CHAPTER XII

THE RENAISSANCE OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IN ITALY

Martucci and Sgambati--The symphonic composers: Zandonai, de Sabbata, Alfano, Marinuzzi, Sinigaglia, Mancinelli, Floridia; the piano and violin composers: Franco da Venezia, Paolo Frontini, Mario Tarenghi; Rosario Scalero, Leone Sinigaglia; composers for the organ--The song writers: art songs; ballads--Modern Spanish composers.

One is tempted to halt in the midst of an investigation of Italy's instrumental music to note the unusual progress which this nation of opera-lovers has made in arriving at a point where absolute music has a place in its æsthetic life. And only because Italy, from Boccherini to Sgambati, ignored the development of music apart from that of the stage is it necessary to express wonderment at this worthy advance. A country that could produce a Palestrina, a Frescobaldi and a Corelli, in the days when the art of music was still in its youth, found that it was chiefly interested in the wedding--or attempted wedding--of words and music. There were, to be sure, at all times men who wrote what they thought symphonies of merit, men for the most part who had little to say. Some of them were unable to work with the opera-form as it existed. Their music was, however, the kind that never gets beyond the borders of its own country, if it succeeds in passing the city in which it is first heard. The opera-composers were much too busy getting ready an aria for Signorina Batti or Signor Lodi to study the symphonic form. So Italy went its merry way, without symphony, without chamber music, without the art-song, in fact without everything that belongs to the nobler kind, from the days of Boccherini, of the much venerated Luigi Cherubini to the appearance in 1843 of the late Giovanni Sgambati.

That period covered, then, from 1770, when Boccherini flourished, till 1850. The reasons for the exclusive interest in opera must be sought in the conditions obtaining in Rome, Milan, Florence, Genoa, Naples and other leading cities. Opera-composers wrote music that the orchestras could manage with little or no trouble; symphonic music, naturally more difficult of execution, was, to begin with, beyond the ability of most of these orchestras. In fact it is only recently that the Italian orchestras have been brought to a real point of efficiency. So Italy went on, still holding high its head as a musical nation--in its own estimation, of course. To make a name as a musician one had to compose a successful opera. A fine string quartet meant nothing to the public, for it was a public that did not know what chamber-music was. There were, to be sure, occasional performances, but they were sporadic, and they had no significance for the people. After all it is not strange that this occurred. Other nations have experienced similar stages in their development in other arts. Italy went through it in music. To-day she has found herself and she is rapidly doing everything in her power to atone for her shortcomings during those many years when _opera_, in the opinion of her people, was synonymous with _music_.

I

Giovanni Sgambati was born in 1843. About the year 1866 he began to make his influence felt and his compositions appeared from the publishers, who, it may be of interest to note, were advised by Wagner to exploit his music. The friendship of Franz Liszt and Sgambati was a very beautiful one; Liszt, in his really noble and generous way, championed the young Italian, saw in him a desire to do something in which Italians of even that day were not especially absorbed. Sgambati did not show Liszt an opera in the Rossinian manner when the master arrived in Rome in 1861. With serious purpose he brought him a symphony. And Liszt, intelligent musical spirit that he was, looked at it and recognized that here was an Italian who knew what the symphonic form meant, who knew his orchestra, who could write with some distinction. If one does not expect the impossible of a pioneer there is always something to be found in his activity that deserves our aid and sympathy. So Liszt encouraged the young man. Sgambati labored arduously; he accomplished a great deal. In his list of works there are symphonies, two of them, there are chamber works for strings with piano, there is a piano concerto, shorter pieces for the piano, some for violin, many songs, a 'Requiem' and other pieces in various forms. Sgambati as an innovator is nothing; Sgambati as an Italian symphonic pioneer is important. There was work to be done and he did it with a zeal that speaks volumes for his artistic sense. We of to-day might find his symphonies tiresome, we might consider them too consciously Brahmsian without the real Brahms spark, to hold our attention. But their meaning for those men who are producing vital things in Italy to-day is undeniable. Sgambati not only gave the world his compositions; he saw to it that for the first time the symphonic works of the great German masters were produced in his country. And he was among the earliest of the Italians to champion the music of Richard Wagner. Such a man, a musician with the breadth to appreciate Wagner in the days when Wagner was hissed and ridiculed, must in truth have possessed the soul of an artist.

With him worked a colleague, Giuseppe Martucci. Like him, he was a pianist of note as well as a composer. Martucci came a little later than Sgambati; he was born in 1856, and he is still living to-day (1915). For him, too, there was in music something beyond an opera that filled the theatre from floor to gallery and gave some adored singer the opportunity to disport himself in the unmusical cadenzas and other pyrotechnical passages which composers all around him were manufacturing so assiduously. In placing an estimate on the achievement of Martucci it is not impossible to consider him quite as important a figure as Sgambati. His music, too, has traits that are typically Italian, though based on German models. His two symphonies, his piano concerto in B-flat minor are admirable compositions, none of them heaven-storming in originality, all of them eminently praiseworthy for the solidity of their texture, for the beauty of their design and for the unflinching adherence to high ideals which they embody.

It was hardly to be expected that the two men who set the example for their countrymen in symphonic composition would be geniuses of the first rank. Had they been they would doubtless have worked along other lines. Italian symphonic composition was to be placed on a secure basis not by path-breakers, but by path-makers. This they were. And they were notable examples of what good such men can work. Italy is rapidly making felt her individuality in the contemporary musical world by the strides in original composition which she is taking. To those two pioneers, Giovanni Sgambati and Giuseppe Martucci, must go the credit for having pointed the way to absolute music by Italians, for having toiled so that the men who came after them might take what they had done and build on it individual structures. And also that their followers might have a public that would listen to them.

Nowhere in the world to-day is there more activity in musical composition than among the young Italians. The world at large seems to know less about them than it does, for example, about the modern French or Russians. This is perhaps largely the fault of the Italian publishers, who do not seem to spread their publications about in other lands as do their colleagues. Yet the sincere and eager investigator cannot go far before he finds a vast amount of engaging new Italian music.

II

In the field of the symphonic orchestra we meet with Leone Sinigaglia, Riccardo Zandonai, Vittore de Sabbata, Gino Marinuzzi, Franco Alfano, Luigi Mancinelli. In the previous chapter we have dwelt on the music of Zandonai's operas. He is, however, one of those big men who have been moved to do absolute music as well; and he has done several fine things for the concert-hall. Like him, the young de Sabbata, of whom we have spoken, and the older Mancinelli, who is better known as a conductor than as a creative musician, have also contributed to the symphonic literature. The others, barring Alfano, who has done some four unsuccessful operas, are composers of absolute music alone.

Zandonai, Italy's greatest figure, has a symphonic poem, _Vere Novo_, which must be seriously considered. Though it is really an orchestral piece, the composer has called in the aid of a baritone solo voice in an Ode to Spring, the poem being by the distinguished Gabriele d'Annunzio. In it we find a wonderful command of orchestral effects, an intimate knowledge of the nature of the various instruments and a masterly attention to detail. The strings are subdivided into many parts--and not in vain--and the whole work is unquestionably important. There is also a delightful _Serenata Mediovale_ for orchestra with an important part for a solo violoncello, a composition which has distinction and geniality at the same time. It had a performance in New York at an all-Italian concert several years ago, but since then it has been unjustly allowed to languish.

Franco Alfano, born in 1876, has done a Symphony in E and a 'Romantic Suite,' two compositions that have done much to make his name respected. For those who do not believe that a real symphony has come out of Italy of the twentieth century an examination of this score may well be advised. It will convince even the most skeptical. Alfano's instrumentation is always good and he knows how to develop his material. Picturesque is the suite consisting of _Notte Adriatica_ (Night on the Adriatic), _Echi dell' Appennino_ (Echoes of the Apennines), _Al chiostro abbandonato_ (To an Abandoned Cloister) and _Natale campane_ (Christmas Bells). These four movements are frankly programmatic. They are not profound, but they are engaging, and they should be made known wherever good orchestras exist. When we think of some of the unsatisfactory French orchestral novelties, German works of no especial distinction that have been produced recently, it would seem the duty of conductors to seek out these Italian scores and present them to the public.

In Leone Sinigaglia, a native of Turin--he was born in 1868--Italy has a composer who has done for the folk-music of his province, if not his country, something akin to what such nationalists as Dvořák and Grieg accomplished. _Piemonte_ is the title of a suite, his opus 36, and _Danze Piemontese_ are two dances built on Piedmontese themes. These melodies of the people, indigenous material that has always proved a boon to gifted composers, have been treated by Sinigaglia with rare skill. He has clothed them in an orchestral garb which sets off their virtues most favorably and their popular nature should play an interesting part in gaining for them the approval of concert audiences. His 'Rustic Dance' from the suite _Piemonte_ is thrilling, while in the same suite occurs _In Montibus Sanctis_, in which there is an invocation to the Virgin, serene and aloof in its inflections. The Piedmontese dances are brilliant, racy compositions, a master's development of tunes born of the soil. In bright and gay spirit, too, is his overture _Le Baruffe Chiozzotte_ after a Goldoni comedy. This glistening little overture has already been played in America and never fails to arouse the good spirits of all who hear it.

Sicily comes in for musical picturing in the work of Gino Marinuzzi, born in 1882, a composer whose name is little known. The average musician is not aware of his existence. Yet this modest musician has produced a symphonic poem _Sicania_ and a _Suite Siciliana_. What Sinigaglia does with the folk-melodies of his native Piedmont Marinuzzi accomplishes by employing Sicilian tunes. And they are very beautiful, too. After all, the results obtained in working on the folk-music of any people depend on the skill of the artist who is welding them into an art-work. Composers enough have tried to make symphonic works of the crude tunes of our Indian aborigines, but few, with the exception of Edward MacDowell in his 'Indian Suite,' have accomplished works of art by their labors. It is, then, a matter of treatment; and both Sinigaglia and Marinuzzi are well equipped to express in tone their conception of folk-songs in artistic treatment, as their orchestral works prove conclusively.

The boy de Sabbata was born in Trieste in 1892. Saladino and Orefice were his masters at the conservatory in Milan and they taught him well. His orchestral technique matches that of Zandonai already and it is almost impossible to imagine what he will arrive at in the future. His Suite in four movements, _Risveglio mattutino_ (A Morning Awakening), _Tra fronda e fronda_ ('Mid Leafy Branches), an _Idilio_ and _Meriggio_ (Midday), is one of the most amazing orchestral scores we have ever seen. It was written at the age of twenty. De Sabbata is not a Korngold in his musical speech; he is a modern to be sure, but he has none of the qualities which have won for the young Viennese composer such heated discussion. His harmonies are new, yet they do not seem to have been put down with any desire to be different. There is a very distinct personality in this music, and in the third movement of his suite (_Idilio_) there is some of the warmest writing that has come to our notice in a long time. This young man has imagination, strong fantasy and a keen appreciation of color. At twenty he can say more than most composers at forty. And because he says it in his own way one cannot help thinking that the future will be very bright for him. The only hindrance is his ill health, which is already causing those who are interested in him much concern.

Pietro Floridia, born in 1860, an Italian musician who lives in New York, has written a symphony in D minor, creditable from the standpoint of the student but uninteresting for the public. It has had a performance in New York, where it was cordially, if not enthusiastically, received. Mr. Floridia has also done the operas _Carlotta Clepier_, _La Colonia Libera_, _Maruzza_ and _Paoletta_. Of Luigi Mancinelli's orchestral compositions the Suite _Scene Veneziane_ has been performed in London. They are interesting examples of an Italian whose idiom is post-Wagnerian in the broadest sense. And Alberto Franchetti, better known for his operas, has composed a symphony which Theodore Thomas played shortly after it was composed. Like his other productions it lacks physiognomy totally.

It may not be amiss to digress here to say a word about Signor Marinetti and his Futurist fellows. Their place is not an especially important one in Italy's musical scheme. Their presence does, however, make them come in for consideration. What Signor Marinetti and his colleagues would have music become none of us will be so rash as to endorse. Thus far he has given performances of works of his own invention, using instruments which make hideous and inartistic noises to express his ideas. He calls them 'gurglers,' 'snorters' and 'growlers.' We are not conservative in our taste; we cannot afford to be, for we have with us the very interesting Arnold Schönberg, who is a Futurist in tendencies, though not of the Marinetti type, and Leo Ornstein, whose music is the _dernier cri_ in our development. Ornstein's music seems to have no relation with musical art of the past; he is an impressionist and writes as he feels. He refuses explanations of his music, further than his stating that he is oblivious to all that has gone before in musical composition, and writes what his emotions tell him to, quite as he hears it before ever a note is set to paper. He employs the piano, stringed instruments, the voice, the orchestra, as the case may be. He is therefore obviously not of Signor Marinetti's tribe. There might be some interest in hearing one of the latter's bombardments, but it cannot have any æsthetic value. It must fail as one of those wayward retrogressions which all arts have experienced at some time in their history. From Marinetti we need fear nothing. He will be forgotten long before the next decade rolls round, when his aggressive experiment in what he calls music will have been heartily exploded as the attempt on the part of an iconoclast to fuse a passing madness with a lofty art.

III

Italian piano composers are few; only one of them touches the high-water mark. Franco da Venezia is his name and he has put to his credit a _Konzertstück_ for piano and orchestra and some very unusual shorter pieces for pianoforte solo. The former is regarded as a splendid work. Of the _morceaux_ we cannot say too much. Da Venezia is a man of strong physiognomy. He makes no compromises to win his public, he writes no _salon_ music. Look at his 'Caravan and Prayer in the Desert' and you will know what he can do with the keyboard of the piano! Then turn the pages of a short poem for the piano, _L'Isle des morts_, in which there is more real feeling than in the volumes of many a fashionable modern Frenchman. Fire has been struck here; nor has it been lighted to express some happy little thought that might please amateur pianists. In this music a tone-poet speaks and his message is worth listening to. Paolo Frontini is another man who has written much for the piano. Not important music is his like that of da Venezia, but he has done some very agreeable pieces, musicianly in execution and certainly worthy of acquaintance. Mario Tarenghi, Muzio Agostini and a half dozen others, whose names would scarcely be worth recording, have contributed small shares. Modern Italy's piano composer is Signor da Venezia. It is to him that we must look for the Italian piano music of the day.

Corelli, Vivaldi, Vitali, Veracini and a host of others held the high standard of their country in violin music in the days of the classic foundations. We have not forgotten Corelli's _La Follia_, the sonatas of these other men, nor the superb chaconne of Vitali. These men were violinists and their répertoire was acquired and increased by their own compositions. Until Nicolo Paganini appeared in 1782 the Italian violin literature was scarcely enlarged. And Paganini's music had value only as _violin music_, whereas theirs had and _has_ a place to-day both as music and as music for the violin. Now again an Italian violinist has come forward, the musician who has established a string quartet in Rome, where he gives his concerts every year for a discriminating public. Rosario Scalero has in a sense atoned for the woeful lack of violin composition in his country. Scalero is not perhaps as original a composer as we would like to have him; he has followed German models and has studied seriously. But his sonata in D minor for violin and piano is one of the best modern sonatas we have, and we must be grateful that it has come to us from a land that has done little since the seventeenth century in producing chamber music for the violin. This sonata leans a little on Brahms, but there is in it at the same time something of that Italian feeling which one recognizes so easily in music, whether it be for the violin, piano, orchestra or what not. Scalero has also put forth revisions of some of the classical sonatas by the old Italian masters, revisions that show his erudition and artistic judgment.

Some short compositions and a 'Piedmontese Rhapsody' by Sinigaglia constitute that very interesting musician's contribution to violin music. They are all of them idiomatically conceived and effective in performance. The Rhapsody is made up of folk-songs of Piedmont, quite as are the orchestral dances which have been discussed. It is an exceptionally felicitous piece to perform, and with orchestral accompaniment it should soon replace such hackneyed music as Saint-Saëns's _Rondo Capriccioso_. Beyond the efforts of these two men nothing of value is being written for the violin by the modern Italians.

Before turning to the discussion of the art-song we must speak of that curious musical personality, Don Lorenzo Perosi, born in 1872, who is the representative of oratorio in his land to-day. Also the Italian organ composers. Perosi began his career by startling all who knew him with his pretentious works in which he has employed Biblical narratives as the subject for long oratorios. His 'Resurrection of Lazarus' when first produced in Venice fixed the attention of the world upon him. It was said that a new Palestrina had been found. All kinds of honors were paid him. A street in his native Tortona was named after him. His services as conductor at presentations of his oratorios were sought. We cannot do better than to quote the remarks of Luigi Torchi, who seems to have examined his productions very carefully. He says: 'After all, why this hurrah about Perosi? He, whose recreation in times past was to compose cathedral church hymns after the pattern of the Protestant chorales, writes at present his vulgarly vaunted oratorios. This little abbé, born with theatrical, operatic talent, and not being permitted as a priest to write operas, in fault of religious feeling gives vent by way of compensation to the fullness of his romantic and sentimental exultations. And look at the form of his compositions: a frequency of tedious recitatives with words that follow literally the text of the Bible; little melodies, properly beginnings without endings, without any severe dignity of line, alternate with more or less long instrumental pieces of lyrical character; a couple of modern church anthems, in a work drawn from the New Testament; plain-song harmonized tragically, and some attempts at operatic realism, ecclesiastical harmonies and realistic operatic style.... He follows the lead of Wagner, and makes use of the _leit-motif_; soon after he delights in turning his back on him, and offers a badly made fugue on a subject that smells of too classic times. He has a fondness for instrumental phrases of much color, but his purely orchestral numbers are puerile, and betray no knowledge of modern orchestration. He has learned to compose pieces without ideas, fugues without developments, and, that he might not be too badly off, orchestral intermezzos, written and orchestrated with the knowledge of a schoolboy. Perosi has undertaken the task of illustrating the life of our Saviour in twelve oratorios. If he should keep his word, he should be pardoned.'

Thus this abbé-composer is disposed of. Marco Enrico Bossi, born in 1861 in Brescia, has written two oratorios, 'Paradise Lost' and 'Joan of Arc,' fine, sincere works along lines that add little to what has been done in the field before his time. He is at least dignified and knows his craft and so, unlike Perosi, cannot be charged with being a _poseur_. He is the foremost living organ composer that Italy owns. And it is in this department of activity that he is at his best. Some will think that he should have been mentioned with the orchestral composers. But his orchestral works are of the Sgambati-Martucci kind, and, since he is one of the younger men, it would be hardly proper to discuss academic essays along with the work of those men who are blazing paths. His chamber music, including a fine trio 'In Memoriam,' is creditable but undistinguished. It is only in his organ music that an individual note is found.

Cesare Galeotti, Oreste Ravanello, Polibio Fumagalli, Filippo Capocci, these are names of men who have written in recent years and are writing (some of them) organ music to-day. Capocci has done several sonatas of a pleasing type, as has Fumagalli, while the other two have confined themselves to working in the smaller forms, often with much success.

Two native Italians who have made their homes in America must be mentioned here. They are Pietro Alessandro Yon and Giuseppe Ferrata. Mr. Yon is a young man of unquestioned talent. He was born in Settimo in 1886 and occupies the post of organist of the Church of St. Francis Xavier, New York, devoting a good portion of his time, however, to composition. Just as it is the duty of organists of Anglican churches to turn out an occasional _Te Deum_ or _Jubilate_, so must the Catholic church organist produce a Mass every now and then. Mr. Yon is one of those who when he comes forward with a Mass gives us a musical work of distinction, not a _pièce d'occasion_. He has written a number of them, but particularly fine is his recent Mass in A. Here the true ecclesiastical spirit of the Roman church is to be found; and what a mastery of polyphony does this young Italian exhibit! His organ compositions are also praiseworthy, a charming 'Christmas in Sicily' and a 'Prelude-Pastorale' (_Dies est laetitiæ_) being characteristic examples.

Giuseppe Ferrata (b. 1866) lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he teaches and composes. His list of works is a long one, including a _Messe solennelle_ for solo voices, chorus or mixed voices and organ or orchestra, a Mass in G minor for male voices and organ, numerous songs, piano pieces, and a dozen or more violin compositions in small forms. He should be praised especially for a very fine string quartet in G major and a group of sterling organ compositions. Mr. Ferrata's path to success has not been made easier by his living in America; it has, in a sense, taken him away from Italy and her ways and, though it has doubtless given him a freer viewpoint, he has had to struggle for a hearing. His compositions are only now being recognized and given performances. He has something to say, has a fine compositional technique, and he is disposed to add to his style the innovations of modern harmonic thought.

IV

Doubtless ninety-nine out of every hundred musicians and music-lovers still believe that Italy has no art-song, that her composers are still devoting their energies to turning out those delectable _morceaux_ in ballad-style which Italian opera singers have sung in the past, and still do, to an extent, when they are called upon to take part in a concert. For these persons, whose number is a large one, it will be surprising information that Italy is working very seriously in the field of the art-song. And the man who has achieved the most conspicuous place in this department is that young genius, Riccardo Zandonai, already spoken of as a music-dramatist and as a symphonic composer. Whereas some of the songs which can be placed in this class by contemporary Italians still contain germs of the popular Italian song style, Zandonai's songs are indubitably on the high plane which is uninfluenced by popular tendencies.

Mr. Zandonai has doubtless done a great many more songs than we in America have been made familiar with. He has perhaps also written many more than he has published, the case with most composers. Several years ago there appeared three songs, first a setting of Verlaine's _Il pleure dans mon cœur_, then _Coucher de soleil à Kérazur_ and third _Soror dolorosa_ to one of Catulle Mendès' finest impassioned outbursts. The effect of these songs on musicians who, at the time, had heard no music of Zandonai was tremendous. In every measure was written plainly the utterance of a big personality, who commanded modern harmonies with indisputable mastery. Whether his setting of the lovely Verlaine poem matches or surpasses the widely known one of Debussy is of little consequence. It is not at all like it; Zandonai doubtless was unfamiliar with the Debussy version when he wrote the song and his _Il pleure_ has an atmosphere all its own. The Orientalism of _Coucher de soleil à Kérazur_ is unique--it gives the impression of a twilight conceived through an entirely new lens. But it is in the _Soror dolorosa_ that the composer has written what would seem to be one of his masterpieces. Every drop of the emotional force that Mendès has called out in his glorious stanzas, every bit of the color, of the warmth of the poem is reflected stunningly in this music. It is a wedding of voice and piano, achieved only by the greatest masters in their most notable songs.

Then there appeared another set of songs, this time five in number. _Visione invernale_, _I due tarli_, _Ultima rosa_ (this one to a Foggozzaro poem), _Serenata_ and _L'Assiuolo_ are the titles. You cannot prefer one of these songs to the other if you really get their meaning; only the last one might be said to be not so distinctive. The wonderful dirge of _Visione Invernale_, the thrilling melodic beauty of _Ultima rosa_ and the lighter _Serenata_ and the tragic narrative of _I due tarli_ ('The Two Worms') grip as do few things in modern music. If Mr. Zandonai has written difficult songs, that is, from the singer's standpoint, it was not unexpected. No composer who really had a message ever wrote to a singer's taste. And Mr. Zandonai never makes concessions.

Guido Bianchini, Enrico Morpurgo, Alfredo Brüggemann, Mario Barbieri--names assuredly strange to many a music-lover--are all men who have contributed significantly to song literature. Morpurgo's _Una speranza_ is typical of him at his best; Bianchini has real modern tendencies. Francesco Santoliquido is known to us through two songs, _Tristezza crepuscolare_ and _Alba di luna sul bosco_. _Tristezza crepuscolare_ is the better of the two, a magnificent conception, a song that is thrilling in every inflection. There is a strong Puccini tinge in Santoliquido's music, made fine, however, by more restraint than the composer of _Tosca_ knows how to exert. Unusually well managed are the accompaniments, which are rather graphic. Mr. Santoliquido knows how to achieve a climax within a few pages as do few of his contemporaries.

Apart from all these men stands Vittorio Gui, a young composer and conductor, whose career has been furthered by Arturo Toscanini. Signor Gui is an 'ultra' in the best sense of the word. His songs, which have not been exploited in America at all, are enigmatic. In fact his choice of poems makes them so. He has taken Chinese poems and translated them into Italian, poems that contain that world of Confucian philosophy which is still but little known. There are problems in ultra-modern harmony here which many will not be willing to solve, but which a few have already given serious attention to and from which they have gotten much joy. There is distinction in these songs; a desire to experiment, perhaps, but still the feeling for new paths, new moods, and, above all, a new idiom. The attainment of that may not be so easily accomplished, but Gui is one of the men who are going prominently in that direction.

A word about the ballad composers, Paolo Tosti, P. Mario Costa, Luigi Denza, and Enrico de Leva. Whereas their position in serious music is not one of importance, their appeal to millions entitles them to mention. Tosti is doubtless the ablest of them. His innumerable _melodie_--the characterization of his songs as such is typical of what Italians thought a song must be before they attempted the art-song--have a melodic fascination. Who has not heard his 'Good-bye' and his _L'ultime canzone_, two songs which have won a popularity truly universal in scope! And when 'Good-bye,' hackneyed as it is, is sung by a Melba it contains an emotional thrill, theatrical as its appeal may be, insecure as its structure is from the standpoint of the art-song. It would be idle to enumerate Tosti's writings. His songs go into the hundreds. De Leva, Denza, and Costa are of the same creative blood; they believe in pure melodies, none of them distinguished, set to very indifferent Italian texts--not poems--and one and all gorgeously effective for the singer. What these men have produced has developed in Italian singers that failing, namely, the dwelling on all high notes, which is so objectionable. But it has also brought joy to so many Italians whose sole musical interest was singing, and their place in the development of Italy's music cannot be overlooked. When a hundred years have rolled around perhaps the name of Tosti will be remembered. But it is exceedingly doubtful whether there will be Italians producing a similar kind of music; for by that time Italy's music-lovers will have repudiated this type of banal melodic song, which makes only an emotional appeal and into whose make-up the intellectual has never been allowed to enter.

* * * * *

Italy's right to a place among musical nations of the day cannot be denied. Not only in the producing of worthy music-dramas, of orchestral works, of chamber music, but also in the noble art-song is she active. A change has come over her. Perhaps her musicians are being better trained. Yet the St. Cecilia Academy in Rome, the conservatories in Milan, Naples, Genoa, and Bologna have always equipped their students well. It may not be this so much as it is the imbuing of those who choose lives in art with the responsibility of their calling. Further, it is the advance which musical art has made all over the world. The young Italian composer of to-day has behind him Wagner and his glorious achievement, Strauss and his superb essays in the operatic and orchestral fields, the Frenchmen and their innovations. What did he have fifty years ago? Was it not to the old-style Italian opera that he looked with a burning to achieve a work of this type and win popular success? And one point that affects all modern composition is quite as valid in Italy as it is anywhere: Composers, in fact, musicians in general, are being better educated; they are feeling the correlation of the arts; they have studied the literatures of many nations, they know the paintings of many masters. In this lie the wonderful possibilities of the future! And modern musical art has its pathway, one quite as open and as free as that of any of its brothers, in which it must accomplish its task. Italy will not be behind in the future as she has been in the past. For she has a Zandonai, a Montemezzi, a Gui to lead her on.

A. W. K.

V

Since the late Renaissance Spain has been generally regarded as backward in music. And until recently the reputation was deserved. But within the last two decades musicians have become aware that there is a vigorous and extremely talented school of native and patriotic Spanish composers, working sincerely and effectively. As always happens in such cases, we find on closer examination that the revival of musical creativeness is not a recent thing, but has been going on definitely for half a century or more. But every indigenous musical school must go through a period of internal development, and the modern Spanish school has been no exception. It is even probable that this school has by no means begun to approach maturity. Though it assiduously cultivates national materials and even issues national manifestoes, its idiom is borrowed in the main from France, and it is to Paris that the promising young composers still look for tuition and inspiration. The national material as used by the modern Spanish composers has no more been infused into the spirit and technique of their product than the Russian folk-songs were infused into the Russian music of Glinka's time. Modern Spanish music seems to be in a preparatory stage. It has two main lines of activity--the opera and the genre piece for piano. In the former class Spanish composers have produced little that has carried beyond the borders, though their industry is indefatigable. But in piano music they have enriched modern concert literature with many a piece of sparkling vitality and able workmanship.

Among the precursors of the recent renaissance the name of Baltasar Saldoni (1807-1891) is most eminent. He was born in Barcelona, and received his education in the monastery of Monserrat. Throughout the greater part of his life he was distinguished as an organist, teacher and scholar as well as a composer. His important works were a symphony, _O mia patria_; a 'Hymn to the god of Art'; some operas and operettas, and a quantity of church and organ music written in a severe contrapuntal style. Miguel Eslava (1807-1878) also deserves mention both as composer and scholar. But greater than either is Felippe Pedrell (born 1841 and still living), who with Isaac Albéniz (born 1860) may be called the founder of modern Spanish music. Both were ardent nationalists; both were thorough and industrious scholars; and both wrote with distinction in large forms as well as small. Though Pedrell, the student, was particularly eminent in the department of Spanish ecclesiastical music, Pedrell the composer essayed chiefly those forms which ordinarily bring the maximum of worldly success. His early operas--_El último Abencerage_ (1874), _Quasimodo_ (1875), and 'Cleopatra' (1878)--were produced in Spain at a time when the native public would hardly lend an ear to anything except Italian operas of the old school and its beloved _Zarzuelas_, or operettas. His orchestral works are large in design and admirably executed. They include a _Chanson Latine_, the _March à Mistral_, the _Chant de la Montague_ (a suite of orchestral 'pictures'), and the symphonic poems--'Tasso at Ferrara' and 'Mazeppa.' In addition to many songs and small piano pieces, Pedrell wrote considerable choral music, in

## particular the noble 'Gloria Mass.' But his greatest work, and the one

which has chiefly won him the respect of musicians in outside lands, is his operatic trilogy, 'The Pyrenees,' designed as a sort of hymn of praise to his native land. The whole work was produced in 1902 in Barcelona, where the composer has worked indefatigably, causing the city to attain a peculiar musical importance somewhat parallel to that which Weimar attained in Germany under the régime of Liszt. The three parts of 'The Pyrenees' are denominated, respectively, _Patrie_, _Amor_, and _Fides_, three words forming an old and illustrious Spanish armorial inscription. In the prologue a bard chants the sorrows of Spain. The first part of the work is the story of a nation sunk into a despair and then liberated. The liberator is symbolized in the hero, the Comte de Foix, while the legendary spirit of the mountains is personified in a juglara, Raig de Lluna. Especially fine is the second act of _Patrie_, where the sombre chant of the monks mingles with the fanfare of the soldiers, the music of a passing funeral cortège, and the melancholy song of the jongluera.

Whereas Pedrell specialized in ancient Spanish church music, Albéniz made a study of the folk-tunes of his people. And this with the deliberate purpose of using them as a basis for a new Spanish school of composition. With unfailing energy he carried out his life-program, and, though he did not succeed in carrying the fame of his native land into many foreign capitals (except for his superb piano pieces), he gave energy to the awakening instincts of native composers, and set a high standard for their work. He was in his early youth a 'boy-wonder' pianist, and as such studied under some of the most famous masters in Europe, among them Marmontel in Paris, Reinecke in Leipzig, and Liszt in Rome. As a composer he was largely self-taught. His early piano work was undistinguished, but his technical ability grew astonishingly with the course of the years. His opera, _Pepita Jimenez_, is regarded as the most distinguished operatic achievement of modern Spain. It is frankly a 'folk-opera' and makes lavish use of the specific Spanish rhythms and tunes which the composer collected in his years of research among the people. The score shows an easy mastery of counterpoint, but the vocal parts are rather uninteresting, and the work as a whole lacks the charm which one would expect. Albéniz's other works for the stage are the operas _Enrico Clifford_ and 'King Arthur,' and the operetta 'The Magic Opal' (produced in London in 1893). The oratorio _Christus_ also has a high place in the music of modern Spain. But Albéniz's most successful works are his piano pieces. These have been called 'the soul of modern Spain.' They seem to range over the whole land, paying homage to a city or a valley, picturing a street scene in festival time or some striking bit of native scenery. Their melodies and rhythms are Spanish from beginning to end. But their technique is that of modern France. Albéniz, and all his compatriots in music, had their best lessons in Paris, and they could not fail to reflect the powerful influence from the north. It is to their credit (to Albéniz's in particular, since he chiefly insisted upon it) that with a French technique and a set of æsthetic ideals unmistakably French they still produced a music that was national and personal. Albéniz's best works for the piano are his two suites, 'Iberia' and 'The Alhambra.' These have taken their place in modern concert programs beside the works of Debussy and Ravel, and have given their composer an international reputation as one of the leading 'impressionists' of modern times.

The most eminent living Spanish composer in this style is Enrico Granados (born 1867). Like Albéniz, he has worked in the larger forms, and his works deserved at least this partial listing: the operas--_María de la Alcarria_ (1893) and _Folletto_ (1898), the symphonic poems, _La Nit del Mort_ and 'Dante'; the incidental music to Mestres' fairy play, _Liliano_; a quartet and a piano trio, in addition to many songs. But, again like Albéniz, it is in his piano pieces that he has done his best work. These show all the modern French characteristics--highly spiced harmony, free use of dissonances of the second, clear but astonishingly intricate pianistic style, free use of the whole tone scale and of exotic tonalities, and daring characterization and realism. But its complexity is not so much that of development as of ornamentation--which is a quality more peculiarly Spanish. As with Albéniz's piano works, the composer pays tribute to many a Spanish town and to many a Spanish custom, and loves to introduce a local color at once authentic and suggestive. Granados' most important groups of piano pieces are the _Goyescas_, the 'Songs of Youth,' the _Danzas Españolas_, and the 'Poetic Waltzes.'

Hardly inferior to Granados in the writing of genre pieces for piano is Joaquin Turina. This composer's most important piano work is the suite _Sevilla_, a fascinating group of tone pictures drawn from the daily life of the city. His writing is marked by great delicacy and keen feeling for the finer vibrations of the modern piano. Among his other works we should mention an opera, _Fea e con Gracia_ (1905), a string quartet, and a _Scène andalouse_ for piano and violin (1913). Other Spanish composers who have gained eminence in their native land are K. Usandizaga, who is a pupil of d'Indy, and whose opera _Las Coloudrinas_ was produced in Madrid in 1914; Vives, the composer of the nationalistic opera _Tabare_ (1914); and Costa Nogueras, composer of _Flor de almendro_ (1901), _Ines de Castro_ (1905) and _Valieri_ (1906). Gabriel Grovlez (born 1882) has written colorful piano music in the new style, and Garcia Roble has made successful essays in the larger forms. The great violinist Pablo Sarasate (1884-1908) is eminent as a spirited composer for violin. Raoul Laparra, though he is of Spanish parentage and has worked with Spanish materials, should rather be treated among the composers of modern France.[76]

Among the distinguished composers of modern Portugal should be mentioned Verreira d'Arneiro (born 1838), who has gained a wide reputation with his 'Symphonic Cantata' and his opera, 'The Elixir of Youth'; and Carlo Gomez (1839-1896), who was chiefly active as a composer of operas in the Italian style for Italian theatres. The most eminent Portuguese composer of recent times, however, is the admirable pianist Jose Vianna da Motta (born 1868). A quartet and a symphony from his pen have been played with success, but he is best known by his piano pieces, notably the 'Portuguese Scenes' and the five 'Portuguese Rhapsodies.'

H. K. M.

FOOTNOTES:

[76] See Volume IX, chapter XIV .

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