Part V

“WALPURGISNIGHT’S DREAM

“He sees himself at the witches’ Sabbath, in the midst of a frightful group of ghosts, magicians, and monsters of all sorts, who have come together for his obsequies. He hears strange noises, groans, ringing laughter, shrieks to which other shrieks seem to reply. The _beloved melody_ again reappears; but it has lost its noble and timid character; it has become an ignoble, trivial, and grotesque dance tune; it is _she_ who comes to the witches’ Sabbath.... Howlings of joy at her arrival ... she takes part in the diabolic orgy.... Funeral knells, burlesque parody on the _Dies Iræ_. Witches’ dance. The Witches’ dance and the _Dies Iræ_ together.”

In a preamble to this programme, relating mostly to some details of stage-setting when the _Épisode de la vie d’un artiste_ is given entire, Berlioz also writes: “If the symphony is played separately at a concert ... the programme does not absolutely need to be distributed among the audience, and only the titles of the five movements need be printed, as the symphony can offer by itself (the composer hopes) a musical interest independent of all dramatic intention.”

The score is dedicated to Nicholas I of Russia.

* * *

The symphony begins with a slow introduction, _Largo_, C minor, 4-4. Two measures of soft preluding lead to a plaintive theme played by the strings, _pianissimo_. This theme is a melody of romance composed by Berlioz in his youth and recurs in modified form in each movement. “Strange to say,” wrote Berlioz of the imagined artist, “the image of the loved one never comes into his mind without the accompaniment of a musical thought in which he finds the characteristic grace and nobility attributed by him to his beloved. This double _idée fixe_—obsessing idea—constantly pursues him; hence the constant apparition in all the movements of the chief melody of the first _allegro_.”

The symphony is scored for two flutes (and piccolo), two oboes (and English horn), two clarinets and E flat clarinet, four bassoons, four horns, two cornets-à-pistons, two trumpets, three trombones, two tubas, two pairs of kettledrums (three players) bells, snaredrum, bass drum, cymbals, two harps, and strings.

What was the origin of this symphony? Who was the woman that inspired the music and was so bitterly assailed in the argument sent to his friend Ferrand? Boschot describes her as she looked in 1827: “Tall, lithe, with shoulders rather fat and with full bust, a supple figure, a face of an astonishing whiteness, with bulging eyes like those of the glowing Mme de Staël, but eyes gentle, dreamy, and sometimes sparkling with passion. And this Harriet Smithson had the most beautiful arms—bulbous flesh, sinuous line. They had the effect on a man of a caress of a flower. And the voice of Harriet Smithson was music.”[13]

Harriet Constance Smithson, known in Paris as Henrietta Smithson, born at Ennis, Ireland, March 18, 1800, was seen as Ophelia by Berlioz at the Odéon, Paris, September 11, 1827, after engagements in Ireland and England. She appeared there first on September 6 with Kemble, Powers, and Liston. Her success was immediate and overwhelming. She appeared as Juliet, September 15 of the same year. Berlioz saw these first performances. He did not then know a word of English: Shakespeare was revealed to him only through the mist of Letourneur’s translation. After the third act of _Romeo and Juliet_ he could scarcely breathe; he suffered as though “an iron hand was clutching” his heart, and he exclaimed, “I am lost.” And the story still survives, in spite of Berlioz’s denial, that he then exclaimed: “That woman shall be my wife! And on that drama I shall write my greatest symphony.” He married her, and he was thereafter miserable. He wrote the _Romeo and Juliet_ symphony. To the end he preferred the “Love Scene” to all his other music.

Berlioz has told in his Memoirs the story of his wooing. He was madly in love. After a tour in Holland, Miss Smithson went back to London, but Berlioz saw her always by his side; she was his obsessing idea, the inspiring muse. When he learned through the journals of her triumphs in London in June, 1829, he dreamed of composing a great work, the _Episode in the Life of an Artist_, to triumph by her side and through her. He wrote Ferrand, February 6, 1830: “I am again plunged in the anguish of an interminable and inextinguishable passion, without motive, without cause. She is always at London, and yet I think I feel her near me: all my remembrances awake and unite to wound me; I hear my heart beating, and its pulsations shake me as the piston strokes of a steam engine. Each muscle of my body shudders with pain. In vain! ’Tis terrible! O unhappy one! if she could for one moment conceive all the poetry, all the infinity of a like love, she would fly to my arms, were she to die through my embrace. I was on the point of beginning my great symphony (_Episode in the Life of an Artist_), in which the development of my infernal passion is to be portrayed; I have it all in my head, but I cannot write anything. Let us wait.”

He wrote Ferrand on April 16, 1830: “Since my last I have experienced terrible hurricanes, and my vessel has cracked and groaned horribly, but at last it has righted itself; it now sails tolerably well. Frightful truths, discovered and indisputable, have started my cure; and I think that it will be as complete as my tenacious nature will permit. I am about to confirm my resolution by a work which satisfies me completely.” He then inserted a description of the work. “Behold, my dear friend, the scheme of this immense symphony. I am just writing the last note of it. If I can be ready on Whitsunday, May 30, I shall give a concert at the Nouveautés, with an orchestra of two hundred and twenty players. I am afraid I shall not have the copied parts ready. Just now I am stupid; the frightful effort of thought necessary to the production of my work has tired my imagination, and I should like to sleep and rest continually. But if the brain sleeps, the heart keeps awake.”

He wrote to Ferrand on May 13, 1830: “I think that you will be satisfied with the scheme of my _Fantastic_ symphony which I sent you in my letter. The vengeance is not too great; besides, I did not write the _Dream of a Sabbat Night_ in this spirit. I do not wish to avenge myself. I pity her and I despise her. She’s an ordinary woman, endowed with an instinctive genius for expressing the lacerations of the human soul, but she has never felt them, and she is incapable of conceiving an immense and noble sentiment, as that with which I honored her. I make today my last arrangements with the managers of the Nouveautés for my concert the 30th of this month. They are very honest fellows and very accommodating. We shall begin to rehearse the _Fantastic_ symphony in three days; all the parts have been copied with the greatest care; there are 2,300 pages of music; nearly 400 francs for the copying. We hope to have decent receipts on Whitsunday, for all the theaters will be closed.... I hope that the wretched woman will be there that day; at any rate, there are many conspiring at the Feydeau to make her go. I do not believe it, however; she will surely recognize herself in reading the programme of my instrumental drama, and then she will take good care not to appear. Well, God knows all that will be said, there are so many who know my story!” He hoped to have the assistance of the “incredible tenor,” Haizinger, and of Schröder-Devrient, who were then singing in opera at the Salle Favart.

The “frightful truths” about Miss Smithson were sheer calumnies. Berlioz made her tardy reparation in the extraordinary letter written to Ferrand, October 11, 1833, shortly after his marriage. He too had been slandered: her friends had told her that he was an epileptic, that he was mad. As soon as he heard the slanders, he raged, he disappeared for two days, and wandered over lonely plains outside Paris, and at last slept, worn out with hunger and fatigue, in a field near Sceaux. His friends had searched Paris for him, even the morgue. After his return he was obstinately silent for several days.

At last Berlioz determined to give a grand concert at which his cantata _Sardanapale_, which took the prix de Rome, and the _Fantastic_ symphony would be performed. Furthermore, Miss Smithson was then in Paris. The concert was announced for November 14, 1830, but it was postponed till December 5 of that year. But Miss Smithson was not present; she was at the Opéra at a performance for her benefit, and she mimed there for the first and last time the part of Fenella in Auber’s _Muette de Portici_. The symphony made a sensation; it was attacked and defended violently, and Cherubini answered, when he was asked if he heard it: “_Ze n’ai pas besoin d’aller savoir comment il né faut pas faire_.”

After Berlioz returned from Italy, he purposed to give a concert. He learned accidentally that Miss Smithson was still in Paris; but she had no thought of her old adorer; after professional disappointments in London, due perhaps to her Irish accent, she returned to Paris in the hope of establishing an English theater. The public in Paris knew her no more; she was poor and at her wit’s end. Invited to go to a concert, she took a carriage, and then, looking over the programme, she read the argument of the _Fantastic_ symphony which with _Lélio_, its supplement, was performed on December 9, 1832. Fortunately, Berlioz had revised the programme and omitted the coarse insult (“She is now only a courtesan worthy to figure in such an orgy”) in the programme of the _Sabbat_; but, as soon as she was seen in the hall of the Conservatory, some who knew Berlioz’s original purpose chuckled, and spread malicious information. Miss Smithson, moved by the thought that her adorer, as the hero of the symphony, tried to poison himself for her, accepted the symphony as a flattering tribute.

Tiersot[14] describes the scene at this second performance in 1832. The pit was crowded, as on the great days of romantic festival occasions—Dumas’s _Antony_ was then jamming the Porte Saint-Martin—with pale, long-haired youths, who believed firmly that “to make art” was the only worthy occupation on the earth; they had strange, fierce countenances, curled mustaches, Merovingian hair or hair cut brushlike, extravagant doublets, velvet-faced coats thrown back on the shoulders. The women were dressed in the height of the prevailing fashion, with coiffures _à la girafe_, high shell combs, shoulder-of-mutton sleeves, and short petticoats that revealed buskins. Berlioz was seated behind the drums, and his “monstrous antediluvian hair rose from his forehead as a primeval forest on a steep cliff.” Heine was in the hall. He was especially impressed by the _Sabbat_, “where the Devil sings the mass, where the music of the Catholic church is parodied with the most horrible, the most outrageous buffoonery. It is a farce in which all the serpents that we carry hidden in the heart raise their heads, hissing with pleasure and biting their tails in the transport of their joy.... Mme Smithson was there, whom the French actresses have imitated so closely. M. Berlioz was madly in love with this woman for three years, and it is to this passion that we owe the savage symphony which we hear today.” It is said that, each time Berlioz met her eyes, he beat the drums with redoubled fury. Heine added: “Since then Miss Smithson has become Mme Berlioz, and her husband has cut his hair. When I heard the symphony again last winter, I saw him still at the back of the orchestra, in his place near the drums. The beautiful Englishwoman was in a stage box, and their eyes again met: but he no longer beat with such rage on his drums.”

Musician and play actress met, and after mutual distrust and recrimination there was mutual love. She was poor and in debt; on March 16, 1833, she broke her leg, and her stage career was over. Berlioz pressed her to marry him; both families objected; there were violent scenes; Berlioz tried to poison himself before her eyes; Miss Smithson at last gave way, and the marriage was celebrated on October 3, 1833. It was an unhappy one.

“A separation became inevitable,” says Legouvé.[15] “She who had been Mlle Smithson, grown old and ungainly before her time, and ill besides, retired to a humble lodging at Montmartre, where Berlioz, notwithstanding his poverty, faithfully and decently provided for her. He went to see her as a friend, for he had never ceased to love her, he loved her as much as ever; but he loved her differently, and that difference had produced a chasm between them.”

After some years of acute physical as well as mental suffering, the once famous play actress died, March 3, 1854. Berlioz put two wreaths on her grave, one for him and one for their absent son, the sailor. And Jules Janin sang her requiem in a memorable _feuilleton_.

OVERTURE, “THE ROMAN CARNIVAL,” OP. 9

Berlioz’s overture, _Le Carnaval Romain_, originally intended as an introduction to the second act of _Benvenuto Cellini_, is dedicated to Prince de Hohenzollern-Hechingen. It was performed for the first time, and under the direction of the composer, at the Salle Herz, Paris, on February 3, 1844. The overture was composed in Paris in 1843, shortly after a journey in Germany. The score and parts were published in June, 1844.

The chief thematic material of the overture was taken by Berlioz from his opera _Benvenuto Cellini_, originally in two acts, libretto by Léon de Wailly and Augusta Barbier. It was produced at the Opéra, Paris, on September 10, 1838.

The success of _The Roman Carnival_ overture was immediate. The applause was so long-continued that the work was repeated then and there. Berlioz gives an account of the performance in the forty-eighth chapter of his Memoirs. He first says that Habeneck, the conductor at the Opéra, would not take the time of the _saltarello_ fast enough.

“Some years afterwards, when I had written the overture _The Roman Carnival_, in which the theme of the _allegro_ is the same _saltarello_ which he never could make go, Habeneck was in the foyer of the Salle Herz the evening that this overture was to be played for the first time. He had heard that we had rehearsed it without wind instruments, for some of my players, in the service of the National Guard, had been called away. ‘Good!’ said he. ‘There will surely be some catastrophe at this concert, and I must be there to see it!’ When I arrived, all the wind players surrounded me; they were frightened at the idea of playing in public an overture wholly unknown to them.

“‘Don’t be afraid,’ I said; ‘the parts are all right, you are all talented players; watch my stick as much as possible, count your rests, and it will go.’

“There was not a mistake. I started the _allegro_ in the whirlwind time of the Transteverine dancers; the audience shouted, ‘_Bis!_’ We played the overture again, and it went even better the second time. I went to the foyer and found Habeneck. He was rather disappointed. As I passed him, I flung at him these few words: ‘Now you see what it really is!’ He carefully refrained from answering me.

“Never have I felt more keenly than on this occasion the pleasure of conducting my own music, and my pleasure was doubled by thinking on what Habeneck had made me suffer.

“Poor composers, learn to conduct, and conduct yourselves well! (Take the pun, if you please.) For the most dangerous of your interpreters is the conductor. Don’t forget this.”

* * *

The overture is scored for two flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two cornets, three trombones, kettledrums, two side drums, cymbals, triangle, and strings.

ERNEST BLOCH

(Born at Geneva, Switzerland, July 24, 1880)

“SCHELOMO” (SOLOMON), HEBREW RHAPSODY FOR VIOLONCELLO AND ORCHESTRA

Mr. Bloch is most inspired when he stands firmly and proudly on Jewish ground. The well equipped composer is seen in all that he writes, but his three Jewish Poems for orchestra, his Psalms, for voice and orchestra, his _Schelomo_, are far above his what might be called Gentile work, even above his concerto, not to mention the cycloramic _America_. As he has written in an account of himself and his artistic beliefs, it is the Jewish soul that interests him: “the complex, glowing, agitated soul” that he feels vibrating through the Bible. No wonder that the despair of the Preacher in Jerusalem and the splendor of Solomon alike appealed to him; the monarch in all his glory; the Preacher, who when he looked on all his works that his hands had wrought and on the labor that he had labored to do, could only explain: “And behold, all was vanity, and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the Sun.” And so Mr. Bloch might have taken as a motto for this Hebrew rhapsody the lines of Rueckert:

_Solomon! Where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind . . . . . . . . . . . Say what is pleasure? A phantom, a mask undefined. Science? An almond, whereof we can pierce but the rind. Honor and affluence? Firmans that Fortune hath signed Only to glitter and pass on the wings of the wind._

Other composers have taken Solomon for their hero; as Handel in his oratorio; Goldmark, representing him as mighty and jealous in _The Queen of Sheba_; Gounod in the opera similarly entitled, based on the wildly fantastic tale of Gerard de Nerval; there are older operas, but all, or nearly all, are concerned with _Grand Turke_, the Sultan of the Ottomans. It was left for Mr. Bloch to express in music the magnificence and the pessimistic, despairing philosophy of the ruler to whom is falsely attributed the book, Ecclesiastes. Here is music that does not brook conventional analysis; music that is now purely lyrical, now dramatic, now pictorial; music that rises to gorgeous heights and sinks to the depths; with a conclusion that is not of the Preacher, the pious admonition after summing up the whole matter, but a conclusion voiced by the violoncello: “There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest.” Here is no Solomon, lord of all creatures at whose name Afrites and evil genii trembled, the Solomon of the “Thousand Nights and a Night,” here is the monarch that having known power and all the pleasures, enumerating them—even to “the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts”—reasoned that everything was futile; that all was vanity.

One might therefore infer that this rhapsody is distressingly somber, for nothing is more wearisome than a long-drawn-out complaint. The inference would be wrong, for Mr. Bloch has imagined in tones, in superbly exultant measures, the pomp and sumptuousness of the King enthroned. There are orchestral bursts of glorification; between them are recitatives and lyric reflections for the jaded voluptuary, the embittered philosopher. The ingenuity displayed is as remarkable as the individuality, the originality shown by the composer stirred in his soul not only by the story of Solomon; moved mightily by the thought of ancient days, the succeeding trials and persecution of his race. More than once in the rhapsody, if there is a suggestion of Solomon’s court and temple, there is also the suggestion of the Wailing Wall.

* * *

_Schelomo_ was composed at Geneva, Switzerland, in the first two months of 1916. With the _Trois poèmes juifs_ (composed in 1916) and the symphony _Israel_ (1913-18), it is that portion of Mr. Bloch’s work that is peculiarly Hebraic in character. In a letter to the writer of these notes in 1917, Mr. Bloch wrote that the Psalms, _Schelomo_, and _Israel_ were more representative than the _Jewish Poems_ because they came from the passion and the violence that he believed to be characteristics of his nature. “It is not my purpose, not my desire, to attempt a ‘reconstitution’ of Jewish music, or to base my works on melodies more or less authentic. I am not an archæologist. I hold it of first importance to write good, genuine music, my music. It is the Jewish soul that interests me, the complex, glowing, agitated soul, that I feel vibrating throughout the Bible; the freshness and naïveté of the Patriarchs; the violence that is evident in the prophetic books; the Jew’s savage love of justice; the despair of the Preacher in Jerusalem; the sorrow and the immensity of the Book of Job; the sensuality of the Song of Songs. All this is in us; all this is in me, and it is the better part of me. It is all this that I endeavor to hear in myself and to transcribe in my music: the venerable emotion of the race that slumbers way down in our soul.”

The _Musical Quarterly_ of January, 1921, published a translation by Theodore Baker of Guido M. Gatti’s estimate of _Schelomo_ contributed to _La Critica musicale_ of April-May, 1920:

“The Hebrew rhapsody for solo violoncello with orchestra bears the name of the great king Solomon. In this, without taking thought for development and formal consistency, without the fetters of a text requiring interpretation, he has given free course to his fancy; the multiplex figure of the founder of the Great Temple lent itself, after setting it upon a lofty throne, and chiseling its lineaments, to the creation of a phantasmagorical entourage of persons and scenes in rapid and kaleidoscopic succession. The violoncello, with its ample breadth of phrasing, now melodic and with moments of superb lyricism, now declamatory and with robustly dramatic lights and shades, lends itself to a reincarnation of Solomon in all his glory, surrounded by his thousand wives and concubines, with his multitude of slaves and warriors behind him. His voice resounds in the devotional silence, and the sentences of his wisdom sink into the heart as the seed into a fertile soil: ‘Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, ... all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.... He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.’... At times the sonorous voice of the violoncello is heard predominant amid a breathless and fateful obscurity throbbing with persistent rhythms, again, it blends in a phantasmagorical paroxysm of polychromatic tones, shot through with silvery clangors and frenzies of exultation. And anon one finds oneself in the heart of a dream-world, in an Orient of fancy, where men and women of every race and tongue are holding argument or hurling maledictions; and now and again we hear the mournful accents of the prophetic seer, under the influence of which all bow down and listen reverently. The entire discourse of the soloist, vocal rather than instrumental, seems like musical expression intimately conjoined with the Talmudic prose. The pauses, the repetitions of entire passages, the leaps of a double octave, the chromatic progressions, all find their analogues in the Book of Ecclesiastes—in the versicles, in the fairly epigraphic reiteration of the admonitions (‘and all is vanity and vexation of spirit’), in the unexpected shifts from one thought to another, in certain _crescendi_ of emotion that end in explosions of anger or grief uncontrolled.”

_Schelomo_ is scored for three flutes (and piccolo), two oboes (and English horn), two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contra-bassoon, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones and tuba, kettledrums, tambourine, side drum, bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, celesta, two harps, and strings.

ALEXANDER PORPHIRIEVITCH BORODIN

(Born at St. Petersburg, November 12, 1833;[16] died there February 28, 1887)

SYMPHONY NO. 2, IN B MINOR, OP. 5

I. Allegro moderato II. Molto vivo III. Andante IV. Allegro

Only a Russian can do justice to this music, which is wildly Russian; that is to say, the Russia of the Orient. One is tempted, hearing the repetitions of the first leading theme, a motto phrase it may be called, to say with Hamlet: “Leave thy damnable faces and begin,” but the monotony of repetition becomes irrepressive. A Russian critic was reminded more than once in the course of the first and last movements of the ancient Russian knights in their awkwardness, also in their greatness. We are told that Borodin intended to portray them in tones. He himself said that in the slow movement he wished to recall the songs of Slav troubadours; to picture in the first movement the gatherings of princes, and in the _finale_ the banquets of heroes where the Russian Guzla and bamboo flute were heard while the mighty men caroused. It is easy in the lyrical passages to be reminded of corresponding phrases in _Prince Igor_, nor is this surprising, for he was working on the symphony and the opera at the same time. He was then obsessed by the life of feudal Russia.

No composer can be called great simply because he is a nationalist in his music. The folk tunes of a nation have often worked damage to the composer relying on them for his themes, and content with the mere exposition of them. Rimsky-Korsakov and Moussorgsky were nationalists, but their music passed the frontier; it gives pleasure in every country. Is Borodin to be ranked with them?

Eric Blom, speaking of Borodin as a pioneer, remembers how he was once condemned as an “incompetent amateur who wrote hideous discords because he did not know the rules of harmony”—an unwarranted and foolish condemnation, as unjust as Tchaikovsky’s characterization in the bitter letter he wrote to Mme von Meck in 1878 the year after this symphony was first heard. Admitting that Borodin had talent, “a very great talent,” he said that it had come to nothing for the want of teaching, “because blind fate has led him into the science laboratories instead of a vital musical existence.” The reference was to Borodin’s fame as a chemist at the Academy of Medicine. This was written when Tchaikovsky was accused of that atrocious crime, cosmopolitanism, by his fellow laborers in the Russian vineyard.

There are pages of splendid savagery in this symphony; there are a few wild, haunting melodies. No, the composer of the two symphonies, one at least of the string quartets, and a handful of exquisite songs is not to be flippantly dismissed.

* * *

Borodin’s Symphony in B minor was written during the years 1871-77. The first performance was at St. Petersburg in the Hall of the Nobility, February 14, 1877, and Eduard Napravnik was the conductor.

Borodin’s First symphony, in E flat major, was begun in 1862 and completed in 1867. Stassov furnished him with the scenario of a libretto founded on an epic and national poem, the story of Prince Igor. This poem told of the expedition of Russian princes against the Polovtsi, a nomadic people of the same origin as the Turks, who had invaded the Russian Empire in the twelfth century. The conflict of Russian and Asiatic nationalities delighted Borodin, and he began to write his own libretto. He tried to live in the atmosphere of the bygone century. He read the poems and the songs that had come down from the people of that period; he collected folk songs even from Central Asia; he introduced in the libretto comic characters to give contrast to romantic situations; and he began to compose the music, when at the end of a year he was seized with profound discouragement. His friends said to him: “The time has gone by to write operas on historic or legendary subjects; today it is necessary to treat the modern drama.” When anyone deplored in his presence the loss of so much material, he replied that this material would go into a second symphony. He began work on this symphony, and the first movement was completed in the autumn of 1871. But the director of the Russian opera wished to produce an operatic ballet, _Mlada_. The subject was of an epoch before Christianity. The fourth act was intrusted to Borodin: it included religious scenes, apparitions of the ghosts of old Slavonic princes, an inundation, and the destruction of a temple; and human interest was supplied by a love scene. Faithful to his theories, Borodin began to study the manners and the religion of this people. He composed feverishly and did not leave his room for days at a time. Although the work was prepared by the composers—Minkus was to write the ballet music, and Borodin, Cui, Moussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov the vocal music—the scenery demanded such an expense that the production was postponed, and Borodin began work again on his Second symphony and _Prince Igor_. He worked under disadvantages: his wife, Catherine Sergeïevna Protopopova (she died August 9, 1887), an excellent pianist, was an invalid, and his own health was wretched. In 1877 he wrote: “We old sinners, as always, are in the whirlwind of life—professional duty, science, art. We hurry on and do not reach the goal. Time flies like an express train. The beard grows gray, wrinkles make deeper hollows. We begin a hundred different things. Shall we ever finish any of them? I am always a poet in my soul, and I nourish the hope of leading my opera to the last measure, and yet I often mock at myself. I advance slowly, and there are great gaps in my work.”

Borodin in a letter (January 31, 1877) to his friend, Mme Ludmilla Ivanovna Karmalina, to whom he told his hopes, disappointments, enthusiasms, wrote: “The Musical Society had determined to perform my Second symphony at one of its concerts. I was in the country and did not know this fact. When I came back to St. Petersburg, I could not find the first movement and the _finale_. The score of these movements was lost; I had without doubt mislaid it. I hunted everywhere, but could not find it; yet the Society insisted, and there was hardly time to have the parts copied. What should I do? To crown all, I fell sick. I could not shuffle the thing off, and I was obliged to reorchestrate my symphony. Nailed to my bed by fever, I wrote the score in pencil. My copy was not ready in time, and my symphony will not be performed till the next concert. My two symphonies then will be performed in the same week. Never has a professor of the Academy of Medicine and Surgery been found in such a box!”

The Second symphony was at first unsuccessful. Ivanov wrote in the _Nouveau Temps_: “Hearing this music, you are reminded of the ancient Russian knights in all their awkwardness and also in all their greatness. There is heaviness even in the lyric and tender passages. These massive forms are at times tiresome; they crush the hearer.” But Stassov tells us that Borodin endeavored by this music to portray the knights. “Like Glinka, Borodin is an epic poet. He is not less national than Glinka, but the Oriental element plays with him the part it plays for Glinka, Dargomijsky, Balakirev, Moussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov. He belongs to the composers of programme music. He can say with Glinka: ‘For my limitless imagination I must have a precise and given text.’” Of Borodin’s two symphonies the second is the greater work, and it owes its force to the maturity of the composer’s talent, but especially to the national character with which it is impregnated by the programme. The old heroic Russian form dominates it as it does _Prince Igor_.

The symphony is scored for three flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, three kettledrums, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, harp, and the usual strings.

It appears from the score that this symphony was edited by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazounov.

I. _Allegro_, B minor, 2-2. The first movement opens with a vigorous theme given out by the strings in unison, while bassoons and horns reinforce each alternate measure. This theme may be taken for the motto of the movement, and it is heard in every section of it. Another motive, _animato assai_, is given to the wood-wind. After the alternation of these two musical thoughts, the expressive second theme, _poco meno mosso_, 3-2 time, is introduced by the violoncellos, and afterward by the wood-wind. The vigorous first theme is soon heard again from the full orchestra. There is development. The time changes from 2-2 to 3-2, but the motto dominates with a development of the first measure of the second subject. This material is worked at length. A pedal point, with persistent rhythm for the drum, leads to the recapitulation section, in which the theme undergoes certain modifications. The _coda_, _animato assai_, is built on the motto.

II. _Scherzo_, _prestissimo_, F major, 1-1 time. There are a few introductory measures with repeated notes for first and second horn. The chief theme is followed by a new thought (syncopated unison of all the strings). This alternates with the first theme.

_Trio_: _Allegretto_, 6-4. A melody for the oboe is repeated by the clarinet, and triangle and harp come in on each alternate half of every measure. This material is developed. The first part of the movement is repeated, and the _coda_ ends _pianissimo_.

III. _Andante_, D flat major, 4-4. There are introductory measures in which a clarinet is accompanied by the harp. A horn sings the song of the old troubadours. _Poco animato_. There is a tremolo for strings, and the opening melody, changed somewhat, is heard from wood-wind instruments and horns. _Poco più animato_, 3-4. A new thought is given to the strings with a chromatic progression in the bass. After the climax the opening theme returns (strings), and the movement ends with the little clarinet solo. Then comes, without a pause, the

IV. _Finale._ _Allegro_, B major, 3-4. The movement is in sonata form. There is an introduction. The chief theme, _forte_, is given to the full orchestra. It is in 5-4. The second subject, less tumultuous, is given to clarinet, followed by flute and oboe. The chief theme is developed, _lento_, in the trombones and tuba, and in a more lively manner by strings and wood-wind. The second subject is developed, first by strings, then by full orchestra. The recapitulation section is preceded by the introductory material for the opening of the movement.

JOHANNES BRAHMS

(Born at Hamburg, May 7, 1833; died at Vienna, April 3, 1897)

Those who like to know about composers as human beings rejoice in the knowledge that Beethoven was irascible, the despair of his landladies, given to rough joking; that Haydn was nagged by his shrew of a wife and fell in love in London with a widow; that Mozart was fond of punch and billiards; that César Franck’s trousers were too short. There are many anecdotes about the great, some of them no doubt apocryphal.

In the excellent biography of Brahms by Walter Niemann[17] there is an entertaining chapter entitled “Brahms as a Man.”

He was not fussy in his dress. At home he went about in a flannel shirt, trousers, a detachable white collar, no cravat, slippers. In the country he was happy in a flannel shirt and alpaca jacket, carrying a soft felt hat in his hand, and in bad weather wearing on his shoulders an old-fashioned bluish-green shawl, fastened in front by a huge pin. (In the ’sixties many New Englanders on their perilous journeys to Boston or New York wore a shawl.) He preferred a modest restaurant to a hotel table d’hôte. In his music room were pictures of a few composers, engravings—the Sistine Madonna among them—the portrait of Cherubini, by Ingres, with a veiled Muse crowning the composer—“I cannot stand that female,” Brahms said to his landlady—a bronze relief of Bismarck, always crowned with laurel. There was a square piano on which a volume of Bach was usually standing open. On the cover lay notebooks, writing tablets, calendars, cigar cases, spectacles, purses, watches, keys, portfolios, recently published books and music, also souvenirs of his travels. He was passionately patriotic, interested in politics, a firm believer in German unity. He deeply regretted that he had not done military service as a young man. Prussia should be the North German predominant power.

A Viennese musician once said that whenever he heard one of Brahms’ symphonies he was inclined to prefer it to the other three; but he was a passionate Brahmsite. The second has a freshness and a spontaneity that are perhaps not found in the others, though the third presses it hard in these respects; but there is a rugged grandeur in the first that puts it above the others.

Professor Schweizerhoffsteinlein, the celebrated Wagnerite, once said: “To me, however many movements there are in an orchestral work of Johannes Brahms, to me—hear me once—there are only two: he makes the first, and I make the second.” But the eminent professor was no doubt unjust toward Brahms, in his clumsy ponderous way.

The sensuousness of Brahms is cerebral; it might be called Platonic. There are various kinds of sensuousness in music, as in human life. Some years ago Joséphin Péladan, the fantastical Sar of dark corners, likened the music of Brahms to a gypsy woman dancing in tight-fitting corsets. He detected “latent heat beneath the formal exterior.”

SYMPHONY NO. 1, IN C MINOR, OP. 68

I. Un poco sostenuto; allegro II. Andante sostenuto III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso IV. Adagio; allegro non troppo, ma con brio

Brahms’ First symphony contains remarkable pages, as those of the first movement, passages in the second, and the marvelously poetic introduction to the final _allegro_. Mr. Apthorp’s belief that this introductory episode may have been suggested to Brahms by the tones of the Alpine horn is not too fanciful, and this impression is made on all that have heard the horn whether in the Oberland or high up in the Canton Vaud. Brahms’ fondness for Switzerland is well known, and he had visited that country before the _finale_ was performed. In this introductory _adagio_ there is a lyric flight and at the same time an imaginative force in superb decoration that are seldom found in the purely orchestral compositions of Brahms.

* * *

Brahms was not in a hurry to write a symphony. He heeded not the wishes or demands of his friends, he was not disturbed by their impatience. As far back as 1854 Schumann wrote to Joachim: “But where is Johannes? Is he flying high or only under the flowers? Is he not yet ready to let drums and trumpets sound? He should always keep in mind the beginning of the Beethoven symphonies; he should try to make something like them. The beginning is the main thing; if only one makes a beginning, then the end comes of itself.”

Max Kalbeck, of Vienna, the author of a life of Brahms in 2,138 pages, is of the opinion that the beginning, or rather the germ, of the Symphony in C minor is to be dated 1855. In 1854 Brahms heard in Cologne for the first time Beethoven’s Ninth symphony. It impressed him greatly, so that he resolved to write a symphony in the same tonality. This symphony he never completed. The first two movements were later used for the Pianoforte concerto in D minor, and the third for “Behold all flesh” in _A German Requiem_.

A performance of Schumann’s _Manfred_ also excited him when he was twenty-two. Kalbeck has much to say about the influence of these works and the tragedy in the Schumann family over Brahms, as the composer of the C minor symphony. The contents of the symphony, according to Kalbeck, portray the relationship between Brahms and Robert and Clara Schumann. The biographer finds significance in the first measures, _poco sostenuto_, that serve as introduction to the first _allegro_. It was Richard Grant White who said of the German commentator on Shakespeare that the deeper he dived the muddier he came up.

Just when Brahms began to make the first sketches of this symphony is not exactly known. He was in the habit, as a young man, of jotting down his musical thoughts when they occurred to him. Later he worked on several compositions at the same time and let them grow under his hand. There are instances where this growth was of very long duration. He destroyed the great majority of his sketches. The few that he did not destroy are, or were recently, in the library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde at Vienna.

In 1862 Brahms showed his friend Albert Dietrich an early version of the first movement of the symphony. It was then without the introduction. The first movement was afterwards greatly changed. Walter Niemann quotes Brahms as saying that it was no laughing matter to write a symphony after Beethoven; “and again, after finishing the first movement of the First symphony, he admitted to his friend Levi: ‘I shall never compose a symphony! You have no conception of how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him [Beethoven] behind us.’”

The first movement opens with a short introduction, _un poco sostenuto_, C minor, 6-8, which leads without a pause into the first movement proper, _allegro_, C minor. Second movement, _andante sostenuto_, E major, 3-4. The place of the traditional _scherzo_ is supplied by a movement, _un poco allegretto e grazioso_, A flat major, 2-4. The _finale_ begins with an _adagio_, C minor, 4-4, in which there are hints of the themes of the _allegro_ which follows. Here William Foster Apthorp should be quoted:

“With the thirtieth measure the tempo changes to _più andante_, and we come upon one of the most poetic episodes in all Brahms. Amid hushed, tremulous harmonies in the strings, the horn and afterward the flute pour forth an utterly original melody, the character of which ranges from passionate pleading to a sort of wild exultation, according to the instrument that plays it. The coloring is enriched by the solemn tones of the trombones, which appear for the first time in this movement. It is ticklish work trying to dive down into a composer’s brain, and surmise what special outside source his inspiration may have had; but one cannot help feeling that this whole wonderful episode may have been suggested to Brahms by the tones of the Alpine horn, as it awakens the echoes from mountain after mountain on some of the high passes in the Bernese Oberland. This is certainly what the episode recalls to anyone who has ever heard those poetic tones and their echoes. A short, solemn, even ecclesiastical interruption by the trombones and bassoons is of more thematic importance. As the horn tones gradually die away, and the cloudlike harmonies in the strings sink lower and lower—like mist veiling the landscape—an impressive pause ushers in the _allegro non troppo, ma con brio_ (in C major, 4-4 time). The introductory _adagio_ has already given us mysterious hints at what is to come; and now there bursts forth in the strings the most joyous, exuberant _Volkslied_ melody, a very Hymn to Joy, which in some of its phrases, as it were unconsciously and by sheer affinity of nature, flows into strains from the similar melody in the _finale_ of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony. One cannot call it plagiarism: it is two men saying the same thing.”

The symphony was produced at Carlsruhe by the Grand Duke’s orchestra on November 4, 1876. Dessoff conducted from manuscript. Brahms was present. There was a performance a few days later at Mannheim, where Brahms conducted.

Richard Specht,[18] stating that the First symphony made its way slowly—even Hanslick was far from being enthusiastic—attributes the fact largely to unsatisfactory interpretations.

After the first performance in Boston (by the Harvard Musical Association, January 3, 1878), John S. Dwight wrote in his _Journal of Music_ that the total impression made on him was “as something depressing and unedifying, a work coldly elaborated, artificial; earnest to be sure, in some sense great, and far more satisfactory than any symphony by Raff, or any others of the day, which we have heard; but not to be mentioned in the same day with any symphony by Schumann, Mendelssohn, or the great one by Schubert, not to speak of Beethoven’s.... Our interest in it will increase, but we foresee the limit; and certainly it cannot be popular; it will not be loved like the dear masterpieces of genius.”

SYMPHONY NO. 2, IN D MAJOR, OP. 73

I. Allegro non troppo II. Adagio non troppo III. Allegretto grazioso, quasi andantino IV. Allegro con spirito

The latest biographers of Johannes Brahms differ curiously concerning the character of the Second symphony. The excellent Walter Niemann finds a tragic undercurrent; “ghostly elements glimmering in a supernatural, uncanny way”; even “mysterious Wagnerian visions.” The equally excellent Richard Specht finds sunshine, fair days, warm winds, clarity, and tenderness. Brahms can on occasion be gloomy and crabbed enough. Why cannot Mr. Niemann, a devoted admirer of Johannes, allow him to be cheerful once in a while, as in this Second symphony?

The Symphony in D is the most genial of the four, the most easily accepted by an audience, for, if there are pages of supreme beauty in it, as toward the end of the first movement, so there are pages that are Mendelssohnian in form and in the rhythm of the easily retained melodic thought. Mendelssohn, a shrewd composer, seldom, if ever, committed the blunder of surprising an audience. As in the theater, so in the concert hall, an audience does not wish to be left in doubt, and in this symphony, which is in reality a storehouse of truly beautiful things, there is every now and then a passage that is accepted by the hearer as an agreeable commonplace.

* * *

Chamber music, choral works, pianoforte pieces, and songs had made Brahms famous before he allowed his First symphony to be played. The Symphony in C minor was performed for the first time in 1876. Kirchner wrote in a letter to Marie Lipsius that he had talked about this symphony in 1863 or 1864 with Mme Clara Schumann, who then showed him fragments of it. No one knew, it is said, of the existence of a second symphony before it was completed.

The Second symphony, in D major, was composed, probably at Pörtschach-am-See, in the summer of 1877, the year that saw the publication of the first. Brahms wrote Dr. Billroth in September of that year: “I do not know whether I have a pretty symphony; I must inquire of skilled persons.” He referred to Clara Schumann, Dessoff, and Ernst Frank. On September 19, Mme Schumann wrote that he had written out the first movement. Early in October he played it to her, also a portion of the _finale_. The symphony was played by Brahms and Ignaz Brüll as a pianoforte duet (arranged by the composer) to invited guests at the pianoforte house of his friend Ehrbar in Vienna a few days before the announced date of the orchestral performance, December 11, 1877. Through force of circumstances the symphony was played for the first time in public at the succeeding Philharmonic concert of December 30. Hans Richter conducted. The second performance, conducted by Brahms, was at the Gewandhaus, Leipsic, on January 10, 1878.

Certain German critics in their estimate of Brahms have exhausted themselves in comparison and metaphor. One claims that, as Beethoven’s Fourth symphony is to his _Eroica_, so is Brahms’ Second to his First; the one in C minor is epic, the one in D major is a fairy tale. When Bülow wrote that Brahms was an heir of Cherubini, he referred to the delicate filigree work shown in the _finale_ of the second. Felix Weingartner, whose _Die Symphonie nach Beethoven_ (Berlin, 1898) is a pamphlet of singularly acute and discriminative criticism, coolly says that the Second is far superior to the First: “The stream of invention has never flowed so fresh and spontaneous in other works by Brahms, and nowhere else has he colored his orchestration so successfully.” And after a eulogy of the movements he puts the symphony among the very best of the new classic school since the death of Beethoven—“far above all the symphonies of Schumann.”

Richard Specht, in his Life of Brahms, writes: “The work is suffused with the sunshine and the warm winds playing on the water, which recall the summer at Pörtschach that gave it life. The comfortably swinging first subject at once creates a sense of well-being with its sincere and sensuous gladness.... This movement is like a fair day in its creator’s life and outshines the other three sections—the brooding _andante_, the rather unimportant _scherzo_ ... the broad, sweeping _finale_ which, for all its lively, driving motion, strikes one as cheerless and artificial in its briskness. The impression of the unsymphonic nature of this work is probably due partly to a prejudice that expects to see cosmic images and not mere genre pictures in such a composition, and partly to the meter adopted for the first movement. It is remarkable that Brahms did not employ the common time almost invariably used by the symphonic masters from Mozart to Schubert in their opening movements until he came to his Fourth symphony. The round-dance nature of the 3-4 measure in the D major symphony is especially difficult to take seriously, and rightly so; for this is a light-hearted work, a declaration of love in symphonic form.

“Brahms was particularly fond of this dear and tender composition, as might be judged from the little mystifications with which he raised the expectations his friends had of the new work that followed its elder sister within the space of a year. He persisted in describing it as gloomy and awesome, never to be played by any musicians without a mourning band on their sleeve.” (As a matter of fact Brahms wrote to Elisabet von Herzogenberg on December 29, 1877: “The orchestra here play my new symphony with crape bands on their sleeves, because of its dirge-like effect. It is to be printed with a black edge, too.”) “He replied in a tone of waggish secrecy to Elisabet, who was impatiently waiting for the score and scolded him for not rewarding her discretion by sending her the work, which she knew to be ready (‘May the deuce take such modesty!’) and who, incidentally, took exception to his spelling so noble a word as ‘symphony’ with an ‘f’. ‘It really is no symphony,’ he writes, ‘but merely a _Sinfonie_, and I shall have no need to play it to you beforehand. You merely sit down at the piano, put your little feet on the two pedals in turn, and strike the chord of F minor several times in succession, first in the treble, then in the bass _ff_ and _pp_ and you will gradually gain a vivid impression of my “latest.”’ And he was as pleased as Punch with the glad surprise and delight of the adored woman and of all his friends when they saw this sunny work.”

SYMPHONY, NO. 3, IN F MAJOR, OP. 90

I. Allegro con brio II. Andante III. Poco allegretto IV. Allegro

Some justly prefer the Symphony in F major to the other three. It has no pages equal in imagination to the wonderful introduction to the _finale_ of the First; it has nothing in it like the architectural grandeur of the Fourth’s _finale_; but, as a whole, it is the most poetic of the four. Brahms wrote nothing more commanding than the opening of the first movement. Page after page thereafter might be cited in praise. And in this symphony the natural austerity of the composer is mellowed, his melancholy, as in the third movement, is tender, wistful, not pessimistic.

* * *

Brahms worked on his Third symphony in 1882, and in the summer of 1883 he completed it.

The first performance of the Third symphony was at a Philharmonic concert in Vienna, December 2, 1883. Hans Richter conducted. Brahms feared for the performance, although Richter had conducted four rehearsals. He wrote to Bülow that at these rehearsals he missed the Forum Romanum (the theater scene which in Meiningen served as a concert hall for rehearsals), and would not be wholly comfortable until the public gave unqualified approval. Max Kalbeck states that at the first performance in Vienna a crowd of the Wagner-Bruckner _ecclesia militans_ stood in the pit to make a hostile demonstration, and there was hissing after the applause following each movement had died away; but the general public was so appreciative that the hissing was drowned and enthusiasm was at its height. Arthur Faber came near fighting a duel with an inciter of the _Skandal_ sitting behind him, but forgot the disagreeable incident at the supper given by him in honor of the production of the symphony, with Dr. Billroth, Simrock, Goldmark, Dvořák, Brüll, Hellmesberger, Richter, Hanslick, among the guests. At this concert Franz Ondricek played the new violin concerto of Dvořák.

It is said that various periodicals asserted that this symphony was by far the best of Brahms’ compositions. This greatly annoyed the composer, especially as it raised expectations which he thought could not be fulfilled. Brahms sent the manuscript to Joachim in Berlin and asked him to conduct the second performance where or at what time he liked. For a year or more the friendship between the two had been clouded, for Brahms had sided with Mrs. Joachim in the domestic dispute, or at least he had preserved his accustomed intimacy with her, and Joachim had resented this. The second performance, led by Joachim, was at Berlin, January 4, 1884. Dr. Franz Wüllner was then the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Subscription Concerts. Brahms had promised him in the summer before the honor of conducting this symphony in Berlin for the first time. Joachim insisted that he should be the conductor. Churlish in the matter, he persuaded Brahms to break his promise to Wüllner by saying that he would play Brahms’ violin concerto under the composer’s direction if Brahms would allow him to conduct the symphony. Brahms then begged Wüllner to make the sacrifice. Joachim therefore conducted it at an Academy Concert, but Brahms was not present; he came about a fortnight later to Wüllner’s first subscription concert, and then conducted the symphony and played his pianoforte concerto in D minor. The writer of these notes was at this concert. The symphony was applauded enthusiastically, but Brahms was almost as incompetent a conductor as Joachim. (His pianoforte playing in 1884 on that occasion was muddy and noisy.) Brahms conducted the symphony at Wiesbaden on January 18, 1884. The copyright of the manuscript was sold to the publisher Simrock, of Berlin, for 36,000 marks ($9,000) and a percentage on sums realized by performances.

Hans Richter in a toast christened this symphony when it was still in manuscript, the “_Eroica_.” Hanslick remarked concerning this: “Truly, if Brahms’ First symphony in C minor is characterized as the ‘_Pathetic_’ or the ‘_Appassionata_’ and the second in D major as the ‘_Pastoral_,’ the new symphony in F major may be appropriately called his ‘_Eroica_’”; yet Hanslick took care to add that the key word was not wholly to the point, for only the first movement and the _finale_ are of heroic character. This Third symphony, he says, is indeed a new one. “It repeats neither the poignant song of Fate of the first, nor the joyful Idyl of the second; its fundamental note is proud strength that rejoices in deeds. The heroic element is without any warlike flavor; it leads to no tragic action, such as the Funeral March in Beethoven’s _Eroica_. It recalls in its musical character the healthy and full vigor of Beethoven’s second period, and nowhere the singularities of his last period; and every now and then in passages quivers the romantic twilight of Schumann and Mendelssohn.”

Max Kalbeck thinks that the statue of Germania near Rüdesheim inspired Brahms to write this symphony.[19] Joachim found Hero and Leander in the _finale_! He associated the second motive in C major with the bold swimmer breasting the waves. Clara Schumann entitled the symphony a “Forest Idyl” and sketched a programme for it.

The first movement, _allegro con brio_, in F major, 6-4, opens with three introductory chords (horns, trumpets, wood-wind), the upper voice of which, F, A flat, F, presents a short theme that is an emblematic figure, or device, which recurs significantly throughout the movement. Although it is not one of the regular themes, it plays a dominating part. Some find in a following cross-relation—A flat of the bass against the preceding A natural of the first theme, the “Keynote to some occult dramatic signification.” Enharmonic modulation leads to A major, the tonality of the second theme. There is first a slight reminiscence of the “Venusberg” scene in _Tannhäuser_—“_Naht euch dem Strande!_” Dr. Hugo Riemann goes so far as to say that Brahms may have thus paid a tribute to Wagner, who died in the period of the composition of this symphony. The second theme is of a graceful character, but of compressed form, in strong contrast with the broad and sweeping first theme. The second movement, _andante_ in C major, 4-4, opens with a hymnlike passage, which in the first three chords reminds some persons of the “Prayer” in _Zampa_. The third movement is a _poco allegretto_, C minor, 3-8, a romantic substitute for the traditional _scherzo_. _Finale_, _allegro_, in F minor, 2-2. At the end the strings in tremolo bring the original first theme of the first movement, “the ghost” of this first theme, as Apthorp called it, over sustained harmonies in the wind instruments.

SYMPHONY NO. 4, IN E MINOR, OP. 98

I. Allegro non troppo II. Andante moderato III. Allegro giocoso IV. Allegro energico e passionato

Much of the Fourth symphony is melancholy and lamentful, but it is relieved by the consolatory beatitude of the _andante_ and the elevating stateliness of the conclusion.... The austerity with which the composer has been reproached—in many instances unjustly—is here pronounced. The solidity of the structure may be admired, but the structure itself is granitic and unrelieved. The symphony has not the epic grandeur of the first, the geniality of the second, the wealth of varied beauty that distinguishes the third.

* * *

This symphony was first performed at Meiningen, October 25, 1885, under the direction of the composer.

It was composed in the summers of 1884 and 1885 at Mürzzuschlag in Styria: Miss Florence May in her Life of Brahms says that the manuscript was nearly destroyed in 1885: “Returning one afternoon from a walk, he [Brahms] found that the house in which he lodged had caught fire, and that his friends were busily engaged in bringing his papers, and amongst them the nearly finished manuscript of the new symphony, into the garden.”

In a letter, Brahms described this symphony as “a couple of entr’actes,” also as “a choral work without text.” He was doubtful about its worth. He consulted his friends, and he and Ignaz Brüll played a pianoforte arrangement in the presence of several of them. He judged from their attitude that they did not like it and he was much depressed. There was a preliminary orchestral rehearsal at Meiningen in October, 1885, conducted by Hans von Bülow. Brahms arrived in time for the first performance. The symphony was most warmly applauded, and the audience endeavored, but in vain, to obtain a repetition of the third movement.

The symphony was performed at a Philharmonic concert in Vienna on March 7, 1897, the last Philharmonic concert heard by Brahms. We quote from Miss May’s biography: “The Fourth symphony had never become a favorite work in Vienna. Received with reserve on its first performance, it had not since gained much more from the general public of the city than the respect sure to be accorded there to an important work by Brahms. Today [_sic_], however, a storm of applause broke out at the end of the first movement, not to be quieted until the composer, coming to the front of the artist’s box in which he was seated, showed himself to the audience. The demonstration was renewed after the second and the third movements, and an extraordinary scene followed the conclusion of the work. The applauding, shouting house, its gaze riveted on the figure standing in the balcony, so familiar and yet in present aspect so strange, seemed unable to let him go. Tears ran down his cheeks as he stood there, shrunken in form, with lined countenance, strained expression, white hair hanging lank; and through the audience there was a feeling as of a stifled sob, for each knew that they were saying farewell. Another outburst of applause and yet another; one more acknowledgment from the master; and Brahms and his Vienna had parted forever.”

Heinrich Reimann gives a short description of the symphony: “It begins as in ballad fashion. Blaring fanfares of horns and cries of pain interrupt the narration, which passes into an earnest and ardent melody (B major, violoncellos). The themes, especially those in fanfare fashion, change form and color. ‘The formal appearance, now powerful, prayerful, now caressing, tender, mocking, homely, now far away, now near, now hurried, now quietly expanding, ever surprises us, is ever welcome: it brings joy and gives dramatic impetus to the movement.’ A theme of the second movement constantly returns in varied form, from which the chief theme, the staccato figure given to the wind, and the melodious song of the violoncellos are derived. The third movement, _allegro giocoso_, sports with old-fashioned harmonies, which should not be taken too seriously. This is not the case with the _finale_, an artfully contrived _ciacona_ of antique form, but of modern contents. The first eight measures give the ‘title-page’ of the _ciacona_. The measures that follow are variations of the leading theme; wind instruments prevail in the first three, then the strings enter; the movement grows livelier, clarinets and oboes lead to E major; and now comes the solemn climax of this movement, the trombone passage. The old theme enters again after the _fermata_, and rises to full force, which finds expression in a _più allegro_ for the close.”[20]

VARIATIONS ON A THEME BY JOSEF HAYDN, IN B FLAT MAJOR, OP. 56a

At Bonn, in August, 1873, Brahms with Clara Schumann played to a few friends the _Variations on a Theme by Haydn_ in the version (Op. 56b) for two pianofortes.

It is not definitely known whether the orchestral version or the one for two pianofortes was the earlier. The orchestral stands first in thematic catalogues of Brahms’ compositions, but the pianoforte version was published first—in November, 1873. The probability is that the orchestral version was the first. The autograph manuscript of Op. 56b is dated at the end “Tutzing July 1873.” It was in November, 1870, that C. F. Pohl showed Brahms the compositions of Haydn, an _andante_ from a symphony and the _chorale_ that gave Brahms his theme. Kalbeck believed that the score of Haydn’s _chorale_ put Brahms in mind of the excellent wind choir of the Detmold Court Orchestra, and the thought of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra gave him greater desire to write an orchestral work.

The theme is taken from a collection of _divertimenti_ for wind instruments by Haydn. In the original score it is entitled _Chorale St. Antoni_. The _divertimento_ in which this theme occurs is in B flat major; it is composed for two oboes, two horns, three bassoons, and a serpent. For the third bassoon and the serpent Brahms substituted a double bassoon. The _divertimento_ was composed by Haydn probably about 1782-84 and for open-air performance. It was performed at a concert in London in March, 1908. As then played, it consisted of a lively introduction, the _Chorale Sancti Antonii_, a _minuetto_ and a _rondo_. It was then questioned whether Haydn composed the _chorale_, and why the folk-song-like tune was so named.

The theme is announced by Brahms in plain harmony by wind instruments over a bass for violoncellos, double basses, and double bassoon.

Variation I. _Poco più andante._ The violins enter, and their figure is accompanied by one in triplets in the violas and violoncellos. These figures alternately change places. Wind instruments are added.

II. B flat minor, _più vivace_. Clarinets and bassoons have a variation of the theme, and violins enter with an _arpeggio_ figure.

III. There is a return to the major, _con moto_, 2-4. The theme is given to the oboes, doubled by the bassoons an octave below. There is an independent accompaniment for the lower strings. In the repetition the violins and violas take the part which the wind instruments had, and the flutes, doubled by the bassoons, have _arpeggio_ figures.

IV. In minor, 3-8. The melody is sung by oboe with horn; then it is strengthened by the flute with the bassoon. The violas and shortly after the violoncellos accompany in scale passage. The parts change place in repetition.

V. This variation is a _vivace_ in major, 6-8. The upper melody is given to flutes, oboes, and bassoons, doubled through two octaves. In the repetition the moving parts are taken by the strings.

VI. _Vivace_, major, 2-4. A new figure is introduced. During the first four measures the strings accompany with the original theme in harmony, afterwards in _arpeggio_ and scale passages.

VII. _Grazioso_, major, 6-8. The violins an octave above the clarinets descend through the scale, while the piccolo doubled by violas has a fresh melody.

VIII. B flat minor, _presto non troppo_, 3-4. The strings are muted. The mood is _pianissimo_ throughout. The piccolo enters with an inversion of the phrase.

The _finale_ is in the major, 4-4. It is based throughout on a phrase, an obvious modification of the original theme, which is used at first as a ground bass—“a bass passage constantly repeated and accompanied each successive time with a varied melody and harmony.” This obstinate phrase is afterwards used in combination with other figures in other passages of the _finale_. The original theme returns in the strings at the climax; the wood-wind instruments accompany in scale passages, and the brass fills up the harmony. The triangle is now used to the end. Later the melody is played by wood and brass instruments, and the strings have a running accompaniment.

The late Max Kalbeck in his long-winded and ponderous Life of Brahms has much to say about these Variations. Which St. Anthony was in Haydn’s mind is immaterial. Kalbeck decided that Brahms’ hero is the St. Anthony of Thebes. Brahms was a friend and admirer of Anselm Feuerbach, the artist, who had painted a life-size Temptation of St. Anthony, the monk kneeling with a book, a scourge, and a skull near him, while a woman begs him to leave his religious meditation and enter into life. This picture was so ridiculed that the sensitive Feuerbach destroyed it, but it had been engraved and photographed.

Kalbeck finds a _crescendo_ of musical psychology in the Variations, which, as they are developed, remind him of musical dissolving views. The seventh Variation pictures the severest test undergone by the saint: “The most atrocious because it is the sweetest.” In this Siciliano he sees the apparition of the tempting woman. The music is “the quintessence of human voluptuousness, which according to Master Eckhart is ‘mixed with bitterness.’ After it comes death. Blessed is the man that has withstood the temptation! The _finale_, which includes seventeen and more variations, celebrates him.”

Did Brahms have all this in mind when he wrote these Variations? Was not Kalbeck like the man “of meager aspect with sooty hands and face” seen by Captain Lemuel Gulliver at the Academy of Lagado engaged for eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams from cucumbers?

“TRAGIC” OVERTURE, OP. 81

The _Tragic_ overture is among the greatest works of Brahms; by its structure, and by its depths of feeling. There is no hysterical outburst; no shrieking in despair; no peevish or sullen woe; no obtruding suggestion of personal suffering. The German commentators have cudgeled their brains to find a hero in the music: Hamlet, Faust, this one, that one. They have labored in vain. The soul of Tragedy speaks in the music.

* * *

Although the _Tragic_ overture is Op. 81 and the _Academic_ is Op. 80, the _Tragic_ was composed and performed before the _Academic_: it was performed for the first time at the Fourth Philharmonic Concert at Vienna in 1880.

The _Tragic_ overture may be said to be a musical characterization of the principles of tragedy as laid down by Aristotle or Lessing; it mirrors, as Reimann puts it, the grandeur, the loftiness, the deep earnestness, of tragic character; “calamities, which an inexorable fate has imposed on him, leave the hero guilty; the tragic downfall atones for the guilt; this downfall, which by purifying the passions and awakening fear and pity works on the race at large, brings expiation and redemption to the hero himself.” Or as Dr. Dieters says: “In this work we see a strong hero battling with an iron and relentless fate; passing hopes of victory cannot alter an impending destiny. We do not care to inquire whether the composer had a special tragedy in his mind, or if so, which one; those who remain musically unconvinced by the unsurpassably powerful theme, would not be assisted by a particular suggestion.”[21]

The overture was composed in 1880 and published in 1881.

ACADEMIC FESTIVAL OVERTURE, OP. 80

Johannes Brahms desired to give thanks publicly to the University of Breslau because he had received from the illustrious dignitaries of that university the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. How best could he express his thanks in music? By something stately, pompous? Or by something profound and cryptic? Brahms acted with shrewdness in the matter; he took for his thematic material well-known students’ songs. These songs are familiar throughout Germany, and it is not as though a composer called upon, for instance, to write an appropriate overture for an approaching jubilee at Yale should take songs peculiar to that college; nor is it as though a composer should take “Eli Yale” and “Fair Harvard” and a Dartmouth or Williams song for his themes. Wherever Brahms’ overture is heard by a German student, whether of Heidelberg, Bonn, Berlin, or Breslau, the themes are old friends and common property.

But where is the reckless gayety of student life in this overture? Much of it is dry, on account of the orchestration. For even when you admit that Brahms was a master builder of musical structures, you are not thereby estopped from saying in clear, bell-like tones that he was also color deaf.

The Brahmsite turns triumphantly to the _Fuchslied_—“Was kommt dort von der Höh”—which is introduced by two bassoons, accompanied by ’cellos and violas _pizzicati_. “There! there!” he exclaims, “that is excruciatingly funny. Only a master, only a Johannes could make so easily a master stroke!” If you cross-examine him you will find that the humor consists in the choice of instruments.

Somebody once said that the bassoon is the clown of the orchestra. Therefore the double bassoon should be twice as funny—perhaps even a Shakespearean clown. And simply because somebody gave the poor bassoon this name, it must be regarded as funny _per se_. “Funny”? The bassoon is lugubrious, ghostly, spectral, weird, unearthly, demoniacal. It smells of mortality. It suggests the glow-worm and the grave. The wicked nuns in _Robert le Diable_ heard it and obeyed the spell, for corruption called to corruption. It lends a flavor of the charnal house to Tchaikovsky’s _Pathétique_. It pictures the mood of Leonora without Di Luna’s tower. It chatters and gibbers as the murderous artist in the _Symphonie fantastique_ goes his wretched way to the scaffold. It is the instrument dear to all that inhabit the night air, the cemetery, the diseased mind.

But these bassoons appear in Brahms’ overture “_etwas plötzlich_”—a phrase I once heard used in a Berlin beer hall by a dapper and corseted and monocled officer, who was extremely thirsty and thus addressed the waiter. And I defy any sober-minded person who has not the fear of Brahms before his eyes to find the introduction or the treatment of the song spontaneously gay or humorous. The song itself is a good freshman hazing song.

Some of the books—and books of authority—say that the _Academic_ was written for performance at Breslau on the occasion of Brahms’ receiving the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. He did receive the degree, but it was on March 11, 1879, and if anyone doubts this I shall be happy to quote to him the degree in the original Latin—which I cannot construe, except as regards the date. I like to think of Brahms as a doctor of philosophy. The degree goes so well with the man. It also explains some—not all—of his music. Let the overture be considered and weighed as the night work of a Doctor of Philosophy.

* * *

Brahms wrote two overtures in the summer of 1880 at Ischl—the _Academic_ and the _Tragic_. They come between the Symphony in D major and that in F major in the list of his orchestral works. It is said by Heuberger that Brahms wrote two “Academic Festival overtures”; so he must have destroyed one of them. When the _Academic_ was first played at Breslau, the rector and Senate and members of the Philosophical faculty sat in the front seats at the performance, and the composer conducted his work. Brahms was not a university man, but he had known with Joachim the joyous life of students at Göttingen—at the university made famous by Canning’s poem:

_Whene’er with haggard eyes I view This dungeon that I’m rotting in, I think of those companions true who studied with me at the U- niversity of Göttingen— niversity of Göttingen_;

—the university satirized so bitterly by Heine.

Brahms wrote to Bernard Scholz that the title ‘_Academic_’ did not please him. Scholz suggested that it was “cursedly academic and boresome,” and suggested _Viadrina_, for that was the poetical name of the Breslau University. Brahms spoke flippantly of this overture in the fall of 1880 to Max Kalbeck. He described it as a “very jolly potpourri on students’ songs à la Suppé”; and, when Kalbeck asked him ironically if he had used the “Foxsong,” he answered contentedly, “Yes, indeed.” Kalbeck was startled, and said he could not think of such academic homage to the “leathery Herr Rektor,” whereupon Brahms duly replied, “That is also wholly unnecessary.”

The first of the student songs to be introduced is Binzer’s “Wir hatten gebauet ein stattliches Haus” (We had built a stately house, and trusted in God therein through bad weather, storm, and horror). The first measures are given out by the trumpets with a peculiarly stately effect. The melody of “Der Landesvater” is given to the second violins. And then for the first time is there any deliberate attempt to portray the jollity of university life. The “Fuchslied” (Freshman Song) is introduced suddenly by two bassoons. There are hearers undoubtedly who remember the singing of this song in Longfellow’s “Hyperion”; how the freshman entered the _Kneipe_, and was asked with ironical courtesy concerning the health of the leathery _Herr Papa_ who reads in Cicero. Similar impertinent questions were asked concerning the _Frau Mama_ and the _Mamsell Sœur_; and then the struggle of the freshman with the first pipe of tobacco was described in song. “Gaudeamus igitur,” the melody that is familiar to students of all lands, serves as the _finale_.

CONCERTO FOR PIANOFORTE, NO. 1, IN D MINOR, OP. 15

I. Maestoso II. Adagio III. Rondo: allegro non troppo

This concerto was played for the first time at Hanover, on January 22, 1859. Brahms was the pianist; Joachim conducted.

Brahms, living in Hanover in 1854, worked in the spring and summer on a symphony. The madness of Schumann and his attempt to commit suicide by throwing himself into the Rhine had deeply affected him. He wrote to Joachim in January, 1855, from Düsseldorf, “I have been trying my hand at a symphony during the past summer, have even orchestrated the first movement and composed the second and third.”

This symphony was never completed. The work as it stood was turned into a sonata for two pianofortes. The first two movements became later the first and the second of the Pianoforte concerto in D minor; the third is the movement “Behold all flesh” in _A German_ _Requiem_. The sonata for two pianofortes was frequently played in private in the middle ’fifties by Brahms with Clara Schumann, or his friend Julius Otto Grimm, who had assisted him in the orchestration of the symphony. Grimm (1827-1903), philologist, conductor, lecturer, doctor of philosophy, composer of a symphony, suites and other works, declared that the musical contents of this sonata deserved a more dignified form, and persuaded Brahms to put them into a concerto. The task busied Brahms for two years or more. The movements were repeatedly sent to Joachim, whose advice was of much assistance. In 1858 the _Signale_ reported that Brahms had arrived in Detmold, and it was hoped that some of his compositions might be performed there. “He has completed, among other things, a pianoforte concerto, the great beauties of which have been reported to us.” The musicians at Detmold were not inclined to appreciate Brahms; it is said that the _Kapellmeister_, Kiel, was prejudiced against him; but the concerto was rehearsed at Hanover, and Joachim, in spite of a certain amount of official opposition, put it on the programme of the Hanover Subscription Court Concerts, the third of the series for 1858-59.

The concerto was then coldly received. The Hanover correspondent of the _Signale_ wrote, “The work had no great success with the public, but it aroused the decided respect and sympathy of the best musicians for the gifted artist.” Brahms played the concerto at a Gewandhaus concert in Leipsic on January 27, 1859. The public and the critics were unfriendly. The composer wrote to Joachim: “A brilliant and decided failure.... In spite of all this, the concerto will please some day when I have improved its construction.” Breitkopf & Härtel refused to publish it; but Rieter-Biedermann gave it to the world in 1861.

CONCERTO NO. 2, IN B FLAT MAJOR, FOR PIANOFORTE AND ORCHESTRA, OP. 83

I. Allegro non troppo II. Allegro appassionato III. Andante IV. Allegretto grazioso

The choice of this concerto shows the high purpose and the pure aim; for the Second concerto of Brahms is not one to tickle the ear, stun the judgment, and provoke cheap and boisterous applause. And as the Second symphony of Brahms is to the First, so is the Second concerto of Brahms to the First. In each case, while the passion is less stormy, the thoughts are less crabbed and gnarled. Only in the first movement of the B flat major concerto does Brahms “keep up a terrible thinking.”

The second fascinates by its sturdiness and rhythmic capriciousness; the third movement is Brahms at his noblest, when his thought is as lofty and serenely beautiful as a summer sky at noon. And who can describe in words the enchanting, haunting delight of the _finale_—music like unto the perfect verse of a supreme poet whose imagination is kindled by wild or melancholy tales told him in youth by gypsy lips.

* * *

This concerto was performed for the first time at Budapest, from manuscript, November 9, 1881, when the composer was the pianist.

On April 8, 1878, Brahms, in company with Dr. Billroth and Carl Goldmark, made a journey to Italy. Goldmark, who went to Rome to be present at the last rehearsals of his opera _Die Königin von Saba_—production was postponed until the next year on account of the illness of the leading soprano—did not accompany his friends to Naples and Sicily. Returning to Pörtschach, Brahms sketched themes of the Concerto in B flat major on the evening before his birthday; but he left the sketches, in which “he mirrored the Italian spring turning to summer,” undeveloped.

His violin concerto originally contained a _scherzo_ movement. Conferring with Joachim, he omitted this movement. Max Kalbeck thinks that this _scherzo_ found a home in the second pianoforte concerto.

In March, 1881, Brahms set out on a second journey in Italy. He visited Venice, Florence, Siena, Orvieto, Rome, Naples, and Sicily. He returned to Vienna on his birthday of that year with his mind full of Italian scenes in springtime and with thoughts of the pianoforte concerto inspired by his first visit. On May 22 he went to Pressbaum near Vienna and lived in the villa of Mme Heingartner. In 1907, Orestes Ritter von Connevay, then the possessor of the villa, erected a monument to Brahms in the garden. A bronze bust stands on a stone pedestal. An iron tablet bears this inscription: “Here in the summer of 1881 Johannes Brahms completed _Nänie_, Op. 82, and the pianoforte concerto, Op. 83.” Brahms was moved by the death of Anselm Feuerbach, the painter, to set music for chorus and orchestra to Schiller’s poem, “Nänie.”

Miss May says in her life of Brahms that the manuscript of _Nänie_, and portions of the concerto, were soon lent by Brahms to Dr. Billroth, “the concerto movements being handed to him with the words, ‘A few little pianoforte pieces.’” “It is always a delight to me,” wrote Billroth, “when Brahms, after paying me a short visit, during which we have talked of indifferent things, takes a roll out of his greatcoat pocket and says casually, ‘Look at that and write me what you think of it.’”

CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN, IN D MAJOR, OP. 77

I. Allegro non troppo II. Adagio III. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace

This concerto was written, during the summer and the fall of 1878, at Pörtschach on Lake Wörther in Carinthia for Joseph Joachim, dedicated to him, and first played by him under the direction of the composer at a Gewandhaus concert, Leipsic, on January 1, 1879.

Brahms, not confident of his ability to write with full intelligence for the solo violin, was aided by Joachim, who it appears from the correspondence between him and Brahms, gave advice inspired by his own opinions concerning the violinist’s art. Richard Specht, in his _Johannes Brahms_ (1928), says that Brahms agreed to scarcely anything but “bow marks and fingering; otherwise he adhered to his text, and not always to the advantage of his notation, which has often been misread by violinists.” There was a dispute concerning the writing of “ties over staccato dots, which has not the same meaning for the violinist as for the pianist.” Joachim tried to explain this difference, but Brahms obstinately refused to alter his notation, “which was afterwards duly misinterpreted.”

The concerto was originally in four movements. It contained a _scherzo_ which was thrown overboard. Max Kalbeck, the biographer of Brahms, thinks it highly probable that it found its way into the Second pianoforte concerto. The _adagio_ was so thoroughly revised that it was practically new. “The middle movements have gone,” Brahms wrote, “and of course they were the best! But I have written a poor _adagio_ for it.” Specht suggests that Brahms may have intended to save the rejected two movements for a second violin concerto, “of which he made sketches immediately after the first.”

Florence May in her life of Brahms quotes Dörffel with regard to the first performance at Leipsic: “Joachim played with a love and devotion which brought home to us in every bar the direct or indirect share he has had in the work. As to the reception, the first movement was too new to be distinctly appreciated by the audience, the second made considerable way, the last aroused great enthusiasm.” Miss May adds that the critic Bernsdorf was less unsympathetic than usual.

Kalbeck, a still more enthusiastic worshiper of Brahms than Miss May, tells a different story. “The work was heard respectfully, but it did not awaken a bit of enthusiasm. It seemed that Joachim had not sufficiently studied the concerto or he was severely indisposed.” Brahms conducted in a state of evident excitement. A comic incident came near being disastrous. The composer stepped on the stage in gray street trousers, for on account of a visit he had been hindered in making a complete change of dress. Furthermore he forgot to fasten again the unbuttoned suspenders, so that in consequence of his lively directing his shirt showed between his trousers and waistcoat. “These laughter-provoking trifles were not calculated for elevation of mood.”

In spite of Leipsic, Brahms soon recovered his spirits. He wrote to Elisabet von Herzogenberg from Vienna in January: “My concert tour was a real downhill affair after Leipsic; no more pleasure in it. Perhaps that is a slight exaggeration, though, for friends and hospitality are not everything on a concert tour. In some trifling ways it was even more successful; the audiences were kinder and more alive. Joachim played my piece more beautifully with every rehearsal, too, and the _cadenza_ went so magnificently at our concert here that the people clapped right on into my _coda_. But what is all that compared to the privilege of going home to Humboldtstrasse and being pulled to pieces by three womenkind—since you object to the word ‘females’?”

The composition is fairly orthodox in form. The three movements are separate, and the traditional _tuttis_, _soli_, _cadenzas_, etc., are pretty much as in the old-fashioned pieces of this kind; but in the first movement the long solo _cadenza_ precedes the taking up of the first theme by the violin. The modernity is in the prevailing spirit and in the details. Furthermore, it is not a work for objective virtuoso display.

The orchestra which Brahms requires in his symphonies is practically the same as that which Beethoven used in the first three movements of his Ninth: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons and double bassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, kettledrums, and strings. This is the orchestration of Brahms’ First symphony (the trombones being reserved for the final movement). The Second omits the double bassoon but adds a tuba. The Third lists the same orchestra as the First. The Fourth adds a piccolo, and in this symphony the trombones are not heard until the opening chords of the _finale_.

To the above basic orchestration Brahms added, in his _Tragic_ overture, a piccolo and tuba, and in his _Academic_ overture, a piccolo, a third trumpet, tuba, bass drum, cymbals, and triangle. The _Variations_ add piccolo and triangle but omit trombones. The concertos follow the usual orchestration, with but two trombones in the piano concertos—none in the violin concerto.—EDITOR.

ANTON BRUCKNER

(Born at Ansfelden, in Upper Austria, September 4, 1824; died at Vienna, October 11, 1896)

Both the admirers of Bruckner and those that dislike his music lay stress on the fact that he was born a peasant and was essentially a peasant to the day of his death, although the Rector Magnificus of the University of Vienna bowed before him when he presented him with the honorary degree of doctor. The detractors find in Bruckner’s peasanthood his salient faults. The former say that by reason of the simplicity and purity of his character Bruckner was as Paul caught up in the body or out of the body, they cannot tell, to the third heaven, caught up into paradise where he heard unspeakable words, which it was not lawful for him to utter, but it was allowed him to hint at them in music. The latter insist that his peasant naïveté is revealed in his interminable chatter, in his vague wanderings, in his lack of continuity and cohesion in the expression of thought.

The wretched game of politics is still played with Bruckner. Because he worshipped Wagner and because Brahms, or rather Hanslick—who was to Brahms both elephantier and thurifer—was opposed to Wagner, the Wagnerites therefore pitted Bruckner against Brahms and proclaimed the former the great successor to Beethoven in the field of absolute music. As a matter of fact, Brahms was neither bitterly hostile toward Wagner nor did he sneer at Bruckner. There was room for both Brahms and Bruckner—except in Vienna and except in the shaggy breasts of Wagnerites. Hanslick is dead, “the executioner of Bruckner,” as William Ritter characterizes him, “the man who derided all the true glories of the music of his time for Brahms’ sole benefit”; but Hanslick in his lifetime did not kill Bruckner, who had friendly audiences in Vienna before his death, whose fame has steadily grown.

In order to appreciate fully and yet with discrimination the indisputable talent, the irregular, uncontrolled genius of Bruckner, it is not necessary to inquire curiously into Bruckner’s humble origins, or into the character of his father and mother. It was the theory of Sainte-Beuve that the superior man is found, at least in part, in his parents, and especially in his mother; but I doubt in this instance whether an intimate acquaintance with Therese, the daughter of the innkeeper and administrator Ferdinand Helm, at Neuzeng, would explain the inconsistencies and contradictions in her son’s music. She was no doubt a strong, lusty woman, and she bore her husband a dozen children. As for Bruckner being a peasant, poor, now rude in behavior and speech, and now almost cringing in his desire to be courteous, shabbily educated, very few of the greatest composers have been born in rooms of purple hangings, very few have been distinguished for the elegance of their manners or the depth and breadth of their general learning.

The wonder is that Bruckner, the long-ignored, poor, humble school teacher, grotesque in appearance, a peasant in speech and action, should have had apocalyptic visions and spoken musically with the tongues of angels.

SYMPHONY NO. 7, IN E MAJOR

I. Allegro moderato II. Adagio: sehr feierlich und langsam III. Scherzo: allegro. Trio: etwas langsamer IV. Finale: bewegt, doch nicht schnell

This certainly is a gigantic work, abounding in lofty and noble pages, abounding also in trivialities, tiresome repetitions, and fussy and insignificant details. As in the other symphonies of Bruckner that we have heard, there is a lack of continuity in each movement; there are impressive preparations that lead to nothing: “In the name of the Prophet—Figs!” The composer had little sense of structure. To use Disraeli’s phrase, he was intoxicated with his own verbosity. His taste in ornamentation was more than doubtful. He could crown a noble façade with gingerbread work; he would plan an extension of cheap stucco to a pure temple of marble.

And yet in the Seventh symphony there are pages that come closer to Beethoven at his greatest than we find in the symphonies of other composers. There are grand thoughts expressed in a masterly manner in Franck’s symphony and in the symphony in B flat by Vincent d’Indy; the introduction to the _finale_ of Brahms’ First symphony has elemental grandeur and spiritual intensity; but Bruckner’s spirit in the _adagio_ and in the main body of the _scherzo_ of the Seventh symphony is nearer akin to that of Beethoven.

* * *

Bruckner’s Symphony in E major was composed in the time between September, 1881, and September, 1883. The first movement was completed December 29, 1882; the third, October 16, 1882; the fourth, September 5, 1883. The symphony is dedicated “To His Majesty the King, Ludwig II of Bavaria, in deepest reverence,” and was published in 1885.

The statement is often made that the _adagio_ was composed as funeral music in memory of Richard Wagner. As a matter of fact, this _adagio_ was completed in October, 1882. Wagner died February 13, 1883.

The singular statement has been made that a premonition of Wagner’s death inspired Bruckner to compose a dirge—this _adagio_. Bruckner, who had what the Germans call “peasant cunning,” may have agreed to this in the presence of those who were thus affected by the thought, but he himself knew, as will be seen by his letters to Felix Mottl in 1885 concerning the first performance at Carlsruhe, that the movement had not in all respects the character of a dirge. Indeed, he pointed out the measures of the funeral music: “At X in the _adagio_ (Funeral music for tubas and horns)” etc.; also, “Please take a very slow and solemn tempo. At the close, in the Dirge (In memory of the death of the Master), think of our Ideal!... Kindly do not forget the _fff_ at the end of the Dirge.”

Bruckner wrote to Mottl in a letter published February 10, 1900: “At one time I came home and was very sad; I thought to myself, it is impossible that the Master can live for a long time, and then the _adagio_ in C sharp minor came into my head.”

The symphony is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, four Wagner tubas, bass tuba, kettledrums, triangle, cymbals, strings.

I. _Allegro moderato_, E major, 2-2. The first theme is announced by horn and violoncellos against the violins, tremolo, and clarinets, violas, and violoncellos add a subsidiary theme. The chief theme appears in a richer orchestral dress. There is a _crescendo_ based on the subsidiary theme, and the whole orchestra enters, but there is quickly a _diminuendo_, and the mood becomes more nervous, more uncertain. The second theme, one of complaint, is given to oboe and clarinet, with horns and trumpet in the accompaniment. This theme with its peculiar instrumentation and its changing tonality is in marked opposition to the first. This second chief theme is developed at length. (The first assumes greater importance later.) In this development there are evidences in the manner of leading the voices of Bruckner’s partiality for the organ. The mood becomes more restful, although the theme of complaint is not silent, but soon appears, inverted, in the violins. It may here be said that Bruckner delighted in this manner of varying a theme. A mighty _crescendo_ is based on a phrase of this inverted theme over an organ-point, F sharp, but instead of the arrival of the expected climax a theme of somewhat mournful character is given to wood-wind instruments with counterpoint in the strings. The rhythm of this counterpoint is maintained in the final section of the exposition part. An episode for the brass follows. There is soon a calmer mood, and gentle horn and clarinet tones mingle with the voices of the strings.

The free fantasia begins with an inversion of the first theme (clarinet). The rhythm of the characteristic counterpoint just mentioned appears, but a solemn, religious mood is soon established (trombones, _pianissimo_). The second chief theme appears in its inverted form, also the “contrapuntal figure.” The mood is now one of doubt and perplexity, but the decisive, inexorable first theme enters, inverted, C minor, in the full orchestra, _fortissimo_, and with canonic imitation.

The beginning of the third, or recapitulation, part of the movement is quietly worked. The first theme appears _piano_ (violoncellos and horn); there is an inversion of the theme for violins and flute, and there is canonic imitation for oboe and trumpet. As in the first part, the subsidiary leads to the second chief theme, which is now in E minor and is given to the clarinet. There is an end to the delicate instrumentation. There is a great _crescendo_, which ends in an inversion of the second chief theme, _fortissimo_, for full orchestra. Other _crescendos_ follow, one with the second theme to an episode of choral character, others based on the “contrapuntal figure.” The great climax comes in the elaborate _coda_, which is built on a long organ-point on the bass E, with the first subsidiary theme and with the first chief theme, which now has its true and heroic character.

II. _Adagio, sehr feierlich und langsam_ (in a very solemn and slow manner), C sharp minor, 4-4. This movement is thought by many to be Bruckner’s masterpiece and monument. It undoubtedly established his fame when there were few to recognize his irregular genius. The _adagio_ was played in cities of Germany in memory of the composer shortly after his death, as at the Philharmonic Concert, Berlin, led by Mr. Nikisch, October 26, 1896.

In this movement, as in the _finale_, Bruckner introduced the Bayreuth tubas, to gain effects of peculiar solemnity and also, no doubt, to pay homage to the master whom he loved and venerated.

The chief melody of the _adagio_ is given to the lower strings and tubas and is answered by all the strings.

There is a passage of stormy lamentation, and then consolation comes in a melody for violins (_moderato_, F sharp major, 3-4). This theme is developed, chiefly by the strings. Then there is a return to the first and solemn theme, with wood-wind instruments and strings in alternation. There is a great _crescendo_ with bold modulations until the entrance, C major, of the chief theme (second violins, supported by horn, oboes, and clarinets), which is soon followed by a variant of the answer to this theme. The answer soon appears in E flat major and in its original form and is maintained for a long time (G major). There is a modulation to A flat major, and the _cantilena_ is repeated. After the entrance again of the chief melody and the restoration of the original tonality there is a _crescendo_ of great and imposing force. This is over, and the tubas chant the answer to the chief theme and after an interlude for strings the chief theme itself, C sharp major. The horns take up the _cantilena_, and the last chord, C sharp major, dies away in brass instruments to a _pizzicato_ of the strings.

III. _Scherzo_: _sehr schnell_ (very fast), A minor, 3-4. This _scherzo_ is based chiefly on two themes—the first for trumpet (_piano_), then clarinet, with a figure for strings; the second, a wild and raging one. The _scherzo_ ends after a great _crescendo_. Drumbeats lead to the trio, F major, _etwas langsamer_ (somewhat slower), with an expressive melody for strings. The theme of this trio is made at first out of an inversion of the _scherzo_ theme, but the trio is in all respects in marked contrast to the _scherzo_, which after the trio is repeated.

_Finale_: _bewegt, doch nicht schnell_ (with movement, but not fast), E major, 2-2. The first theme, given to the violins, has a certain resemblance, as far as intervals are concerned, to the chief theme of the first movement, but it is joyous rather than impressive. Flutes and clarinets enter at times, and horn tones also enter and lead to the second theme, which has the character of a choral, with an accompanying _pizzicato_ bass. The tubas are then heard in solemn chords. A new theme of a dreamy nature follows (strings), and then at the beginning of the free fantasia an orchestral storm breaks loose. This dies away, and a theme appears which is derived from the first and main motive, which in turn enters, inverted, and with a _pizzicato_ bass. The choral theme is also inverted, but it gives way to the chief motive, which is developed and leads to another tempestuous burst, ended suddenly with a pause for the whole orchestra. The repetition section brings back the themes in inverted order. The second chief theme is heard in C major. After a time there is a _crescendo_ built on passages of this motive, which leads to a powerful episode in B major, with a theme in the bass derived from the chief motive. This motive is given to violins and clarinets, and there are contrapuntal imitations. The choral theme, appearing at the end of the free fantasia, is heard no more. The first chief theme dominates to the end. There is an imposing _coda_.

I am indebted in a measure to the analysis of this symphony by Mr. Johannes Reichert, prepared for the concerts of the Royal Orchestra of Dresden.

SYMPHONY NO. 8, IN C MINOR

I. Allegro moderato II. Scherzo: allegro—andante—allegro moderato III. Adagio IV. Finale: Feierlich, nicht schnell

Bruckner’s Eighth is in all respects to be numbered with his greatest. The structure is nobler, the form more clearly recognized than in his other symphonies. There is less perplexing or boresome detail. The digressions do not cause the main line of musical argument to be forgotten. The interest is more steadily maintained. The instrumentation is richer in color and in contrasts. Above all, the invention shown, both in thematic lines and in wealth of development, is little less than marvelous, for Bruckner was sixty years old when he began work on this symphony.

Much has been said in European cities about the extraordinary length of the work. This length does not seem distressing. Bruckner had a great deal to say, and whereas in other symphonies he sometimes stammers and often falters, as though he were not able to express his thoughts, as though they were so great to him that he hesitated to put them into even musical speech, which comes nearest to the full expression of the inherently inexpressible, in this symphony he is master of his speech; he is convincing, authoritative, eloquent. Furthermore, he is more discriminative in his use of material. In other symphonies he is seen building indifferently with marble and clay. His Eighth symphony is as a stately temple, in which mortals forget the paltry cares and tribulations of earth, and gods appear calm and benignant.

There are pages that remind one of the visions seen by John on the isle of Patmos. “And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings.”

There are also pages of ravishing beauty, as those of the trio in the _scherzo_, as those devoted to the exposition of the first and second themes of the _adagio_, as those of the second theme in the _finale_. The _scherzo_, with rough humor and its episode of rare melodic beauty finely orchestrated, is of this earth, but the other movements leave the earth behind in a sustained and fearless flight. This is especially true of the first movement and the _adagio_.

In the _finale_ there is here and there a drooping of the wings, but the opening measures of this _finale_ and the close are towering and exultant.

* * *

This symphony, begun in 1885, was completed in 1890. It was performed for the first time in Vienna, December 18, 1892, at a Philharmonic concert led by Hans Richter. Even Hanslick admitted in his bitter review (_Neue Freie Presse_, December 23, 1892) of the symphony that the concert was a triumph for the composer. “How was the new symphony received? Boisterous rejoicing, waving of handkerchiefs from those standing, innumerable recalls, laurel wreaths,” etc.

The symphony is dedicated to the composer’s “imperial and royal apostolic Majesty Francis Joseph I, Emperor of Austria and apostolic King of Hungary.” It is scored for three flutes, three oboes, three clarinets, three bassoons (and double bassoon), eight horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, triangle, cymbals, three harps, and usual strings.

It appears that, when the symphony was first performed, there was an explanatory programme written by some devout disciple. This programme stated that the first theme of the first movement was “the form of the Æschylean Prometheus”; and a portion of this movement was entitled “the greatest loneliness and silence.” The _scherzo_ was supposed to typify “The German Michael.” “_Der deutsche Michel_” may be translated “the plain, honest, much enduring (but slow) German,” and “Michel” in a figurative sense means yokel, boor, clodhopper. Hanslick wrote: “If a critic had spoken this blasphemy, he would probably have been stoned to death by Bruckner’s disciples; but the composer himself gave this name, the German Michael, to the _scherzo_, as may be read in black and white in the programme.” The published score bears no motto. The programme-maker found in the _scherzo_ “the deeds and sufferings of Prometheus reduced in the way of parody to the smallest proportions.” And in the _adagio_ was disclosed “the all-loving Father of mankind in his measureless wealth of mercy.” The _finale_ was characterized by him as “heroism in the service of the Divine,” and the trumpet calls in the _finale_ were explained as “the announcers of eternal salvation, heralds of the idea of divinity.” On the other hand, it is said that the beginning of the _finale_ was suggested to Bruckner by the meeting of the three emperors!

In the published score there is nothing to give the idea that the music has any programme, any argument. Yet Johannes Reichert in his analysis[22] of the symphony, referring to Josef Schalk’s vision of “Prometheus Bound” in the first movement, found something of Prometheus or of Faust in the music.

I. _Allegro moderato_, C minor, 2-2. The first and chief motive is given to violas, violoncellos, and double basses. It is announced _pianissimo_; it is decisively rhythmed, and its rhythm and its upward leap of a sixth are important factors in the development. After a short _crescendo_, the strings are about to return to a _pianissimo_ when the theme is proclaimed with the full force of the orchestra.

The first violins have the expressive and questioning second theme. Wood-wind instruments answer the question. The rhythm of the second theme, a rhythm that is characteristically Brucknerian, is used in counterpoint to a new _cantilena_ sung by horns and first violins.

There is a modulation to the dominant of the chief tonality. The second theme now assumes an obstinate, arrogant character. Wood-wind instruments conduct over _pianissimo_ and sustained chords of tubas, with the use of the first measures of the chief motive, to the second subsidiary section. In spite of the interrupting springs of the seventh there is a return to a quiet mood. Then comes a chromatic and mighty _crescendo_ for full orchestra, which reaches a climax with trumpet fanfares. The chief motive returns and is given out thrice _pianissimo_. The first horn has the chief motive in augmentation, and there is a double echo of it: from first oboe; from tenor tuba.

The “working-out” section begins with the indication “very quietly.” Oboes and tubas introduce constituent parts of the chief motive in augmentation; then the motive itself appears in inversion and as in a _stretto_. This form of elaboration is long continued. And now the second theme appears inverted, and gives with its compelling rhythm the impetus to a great crescendo which reaches its climax with the encounter of the two themes _fortississimo_. This shock occurs three times without a decisive result. The orchestra seems to lose its force. There are wandering fragments of the two motives, while the trumpet keeps up monotonously the rhythm of the chief theme. A fragment of the first theme leads to the repetition section.

The repetition is at first free, whereas as a rule in Bruckner’s symphonies it is literal. The first theme, now a lamentation, is given to the first oboe. The clarinet answers in another tonality. After bold modulations the second theme is repeated. The prevailing mood of unrest ends with a long held _fermata_. The second subsidiary section is repeated quietly, and, as in the first chief section of the movement, it is used in a _crescendo_; but here the climax is built on a _coda_ motive of a bitterly complaining character, while horns and trumpets repeat incessantly the chief theme. Grief itself soon loses its voice. The violins sigh the chief motive thrice _pianissimo_. Only the last portion of the theme is then heard, and it dies away in the violas.

II. _Scherzo_, _Allegro moderato_, C minor, 3-4. The chief theme (violas and violoncellos) has a rough humor, while violins have a contrasting figure of a whispering and mysterious nature. This figure brings in a great _crescendo_ in which the theme is blown by horns, later by trumpets, and at last by the bass tuba. At the end of the section a rhythm appears (E flat major, bassoons, drums, basses) that is slightly reminiscent of a rhythm in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8. The whispering figure is inverted. The first section is repeated.

The trio begins _langsam_ (“slow”), 2-4, softly and delicately (first violins). The horn enters. There are pleasant harmonies in E major. “The whole episode breathes smiling happiness.”

The harp is used here and in the _adagio_, the only instances of the use of this instrument in a symphony by Bruckner. A second subject brings the return to A flat major. The beginning of the trio is repeated with changes in tonality, and the whole first part of the _scherzo_ is repeated with an ending in C major.

III. The _adagio_ is said to be probably the longest symphonic _adagio_ movement in existence, and there are some that put it at the head of all _adagios_ by reason of its solemnity, nobility, and elevated thought. It begins, “solemn, slow, but not dragging,” D flat major, 4-4. The first violins sing (on the G string) a long and intimate song to the accompaniment of the second violins and lower strings. “This theme contains three moments of mood. For the first four measures the violins complain softly; then sighing clarinets and bassoons enter in gasps; the four last measures are only an extension to strengthen the mood.” A strange organ-point puts an end to the mood of doubt and brings in triumphant certainty. The violins, playing with greater breadth, lead to a calm close in F. There is a repetition of what has gone before, with the exception of a few measures of the chief theme.

The second theme is sung by the violoncellos, and they lead to the serenely quiet song of the tubas. Some measures based on fragments of the second theme bring in the “working-out” section. The chief theme appears. Portions of the long _cantilena_ are combined, and there is fresh and melodic counterpoint. There is at the same time a _crescendo_. After the climax the second theme becomes prominent, with interruptions by the tubas.

The first theme appears with lively figuration at the beginning of the second section of development. A portion of this theme is used in augmentation. “Then appears suddenly and in a decided manner the rhythm for horns of the ‘Siegfried’ motive in _The Ring_.” The accompaniment for strings grows livelier; the chief theme is more and more impressive in the brass. The second theme enters, and there are tranquillizing episodes, but there is no checking the course of the _crescendo_ or the acceleration in pace. “_À tempo_ (though in a lively movement).” The third section of the chief theme is now in powerful augmentation. There is a return to the prevailing tempo. The mood is milder. The violins “intimately and softly” remember once more the second theme. The _coda_ brings in a peaceful close. In the third and fourth measures before the end the tubas indicate _pianissimo_ the chief rhythm of the _finale_ that follows.

IV. _Finale_, C minor, “solemnly, not fast,” 2-2. The heavily rhythmed chief theme contains three important motives. It first appears in F sharp, as the enharmonically changed subdominant of the preceding tonality, D flat major (or as the dominant of the dominant of C minor). Joyful fanfares sound in D flat. The whole is repeated, and there is a modulation from A flat to E flat. Then appears sonorously the conclusion of the whole theme in the prevailing tonality, C minor. Out of the counterpoint arises a lamenting strain for oboes.

There is a pause. The melodious and religious second theme is sung in slower tempo. The accompanying voices for horn and violas might well be reckoned as thematic. The third theme, wood-wind and strings, is practically a double theme, and the lower voice has much importance later. The concluding section of this theme is developed in choral fashion, and it is then combined with the lower voice. After a pause comes the working-out section. As the introduction indicated, it gives the impression of a mighty struggle. A blend of the two just preceding themes leads to a new melody for violins. There is a powerful _crescendo_ for full orchestra. The rhythm of the chief theme of the first movement is heard. The first measures of the _finale_ are now played softly by the horns, then by the flutes. Preceding themes are again combined. The repetition section opens powerfully. The decisive rhythm of the chief theme spurs the full orchestra. The _coda_ begins quietly, but it soon becomes intense. In the triumphant ending in C major, chief themes of the four movements are heard exulting.

I am indebted in a measure for the preceding sketch of the contents of this symphony to the analysis by Werner Wolff, published in the programme book of the Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin, October 29, 1906; and to the analysis of Johannes Reichert which has already been mentioned. They that wish to study the symphony may consult with profit the analysis by Willibald Kähler (_Musikführer_ No. 262). These analysts are by no means unanimous in their designation of the chief themes. I have followed chiefly in the footsteps of Mr. Wolff.

It may help to a better understanding of the music of Bruckner if light be thrown on the personal nature and prejudices not only of the composer but of his contemporaneous partisans and foes. This simple man, who had known the cruelest poverty and distress, and in Vienna lived the life of an ascetic, made enemies by the very writing of music.

There appeared in Vienna in 1901 a little pamphlet entitled _Meine Erinnerung an Anton Bruckner_. The writer was Carl Hruby, a pupil of Bruckner. The pamphlet is violent, malignant. In its rage there is at times the ridiculous fury of an excited child. There are pages that provoke laughter and then pity; yet there is much of interest about the composer himself, who now, away from strife and contention, is still unfortunate in his friends. We shall pass over Hruby’s ideas on music and the universe, nor are we inclined to dispute his proposition (p. 7) that Shakespeare, Goethe, Beethoven, Wagner, were truer heroes and supporters of civilization than Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon, who, nevertheless, were, like Hannibal, very pretty fellows in those days. When Hruby begins to talk about Bruckner and his ways, then it is time to prick up ears.

As a teacher, Bruckner was amiable, patient, kind, but easily vexed by frolicsome pupils who did not know his sensitive nature. He gave each pupil a nickname, and his favorite phrase of contentment and disapproval was “_Viechkerl!_”—“You stupid beast!” There was a young fellow whose name began “Sachsen”; but Bruckner could never remember the rest of it, so he would go through the list of German princes, “Sachsen”—“Sachsen”—“Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, Sachsen”—and at last the name would come. Another pupil, afterwards a harp virtuoso, was known to his teacher only as “Old Harp.” Bruckner had a rough, at the same time, sly, peasant humor. One of his pupils came into the class with bleached and jaded face. Bruckner asked what ailed him. The answer was: “I was at the Turnverein till two o’clock.” “Yes,” said Bruckner, “oh, yes, I know the Turnverein that lasts till 2 A.M.” The pupil on whom he built fond hope was Franz Nott, who died young and in the madhouse. When Bruckner was disturbed in his work, he was incredibly and gloriously rude.

Bruckner was furious against all writers who discovered “programmes” in his music. He was warmly attached to the ill-fated Hugo Wolf, and was never weary of praising the declamation in his songs: “The fellow does nothing all day but compose, while I must tire myself out by giving lessons,” for at sixty years Bruckner was teaching for three guldens a lesson. Beethoven was his idol, and after a performance of one of the greater symphonies he was as one insane. After a performance of the _Eroica_, he said to Hruby—would that it were possible to reproduce Bruckner’s dialect—“I think that if Beethoven were alive, and I should go to him with my Seventh symphony and say, ‘Here, Mr. Van Beethoven, this is not so bad, this Seventh, as certain gentlemen would make out’ ... I think he would take me by the hand and say, ‘My dear Bruckner, never mind, I had no better luck; and the same men who hold me up against you even now do not understand my last quartets, although they act as if they understood them.’ Then I’d say to him, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Van Beethoven, that I have gone beyond you in freedom of form, but I think a true artist should make his own forms for his own works, and stick by them.’” He once said of Hanslick, “I guess Hanslick understands as little about Brahms as about Wagner, me, and others. And the Doctor Hanslick knows as much about counterpoint as a chimney sweep about astronomy.”

Hanslick was to Bruckner as a pursuing demon. (We are giving Hruby’s statement, and Hanslick surely showed a strange perseverance and an unaccountable ferocity in criticism that was abuse.) Hruby likens this critic to the _Phylloxera vastatrix_ in the vineyard. He really believes that Hanslick sat up at night to plot Bruckner’s destruction. He affirms that Hanslick tried to undermine him in the Conservatory and the Imperial Chapel, that he tried to influence conductors against the performance of his works. And he goes so far as to say that Hans Richter, thus influenced, had never performed a symphony by Bruckner in England. As a matter of fact, Richter produced Bruckner’s Seventh in London, May 23, 1887. There is a story that when the Emperor Franz Josef asked Bruckner if he could honor him in any way, he asked if the Emperor would not stop Hanslick abusing him in print.

He was never mean or hostile toward Brahms, as some would have had him. He once said that Brahms was not an enemy of Wagner, as the Brahmsites insisted; that down in his heart he had a warm admiration for Wagner, as was shown by the praise he had bestowed on _Die Meistersinger_.

Just before his death Bruckner’s thoughts were on his Ninth symphony: “I undertook a stiff task,” he said. “I should not have done it at my age and in my weak condition. If I never finish it, then my ‘_Te Deum_’ may be used as a _finale_. I have nearly finished three movements. This work belongs to my Lord God.”

Although he had the religion of a child, he had read the famous book of David Strauss, and he could talk about it reasonably. Someone asked him about the future life and prayer. “I’ll tell you,” he replied. “If the story is true, so much the better for me. If it is not true, praying cannot hurt me.”

JOHN ALDEN CARPENTER

(Born at Park Ridge, Ill., February 28, 1876)

SUITE. “ADVENTURES IN A PERAMBULATOR”

I. En Voiture II. The Policeman III. The Hurdy-gurdy IV. The Lake V. Dogs VI. Dreams

Mr. Carpenter has told us in music the outing of a child. One of his first compositions was a collection of humorous _Improving Songs for Children_. This fondness for children as subjects for art he shares with Victor Hugo; with Swinburne, who abandoned the shrine of Venus to sing of children’s beauty and innocence—after Watts-Dunton had docked him of his rum. In the _Perambulator_ there is no sentimentalism, no Sunday-school address to “you, little girl with the blue sash”; but his music is as his child saw and thought, when wheeled about.

This suite is not only an ingenious work: it has true fancy, true humor, pages of truly poetic feeling. Mr. Carpenter displays imagination; witness his glorification of the lake that supplies Chicago with water. But even his imagination was dormant at the thought of the Chicago River. An unflinching realist would have introduced the child’s visit to the stockyards and slaughter houses.

* * *

The composition of this suite was begun in July, 1914, and completed in December of that year. The suite was performed for the first time at the concerts of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Stock conductor, March 19-20, 1915.

The suite is scored for these instruments: three flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, xylophone, glockenspiel, bells, harp, celesta, pianoforte, and the usual strings.

This programme is printed as preface to the score:

I. _En Voiture._ Every morning—after my second breakfast—if the wind and the sun are favorable, I go out. I should like to go alone, but my will is overborne. My nurse is appointed to take me. She is older than I, and very powerful. While I wait for her, resigned, I hear her cheerful steps, always the same. I am wrapped in a vacuum of wool, where there are no drafts. A door opens and shuts. I am placed in my perambulator, a strap is buckled over my stomach, my nurse stands firmly behind—and we are off!

II. _The Policeman._ Out is wonderful! It is always different, though one seems to have been there before. I cannot fathom it all. Some sounds seem like smells. Some sights have echoes. It is confusing, but it is Life! For instance, the Policeman—an Unprecedented Man! Round like a ball; taller than my Father. Blue—fearful—fascinating! I feel him before he comes. I see him after he goes. I try to analyze his appeal. It is not buttons alone, nor belt, nor baton. I suspect it is his eye and the way he walks. He walks like Doom. My nurse feels it, too. She becomes less firm, less powerful. My perambulator hurries, hesitates, and stops. They converse. They ask each other questions—some with answers, some without. I listen, with discretion. When I feel that they have gone far enough, I signal to my nurse, a private signal, and the Policeman resumes his enormous Blue March. He is gone, but I feel him after he goes.

III. _The Hurdy-gurdy._ Then suddenly there is something else. I think it is a sound. We approach it. My ear is tickled to excess. I find that the absorbing noise comes from a box—something like my music box, only much larger, and on wheels. A dark man is turning the music out of the box with a handle, just as I do with mine. A dark lady, richly dressed, turns when the man gets tired. They both smile. I smile too, with restraint, for music is the most insidious form of noise. And such music! So gay! I tug at the strap over my stomach. I have a wild thought of dancing with my nurse and my perambulator—all three of us together. Suddenly, at the climax of our excitement, I feel the approach of a phenomenon that I remember. It is the Policeman. He has stopped the music. He has frightened away the dark man and the lady with their music box. He seeks the admiration of my nurse for his act. He walks away, his buttons shine, but far off I hear again the forbidden music. Delightful forbidden music!

IV. _The Lake._ Sated with adventure, my nurse firmly pushes me on, and before I recover my balance I am face to face with new excitement. The land comes to an end, and there at my feet is the Lake. All other sensations are joined in one. I see, I hear, I feel the quiver of the little waves as they escape from the big ones and come rushing up over the sand. Their fear is pretended. They know the big waves are amiable, for they can see a thousand sunbeams dancing with impunity on their very backs. Waves and sunbeams! Waves and sunbeams! Blue water—white clouds—dancing, swinging! A white sea gull floating in the air. That is _My Lake_!

V. _Dogs._ We pass on. Probably there is nothing more in the World. If there is, it is superfluous. _There_ IS. It is Dogs! We are coming upon them without warning. Not _one_ of them—all of them. First, one by one; then in pairs; then in societies. Little dogs, with sisters; big dogs, with aged parents. Kind dogs, brigand dogs, sad dogs, and gay. They laugh, they fight, they run. And at last, in order to hold my interest, the very littlest brigand starts a game of “Follow the Leader,” followed by all the others. It is tremendous!

VI. _Dreams._ Those dogs have gone! It is confusing, but it is Life! My mind grows numb. My cup is too full. I have a sudden conviction that it is well that I am not alone. That firm step behind reassures me. The wheels of my perambulator make a sound that quiets my nerves. I lie very still. I am quite content. In order to think more clearly, I close my eyes. My thoughts are absorbing. I deliberate upon my mother. Most of the time my mother and my nurse have but one identity in my mind, but at night or when I close my eyes, I can easily tell them apart, for my mother has the greater charm, I hear her voice quite plainly now, and feel the touch of her hand. It is pleasant to live over again the adventures of the day—the long blue waves curling in the sun, the Policeman who is bigger than my father, the music-box and my friends, the Dogs. It is pleasant to lie quite still and close my eyes, and listen to the wheels of my perambulator. How very large the world is! How many things there are!

CLAUDE ACHILLE DEBUSSY

(Born at Germain [Seine and Oise], August 22, 1862; died at Paris, March 26, 1918)

Debussy suffered at the hands of the ultra-orthodox and the snobs in music. The former could not find either melodic lines or the semblance of form in his orchestral and chamber works, his songs and pianoforte pieces. The snobs, secretly bored, thought it the thing to swoon at the mere mention of his name. In New York and Boston, as in Paris, there were “_Pelléastres_,” to use the contemptuous term coined by Jean Lorraine. There were some that spoke of Debussy as an ignorant fellow who, not being able to achieve greatness in the conventional manner, wrote in an eccentric way to attract attention, to make the bourgeois sit up. They forgot that Debussy had taken the chief prize at the Paris Conservatory, where harmony and counterpoint are taught rigorously. Debussy fashioned his own musical speech. It is easy to say that he learned much from Moussorgsky’s _Boris Godounov_—but no one has yet pointed out exactly what he borrowed or imitated. That Debussy sojourned in Russia was enough to excite those who are unwilling to admit that any innovator has originality, for Debussy was an innovator, not a developer of what was handed down to him. It is more probable that he learned from the gypsies in Russia than from Moussorgsky.

The question arises whether in his compositions of the few last years Debussy did not merely imitate himself, whether he had anything more to say. The believer in plenary inspiration of course shouts with joy on hearing the three sonatas that have been played in this country. Admiring Debussy greatly as we do, we cannot in this instance shout with him. Debussy can surely rest his fame on the string quartet; _L’Après-midi d’un faune_; _Gigues_, _Ibéria_, _Pelléas et Mélisande_, and some of the songs and the pianoforte pieces.

As for _Pelléas and Mélisande_, we believe it to be the perfect example in opera of music wedded to words and situations, an opera more remarkable in this respect than even _Tristan and Isolde_.

“PRÉLUDE À L’APRÈS-MIDI D’UN FAUNE” (ECLOGUE DE STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ)

Debussy’s _Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun_ is a masterpiece of imaginative poetry in tones; it is a thing of flawless beauty. It matters not whether the symbolism of Mallarmé be cryptic or intelligible. It matters not whether the explanation of Gosse or of another be ingenious and plausible. The title is enough to give a clue to the hearer, if a clue be needed. Debussy himself has composed nothing more charming in strictly orchestral music.

There is the suggestion of sunlight and warmth, forest and meadow dear to fauns and nymphs. There is the gentle melancholy that is associated with a perfect afternoon. There is the exquisite melodic line, and there is harmonic suggestion with inimitable coloring that is still more exquisite.

* * *

_Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune_, completed in 1892, was played for the first time at a concert of the National Society of Music, Paris, December 23, 1894. The conductor was Gustave Doret. According to Charles Koechlin, there had been insufficient rehearsal, so the performance left much to be desired, and the acoustics of the Salle d’Harcourt were unfavorable. When the second performance took place at a Colonne concert, a critic wrote: “This composer seems to dread banality.” “And yet,” says Koechlin, “the charm of this music is so simple, so melodic. But every _new_ melody should be heard several times. Besides, even the construction—a supple melodic line that is expanded—could be disconcerting. For certain writers about music, Debussy was a dangerous artist with a diabolical fascination: the worst possible example. Diabolical or not, the work has lasted. It has the votes of the élite: that is enough.”

The second performance was at a Colonne concert, Paris, October 20, 1895. In the _Annales du théâtre_, we find this singular note: “Written after a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé so sadistic that M. Colonne did not dare to print the text; young girls attend his concerts.”

To Debussy is attributed a short “explanation of his _Prelude_, a very free illustration of Mallarmé’s poem”: The music evokes “the successive scenes in which the longings and the desire of the Faun pass in the heat of the afternoon.”

Stéphane Mallarmé formulated his revolutionary ideas concerning style about 1875, when the _Parnasse contemporain_ rejected his first poem of true importance, _L’Après-midi d’un faune_. The poem was published in 1876 as a quarto pamphlet, illustrated by Manet.

Gosse gave this explanation of the poem that suggested music to Debussy: “It appears in the _florilège_ which he has just published, and I have now read it again, as I have often read it before. To say that I understand it bit by bit, phrase by phrase, would be excessive. But, if I am asked whether this famous miracle of unintelligibility gives me pleasure, I answer, cordially, Yes. I even fancy that I obtain from it as definite and as solid an impression as M. Mallarmé desires to produce.

“This is what I read in it: A faun—a simple, sensuous, passionate being—wakens in the forest at daybreak and tries to recall his experience of the previous afternoon. Was he the fortunate recipient of an actual visit from nymphs, white and golden goddesses, divinely tender and indulgent? Or is the memory he seems to retain nothing but the shadow of a vision, no more substantial than the ‘arid rain’ of notes from his own flute? He cannot tell. Yet surely there was, surely there is, an animal whiteness among the brown reeds of the lake that shines out yonder. Were they, are they, swans? No! But Naiads plunging? Perhaps! Vaguer and vaguer grows that impression of this delicious experience. He would resign his woodland godship to retain it. A garden of lilies, golden-headed, white-stalked, behind the trellis of red roses? Ah! the effort is too great for his poor brain. Perhaps if he selects one lily from the garth of lilies, one benign and beneficent yielder of her cup to thirsty lips, the memory, the ever receding memory, may be forced back. So when he has glutted upon a bunch of grapes, he is wont to toss the empty skins in the air and blow them out in a visionary greediness. But no, the delicious hour grows vaguer; experience or dream, he will never know which it was. The sun is warm, the grasses yielding; and he curls himself up again, after worshiping the efficacious star of wine, that he may pursue the dubious ecstasy into the more hopeful boskages of sleep.

“This, then, is what I read in the so excessively obscure and unintelligible. _L’Après-midi d’un faune_; and, accompanied as it is with a perfect suavity of language and melody of rhythm, I know not what more a poem of eight pages could be expected to give. It supplies a simple and direct impression of physical beauty, of harmony, of color; it is exceedingly mellifluous, when once the ear understands that the poet, instead of being the slave of the Alexandrine, weaves his variations round it, like a musical composer.”

_The Afternoon of a Faun_ is scored for three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two harps, small antique cymbals, strings. It is dedicated to Raymond Bonheur.

The chief theme is announced by the flute, _très modéré_, E major, 9-8. Louis Laloy gives the reins to his fancy: “One is immediately transported into a better world; all that is leering and savage in the snub-nosed face of the faun disappears; desire still speaks, but there is a veil of tenderness and melancholy. The chord of the wood-wind, the distant call of the horns, the limpid flood of harp tones, accentuate this impression. The call is louder, more urgent, but it almost immediately dies away, to let the flute sing again its song. And now the theme is developed: the oboe enters in, the clarinet has its say; a lively dialogue follows, and a clarinet phrase leads to a new theme which speaks of desire satisfied; or it expresses the rapture of mutual emotion rather than the ferocity of victory. The first theme returns, more languorous, and the croaking of muted horns darkens the horizon. The theme comes and goes, fresh chords unfold themselves; at last a solo violoncello joins itself to the flute; and then everything vanishes, as a mist that rises in the air and scatters itself in flakes.”[23]

NOCTURNES

a. Nuages b. Fêtes c. Sirènes

Baudelaire’s prose poem, “The Stranger,” might serve as motto for the first nocturne, and for a hint to performance.

“_Enigmatical man, whom do you love best? Tell me—your mother, your sister, or your brother?_”

“_I have neither father, mother, sister, nor brother._”

“_Your friends?_”

“_You now use a word which to this day has been meaningless to me._”

“_Your country?_”

“_I do not know under what latitude it lies._”

“_Beauty?_”

“_I would love her gladly; goddess and immortal._”

“_Well, what do you love, extraordinary stranger?_”

“_I love the clouds, the clouds that pass, yonder, the marvellous clouds._”

_Festivals_, with its strange processional march, its whirring capriciousness, makes a more direct appeal. Does the third movement answer the old question put by Tiberius to the grammarians and repeated by Sir Thomas Browne, “What song did the sirens sing?” Here is music of waves and of sea-women: music that never was heard on a casino-lined coast, but sounds that might go with “The light that never was, on sea or land.” Here is music that is subtly poetic, music of ineffable beauty. Suppose that Debussy had put words to this song; how he would have cheapened the nocturne! To each hearer on the ship of Ulysses, or to each hearer of Debussy’s music, the sirens sang of what might well lure him.

* * *

The first two nocturnes, _Nuages_ and _Fêtes_, were produced at a Lamoureux concert, Camille Chevillard conductor, Paris, December 9, 1900, and they were played by the same orchestra January 6, 1901. The third, _Sirènes_, was first produced—in company with the other two—at a Lamoureux concert, October 27, 1901. The third is for orchestra with chorus of female voices. At this last concert the friends of Debussy were so exuberant in manifestations of delight that there was sharp hissing as a corrective. The _Nocturnes_ were composed in 1898, and published in 1899.

Debussy furnished a programme for the suite; at least, this programme is attributed to him. Some who are not wholly in sympathy with what they loosely call “the modern movement” may think that the programme itself needs elucidation. Debussy’s peculiar forms of expression in prose are not easily Englished, and it is well-nigh impossible to reproduce certain shades of meaning.

“The title _Nocturnes_ is intended to have here a more general and, above all, a more decorative meaning. We, then, are not concerned with the form of the Nocturne, but with everything that this word includes in the way of diversified impression and special lights.

“_Clouds_: the unchangeable appearance of the sky, with the slow and solemn march of clouds dissolving in a gray agony tinted with white.

“_Festivals_: movement, rhythm dancing in the atmosphere, with bursts of brusque light. There is also the episode of a procession (a dazzling and wholly idealistic vision) passing through the festival and blended with it; but the main idea and substance obstinately remain—always the festival and its blended music—luminous dust participating in the universal rhythm of all things.

“_Sirens_: the sea and its innumerable rhythm; then amid the billows silvered by the moon the mysterious song of the Sirens is heard; it laughs and passes.”

Alfred Bruneau with regard to the _Nocturnes_: “Here, with the aid of a magic orchestra, he has lent to clouds traversing the sombre sky the various forms created by his imagination; he has set to running and dancing the chimerical beings perceived by him in the silvery dust scintillating in the moonbeams; he has changed the white foam of the restless sea into tuneful sirens.”

Questioning the precise nature of the form that shapes these _Nocturnes_, the reader may well ponder the saying of Plotinus in his “Essay on the Beautiful”: “But the simple beauty of color arises, when light, which is something incorporeal, and reason and form, entering the obscure involutions of matter, irradiates and forms its dark and formless nature. It is on this account that fire surpasses other bodies in beauty, because, compared with the other elements, it obtains the order of form: for it is more eminent than the rest, and is the most subtle of all, bordering as it were on an incorporeal nature.”

The _Nocturnes_ are scored as follows:

I. Two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, three bassoons, four horns, kettledrums, harp, strings. The movement begins _modéré_, 6-4.

II. Three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, three bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, two harps, kettledrums, cymbals, and snare drum, strings. _Animé et très rhythmé_, 4-4.

III. Three flutes, oboe, English horn, two clarinets, three bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, two harps, eight soprano voices, eight mezzo-soprano voices, strings, _modérément animé_, 12-8.

Debussy before his death made many changes in the instrumentation of these _Nocturnes_.

“LA MER,” TROIS ESQUISSES SYMPHONIQUES

I. De l’aube à midi sur la mer II. Jeux de vagues III. Dialogue du vent et de la mer

As these sketches are frankly impressionistic, the enjoyment of the hearer depends largely on his own susceptibility and imagination. There are persons who do not like the ocean. Oscar Wilde was disappointed in the Atlantic; but there are more normal beings, far from being poseurs, who cannot exclaim with Jules Laforgue, “the sea, always new, always respectable!” We know a man who was doomed to spend a vacation in a summer hotel on a bluff looking down on Nantucket Sound. Whenever he sat on a bench he turned his back to the ocean and faced pine trees, giving as an excuse that “the sea got on his nerves.”

Debussy’s _Sea_ is not for them, neither is it for those who find pleasure in Mendelssohn’s overture, _Sea Calm and Prosperous Voyage_, for Debussy knows a wilder ocean, many-faced, now exulting in Æschylean laughter, now spasmodic, sinister, terrible, and never so terrible as when calm, or inviting mortals to sport with it, and smiling—as though it were forgetful of rotting ships and sunken treasure and the drowned far down that were for a time regarded curiously by monsters of the deep.

* * *

These orchestral pieces (I. _From Dawn till Noon on the Ocean_; II. _Play of the Waves_; III. _Dialogue of Wind and Sea_) were performed for the first time at a Lamoureux concert in Paris, October 15, 1905. Camille Chevillard conducted.

Debussy wrote in August, 1903, from Bichain to his publisher Jacques Durand[24] that he was at work on _La Mer_. “If God will be good to me the work will be in a very advanced state on my return [to Paris].” He wrote later that the sketches would have three titles: _Mer belle aux Îles Sanguinaires_; _Jeux de vagues_; _Le Vent fait danser la mer_; and in September he said the work was intended for Chevillard. In September, 1904, he wrote from Dieppe, “I wanted to finish _La Mer_ here, but I must still work on the orchestration, which is as tumultuous and varied as the sea (with all my excuses to the latter).” In January, 1905, he was not sure that the title, “_De l’Aube à midi sur la mer_” would do: “So many contradictory things are dancing in my head, and this last attack of grippe has added its particular dance.” He also wrote that he had remade the end of _Jeux de vagues_. He was disturbed because Chevillard spoke of the difficulties in the music, but if he gave the score to Colonne there might be a row. In July and September, 1905, he complained of “very curious corrections” made by someone in the proofs; and the idea of a performance at Chevillard’s first concert seemed to him as bad as a performance at the last one of the season. At rehearsal it was found that the proofs had been badly read.

The Sketches, dedicated to Jacques Durand, were published at Paris in 1905. Debussy made an arrangement for two pianos; André Caplet made one in 1908 for three pianos.

_La Mer_ is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, three bassoons and contra-bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, two _cornets-à-pistons_, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, glockenspiel, two harps, and strings.

Debussy and the Sea

Debussy loved and respected the ocean. In 1905 he wrote from Eastbourne: “The sea rolls with a wholly British correctness. There is a lawn combed and brushed on which little bits of important and imperialistic English frolic. But what a place to work! No noise, no pianos, except the delicious mechanical pianos, no musicians talking about painting, no painters discussing music. In short, a pretty place to cultivate egoism.”

At Le Puy near Dieppe, August, 1906: “Here I am again with my old friend the sea, always innumerable and beautiful. It is truly the one thing in nature that puts you in your place; only one does not sufficiently respect the sea. To wet in it bodies deformed by the daily life should not be allowed; truly these arms and legs which move in ridiculous rhythms—it is enough to make the fish weep. There should be only Sirens in the sea, and could you wish that these estimable persons would be willing to return to waters so badly frequented?”

Houlgate, 1911: “Here life and the sea continue—the first to contradict our native savagery, the second to accomplish its sonorous going and coming, which cradles the melancholy of those who are deceived by the beach.”

Pourville, August, 1915: “Trees are good friends, better than the ocean, which is in motion, wishing to trespass on the land, bite the rocks, with the anger of a little girl—singular for a person of its importance. One would understand it if it sent the vessels about their business as disturbing vermin.”

“IBÉRIA”: “IMAGES” FOR ORCHESTRA, NO. 2

I. Par les rues et par les chemins (In the Streets and By-ways) II. Les Parfums de la nuit (The Fragrance of the Night) III. Le Matin d’un jour de fête (The Morning of a Festival Day)

The _Images_, of which _Ibéria_ is the second movement, are remarkable in many ways and to be ranked among the first compositions of this genius. They are impressionistic, but there is a sense of form; there is also the finest proportion. This music is conspicuous for exquisite effects of color. There are combinations of timbres and also contrasts that were hitherto unknown. There are hints of Spanish melodies; melodies not too openly exposed; there are intoxicating rhythms, sharply defined, or elusive, and then they are the more madding.

This music is pleasingly remote from photographic realism. The title might be “Impressions of Spain.” There is the suggestion of street life and wild strains heard on bleak plains or savage mountains; of the music of the people; of summer nights, warm and odorous; of the awakening of life with the break of day; of endless jotas, tangos, seguidillas, fandangoes; of gypsies with their spells brought from the East; of women with Moorish blood. _Ibéria_ defies analysis and beggars description.

What phrase-mongering, however ingenious, would impart the beauty of _Odors of the Night_ to him that did not hear the music? The music that haunts should not be lightly or openly talked about. The impression made by it should be guarded or confided only to the closest friend.

To speak of Debussy’s use of instruments to gain effects, of his ability to reproduce what had not been heard by others, though they may have felt it feebly and had the wish to hear it clearly and put it in notation, would be a classroom task. To write of it for the general reader would be only to rhapsodize. Now Debussy is a rhapsodist of the rarest nature, and his musical speech is not to be translated by a rhapsody in words.

* * *

_Ibéria_ is the second in a series of three orchestral compositions by Debussy entitled _Images_.

The first, _Gigues_—it was originally entitled _Gigue Triste_—was published in 1913 and performed for the first time at a Colonne concert, Paris, January 26, 1913. _Ibéria_ was performed for the first time at a Colonne concert in Paris on February 20, 1910, Gabriel Pierné, conductor.

M. Boutarel wrote after the first performance that the hearers are supposed to be in Spain. The bells of horses and mules are heard, and the joyous sounds of wayfarers. The night falls; nature sleeps and is at rest until bells and _aubades_ announce the dawn, and the world awakens to life. “Debussy appears in this work to have exaggerated his tendency to treat music with means of expression analogous to those of the impressionistic painters. Nevertheless, the rhythm remains well defined and frank in _Ibéria_. Do not look for any melodic design, nor any carefully woven harmonic web. The composer of _Images_ attaches importance only to tonal color. He puts his timbres side by side, adopting a process like that of the _Tachistes_ or the ‘stipplers’ in distributing coloring.” The Debussyites and “_Pelléastres_” wished _Ibéria_ repeated, but, while the majority of the audience was willing to applaud, it did not long for a repetition. Repeated the next Sunday, _Ibéria_ aroused “frenetic applause and vehement protestations.”

_Ibéria_ is scored for these instruments: piccolo, three flutes (one interchangeable with a second piccolo), two oboes, English horn, three clarinets, three bassoons, double bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, side drum, tambourine, castanets, xylophone, celesta, cymbals, three bells (F, G, A), two harps, and the usual strings.

Debussy wrote on May 16, 1905, to Jacques Durand, his publisher, that he was preparing these compositions for two pianofortes: “I. _Gigues tristes._ II. _Ibéria._ III. _Valse_ (?).” In September of that year he hoped to finish them. 1906, August 8: “I have at present three different ways of finishing _Ibéria_. Shall I toss up a coin or search for a fourth?” In September, 1907, the _Images_ would be ready as soon as the _Rondes_ were “_comme je le veux et comme il faut_.” In 1908 Debussy was hard at work on his opera, _The Fall of the House of Usher_, an opera of which, it is said, no sketches have been found. (Durand received Debussy’s libretto in 1917.) In 1909 he wrote that he had laid the _Images_ aside “to the advantage of Edgar Allan Poe.” He also worked on an opera, _The Devil in the Belfry_.

In 1910: “I have seen Pierné. I think he exaggerates the difficulties in a performance of _Ibéria_.”

Debussy wrote on December 4, 1910, from Budapest, where he gave a concert of his works, that _Ibéria_ was especially successful. “They could not play _The Sea_ no more the _Nocturnes_, from want of rehearsal. I was assured that the orchestra knew _The Sea_, for it had been played through three times. Ah! my friend, if you had heard it!... I assure you to put _Ibéria_ right in two rehearsals was, indeed, an effort.... Don’t forget that these players understood me only through an interpreter—a sort of Doctor of Law—who perhaps transmitted my thought only by deforming it. I tried every means. I sang, made the gestures of Italian pantomime, etc.—it was enough to touch the heart of a buffalo. Well, they at last understood me, and I had the last word. I was recalled like a ballet girl, and if the idolatrous crowd did not unharness the horses of my carriage, it was because I had a simple taxi. The moral of this journey is that I am not made to exercise the profession of composer of music in a foreign land. The heroism of a commercial traveler is needed. One must consent to a sort of compromise which decidedly repels me.”

ANTON DVOŘÁK

(Born at Mühlhausen [Nelahozeves] near Kralup, Bohemia, September 8, 1841; died at Prague, May 1, 1904)

The winning and endearing qualities of childhood were in Dvořák’s best music: artless simplicity, irresistible frankness, delight in nature and life. His music was best when it smacked of the soil, when he remembered his early days, the strains of vagabond musicians, the dances dear to his folk. One of a happily primitive people, he delighted in rhythm and color. He was not the man to translate pictures, statues, poems, a system of metaphysics, a gospel of pessimism into music. He was least successful when he would be heroic, mystical, profound. It was an evil day for him when England “discovered” him, patronized him, ordered oratorios from him for her festivals, made him a doctor of music (as though he were a cathedral organist), and tried to turn this _Naturmensch_ into a drawing-room and church celebrity. When Dvořák is dull, he is very dull. His Slavonic Dances and such a song as “Als die alte Mutter” are worth a wilderness of “St. Ludmilas” and “Heldenlieds.” And his work as a creative musician was no doubt at an end when he left this country to go back to his beloved Prague.

Some have been inclined to think lightly of Dvořák because his best and vital qualities were recognized by the people. This popularity irritated those who believe that pure art is only for the few—the purists; they forget Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Verdi, Wagner, Tchaikovsky. But this popularity was based on the quick recognition of essential qualities: melody, rhythm, color. Slavonic intensity has a purpose, an esoteric meaning. Dvořák might have replied to lecturers, essayists, and the genteel in Whitman’s words:

_Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well, I have—for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has._

_Do you take it I would astonish? Does the daylight astonish? Does the early redstail, twittering through the woods?_

Dvořák had his faults, and they were tiresome and exasperating. His naïveté became a mannerism. Like a child, he delighted in vain repetitions; he was at times too much pleased with rhythms and colors, so that he mistook the exterior dress for the substance and forgot that after all there was little or no substance behind the brilliant trappings. We believe that he will ultimately be ranked among the minor poets of music. His complete works may gather dust in libraries; but no carefully chosen anthology will be without examples of his piquancy, strength, and beauty in thought and expression.

SYMPHONY NO. 5, IN E MINOR, “FROM THE NEW WORLD,” OP. 95

I. Adagio; allegro molto II. Largo III. Scherzo IV. Allegro con fuoco

Dvořák was an Austrian of a sort, and lived his time in Vienna, like the others. But he had Czech blood in his veins, and had, moreover, pretty well formed his style before coming to Vienna; besides, he was a peasant and had not only been brought up in, but had a native affinity for, the peasant musical atmosphere; Vienna taught him no dancing-master tricks. It is at once curious and delightful to note how, in this symphony, Dvořák sticks to his peasant dialect. Once, in the _scherzo_, he rises to the Schubert pitch of civilization (and Schubert himself was an incorrigible man of the people), but for the rest remains peasant as he was born and bred. And as his dialect is really his native lingo, it has all the charm of reality and does not offend nor bore you—as so-called dialect novels do. Here in this symphony Dvořák has done, perhaps, the best work of his life; not the most genuine, for he is hardly ever anything but genuine, but the most thoroughly poetic and beautiful. There are parts of the _finale_ that seem clearly intended as a picture of—or say, rather, clearly inspired by memories of—a peasant’s Sunday afternoon _Keilerei_, or free fight (of the “where you see a head, hit” sort).

* * *

Dvořák in 1892-93 was living in New York as the director of the National Conservatory of Music. He made many sketches for this symphony. In the first of the three books used for this purpose, he noted “Morning, December 19, 1892.” Fuller sketches began January 10, 1893. The slow movement was then entitled “_Legenda_.” The _scherzo_ was completed January 31; the _finale_, May 25, 1893. A large part of the instrumentation was done at Spillville, Ia., where many Bohemians dwelt.

This symphony was performed for the first time, in manuscript, by the Philharmonic Society of New York on Friday afternoon, December 15, 1893. Anton Seidl conducted. Dvořák was present.

When this symphony was played at Berlin in 1900, Dvořák wrote to Oskar Nedbal, who conducted it: “I send you Kretzschmar’s analysis of the symphony, but omit that nonsense about my having made use of ‘Indian’ and ‘American’ themes—that is a lie. I tried to write only in the spirit of those national American melodies. Take the introduction to the symphony as slowly as possible.”

The symphony aroused a controversy in which there was shedding of much ink. The controversy long ago died out, and is probably forgotten even by those who read the polemical articles at the time and expressed their own opinions. The symphony remains. It is now without associations that might prejudice. It is now enjoyed or appreciated, or possibly passed by, as music, and not as an exhibit in a case on trial.

Yet it may be good to recall the circumstances of the symphony’s origin. In the feverish days of the discussion excited by the first performance of this symphony, it was stated that Mr. Krehbiel and others called the attention of Dvořák, who was then living in New York, to Negro melodies and rhythms; that the Bohemian composer then wept with joy and rushed after music paper; that he journeyed to a Western town inhabited chiefly by Bohemians, a town in Iowa, where he could find the stimulating atmosphere to write masterpieces of a truly American nature. Some may also remember that soon after the first performances of the symphony there was a distressing rumor that portions of it had been composed long before Dvořák came to New York; long before his eyes were dimmed and his knees turned to water by hearing Negro tunes.

The conclusion of the whole matter, according to several Czechs whom William Ritter (author of a life of Smetana) consulted, is as follows:

I. The _New World_ symphony expresses the state of soul of an uncultured Czech in America, the state of a homesick soul remembering his native land and stupefied by the din and hustle of a new life.

II. The uncultured Czech is a born musician, a master of his trade. He is interested in the only traces of music that he finds in America. Negro airs, not copied, adapted, imitated, tint slightly two or three passages of the symphony without injury to its Czech character.

III. The symphony leaped, Minerva-like, from the head of this uncultured genius. As nearly all his other compositions, except the operas, it was not stimulated by any foreign assistance, by any consultation of authors, or by quotations, reading, etc., as was especially the case with Brahms.

IV. The national Czech feeling in this work, quickened by homesickness, is so marked that it is recognized throughout Bohemia, by the learned and by the humblest.

These are the conclusions of Mr. Ritter after a painstaking investigation. That Dvořák was most unhappy and pathetically homesick during his sojourn in New York is known to many, though Mr. Ritter does not enter into any long discussion of the composer’s mental condition in this country.

Yet some will undoubtedly continue to insist that the symphony _From the New World_ is based, for the most part, on Negro themes, and that the future of American music rests on the use of Congo, North American Indian, Creole, Greaser, and Cowboy ditties, whinings, yawps, and whoopings.

The symphony is scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes (one interchangeable with English horn), two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, cymbals, triangle, and strings.

EDWARD WILLIAM ELGAR

(Born at Broadheath, near Worcester, England, June 2, 1857; died at Worcester, February 23, 1934)

Nearly one hundred years ago, William Hazlitt wrote a few words concerning a speech on Indian affairs by the Marquis Wellesley, the eldest brother of the Duke of Wellington. These words may be justly applied to Sir Edward Elgar, composer of _The Dream of Gerontius_, two symphonies, the popular march _Pomp and Circumstance_, and other works familiar to our concert audiences.

“Seeming to utter volumes in every word, and yet saying nothing; retaining the same unabated vehemence of voice and action without anything to excite it; still keeping alive the promise and the expectation of genius without once satisfying it—soaring into mediocrity with adventurous enthusiasm, harrowed up by some plain matter of fact, writhing with agony under a truism, and launching a commonplace with all the fury of a thunderbolt.”

VARIATIONS ON AN ORIGINAL THEME, “ENIGMA,” OP. 36

Theme: Andante. Variations: I. “C.A.E.” L’istesso tempo II. “H.D.S.-P.” Allegro III. “R.B.T.” Allegretto IV. “W.M.B.” Allegro di molto V. “R.P.A.” Moderato VI. “Ysobel” Andantino VII. “Troyte” Presto VIII. “W.N.” Allegretto IX. “Nimrod” Moderato X. “Dorabella—Intermezzo.” Allegro XI. “G.R.S.” Allegro di molto XII. “B.G.N.” Andante XIII. “X.X.X.—Romanza.” Moderato XIV. “E.D.U.—Finale”

Elgar’s Variations were once regarded as a brilliant show-piece for an orchestra. There was a time when Elgar was held to be a “great” composer. Time, the Old Man with a Scythe, has a disconcerting way of handling it. The music with a few exceptions seems at the best respectable in a middle-class manner; the sort of music that gives the composer the degree of Mus. Doc. from an English university. In Elgar’s case, his music won him knighthood, and to this day there are “Elgar Festivals” in England. Was Cecil Gray too severe when he wrote of Elgar: “He never gets entirely away from the atmosphere of pale, cultured idealism and the unconsciously hypocritical, self-righteous, Pharisaical gentlemanliness which is so characteristic of British art in the last century”?

* * *

These Variations, composed at Malvern in 1899, were first performed at one of Hans Richter’s concerts in London, June 19, 1899. Mr. Felix Borowski, the excellent editor of the Chicago Orchestra’s Programme Books, says: “Richter had never met the English composer when, in Vienna, he received the score of the Variations from his agent in the British capital; but the conductor determined to exploit a work which appeared to him to possess qualities of strength and skill that had not been made evident in many English compositions. ‘The _Enigma_ Variations,’ wrote Robert J. Buckley, ‘toured by Richter’s band, set the seal on Elgar’s reputation. Richter did for Elgar what he had done for Wagner thirty years before. England was won for Wagner by Richter and the _Tannhäuser_ overture. England was won for Elgar by Richter and the _Enigma_ Variations.’[25] It should, however, be pointed out that the Variations, as produced by Richter in June, 1899, were not quite the same composition as that which has been made familiar to every concert-going audience in the world. After the first performance, Elgar, at the instigation of Hans Richter, added a _coda_, and he made various changes in the orchestration throughout the piece. In this revised form it was produced at the Worcester Festival, the composer conducting his work, September 13, 1899.” The Variations were first played in Germany at a concert of the Städtische Musikverein, Düsseldorf, February 7, 1901; Julius Buths, conductor.

The score, which includes a theme and fourteen variations, is dedicated by the composer to his “friends pictured within.” Elgar himself said: “It is true that I have sketched, for their amusement and mine, the idiosyncrasies of fourteen of my friends, not necessarily musicians; but this is a personal matter and need not have been mentioned publicly. The Variations should stand simply as a ‘piece’ of music. The Enigma I will not explain—its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the apparent connection between the Variations and the theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes’ but is not played.... So the principal theme never appears, even as in some late dramas—e.g., Maeterlinck’s _L’Intruse_ and _Les Sept Princesses_: the chief character is never on the stage.”

Elgar’s work is scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, double bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, snare drum, bass drum, triangle, cymbals, organ (_ad lib._), and strings.

THEME

The theme, or the “Enigma,” is an _andante_, G minor, 4-4, of a melancholy nature, with a halting and sighing melody. A few measures of musical notation would show more clearly the nature of the following variations than any verbal description, however graphic.

Elgar wrote to the late August Johannes Jaeger that he had composed thirteen variations, but, yielding to superstition, he had called the _finale_ the fourteenth.

VARIATIONS

I. “C.A.E.” _L’istesso tempo_, G minor, 4-4. The initials are Lady Elgar’s. The theme, changed in rhythm, is given to the second violins and violas tremolo; flute and clarinet in octaves. The close, _pianississimo_, is in G major.

II. “H.D.S.-P.” _Allegro_, G minor, 3-8. The theme finally appears in the violoncellos and basses under a staccato figure for wood-wind, later violins.

III. “R.B.T.” _Allegretto_, G major, 3-8. Fragments of the theme are played by oboe and violins (_pizzicato_) against a counter theme for wood-wind.

IV. “W.M.B.” A spirited, vigorous variation. _Allegro di molto_, G minor-major 3-4. Strings, wood-wind, and horns proclaim the theme. The last measures call for the full strength of the orchestra.

V. “R.P.A.” _Moderato_, C minor, 12-8 (4-4). A counter melody is developed against the theme (bassoons, violoncellos, and double basses), first above the theme and then below it.

VI. “Ysobel.” _Andantino_, C major 3-2. A lyrical movement with a cantilena for solo viola, while gentle phrases are given to the woodwind and horns.

VII. “Troyte.” _Presto_, C major, 4-4. Wood-wind and violins have a bold figure over a _basso ostinato_ for violoncellos, double basses, kettledrums. This figure, changed, is afterwards given to the basses.

VIII. “W.N.” _Allegretto_, G major, 6-8. Clarinets vary the theme.

IX. “Nimrod.” _Moderato_, E flat major, 3-4. This and the next variations are in strong contrast to each other and to those that precede. “Nimrod” is a tribute to Elgar’s friend Jaeger. Elgar’s Variations were performed at a memorial concert to Jaeger in London on January 24, 1910. Hans Richter conducted. Elgar wrote this note for the programme: “The Variations are not all ‘portraits.’... Something ardent and mercurial, in addition to the slow movement (No. IX), would have been needful to portray the character and temperament of A. J. Jaeger. The variation is a record of a long summer evening talk, when my friend grew nobly eloquent (as only he could) on the grandeur of Beethoven, and especially of his slow movements.” The strings (2d violins, violas, and violoncellos divided) sing the theme, _pianississimo_. Later the wood-wind and brass enlarge it.

X. “Dorabella—Intermezzo.” _Allegretto_, G major, 3-4, a sparkling, joyous variation, scored lightly for muted strings and wood-wind; a horn is heard in one measure, and there are a few strokes on the kettledrums.

XI. “G.R.S.” _Allegro di molto_, G minor, 2-2. An English reviewer says of this variation: “The furious pedaling in the basses seems to confirm our suspicion that this is the ‘picture’ of a well-known Cathedral organist.” This organist is probably Dr. George Roberton Sinclair, a friend and neighbor of Elgar at Hereford. The basses play a staccato variation of the theme. Later the brass has it _fortissimo_.

XII. “B.G.N.” _Andante_, G minor, 4-4. A song for violoncellos in which violas join later with first violins for the climax.

XIII. “X.X.X.—Romanza.” _Moderato_, G major, 3-4. The story is that “X.X.X.” was at sea when Elgar wrote this variation. We quote from Mr. Daniel Gregory Mason’s essay on Elgar: “Violas in a quietly undulating rhythm suggests the ocean expanse; an almost inaudible tremor of the drum gives the throb of the engines; a quotation from Mendelssohn’s _Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage_ (clarinet) completes the story. Yet ‘story’ it is not—and there is the subtlety of it. Dim sea and dreamlike steamer are only accessories, after all. The thought of the distant friend, the human soul there, is what quietly disengages itself as the essence of the music.”[26] Ernest Newman speaks of the “curious drum roll, like the faint throb of the engines of a big liner.”[27]

XIV. “E.D.U.—Finale.” _Allegro_, G major, with an introduction. There are various modifications of tempo; the final section is a _presto_. The organ part was added after the first performance. “The _finale_ is an elaborate movement, starting _pianissimo_, but soon developing strength and brilliancy in a richly scored marchlike strain, with which anon the _ritmo di tre_ of Variation IX, ‘Nimrod’ (but in augmentation) is combined in a grandiose and triumphant passage, which virtually forms the climax of the work.” There is also a reminiscence of the opening strain of Variation I, _pianississimo_.

MANUEL DE FALLA

(Born at Cadiz, November 23, 1876)

BALLET-PANTOMIME: “EL AMOR BRUJO”

The suite derived from de Falla’s “choreographic fantasy,” _Love, the Sorcerer_, does not suffer so much by its separation from the theatrical situations, action, and stage settings as other suites arranged from ballets. There are many pages that are enjoyable as pure music without thought of a plot and the evolutions of a ballet, without the question of whether this number or that is illustrative of an episode in the ballet. If de Falla expresses the wildness of Spanish gypsy music in a fascinating manner, he is equally fortunate in the expression of gentle emotions. There is little that is sensuous or voluptuous in the suite. The music for the scene of the appearance of a ghost which cools the amorous ardor of Candelas when her new lover would approach her—here one is reminded of the chief theme of Anatole France’s amusing and satirical _Histoire comique_—is, perhaps, imbued with passionate fervor for performance on the stage.

* * *

This _Gitaneria_ (Gypsy Life) in one act and two scenes, a choreographic fantasy with voice and small orchestra, book by Gregorio Martinez Sierra (known in this country by the plays _A Romantic Young Lady_, _Cradle Song_, _The Kingdom of God_), was produced at the Teatro de Lara, Madrid, April 15, 1915, with the Señora Pastora Imperio assisting. A concert version was performed at Madrid in 1916, E. Fernandez Arbos conductor, at a concert of the Sociedad Nacional de Música. According to G. Jean-Aubry, “De Falla drew from the music certain symphonic excerpts, in which he suppressed the spoken or sung parts and enlarged the instrumentation.... But this did not alter the essential character of the work, which is to be found in its particular color, or the semi-Arabian style of its idioms.”

This suite was performed for the first time in London on November 23, 1921.

Sierra based the libretto of de Falla’s ballet pantomime on an Andalusian gypsy story. _Brujo_ means a wizard, a male witch. Mr. Trent, in his _Manuel de Falla and Spanish Music_, writes: “_L’Amour sorcier_ has misled both audiences and English translators. _Love the Wizard_ gives an entirely wrong impression; _Wedded by Witchcraft_, proposed as an alternative, is a description, more or less, of what happens; and even that would be better as _Wedded in Spite of Witchcraft_.”

There was a small orchestra when the work was first produced. As finally revised, the score calls for piccolo, two flutes, oboe, two clarinets, bassoon, two horns, two trumpets, kettledrums, bells (A, D, C), piano, and strings. A mezzo-soprano sings “behind”; but in concerts the voice is replaced by a horn, or in one place an English horn.

When Mr. Arbos conducted this work in St. Louis, the Programme Book, edited by Harry R. Burke, contained this synopsis of the story published as a preface to the piano score:

“Candelas, a young, very beautiful and passionate woman has loved a wicked, jealous and dissolute, but fascinating and cajoling Gypsy. Although having led a very unhappy life with him, she has loved him intensely and mourned his loss, unable ever to forget him. Her memory of him is something like a hypnotic dream, a morbid, gruesome, and maddening spell. She is terrified by the thought that the dead may not be entirely gone, that he may return, that he continues to love her in that fierce, shadowy, faithless, and caressing way. She lets herself become a prey to the past as if under the influence of a specter; yet she is young, strong, vivacious. Spring returns, and with it love, in the shape of Carmelo.

“Carmelo, a handsome youth, enamored and gallant, makes love to her. Candelas, not unwilling to be won, almost unconsciously returns his love; but the obsession of her past weighs against her present inclination. When Carmelo approaches her and endeavors to make her share his passion, the Specter returns and terrifies Candelas, whom he separates from her lover. They cannot exchange the kiss of perfect love.

“Carmelo being gone, Candelas languishes and droops; she feels as if bewitched, and her past love seems to flutter heavily about her like malevolent and foreboding bats. But this evil spell has to be broken, and Carmelo believes he has found a remedy. He has once been the comrade of the Gypsy whose specter haunts Candelas. He knows that the dead lover was the typical faithless and jealous Andalusian gallant. Since he appears to retain, even after his death, his taste for beautiful women, he must be taken on his weak side and thus diverted from his posthumous jealousy in order that Carmelo may exchange with Candelas the perfect kiss against which the sorcery of love cannot prevail.

“Carmelo persuades Lucia, a young and enchantingly pretty Gypsy girl, the friend of Candelas, to simulate acceptance of the Specter’s addresses. Lucia, out of love for Candelas and from feminine curiosity, agrees. The idea of a flirtation with a ghost seems to her attractive and novel. And then the dead man was so mirthful in life. Lucia takes up the sentinel’s post. Carmelo returns to make love to Candelas, and the Specter intervenes ... but he finds the charming little Gypsy, and neither can nor will resist the temptation, not being experienced in withstanding the allurements of a pretty face. He makes love to Lucia, coaxing and imploring her, and the coquettish young Gypsy almost brings him to despair. In the meantime Carmelo succeeds in convincing Candelas of his love, and life triumphs over death and the past. The lovers at last exchange the kiss that defeats the evil influence of the Specter, who perishes, definitely conquered by love.”

THREE DANCES TAKEN FROM THE BALLET “THE THREE-CORNERED HAT”

I. The Neighbors II. The Miller’s Dance III. Final Dance

The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, side drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, xylophone, tam-tam, castanets, celesta, harp, piano, and the usual strings.

When the Russian Ballet visited Spain, Serge de Diaghilev was so much interested in the work of de Falla that he commissioned him to write a ballet on the subject of Alarcón’s novel, _El Sombrero de Tres Picos_.

This ballet _The Three-cornered Hat_ was performed for the first time on any stage by the Russian Ballet at the Alhambra, London. Joaquin Turina says (_The Chesterian_, May, 1920) that the first version of _The Three-cornered Hat_ was produced at the Eslava Theater, Madrid, under the title of _El Corregidor y la Molinera_. Turina was then conducting this theater’s orchestra. The “pantomime” of de Falla was accompanied by only seventeen players. “The composer was confronted with one great difficulty, and that was to follow musically the action of the play without spoiling the unity of his score. The music therefore continually reflected a certain anxiety on the composer’s part, as if he were trying to disentangle himself, so to speak, from the external network. The transformation of the ‘pantomime’ into a ballet at once cleared away all these difficulties. This is quite natural, for in the new version the action became reduced to a strictly indispensable minimum, and the dances became predominant, those already existing being considerably amplified.”

Turina finds the Miller’s Dance the most interesting “because of its typically Andalusian character, its fascinating rhythm which is like an affirmation of Southern art, and its Moorish character.” In the Final Dance the _jota_ and the folk theme called _vito_ are introduced.

The _Daily Telegraph_ (London, July 24, 1919) said of the ballet:

“Over the whole brisk action is the spirit of frivolous comedy of a kind by no means common only to Spain of the eighteenth century. A young miller and his wife are the protagonists, and if their existence be idyllic in theory, it is extraordinarily strenuous in practice—choreographically. But that is only another way of saying that M. Massine and Mme Karsavina, who enact the couple, are hardly ever off the stage, and that both of them work with an energy and exuberance that almost leave one breathless at moments. The miller and his wife between them, however, would scarcely suffice even for a slender ballet plot. So we have as well an amorous _corregidor_ (or governor), who orders the miller’s arrest so that the way may be cleared for a pleasant little flirtation—if nothing more serious—with the captivating wife. Behold the latter fooling him with a seductive dance, and then evading her admirer with such agility that, in his pursuit of her, he tumbles over a bridge into the mill stream. But, as this is comedy, and not melodrama, the would-be lover experiences nothing worse than a wetting, and the laugh, which is turned against him, is renewed when, having taken off some of his clothes to dry them and gone to rest on the miller’s bed, his presence is discovered by the miller himself, who, in revenge, goes off in the intruder’s garments after scratching a message on the wall to the effect that ‘Your wife is no less beautiful than mine!’ Thereafter a ‘gallimaufry of gambols’ and—curtain!”

CÉSAR FRANCK

(Born at Liège, Belgium, December 10, 1822; died at Paris, November 8, 1890)

What a characteristic figure is this artist of the nineteenth century, whose profile stands out so boldly from the surroundings in which he lived! An artist of another age, whose work makes one think of that of the great Bach! Franck went through this life as a dreamer, seeing little or nothing of that which passed about him, thinking only of his art, and living only for it. True artists are subject to this kind of hypnotism—the inveterate workers, who find the recompense of their labor in the accomplished fact, and an incomparable joy in the pure and simple toil of each day. They have no need to search for the echo in the crowd.

When Ysaye and Lachaume introduced Franck’s violin sonata (in Boston) in 1895; when these and others introduced the magnificent piano quintet in 1898, leading musicians of this city shook wise heads and said with an air of finality: “This will never do.” The string quartet was only tolerated, endured because it was produced at a Kneisel concert, and at that time the Kneisels could do no wrong. _The Wild Huntsman_, produced here by Theodore Thomas in 1898, was looked on as the work of an eccentric and theatrical Frenchman.

When Mr. Gericke produced the symphony in 1899, the storm broke loose. There were letters of angry protest. A leading critic characterized the symphony as “dismal.” Several subscribers to the concerts called it “immoral” and vowed they would not attend any concert at which music by Franck was to be played.

Nor did Franck fare better for a time in New York. Even the broad-minded James Huneker dismissed him as a sort of Abbé Liszt, now in the heavily scented boudoir, now with self-conscious devotion in the church. Franck in the boudoir! Poor “_Père_” Franck!

And so Franck had to make his way here, as in Paris, misunderstood, abused, regarded by some as an anarchist, by some as a bore. This, men and brethren, should make us all tolerant, even cautious in passing judgment on contemporary composers whose idiom is as yet strange to us. Cocksure opinions are valuable chiefly to the one who expresses them.

Let us hear what is going on in the musical world, even if it is going on noisily and queerly in our ears. It is not enough to say: “I don’t like it. Why does —— put such pieces on the programme?” Inherently bad music will soon disappear of itself, unless it is so bad, with such obviously vulgar tunes, that it becomes popular. But music is not necessarily bad because it is of a strange and irregular nature. For audiences to have no curiosity about new works, no spur to hot discussion concerning them, is a sign of stagnation in art. Thus César Franck, a great teacher, teaches us all indirectly a lesson.

SYMPHONY IN D MINOR

I. Lento; allegro non troppo II. Allegretto III. Allegro non troppo

As the “_Pelléastres_” for a time did Debussy harm, so the “Franckists” injured the reputation of César Franck. They insisted on his aloofness from earthly strife, joy, sorrow, passion. They proclaimed him a mystic, dwelling in the seventh heaven and hearing, if not the celestial choir, at least the music of the spheres. His compositions were of plenary inspiration: not a note could be added; not a note could be taken away.

A reaction was inevitable. Younger composers, escaping his influence, were tired of his alleged perfection. Older composers, envious no doubt of his fame, were wearied by the recital of his private and musical virtues. Was he overestimated soon after his death? For some years it has been the fashion to underestimate him; to speak of “the false mysticism of the old Belgian angel.” Too frequent repetitions of his music, even of that masterpiece the violin sonata and of his symphony, were not of benefit to him. (It was as with Tchaikovsky and his _Pathetic_ symphony.)

Today it is only just to recognize Franck’s eminence among composers. To say that his symphony is flawless is not so easy. We believe that in the first movement the return of the somber introduction, even with a changed tonality, before the full exposition, development and continuance of the main body of the movement, was a mistake. It might reasonably be said that there is in this movement overelaboration, a surplusage of detail, unnecessary repetitions of thematic fragments given in turn to various instruments or choirs of instruments, a favorite device of Tchaikovsky’s. There might something be said with regard to diffuseness in the other movements.

* * *

This symphony was produced at the Conservatoire, Paris, February 17, 1889. It was composed in 1888 and completed August 22 of that year.

Vincent d’Indy[28] in his Life of Franck gives some particulars about the first performance of the Symphony in D minor. “The performance was quite against the wish of most members of the famous orchestra, and was only pushed through thanks to the benevolent obstinacy of the conductor, Jules Garcin. The subscribers could make neither head nor tail of it, and the musical authorities were much in the same position. I inquired of one of them—a professor at the Conservatoire, and a kind of factotum on the committee—what he thought of the work. ‘That a symphony?’ he replied in contemptuous tones. ‘But, my dear sir, who ever heard of writing for the English horn in a symphony? Just mention a single symphony by Haydn or Beethoven introducing the English horn. There, well, you see—your Franck’s music may be whatever you please, but it will certainly never be a symphony!’” This was the attitude of the Conservatoire in the year of grace 1889.

“At another door of the concert hall, the composer of _Faust_, escorted by a train of adulators, male and female, fulminated a kind of papal decree to the effect that this symphony was the affirmation of incompetence pushed to dogmatic lengths. For sincerity and disinterestedness we must turn to the composer himself, when, on his return from the concert, his whole family surrounded him, asking eagerly for news. ‘Well, were you satisfied with the effect on the public? Was there plenty of applause?’ To which ‘Father Franck,’ thinking only of his work, replied with a beaming countenance: ‘Oh, it sounded well; just as I thought it would!’”

D’Indy describes Gounod leaving the concert hall of the Conservatoire after the first performance of Franck’s symphony, surrounded by incense burners of each sex, and saying particularly that this symphony was “the affirmation of impotence pushed to dogma.” Perhaps Gounod made this speech; perhaps he didn’t; some of Franck’s disciples are too busy in adding to the legend of his martyrdom. D’Indy says little about the structure of this symphony, although he devotes a chapter to Franck’s string quartet.

Speaking of Franck’s sonata for violin and pianoforte, he calls attention to the fact that the first of its organic germs is used as the theme of the four movements of the work. “From this moment cyclical form, the basis of modern symphonic art, was created and consecrated.” He then adds:

“The majestic, plastic, and perfectly beautiful Symphony in D minor is constructed on the same method. I purposely use the word _method_ for this reason: After having long described Franck as an empiricist and an improviser—which is radically wrong—his enemies (of whom, in spite of his incomparable goodness, he made many) and his ignorant detractors suddenly changed their views and called him a musical mathematician, who subordinated inspiration and impulse to a conscientious manipulation of form. This, we may observe in passing, is a common reproach brought by the ignorant Philistine against the dreamer and the genius. Yet where can we point to a composer in the second half of the nineteenth century who could—and did—think as loftily as Franck, or who could have found in his fervent and enthusiastic heart such vast ideas as those which lie at the musical basis of the symphony, the quartet, and _The Beatitudes_?

“It frequently happens in the history of art that a breath passing through the creative spirits of the day incites them, without any previous mutual understanding, to create works which are identical in form, if not in significance. It is easy to find examples of this kind of artistic telepathy between painters and writers, but the most striking instances are furnished by the musical art.

“Without going back upon the period we are now considering, the years between 1884 and 1889 are remarkable for a curious return to pure symphonic form. Apart from the younger composers, and one or two unimportant representatives of the old school, three composers who had already made their mark—Lalo, Saint-Saëns, and Franck—produced true symphonies at this time, but widely different as regards external aspects and ideas.

“Lalo’s Symphony in G minor, which is on very classical lines, is remarkable for the fascination of its themes, and still more for charm and elegance of rhythm and harmony, distinctive qualities of the imaginative composer of _Le Roi d’Ys_.

“The C minor symphony of Saint-Saëns, displaying undoubted talent, seems like a challenge to the traditional laws of tonal structure; and although the composer sustains the combat with cleverness and eloquence, and in spite of the indisputable interest of the work—founded, like many others by this composer, upon a prose theme, the _Dies Iræ_—yet the final impression is that of doubt and sadness.

“Franck’s symphony, on the contrary, is a continual ascent towards pure gladness and life-giving light because its workmanship is solid, and its themes are manifestations of ideal beauty. What is there more joyous, more sanely vital, than the principal subject of the _finale_, around which all the other themes in the work cluster and crystallize? While in the higher registers all is dominated by that motive which M. Ropartz has justly called ‘the theme of faith.’”

The symphony is scored for two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two cornets, three trombones, bass tuba, tympani, harps, and strings. The score is dedicated to Henri Duparc.

GEORG FRIDERIC HANDEL

(Born at Halle, February 23, 1685; died at London, April 14, 1759)

“Mr. Georg Frideric Handel,” Mr. Runciman once wrote, “is by far the most superb personage one meets, in the history of music. He alone, of all the musicians, lived his life straight through in the grand manner.”[29] When Handel wrote “_pomposo_” on a page, he wrote not idly. What magnificent simplicity in outlines!... For melodic lines of such chaste and noble beauty, such Olympian authority, no one has approached Handel. “Within that circle none durst walk but he.” His nearest rival is the Chevalier Gluck.

And this giant of a man could express a tenderness known only to him and Mozart, for Schubert, with all his melodic wealth and sensitiveness, could fall at times into sentimentalism, and Schumann’s intimate confessions were sometimes whispered. Handel in his tenderness was always manly. No one has approached him in his sublimely solemn moments! Few composers, if there is anyone, have been able to produce such pathetic or sublime effects by simple means, by a few chords even. He was one of the greatest melodists. His fugal pages seldom seem labored; they are distinguished by amazing vitality and spontaneity. In his slow movements, his instrumental airs, there is a peculiar dignity, a peculiar serenity, and a direct appeal that we find in no other composer.

Would that we could hear more of Handel’s music! At present he is known in this country as the composer of _The Messiah_, the variations entitled _The Harmonious Blacksmith_, and the monstrous perversion of a simple operatic air dignified, forsooth, by the title “_Handel’s Largo_.”

TWELVE CONCERTI GROSSI, FOR STRING ORCHESTRA

No. 1, in G major No. 2, in F major No. 3, in E minor No. 4, in A minor No. 5, in D major No. 6, in G minor No. 7, in B flat major No. 8, in C minor No. 9, in F major No. 10, in D minor No. 11, in A major No. 12, in B minor

Handel apparently took a peculiar pride in his Concerti Grossi. He published them himself, and by subscription. They would probably be more popular today if all conductors realized the fact that music in Handel’s time was performed with varied and free inflections; that his players undoubtedly employed many means of expression. As German organists of forty years ago insisted that Bach’s preludes, fugues, toccatas, should be played with full organ and rigidity of tempo, although those who heard Bach play admired his skill in registration, many conductors find in all of the _allegros_ of Handel’s concertos only a thunderous speech and allow little change in tempo. In the performance of this old music, old but fresh, the two essential qualities demanded by Handel’s music, suppleness of pace and fluidity of expression, named by Volbach, are usually disregarded. Unless there be elasticity in performance, hearers are not to be blamed if they find the music formal, monotonous, dull.

The twelve concertos were composed within three weeks. Kretzschmar has described them as impressionistic pictures, probably without strict reference to the modern use of the word “impressionistic.” They are not of equal worth. Romain Rolland[30] finds the seventh and three last mediocre. In the tenth he discovers French influences and declares that the last _allegro_ might be an air for a music box. Yet the music at its best is aristocratic and noble.

* * *

Handel’s twelve grand concertos for strings were composed between September 29 and October 30, 1739. The London _Daily Post_ of October 29, 1739, said: “This day are published proposals for printing by subscription, with His Majesty’s royal license and protection, Twelve Grand Concertos, in Seven Parts, for four violins, a tenor, a violoncello, with a thorough-bass for the harpsichord. Composed by Mr. Handel. Price to subscribers, two guineas. Ready to be delivered by April next. Subscriptions are taken by the author, at his house in Brook Street, Hanover Square, and by Walsh.” In an advertisement on November 22 the publisher added, “Two of the above concertos will be performed this evening at the Theatre Royal, Lincoln’s Inn.” The concertos were published on April 21, 1740. In an advertisement a few days afterwards Walsh said, “These concertos were performed at the Theatre Royal in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and now are played in most public places with the greatest applause.” Victor Schoelcher made this comment in his _Life of Handel_: “This was the case with all the works of Handel. They were so frequently performed at contemporaneous concerts and benefits that they seem, during his lifetime, to have quite become public property. Moreover, he did nothing which the other theaters did not attempt to imitate. In the little theater of the Haymarket, evening entertainments were given in exact imitation of his ‘several concertos for different instruments, with a variety of chosen airs of the best master, and the famous _Salve Regina_ of Hasse.’ The handbills issued by the nobles at the King’s Theatre make mention also of ‘several concertos for different instruments.’”[31]

The year 1739, in which these concertos were composed, was the year of the first performance of Handel’s _Saul_ (January 16) and _Israel in Egypt_ (April 4)—both oratorios were composed in 1738—also of the music to Dryden’s _Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day_ (November 22).

Romain Rolland, discussing the form _concerto grosso_, which consists essentially of a dialogue between a group of soloists, the _concertino_ (trio of two solo violins and solo bass with cembalo) and the chorus of instruments, _concerto grosso_, believes that Handel at Rome in 1708 was struck by Corelli’s works in this field, for several of his concertos of Opus 3 are dated 1710, 1716, 1722. Geminiani introduced the concerto into England—three volumes appeared in 1732, 1735, 1748—and he was a friend of Handel.

It is stated that the word “concerto,” as applied to a piece for a solo instrument with accompaniment, first appeared in a treatise by Scipio Bargaglia (Venice, 1587); that Giuseppe Torelli, who died in 1708, was the first to suggest a larger number of instruments in a concerto, and to give the name _concerto grosso_ to this species of composition. But Michelletti, seventeen years before, had published his _Sinfonie e concerti a quatro_, and in 1698 his _Concerti musicali_, while the word “concerto” occurs frequently in the musical terminology of the seventeenth century. It was Torelli who, determining the form of the grand solo for violin, opened the way to Archangelo Corelli, the father of modern violinists, composers, or virtuosos.

Romain Rolland insisted that the instrumental music of Handel has the nature of a constant improvisation, music to be served piping hot to an audience, and should preserve this character in performance. “When you have studied with minute care each detail, obtained from your orchestra an irreproachable precision, tonal purity, and finish, you will have done nothing unless you have made the face of the improvising genius rise from the work.”

FRANZ JOSEF HAYDN

(Born at Rohrau, Lower Austria, March 31, 1732; died at Vienna, May 31, 1809)

Haydn has been sadly misunderstood by present followers of tradition who have spoken of him as a man of the old school, while Mozart was a forerunner of Beethoven. Thus they erred. Mozart summed up the school of his day and wrote imperishable music. There has been only one Mozart, and there is no probability of another being born for generations to come; but Haydn was often nearer in spirit to the young Beethoven. It is customary to speak lightly of Haydn as an honest Austrian who wrote light-hearted _allegros_, also minuets by which one is not reminded of a court with noble dames smiling graciously on gallant cavaliers, but sees peasants thumping the ground with heavy feet and uttering joyful cries.

It is said carelessly that Haydn was a simple fellow who wrote at ease many symphonies and quartets that, to quote Berlioz, recall “the innocent joys of the fireside and the _pot-au-feu_.” But Haydn was shrewd and observing—read his diary, kept in London—and if he was plagued with a shrewish wife he found favor with other women. Dear Mrs. Schroeter of London received letters from him breathing love, not manly complimentary affection. And it is said of Haydn that he was only sportive in his music, having a fondness for the bassoon. But Haydn could express tenderness, regret, sorrow in his music.

LONDON SYMPHONIES SYMPHONY NO. 104, IN D MAJOR (B. & H. NO. 2)

I. Adagio; allegro II. Andante III. Menuetto; trio IV. Allegro spiritoso

Haydn’s symphony is ever fresh, spontaneous, yet contrapuntally worked in a masterly manner. What a skillful employment of little themes in themselves of slight significance save for their Blakelike innocence and gayety! Yet in the introduction there is a deeper note, for, contrary to current and easy belief, Haydn’s music is not all beer, skittles, and dancing. There are even gloomy pages in some of his quartets; tragic pages in his _Seven Last Words_, and the prelude to _The Creation_, depicting chaos, is singularly contemporaneous.

* * *

Haydn composed twelve symphonies in England for Salomon. His name began to be mentioned in England in 1765. Symphonies by him were played in concerts given by J. C. Bach, Abel, and others in the ’seventies. Lord Abingdon tried in 1783 to persuade Haydn to take the direction of the Professional Concerts which had just been founded. Gallini asked him his terms for an opera. Salomon, violinist, conductor, manager, sent a music publisher, one Bland—an auspicious name—to coax him to London, but Haydn was loath to leave Prince Esterhazy. Prince Nicolaus died in 1790, and his successor, Prince Anton, who did not care for music, dismissed the orchestra at Esterház and kept only a brass band; but he added 400 gulden to the annual pension of 1,000 gulden bequeathed to Haydn by Prince Nicolaus. Haydn then made Vienna his home. And one day, when he was at work in his house, the “Hamberger” house in which Beethoven also once lived, a man appeared, and said: “I am Salomon from London, and come to fetch you with me. We will agree on the job tomorrow.” Haydn was intensely amused by the use of the word “job.” The contract for one season was as follows: Haydn should receive three hundred pounds for an opera written for the manager Gallini, £300 for six symphonies and £200 for the copyright, £200 for twenty new compositions to be produced in as many concerts under Haydn’s direction, £200 as guarantee for a benefit concert, Salomon deposited 5,000 gulden with the bankers, Fries & Company, as a pledge of good faith. Haydn had 500 gulden ready for traveling expenses, and he borrowed 450 more from his prince. Haydn agreed to conduct the symphonies at the piano.

Salomon about 1786 began to give concerts as a manager, in addition to fiddling at concerts of others. He had established a series of subscription concerts at the Hanover Square Rooms, London. He thought of Haydn as a great drawing card. The violinist W. Cramer, associated with the Professional Concerts, had also approached Haydn, who would not leave his prince. The news of Prince Esterhazy’s death reached Salomon, who then happened to be at Bonn. He therefore hastened to Vienna.

The first of the Salomon-Haydn concerts was given March 11, 1791, at the Hanover Square Rooms. Haydn, as was the custom, “presided at the harpsichord”; Salomon stood as leader of the orchestra. The symphony was in D major, No. 2, of the London list of twelve. The _adagio_ was repeated, an unusual occurrence, but the critics preferred the first movement.

The orchestra was thus composed: twelve to sixteen violins, four violas, three violoncellos, four double basses, flute, oboe, bassoon, horns, trumpets, drums—in all about forty players.

Haydn and Salomon left Vienna on December 15, 1790, and arrived at Calais by way of Munich and Bonn. They crossed the English Channel on New Year’s Day, 1791. From Dover they traveled to London by stage. The journey from Vienna took them seventeen days. Haydn was received with great honor.

Haydn left London towards the end of June, 1792. Salomon invited him again to write six new symphonies. Haydn arrived in London, February 4, 1794, and did not leave England until August 15, 1795. The orchestra at the opera concerts in the grand new concert hall of the King’s Theatre was made up of sixty players. Haydn’s engagement was again a profitable one. He made by concerts, lessons, symphonies, etc., £1,200. He was honored in many ways by the King, the Queen, and the nobility. He was twenty-six times at Carlton House, where the Prince of Wales had a concert room; and, after he had waited long for his pay, he sent a bill from Vienna for 100 guineas, which Parliament promptly settled.

LONDON SYMPHONIES SYMPHONY NO. 94, IN G MAJOR, “SURPRISE” (B. & H. NO. 6)

I. Adagio cantabile e vivace assai II. Andante III. Menuetto IV. Allegro di molto

This symphony, known as the “_Surprise_,” and in Germany as the symphony “with the drumstroke,” is the third of the twelve Salomon symphonies as arranged in the order of their appearance in the catalogue of the Philharmonic Society (London).

Composed in 1791, this symphony was performed for the first time on March 23, 1792, at the sixth Salomon concert in London. It pleased immediately and greatly. _The Oracle_ characterized the second movement as one of Haydn’s happiest inventions, and likened the “surprise”—which is occasioned by the sudden orchestral crash in the _andante_—to a shepherdess, lulled by the sound of a distant waterfall, awakened suddenly from sleep and frightened by the unexpected discharge of a musket.

Griesinger in his Life of Haydn (1810) contradicts the story that Haydn introduced these crashes to arouse the Englishwomen from sleep. Haydn also contradicted it; he said it was his intention only to surprise the audience by something new. “The first _allegro_ of my symphony was received with countless ‘Bravos,’ but enthusiasm rose to its highest pitch after the _andante_ with the drumstroke. ‘_Ancora! ancora!_’ was cried out on all sides, and Pleyel himself complimented me on my idea.” On the other hand, Gyrowetz, in his Autobiography, page 59 (1848), said that he visited Haydn just after he had composed the _andante_, and Haydn was so pleased with it that he played it to him on the piano, and sure of his success, said with a roguish laugh: “The women will cry out here!” C. F. Pohl[32] added a footnote, when he quoted this account of Gyrowetz, and called attention to Haydn’s humorous borrowing of a musical thought of Martini to embellish his setting of music to the commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” when he had occasion to put music to the Ten Commandments. The _Surprise_ symphony was long known in London as “the favorite grand overture.”

PARIS SYMPHONIES SYMPHONY NO. 88, IN G MAJOR (B. & H. NO. 13)

I. Adagio; allegro II. Largo III. Menuetto; trio IV. Finale; allegro con spirito

The Parisian orchestra, which Haydn undoubtedly had in mind, was a large one—forty violins, twelve violoncellos, eight double basses—so that the composer could be sure of strong contrasts in performance by the string section. Fortunate composer—whose symphonies one can, sitting back, enjoy without inquiring into psychological intention or noting attempts at realism in musical seascapes and landscapes—music not inspired by book or picture—just music; now pompous, now merry, and in more serious moments, never too sad, but with a constant feeling for tonal grace and beauty.

* * *

Haydn wrote a set of six symphonies for a society in Paris known as the _Concert de la loge olympique_. They were ordered in 1784, when Haydn was living at Esterház. Composed in the course of the years 1784-89, they are in C, G minor, E flat, B flat, D, A. No. 1, in C, has been entitled the “_Bear_”; No. 2, in G minor, has been entitled the “_Hen_”; and No. 4, in B flat, is known as the “_Queen of France_.” This symphony is the first of a second set, of which five were composed in 1787, 1788, 1790. If the sixth was written, it cannot now be identified. This one in G major was written in 1787, and is numbered 88 in the full and chronological listing of Mandyczewski (given in Grove’s Dictionary).

I. The first movement opens with a short, slow introduction, _adagio_, G major, 3-4 which consists for the most part of strong _staccato_ chords which alternate with softer passages. The main body of the movement _allegro_, G major, begins with the first theme, a dainty one, announced _piano_ by the strings without double basses and repeated _forte_ by the full orchestra with a new counter figure in the bass. A subsidiary theme is but little more than a melodic variation of the first. So, too, the short conclusion theme—in oboes and bassoon, then in the strings—is only a variation of the first. The free fantasia is long for the period and is contrapuntally elaborate. There is a short _coda_ on the first theme.

II. _Largo_, D major, 3-4. A serious melody is sung by oboe and violoncellos to an accompaniment of violas, double basses, bassoon, and horn. The theme is repeated with a richer accompaniment; while the first violins have a counter figure. After a transitional passage the theme is repeated by a fuller orchestra, with the melody in first violins and flute, then in the oboe and violoncello. The development is carried along on the same lines. There is a very short _coda_.

III. The _Menuetto_, _allegretto_, G major, 3-4, with trio, is in the regular minuet form in its simplest manner.

IV. The _finale_, _allegro con spirito_, G major, 2-4, is a _rondo_ on the theme of a peasant country dance, and it is fully developed. Haydn in his earlier symphonies adopted for the _finale_ the form of his first movement. Later he preferred the _rondo_ form, with its couplets and refrains, or repetitions of a short and frank chief theme. “In some _finales_ of his last symphonies,” says Brenet,[33] “he gave freer reins to his fancy, and modified with greater independence the form of his first _allegros_; but his fancy, always prudent and moderate, is more like the clear, precise arguments of a great orator than the headlong inspiration of a poet. Moderation is one of the characteristics of Haydn’s genius; moderation in the dimensions, in the sonority, in the melodic shape; the liveliness of his melodic thought never seems extravagant, its melancholy never induces sadness.”

The usual orchestration of Haydn’s symphonies (including those listed above) consisted of one (or two) flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, kettledrums, and strings. In his last years (from 1791) he followed Mozart’s lead in introducing two clarinets. The clarinets accordingly appear in the London symphony in D major, described in this chapter.—EDITOR.

PAUL HINDEMITH

(Born at Hanau, on November 16, 1895)

“KONZERTMUSIK” FOR STRING AND BRASS INSTRUMENTS

There was a time in Germany when Hindemith was regarded as the white-haired boy; the hope for the glorious future; greater even than Schönberg. In England, they look on Hindemith coolly—an able and fair-minded critic there has remarked: “The more one hears of the later Hindemith, the more exasperating his work becomes. From time to time some little theme is shown at first in sympathetic fashion, then submitted to the most mechanical processes known to music. Any pleasant jingle seems to mesmerize the composer, who repeats it much as Bruckner repeats his themes—Hindemith abuses the liberty shown to a modern.”

But Hindemith is not always mesmerized by a pleasant jingle. Witness his oratorio, performed with great success. The title is forbidding, _The Unending_, but the performance takes only two hours. The _Concert Music_, composed for the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, is more than interesting. It cannot be called “noble,” not even “grand,” but it holds the attention by its strength in structure, its spirit, festal without blatancy. For once there is no too evident desire to stun the hearer. It is as if the composer had written for his own pleasure. It is virile music with relieving passages—few in number—that have genuine and simple beauty of thought and expression; exciting at times by the rushing rhythm.

* * *

Hindemith, at the age of eleven, played the viola in the theater and in the moving-picture house; when he was thirteen, he was a viola virtuoso, and he now plays in public his own concertos for that instrument. When he was twenty, he was first concert master of the Frankfort opera house. His teachers in composition were Arnold Mendelssohn and Bernhard Sekles at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfort. He is the viola player in the Amar Quartet (Licco Amar, Walter Casper, Paul Hindemith, and Maurits Frank—in 1926 his brother Rudolf was the violoncellist).

Apropos of a performance of one of his works, in Berlin, the late Adolf Weissmann wrote in a letter to the _Christian Science Monitor_: “Promising indeed among the young German composers is Paul Hindemith. More than promising he is not yet. For the viola player Paul Hindemith, travelling with the Amar Quartet through half Europe, has seldom time enough to work carefully. The greater part of his compositions were created in the railway car. Is it, therefore, to be wondered at that their principal virtue lies in their rhythm? The rhythm of the rolling car is, apparently, blended with the rhythm springing from within. It is always threatening to outrun all the other values of what he writes. For that these values exist cannot be denied.”

A foreign correspondent of the London _Daily Telegraph_, having heard one of his compositions, wrote: “It was all rather an exhilarating nightmare, as if Hindemith had been attempting to prove the theorem of Pythagoras in terms of parallelograms, which is amusing, but utterly absurd.”

It has been said by A. Machabey that Hindemith has been influenced in turn by Wagner, Brahms—“an influence still felt”; Richard Strauss; Max Reger, who attracted him by his ingenuity and freedom from elementary technic; Stravinsky, who made himself felt after the war; and finally by the theatrical surroundings in which he lives. “He is opposed to post-romanticism. Not being able to escape from romanticism in his youth, today he seems to be completely stripped of it. Freed from the despotism of a text, from the preëstablished plan of programme music, from obedience to the caprices and emphasis of sentiment, music in itself suffices.... The reaction against romanticism is doubled by a democratic spirit which was general in Germany after the war.” Therefore he has had many supporters, who welcomed, “besides this new spirit, an unexpected technic, unusual polyphony and instrumentation, in which one found a profound synthesis of primordial rhythms, tonalities enriched and extended by Schönberg and Hauer, economical and rational groupings of jazz.” Then his compositions are so varied: chamber music for the ultra-fastidious; melodies for amateurs; dramatic works for opera-goers; orchestral pieces for frequenters of concerts; he has written for débutantes and children; for the cinema, marionettes, mechanical pianos, brass bands. Work has followed work with an amazing rapidity.

ARTHUR HONNEGER

(Born at Havre, France, on March 10, 1892)

“PACIFIC 231,” ORCHESTRAL MOVEMENT

Some say that Honegger had no business to summon a locomotive engine for inspiration. No doubt this music of Honegger’s is “clever,” but cleverness in music quickly palls. Louis Antoine Jullien years ago in this country excited wild enthusiasm by his _Firemen’s Quadrille_, in which a conflagration, the bells, the rush of the firemen, the squirting and the shout of the foreman, “Wash her, Thirteen!” were graphically portrayed.

But there is majestic poetry in great machines, even in railway engines. One of Turner’s most striking pictures is the one depicting a hare running madly across a viaduct with a pursuing locomotive in rain and mist. What was the most poetic thing of the Philadelphia exposition of 1876? The superb Corliss engine, epic in strength and grandeur. Walt Whitman, Kipling, and others have found inspiration in a locomotive; why reproach a composer for attempting to express “the visual impression and the physical sensation” of it? One may like or dislike _Pacific 231_, but it is something more than a musical joke; it was not merely devised for sensational effect.

* * *

When _Pacific 231_ was first performed in Paris at Koussevitzky’s concerts, May 8 and 15, 1924, Honegger made this commentary:

“I have always had a passionate love for locomotives. To me they—and I love them passionately as others are passionate in their love for horses or women—are like living creatures.

“What I wanted to express in the _Pacific_ is not the noise of an engine, but the visual impression and the physical sensation of it. These I strove to express by means of a musical composition. Its point of departure is an objective contemplation: quiet respiration of an engine in state of immobility; effort for moving; progressive increase of speed, in order to pass from the ‘lyric’ to the pathetic state of an engine of three hundred tons driven in the night at a speed of one hundred and twenty per hour.

“As a subject I have taken an engine of the ‘Pacific’ type, known as ‘231,’ an engine for heavy trains of high speed.”

Other locomotive engines are classified as “Atlantic,” “Mogul.” The number 231 here refers to the number of the “Pacific’s” wheels 2—3—1.

“On a sort of rhythmic pedal sustained by the violins is built the impressive image of an intelligent monster, a joyous giant.”

_Pacific 231_ is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, double bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, strings.

The locomotive engine has been the theme of strange tales by Dickens, Marcel Schwob, Kipling, and of Zola’s novel, _La Bête humaine_. It is the hero of Abel Gance’s film, _Roué_ for which it is said Honegger adapted music, and the American film, _The Iron Horse_.

PAUL MARIE THÉODORE VINCENT d’INDY

(Born at Paris, March 27, 1852;[34] died at Paris on December 2, 1931)

Vincent d’Indy’s music has often been charged with the atrocious crimes of austerity and aloofness; it has been called cerebral. It is true that d’Indy uses his head, not loses it, in composition; that his music will never be popular with the multitude; it lacks an obvious appeal to those who say, with an air of finality: “I know what I like.” It is not sugary; it is not theatrical. To say that it is cold is to say that it is not effusive. D’Indy does not gush. Nor does he permit himself to run with a mighty stir and din to a blatant climax, dearly loved by those who think that noise shows strength. He respects his art and himself, and does not trim his sails to catch the breeze of popular favor. There is a nobility in his music; there is to those who do not wear their heart on their sleeve true warmth. There is a soaring of the spirit, not a drooping to court favor. And no one has ever questioned his constructive skill.

SYMPHONY NO. 2, IN B FLAT MAJOR, OP. 57

I. Extrêmement lent; très vif II. Modérément lent III. Modéré; très animé IV. Introduction, fugue et finale

The majority of the pages in d’Indy’s symphony contain music lofty and noble. Only the _finale_ sinks below the prevailing high level, and there are fine moments in the introduction to this _finale_. It is natural that the influence of César Franck is shown especially in the two middle movements. So great was d’Indy’s devotion to his master that he proudly admitted the influence; but d’Indy was no mere copyist; the greatest pages of the symphony are his own.

* * *

The Symphony in B flat major, composed in 1903-04, was produced at a Lamoureux concert, Paris, February 28, 1904. The score is dedicated to Paul Dukas. The symphony is scored for three flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, four horns, small trumpet in E flat, two trumpets in C, three trombones, bass trombone, chromatic kettledrums, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, two harps, strings.

This symphony is without a programme of any sort. D’Indy wrote in an article published in the first number of _Musica_ (Paris): “Symphonic music, unlike dramatic music, is developing toward complexity: the dramatic element is more and more introduced into absolute music, in such a way that form is here, as a rule, absolutely submissive to the incidents of a veritable action.” Mr. Calvocoressi supplies a note to this remark: “To search for an action that is not purely musical in absolute music would be madness. There is, indeed, an action in this symphony, but it is wholly in the music: the putting into play of two principal themes, which present themselves at the beginning side by side, follow each other, war against each other, or, on the contrary, are each developed separately, associate with themselves new ideas which complete or serve as commentary, and at the end of the work are blended in an immense triumphal chant.”[35] It would be idle, then, to attempt to characterize these themes as though they were dramatic motives. One can say, however, that two decided elements of musical expression are strongly opposed to each other.

The first movement is made up of two distinct parts: a slow introduction, in which the themes appear at first in the state of simple cells, and a lively movement.

I. _Extrêmement lent. Très vif._ B flat major, 4-2. Violoncellos and double basses, doubled by harps, announce an initial and somber theme of almost sluggish rhythm. The flute replies with a phrase whose chief characteristic is an ascending leap of a seventh, a progression dear to the composer. This phrase is the second principal theme of the symphony. The phrase may be resolved in this instance into two distinct elements: the descending fourth—B flat to F sharp—which, with its own peculiar rhythm, is a cell that later on will assume great importance; the ascending seventh, which will play a dominating part and appear again throughout the work as a song of despair, a burst of the determined will. The second theme may then be considered as a sort of embryonic form which contains the chief elements of the symphony. The initial theme, on the contrary, will almost always keep a closer resemblance to itself; there will be numberless changes, melodic or rhythmic transformations, but its particular physiognomy will not be lost.

A _tutti_ of some measures leads by a rapid _crescendo_ to the main body, _très vif_, 3-4. A horn, accompanied by second violins and violas, announces a new theme, which belongs exclusively to this movement. The first two notes of this motive are the descending fourth, the first cell of the second chief theme. The second section of the new theme furnishes material for an abrupt and jerky figure, given soon afterwards to the wood-wind.

II. _Modérément lent._ D flat major, 6-4. The second movement begins with an announcement by the first violins of the second principal theme (descending fourth). The bass clarinet sings the rest of the motive, which is taken up by the strings. These first measures prepare the reëntrance of the same theme under a form (6-4) already used in the first movement. A new figure appears, which will be found in the _finale_. The development brings a modulation to E major, and harps give out a strongly rhythmed motive in that tonality. This motive will be employed in the _scherzo_. The dotted, characteristic rhythm is now kept up, while the oboe, then the clarinet, and also other instruments, sing in turn an expressive theme; on the conclusion of it is the first new theme of this movement, which in turn is a prolongation of the theme (6-4) of the first movement.

III. _Modéré_, D minor, 2-4. A solo viola chants a theme of archaic character, which reminds one of some old legend’s air. The flute hints at the strongly rhythmed theme of the preceding movement, but the archaic tune is developed and interrupted suddenly by the horns proclaiming the initial theme, sadly changed and of greatly diminished importance. There is a fantastic whirlwind in the strings, and above it a bold theme is given out by the wood-wind. The strongly rhythmed theme appears almost immediately afterwards, and is added to the whirling triplets. There is a comparative lull, and the bold theme is now given out at length by the small trumpet, after which there is an orchestral explosion. Then the archaic tune appears, rhythmed curiously in 3-8, “after the manner of a pantomimic dance,” and played by flutes and then bassoons; harp harmonics and the triangle give additional color to this episode.

IV. _Introduction, fugue, et finale._ The general form of this last movement is that of a rondo preceded by an introduction in two parts (introduction and fugue). In the introduction to the fugue all the chief thematic ideas of the preceding movements are recalled one by one, either by solo instruments or by groups of instruments.

The subject of the fugue is the expressive theme first sung by the oboe in the second movement, but now the theme is lengthened by an ascending arabesque. The final association of the two themes, already hinted at the beginning of the second movement by the appearance of a figure common to them both, is now frankly declared. This subject, persisting to the end of the fugue, brings in a lively movement, 5-4, the true _finale_. The oboe sings the first new theme of the second movement. The instrumental complications become more elaborate. The strongly rhythmed theme presents itself, and then a brand-new motive appears, interrupted by echoes of the archaic melody. This new theme prepares the return of the initial motive, which strengthens itself in canon form. The fugue subject creeps about the whole orchestra, while a more aggressive form of the often used theme of the second movement soars above. The brand-new theme returns, and once more ushers in the initial theme in the bass, while the second chief or cyclic theme is announced above. This is the final struggle of the two. The fugue subject soon reappears, and leads to a brilliant burst of the whole orchestra. The second chief or cyclic theme is then used as a broadly proportioned chorale, whose bass is the initial theme, now subdued and definitely associated with the triumph of the second theme. This triumph is thrice proclaimed in the peroration, and, between the proclamations, the archaic theme, with its characteristic initial fifth, is heard in the wood-wind.

SYMPHONIC VARIATIONS, “ISTAR,” OP. 42

_Istar_, the _Symphony on a Mountain Air_, and _A Summer Day on the Mountain_ were composed in the period of d’Indy’s life when he was concerned chiefly with making music, and not telling young composers how it should be made. Those three compositions, with the Symphony in B flat major, will represent him honorably in the years to come. One should not underrate his work as a teacher, his high ideals. His technic did not leave him in his later works, but his brain was more in evidence than any source of emotion. Maurice Boucher, speaking of Debussy being drawn instinctively toward the French poets contemporaneous with him (the poems of Rossetti and the dramas of Maeterlinck also attracted him) said that d’Indy “by his temperament was borne toward doctrinal discussions.” In _Istar_, though his technical skill is brilliantly in evidence, there is pure music from the beginning to the end. It is true that the withholding of the theme in its full glory to the end might be called a “stunt,” as Ravel’s _Bolero_ is a stunt, but d’Indy’s is the legitimate, inevitable crowning of the work; Ravel’s was designed chiefly to create curiosity with a final surprise, and the _Bolero_ once known does not bear repeated hearings, for the effect, once known, is afterward discounted if not wholly lost.

* * *

This composition was first brought out in Brussels, and led by Eugène Ysaye, on January 10, 1897; it was performed in Chicago and led by Theodore Thomas on April 23, 1898. The variations—the work is practically a symphonic poem—are scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, three bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, cymbals, triangle, two harps, and strings. They are dedicated to the Orchestral Society of the Ysaye Concerts.

William Foster Apthorp translated the verses on the title-page as follows:

_Toward the immutable land Istar, daughter of Sin, bent her steps, toward the abode of the dead, toward the seven-gated abode where He entered, toward the abode whence there is no return._

. . . . . .

_At the first gate, the warder stripped her; he took the high tiara from her head._

_At the second gate, the warder stripped her; he took the pendants from her ears._

_At the third gate, the warder stripped her; he took off the precious stones that adorn her neck._

_At the fourth gate, the warder stripped her; he took off the jewels that adorn her breast._

_At the fifth gate, the warder stripped her; he took off the girdle that encompasses her waist._

_At the sixth gate, the warder stripped her; he took rings from her feet, the rings from her hands._

_At the seventh gate, the warder stripped her; he took off the last veil that covers her body._

. . . . . .

_Istar daughter of Sin went into the immutable land, she took and received the Waters of Life. She gave the sublime Waters, and thus, in the presence of all, delivered the Son of Life, her young lover._

The variations begin _très lent_, F minor, 4-4, with a somber motive (first horn). The violas and clarinets, accompanied by wood-wind instruments in syncopated rhythm, answer with a second motive, and there is a modulation to F major. The variations, as Mr. Apthorp says, have one wholly original peculiarity: “The theme is not given out simply at the beginning, neither is it heard in its entirety until the last variation, in which it is sung by various groups of instruments in unison and octaves, and worked up later in full harmony. Each one of the variations represents one of the seven stages of Istar’s being disrobed at the gates of the ‘immutable land,’ until in the last she stands forth in the full splendor of nudity. The composition is so free as to resent technical analysis; but by following the poem, and noting the garment or ornament taken off, the listener can appreciate the composer’s poetic or picturesque suggestiveness in his music.”

M. Lambinet, a professor at a Bordeaux public school, chose in 1905 the text “Pro Musica” for his prize-day speech. He told the boys that the first thing the study of music would teach them would be logic. “In symphonic development logic plays as great a part as sentiment. The theme is a species of axiom, full of musical truth, whence proceed deductions. The musician deals with sounds as the geometrician with lines and the dialectician with arguments.” The master went on to remark: “A great modern composer, M. Vincent d’Indy, has reversed the customary process in his symphonic poem _Istar_. He by degrees unfolds from initial complexity the simple idea which was wrapped up therein, and appears only at the close, like Isis unveiled, like a scientific law discovered and formulated.” The speaker found this happy definition for such a musical work—“an inductive symphony.”

FRANZ LISZT

(Born at Raiding, near Oedenburg, Hungary, October 22, 1811; died at Bayreuth, July 31, 1886)

Liszt suffered as a composer from foolish adulation and still more absurd denunciation. It was not so many years ago that otherwise fair-minded musicians, professors in conservatories, composers of smug, respectable music, pianists and violinists of nimble fingers and lukewarm blood, would leave the concert hall with an air whenever one of Liszt’s works was about to be performed. Liszt also suffered from admiring friends who helped themselves to his musical thoughts, to his new forms of musical expression, and using them for their own advantage, were applauded by the crowd, while Liszt himself was ignored or flouted. How much of Liszt there is in Richard Wagner’s best!

Programme music has existed from the early days of the art. No doubt David’s performance before Saul had some definite programme; but the symphonic poem as it is now known was invented and shaped by Liszt, and he has influenced in this respect composers of every nation. The modern Russians all hark back to Berlioz and Liszt. The more recent Germans and even the modern French were made possible by this Hungarian, who, in Paris, Weimar, or Rome, was first of all a citizen of the world. In the mass of his compositions there is mysticism that is vague and insignificant; there is affected simplicity that is as childish prattle; there is pathos that is bathos; eloquence sometimes degenerates into bombast; there is frequently the odor of tanbark, the vision of the ringmaster cracking his whip and the man in tights and spangles leaping through paper hoops or kissing his hand from the trapeze. Liszt was first famous as a virtuoso, and as Edward MacDowell once said, in every virtuoso there is the possibility of the rope dancer; it is in his blood.

The faults of Liszt as a composer are open to everyone. When they lie in the music for the piano they have been too often exaggerated by the “Liszt pupil.” Nor have orchestral conductors always been fortunate in the interpretation of the greater works; they have been intoxicated by the pomp or fury and were unable to draw the line between sonority and vulgarity.

We are inclined to judge a master of years gone by as though he were a contemporary, and forgetting that he in his day was a daring innovator, a revolutionary, we cry out against his music as trite and moribund. Certain forms of Liszt’s expression, forms that recall the reign of Rossini or Meyerbeer, are now distasteful to us, as are certain formulas of Wagner. Excessive modernity contains the seeds of early death. But the architecture that Liszt devised is still strong and beautiful, and is today a model for others who delight in strange ornamentation. The world of music owes Liszt a debt that it will be long in paying, and, as other debtors, it often forgets what it owes and abuses the creditor.

The years go by and the generosity, the loving-kindness, the nobility of Liszt, the man, are more and more clearly revealed. His purse, advice, assistance were ever ready. He would not cringe or flatter. His art was a religion. He was one of the very few composers that stood at ease in the presence of the mighty and were not snobbish toward the unfortunate, the misunderstood, the unappreciated. As a man in the world of his art he is therefore to be ranked with Handel and Hector Berlioz.

A “FAUST” SYMPHONY IN THREE CHARACTER PICTURES (AFTER GOETHE)

I. Faust II. Gretchen III. Mephistopheles

Perhaps in the first movement there are a few passages that might be cut out or condensed, but no one would wish the movement “Gretchen” to be changed in any way; of all the music that is associated with the innocent maiden of Goethe’s poem, this is surely the most expressive, the most beautiful. The remorseful, crazed Gretchen is not in Liszt’s picture. We find her in the prison music of Boïto. And how paltry does the music of Mephistopheles conceived by Gounod seem in comparison with the ironical fiend of Liszt, mocking the doubts and the aspirations of the disillusionized philosopher!

* * *

Liszt told his biographer, Lina Ramann,[36] that the idea of this symphony came to him in Paris in the ’forties, and was suggested by Berlioz’s _Damnation of Faust_. (Berlioz’s work was produced at the Opéra-Comique, December 6, 1846.) Lina Ramann’s biography is eminently unsatisfactory, and in some respects untrustworthy, but there is no reason to doubt her word in this instance. Some have said that Liszt was inspired by Ary Scheffer’s pictures to illustrate Goethe’s _Faust_. Peter Cornelius stated that Liszt was incited to his work by seeing the pictures “in which Scheffer had succeeded in giving a bodily form to the three leading characters in Goethe’s poem.” As a matter of fact, we believe, Scheffer did not portray Mephistopheles. Scheffer (1795-1858) was a warm friend of Liszt, and made a portrait of him in 1837, which is in the Liszt Museum at Weimar.

But Liszt made in the ’forties no sketches of his symphony. The music was composed in 1853-54; it was revised in 1857, when the final chorus was added. The _Faust_ symphony is scored for three flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, cymbals, triangle, harp, strings, and male chorus with tenor solo. In the revised and unpublished version the bass clarinet is used, but only for a few measures.

Miss Ramann admits frankly that the symphony is, without the final chorus, merely a series of musical “Faust pictures,” as the pictures by Kaulbach, Kreling, and others, are in art; but without the chorus it does not reproduce the lyrical contents of the main idea of the poem itself.

I. “Faust.” Some find in this movement five leading motives, each one of which portrays a characteristic of Faust or one of his fixed moods. The more conservative speak of first and second themes, subsidiary themes, and conclusion themes. However the motives are ticketed or numbered, they appear later in various metamorphoses.

The movement begins with a long introduction, _lento assai_, 4-4. “A chain of dissonances,” with free use of augmented fifths (muted violas and violoncellos), has been described as the “Inquiry” theme, and the bold greater seventh (oboe) is also supposed to portray Faust, the disappointed philosopher. “These motives have here the expression of perplexed musing and painful regret at the vanity of the efforts made for the realization of cherished aspirations.”

An _allegro impetuoso_, 4-4. Violins attack, and, after the interruption of reeds and horns, rush along and are joined by wind instruments. The “Inquiry” motive is sounded. The music grows more and more intense. A bassoon, _lento assai_, gives out the “Faust” motive and introduces the main body of the movement:

_Allegro agitato ed appassionato assai_, C minor, 4-4. The first theme, a violently agitated motive, is of kin in character to a leading theme of the composer’s symphonic poem, _Prometheus_, which was composed in 1850 and revised in 1855. This theme comes here for the first time, except for one figure, a rising inflection at the end of the first phrase, which has been heard in the introduction. It is developed at length, and is repeated in a changed form by the whole orchestra. A new theme enters in passionate appeal (oboes and clarinets in dialogue with bassoons, violoncellos, and double basses), while the first violins bring back the sixteenth note figure of the first theme of the main section. This second theme with subsidiary passage-work leads to an episode, _meno mosso, misterioso e molto tranquillo_, 6-4. The “Inquiry” theme in the introduction is developed in modulating sequence by clarinet and some of the strings, while there are sustained harmonies in wind instruments and ascending passages in muted violins and violas. But the “Inquiry” theme has not its original and gnarled form: it is calmer in line and it is more remote. Another theme comes in, _affettuoso poco andante_, E major, 7-4 (3-4, 4-4), which has been called the “Love” theme, as typical of Faust with Gretchen. This theme is based on the “Faust” motive heard near the beginning of the introduction from wind instruments. In this movement it is said to portray Gretchen, while in the “Gretchen” movement it portrays Faust; and this theme is burlesqued continually in the third movement, “Mephistopheles.” The short theme given to wind instruments is interrupted by a figure for solo viola, which later in the symphony becomes a part of the theme itself. The “Faust-Gretchen” motive is developed in wood-wind and horns, with figures for violins and violas. Passage-work follows, and parts of the first theme appear, _allegro con fuoco_, 4-4. The music grows more and more passionate, and the rhythm of the wind instruments more pronounced. There is a transition section, and the basses allude to the last of the themes, the fifth according to some, the conclusion theme as others prefer, _grandioso, poco meno mosso_, which is given out _fortissimo_ by the full orchestra. It is based on the initial figure of the violas and violoncellos in the introduction. The exposition section of the movement is now complete. The free fantasia, if the following section may be so called, begins with the return of “_tempo primo—allegro agitato assai_,” and the working out of thematic material is elaborate. There is a repetition section, or rather a recapitulation of the first, third, and fourth themes. The _coda_ ends sadly with the “Faust” motive in augmentation.

II. “Gretchen.” _Andante soave_, A flat major, 3-4. The movement has an introduction (flutes and clarinets), which establishes a mood. The chief theme, “characteristic of the innocence, simplicity, and contented happiness of Gretchen,” may be called the “Gretchen” theme. It is sung (_dolce semplice_) by the oboe with only a solo viola accompaniment. The theme is then given to other instruments and with another accompaniment. The repeated phrase of flutes and clarinet, answered by violins, is supposed by some commentators to have reference to Gretchen’s plucking the flower, with the words, “He loves me—loves me not,” and at last, “He loves me!” The chief theme enters after this passage, and it now has a fuller expression and deeper significance. A second theme, typical of Gretchen, is sung by first violins, _dolce amoroso_; it is more emotional, more sensuous. Here there is a suggestion of a figure in the introduction. This theme brings the end to the first section, which is devoted exclusively to Gretchen.

Faust now enters, and his typical motive is heard (horn with agitated viola and violoncello accompaniment). The “Faust-Gretchen” motive of the first movement is used, but in a very different form. The restless theme of the opening movement is now one of enthusiastic love. The striking modulations that followed the first “Gretchen” theme occur again, but in different keys, and Faust soon leaves the scene. The third section of the movement is a much modified repetition of the first section. Gretchen now has memories of her love. A tender violin figure now winds about her theme. Naturally, the “He loves me—loves me not” music is omitted, but there is a reminiscence of the “Faust” motive.

III. “Mephistopheles.” Mephistopheles is here the spirit of demoniacal irony. Mr. Apthorp, after saying that the prevalence of triple rhythms in the movement might lead one, but in vain, to look for something of the _scherzo_ form in it, adds: “One may suspect the composer of taking Mephisto’s ‘_Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint_’ (‘I am the spirit that denies’) for the motto of this movement; somewhat in the sense of A. W. Ambros when he said of Jacques Offenbach in speaking of his opera-bouffes: ‘All the subjects which artists have hitherto turned to account, and in which they have sought their ideals, must here be pushed _ad absurdum_; we feel as if Mephisto were ironically smiling at us in the elegant mask of “a man of the times,” and asking us whether the whole baggage of the Antique and the Romantic were worth a rap.’”

It is not at all improbable that Liszt took the idea of Mephistopheles parodying the themes of Faust and Gretchen from the caricature of the motive of the fixed idea and from the mockery of the once loved one in the _finale_ of Berlioz’s _Episode in the Life of an Artist_, or _Fantastic_ symphony.

There are no new themes introduced in the “Mephistopheles” movement.

As Miss Ramann says, Mephistopheles’ character in this music is to be without character. His sport is to mock Faust as typified by his themes; but he has no power over the “Gretchen” themes, and they are left undisturbed.

Ernest Newman[37] finds the “Mephistopheles” section particularly ingenious. “It consists, for the most part, of a kind of burlesque upon the subjects of the _Faust_ which are here passed, as it were, through a continuous fire of irony and ridicule. This is a far more effective way of depicting ‘the spirit of denial’ than making him mouth a farrago of pantomime bombast, in the manner of Boïto. The being who exists, for the purpose of the drama, only in endeavoring to frustrate every good impulse of Faust’s soul, is really best dealt with, in music, not as a positive individuality, but as the embodiment of negation—a malicious, saturnine parody of all the good that has gone to the making of Faust. The ‘Mephistopheles’ is not only a piece of diabolically clever music, but the best picture we have of a character that in the hands of the average musician becomes either stupid, or vulgar, or both. As we listen to Liszt’s music, we feel that we really have the Mephistopheles of Goethe’s drama.”

_Allegro vivace ironico_, C major, 2-4. There is a short pictorial introduction, an ascending chromatic run (violoncellos and double basses, chords for wood-wind, strings, with cymbals and triangle). There are ironical forms of the “Faust” and “Inquiry” motives, and the _sempre allegro_ in which these themes appear leads to the main body of the movement, _allegro vivace_, 6-8, 2-4. The theme is the first of the first movement, and it now appears in a wildly excited form. Interrupted by the “Faust” motive, it goes on with still greater stress and fury. Transitional passages in the movement return in strange disguise. An episode _un poco animato_ follows with an abrupt use of the “Faust” motive, and the “Inquiry” motive, reappearing, is greeted with jeers and fiendish laughter. The violas have a theme evolved from the “Faust” motive, which is then given to the violins and becomes the subject of fugal treatment. _Allegro animato_; the grandiose fifth, or conclusion, theme of the first movement is now handled most flippantly. There is a tempestuous _crescendo_, and then silence; muted horns sustain the chord of C minor, while strings _pizzicati_ give out the “Inquiry” motive. “The passage is as a warning apparition.” The hellish mockery breaks out again. Some find the music now inspired by an episode in Goethe’s Walpurgis scene. In the midst of the din, wood-wind instruments utter a cry, as when Faust exclaimed, “Mephistopheles, do you see yonder a pale, beautiful child, standing alone?... I must confess it seems to me that she looks like the good Gretchen.” The music ascends in the violins, grows softer and softer. _Andante_; the oboe sings the “Gretchen” theme. The vision quickly fades. Again an outbreak of despair, and there is a recapitulation of preceding musical matter. In the _allegro non troppo_ the “Faust” theme is chiefly used. “And then things grow more and more desperate, till we come to what we may call the transformation scene. It is like the rolling and shifting of clouds, and, indeed, transports us from the abode of mortal man to more ethereal spheres.” The wild dissonances disappear; there is a wonderful succession of sustained chords. _Poco andante, ma sempre alla breve_: the “Gretchen” theme is colored mysteriously; trombones make solemn declaration. Gretchen is now Faust’s redeemer. The male chorus, _Chorus mysticus_, accompanied by organ and strings, sings to the strain announced by the trombones, _andante mistico_, the lines of Goethe:

_Alles Vergängliche Ist nur ein Gleichniss; Das Unzulängliche, Hier wird’s Erreigniss; Das Unbeschreibliche, Hier ist’s gethan; Das Ewig-Weibliche Zieht uns hinan._

The solo tenor and chorus sing: “_Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan_” (with the “Gretchen” motive rhythmically altered and with harp added to the accompaniment), and the work ends radiantly calm.

These lines have been Englished in prose: “All that is transitory is only a simile; the insufficient here becomes event; the indescribable is here done; the Ever feminine draws us onward.” It was Liszt’s intention, Brendel tells us, to have this chorus invisible at the first performance, but, inasmuch as it would have been necessary at Weimar to have it sung behind the lowered curtain, he feared the volume would be too weak.

SYMPHONIC POEM, NO. 3, “LES PRÉLUDES” (AFTER LAMARTINE)

According to statements of Richard Pohl, this symphonic poem was begun at Marseilles in 1834 and completed at Weimar in 1850, According to L. Ramann’s chronological catalogue of Liszt’s works, _The Preludes_ was composed in 1854 and published in 1856.

Theodor Müller-Reuter says that the poem was composed at Weimar in 1849-50 from sketches made in earlier years, and this statement seems to be the correct one.

Ramann tells the following story about the origin of _The Preludes_. Liszt, it seems, began to compose at Paris, about 1844, choral music for a poem by Aubray, and the work was entitled _Les 4 Éléments_ (_la Terre_, _les Aquilons_, _les Flots_, _les Astres_). The cold stupidity of the poem discouraged him, and he did not complete the cantata. He told his troubles to Victor Hugo, in the hope that the poet would take the hint and write for him; but Hugo did not or would not understand his meaning, so Liszt put the music aside. Early in 1854 he thought of using the abandoned work for a Pension Fund concert of the Court Orchestra at Weimar, and it then occurred to make the music, changed and enlarged, illustrative of a passage in Lamartine’s _Nouvelles Méditations poétiques, XVme Méditation: “Les Préludes,”_ dedicated to Victor Hugo.

The symphonic poem _Les Préludes_ was performed for the first time in the Grand Ducal Court Theater, Weimar, at a concert for the Pension Fund of the widows and orphans of deceased members of the Court Orchestra on February 23, 1854. Liszt conducted from manuscript.

Liszt revised _Les Préludes_ in 1853 or 1854. The score was published in May, 1856; the orchestral parts, in January, 1865.

The alleged passage from Lamartine that serves as a motto has thus been Englished:

“What is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown song, the first solemn note of which is sounded by death? Love forms the enchanted daybreak of every life; but what is the destiny where the first delights of happiness are not interrupted by some storm, whose fatal breath dissipates its fair illusions, whose fell lightning consumes its altar? and what wounded spirit, when one of its tempests is over, does not seek to rest its memories in the sweet calm of country life? Yet man does not resign himself long to enjoy the beneficent tepidity which first charmed him on Nature’s bosom; and when ‘the trumpet’s loud clangor has called him to arms,’ he rushes to the post of danger, whatever may be the war that calls him to the ranks, to find in battle the full consciousness of himself and the complete possession of his strength.” There is little in Lamartine’s poem that suggests this preface. The quoted passage beginning “The trumpet’s loud clangor” is Lamartine’s “_La trompette a jeté le signal des alarmes_.”

_The Preludes_ is scored for three flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, harp, and strings.

PIANOFORTE CONCERTO, NO. 1, IN E FLAT

Liszt’s E flat concerto, long the subject of scurrilous criticism because forsooth a triangle was indicated in the score, has long been the virtuoso concerto _par excellence_. But its virtuosity is of an unusual order. It does not display its innate quality to the precise and composed technician; it cannot be played complacently or casually. It demands an audacious, unhesitating bravura, large rhetorical phrases, bold accents, and a careless contempt for its difficulties. Its octave _cadenzas_ suggest the remorseless dash of an eagle upon its prey.

* * *

This concerto was completed probably in 1848 or 1849, from sketches made in the early ’forties. According to a letter of Hans von Bülow’s, the concerto was completed in June, 1849. Revised in 1853, it was published in 1857. The first performance was at Weimar, at a Court concert in the hall of the Grand Duke’s palace (during the Berlioz week), on February 17, 1855; Liszt, pianist; Bülow, conductor. The concerto is dedicated to Henri Litolff. The orchestral part is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, kettledrums, cymbals, triangle, and the usual strings.

The form is free. A few important themes are exposed, developed; they undergo many transformations in rhythm and tempo. The first and leading theme is at once given out imperatively by the strings, with interrupting chords of wood-wind and brass. This is the theme to which Liszt used to sing: “_Das versteht ihr alle nicht!_”—according to Bülow and Ramann, “_Ihr Könnt alle nichts_.” This theme may be taken as the motto of the concerto. _Allegro maestoso, tempo giusto_, 4-4. The second theme, B major, _quasi adagio_, 12-8, is first announced by muted violoncellos and double basses and then developed elaborately by the pianoforte. There are hints of this theme in the preceding section. The third theme, E flat minor, _allegretto vivace_, 3-4, in the nature of a _scherzo_, is first given to the strings, with preliminary warning and answers of the triangle, which, the composer says, should be struck with delicately rhythmic precision. The fourth theme is rather an answer to the chief phrase of the second than an individual motive. The _scherzo_ tempo changes to _allegro animato_, 4-4, in which use is made chiefly of the motto theme. The final section is an _allegro marziale animato_, which quickens to a final _presto_.

The introduction of the triangle in the score caused great offense in Vienna. Hanslick damned the work by characterizing it as a “‘Triangle’ concerto,” when Pruckner played it there in the season of 1856-57. It was not heard again in that city until 1869, when Sophie Menter insisted on playing it. Liszt wrote a letter in 1857 describing the concerto and defending his use of the triangle.

CHARLES MARTIN LOEFFLER

(Born at Mühlhausen [Alsace], January 30, 1861; died at Medfield, Mass., May 19, 1935)

“A PAGAN POEM” (AFTER VIRGIL), OP. 14, FOR ORCHESTRA, PIANOFORTE, ENGLISH HORN, AND THREE TRUMPETS OBBLIGATI

The music of the _Pagan Poem_ is highly imaginative. Its pages are pages of beauty and passion. The strangeness of the opening is not forced or experimental. The composer himself first saw in his mind’s eye the scene and heard the sorcerer’s chant. And here is no love song of familiar type given to caterwauling ’cellos. There is no conventional lament of approved crape and tears. A dolorous theme, broadly and nobly thought, is sung by the English horn. The spell works. Daphnis now hastens toward the long empty and expectant arms. There is frantic and amorous exultation.

In this instance a rich and rare orchestral dress covers a well shaped and vigorous body.

* * *

This tone poem was suggested to Mr. Loeffler by certain verses in the eighth Eclogue of Virgil, which is sometimes known as “Pharmaceutria” (the Sorceress). The Eclogue, dedicated to Pollio, was written probably in 39 B.C. It consists of two love songs, that of Damon and that of Alphesibœus. Each song has ten parts, and these parts are divided by a recurring burden or refrain. Alphesibœus tells of the love incantation of a Thessalian girl, who by the aid of magical spells endeavors to bring back to her cottage her truant lover Daphnis. Virgil helped himself freely here from the second Idyll of Theocritus, “The Sorceress,” in which Simaetha, a Syracuse maiden of middle rank, weaves spells to regain the love of Delphis.

Mr. Loeffler does not intend to present in this music a literal translation of Virgil’s verse into tones. The poem is a fantasy, inspired by the verses.

The poem opens, _adagio_, 2-2, with a short motive, which, with an inversion of it, is much used throughout the work. The first chief theme is announced dolce, _mezzo-forte_, by viola solo and three flutes. It may be called the theme of invocation. The latter half of it may be divided into two motives, the first a phrase descending in whole tones, the second a rising and falling wail. These two motives are used separately and frequently in all sorts of ways. After the exposition of this theme the pianoforte enters _fortissimo_ with a harmonized inversion of the introductory motive; a _crescendo_ follows with use of the foregoing thematic material, and a _glissando_ for the pianoforte leads to an _allegro_, in which now familiar thematic material is used until the second theme appears (first violins, harp, pianoforte). This theme is developed. A pianoforte _cadenza_ built on thematic material leads to a _lento assai_, 6-4, with a dolorous theme (No. 3) for the English horn. The trumpets behind the scenes give out the burden of the sorceress. The _più vivo_ section may suggest to some a chase of wolves (“I have often seen Moeris become a wolf and plunge into the forest”). _Tranquillo_: a fourth theme, 4-4, is given to the pianoforte. _Calando_: the refrain is heard again from behind the scenes. _Moderato_: the second chief theme, 6-4, now appears, and it is used extensively. _Largamente_: the trumpets, now on the stage, announce the coming of Daphnis, and there is the suggestion of the barking Hylax. The ending is a fanfare of frantic exultation.

This poem, dedicated to the memory of Gustave Schirmer, was written originally in 1901 for performance as chamber music.

In 1905 and 1906 the work was remoulded and treated much more symphonically. The first public performance was by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston on November 23, 1927, Mr. Gebhard pianist.

The poem is scored for three flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets (and three trumpets off-stage), three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, glockenspiel, tam-tam, harp, pianoforte, strings.

EDWARD MacDOWELL

(Born in New York, December 18, 1861; died there, January 23, 1908)

ORCHESTRAL SUITE NO. 2, IN E MINOR, “INDIAN,” OP. 48

I. Legend II. Love Song III. In War Time IV. Dirge V. Village Festival

The music has the characteristic force and tenderness of this composer when he was writing for himself and not directly for the general public. It is not necessary to lug in any question of whether this be distinctively American music, for the best pages of the suite are not parochial—they are not national.

They are universal in their appeal to sensitive hearers of any land. The movements that are the most poetically imaginative, that have the greatest distinction, are the “Legend,” “In War Time,” and above all the “Dirge.” Music like this would honor any composer of whatever race he might be.

This lamentation might be that of the dying race. There is nothing of the luxury of woe; there is no conventional music for “threadbare crape and tears.” There is the dignity of man who has been familiar with nature, who has known the voices of the day and of the night on lonely prairie and in somber forest. There is serene yielding to fate.

* * *

This suite was composed in 1891-92. The first performance in public was by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, January 23, 1896.

The Indian themes used in the suite are as follows:

1. First theme, Iroquois. There is also a small Chippewa theme.

2. Iowa love song.

3. A well-known song among tribes of the Atlantic coast. There is a Dacota theme, and there are characteristic features of the Iroquois scalp dance.

4. Kiowa (woman’s song of mourning for her absent son).

5. Women’s dance, war song, both Iroquois.

The suite is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, a set of three kettledrums, bass drum, cymbals, and strings.

I. “Legend”: Not fast; with much dignity and character, E minor, 2-2. It has been said that this movement was suggested to the composer by Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s Indian legend, “Miantowona”; but MacDowell took no pains to follow Aldrich’s poem incident by incident, nor to tell any particular story; “the poem merely suggested to him to write something of a similar character in music.”

II. “Love Song”: Not fast; tenderly, A major, 6-8. One chief theme, which is announced immediately by the wood-wind, is developed, with the use of two subsidiary phrases, one a sort of response from the strings, the other a more assertive melody, first given out in D minor by wood-wind instruments.

III. “In War Time”: With rough vigor, almost savagely, D minor, 2-4. The chief theme is played by two flutes, in unison, unaccompanied. Two clarinets, in unison and without accompaniment, answer in a subsidiary theme. This material is worked out elaborately in a form that has the characteristics of the _rondo_. The rhythm changes frequently towards the end from 2-4 to 6-8 and back again.

IV. “Dirge”: Dirge-like, mournfully, in G minor, 4-4. The mournful chief theme is given out by muted violins in unison, which are soon strengthened by the violas, against repetitions of the tonic note G by piccolo, flutes, and two muted horns, one on the stage, the other behind the scenes, with occasional full harmony in groups of wind instruments. “The intimate relation between this theme and that of the first movement is not to be overlooked. It is answered by the horn behind the scenes over full harmony in the lower strings, the passage closing with a quaint concluding phrase of the oboe.” The development of this theme fills the short movement.

V. “Village Festival”: Swift and light, in E major, 2-4. Several related themes are developed. All of them are more or less derived from that of the first movement. There are lively dance rhythms. “But here also the composer has been at no pains to suggest any of the specific concomitants of Indian festivities; he has only written a movement in which merrymakings of the sort are musically suggested.”

GUSTAV MAHLER

(Born at Kalischt in Bohemia, on July 7, 1860; died at Vienna on May 18, 1911)

Those who without undue prejudice discuss Mahler the composer, admitting his faults, discussing them at length, dwelling on undeniable fine qualities, assert that his artistic life was greater than his own musical works, which, greatly planned, did not attain fulfillment and were often imitative. The sincerity of the composer was never doubted; the failure to secure that for which he strove is therefore the more pathetic.

He was of an intensely nervous nature. His life as a conductor—and he was a great conductor—the feverish atmosphere of the opera house, his going from city to city until his ability was recognized in Vienna and later at the Metropolitan, the death of a dearly loved child, the fact that he was a Jew, who had turned Catholic: these, with musical intrigues and controversies from which he suffered, gave him no mental or esthetic poise. It was his ambition to continue the work of men he revered, Beethoven and Wagner. In spite of his indisputable talent he was not the man to do this. In the nearer approaches to the ideal that was in his mind he was simply an imitator; not a convincing, not even a plausible one.

One has found through his symphonies restlessness that at times becomes hysterical; reminders of Wagner, Berlioz, Strauss; melodies in folk-song vein, often naïve, at times beautiful, but introduced as at random and quickly thrown aside; an overemployment of the wood-winds, used too often as solo instruments; passages for the brass which recall the fact that as a child Mahler delighted in military bands. Sudden changes from screaming outbursts to thin and inconsequential instrumentation; trivial moments when the hearer anticipates the movement of a country dance; diffuseness, prolixity that becomes boresome; an unwillingness to bring speech to an end; seldom genuine power or eloquence; yet here and there measures that linger in the memory.

THE SYMPHONIES

No. 1. D major. Begun in December, 1883; completed at Budapest in 1888; produced at Budapest, Mahler, conductor, on November 20, 1889; published in 1898. The Budapest programme described it as a “symphonic poem in two parts.” When it was performed at the Tonkünstler Fest at Weimar on June 3, 1894, through the insistence of Richard Strauss and Dr. Kretzschmar, it was known as “_Titan_” (after Jean Paul Richter’s romance).

No. 2. C minor. Begun and completed in 1894. First performed at a Philharmonic Concert in Berlin, Richard Strauss, conductor, on March 4, 1895. Only the three instrumental movements were then performed. The second and third met with great favor; Mahler was called out five times after the _scherzo_. The majority of the Berlin critics distorted or suppressed this fact and represented the performance as a fiasco. The whole of the symphony was performed for the first time at Mahler’s concert at Berlin on December 13, 1895. According to Ernst Otto Nodnagel, the critics again behaved “indecently”; took the purely orchestral movements for granted, and heard only the _finale_ with the tenor and contralto solos. One of them spoke of “the cynical impudence of this brutal and very latest music maker.” Nikisch and Weingartner were deeply impressed, and the greater part of the audience was wildly enthusiastic.

No. 3. F major, known as the “_Summer Morning’s Dream_,” or “_Programme_” symphony. Sketched in 1895, completed in 1896. Produced piecemeal in 1896 at Berlin and Hamburg; in 1897 at Berlin. First performance of the whole symphony at a concert of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein at Krefeld in June, 1902. Published in 1898.

No. 4. G major. Composed in 1899-1900. First performance at Munich by the Kaim Orchestra on November 28, 1901. Mahler conducted. Published in 1900.

No. 5. C-sharp minor, known as “_The Giant_” Symphony. Completed in 1902. First performance at a Gürzenich concert in Cologne, October 18, 1904.

No. 6. A minor. Composed in 1903-04. Performed under Mahler’s direction at the Tonkünstler Fest at Essen on May 27, 1906. Published in 1905.

No. 7. E minor. Composed in 1904-06. Produced at Prague on September 19, 1908. Mahler conducted. Published in 1908.

No. 8. In two parts, with soli and double chorus; first part, hymn, “Veni, Creator Spiritus,” as a sonata first movement, with double fugue; second part, the last scenes of _Faust_, in form of an _adagio_, _scherzo_, and _finale_. Composition begun in 1906. First performance at Munich as “_Symphony of the Thousand_” on September 12, 1908, the year of publication.

No. 9. Begun in 1906. Produced at Vienna late in June, 1912, Bruno Walter, conductor. The last movement is an _adagio_.

No. 10. Composed in 1909-10; left unfinished by Mahler. First performance at Prague on June 6, 1924, Alex von Zemlinsky, conductor.

“_Das Lied von der Erde_” (Song of the Earth), a symphony in six parts for tenor and contralto soli with orchestra, the text taken from _The Chinese Flute_, a collection of Chinese lyrics by Hans Bethge. Composed in 1908, first produced at Munich November 10, 1911, Bruno Walter, conductor.

Some of Mahler’s symphonies are described as programme music, but he was no friend of realism as it is understood by Richard Strauss. Mahler was reported as saying: “When I conceive a great musical picture, I always arrive at the point where I must employ the ‘word’ as the bearer of my musical idea.... My experience with the last movement of my second symphony was such that I ransacked the literature of the world, up to the Bible, to find the expository word.” Though he differed with Strauss in the matter of realistic music, he valued him highly: “No one should think I hold myself to be his rival. Aside from the fact that, if his success had not opened a path for me, I should now be looked on as a sort of monster on account of my works, I consider it one of my greatest joys that my colleagues and I have found such a comrade in fighting and creating.”

One reason why Mahler’s symphonies were looked at askance by conductors was the enormous orchestra demanded. No. 2 called for as many strings as possible, two harps, four flutes (interchangeable with four piccolos), four oboes (two interchangeable with two English horns), five clarinets (one interchangeable with bass clarinet—and when it is possible the two in E flat should be doubled in _fortissimo_ passages), four bassoons (one interchangeable with double bassoon), six horns (and four in the distance to be added in certain passages to the six), six trumpets (four in the distance, which may be taken from the six), four trombones, tuba, two sets of kettledrums, bass drum, snare drum (when possible several of them), cymbals, tam-tam of high pitch and one of low pitch, triangle, glockenspiel, three bells, a Ruthe (a bundle of rods to switch a drumhead), organ, two harps. In the distance a pair of kettledrums, bass drum, cymbals, triangle. Soprano solo, contralto solo, mixed chorus.

SYMPHONY NO. 5, IN C SHARP MINOR IN THREE PARTS

I. 1. Dead March—with measured step—like a funeral train. Suddenly faster, passionately, wildly. À tempo 2. With stormy emotion. With utmost vehemence II. 3. Scherzo. With force, but not too fast III. 4. Adagietto, very slow 5. Rondo finale: allegro

The symphony is like unto the great image that stood before Nebuchadnezzar in a vision. “And the form thereof was terrible. The image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass; his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.”

There are musical thoughts that are lovely and noble. By their side are themes of a vulgarity that is masked only by adroit contrapuntal treatment or by the blare of instrumentation which gives a plausible and momentary importance. There is excessive reiteration of subjects and devices, and the skill displayed in embellishment and variation of orchestral color, color rather than nuance, does not relieve the monotony. The opening is imposing, but the chief theme of the Dead March disappoints. The first pages of the second section, “stormily restless,” are a stroke of genius, the free expression of wild imagination. There are charming ideas in the _scherzo_, and there is also much that is only whimsical, as though Mahler had then written solely for his own amusement, and said to himself, “Let us try it this way. I wonder how it will sound.” The _adagietto_ is the most emotional portion of the work, and here Mahler employed simple means. Here the thought and the expression are happily wedded, nor does the ghost of Wagner, seen for a moment smiling, forbid this union. It may be that in the _finale_ the composer could not help remembering the wondrous theme, D major, in the _adagio_ of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony; but the resemblance is after all only a suggestion, and this _finale_ in _rondo_ form, with the majestic peroration, is worked so that there is a steady _crescendo_ of interest. As a whole Mahler’s symphony, with its mixture of the grand and the common, with its spontaneity and its laborious artifice, is like unto the great image referred to above.

* * *

This symphony, known to some as “_The Giant_” symphony, was performed for the first time at a Gürzenich concert at Cologne, October 18, 1904. The composer conducted. There was a difference of opinion concerning the merits of the work. A visiting critic from Munich wrote that there was breathless silence after the first movement, “which proved more effectively than tremendous applause that the public was conscious of the presence of genius.” It is stated that after the _finale_ there was much applause; there was also hissing.

When the symphony was performed in certain German cities, as at Dresden, January 27, 1905, at a symphony concert of the Royal Orchestra, and at Berlin, February 20, 1905, at a Philharmonic concert, the programme books contained no analytical notes and no argument of any sort. The compilers thus obeyed the wish of the composer. Mr. Ludwig Schiedermair tells us, in his _Gustav Mahler: eine biographisch-kritische Würdigung_, of Mahler’s abhorrence of all programme books for concert use, and he relates this anecdote. Mahler conducted a performance of his Symphony in C minor at a concert of the Munich Hugo Wolf Society. After the concert there was a supper, and in the course of the conversation someone mentioned programme books. “Then was it as though lightning flashed in a joyous, sunny landscape. Mahler’s eyes were more brilliant than ever, his forehead wrinkled, he sprang in excitement from the table and exclaimed in passionate tones: ‘Away with programme books, which breed false ideas! The audience should be left to its own thoughts over the work that is performing: it should not be forced to read during the performance; it should not be prejudiced in any manner. If a composer by his music forces on his hearers the sensations which streamed through his mind, then he reaches his goal. The speech of tones has then approached the language of words, but it is far more capable of expression and declaration.’ And Mahler raised his glass and emptied it with ‘_Pereat den Programmen!_’”

Yet Mr. Mahler’s enthusiastic admirer and partisan, Ernst Otto Nodnagel, of Darmstadt, contributed to “Die Musik” (second November number and first December number of 1904) a technical analysis of the Fifth symphony, an analysis of twenty-three large octavo pages, with a beautiful motto from Schiller. This analysis, published by Peters, and sold for the sum of thirty pfennig, is within reach of the humblest.

The symphony was completed in the spring of 1903. It was written in 1901-02 at his little country house near Maiernigg on Lake Wörther. Other works of this date are the _Kindertotenlieder_ and other songs with Rückert’s verses. The symphony is scored for four flutes (and piccolo), three oboes, three clarinets (and bass clarinet), two bassoons, one double bassoon, six horns (in third movement a horn obbligato), four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, kettledrums, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, Glockenspiel, gong, harp, and strings.

Let us respect the wishes of the composer who looked on analytical or explanatory programmes as the abomination of desolation. Yet it may be said that in the _rondo finale_, after the second chief motive enters as the subject of a fugal section, one of the lesser themes used in the development is derived from Mahler’s song, “Lob des hohen Verstands” (relating to the trial of skill between the nightingale and the cuckoo with the ass as judge).

FELIX MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY

(Born at Hamburg, February 3, 1809; died at Leipsic, November 4, 1847)

Mendelssohn in his maturity wrote his music as he looks in his picture, smiling and with a stickpin in his ruffled shirt. When at seventeen he wrote his overture to _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, he was a romanticist. What might he not have accomplished if he had been poor and less respectable! He wrote this overture before he had been spoiled by flattery; before he became a composer of priggish formulas. Aubrey Beardsley pictured the later Mendelssohn in that forgotten magazine, the _Savoy_. There you see the man that was shocked by the resurrection of the nuns in _Robert the Devil_, by Terlina undressing in _Fra Diavolo_, by Hugo’s _Ruy Blas_, although he condescended to write an overture for it. The spotless Mendelssohn who delighted Queen Victoria and her spouse by playing the organ to them. But the overture to Shakespeare’s comedy is from another Mendelssohn, the composer of _The Hebrides_, portions of the _Walpurgis Night_, not the man of the oratorios and the sentimental _Songs without Words_.

SYMPHONY IN A MAJOR, “ITALIAN,” OP. 90

I. Allegro vivace II. Andante con moto III. Con moto moderato IV. Saltarello: presto

How much of Italy is there in this symphony of Mendelssohn? Suppose there were no title. The last movement might easily be recognized as a _saltarello_; but how about the other movements? The first is light and gay, but there is no geographical or national mood at once established, there is no authoritative characterization. I doubt whether even a tambourine would be of material assistance. It was not necessary for the composer to go to Naples to write the _andante_. As for the _scherzo_, the horns with their pleasant sentimentalism might represent today Germans in Rome, armed with red guide books, and now and then bursting out in songs of the Fatherland, something about the forest, or spring, or the blissfulness of sorrow and longing. The _saltarello_ part was done much better by Berlioz. Compare this symphony, so far as local color is concerned, with a page of Bizet painting in tones a Southern scene, or with Richard Strauss’ Italian suite, or with the suite of Charpentier, and Mendelssohn’s music seems without marked distinction, rather tame and drab. Yet the first movement and the _finale_ are amiable music, pages that may awaken a gentlemanlike joy, and there is no denying the clearness of the musical thought, the purity of expression, the sure and polished workmanship.

* * *

The symphony was completed in Berlin. Mendelssohn wrote to Pastor Bauer, “My work about which I recently had many misgivings is completed, and, looking it over, I now find that, contrary to my expectations, it satisfies me. I believe it has become a good piece. Be that as it may, I feel it shows progress, and that is the main point.” The score bears the date, Berlin, March 13, 1833.

The first performance from manuscript and under the direction of the composer was at the sixth concert of the Philharmonic Society that season, May 13, 1833. “The concerts of the Society were this year, and onward, given in the Hanover Square Rooms, which had just been remodeled. The symphony made a great impression, and Felix electrified the audience by his wonderful performance of Mozart’s Concerto in D minor, his _cadenzas_ being marvels in design and execution. His new overture in C was produced at the last concert of the season.”

Mendelssohn began to revise the symphony in June, 1834. On February 16, 1835, he wrote to Klingemann that he was biting his nails over the first movement and could not yet master it, but that in any event it should be something different—perhaps wholly new—and he had this doubt about every one of the movements. Towards the end of 1837 the revision was completed. Whether the symphony in its new form was played at a Philharmonic Society Concert in London, June 18, 1838, conducted by Moscheles, is doubtful, although Moscheles asked him for it. The first performance of the revised version on the European continent was at a Gewandhaus concert, Leipsic, November 1, 1849, when Julius Rietz conducted. The score and orchestral parts were not published until March, 1851.

Grove remarked of this work: “The music itself is better than any commentary. Let that be marked, learned, and inwardly digested.”

Reismann found the first movement, _allegro vivace_, A major, 6-8, to be a paraphrase of the so-called “Hunting Song” in the first group of _Songs without Words_. The tonality is the same, and this is often enough to fire the imagination of a commentator. The chief subject begins with the violins in the second measure and is developed at length. The second subject, E major, is for clarinets. The development section begins with a new figure treated in imitation by the strings. The chief theme is then used, with the second introduced contrapuntally. In the recapitulation section the second theme is given to the strings.

The second movement, _andante con moto_, D minor, 4-4, sometimes called the “Pilgrims’ March,” but without any authority, is said “to have been a processional hymn, which probably gave the name of ‘“_Italian_” symphony’ to the whole (!).” Lampadius remarks in connection with this: “I cannot discover that the piece bears any mark of a decided Catholic character, for, if I recollect rightly, I once heard Moscheles say that Mendelssohn had in his mind as the source of this second movement an old Bohemian folk song.”[38] The two introductory measures suggested to Grove “the cry of a muezzin from his minaret,” but, pray, what has this to do with Italy? The chief theme is given out by oboe, clarinet, and violas. The violins take it up with counterpoint for the flutes. There is a new musical idea for the clarinets. The first theme returns. The two introductory measures are used with this material in the remainder of the movement.

The third movement is marked simply “_con moto moderato_” (A major, 3-4). “There is a tradition (said to originate with Mendelssohn’s brother-in-law, Hensel, but still of uncertain authority) that it was transferred to its present place from some earlier composition. It is not, however, to be found in either of the twelve unpublished juvenile symphonies; and in the first rough draft of this symphony there is no sign of its having been interpolated. In style the movement is, no doubt, earlier than the rest of the work.” The movement opens with a theme for first violins; the trio with a passage for bassoons and horns. The third part is a repetition of the first. In the _coda_ there is at the end a suggestion of the trio.

The _finale_ is a _saltarello, presto_, 4-4. There are three themes. The flutes, after six introductory measures, play the first. In the second, somewhat similar in character, the first and second violins answer each other. The third is also given to the first and second violins alternately, but now in the form of a continuously moving, not a jumping figure.

This _saltarello_ was undoubtedly inspired by the Carnival at Rome, of which Mendelssohn gave a description in his letter of February 8, 1831. “On Saturday all the world went to the Capitol, to witness the form of the Jews’ supplications to be suffered to remain in the Sacred City for another year, a request which is refused at the foot of the hill, but, after repeated entreaties, granted on the summit, and the Ghetto is assigned to them. It was a tiresome affair; we waited two hours, and after all, understood the oration of the Jews as little as the answer of the Christians. I came down again in very bad humor, and thought that the Carnival had begun rather unpropitiously. So I arrived in the Corso and was driving along, thinking no evil, when I was suddenly assailed by a shower of sugar comfits. I looked up; they had been flung by some young ladies whom I had seen occasionally at balls, but scarcely knew, and when in my embarrassment I took off my hat to bow to them, the pelting began in right earnest. Their carriage drove on, and in the next was Miss T——, a delicate young Englishwoman. I tried to bow to her, but she pelted me, too; so I became quite desperate, and clutching the confetti, I flung them back bravely. There were swarms of my acquaintances and my blue coat was soon as white as that of a miller. The B——s were standing on a balcony, flinging confetti like hail at my head; and thus pelting and pelted, amid a thousand jests and jeers and the most extravagant masks, the day ended with races.”

It is a singular reflection on “local color” in music that Schumann mistook the “_Scotch_” symphony for the “_Italian_” and wrote of the former: “It can, like the Italian scenes in _Titan_, cause you for a moment to forget the sorrow of not having seen that heavenly country.” The best explanation of this Symphony No. 4, if there be need of any explanation, is found in the letters of Mendelssohn from Italy.

OVERTURE AND INCIDENTAL MUSIC TO SHAKESPEARE’S LAY, “A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM”

Translations by Schlegel and Tieck of Shakespeare’s plays were read by Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny in 1826. The overture, _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, was written in July and August of that year.

Klingemann tells us that part of the score was written “in the summer, in the open air, in the Mendelssohns’ garden at Berlin, for I was present.” This garden belonged to a house in the Leipziger Strasse (No. 3). It was near the Potsdam gate, and when Abraham Mendelssohn, the father, bought it, his friends complained that he was moving out of the world. There was an estate of about ten acres. In the house was a room for theatrical performances; and the center of the garden house formed a hall which held several hundred, and it was here that Sunday music was performed. In the time of Frederick the Great this garden was part of the Thiergarten. In the summer-houses were writing materials, and Felix edited a newspaper, called in summer _The Garden Times_, and in the winter _The Snow and Tea Times_.

Mendelssohn told Hiller that he had worked long and eagerly on the overture: “How in his spare time between the lectures at the Berlin University he had gone on extemporizing at it on the piano of a beautiful woman who lived close by; ‘for a whole year, I hardly did anything else,’ he said; and certainly he had not wasted his time.”

It is said that Mendelssohn made two drafts of the overture, and discarded the earlier after he completed the first half. This earlier draft began with the four chords and the fairy figure; then followed a regular overture, in which use was made of a theme typical of the loves of Lysander and Hermia, and of kin to the “love melody” of the present version.

The overture was first written as a pianoforte duet, and it was first played to Moscheles in that form by the composer and his sister, November 19, 1826. It was performed afterwards by an orchestra in the garden house. The first public performance was at Stettin in February, 1827, from manuscript, when Karl Löwe conducted. The critic was not hurried in those days, for an account of the concert appeared in the _Harmonicon_ for December of that year. The critic had had time to think the matter over, and his conclusion was that the overture was of little importance.

The overture was performed in England for the first time on June 24 (Midsummer Day), 1829, at a concert given by Louis Drouet in the Argyll Rooms. Sir George Smart, who returned from the concert with Mendelssohn, left the score of the overture in a hackney coach. So the story is told; but is it not possible that the blameless Mendelssohn left it? The score was never found, and Mendelssohn rewrote it. The overture was played in England for the first time in connection with Shakespeare’s comedy at London, in 1840, when Mme Vestris appeared in the performance at Covent Garden.

The orchestral parts were published in 1832; the score in April, 1835. The overture is dedicated to His Royal Majesty the Crown Prince of Prussia.

The overture opens _allegro di molto_, E major, 2-2, with four prolonged chords in the wood-wind. On the last of these follows immediately a _pianissimo_ chord of E minor in violins and violas. This is followed by the “fairy music” in E minor, given out and developed by divided violins with some _pizzicati_ in the violas. A subsidiary theme is given out _fortissimo_ by full orchestra. The melodious second theme, in B major, begun by the wood-wind, is then continued by the strings and fuller and fuller orchestra. Several picturesque features are then introduced: the Bergomask dance from the fifth act of the play; a curious imitation of the bray of an ass in allusion to Bottom, who is, according to Maginn’s paradox, “the blockhead, _the_ lucky man on whom Fortune showers her favors beyond measure”; and the quickly descending scale passage for violoncellos, which was suggested to the composer by the buzzing of a big fly in the Schoenhauser Garten. The free fantasia is wholly on the first theme. The third part of the overture is regular, and there is a short _coda_. The overture ends with the four sustained chords with which it opened.

In 1843 King Frederick William the Fourth of Prussia wished Mendelssohn to compose music for the plays _Antigone_, _A Midsummer_ _Night’s Dream_, _Athalie_, which should be produced in September. During March and April of that year Mendelssohn, who had written the overture in 1826, composed the additional music for Shakespeare’s play. Tieck had divided the play into three acts and had said nothing to the composer about the change. Mendelssohn had composed with reference to the original division. The first performance was in the Royal Theater in the New Palace, Potsdam, October 14, 1843, on the eve of the festival of the King’s birthday. Mendelssohn conducted.

The score was published in June, 1848; the orchestral parts in August of that year. The first edition for pianoforte was published in September, 1844.

Mendelssohn’s music to the play consists of thirteen numbers:

I. Overture; II. _Scherzo_ (Entr’acte after Act I); III. Fairy March (in Act II); IV. “You spotted snakes,” for two sopranos and chorus (in Act II); V. Melodrama (in Act II); VI. Intermezzo (Entr’acte after Act II); VII. Melodrama (in Act III); VIII. Notturno (Entr’acte after Act III); IX. _Andante_ (in Act IV); X. Wedding March (after the close of Act IV); XI. _Allegro commodo_ and _Marcia funebre_ (in Act V); XII. Bergomask Dance (in Act V); XIII. _Finale_ to Act V.

Many of the themes in these numbers were taken from the overture.

The _scherzo_ (entr’acte between Acts I and II) is an _allegro vivace_ in G minor, 3-8. “Presumably Mendelssohn intended it as a purely musical reflection of the scene in Quince’s house—the first meeting to discuss the play to be given by the workmen at the wedding—with which the first act ends. Indeed, there is a passing allusion to Nick Bottom’s bray in it. But the general character of the music is bright and fairy-like, with nothing of the grotesque about it.” The _scherzo_ presents an elaborate development of two themes that are not sharply contrasted; the first theme has a subsidiary. The score is dedicated to Heinrich Conrad Schleinitz.

CONCERT OVERTURE, “THE HEBRIDES,” OR “FINGAL’S CAVE,” OP. 26

In the _Hebrides_ overture, Mendelssohn shook off his priggish formalism. He had been deeply affected by the sight of Staffa and Fingal’s Cave; he was not ashamed to translate his emotions into music without obsequious obedience to the old pedagogic traditions. Here he is poetic, picturing the wildness of the far-off scene without too deliberate attempt at realism. Here is the suggestion—and with the small orchestra of the period!—as Mr. Apthorp put it, of screaming sea birds, whistling winds, the salty smell of the seaweed on the rocks. For once Mendelssohn showed himself more than a careful manufacturer of music when he revised his score, saying that the middle section smelt more of counterpoint than of train oil, sea gulls, and salt fish.

* * *

Mendelssohn saw Staffa and Fingal’s Cave on August 7, 1829. He at once determined to picture the scenes in music. He wrote to his sister on that day: “That you may understand how extraordinarily the Hebrides affected me, the following came into my mind”; and he then noted down twenty-one measures in _alla breve_, which coincide for the first ten and a half measures with the later measures in 4-4. Ferdinand Hiller, who lived with Mendelssohn in Paris during the winter of 1831-32, tells how Mendelssohn brought to him the sketched score. “He told me how the thing came to him in its full form and color when he saw Fingal’s Cave; he also informed me how the first measures, which contain the chief theme, had come into his mind. In the evening he was making a visit with his friend Klingemann on a Scottish family. There was a pianoforte in the room; but it was Sunday, and there was no possibility of music. He employed all his diplomacy to get at the pianoforte for a moment; when he had succeeded, he dashed off the theme out of which the great work grew. It was finished at Düsseldorf, but only after an interval of years.” Hiller was mistaken about the place and time of completion.

The overture was first performed on May 14, 1832, from manuscript, in London, at the sixth concert of the Philharmonic Society at Covent Garden. Thomas Attwood conducted. The composer wrote: “It went splendidly, and sounded so droll amongst all the Rossini things.” The _Athenæum_ said that the overture as descriptive music was a failure. George Hogarth wrote in his History of the Philharmonic Society (1862): “It at once created a great sensation—a sensation, we need scarcely add, that has not been diminished by numberless repetitions. At a general meeting of the Society on the 7th of June, 1832, Sir George Smart read a letter from Mendelssohn requesting the Society’s acceptance of the score of this overture; and it was resolved to present him with a piece of plate in token of the Society’s thanks, which was forthwith done.” The _Harmonicon_ praised the overture highly, and found the key of B minor well suited to the purpose.

CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN, IN E MINOR, OP. 64

I. Allegro molto appassionato II. Andante III. Allegretto non troppo; allegro molto vivace

The concerto does not call for any true depth of emotional display. The sentiment is amiable and genteel, with a dash of becoming melancholy, and the strength is the conventional strength of a man who in music had little virility. Beautifully made, a polished piece of mechanism, the concerto always, under favorable circumstances, interests and promotes contagious good feeling.

* * *

Mendelssohn in his youth composed a violin concerto with accompaniment of stringed instruments, also a concerto for violin and pianoforte (1823) with the same sort of accompaniment. These works were left in manuscript. It was at the time that he was put into jackets and trousers. Probably these works were played at the musical parties at the Mendelssohn house in Berlin on alternate Sunday mornings. Mendelssohn took violin lessons first with Carl Wilhelm Henning and afterwards with Eduard Rietz, for whom he wrote this early violin concerto. When Mendelssohn played any stringed instrument, he preferred the viola.

As early as 1838 Mendelssohn conceived the plan of composing a violin concerto in the manner of the one in E minor, for on July 30 he wrote to Ferdinand David: “I should like to write a violin concerto for you next winter. One in E minor is running in my head, and the beginning does not leave me in peace.” On July 24 of the next year he wrote from Hochheim to David, who had pressed him to compose the concerto: “It is nice of you to urge me for a violin concerto! I have the liveliest desire to write one for you, and if I have a few propitious days here, I’ll bring you something. But the task is not an easy one. You demand that it should be brilliant, and how is such a one as I to do this? The whole of the first solo is to be for the E string!”

The concerto was composed in 1844 and completed on September 16 of that year at Bad Soden, near Frankfort-on-the-Main. David received the manuscript in November. Many letters passed between the composer and the violinist. David gave advice freely. Mendelssohn took time in revising and polishing. Even after the score was sent to the publishers in December, there were more changes. David is largely responsible for the _cadenza_ as it now stands.

Mendelssohn played parts of the concerto on the pianoforte to his friends; the whole of it to Moscheles at Bad Soden.

The first performance was from manuscript at the twentieth Gewandhaus concert in Leipsic, March 13, 1845. Ferdinand David was the violinist. Niels W. Gade conducted.

The concerto is in three connected movements. The first, _allegro molto appassionato_, E minor, 2-2, begins immediately after an introductory measure with the first theme given out by the solo violin. This theme is developed at length by the solo instrument, which then goes on with _cadenza_-like passage-work, after which the theme is repeated and developed as a _tutti_ by the full orchestra. The second theme is first given out _pianissimo_ in harmony by clarinets and flutes over a sustained organ-point in the solo instrument. The chief theme is used in the development which begins in the solo violin. The brilliant solo _cadenza_ ends with a series of _arpeggios_, which continue on through the whole announcement of the first theme by orchestral strings and wind. The conclusion section is in regular form. There is no pause between this movement and the _andante_.

The first section of the _andante_, C major, is a development of the first theme sung by the solo violin. The middle part is taken up with the development of the second theme, a somewhat agitated melody. The third part is a repetition of the first, with the melody in the solo violin, but with a different accompaniment. Mendelssohn originally intended the accompaniment (strings) to the first theme to be played _pizzicato_. He wrote to David, “I intended to write in this way, but something or other—I don’t know what—prevented me.”

The _finale_ opens with a short introduction, _allegretto non troppo_, E minor, 4-4. The main body of the _finale, allegro molto vivace_, E major, 4-4, begins with calls on horns, trumpets, bassoons, drums, answered by _arpeggios_ of the solo violin and tremolos in the strings. The chief theme of the _rondo_ is announced by the solo instruments. The orchestra has a second theme, B major; the violin one in G major. In the recapitulation section the _fortissimo_ second theme appears again, this time in E major. There is a brilliant _coda_.

Mendelssohn used the following orchestration for the works discussed in this chapter (save for the addition of an ophicleide in the overture to _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_): two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, kettledrums, and strings.—EDITOR.

MODESTE PETROVITCH MOUSSORGSKY

(Born at Karevo, district of Toropeta, in the government of Pskov, on March 28, 1835; died at St. Petersburg on March 28, 1881)

“A NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN” (“UNE NUIT SUR LE MONT-CHAUVE”); FANTASY FOR ORCHESTRA Posthumous Work Completed and Orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov

Moussorgsky’s fantasy was composed in 1867 and was thus one of the few early Russian orchestral compositions of a fantastically picturesque nature. In the original form it was no doubt crude, for Moussorgsky had little technic for the larger forms of music; he despised “style,” and believed that much knowledge would prevent him from attaining the realism that was his goal. That he himself was not satisfied with this symphonic poem is shown by the fact that he revised it two or three times. He died; Rimsky-Korsakov edited it and orchestrated it. The music was finally heard after Moussorgsky’s death. Rimsky-Korsakov was a fastidious musician, a learned harmonist, a master of orchestrations. It is said that he sandpapered and polished _Boris Godounov_ to the great detriment of Moussorgsky’s opera; he chastened the wild spirit; he tamed the native savageness, so it is said. What did he do to this musical picture of a Witches’ Sabbath on Bald Mountain?

Having heard several musical descriptions of these unholy Sabbaths, where reverence was paid Satan, exultantly ruling in the form of a he-goat, where there was horrid, obscene revelry, if we may believe well-instructed ancient and modern writers on Satanism and witchcraft, we wonder why any woman, young or old, straddled a broomstick and made her way hopefully and joyfully to a lonely mountain or barren plain. If we can put faith in the musical descriptions given by Berlioz, Boïto, Gounod, Satan’s evening receptions were comparatively tame affairs, with dancing of a nature that would not have offended the selectmen and their wives and sisters of our little village in the sixties, when the waltz was frowned on as a sensual and ungodly diversion. Liszt’s _Mephisto Waltz_ is, indeed, sensuous, fleshly, but Satan in this instance only plays the fiddle; he is not master of sabbatic revels. In Moussorgsky’s symphonic poem the _allegro_ devoted to the worshipers of the devil is rather commonplace; its laborious wildness becomes monotonous in spite of the editor’s instrumentation. Far more original and effective is the second section, in which a church bell puts the blasphemous revelers to flight.

* * *

In September, 1860, Moussorgsky wrote to Balakirev: “I have also been given a most interesting piece of work to do, which must be ready by next summer: a whole act of _The Bald Mountain_ (after Megden’s drama _The Witch_). The assembly of the witches, various episodes of witchcraft, the pageant of all the sorcerers, and a _finale_, the witch dance and homage to Satan. The libretto is very fine. I have already a few materials for the music, and it may be possible to turn out something very good.” In September, 1862, he wrote to Balakirev, saying that his friend’s attitude towards _The Witches_ [_sic_] had embittered him. “I considered, still consider, and shall consider forever that the thing is satisfactory.... I come forth with a first big work.... I shall alter neither plan nor working-out; for both are in close relationship with the contents of the scene, and are carried out in a spirit of genuineness, without tricks or make-believes.... I have fulfilled my task as best I could. The one thing I shall alter is the percussion, which I have misused.” A letter to Rimsky-Korsakov dated July, 1867, shows that he did rewrite _A Night on Bald Mountain_, but remained unwilling to make further alterations.

During the winter of 1871-72 the director of the opera at St. Petersburg planned that Moussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Cui should each write a portion of a fairy opera, _Mlada_. Moussorgsky was to write music for some folk scenes, a march for the procession of Slav princes and a great fantastical scene, “The Sacrifice to the Black Goat on Bald Mountain.” This would give him the opportunity of using his symphonic poem. The project fell through on account of pecuniary reasons. Rimsky-Korsakov’s _Mlada_ was produced at St. Petersburg in 1892.

In 1877 Moussorgsky undertook to write an opera _The Fair at Sorotchinsi_, based on a tale by Gogol. He purposed to introduce in it _A Night on Bald Mountain_, and he revised the score.

It is said that the original version of the symphonic poem was for pianoforte and orchestra; that the revision for _Mlada_ was for orchestra and chorus; that the work was to serve as a scenic interlude in the unfinished opera, _The Fair at Sorotchinsi_.

Rimsky-Korsakov as Moussorgsky’s musical executor revised the score of the poem. He retained the composer’s argument:

“Subterranean din of supernatural voices. Appearance of Spirits of Darkness, followed by that of the god Tchernobog. Glorification of Tchernobog. Black mass. Witches’ Sabbath. At the height of the Sabbath there sounds far off the bell of the little church in a village which scatters the Spirits of Darkness. Daybreak.”

The form is simple: a symphonic _allegro_ is joined to a short _andante_; _allegro feroce_; _poco meno mosso_.

_A Night on Bald Mountain_, dedicated to Vladimir Stassov, is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, bell in D, and strings.

The first performance was at a concert of the Russian Symphony Society at St. Petersburg on October 27, 1886. Rimsky-Korsakov conducted. The piece met with such success that it was played later in that season.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

(Born at Salzburg, January 27, 1756; died at Vienna, December 5, 1791)

In this life that is “so daily,” as Jules Laforgue complained, a life of tomorrow rather than of today, we are inclined to patronize the ancient worthies who in their own period were very modern, or to speak jauntily of them as bores, with their works of “only historical interest.” Mozart has not escaped. Many concertgoers yawn at his name and wonder why such men as Richard Strauss or Vincent d’Indy could praise him with glowing cheeks. They suspect this attribute of worship to be a pose. Remind them of the fact that to such widely different characters as Rossini, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, the musician of musicians was Mozart, and they say lightly, “There’s no accounting for tastes; surely you do not pretend to maintain that Mozart is a man of this generation.”

No, Mozart was neither a symbolist nor a pessimist. He was not a translator of literature, sculpture, or painting into music His imagination was not fired by a metaphysical treatise. He simply wrote music that came into his head and disquieted him until it was jotted down on paper. He did not go about nervously seeking for ideas. His music is never the passionate cry, never the wild shriek of a racked soul. His music is never hysterical, it is never morbid. It is seldom emotional as we necessarily and unhappily understand that word today. Perhaps for these reasons it is still modern, immortal, and not merely on account of the long and exquisite melodic line, fitting, inevitable background, delicate coloring. Music that is only the true voice of a particular generation is moribund as soon as it is born.

His music, whether it vitalizes stage characters or is absolute, as in the three famous symphonies, and in the chamber works, is as the music on Prospero’s isle: “Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.” The analyst may find pleasure in praising the unsurpassable workmanship, which is akin to the spontaneity of natural phenomena; he may marvel at the simplicity of plan and expression; the simplicity that is the despair of interpreters, for it is the touchstone of their own art or artificiality—and Mozart himself, when he told his emperor that his opera had just the right number of notes, anticipated the judgment of time—but he is still far from explaining the peculiar and ineffable tenderness of this music that soothes and caresses and comforts.

The serenity, the classic suggestion of emotion without the distortion that accompanies passion, would grace a tragedy of Sophocles or a comedy by Congreve. Mozart’s music is essentially Grecian, yet now and then it reminds one of Watteau.

Hazlitt said of art that it should seem to come from the air and return to it. But he characterized it with finer appreciation when he said, without mention of Mozart’s name, “Music is color without form; a soul without a body; a mistress whose face is veiled; an invisible goddess.” And for this reason Debussy is the spiritual brother of Mozart, moderns both, yet classics.

_Symphonies in E flat (Koechel No. 543), G minor (Koechel No. 550), C major (“Jupiter”), (Koechel No. 551)_

SYMPHONY IN E FLAT MAJOR (KOECHEL NO. 543)

I. Adagio; allegro II. Andante III. Minuetto; trio IV. Finale: allegro

Mozart wrote his symphony when in a condition of distress, but who would know from the music of the composer’s poverty and gloom? The iteration of the chief theme of the second movement soon frets the nerves, not from any poignancy of emotion, but from its very placidity. And how seldom in Mozart’s music is there any emotional burst as we understand emotion today! There are a few passages in the first movement of the G minor symphony, pages in certain chamber works, and in the _Requiem_, and there are the two great scenes in _Don Giovanni_, the trio between the Don, the Commander, and Leporello after the duel, and the scene between the blaspheming rake and the Stone Man. As a rule the emotion of Mozart is that of the classic frieze or urn. Beauty with him is calm and serene, and emotion, he believed, should always be beautiful.

* * *

The symphony in E flat induced A. Apel to attempt a translation of the music into poetry that should express the character of each movement. It excited the fantastical E. T. A. Hoffmann to an extraordinary rhapsody: “Love and melancholy are breathed forth in purest spirit tones; we feel ourselves drawn with inexpressible longing toward the forms which beckon us to join them in their move with the spheres in the eternal circles of the solemn dance.” So explained Johannes Kreisler in the _Phantasiestücke in Callots Manier_.

SYMPHONY IN G MINOR (KOECHEL NO. 550)

I. Allegro molto II. Andante III. Minuetto; trio IV. Finale: allegro assai

It seems as if Mozart lost his classic serenity whenever he chose the key of G minor. In the immortal symphony there is, except in the beautiful, characteristically Mozartian _andante_, a feverishness, an intensity not to be found in his other symphonies; and so in the perfect flower of his chamber music there is a direct, passionate appeal of one theme (G minor again) that reminds one of the terribly earnest Verdi of the ’fifties.

Some years ago, a prominent writer about music, a wild-eyed worshiper of Liszt and Wagner, published the statement that this symphony is interesting only in a historical sense. His idols would have been the first to laugh at him. There are few things in art that are perfect. The G minor symphony is one of them. Its apparent simplicity is an adorable triumph of supreme art.

SYMPHONY IN C MAJOR, “JUPITER” (KOECHEL NO. 551)

I. Allegro vivace II. Andante cantabile III. Minuetto: allegretto; trio IV. Finale: allegro molto

Hearing the _andante_, the _minuet_, and the wonderful _finale_, one no longer questions the famous and subtle saying of Rossini. When asked who was the greatest composer, he answered “Beethoven”; he then said, “But Mozart is the only one.”

Let the first movement pass with its second theme that reminds one of charming music in _The Marriage of Figaro_. The _andante_ could have been written only by Mozart. There is spiritualized sensuousness; there is perfect form, exquisite proportion, and euphony.

Has there not too much been said about the marvelous display of science in the construction of the _finale_? The wonder of it is that the display does not impress the hearer unduly. To him it is merely gay and charming music. It ravishes his ear without his taking interest in the technical devices, even if he could recognize and understand them. If the title should be “Symphony in C major with the Fugue,” the word “fugue” would not fill his soul with dismal foreboding. There has been only one Mozart, as there has been only one Handel.

It is not known who gave the title “Jupiter” to the symphony. There is nothing in the music that reminds one of Jupiter Tonans, Jupiter Fulgurator, Jupiter Pluvius; or of the god who, assuming various disguises, came down to earth, where by his adventures with women semi-divine or mortals of common clay he excited the jealous rage of Juno. The music is not of an Olympian mood. It is intensely human in its loveliness and its gayety.

* * *

It is possible that the “_Jupiter_” symphony was performed at the concert given by Mozart in Leipsic. The two that preceded the great three were composed in 1783 and 1786. The latter of the two (D major) was performed at Prague with extraordinary success. Publishers were not slow in publishing Mozart’s compositions, even if they were as conspicuous niggards as Joseph II himself. The two symphonies played at Leipsic were probably of the three composed in 1788, but this is only a conjecture.

Some say the title “Jupiter” was applied to the symphony by J. B. Cramer, to express his admiration for the loftiness of ideas and nobility of treatment. Some maintain that the triplets in the first measure suggest the thunderbolts of Jove. Some think that the “calm, godlike beauty” of the music compelled the title. Others are satisfied with the belief that the title was given to the symphony as it might be to any masterpiece or any impressively beautiful or strong or big thing. To them “Jupiter” expresses the power and brilliance of the work.

The eulogies pronounced on this symphony are familiar to all—from Schumann’s “There are things in the world about which nothing can be said, as Mozart’s C major symphony with the fugue, much of Shakespeare, and pages of Beethoven,” to Bülow’s “I call Brahms’ First symphony the Tenth, not because it should be placed after the Ninth: I should put it between the Second and the _Eroica_, just as I think the first not the symphony of Beethoven but the one composed by Mozart and known by the name of ‘Jupiter.’” But there were decriers early in the nineteenth century. Thus Hans Georg Nägeli (1773-1836) attacked this symphony bitterly on account of its well-defined and long-lined melody, “which Mozart mingled and confounded with a free instrumental play of ideas, and his very wealth of fancy and emotional gifts led to a sort of fermentation in the whole province of art, and caused it to retrograde rather than to advance.” He found fault with certain harmonic progressions which he characterized as trivial. He allowed the composer originality and a certain power of combination, but he found him without style, often shallow and confused. He ascribed these qualities to the personal qualities of the man himself: “He was too hasty, when not too frivolous, and he wrote as he himself was.” Nägeli was not the last to judge a work according to the alleged morality or immorality of the maker.

Mozart wrote his three greatest symphonies in 1788. The one in E flat is dated June 26; the one in G minor, July 25; the one in C major with the _fugue-finale_, August 10.

His other works of that year are of little importance with the exception of a piano concerto in D major which he played at the coronation festivities of Leopold II at Frankfort in 1790. Why is this? 1787 was the year of _Don Giovanni_; 1790, the year of _Cosi fan tutte_. Was Mozart, as some say, exhausted by the feat of producing three symphonies in such a short time? Or was there some reason for discouragement and consequent idleness?

The Ritter Gluck, composer to the Emperor Joseph II, died November 15, 1787, and thus resigned his position with a salary of 2,000 florins. Mozart was appointed his successor, but the thrifty Joseph cut down the salary to 800 florins. And Mozart at this time was sadly in need of money, as his letters show. In a letter of June, 1788, he tells of his new lodgings, where he could have better air, a garden, quiet. In another, dated June 27, he says: “I have done more work in the ten days that I have lived here than in two months in my other lodgings, and I should be much better here, were it not for dismal thoughts that often come to me. I must drive them resolutely away; for I am living comfortably, pleasantly, and cheaply.” We know that he borrowed from Puchberg, a merchant with whom he became acquainted at a Masonic lodge, for the letter with Puchberg’s memorandum of the amount is in the collection edited by Nohl.

Mozart could not reasonably expect help from the Emperor. The composer of _Don Giovanni_ and the “_Jupiter_” symphony was unfortunate in his emperors.

The Emperor Joseph was in the habit of getting up at five o’clock; he dined on boiled bacon at 3.15 P.M.; he preferred water as a beverage, but would drink a glass of Tokay; he was continually putting chocolate drops from his waistcoat pocket into his mouth; he gave gold coins to the poor; he was unwilling to sit for his portrait; he had remarkably fine teeth; he disliked sycophantic fuss; he patronized the English, who introduced horse-racing; and Michael Kelly, who tells us many things, says that Joseph was “passionately fond of music and a most excellent and accurate judge of it.” We know that he did not like the music of Mozart.

Joseph commanded from his composer Mozart no opera, cantata, symphony, or piece of chamber music, although he was paying him 800 florins a year. He did order dances, for the dwellers in Vienna were dancing mad. Kelly, who knew Mozart and sang in the first performance of _Le Nozze di Figaro_ in 1786, says in his memoirs (written by Theodore Hook): “The ridotto rooms, where the masquerade took place, were in the palace; and, spacious and commodious as they were, they were actually crammed with masqueraders. I never saw or indeed heard of any suite of rooms where elegance and convenience were more considered, for the propensity of the Vienna ladies for dancing and going to carnival masquerades was so determined that nothing was permitted to interfere with their enjoyment of their favorite amusement.... The ladies of Vienna are particularly celebrated for their grace and movements in waltzing, of which they never tire. For my own part, I thought waltzing from ten at night until seven in the morning a continual whirligig, most tiresome to the eye and ear, to say nothing of any worse consequences.”[39] Mozart wrote for these dances, as did Haydn, Hummel, Beethoven.

We know little or nothing concerning the first years of the three symphonies. Gerber’s “_Lexicon der Tonkünstler_” (1790) speaks appreciatively of him: the erroneous statement is made that the Emperor fixed his salary in 1788 at 6,000 florins; the varied ariettas for piano are praised especially; but there is no mention whatever of any symphony.

The enlarged edition of Gerber’s work (1813) contains an extended notice of Mozart’s last years, and we find in the summing up of his career: “If one knew only one of his noble symphonies, as the overpoweringly great, fiery, perfect, pathetic, sublime symphony in C.” And this reference is undoubtedly to the “_Jupiter_” the one in C major.

Mozart gave a concert at Leipsic in May, 1789. The programme was made up wholly of pieces by him, and among them were two symphonies in manuscript. At a rehearsal for this concert Mozart took the first _allegro_ of a symphony at a very fast pace, so that the orchestra soon was unable to keep up with him. He stopped the players and began again at the same speed, and he stamped the time so furiously that his steel shoe buckle flew into pieces. He laughed, and, as the players still dragged, he began the _allegro_ a third time. The musicians, by this time exasperated, played to suit him. Mozart afterwards said to some who wondered at his conduct, because he had on other occasions protested against undue speed: “It was not caprice on my part. I saw that the majority of the players were well along in years. They would have dragged everything beyond endurance if I had not set fire to them and made them angry, so that out of sheer spite they did their best.” Later in the rehearsal he praised the orchestra, and said that it was unnecessary for it to rehearse the accompaniment to the pianoforte concerto: “The parts are correct, you play well, and so do I.” This concert, by the way, was poorly attended, and half of those who were present had received free tickets from Mozart, who was generous in such matters.

Mozart also gave a concert of his own works at Frankfort, October 14, 1790. Symphonies were played in Vienna in 1788, but they were by Haydn; and one by Mozart was played in 1791. In 1792 a symphony by Mozart was played at Hamburg.

The early programmes, even when they have been preserved, seldom determine the date of a first performance. It was the custom to print: “_Symphonie von Wranitsky_,” “_Sinfonie von Mozart_,” “_Sinfonia di Haydn_.” Furthermore, it should be remembered that _Sinfonie_ was then a term often applied to any work in three or more movements written for strings, or strings and wind instruments.

OVERTURE TO THE OPERA, “THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO”

_Le Nozze di Figaro: dramma giocoso in quadro atti; poesia di Lorenzo Da Ponte, aggiustata dalla commedia del Beaumarchais, “Le Mariage de Figaro”; musica di W. A. Mozart_, was composed at Vienna in 1786 and produced there on May 1 of the same year.

The overture opens (_presto_, D major, 4-4) immediately with the first theme; the first part of it is a running passage of seven measures in eighth notes (strings and bassoons in octaves), and the second part is given for four measures to wind instruments, with a joyous response of seven measures by full orchestra. This theme is repeated. A subsidiary theme follows, and the second theme appears in A major, a gay figure in the violins, with bassoon, afterward flute. There is no free fantasia. There is a long _coda_.

Mozart saw in the play of Beaumarchais an excellent libretto for an opera. Da Ponte tells the story in his amusing _Memoirs_: “Talking one day with him [Mozart], he asked me if I could turn Beaumarchais’s _Noces de Figaro_ into an opera. The proposition was to my taste, and the success was immediate and universal. A little before, this piece had been forbidden by the Emperor’s command, on account of its immorality. How then to propose it anew? Baron Vetzlar [Wezlar] offered me with his customary generosity a reasonable price for my libretto and assured me that he would see to its production at London or in France, if it were refused in Vienna. I did not accept the offer, and I secretly began work. I waited the opportune moment to propose the poem either to the Intendant or, if I had the courage, to the Emperor himself. Martin alone was in my confidence, and he was so generous, out of deference to Mozart, to give me time to finish my piece before I began work on one for him. As fast as I wrote the words, Mozart wrote the music, and it was all finished in six weeks. The lucky star of Mozart willed an opportune moment and permitted me to carry my manuscript directly to the Emperor.

“‘How’s this?’ said Joseph to me. ‘You know that Mozart, remarkable for his instrumental music, has with one exception never written for song, and the exception is not good for much.’

“I answered timidly, ‘Without the kindness of the Emperor, I should have written only one drama in Vienna.’

“‘True: but I have already forbidden the German company to play this piece _Figaro_.’

“‘I know it; but, in turning it into an opera, I have cut out whole scenes, shortened others, and been careful everywhere to omit anything that might shock the conventionalities and good taste; in a word, I have made a work worthy of the theater honored by His Majesty’s protection. As for the music, as far as I can judge, it seems to me a masterpiece.’

“‘All right; I trust to your taste and prudence. Send the score to the copyists.’

“A moment afterward I was at Mozart’s. I had not yet told him the good news, when he was ordered to go to the palace with his score. He obeyed, and the Emperor thus heard several _morceaux_ which delighted him. Joseph II had a very correct taste in music, and in general for everything that is included in the fine arts. The prodigious success of this work throughout the whole world is a proof of it. The music, incredible to relate, did not obtain a unanimous vote of praise. The Viennese composers crushed by it, Rosenberg and Casti especially, never failed to run it down.”[40]

Did Da Ponte show himself the courtier when he spoke of the Emperor’s “very correct taste in music”?

There was a cabal from the start against the production of Mozart’s opera. Kelly says in his _Reminiscences_: “Every one of the opera company took part in the contest. I alone was a stickler for Mozart, and naturally enough, for he had a claim on my warmest wishes.... Of all the performers in this opera at that time, but one survives—myself. [This was written in 1826.] It was allowed that never was opera stronger cast. I have seen it performed at different periods in other countries, and well too, but no more to compare with its original performance than light is to darkness. All the original performers had the advantage of the instruction of the composer, who transfused into their minds his inspired meaning. I never shall forget his little animated countenance, when lighted up with the glowing rays of genius; it is as impossible to describe as it would be to paint sunbeams.”

OVERTURE TO THE OPERA “THE MAGIC FLUTE”

Emanuel Johann Schikaneder, the author of the libretto of _Die Zauberflöte_ (The Magic Flute), was a wandering theater director, poet, composer, and play actor. Vain, improvident, shrewd, a bore, he nevertheless had good qualities that won for him the friendship of Mozart. In 1791 Schikaneder was the director of the Auf der Wieden, a little theater where comic operas were performed. He no doubt would have made a success of his venture, had he curbed his ambition. On the verge of failure, he made a fairy drama out of _Lulu, or the Enchanted Flute_, Liebeskind’s story in a collection of fairy tales published by Wieland. He asked Mozart to write the music for it. Mozart, pleased with the scenario, accepted the offer and said: “If I do not bring you out of your trouble, and if the work is not successful, you must not blame me; for I have never written magic music.” Schikaneder had followed closely Wieland’s text; but he learned that Marinelli, a rival manager, the director of the Leopoldstadt Theater, thought of putting upon the stage a piece with the same subject; so he hurriedly, and with the assistance of an actor named Gieseke, modified the plot, and substituted for the evil genius of the play the high priest Sarastro, who appears to be the custodian of the secrets and the executor of the wishes of the Masonic order.

Schikaneder knew the ease with which Mozart wrote. He also knew that it was necessary to keep watch over him, that he might be ready at the appointed time. Mozart’s wife was then in Baden. Schikaneder therefore put Mozart in a little pavilion which was in the midst of a garden near his theater. The music of _The Magic Flute_ was written in this pavilion and in a room of the casino of Josephdorf. Mozart was deep in doleful dumps when he began his task, so Schikaneder surrounded him with members of his company. It was long believed that the composer was then inspired by the beautiful eyes of the singing woman, Gerl, but the story may rest on no better foundation than the one of the Mme Hofdaemmel tragedy, which even Otto Jahn thought worthy of his investigation.

Schikaneder made his proposal early in March, 1791. The overture, with the Priests’ March, was composed September 28, 1791. On September 30 of that year _Die Zauberflöte_, a grand opera in two acts, was produced at the Auf der Wieden Theater.

Schikaneder’s name was in large type on the bill; Mozart’s name was in small type underneath the cast. Johann Schenk (1753-1836), who made money and won fame by the popularity of his operas—_Der Dorfbarbier_ (1796) was long a favorite—Schenk gave Beethoven lessons in counterpoint at Vienna in 1793-94—sat in one of the orchestra seats. At the end of the overture, he went to Mozart and kissed his hand. Mozart stroked his admirer’s cheek. But the first act was not well received. Mozart went behind the scenes and saw Schikaneder in his costume of a bird. He reassured Mozart, but the opera disappointed the Viennese at first, and Mozart was cut to the quick. The cool reception was not due to the character of the subject; for “magic plays” with music of Viennese composers, as Wenzel Müller, were very popular, and _The Magic Flute_ was regarded as a _Singspiel_, a “magic farce,” with unusually elaborate music. The report from Vienna that was published in Kunzen and Reichardt’s music journal, _Studien fur Tonkünstler und Musikfreunde_ (Berlin, 1793, p. 79), tells the story: “The new machine comedy, _The Magic Flute_, with music by our _Kapellmeister_ Mozard [_sic_], which was given at great expense and with such sumptuousness, did not meet with the expected success, for the contents and dialogue of the piece are utterly worthless.” Schikaneder was obstinate in his faith; the opera soon became the fashion. The two hundredth representation was celebrated at Vienna in October, 1795. _The Magic Flute_ made its way over the continent. The libretto was translated into Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Polish, Italian. Paris knew the opera in 1801 (August 23) as _Les Mystères d’Isis_. The first performance in London was on May 25, 1819, in Italian.

Mozart died shortly after the production of _The Magic Flute_, in deep distress. This opera, with the music of his _Requiem_, was in his mind until the final delirium. While the opera was performing he would take his watch from under his pillow and follow the performance in imagination: “We are now at the end of the act,” or “Now comes the grand aria for the Queen of Night.” The day before he died, he sang with his weak voice the opening measures of “Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja,” and endeavored to beat the time with his hands. The frivolous and audacious Schikaneder, “sensualist, parasite, spendthrift,” filled his purse by this opera: in 1798 he built the Theater an der Wien. On the roof he put his own statue, clothed in the feather costume of Papageno. His luck was not constant; in 1812 he died in poverty.

CONCERTOS FOR VIOLIN

No. 1, in B flat major (Koechel No. 207) No. 2, in D major (Koechel No. 212) No. 3, in G major (Koechel No. 216) No. 4, in D major (Koechel No. 218) No. 5, in A major (Koechel No. 219) No. 6, in E flat major (Koechel No. 268)

Mozart composed five violin concertos at Salzburg in 1775. The accompaniment of the five concertos is scored for the same instruments: two oboes, two horns, strings. In 1776 Mozart wrote a sixth concerto—E flat major—with an accompaniment scored for flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings. A seventh was discovered by Dr. Kopfermann in 1907. There is some doubt as to its genuineness.

These concertos were undoubtedly written for Mozart’s own use. As a child, he played the violin as well as the forerunners of the pianoforte, and on his tour in 1763 he played the violin in public. His first published composition was a sonata in C major for pianoforte and violin (K. No. 6). This, and one in D major, were composed in 1763 at Paris. They are dedicated to the Princess Victoire of France. In 1775 Mozart was practicing diligently the violin to please his father. It was one of Wolfgang’s duties at the Court to play the violin. He disliked to do it. His father, an excellent violinist, encouraged his son: “You have no idea how well you play the violin; if you would only do yourself justice, and play with boldness, spirit, and fire, you would be the first violinist in Europe.” This was in answer to a letter from Munich in which Mozart had written: “I played as though I were the greatest fiddler in Europe.” In 1777 the father reproached him for neglecting the violin (in Vienna Wolfgang preferred to play the viola in quartets). And it was in 1777 that Mozart wrote of one Franzl whom he heard playing a violin concerto at Mannheim: “You know I am no great lover of difficulties. He plays difficult things, but one does not recognize the difficulties and imagines that one could do the same thing at once: that is true art. He also has a beautiful round tone—not a note is missing, one hears everything; everything is well marked. He has a fine _staccato_ bow, up as well as down; and I have never heard so good a double shake as his. In a word, though he is no wizard, he is a solid violinist.”

The characteristics of the Salzburg violin concertos are the same. They are in three movements, _allegro_, _andante_ or _adagio_, and _rondo_. The first movement is the one most developed, although it might be considered as in aria form rather than the form befitting a first movement of a symphony. There is the customary alternation between _tutti_ and solo passages. The structure is more compact than that of the aria; it has more life. The “passage” measures grow out of the themes, play about them, or are closely related to them. The second movement requires expressive playing of sustained melody and is of a cheerful character. The _finale_ is in rondo form and joyful mood.

MOZART AS PIANIST

From Mozart’s letters, one learns something about his own manner of playing the piano:

“Herr Stein sees and hears that I am more of a player than Beecke—that without making grimaces of any kind I play so expressively that, according to his own confession, no one shows off his pianoforte as well as I. That I always remain strictly in time surprises everyone; they cannot understand that the left hand should not in the least be concerned in a _tempo rubato_. When they play, the left hand always follows” (1777).

About Nannette Stein’s playing: “She sits opposite the treble instead of in the middle of the instrument, so that there may be greater opportunities for swaying about and making grimaces. Then she rolls up her eyes and smirks. If a passage occurs twice, it is played slower the second time; if three times, still slower. When a passage comes, up goes the arm, and, if there is to be an emphasis it must come from the arm, heavily and clumsily, not from the fingers. But the best of all is that when there comes a passage (which ought to flow like oil) in which there necessarily occurs a change of fingers, there is no need of taking care: when the time comes you stop, lift the hand and nonchalantly begin again. This helps one the better to catch a false note, and the effect is frequently curious” (1777). Nannette was then eight years old.

At Aurnhammer’s: “The young woman is a fright, but she plays ravishingly, though she lacks the true singing style in her _cantabile_; she is too jerky” (1781).

“Whenever I played for him [Richter, a pianist], he looked immovably at my fingers, and one day he said, ‘My God! how I am obliged to torment myself and sweat, and yet without obtaining applause; and for you, my friend, it is mere play!’ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I had to labor once in order not to show labor now’” (1784).

“It is much easier to play rapidly than slowly; you can drop a few notes in passages without anyone noticing it. But is it beautiful? At such speed you can use the hands indiscriminately; but is that beautiful?” (1778.)

“Give me the best clavier in Europe and at the same time hearers who understand nothing or want to understand nothing, and who do not feel what I play with me, and all my joy is gone” (1778).

“The _andante_ is going to give us the most trouble, for it is full of expression and must be played with taste.... If I were her [Rose Cannabich’s] regular teacher, I would lock up all her music, cover the keyboard with a handkerchief, and make her practice on nothing but passages, trills, mordents, etc., until the difficulty with the left hand was remedied.”

Saint-Saëns, lover of irony and paradox, wrote a preface to his edition of Mozart’s pianoforte sonatas, published at Paris in 1915, in which, after a discussion of the ornaments, he has this to say:

“One is accustomed in modern editions to be prodigal with _liaisons_, to indicate constantly _legato_, _molto legato_, _sempre legato_. There is nothing of this in the manuscripts and the old editions. Everything leads us to believe that this music should be performed lightly, that the figures should produce an effect analogous to that obtained on the violin by giving a stroke to each note without leaving the string. When Mozart wished the _legato_, he indicated it. In the middle of the last century, pianists were still found whose playing was singularly leaping (as one may say). The old non-_legato_, being exaggerated, became a _staccato_. This exaggeration brought a reaction in the contrary sense, and this was pushed too far....

“This music of Mozart during his early years is destitute of nuances; occasionally a _piano_ or a _forte_; nothing more. The reason for this abstinence is because these pieces were written for the clavecin, and its sonority could not be modified by a pressure of the finger. Clavecins with two keyboards could alternate with _forte_ and _piano_, but nuances, properly speaking, were unknown to them.

“In the 18th century, one lived more quietly than today, nor were there in music our modern habits of speed, which is often inflicted on ancient compositions to their great injury. It is necessary to shun in the case of Mozart this tendency to hurry the movements, as too often happens. His _presto_ corresponds to our _allegro_; his _allegro_ to our _allegro moderato_. His _adagios_ are extremely slow, as is shown by the multiplicity of notes sometimes contained in a single beat. The _andante_ is not very slow.

“It was the rule, in his time, not to put the thumb on a black key except from absolute necessity. This method of fingering gives to the hand great restfulness, precious for the performance of old music that demands perfect equality of the fingers.

“The first pianofortes were far from having the powerful sonority of the great modern instruments. Therefore, it is not always necessary to take Mozart’s _forte_ literally; it is often the equivalent of our _mezzo forte_.”

SERGE SERGIEVICH PROKOFIEFF

(Born at Sontsovka, Russia, April 24, 1891)

SCYTHIAN SUITE, “ALA AND LOLLI,” OP. 20

I. The Adoration of Veles and Ala II. The Enemy God and the Dance of the Black Spirits III. Night IV. The Glorious Departure of Lolli and the Procession of the Sun

The ancient Scythians, wildly savage, had horrid manners and customs. Herodotus tells us at pleasing length how they sacrificed one in a hundred of their enemies to Mars; how in battle they scalped their foes and drank their blood; how they burned false prophets among their many soothsayers; how they strangled servants of their dead king and seated them upon horses stuffed with chaff to place about the monument. Truly a splendidly barbarous folk.

And in his Scythian suite, Prokofieff has written superbly barbaric music.

This music is something more than roaring, blaring dissonance; something more than eccentric experimentation in harmonic schemes and daring orchestration. The suite is deftly planned; broadly conceived; carried out with rare dramatic intensity.

No matter how wild this music is, there is admirable method in the madness; there is a refreshing mastery in the development of the composer’s purpose. He knew what he wanted; he gained his effects. They are not episodic, spasmodic, but skillfully continuous. The third movement, “Night,” is perhaps the most remarkable in the revelation of poetically dramatic feeling. There is “the blackness of darkness”—a night in which Nature herself shudders and is afraid; a night when the Demon is master, and strange, sinister deeds are wrought. Compare this movement with the magnificent _finale_ with its amazing climax.

* * *

This suite was composed in 1914. The first performance was at the Imperial Maryinski Theater, Petrograd, on January 29, 1916. The composer conducted.

The suite is scored for piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, double bassoon, eight horns, four trumpets, four trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, bass drum, side drum, tambourine, cymbals, triangle, celesta, xylophone, bells, two harps, pianoforte, and strings.

The four movements have this programme:

I. Invocation to Veles and Ala. _Allegro feroce_, 4-4 time. The music describes an invocation to the sun, worshiped by the Scythians as their highest deity, named Veles. This invocation is followed by the sacrifice to the beloved idol, Ala, the daughter of Veles.

II. The Evil-God and dance of the pagan monsters. _Allegro sostenuto_, 4-4 time. The Evil-God summons the seven pagan monsters from their subterranean realms and, surrounded by them, dances a delirious dance.

III. Night. _Andantino_, 4-4 time. The Evil-God comes to Ala in the darkness. Great harm befalls her. The moon rays fall upon Ala, and the moon-maidens descend to bring her consolation.

IV. Lolli’s pursuit of the Evil-God and the sunrise. _Tempestuoso_, 4-4 time. Lolli, a Scythian hero, went forth to save Ala. He fights the Evil-God. In the uneven battle with the latter, Lolli would have perished, but the Sun-God rises with the passing of night and smites the evil deity. With the description of the sunrise the suite comes to an end.

Scythia is a name that has been applied to different countries at different times. The Scythia described by Herodotus comprised the southeastern parts of Europe between the Carpathian Mountains and the river Tanaïs (now Don). Herodotus gives a graphic and singularly interesting account of these wild, barbaric nomads in the fourth book of his history. We are interested here only with what he has to say about their religion:

“They propitiate the following gods only: Vesta, most of all; then Jupiter, deeming the Earth to be the wife of Jupiter; after these, Apollo, and Venus Urania, and Hercules and Mars. All the Scythians acknowledge these, but those who are called Royal Scythians sacrifice also to Neptune. Vesta in the Scythian language is named Tabiti; Jupiter is, in my opinion, very rightly called Papæus; the Earth, Apia; Apollo, Œtosyrus; Venus Urania, Artimposa; and Neptune, Thamimasadas. They are not accustomed to erect images, altars, and temples, except to Mars; to him they are accustomed.” Then follows a minute description of the manner in which they sacrificed cattle and enemies taken prisoners, the latter to Mars. “Swine they ne