dr. von Biilow had
possessed as much emotional warmth as intelli-
gence, he would have been the ideal pianist, and
the boundaries of piano-playing would have been
defined. Happily for art and artists, the doctor
was cold, and the world is still waiting and seek-
SOME LIVING PLAYERS. 1 99
ing. All the musical emotion which he has is
under the most complete control of his brain.
Personal feeling never gets the better of him.
He is always an objective player, striving to in-
terpret the composer, not himself. Therein he
differs widely from D'Albert, who often projects
his own personality in too brilliant a light upon
the musical picture which he is painting. Dr.
von Biilow is always an interpreter, revitalizing
for us the thoughts of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven,
and Schumann with reverential fidelity and a
remarkable range of technical styles. To listen
to one of his recitals is to live in turn with each
of the composers on the programme. Dr. von
Biilow gives contemporaneous human interest
to dead composers not by modernizing them, as
so many weaker artists do, but by taking his au-
dience back with him into their time.
The doctor is failing in technical power, but he
is still a most instructive pianist. We may be as-
tonished, electrified, paralyzed by the others ; we
are convinced by the doctor. But let us remem-
ber that without emotion the supreme pinnacle
of performance cannot be reached. Experience,
deep and thoughtful study, and arduous practice
have made Dr. von Biilow what he is, or rather
what he was. But with all his thought he can-
not move a hearer as D'Albert or Rummel can.
200 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
In closing this brief view of the work of some
living pianists something must be said of one
whose personal magnetism is so great that it
sometimes obscures the real nature of his play-
ing. Ignace Jean Paderewski produced a pro-
found impression upon all who heard him in
both England and America; and the impression
was one which did credit to the musical percep-
tion of both countries. It seems idle to reiter-
ate the oft-repeated assertion that Paderewski
is a very great pianist, yet it must be repeated
here for the sake of the record. Those of us
who sat under the magic spell of his perform-
ances in New York, and at times let emotion
run away with judgment, will never forget how
we awoke, as it were, on leaving the hall, and
were conscious of vague questionings.
Perfection, we reflected, is still a poet's dream.
We could not listen even to the Arabian Nights'
entertainments of Paderewski without repeating
the familiar query which the young man of de-
partmental ditties attributed to the distorted
genius of his Satanic Majesty — "Is it art?"
And then we turned scornfully upon ourselves
and cried, " Away with all cynics ! Throw crit-
icism to the dogs ! Let us praise, applaud, and
be merry ; for to-morrow some piano-manufact-
urer will import a pianist who cannot play thus.
SOME LIVING PLAYERS. 201
Let us sound the loud timbrel of laudation o'er
Egypt's dark sea of analysis. Great is Paderew-
ski ! "
And he is great. His performance of the Em-
peror concerto of Beethoven was not what we ex-
pected ; but it is not a sine qua non that a pian-
ist should be in complete sympathy with the
majestic musical thoughts of the mighty Lud-
wig. No one but a great artist could have
played Schumann's A minor concerto as Pader-
ewski did. His performance was lovely in the
poetry of its feeling, exquisite in the delicacy
and warmth of its color, convincing in its ex-
pression, and captivating in its refinement. It
was a complete demonstration of the player's ar-
tistic nature. It was a radiant companion piece
to his interpretation of Rubinstein's beautiful
D minor concerto, and his incomparable delivery
of some of Schubert's works. Moreover, no one
but a musician of genuine originality could have
written Paderewski's own concerto, and I do not
believe that any other living pianist could play
it with such ease, brilliancy, and beauty.
Paderewski's mastery of the key-board is sim-
ply glorious. All the difficulties of modern
compositions resolve themselves into fancies
under the magic caress of his graceful hands.
But that is a minor consideration. The great
202 THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO MUSIC.
fundamental trait of his playing is its vocal char-
acter. When Emmanuel Bach said : " During
the last few years my chief endeavor has been
to play the piano-forte, in spite of its deficiency
in sustaining sound, as much as possible in a
singing manner, and to compose for it accord-
ingly," he formulated the true principle of all
instrumental performance. Now, as a matter of
course, the passages which Paderewski plays so
wonderfully on the piano could not be sung;
but he makes them sound as if they could be,
and, indeed, were sung. He steeps every com-
position in a vocal atmosphere, which causes the
piano to seem animated by the breath of life.
The ability to do this combines with a rare gift
of sympathy, uncommon poetic insight, and a
marvellous faculty of conveying his own feeling
through the medium of the key-board to the
hearer, to make Paderewski what he is — a man
with interpretative and creative individuality.
In every art such a being is precious.
SCHUMANN AND THE PROGRAMME-
SYMPHONY.
SCHUMANN AND THE PROGRAMME-
SYMPHONY.
After the first performance of one of his
symphonies Robert Schumann wrote to a friend
expressing his delight at its favorable reception.
No symphony had been taken so kindly by the
public since Beethoven. Schumann's pleasure
had a very substantial foundation. The condi-
tion of the public feeling toward his works is the
same now as it was then, with the addition of
that deeper respect which familiarity with good
intellectual work always breeds instead of con-
tempt. Schumann is pretty generally accepted
now as the second in rank of the great sym-
phonic writers. There is still a tendency in some
quarters to overrate Mendelssohn, whose worth
must certainly not be underestimated. But
close and sympathetic study, without which any
critical summary must be built on insecure foun-
dations, will, we think, convince any one that
206 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
Schumann is surpassed in emotional depth, in-
tellectual force, and expressive ability by Beet-
hoven alone.
Emil Naumann, whose " History of Music " is
an exhaustive work and sufficiently trustworthy
as to facts, declared his belief that Robert Schu-
mann was not a genius. If he was not, I am very
doubtful as to the existence of more than four
geniuses in the whole record of music. They
are Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Wagner.
The reader will note that this list omits such im-
portant personages as Orlando Lasso, Palestri-
na, Haydn, Gluck, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and
Chopin, not to mention the whole list of opera-
tic composers of the Italian and French schools.
Naumann, however, is a man of no middle meas-
ures. Having decided that Schumann was
simply a man of talent, he dismisses him, to-
gether with Schubert and Mendelssohn, in a few
scant pages.
It is fair to suspect that a good deal of the
reasoning which led Naumann to make this
classification was affected by what H. T. Finck
calls the worship of Jumboism. If Franz Schu-
bert was not a genius, then the universal concep-
tion of genius as inspired ability is false. Schu-
bert's songs are small works as compared with
Beethoven's symphonies ; but it is cheap criti-
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 207
cism that measures the value of a painter's work
by the size of his canvas. There have been
hundreds of grand operas worth far less to the
world than Schubert's " Doppelganger," " Du
bist die Ruh," or " Erlkonig." The same com-
parison can be made in regard to Schumann's
songs.
This digression is made with a view to show-
ing that Naumann's classification is arbitrary and
foolish. Robert Schumann was surely a genius,
and he proves it in his symphonic writings as
fully as in his songs and piano pieces. His
symphonies are as incontestably entitled to the
rank of master-songs as is " Morgenlich leuch-
tend." If there is one quality more potent than
another in his orchestral words it is that intense,
concentrated, and irresistible emotional force
which is the soul of his songs. And this emo-
tional intensity is not hampered by a lack of
utterance. There is no mistaking Schumann's
moods, for his musical exposition of them is so
luminously eloquent that even those unskilled
in the language of music must be quickened by
their innate warmth. Like Wotan's sword in
the trunk of the tree, they glow even upon the
eyes of the uninformed.
It has always seemed to me to require singular
opacity to fail to perceive Schumann's tremen-
208 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
dous virility. It reveals itself most brilliantly
in his four symphonies, of which three certainly
deserve to be classed in the first rank, as second
only to the third, fifth, seventh, and ninth of
Beethoven. Though Schumann undoubtedly
lacked the fertile invention and the lofty sim-
plicity of thematic utterance possessed by the
greatest of all symphonic writers, he equalled
his predecessor in earnestness of purpose and in
the originality of the methods by which he
sought to make his purposes known. This is a
broad assertion ; but it seems to me that a care-
ful study of Schumann's symphonies will justify
it. Perceiving, as I always do, the big human
heart of the man in every measure of his music
and feeling at each hearing of the C major,
the Rhenish and the D minor the glorious
magnetism of a sympathy which it is the privi-
lege of music to build between the quick and the
dead, I approach the task of paying my tribute
to the memory of Robert Schumann with no
little feeling. He was the keenest and wisest of
critics, a king among men and a prince among
composers.
Schumann was a romanticist by temperament
and by the environment of time and situation.
Therefore he wrote programme music ; for pro-
gramme music has always been a special means
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 209
of expression for romanticism. Let us, then,
first consider this kind of composition. Many
words have been written about it, and "yet is
there strength, labor, and sorrow." Whether it
is a good or bad thing, beneficent or maleficent
toward art, has been discussed ad infinitum, and,
perhaps, ad nauseam. It is a question which
cannot be answered categorically. Whether pro-
gramme music is good or bad depends, in the
first place, on the composer's design and upon his
just observance of the limitations of his art ; and,
in the second place, on the hearer's conception
of the possibilities of musical significance.
No one can deny that interest is added to a
composition for the average hearer by the appli-
cation of a " programme." Men and women
are fond of having a peg on which to hang their
imaginations. This is sometimes urged as an
objection against all programme music. The
objectors say that one cannot understand such
music without a key. That is true enough ;
but when the key is supplied it certainly opens
the door for us and lets us see what is going on
in the composer's mind. The music stimulates
the imagination, and the two act and react on
one another. The objection offered against this
is that the whole proceeding is largely a mat-
ter of imagination. But that objection may be
14
2IO ROBERT SCHUMANN.
made to all art. It is certainly fair to offer it
against poetry, fiction, and the drama. The
novelist imagines a series of incidents, and by
the force of his words makes us see them with
the mind's eye. He tells us what he wishes us
to imagine, and we imagine it. How much dif-
ference is there between his power and that of
the composer ?
The difference is in the character of the con-
cepts formed by the mind. The novelist can
tell a direct story ; he can name his personages,
and describe the color of their eyes. This is
not in the power of music. She fills the mind
with broad, universal imaginations rather than
with images. To be sure there are persons who
seek for images in all music. Among them are
those fanciful enthusiasts who find the colors of
the rainbow, the thunders of the mountain-
storm, the babbling of the meadow - brook, or
the bellowing of the great deep in this or that
composition. Sometimes in the carrying out of
a great plan the masters have written music de-
signed to conjure up in the mind images of ex-
ternal objects, but to do that is to put music to
its lowest use.
The highest form of programme music is that
in which the programme is simply an emotional
schedule. I mean that the composer, having
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 211
studied his own soul, and having found that
certain events in his life or observation have
given rise to a train of emotions, designs his
composition to convey some knowledge of that
train of emotions to his hearer, and to place him
in responsive sympathy with it. He says to
the hearer, " Listen to my music and feel what
I have felt." Unless I have failed to compre-
hend his obscure language (not made more com-
prehensible in Mr. Lawson's translation) this is
what Dr. Hand means in his " ^Esthetics of
Musical Art," when he says : " We truly cannot
tell what every individual tone in a piece of
music says, as is possible in the case of the
words of language, or even what feeling is ex-
pressed in particular harmonies ; but in the
condition of feeling — which in itself is not in-
definite — the fantasy operates, and creates and
combines melodic and harmonic tone-pictures,
which not only represent that condition, but are
also, in themselves, valid as representations.
Thus, for instance, the feeling of perfect enjoy-
ment of life, or of sadness, becomes a picture in
a Rondo, or in an Adagio, in which all individ-
ual successions of tones, and forms of tones, are
in unison with the fundamental feeling."
This, it seems to me, was the kind of pro-
gramme music that Robert Schumann wrote.
212 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
It is not music for the masses, I admit, though
Schumann's manly strength is so plainly re-
vealed in his music that even the superficial get
a certain pleasure from his symphonies. But
the real meaning of Schumann's orchestral works
is reserved for him who can find the key to
their emotional basis. Once you have discov-
ered the composer's schedule of feeling, you
have opened up for yourself a mine of musical
wealth which, it seems to me, could only have
been worked by a real genius. Reading Schu-
mann's symphonies thus, we must perceive that
they are programme music of the loftiest order,
in which the essential nature of romanticism in
music becomes at once the rule of their con-
struction and the justification of their existence.
This essential nature of romanticism, which
means the completion of an emotional circuit
between the composer and the hearer, is the
only argument in favor of programme music.
It is the only ground upon which the sym-
phonic poem and the leit motif can stand with
any hope of safety. It is the ground upon
which Beethoven placed his pastoral symphony
when he wrote over it, " mehr Ausdruck der
Empfindung als Malerei : " more an expression
of emotion than portraiture. If we go back to
the earliest programme music we find that it
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 213
does not stand the application of these princi-
ples. Take, for instance, the ballet suites of
Francois Couperin. After writing, he sought
for effective theatrical titles, and called his
movements by such names as " La majestueuse,"
" La voluptueuse," " Les enjouments bachiques,"
" Tendresses bachiques," " Fureurs bachiques."
The auditors were supposed to discover the
qualities indicated by these titles, or at any rate
to imagine them. But as Couperin was not
conscious of any particular emotional state in
the composition of these pieces, as he had no
conception of the possibility of projecting his
emotion through his music, his titles were
meaningless, and his programme music con-
structed on false principles.
In failing to grasp the real possibilities of pro-
gramme music, Couperin was, like his contem-
poraries, hampered by the condition of musical
art. Music was not yet free from the shackles
of the ecclesiastical scales, and the ecclesiastical
spirit still controlled her utterance. All the
great composers of the day failed comparatively
in emotional writing the moment they attempted
anything that was not religious. Bach's " St.
Matthew Passion " will live forever; but his in-
strumental programme pieces are only musical
curiosities. We have seen in our study of piano
214 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
music how Kuhnau tried to write programme
music of a pictorial kind and was unsuccessful.
Yet the internal evidence of Kuhnau's works
goes to show that he had some ideas as to the
limitations of his art. For instance, the argu-
ment of his " Saul Cured by David by Means
of Music" is thus quoted by Dr. Spitta : First,
Saul's melancholy and madness. Second, Da-
vid's refreshing harp-playing. Third, the King's
mind restored to peace." Dr. Spitta describes
this as really well made. The themes are char-
acteristic and well handled. The great point,
however, in this and the other sonatas is this :
" Situations are selected which are characterized
by the most simple and unmixed sentiment."
In other words, Kuhnau sometimes had a dim
perception of the truth that only broad effects
were attainable. The very moment that one
attempts to paint details in music, text becomes
necessary. The domain of absolute music is
transcended, and we must have the choral sym-
phony, the cantata, or, best of all, the opera.
Kuhnau's descriptive sonatas gave us Bach's
" Capriccio sopra la lontananza del suo fratello
dilettissimo " — " capriccio on the absence [de-
parture] of a loved brother." It has often been
said that Bach was the father of programme
music, but in the face of Froberger, Kuhnau,
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 215
Couperin, and Knecht, with his two labelled
symphonies, it would be better to drop this as-
sertion. Those who are unacquainted with this
composition of Bach's will find food for reflec-
tion in the composer's programme : The first
number is labelled " Persuasion addressed to
friends that they withhold him from the jour-
ney ; " the second, " A representation of the va-
rious casual ities which may happen to him in a
foreign country ; " third, " A general lamenta-
tion by friends ; " fourth, " The friends, seeing
that it cannot be otherwise, come to take leave; "
fifth, " Aria de postiglione." Dr. Spitta adds,
with dry humor, " When the carriage has driven
off and the composer is left alone, he takes ad-
vantage of his solitude to write a double fugue
on the post-horn call." Delightful consolation !
Can one fail to discern how the whole spirit
of programme music was misconceived by the
masters of the first half of the eighteenth cen-
tury, including the great Sebastian ? Kuhnau
did the most surprising things, such as writing
recitative without words for the clavier in his
vain efforts to transform that modest instrument
into a dramatic singer. Bach must have felt
that his attempt to make the clavier catalogue
the accidents that might happen to his brother
in a foreign land was a failure. At any rate he
2l6 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
did not pursue the study of programme music.
It was not in the line of Bach's development
anyhow.
The truth of the matter lies just here: No
composer can convey a definite descriptive com-
munication to his hearer in music. He can re-
veal his mood and reproduce it in the sympa-
thetic auditor; but that is as far as he can go.
He can be gay or sad, calm or stormy, peaceful
or heroic, and he can make the hearer share his
feelings. But the very moment he desires to
say to his hearer, " I am sad because my only
brother has gone to China," he must put that
fact in words. For the hearer's idea of sadness
on account of the absence of a brother may be
very different from that of the composer, and
the former in that case will fail to comprehend
the latter. It is here that a key is needed, either
of text or of knowledge of the causes producing
the emotional conditions under which the music
was written. Without a key the hearer is as
helpless as he would be in the presence of a
Bayreuth leit motif divorced from its text.
If Wagner had written a theme designed to
express the sorrow of the Volsungs, and given
it to us dissociated from its dramatic text, we
should recognize its marvellous melancholy, but
we could go no further. Herein lies the only
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 217
possible justification, as I have intimated, of
the leit motif. It is explained by the very text
whose meaning it intensifies and illustrates.
Just as the intonations of the human voice be-
tray the feelings that lie behind words, so does
Wagner's leading motive, substituted for the
spoken tone, throw warmth and influence into
his text. But without the text the meaning of
the motive would remain a secret in the com-
poser's breast, because it would be beyond his
power to make music anything but subjective.
This must not be understood as a declaration of
belief that every time a leit motif is repeated
the text should accompany it. The explanation
once given should suffice to make the theme sig-
nificant through the drama.
What are we to think, then, about orchestral
music and piano compositions ? What becomes
of our theories about being faithful to the inten-
tions of the composer ? The truth is that, un-
less the composer has left us some indication of
his design, we are limited to such knowledge as
can be obtained from the internal evidence of
the music, and that, as seems to be pretty thor-
oughly established, is only of a broad and gen-
eral nature. Who has solved the riddles of
Beethoven's last quartets and sonatas ? Their
interpretation must rest upon a sympathetic
2l8 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
study of the emotional life of the composer at
the time when they were written. Tell us what
Beethoven suffered or dreamed while he wrote
any one of these works, and you have offered us
a key to his meaning. To play those works in
such a way as to reproduce in the hearer some-
thing of the emotional life of the master at that
time is to approach as nearly as any human be-
ing can to carrying out the composer's intention.
It is to vindicate the influence of music and
to establish its spirituality. It is to demolish
the transcendent rubbish of Tolstoi on the one
hand, and the rhapsodical idiocy of rainbow
and sunshine discoverers on the other. It is to
establish the intellectuality of the tone art and
to demonstrate that materialism cannot debase
it.
It is in this spirit that we must approach the
symphonic works of Robert Schumann. We
must examine them in their relation to the com-
poser's life, and look upon them as in some
measure a record of his emotional experience —
not necessarily written under the stress of the
emotions which they express, but designed in
calmer moments to paint the composer's heart
for us. If there be any notable end to be gained
by a continuance of the classic inquiry into the
nature of the true, the beautiful, and the good,
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 2IO,
then there is a profit in the thoughtful study of
Schumann's music.
To be sure, standards of judgment vary. One
man says all music should be beautiful; but he
does not know what "beautiful" is, and he
shares this elementary ignorance with Thales,
Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Sir Will-
iam Hamilton, Ruskin, Spencer, Voltaire, Did-
erot, Kant, Wieland, Vischer, Schopenhauer,
and Oscar Wilde, all of whom tried to define
the beautiful with conspicuous lack of success.
Another man — and he, be it noted, is always a
rabid Wagnerite — abides by the dictum of Jean
Jacques Rousseau : " La tout est beau, parce
que tout est vrai." Which assertion crumbles
into absurdity in the presence of a brown-stone
house or a canon by Jadassohn. But the Schu-
mann emotional programme music is both beau-
tiful and true, and, measured by the standard of
either man, must be pronounced good, if not
great.
The composer fell into this way of writing
early in his career. His great sensibility, keen
and subtle perception, strong sense of humor,
and vivid imagination rendered him incapable
of writing music simply for music's sake. His
wealth of impressions found utterance in what
he wrote. It prevented him from succeeding as
220 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
a writer in the sonata form. He could not shut
himself up within the boundaries of a formula.
He never wrote a great work in the sonata form
until he saw how that form could be made to
bend and yield to his wishes, as it did in the C
major and D minor symphonies. But his pro-
gramme music for the piano was a revelation.
It not only revealed the tendencies and wonder-
ful powers of Schumann's creative gifts, but it
discovered to the world new possibilities of ex-
pression in the piano. Schumann began his ca-
reer as a pianist. He understood the instrument
and knew how to make it speak his language.
That he invented for it a new manner of speech
will be apparent to every student of the tech-
nique of the instrument. But he did more than
that. He gave the piano new thoughts to ut-
ter. The instrument, which had been a prattling
babe in the hands of Scarlatti, a singing boy in
the hands of Mozart, a hero and a prophet in the
hands of Beethoven, became a poet in those of
Schumann.
We may say what we will of Beethoven's so-
natas — and to the writer they have always been
the greatest music written for the piano — but we
must bear in mind that they are great as music
pure and simple, not especially as piano music.
Through them the piano utters thoughts never
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 221
before uttered by it ; but its language, its vocab-
ulary, remains the same. Beethoven invented
no new figures. Therefore, he was not essen-
tially a developer of the instrument. Schumann
not only said new things, but said them in a
new way. He enriched the vocabulary of the
piano a thousandfold, and opened the way for
later writers to produce effects which were pre-
viously unknown. Together with Chopin, his
twin giant, he revolutionized the rhetoric of
piano music. Beethoven had thundered his
Areopagitica through the piano — had made it
the mouthpiece of his great cries for human
liberty. Schumann and Chopin were no orators
as Beethoven was ; but they were poets, and
they sang together as the morning stars did,
" or ever the earth and the world were born."
Schumann began to paint his soul-pictures as
early as 1831, when he finished "The Papil-
lons." It is not necessary to remind music
lovers of the beauty of these short pieces. It
has been well said that in some of these there
was no great significance, but an exquisite poetic
idea underlay their arrangement. It has been
well said, also, that the rhythm of the pro-
foundly beautiful waltz marks the time of the
hearts rather than of the feet of the dancers.
This was to be expected of Schumann, and we
222 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
should not go far astray, probably, if we ac-
cepted that waltz as marking the beat of the
composer's own heart ; for it is impossible to
avoid perceiving that the originality of Schu-
mann's music is the result of his constant en-
deavor to express his own soul. You can trace
his attempts through such piano works as the
" Davidsbundler," Opus 6 ; " Carnival," Opus 9 ;
" Fantasiestiicken," Opus 12; "Scenes from
Childhood," Opus 15 ; " Vienna Carnival," Opus
26 ; " Album for Youth," Opus 68 ; " Forest
Scenes," Opus 82 ; " Album Leaves," Opus 124.
Yet we know that Schumann did not wish these
compositions to be accepted as programme mu-
sic in the older sense. He held his hearer down
to no binding schedule of scenes and incidents.
He preferred to give a title which hinted at
his ideas, and then let his music awaken the
hearer's emotions.
That Schumann felt his own power, that he
realized that a new force was making itself known
in German music, can hardly be doubted. In
his critical writings the composer gave utterance
frequently to words of much significance. In
one place he says : " Consciously or uncon-
sciously a new and as yet undeveloped school is
being founded on the basis of the Beethoven-
Schubert romanticism, a school which we may
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 22$
venture to expect will mark a special epoch in
the history of art. Its destiny seems to be to
usher in a period which will nevertheless have
many links to connect it with the past century."
His feeling that he was destined to be one of
the singers of this school is shown in a letter
written to Moscheles in 1836, wherein he says :
"If you only knew how I feel — as though I had
reached the lowest bough of the tree of heaven,
and could hear overhead, in hours of sacred
loneliness, songs, some of which I may yet re-
veal to those I love — you surely would not deny
me an encouraging word." Can we not per-
ceive in these words the yearning of a great soul
for self-expression ?
The time came. Stimulated by the enthusi-
astic resolution with which he entered upon the
defence of all that was noble in art in the Neue
Zeitschrift fiir Musik, his imagination began to
embody the indefinite emotions of his soul. It
was in the years 1836 to 1839, when he had well
mastered the routine of journalistic labor, that
he poured out those immortal piano works, in-
cluding the Fantasia in C, the F minor sonata,
" Kreisleriana," and " Faschingsschwank," which
have made his name dear to all lovers of piano
music. Now he realized that he could express
his inner self: " I used to rack my brains for a
2 24 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
long time," he writes ; " but now I hardly ever
scratch out a note. It all comes from within,
and I often feel as if I could go playing straight
on without ever coming to an end." But it was
in 1840 that he began to pour out his heart in a
new manner. It was in that year that his strug-
gle for the hand of Clara Wieck came to its vic-
torious close. As the man beheld day after day
the unshaken steadfastness of the woman who
loved him in the face of all opposition, he felt
that the piano, marvellously as he himself had
increased its power of speech, could not embody
his emotions, and he turned to the oldest and
most flexible instrument, the human voice. In
the year 1840 Schumann wrote over one hun-
dred songs, of which the world never tires and
probably never will ; for their romantic self-
expression is so broad, so human, that they will
stand for all time as the soul-hymns of men.
The artistic development of Schumann is so
indisputably the result of his life up to this
point, that we are not surprised at his next step.
The tumult of young love lifted him from the
piano to the voice. The consummation of his
manhood, in the union with a woman of noble
heart and commanding intellect, led him to the
orchestra. In 1841 he rushed into the sym-
phonic field, and composed no less than three
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 22$
of his orchestral works. The first of these was
his B flat symphony (opus 38), which was pro-
duced, at the Leipzig Gevvandhaus, under Men-
delssohn's careful and sympathetic direction, on
March 31st. The other two were produced on
December 6th. One was the work now called
" Overture, Scherzo, and Finale," which, it
is said, Schumann originally called " Sinfo-
ni'etta." The other was the immortal D minor
symphony, now known as the fourth. It was
not a great success at its first production, and
Schumann was dissatisfied with it. He re-
scored it, filling in the brass especially, so that
the best critics are now generally agreed that it
is somewhat thick and clouded. Joseph Mosen-
thal, who has seen a copy of the original orches-
tration (in the possession of Johannes Brahms),
says that it is much more clear and delicate. The
failure of the effect of the original score was due
to the weakness of the strings in the orchestra.
It is necessary to bear these facts in mind in
order to get a proper idea of the emotional con-
tents of the D minor and C major symphonies,
of which I purpose to speak particularly as em-
bodiments of Schumann's inner life. The B
flat symphony, which preceded the D minor in
the same year, is Schumann's spring symphony.
He even intended at one time to give it that
1?
226 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
title, and it is generally so called. It is full of
the spirit, the gladness, the buoyancy of that
happy season, beloved of poets and musicians.
Do you know that wondrous time when
spring buds into summer, when the timid tinge
of the half-blown leaves bursts into a trium-
phant splendor of emerald, when the wild orchids
lift their heads among the woodland hollows,
when the busy hum of bees begins around the
vine-clad porches, and the great sun, rolling in
dazzling majesty across our deep-blue northern
skies, sends new currents of life bounding
through the veins of plants and beasts and men
alike ? It is not the " early spring," of which
so many youthful poets carol, but that later
spring that merges into summer, and is the new-
crowned glory of the year. It is of such a sea-
son that Schumann's D minor symphony sings
— of such a season, not among the birds and
brooks and flowers, but in the infinite universe
of a man's heart. It is Schumann's nuptial
hymn, the " Io triumphe " of love victorious and
manhood blessed.
Is it any wonder that this man, growing, as
we have seen him grow, with a constant roman-
ticism, and an unflagging search after self-ex-
pression, should have swept away the barriers of
form, and, while preserving the general shape
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 2^^
of the symphony, have given us a work, novel
in appearance as it was in feeling ? Let us —
for it is necessary — enter for a brief time upon
the unhappy business of analysis. The first
thing that strikes the student of the score is the
title : " Fourth Symphony : introduction, alle-
gro, romanze, scherzo, and finale in one move-
ment." We seldom hear this symphony played
in one movement ; a break is usually made be-
tween the allegro and the romance, thereby
breaking the flow of the composer's ideas and
doing violence to his intentions. No thoroughly
artistic conductor should be guilty of such a
wrong. Schumann wrote his symphony in one
movement with a purpose. It is, as I have said,
his nuptial hymn, the free, untrammelled out-
pour of his emotions, and he desires that the
hearer's feelings shall pass, as his own did, from
one state to the next without interruption. In
a word, this is the first symphonic poem, a form
which is based upon the irrefutable assertion
that " there is no break between two successive
emotional states." Now, Schumann did not
rest here ; but he introduced a device which had
not been used by Beethoven when that master
saw the need of unbroken connection between
his movements. This device has been called
"partial community of theme." I do not like
228 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
that appellation ; it belongs to a style of termi-
nology which treats music as if it were a science,
not an art. Music is a form of poetry. Let us
not treat it as a form of mechanics. Schu-
mann's " partial community of theme " is noth-
ing more nor less than an approach to the leit
motive system. Wagner himself tells us, in his
account of the composition of " The Flying
Dutchman," how the conviction dawned upon
him that the recurrence of a thought or emo-
tional state in the opera should be made known
by a repetition of the music in which it was first
embodied. Knowing full well the eagerness of
commentators to read into the works of artists
things of which the artists themselves never
dreamed, I must admit that there is no evidence
of Schumann's having anticipated Wagner's con-
clusion ; but there is abundant internal proof in
his music that his strong feeling for direct self-
expression led him to a usage resembling in prin-
ciple that of the leit motive. The introduction
of the D minor symphony is made of this theme:
The soft, caressing, yearning nature of this
theme is at once apparent to every hearer, and
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 22$
is intensified by its orchestral treatment. It is
announced by the second violins, playing on
the fourth string, and the first bassoon in unison,
the violas and second bassoon in unison playing
a second part in sixths below. The clarinets are
added, an octave above, in the fifth measure. In
twenty-one measures the melody evolved from
the above theme is completed and the brief but
eloquent exposition of that yearning tenderness
which has in it a note of pain is ended. I call
this the yearning motive. Six short measures,
in which Schumann plainly throws aside his
softer mood and turns to a hymn of happiness,
lead us to the motive of rejoicing :
Ebenezer Prout has made an analysis of the
D minor symphony, in which he speaks thus of
this theme : " Trite and uninteresting as it is, it
follows us relentlessly — now in the bass, now in
the middle, now in the upper parts, now in the
passages of imitation, till, when we reach the
end of the movement, we hardly know whether
to feel aggravated at its pertinacity, or aston-
23O ROBERT SCHUMANN^
ished at the effect produced by such an unprom-
ising subject." It seems to me that a musician
so well informed as Mr. Prout must have written
that sentence without due consideration. Surely
the subject is no more unpromising than the
simple diatonic scale which Beethoven so often
used with astounding effect. It seems to me
that Schumann has done what all great sym-
phonists have done : he has taken a simple
melody and developed it in an effective manner.
His theme of rejoicing does, indeed, echo and
re-echo from all parts of the orchestra, now
thundering in the basses, again carolling with
the flutes, but always swelling higher and higher
in its rapturous utterance, till at the end of the
movement we certainly " are astonished at the
effect " and wonder how the composer is to
spread the wings of his fancy for further flight.
One part of Mr. Prout's analysis (which I am
far from dispraising) is worthy of reproduction
here. He notes that a vigorous forte concludes
the first part of the allegro, and continues by
saying : " From this point to the end of the
movement we find nothing but what is com-
monly called the free fantasia. It would be
very interesting to find out how many hearers
of this symphony have ever noticed that neither
the first nor the second subject ever recurs in
THE PR O GRA MME-S YM PHONY.
231
the latter part. The music is almost entirely
constructed of new material, to which the open-
ing bar of the first theme mostly serves as an
accompaniment ; and such unity of character is
given to the whole by this means that it is
doubtful if one hearer in a hundred has de-
tected the irregularity of the form." There are
two reasons for this " irregularity of form."
First, Schumann's purpose was plainly to de-
velop to its furthest power of emotional expres-
siveness his motive of rejoicing. He sought to
do this not only by carrying it through a series
of modulations, and setting our auditory nerves
to vibrating under the invigorating shock of
such foreign tonalities as D flat major, but by a
process of variation, made familiar by Beetho-
ven, through which, by the addition of small
portions of new material, the original melody
takes on a new form and color. Here is the
treatment to which Schumann, in his search
after accents of joy, subjects his theme :
Wood
232
ROBERT SCHUMANN-.
He works this out in such a manner that at the
end of the allegro it is succeeded by this form :
p^
r*z
Now, if the student of the score will turn to the
final allegro (what would under ordinary cir-
cumstances be called the last movement) he will
find that his theme, plainly a motive of tri-
umphant victory, is made out of these two
forms in this manner:
No. a
No. i. '
And this explains why Schumann did not fol-
low the sonata form in his first allegro and re-
peat his principal subject in a third part of the
movement. Having once stated his motive of
joy, he had no further use for it but to develop
it into a paean of victory at the end of the one
grand movement which constitutes the sym-
phony.
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 2$$
Does not this view throw a truthful light upon
the purpose of the composer? Is it not justified
by our preliminary study of the real nature of
programme music and the bent of Schumann's
genius ? If there were no other revelations of a
purpose to convey to the hearer the knowledge
of a series of emotional states, we might rest
here and declare that the existence of a pro-
gramme symphony was established. But this
is not all. I have spoken of a yearning motive,
which is used to introduce the symphony.
Later in the first movement (using the conven-
tional terminology) appears a theme whose
character is so similar that I always think of it
as the motive of love's tenderness, fittingly as-
sociated, as it is, with the motive of joy. It is
this:
ft dolce.
If my view of Schumann's method of compos-
ing the D minor symphony is correct, there
should be a counterpart of this theme in the
finale. So there is, and Schumann uses it to be-
gin his coda, his last burst of rapturous triumph.
234 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
Put them in the same key and try them con-
nectedly in the order in which they stand here,
and you will see how beautifully one supplements
the other in feeling as well as in melodic char-
acter. Surely, we must admit, remembering the
composer's indisputable attempt to give his work
unity, that his purpose governed the construc-
tion of these two themes.
Again, having given free rein to his expres-
sion of love's joy and tenderness in the first
movement, he enters immediately upon the
romanza. This is clearly a serenade beneath
the window of his bride. That Schumann in-
tended to give it such a character is shown by
his use in the original score of the guitar, after-
ward taken out because it was ineffective in the
mass of strings. If Schumann had written the
D minor symphony thirty years later, he would
have used a harp and achieved his effect fully ;
but he was too close to Beethoven to know the
value of that improvement on the model of
symphonic instrumentation left by the mighty
Ludwig. Yet in his romanza he continues to
exploit his new treatment of symphonic form in
a most touching manner; for immediately after
the first enunciation of the theme of the serenade,
he recurs to the yearning motive, thus giving us
a most eloquent expression of the feelings of the
THE PR GRA MME-S YMMOXl '.
235
singer beneath the window. He is outside, but
he yearns to be at her side.
Here follows one of the loveliest touches in
the whole work. The yearning melody ends
with this passage :
And this is succeeded at once by a very beauti-
ful section in which the body of strings plays
the subjoined air, obviously formed from the
passage just given :
»--^
=fc^
g^S^plllf
i£E*E
And above this the voice of a single violin
sings the following lovely variation :
Wtrf"*^
236 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
This is a marvellous working out of the yearn-
ing melody with which the symphony begins,
is it not ? How such treatment as this reveals
us the closeness of Schumann's self-analysis and
the firmness of his purpose to express his heart
in his music ! How thoroughly it explains to us
his recourse to the orchestra to obtain adequate
means for the representation of the multitude
of joyous and tender emotions which crowded
his heart in the full realization of all his hopes!
If this is not the tone-poem of a genius, where
are we to look for one ?
After the romanza the composer passes with-
out pause to the scherzo. It has always seemed
to me that conductors who are resolved to inter-
rupt the continuous flow of this symphony at
some point would better make the break be-
tween the romanza and the scherzo than else-
where. The connection between these two
movements at the point of contact is less marked,
I think, than that between the first two. The
scherzo itself is true to its name. It is play-
ful and airy, the badinage of the lover. But
mark how charmingly he reminds the object of
his affection of the yearning mood that has pre-
vailed in his heart so much of the time. He
does it in the trio, not by a repetition of the
yearning melody itself, but by a reproduction in
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY.
237
all the first violins of the variation given in the
romanza to a solo violin :
It is with a working out of this melody that
he concludes the scherzo and returns to the first
theme of the whole symphony, which is given
out by the first strings, accompanied by the
tremolo of the second violins and violas, sus-
tained chords in the wood, and declamatory
phrases in the brass. It reminds one of the
wonderful passage from the scherzo to the finale
of Beethoven's fifth, though it has not the im-
pressive mystery of that awe-inspiring episode.
Schumann lets his now triumphant mood grow
through the orchestra till he reaches a pause on
a full forte chord. Then he bursts into his
paean of victory previously described. This
movement contains considerable new material,
all of which, however, is bright in movement
and happy in character. The hearer of the
symphony finds no difficulty in following its
treatment. I cannot agree with Prout, who
says that the free fantasia of this part is labored.
238 ROBERT SCHUMANN:
The entire work has always impressed me as
being singularly devoid of obtrusive evidence of
the great amount of thought which a study of
its construction reveals. I heard it several
times before the most obvious passages of repe-
tition forced themselves upon my attention.
The less patent did not reveal themselves ex-
cept under a careful study of the score.
After what has been said about the D minor
symphony the C major may be dismissed with
shorter consideration. Schumann himself tells
us that it was sketched " during a period of
great physical suffering and severe mental con-
flict, in the endeavor to combat the difficulties
of his circumstances — a conflict which he says
left its traces behind it, and which in fact led at
last to his unhappy death." What a flood of
light this explanation lets in upon the tremen-
dous vigor and stress of the entire work. How
fully it makes us understand the difference be-
tween this and the Spring symphony. We can-
not fail to be caught and carried by the flood
of power — aggressive, militant power — in this C
major work, and here is a satisfactory reason for
its presence. Truly this is the voice of a great
singer. In this work we see a further use of
the methods of construction employed in the
D minor symphony. They are not so elabo-
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 239
rately carried out because the composer's pur-
pose did not demand it. But he does not lose
sight of his idea of repeating certain primary
themes in every movement. The sostenuto as-
sai in the C major is "an introduction not to
the first allegro, but to the whole symphony,"
as Sir George Grove has noted. " The call of
the brass instruments, which forms the first and
most enduring phrase in the opening, is heard
in the same instruments at the climax of the al-
legro, again at the close of the allegro, and lastly
in the termination of the finale, and thus acts
the part of a motto or refrain." Sir George also
points out that other phrases of the introduction
occur later, and that the theme of the adagio re-
turns in the finale. He also specifies the very
beautiful employment of a subsidiary melody in
the introduction as the basis of the second sub-
ject of the first movement. I think Sir George
Grove did not read between the lines here. The
probabilities are that Schumann created the two
subjects of his first movement before he under-
took the composition of the introduction, and
this subsidiary melody in the introduction was
derived purposely from the second subject of
the movement. This would be more in accord
with the evidences of deep design which the en-
tire symphony contains.
240 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
I may be pardoned for a momentary digres-
sion here to remark that Sir George seems puz-
zled to account for the scherzo's two trios, and
timidly supposes that the composer may have
got the idea from Beethoven's repetition of the
trios in the fourth and seventh symphonies, or
from "some ' cassatio ' of Mozart or Haydn."
He should have known that in Sebastian Bach's
great concerto in F for solo violin, two horns,
three oboes, bassoon, and strings there is a minuet
with three trios, after each of which the minuet
is repeated. And he should also have known
that Mozart took up this idea half a century
later. In his divertimento in D (Kochel, 131),
there are two minuets, the first of which has
three trios and the second two. This use of a
second trio, therefore, is not a modern custom
and may be dismissed.
The matter under consideration is the repeated
use of the same themes in different parts of the
symphony, a fashion which was the model of
the Liszt variety of piano concerto, and which
unquestionably led that writer to the invention
of the symphonic poem. The question may
now be asked, and it is very pertinent, Whether
this repetition of themes is a confession of weak-
ness on the part of the composer ? Does it mean
that he is not able to invent new melodies for
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 241
each new movement ? Or does it mean that he
is able to produce melodies which will bear ex-
tended discussion ? I fancy this question is
not so very difficult to answer after all. The
thoughtful student will readily perceive that it
speedily resolves itself into a question of fact :
Do the ideas which are repeated bear the repeti-
tion and elaboration ?
If the recurring melodies strike the mind with
fresh force at each re-entrance, if they gain in
beauty and significance with elaboration, the
composer is justified in repeating them for the
sake of euphonious effect alone, without regard
for deeper aesthetic considerations. Schumann's
D minor is the most conspicuous example of a
symphony written in this manner. Does it
weary the hearer to find a theme of the first
movement used as the foundation for the finale ?
I think not. On the contrary, I think that,
from a purely sensuous point of view, the un-
familiar hearer is always surprised and delighted
at the return, and at the new and triumphant
modification of the melody.
But we have already seen that Schumann did
not use his ideas over and over simply for the
purpose of ringing euphonic changes on them.
He had a deeper purpose — one which stamps
him as a great musical thinker and demonstrates
16
242 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
that he had explored the resources of music as
an emotional language. The character of this
C major symphony is, as we have seen, aggres-
sive, resisting, combative. He wrote it when
in the heat of a physical and mental conflict.
In the light of this fact examine that brazen
phrase with which the symphony begins. Surely
this is a challenge, the fanfare of the knight en-
tering the lists against fate. It is stern, weighty,
and resolute, the expression of the determina-
tion of a brave and unyielding spirit. It is
simply the Schumann leit motive, representing
through the storm and stress of the symphonic
struggle the calm courage of the man. And at
the end to what alone does this phrase give
way? To a triumphant hymn of victory, a pro-
phetic vision of the composer which was des-
tined never to be realized.
Does the reader think these explanations fan-
ciful ? They are no more so than the explana-
tions of Beethoven's third and fifth. They are
no more so than those of Wagner's Walhalla or
"Wanderer" motives. And the writer does not
deem those explanations fanciful in the least.
They are logically deduced from substantial
data. The explanations of Schumann's D mi-
nor and C major symphonies herewith given are
deduced in the same way ; and a suggestion is
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 243
offered as to the value of the repetition of sub-
jects. The reader, of course, will accept it or
not as he chooses. But I may add this : That
it has always been, since the days of Bach, the
object of composers to express their own souls.
Indeed, the endeavor to do this can be traced
back to even earlier days in the history of mu-
sic. No sooner had the mass of contrapuntal
learning which had been growing for several
centuries reached its height in the hair-splitting
and puzzle-building of Okeghem's time, than
Josquin des Pres, his pupil, sought to impart
euphonic beauty to his music ; and but little
later Orlando Lasso was producing music which
nobly expressed religious feeling, the only emo-
tional utterance attempted in the art-music of
the time. Thenceforward composers developed
the emotional element till they reached a com-
prehension of the great truth that they must
look within for their inspiration. As Dr.
Henry Maudsley has it : " It is not man's func-
tion to think and feel only ; his inner life he
must express or utter in action of some kind —
in word or deed." Music is the composer's
word, and by a thoughtful study of his own
mental and emotional states he brings under
his survey the entire psychic experience of
humanity. The essential characteristic of ro-
244 ROBERT SCHUMANN.
manticism in music is the ceaseless endeavor to
reveal this inner life. If Robert Schumann
was truly a romanticist, as people are in the
habit of saying, without much thought about it,
then he was trying to disclose his inner self in
his music, and the insight given by the compos-
er into his emotional states at the time of the
composition of the D minor and C major sym-
phonies justifies the explanations which have
been offered.
" It requires much time to discover musical
Mediterraneans," says epigrammatic Berlioz,
" and still more to master their navigation." It
took much time to discover the true vocation of
programme music, and there are many whose
eyes are still blinded. It was reserved for Beet-
hoven to show how the symphony could be
made to utter the life of the inner man. It was
Schumann's task to teach us a new method of
symphonic speech. I suppose the general judg-
ment of cultivated lovers of music will award
Schumann the second place among sympho-
nists ; yet I often feel that the words of his let-
ter to Kossmaly on another subject would be ap-
plicable to this. He says : " In your article on
the ' Lied,' I was a little grieved that you placed
me in the second class. I do not lay claim to
the first, but I think I have a claim to a place of
THE PROGRAMME-SYMPHONY. 245
my own, and least of all do I wish to see my-
self associated with Reissiger, Kurschmann, etc.
1 know that my aims, my resources, are far be-
yond theirs, and I hope you will concede this
and not accuse me of vanity, which is far from
me.
Schumann would have asked no higher meed
of praise than to be ranked second to Beetho-
ven as a symphonist. But let us remember
when we set him there that he had certainly a
great claim to a place of his own. The revela-
tions made to us by the scores of the two sym-
phonies which I have discussed lift the curtains
from the inner shrine of a genius of the first
order.
THE STORY OF MUSIC.
By W. J. HENDERSON.
12mo, Ornamental Cloth Cover, $1.00.
" Mr. Henderson tells in a clear, comprehensive, and logical
way the story of the growth of modern music. The work is pre-
fixed by a newly-prepared chronological table, which will be found
invaluable- by musical students, and which contains many dates and
notes of important events that are not further mentioned in the text.
. . Few cont-umporary writers on music have a more agreeable
style and few, even among the renowned and profound Germans, a
firmer grasp of the subject. The book, moreover, will be valuable
to the student for its references, which form a guide to the best
literature of music in all languages. 1 ho story of the development
of religious music, a subject that is too often made forbidding and
uninteresting to the general reader, is here related so simply as to
interest and instruct any reader, whether or not he has a thorough
knowledge of harmonics and an intimate acquaintance with the
estimable dominant and the deplorable consecutive fifths. The
chapter on instruments and instrumental forms is valuable for
exactly the same reasons." — New York Times.
" It is a pleasure to open a new book and discover on its first
page that the clearness and simple beauty of its typography has a
harmony in the clearness, directness, and restful finish of the
writer's style. . . . Mr. Henderson has accomplished, with ran
judgment and skill, the task of telling the story of the growth of the
art of music without encumbering his pages with excess of bio-
graphical material. He has aimed at a connected recital, and, for its
sake, has treated of creative epochs and epoch-making works, rather
than groups of composers segregated by the accidents of time and
space. . . . Admirable for its succinctness, clearness, and grace-
fulness of statement." — New York Tribune.
" The work is both statistical and narrative, and its special
design is to give a detailed and comprehensive history of the various
steps. in the development of music as an art. There is a very valu-
able chronological table, which presents important dates that could
not otherwise be well introduced into the book. The choice style in
which this book is written lends its added charms to a work most
important on the literary as well as on the artistic side of music."
— Boston Traveller.
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.,
91-93 Fifth Avenue, New York.
university ot uanrornia
SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388
Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed.
Si-ries <»■! *2
3 1205 00115 7336
IWlNlllli| T |||| RN REGI0NAL LIBRARY FACILITY
A A 000 077 421
Uni