Part 7

Technically, Schumann was handicapped in this new departure by his exclusively pianistic early training. He had acquired a habit of thinking in terms of the piano which it was almost impossible to break, and he had not, like most symphonists, familiarized himself with orchestral instruments from boyhood. The consequence was that he made many blunders in his first essays in instrumentation, and never scored with the ease, certainty, and effectiveness of a master. An oft-cited instance is the opening horn-phrase of the first symphony, originally written as at (_a_) in Figure VIII, in which form it is grotesquely ineffective on account of the muffled quality, on the horn, of the fifth and sixth tones, and changed only on second thought, after rehearsal, to its present form, (_b_).

[Illustration: score] (_a_)

[Illustration: score] (_b_)

Figure VIII.

Another is the first trio of the scherzo in the second symphony. Curiously oblivious of tonal monotony, he cast this passage entirely for the strings, despite the fact that they had been prominent throughout the whole of the preceding scherzo. It was Mendelssohn who suggested the use of the wood-wind instruments here, certainly a marked improvement. Isolated errors or miscalculations like these, however, are much less serious than the pervasive heaviness and muddiness of scoring that constantly mar the sound-mass. A mistaken desire for richness of color led him to double his instruments until all transparency was lost. It is as if a painter should use all his pigments all the time: the potency of each would be cancelled by the others, and the eye, through a surfeit of impressions, would become dulled and jaded. Only by the silence of some instruments can others come into relief. "Schumann's symphonies," says Mr. Weingartner,[10] "are composed for the pianoforte, and arranged--unhappily, not well at that--for the orchestra. Whenever I compare, as a conductor, the labor of the rehearsals and the performance with the final effect, there comes over me a feeling similar to that I have towards a person in whom I expected to find mutual friendship and was disappointed. No sign of life gleams in this apathetic orchestra, which, if given even a simple Mendelssohnian piece to play, seems quite transformed." There are, it is true, as Mr. Weingartner would doubtless admit, many single passages of great tonal beauty and originality scattered here and there in these overladen scores. Such are the sombre trombone harmonies at the end of the slow movement of the B-flat Symphony, the celestial violin melody in the adagio of the C-major Symphony (to which Mr. Weingartner gives the highest praise), and the violin solo in the Romance of the Symphony in D-minor. Above all, there is the wonderful horn-call in the "Genoveva Overture"--one of the loveliest moments in all music.

[Illustration: score] Figure IX.

But these are the high lights in a picture which for the rest is too often gray and blurred. In the chamber music, too, we feel the same shortcomings. The three quartets sound patchy or dry, like piano pieces played without pedal;[11] only in the quintet and the quartet with piano does Schumann's favorite instrument introduce elasticity and sparkle.

Another problem, even more fundamental than that of instrumentation, which Schumann, in approaching the larger forms, had to solve as best he could, was that of melodic variety and breadth. Here again he was at a disadvantage. All his experience had been with short lyrical melodies or germs of melodies such as are appropriate to piano pieces in the romantic vein and to songs; but larger works require a wider sweep in the initial themes, a more complex differentiation of themes, and a power of mental synthesis that can combine the most diverse elements in a coherent organism. Mr. Hadow[12] names the two types of melody, which are suitable respectively to the large and to the small forms, the "Continuous" and the "Discrete." "In the former," he explains, "a series of entirely different elements is fused into a single whole: no two of them are similar, yet all are so fitted together that each supplies what the others need. In the latter a set of parallel clauses are balanced antithetically: the same rhythmic figure is preserved in all, and the differences depend entirely upon qualities of tone and curve. The former is the typical method of Beethoven, the latter that of Schumann." And he cites as examples Beethoven's violoncello sonata in A, and the opening movement of Schumann's piano quintet. Now, the construction of extended works out of melodies of the discrete or lyrical type presents certain inevitable difficulties that the romantic composers, who instinctively think only in such melodies, are always having to meet in one way or another. We have already seen[13] how Schubert, on the whole, failed to solve the problem, and contented himself with monotonous repetitions of his ideas, or with variations of their mere ornamentation or timbre. We shall later see how Chopin declined, and how Berlioz and Liszt evaded, the same embarrassment. It will be enlightening to examine how far Schumann succeeded and how far he failed in readjusting his musical imagination to the new requirements.

In many cases he fails as Schubert failed. Beginning a symphonic movement with a song-like melody, grouped in parallel phrases, generally of four measures' length, he is able to proceed only by more or less "vain repetitions." The result is a monotony, a flatness and lack of contrast and relief, something like that of a wall-paper with its endless re-presentations of a single pattern. This defect is especially felt in the development sections of his first movements and finales, in which he has, by the compulsion of circumstances, to forego the charm of melodic novelty. In the allegro of the first quartet, the development is founded on two or three patterns, many times reiterated in various keys. The first movement of the piano quartet, in spite of its harmonic originality, is open to the same criticism, as are also, in fact, most of the development sections in all four of the symphonies. A welcome contrast is found in the corresponding parts of the first movement in the quintet, where an ingenious "diminution" of the theme gives opportunity for much genuine variation, and of the finale of the concerto, with its inexhaustible fertility of rhythms and melodic figures. It must be added, also, that even when Schumann is most helplessly shackled to his initial themes, these are of such intrinsic beauty that the effect is infinitely to be preferred to that of more skilful mediocrity.

Next to the primordial charm of his melodies, his most efficient aid in the solution of the problem is his instinct for counterpoint, with all its matchless power to vitalize the musical tissue. This instinct was educated by a long and earnest study of Bach. As early as 1829 he made thorough acquaintance with the "Well-tempered Clavichord." In 1832 he writes: "I have taken the fugues one by one, and dissected them down to their minutest parts. The advantage of this is great, and seems to have a strengthening effect on one's whole system; for Bach was a thorough man. There is nothing sickly or stunted about him, and his works seem written for eternity." One of the most striking passages in the letters is that which acknowledges the supreme importance of such study to the romantic composers. "Haydn and Mozart," he says, "had only a partial and imperfect knowledge of Bach, and we can have no idea how Bach, had they known him in all his greatness, would have affected their creative powers. Mendelssohn, Bennett, Chopin, Hiller, in fact all the so-called romantic school, approach Bach far more nearly in their music than Mozart ever did: indeed all of them know Bach most thoroughly. I myself confess my sins daily to that mighty one, and endeavor to purify and strengthen myself through him." Besides this general purification and strengthening of his musical thought, Schumann found in Bach an invaluable antidote for his wayward, youthful subjectivism; for Bach is of all composers the most deeply and abstractly musical, the most thoroughly founded on natural tonal laws, the least infected with extraneous ideals and meretricious methods. His art is wholly objective, quite universal; he makes no concession to vulgarity or to insensibility, and his taste is as exacting as his skill is impeccable. Technically, too, he gave Schumann, too long habituated to the narrow scope and rigid rhythmical balance of the lyrical forms, just the emancipation, the mental liberation and broadening, which he needed. The way of escape from the prosodic monotony of the song lies through polyphony, through the conceiving of music as a group or bundle of melodies each of which has its own vitality and its own provocation to fancy. Once the composer learns to follow each strand in this web, for its own sake, and to attain coherence by the persistence of characteristic motives of all types, rather than by a slavish alternation of phrase and equal counter-phrase, the creation widens in his view, and he writes with a hitherto undreamed-of elasticity.

The wholesome influence of the polyphonic or contrapuntal habit of mind makes itself felt very early in Schumann's works, even in the piano pieces of the first period. Oscar Bie detects its earliest manifestations in opuses 13 and 14, but it is certainly noticeable in the "Impromptus," opus 5. The very scheme of this work, which is a set of variations on a fixed bass quite as much as on the "Romance" of Clara Wieck, suggests the Bach standpoint. The dexterous weaving of motives in sections four and eight show the same spirit. Above all, the fugato in the finale, with its bold contour and its steadily cumulative sonority and thematic interest, and with its striking stretto (see the figure), not only gives evidence of minute study, but is a far from unskilful imitation of a great model.

[Illustration: score]

[Illustration: score]

Theme and Stretto from the Finale of the Impromptus, opus 5.

Figure X.

The habitual use of the sequence, the canon, and even the fugato, though always in an impressionistic, romantic vein, also presses itself constantly upon our attention. Such contrapuntal habits soon became instinctive and unconscious with Schumann. "In my latest compositions," he remarks in 1838, "I often hear many things that I cannot explain. It is most extraordinary how I write almost everything in canon, and then only detect the imitation afterwards, and often find inversions, rhythms in contrary emotion, etc." But the explanation is given by a sentence in the same letter: "Bach is my daily bread; he comforts me and gives me new ideas."

So beneficent in the small pieces, the inspiration of the Bach polyphony became invaluable in the larger works. To it are traceable the supreme passages in the symphonies, such as the profoundly thoughtful introduction of the C-major, with the rugged dissonances resulting from the superposing of the call of horns and trumpets upon the inexorable progression of the strings, the insistently climactic introduction of the D-minor, and the entire movement in the E-flat major known as the "Cathedral Scene," which is surely not the least of the monuments of Gothic art, though its massive pediments and soaring arches are carved of immaterial tones. In his three essays in the string quartet, the most exacting of all mediums, Schumann's contrapuntal skill is less secure. Failing often to conceive the inner voices independently, he falls into a jerkiness resulting from the constant stoppages of the little phrases; instead of letting the melodies germinate and soar, he constricts them within a predetermined harmonic mould; and the wall-paper patterns inevitably creep in. But in the quartet with piano and still more in the quintet, the contrapuntal stimulus is again efficiently felt. From the soaring imitations of the first page to the two exciting fugatos in the coda of the finale, one on the theme of that movement, and the other, by a happy inspiration, on the theme of the opening allegro, structurally rounding out the entire work, the music bubbles and throbs with melody.

One other great work there is, belonging to this period, which for fecundity of invention, luxuriant richness of coloring, and stoutness of structure deserves to rank with the quintet, if not above it. This is the piano concerto in A-minor, begun in 1841 and completed in 1845,--that is to say, written in the brief prime of Schumann's troubled life, when his powers had been marshalled and coordinated by discipline, and before they had become blighted by disease. It is thus quite up to his early standard in the matter of freshness of melody, rhythmic animation, and exotic gorgeousness of harmony, and at the same time far more firmly knit, more justly proportioned, and more flexibly conceived than the piano sonatas or the string quartets. The sincerity, tenderness, grace, and impetuous enthusiasm of the youthful romanticist are not in the least abated. What could be more contagious than the exuberant first movement, in which one hardly knows which to admire the more, the felicity of such details as the clarinet cantabile, the Andante expressivo for solo piano, and the nobly polyphonic cadenza, or the broadly climactic plan of the whole? What could appeal more simply and directly to the heart than the delicate and yet ecstatic Andante grazioso, with its winding intermeshed melodies, clustering about the violoncello phrases as a grapevine festoons itself upon a tree? Yet perfectly wedded with all this feminine suavity and grace is a more masculine quality, a fine poise, restraint, reservation of force, which counteracts all tendency to feverishness, and gives the work a sort of impersonal dignity and beauty at the opposite pole from the perverse individualism of the "Davidsbündlertänze" and the "Carnaval." One feels that the composer, no longer the victim of his moods, is shaping his work with the serene detachment of the artist. Particularly manifest is this new mastery in the rhythmical treatment of the finale. The rhythms here are as salient, as seizing, as ever, but they are far more various. The contrast between the strongly "three-beat" quality of the initial motif, (_a_) in Figure XI, and the cross accent of twos in the second theme (_b_), is a stroke of positive genius.

[Illustration: score] (_a_)

[Illustration: score] (_b_)

[Illustration: score] (_c_)

Figure XI.

One should note also the subtlety with which the regular three-beat meter is gradually resumed after the interregnum (_c_ in the figure). Indeed, to do justice to the plastic beauty of this movement would require nothing less than a measure-by-measure analysis of its charmingly varied phraseology. To play it after the "Abegg Variations" is like passing from a schoolboy's singsong delivery of "The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck" to the reading of an ode of Shelley or a sonnet of Keats.

In our desire to comprehend how much Schumann gained by his study of Bach and other great masters of composition (such as his contemporary, Mendelssohn, for instance, whose perfection of form he vainly tried to emulate, possibly to the disadvantage of his own originality), we must not fail to note certain indications that his enthusiasm sometimes overleaped itself. A strong will like his easily falls, by the overuse or abuse of special artistic devices, into mannerisms; and he, with his fondness for sequences, inversions, canons, and other contrapuntal traits, did not escape this danger. So long as he used these tools with a certain romantic freedom and geniality, inspired by their spirit rather than enslaved by their letter, as he uses for example the canon in the andante of the piano quartet, the device of diminution in the development section of the first movement of the quintet, and the fugato in the finale of the same, they enriched and guided his fancy. But when he writes canonically throughout a whole movement, as in the scherzo of the D-minor Trio or the third movement of the F-major Trio, when he puts upon his genius the manacles of strict counterpoint, as in the Studies in Canon Form for Pedal Piano, opus 56, and in the Four Fugues, opus 72, above all when he indulges, as in the organ fugues on B-A-C-H, in those inversions and retrogressions of themes dear to the schoolmen, then learning becomes baneful, and music degenerates into a pedantic exercise.

A far more insidious and fatal blight than such occasional pedantry was now, however, beginning to overspread his music. The story of the long, gradual eclipse and final extinction some years before death, by the ravages of physical and mental disease, of a genius which had dawned so brightly and reached its meridian in such ample and yet tempered splendor, is one of the most pathetic chapters in the history of art. The exact nature of the disease was somewhat obscure, but the basis of it seems to have been a tendency, inherited from the mother, toward abnormal activity of the brain, and a resulting congestion, distention of the blood-vessels, and final ossification of cerebral tissue, carrying with it mental paralysis and degeneration. The trouble was no doubt aggravated by overwork and by the constant excitement of musical composition. A peculiar feature was its reaction on Schumann's spirits. Generally this sort of cerebral atrophy is attended by unreasoning high spirits, a baseless self-satisfaction uncanny to observe but merciful to the sufferer. But Schumann's native moral force and mental power were so great that he struggled with his fate as a lesser man would not have done; and the result of the unequal fight was a terrible melancholy, sinking sometimes into a blank lethargy of depression, and rising at other times into acute despair. It was in one of these frenzied moments that, in February, 1854, he attempted to drown himself in the Rhine. Rescued from suicide, he had for safety's sake to be put in an asylum, where after two years of merely vegetative existence, he died on July 29, 1856.

This deep-seated physical disability is responsible for the curious impotence of those compositions which he so restlessly produced all through the afflicted years. Such things as the violin sonata, opus 121, the "Introduction and Allegro Appassionata," opus 92, the Concert Allegro, opus 134, and the overtures "Julius Caesar," "Braut von Messina," and "Hermann und Dorothea," negligible from the artistic standpoint, are as human documents deeply pathetic. In them we see the crippled master in fruitless travail. The intention is always noble, the old fire flashes out now and then, the ideal of expression is the same as ever, but the path from will to act is clogged, the musical fancy is paralyzed; and all that results is page after dreary page of rigidly unchanging rhythms, stagnant harmonies, manufactured melodies, and climaxes that reach no goal. Particularly saddening is it to note the hysterical character of the emotional passages. In the overture to "Manfred," one of his immortal masterpieces, he showed once for all his marvellous power for impassioned expression. Alas! that in the fever of sickness he was goaded to parody his own immortal work in futile replicas that imitate its qualities only to trivialize them.

It is a relief to turn from the sorry spectacle of these galvanic twitchings of the once so virile intellect to the one happy episode that lightens this period of gloom. This was the coming of Brahms in 1853. In order to understand fully what the apparition of a youth of so pure and high a genius meant to Schumann, we must remember the depth and unselfishness of his love for art, the lifelong labors he had undertaken in order to purify public taste, the grim and often single-handed battle he had waged against Philistinism and mediocrity. Composition, the service of the gods of music at their inmost shrine, had been only one aspect of his life; the other side had been his literary and editorial labors, in which, like a true priest, he had gone forth to spread the faith among heretics and idolaters. The _New Journal of Music_, which he founded in 1834, had for its object, in his own words, "the elevation of German taste and intellect by German art, whether by pointing to the great models of old time, or by encouraging younger talents." "The musical situation," he wrote some years afterwards, "was not then very encouraging. On the stage Rossini reigned, at the pianoforte nothing was heard but Herz and Hünten; and yet but a few years had passed since Beethoven, Weber, and Schubert had lived amongst us. One day the thought awakened in a wild heart, 'Let us not look on idly; let us also lend our aid to progress, let us bring again the poetry of art to honor among men.'" The proposal thus made, in a spirit of altruistic devotion to art unhappily too rare among creative musicians, was faithfully carried out in a series of appreciative, generally discriminating, and always entertaining articles on such men as Mendelssohn, Gade, Bennett, Franz, Henselt, Heller, Berlioz, Liszt, Thalberg, and Moscheles, alternating with others of a more historical or general character, always wise, fair, suggestive, and pleasantly pointed with humor, wit, and the play of that irresponsible fancy which revelled in Jean Paul and created the _Davidsbund_.

One of the most touching features of the _New Journal_, to a reader of to-day, is the almost too generous kindliness of its judgments, the eager enthusiasm with which it proclaims the advent of geniuses who have already fallen into oblivion. Its editor proceeded so heartily on the principle that it is wiser to encourage the good than to discourage the bad that he often "discovered" nonentities only to have them left helpless on his hands. The experience must have been disappointing to the most sanguine. Seldom as he condemns, too, he must frequently have had the petty egotists swarming and buzzing about him, black flies and gnats in human form, such as will beset the stanchest crusader. To one engaged in so humane and disinterested a task, and pursuing it through such annoyances, the advent of a true genius like Brahms must have been the most joyful of events. Schumann at once recognized and welcomed it. When Brahms, then a tow-headed, high-voiced boy of twenty, arrived from Hamburg with a parcel of manuscripts, he gave him, in the famous article, "New Paths," the most royal greeting a neophyte has ever received from a brother musician. "He has come, the chosen youth, over whose cradle the Graces and the Heroes seem to have kept watch. May the Highest Genius help him onward! Meanwhile another genius--that of modesty--seems to dwell within him. His Comrades greet him at his first step in the world, where wounds may perhaps await him, but also the bay and the laurel." "It is a fitting reward," says Mr. Hadow, "that the voice which had so often been raised in commendation of lesser men should devote its last public utterance to the honor of Johannes Brahms."