CHAPTER XI

BRAHMS, WAGNER, AND LISZT

Brahms as a song-writer--Classification of Brahms’ songs; the ‘folk-songs’; analysis of Brahms’ songs--Wagner’s songs; Liszt as a song-writer.

I

When we come to Brahms we find perhaps the only song-writer besides Schubert whose truly memorable songs number more than fifty. Brahms’ song product is amazing in its richness, its creativeness, its high average of excellence. A modern taste, often misled by mere obvious effectiveness, has pronounced these songs dull. This notion prevails almost universally among the superficial, and many an appreciative critic has joined in the chorus with grudging reservations. The student in particular is likely to be frightened away from the Brahms songs by this bogey of ‘dullness’ as well as by the very considerable difficulty which they offer to the singer who is inadequately prepared. But in most cases those who accept this opinion have never studied the Brahms songs and have not allowed themselves to become familiar with their beauties. Certainly, even though certain temperaments may admit the charge of ‘dullness’ against much of the Brahms symphonic and chamber music, the charge will hold least of all against the songs. Here we find Brahms the romanticist, the composer who was master of the art of obtaining sensuous beauty of melody and richly colored harmony. We must never forget that Brahms was hailed by Schumann as the great continuer of the romantic tradition for which he himself had fought so hard and so well. If, in his maturity, Brahms came to regard form and artistic control at a higher value than his contemporaries did, it was not because his romantic invention became exhausted. From the beginning of his life to the end he was possessed of a rich fund of lovely musical ideas, and his last works (_vide_ the later Rhapsodies and the Gypsy Songs) are even more romantic than the first. Brahms was a ‘classic’ solely because he chose to be. It would perhaps be truest to say that he was romanticist in his musical ideas and classicist in his treatment of them. However, such bandying of terms only tends to obscure the facts. Let us get to the songs.

Because Brahms worked with more care and reserve than most of his contemporaries, he must be approached with some care by the student. Doubtless, if one unfamiliar with his work turned over his songs at random the result would be somewhat discouraging. There is so much more there than meets the eye that much of his work is certainly uninteresting to the superficial glance. But there are many songs which must make an instant appeal by their sheer loveliness. Let the student who sincerely wishes to appreciate Brahms begin with these songs. Let us make out a provisional list of them. It would include: ‘In Strange Lands,’ opus 3; ‘Rest, My Love,’ opus 33; the ‘Folksong’ in opus 7; ‘The Sorrowful One,’ the ‘Serenade,’ and ‘Longing,’ from opus 14; ‘Hey, Bow and Arrow,’ opus 33; ‘Sunday,’ opus 47; the famous Cradle Song, opus 49; ‘Remembrance,’ opus 63; ‘The Lover’s Oath,’ opus 69; ‘Vain Serenade,’ opus 84; ‘The Virgin’s Lullaby,’ opus 91; the Sapphic Ode, opus 94; and every one of the Gypsy Songs, opus 103. To call any of these songs ‘dull’ is rank foolishness. Their beauty appeals instantly even to a listener who is in no wise a technical musician. Sentiment, passion, military frenzy and simple high spirits are expressed in these songs. They are in some cases as simple as anything by Schubert, as popular in character as any folk-song. Let the student learn to know and love some of these and he will have little difficulty with the more elaborate songs later on.

The first quality that appeals straight to the heart in many of the Brahms songs is their large element of the folk-song. Many of the lyrics bear the title _Volkslied_, being musical settings of popular poems, treated in the popular vein. Brahms was devoted to folk-music and understood the value of the musical units it contains in such profusion. A large proportion of his music, if analyzed to its essentials, will show the folk-song as its base. His elaborate songs, however abstruse and self-conscious, may be called only a _development_ of the folk-song. The development is managed with the consummate art of the trained musician; but the stuff of the song is in almost every case a musical unit which makes an instant appeal. The student is very foolish if he sees only the development and not the beautiful music beneath it.

In a large proportion of his songs Brahms has given the best of his profound musical learning--always in due proportion and without obtrusion of detail. His management of polyphonic parts, in the bass or in the inner voices, is unequalled by any song-writer--save, perhaps, Franz--and his range of expression is vastly wider than that of Franz. His complication and intertwining of rhythms is highly developed, as in his symphonic music. His harmony is often bold, though never at the expense of cogency. Whether he is simple or complex his musicianship is working every moment. It is this, in the last analysis, which we mean by technical mastery. The real test of technical excellence is not the applying of rules out of the harmony book. The real test is a human one. Read or play a number of songs by some second-rate composer--Gounod, for instance. Then take up Brahms’ songs. By the time you have done thirty or forty by Gounod you are deathly sick of the same harmonies, the same melodic phrases, the same way of placing the parts. In Brahms’ songs you will never be allowed to sleep; you are never sure that the conventional thing is coming next. Your interest is not allowed to flag. Brahms is almost never commonplace. But this does not mean that he obviously avoids the obvious, as is the fashion among lesser composers of modern times. It means that his musicianship is so rich and resourceful that he can always find some fitting thing to do that a minor composer would not have thought of. Test out this statement with some concrete instance. Take one of the simplest of Brahms’ melodies--the famous cradle song, opus 49. No tune could be simpler. Any second-rate composer would have supplied it with a conventional accompaniment of bass and treble chords. Most composers would have regarded such a song as a trifle to be tossed off before breakfast. But it is evident that Brahms bestows as much care upon this as upon his most elaborate lyric. There is not a single unusual or strained chord in the accompaniment. Yet there is not a measure without its elements of variety and interest. The gentle syncopation, as of the rocking of the cradle, is always present; always shows some motion and variety. Yet the whole song is managed without any straining for effect, without letting the varied accompaniment overshadow the simple melody.

Brahms has carried into his romantic song-writing a classic regard for form. In the more general sense this means that he always observed artistic proportion, giving unity and body to his melodies, and curbing the exuberant imagination which in so many song-writers makes the parts attempt to be more important than the whole. Concretely considered, we find that Brahms nearly always held to the strophic form, seeing his poems as stanzas which could be set to the same melody. In some cases, as in his first song, ‘Faithfulness,’ he treated the last strophe somewhat differently from the others. A few of his songs are _durchkomponiert_, after the manner of Schubert. But in general he felt his songs to be far more musical architecture and less mere running comment on the words. Certainly every one of his songs would be a satisfactory piece of pure music, apart from the text and apart from the special meaning conveyed. His regard for form makes this possible. Sometimes the form is hard to analyze, not coinciding with any set formula, but the sense of form, of architecture, of proportion, of restraint is always there. Some have said that Brahms’ songs are mere instrumental compositions with words added. As a final criticism this is certainly unjust. But it has a certain superficial justification, for Brahms certainly had less regard for the words themselves than any other great song-writer. He is not unwilling to force the text into the form necessary to fit the music. Sometimes he consistently and deliberately misplaces accents, as in the first line of the song, _Wie bist du, meine Königin_, which with Brahms’ music reads, ‘_Wie_ bist du, _mei_ne Köni_gin_.’ He is very free with slurred notes and shows not the slightest hesitation in putting two notes to one syllable in measure after measure. The music has its own architecture, derived from formal or melodic considerations and not from considerations of the text. Of course, this is not the result of carelessness on Brahms’ part, nor a belittling of the importance of the words. It was merely that Brahms regarded his songs as interpretive music, and not as ‘heightened speech.’ In this he differed from nearly every great song-writer, and put himself in opposition to the taste of the time. For those who feel Schumann’s scrupulous regard for the text this will rank as a fault, a blot on the beauty of Brahms’ songs. The student should decide the matter for himself. At any rate, the fact points to the peculiar interpretation which Brahms’ songs demand--an interpretation which involves firm, reserved, controlled modelling rather than minute emphasis on the parts. Out of this regard for the design as a whole rather than from the direct meaning of the details will come the interpretive truth of the song.

Because Brahms’ songs represent the purely musical and formal, as well as the interpretive, they are one of the most valuable of studies for the advanced pupil. A singer’s art cannot be complete as long as the effective interpretation of Brahms’ songs remains a mystery to him. Not to attempt to understand and love them, because of the myth of dullness, is a sin against artistic open-mindedness which no music-lover should be guilty of. Indeed, if we can manage to escape for a time in our souls from the trend of the time toward the spectacular, the sensuous and the sensual, the easy and effective, we shall find in Brahms a song-writer like no other who ever lived, save only Schubert. Brahms has treated almost every kind of sentiment and emotion successfully. His melodies are lovely in the extreme, his accompaniments are an endless delight to the careful pianist; his musical procedure is never conventional yet always appropriate; his music has a wholesomeness and dignity unsurpassed in all song literature. Other song-writers surpass Brahms in certain qualities. But it is doubtful if any, except Schubert, can be regarded as his equal in the combining of such a large number of first-rate qualities and in the quantity of first-rate songs produced.

II

We may conveniently divide the Brahms songs into two classes--the ‘folk-songs,’ written usually to anonymous popular poems and preserving the simplicity and directness of the true folk-song; and the art-songs which make use of all the resources of elaboration and organization at the command of that master craftsman. Some of the opus numbers contain ‘folk-songs’ entirely or in large proportion. (Brahms wrote but one cycle in the strict sense, and usually followed no scheme of grouping.) But a folk-like song may appear anywhere in his song output. The type of folk-feeling in Brahms is almost exclusively German. There is scarcely the slightest attempt at ‘local color’ in the whole of Brahms’ music. Even the Gypsy songs, though they somehow attain an exotic flavor, make use of none of the conventional musical formulas of Hungarian music. Moreover, while the ‘folk-songs’ are distinctly German, they are also distinctly Brahms. The composer never lost his individuality in any single work. The accompaniments to these songs are usually simple, but they are never merely conventional. They show a nice adaptation of the style of the piano part to the character of the melody and of the song as a whole, and continually present unobtrusive elements of interest in detail.

These ‘folk-songs’ are numerous. From opus 7 we may select two very beautiful songs for special mention--namely, the _Volkslied_ and ‘The Mournful One,’ the latter one of Brahms’ finest expressive melodies. Opus 14 is a treasure. ‘Before the Window’ is a thing of great beauty. ‘Going to My Sweetheart’ has a humorous touch, which Brahms could get inimitably. But it is very restrained; the melody is so very simple that for a moment it seems almost trivial. The ‘Serenade’ and ‘Longing’ from the same group are delightful. From opus 47 we should mention ‘Sunday’ and from opus 48 ‘Joy Hath Left Me,’ a fine song in the style of an old German chorale. In opus 69 are an exquisite ‘Lament’ and the delicious song, ‘The Lover’s Oath.’ ‘The Maiden,’ in opus 95, is a dialogue between the girl and the reflection of her face in the water. The words are a Servian popular poem and the music is in an irregular metre which is peculiar to the Slavic races. Brahms’ last group of lyrics, the Gypsy Songs, opus 103, are beyond all praise. These eight songs, written when the composer was past middle age, have all the fire and ardor of early youth just awakened to its powers. There is in them a frenzy of animal spirits which befits their Gypsy words. In them we seem to hear the message of that fine Hungarian song:

‘Brechen muss das Herz vor freude oder Leid; Das allein heisst bei den Ungarn Fröhlichkeit.’

The Gypsy Songs, all in strophic form, are very short. Into a few seconds of melody Brahms injects his musical message. Not a note is wasted. The mood is carried over with perfect accuracy and conviction. The songs are all nicely contrasted. Each might be a tiny movement from a symphony, _multum in parvo_. There is an _allegro agitato_, an _allegretto_, an _allegro giocoso_, a _vivace grazioso_, an _andantino grazioso_, and so on. Each song has a very distinct ‘style,’ as modern critics would say. The mood is established at the first note and maintained until the last. The melodies themselves are altogether charming. But a mere knowledge of the melodies will not suggest the thrilling effect which these songs make when well sung in a large hall. The startling effectiveness of many of the Brahms songs is the best answer to the charge that Brahms is academic and pedantic. It is hard to select any best out of these eight songs. ‘The Nut Brown Lad’ is perhaps the most popular of them, but the charm of each is so distinct that a comparison is difficult. ‘Three Roses in a Row’ is a delicate melody of great beauty. The vigorous ‘Hey, Ye Gypsies!’ and the furious ‘Red Evening Clouds’ which closes the series, are overflowing with animal spirits.

Of the pieces which are more specifically art-songs we must admit a gradual change in character corresponding to the general change in Brahms’ music from the ‘romantic’ to the ‘classic.’ Of course, this change has been overemphasized in superficial Brahms criticism. It was not so much Brahms who changed; it was the lay of the land. Music became much more sensuous and free and formless. Brahms became still more himself. The revolutionary Brahms of 1850 was a conservative Brahms in 1880. But, undoubtedly, where Schumann expected him to look forward, Brahms chose in many things to look backward--or, rather, perhaps, to look inward. And so we feel in Brahms’ music as a whole that it becomes stranger and more reserved as the man matures. He became more interested in the things that had ceased to interest the rabble, and less interested in the things which scores of new and radical composers were beginning to do very well. And we can feel this change in his songs. The earliest ones--in opus 3--are filled with the joy of spontaneous creation. The so-called ‘classic’ virtues seemed the last things the composer was thinking about. But the songs were in a pretty strict strophic form and their intelligence was at least equal to their exuberance. And it was these formal and intellectual qualities, and not the others, which were to receive the chief emphasis and intensification as the composer matured. To Schumann, Brahms was the continuer of Schumann. To the world he became the continuer of Beethoven.

The songs of opus 3 are filled with physical energy. ‘Fidelity,’ the first of them, with its accompaniment of throbbing triplets, seems to tap some hidden source of power like a huge dynamo. We cannot see the source but we know there is much more where that came from. ‘Love and Spring’ suggests certain of the later Brahms qualities and the song from ‘Ivan’ seems like a shooting arrow in the vigor and directness of its expression. The same physical energy is shown in the ‘Spanish Song,’ in bolero tempo, in opus 6; and the peculiarly rich Brahms modulation is again revealed in ‘As the Clouds.’ The ‘Nightingale’ song from the same group is the first to foreshadow the increased technical elaboration which Brahms was later to give his accompaniments. Here the fluttering triplets in the piano are meant to suggest the winging of the birds, but it is easy to see that the purely technical problem which they created had fascinated the composer. And, except for this technical care, such an accompaniment would have overbalanced the melody. The _Anklänge_ of opus 7 has an elaborate syncopated accompaniment which shows the continuation of the technical concern; ‘The Return,’ from the same series, is another example of Brahms’ unsurpassed power to pour great energy into small compass. In opus 19 there are two more songs of the highest quality. One is ‘The Smith,’ to Uhland’s words, perhaps the shortest of all Brahms’ songs and certainly one of the most overwhelmingly effective. The maiden who speaks in Uhland’s delicious poem tells admiringly of her lover, who is a smith and who works all day amid the grime and the sparks. The melody, with that strange and very Brahmsian avoidance of the regular balancing of phrases which seems physically to condense great energy in a small compass, seems a succession of hammer blows. Each note has a ponderous weight of its own, but a weight which is followed by a fine rebound. The accompaniment, which is obviously intended to suggest flying sparks, is magically adapted to the peculiarities of the pianoforte. The short postlude, and, indeed, the whole of the accompaniment, is strikingly Wagnerian, recalling very closely the Valkyrie’s cry in _Die Walküre_. Such a detail is only one more proof of the foolishness of the artificial rivalry which stupid critics set up between Wagner and Brahms. The two men were great artists working in very different lines. As for their musical ideas, they could almost, at times, have been interchanged. The second remarkable song of opus 19 is the ‘Æolian Harp,’ one of the three or four most admired of all Brahms’ lyrics. This is one of the few that are in quite free form. It is almost a _scena_ rather than a song, since it opens with a recitative and is interrupted in the middle with free declamation. The Æolian harp sings in the west wind the lament of a Greek boy who had been taken to a distant land. Here Brahms’ marvellously colored harmonies have created a peculiar beauty which quite escapes analysis.

As we come to the more mature work we find the mere animal spirits less frequently in the foreground. We feel more and more the qualities of control and dominant intellectuality. Not that these songs are better than their predecessors, for some of the earliest ones are finished masterpieces which could hardly be improved. Nor (let it be repeated) does Brahms’ fund of musical ideas become less fresh or less charming. But the composer had begun to show at their best the qualities which have chiefly given him a place in modern music. The second song of opus 32 is a triumphant justification of this mature Brahms. The song is entitled only with a number, but it can be known by its first line, _Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen!_ Here is intellectuality in song writing at its best. Brahms never wrote a finer song; few composers, if any, have done so. Its popularity may always be limited, but it is surely one of the great songs of musical literature. Here, as nowhere else, Brahms has observed the rhythmic and quantitative values of his text to the last letter. The words, which are in a moody, reflective vein, are treated almost in declamatory fashion. Every rise or fall of the voice finds its expression in the melodic line of the voice part. The tempo is a slow 3/2, and through this winds the melody, now breaking off suddenly, as though gasping for breath, now rising sharply, as though choked with pain. If it were pure declamation, it could not be more faithful to the words; if it were pure melody, it could not be more faithful to the spirit. The accompaniment, answering the voice part simply but intensely, and providing a noble bass for the musical texture to be woven upon, shows Brahms’ finest qualities of restraint and perfect fitness. Here is a song which is never exhausted. Let the student play and sing it every day, it will still have something to teach him. Hardly less noble is another song in the same group, _So steh’n wir, ich und meine Weide_. Its theme has all the dignity of a great andante fugue subject by Bach. The treatment of the piano part, with its definite melody in the bass forming an answer and a sort of canon with the voice, is superb. We may also mention in this opus number the much overrated song, _Wie bist du meine Königin_, a piece which has doubtless gained its popularity by its passionate fervor, but which in musical beauty and artistic fitness is far inferior to Brahms’ best work.

[Illustration: Famous Modern Singers. Top: Nellie Melba and Marcella Sembrich Bottom: Lilli Lehmann and Ernestine Schumann-Heink]

Opus 33 comprises a large number of romances from L. Tieck’s _Magelone_. These songs, which incline to be long and somewhat pretentious, do not maintain the high standard usual with Brahms. There are here rather too much sound and fury. We may, however, mention three which are very fine: ‘Hey, Bow and Arrow,’ a song made of fire and steel; ‘Is It Sorrow?’ deeply emotional; and the lovely ‘Rest, Sweet Love.’ From now on we have merely a steady stream of songs with words garnered from here and there, the music of a very high standard of workmanship and the interest often hidden to the superficial glance. Each song has its individuality which must be sought out by the student. A commentary on all the songs would fill many pages. In opus 43 we find the fine song, ‘With Eternal Love,’ and the barbaric ballad, ‘The Song of Herr von Falkenstein.’ Such intentional crudity as Brahms puts into this latter song should redeem him from any suspicion of pedantry. The ‘Magyar Love Song’ of opus 46 treats the words with unusual freedom even for Brahms. The same can be said for ‘Gold Outweighs Love,’ in opus 48. Opus 49 offers us an interesting song, ‘On Sunday Morning,’ and the famous Lullaby. In opus 57 we have ‘Motionless Air,’ and in opus 58 ‘Oh, Come, Holy Summer Night,’ both fine enough to be the masterpieces of another man’s output, though they are Brahms’ second best. ‘Twilight Falls,’ of opus 59, is a deeply tragic piece in the folk-mood. In opus 63 we have one song which shows us Brahms as the most thorough technician. The ‘Consolation of Spring’ makes the most elaborate use of syncopation and mixed rhythms, accompanying the 6/4 voice part with a piano part practically in 3/2. ‘Remembrance,’ from the same group, is worth knowing, and ‘O, Would I Knew the Returning Road’ is one of the sweetest of Brahms’ songs.

In opus 66 is one of the daintiest and most humorous of the songs, a duet to folk-words, which might be sung as a solo--‘Have a Care.’ ‘I Call from the Bank,’ in opus 69, is Brahms once more in the generous world of romance. ‘The Maiden’s Curse,’ in the same group, is a fine tragic song set to a Servian folk-poem. It is an interesting question here whether Brahms did not fail entirely to catch the spirit of the words. The maiden, in a dialogue with her mother, curses her lover, who has prevented her from finishing the washing. She hopes he may be hanged (upon her white breast), chained (in her white arms), drowned (in her love), and so on. The point of the song is the double meaning of the curses. Brahms has treated the words as the passionate rhetoric of love. But it is probable that the poem, in its true spirit, is a comic song. The second part of each curse should probably be delivered _sotto voce_, so that the mother shall not hear. In such a reading there would be a delightful comic contrast between the coarse hussy which the girl pretends to be and the sentimental love-sick maiden that she is. Brahms makes no sort of distinction between the two parts of the curses and the song in his hands attains a certain tragic intensity by virtue of the girl’s defiance of her mother.

In opus 71 are ‘To the Moon’ and the _Minnelied_, one of the most admired of Brahms’ songs. In sheer beauty, however, this is inferior to the lovely lyric in opus 72, _O, kühler Wald_. Opus 84 contains Brahms’ most spirited comic song, the delightful ‘Vain Serenade,’ the high spirits of which make it an irresistible concert number. Two fine folk-songs are to be found in opus 85, a Servian ‘Maiden’s song,’ and _Ade_, from the Bohemian. Opus 94 contains the famous ‘Sapphic Ode.’[28] Here we find, in the simple melody (as apart from the song as a whole), Brahms’ intellectuality and sensuous beauty fused into a perfect whole. Over it all is that fine artistic reserve which Brahms was so master of and which makes the music so fitting an expression of Greek verse. Among others of the later songs we should mention two Heine songs, ‘Death Is the Cool Night’ and the ‘Sea Journey.’

Brahms’ songs are as permanent a part of concert programs as those of Schubert or Franz. If they are not as popular in the looser sense of the word, it is because concert audiences are not yet as a whole willing to give the necessary attention to them. For, while the Brahms songs are emphatically not dull, they do demand careful listening. Without doubt their popularity will grow steadily. And this will be the best of events both for audiences and for singers. He who has learned to listen to Brahms’ songs will never again be quite so indulgent with what is cheap and facile. And the singer who has learned how to make effective the striking qualities hidden in a Brahms song will find himself equipped with a power and dignity in his work which he could hardly get in any other way.

III

Wagner’s songs are few. They comprise only those written during his early years in Paris, when for a time he hoped to make himself a fashion in Parisian drawing rooms, and those written under the influence of Mathilde Wesendonck in the late fifties, when he was planning ‘Tristan.’ The former group, being composed at the time when he was writing ‘The Flying Dutchman’ and being, moreover, designed for a debased public taste, can by no means be ranked with his typical work. The songs it contains are not great. But Wagner’s genius was too imperative to blot itself out at any time and these early lyrics show evidences of the artistic energy which was later to flower in ‘The Ring.’ The earliest known of Wagner’s songs is ‘The Fir Tree,’ written in 1838 in Königsberg. It has little more than historic interest. In Paris he wrote the ‘Three Melodies,’ which are still occasionally sung and will repay a little study. The lullaby, _Dors, mon enfant_, is marked with a suavity in the melody and a variety in the accompaniment which betray with certainty the touch of the true musician. The second ‘melody,’ called ‘The Rose,’ is rather too sweet but is saved by its interesting accompaniment. ‘Waiting’ is vigorous in conception and execution. But the best of Wagner’s Parisian songs is ‘The Two Grenadiers,’ composed to a French version of Heine’s famous poem, to which Schumann wrote his popular setting. Wagner’s method is more dramatic than Schumann’s. It gives a much more important function to the accompaniment, which is something approaching the ‘orchestral comment’ of his later theories. At times the voice part is freely declamatory. Throughout it is kept remarkably free from the running comment of the piano. The long crescendo up to the final lines is managed with skill. For these lines the Marseillaise is used, as in Schumann’s setting, but only in the accompaniment, the voice singing an independent part. Here we have something approaching a true _leit motif_ used in a way foreshadowing the later revolutionary music dramas. The introduction of the Marseillaise by both Schumann and Wagner must be regarded purely as a coincidence, since the songs, as it happens, were written in the same year.

The ‘Five Poems,’ to words by Mathilde Wesendonck, are, with one exception, songs of the first rank. This exception is the ‘Sorrows,’ which is a bit pompous and rings insincere. ‘The Angel’ is a simple melody with a soft, flowing accompaniment much in the style of the ‘Lohengrin’ music. ‘Stand Still’ is a vigorous and dramatic song, combining both the lyrical and the declamatory elements. The two remaining songs will always be masterpieces of the first order. They are regarded as ‘studies’ for the Tristan music and both contain motives from ‘Tristan’ or harmonic peculiarities which mark them out unmistakably. _Träume_ (‘Dreams’), the better known of the two, weaves a wonderful sensuous spell about the listener. Its melody is constructed in a peculiar manner which we sometimes meet in Brahms--a sort of telescoping of successive phrases, so as to bind the parts more cogently and increase the emphasis of the whole. The harmony is a wonderful series of melting chords, culminating in ecstatic chromatic modulations on the words:

‘Sanft an deiner Brust verglühen Und dann sinken in die Gruft.’

The other ‘Tristan’ song is _Im Treibhaus_ (‘In the Hothouse’). It contains two of the ‘Tristan’ motives, slightly altered, those of the wounded Tristan and Tristan’s longing. The harmony in this song is exceedingly delicate and chromatic--revolutionary for its time. Here the chromatic development toward which composers had half consciously striven for two centuries at last attained a complete development. The lyric must rank as one of the wonders of modern song literature.

Liszt’s songs also we may roughly divide into two classes--those of the Paris period and those of the Weimar period. More than Wagner, Liszt wrote his French songs in the taste of the time and the nation. As one of the pets of the capital he was sure to be heard gladly by the Parisians and his wonderful instinct for pleasing made him write naturally in a style which we cannot usually differentiate from the style of native song writers. _Comment!_ for instance, is as French a song as though its composer had never travelled beyond the Parisian fortifications. Its sensitive feeling for the words, its delicate use of the accompaniment in the thin French style, mark it as utterly un-German. The most striking of the Parisian songs is _Enfant, so j’étais roi_, to words by Victor Hugo. It is elaborate and pretentious, but it has a good deal of real power. On the whole, however, Liszt’s French songs are without the very qualities which make the later German songs so valuable--chiefly the dramatic and the declamatory values.

Not all these German songs are of high rank, though we may select a dozen or so which are the work of genius. The cheapness which so often entered into the rest of Liszt’s work, finds its way now and then into the songs, but on the whole this department of his creative activity maintains a higher average than any other. Cheapness enters somewhat into two of the earlier German songs, ‘The Fisher Boy’ and ‘The Shepherd,’ both to words by Schiller. The accompaniments are graphically descriptive. Caring little for the formal unity of the songs, Liszt introduced the description suggested by the words whenever the suggestion came. In fact, the songs are really declamations for the voice with a running comment in the piano. They are far superior to the longer declamatory songs of Schubert, which were little more than pretentious recitatives; they raise the declamation into real melody and the descriptive comment into real music. But these songs are far surpassed by some of the Weimar period. ‘The Loreley,’ to Heine’s words, is one of the most elaborate descriptive songs ever written. The opening lines are freely declaimed to a suggestive accompaniment. When the description of the Rhine enters--_die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt_--we hear a lovely 9/8 motive set over an arpeggio accompaniment which strikingly suggests the calm flowing river. The music becomes deeper and richer as the Loreley enters the action. The passage where the fisher is dragged into the depths of the water is treated with free and impressive dramatic power. Then the Rhine once more flows quietly over the place where the man was drowned and the lovely river theme returns once more, deepening into silence as the darkness falls. This song illustrates almost at its best the principle of the descriptive song, the principle held by many that the effect of _the whole_ is to be gained by treating _each part_ with fidelity. It is interesting to compare this setting with the simple folk-like setting provided by Silcher and universally sung. The latter makes a very regular strophic melody serve for all the stanzas. The two settings are both wonderful and in very different ways. A choice between the two must be a matter of individual taste. It will be a nice exercise for the student to study the two and choose, on personal grounds, between them.

Fine as ‘The Loreley’ is, Liszt has written two ballads which are finer. His setting of ‘The King of Thule,’ from Goethe’s ‘Faust,’ is almost beyond praise. In this he uses a brief suggestive phrase in the accompaniment which becomes the germ of the whole ballad, being repeated in many connotations and moods. ‘The Ancestral Tomb,’ to Uhland’s words, perhaps suffers just a trifle from the pompous, but is nevertheless one of the best ballads (or, more properly, romances) that we have. The old warrior, the last of his race, goes to his ancestral tomb, in which one stone vault is still empty. He hears the voices of his fathers singing an impressive and mysterious song of family pride. The voices cease and he lays himself in the empty vault and dies. Suggestions of unguessed mystery and grandeur hang over the ballad.

In addition to these larger compositions, Liszt achieved what might reasonably have been considered an impossibility for him--the pure lyric. Some of his settings are almost flawless. Heine’s _Du bist wie eine Blume_ has never received such fine music at the hands of another composer. The opening and typical phrase seems to contain the essence of the religious sentimentalism of Heine’s words. ‘Mignon’s Song’ commences with a phrase, set over an altered chord, which has become famous for its accurate delineation of a mood in a few notes. Perhaps the most impressive of his brief lyrics is _Der du von dem Himmel bist_. Liszt’s simple setting of this poem is finer, if possible, than Schubert’s. _Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam_ and _Im Rhein, im schönen Strome_ present many elements of beauty and interest. But the most typical and possibly the finest of all Liszt’s songs is ‘The Three Gypsies,’ to Lehnau’s words. In the poem the speaker tells of having passed along a country road and having seen three gypsies, one smoking, one fiddling, and one sleeping. In the music each of the gypsies is carefully differentiated. The characterization in this song is beyond all praise. The voice part is an eloquent declamation, rising here and there into inspired melody. For the basic theme, the theme of the joy of life, Liszt has a magnificent Hungarian melody, surely one of the finest he ever used. The song is one of the most effective of concert pieces.

In spite of his comparatively small output, Liszt’s songs are of great importance in the history of song writing. He, better than any other, fused the declamatory and the lyrical--truth to the words and truth to the emotions. He several times struck the grand note as few purely lyrical composers (not even Schubert) have been able to do. In the development of the piano part along the purely descriptive side no composer has gone beyond Liszt.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).