CHAPTER XIII

HUGO WOLF AND AFTER

Wolf and the poets of his time; Hugo Wolf’s songs; Gustav Mahler; Richard Strauss as song-writer; Max Reger’s songs--Schönberg and the modern radicals.

I

German song since Schubert has known nothing like a fallow period. In no single decade has the song product been markedly inferior to any other. After Schubert and Schumann there came Liszt, Franz, and Brahms; and after Brahms there came Wolf, Strauss, and Reger. The Germany of these latter men was, of course, a very different Germany from that which preceded the Franco-Prussian War. It was a united Germany, an increasingly centralized Germany, a more prosperous Germany. In many ways it seems to be a more Philistine Germany. But, though the political and social conditions changed after 1870, this change was not expressed in the national literature for a number of years. And in the lyric poetry it was chiefly the poets of the old régime who held sway toward the end of the century. These poets had come in on the reaction that followed the failure of the liberal political movement of 1848. When men found their political strivings frustrated they once more turned their attention to their souls. Chief representative of ‘art for art’s sake’ was Emmanuel Geibel (1815-1885), an extremely talented literary man who cultivated the pure lyric with great success. Geibel was not a man of great originality. He clung to the old poetic motives and to the old ideas concerning the relations of man. But his versification was very engaging, being gentler and smoother than is usual in German poetry, and his manipulation of ideas and images was extremely deft. Next to him in popular esteem was Eduard Möricke (1804-1875), a Swabian pastor who took to writing verse as an amusement. In addition to an insinuating use of image and word music he had that rare quality in a lyric poet--a sense of humor. His touches of fun are always wholesome and delightful. Paul Heyse (1830-1911) was best known as a novelist and short-story writer, but his lyric gift was marked and his translations from the Spanish and Italian attained great popularity. Detlev von Liliencron (1844-1909) was another of the foremost lyricists of the time. In a later generation Otto Julius Bierbaum (1865-1909) and Richard Dehmel (born 1863) were influential. They rank with Hugo von Hoffmannsthal (born 1874) as the foremost lyricists of present-day Germany. These men are not great. They by no means express Germany as Tennyson, for instance, expressed mid-Victorian England. But, taken together, they supply the growing demand for sensuous, subjective poetry and they execute their task with a fine command over the lyrical qualities of the German language.

We have not yet finished with the process of ‘placing’ Wolf (1860-1903) as a song writer, but there are competent critics who would rank him above Schubert (that is, as the greatest in musical history) and any number who would rank him just below. Certainly his work is free from any of the careless or conventional writing which disfigures so much of Schubert’s work. The standard which Wolf set for himself in his song-writing is perhaps more exacting than that set by any other composer. His songs measure up to more separate tests than do those of any other one man. It is evident, then, that his musicianship must have been of the highest order. He had the benefit of the great generation of musicians who had followed Schubert and brought to maturity the work which he had only begun. Schubert was too often content with a type accompaniment, a conventional turn of phrase which only serves to fill up a measure and (what is worse) with an indifferent bit of music when something first-rate didn’t enter his head. Moreover, his technique, from the point of view of accurate emotional expression, was necessarily limited, since his task was a comparatively new one. Wolf had this one immense external advantage--that he began his work after ‘Tristan’ had been written. He was able to write his songs with an accurate acquaintance with the most powerful emotional idiom the world has ever seen. Whether or not Wolf was the superior of Schubert in absolute genius is another matter. But undoubtedly, taken all in all, his songs must satisfy modern ears and modern demands better than those of Schubert.

When we mention Wolf’s debt to Wagner, when we mention the Wagnerian influence in his songs, we do not mean that he has been an imitator. The principles which Wagner exemplified in the opera could have but a slight application to the art of song writing. Further, Wolf was far too individual to carry over Wagner’s precise methods and mannerisms into his work. When we speak of the Wagnerian influence on Wolf we mean merely the influence which a supreme master in any art must exert on all who have studied his work. Wagner had opened the eyes of men to a musical world almost undreamed of before--a world of chromatic harmony and free modulation which had been no more than vaguely implied in the music preceding him. He had shown men, by one or two masterful examples, that the thing could be done; the others then set about to do it in their own ways. Among these others was Wolf, as a young man an adorer of Wagner and constant student of his scores, a finely balanced musical nature which could understand and synthesize the work of great men and recreate out of this understanding an art that was his own. Accordingly we find Wolf far more chromatic in his procedure than any song writer before him, far more concerned with his accompaniments, freer and more accurate in his treatment of the voice--yet not a whit less lyrical than any other song writer who had ever lived. Wolf’s songs are not Wagnerian operas. His great emphasis upon the accompaniment as an instrument of expression is not an imitation of the Wagnerian orchestra with its function as ‘soul of the drama.’ His use of the germ-motive is not an imitation of the Wagnerian leit-motif, standing for a single character or idea. Wolf could not have _imitated Wagner_ without making his songs operatic and unlyrical. What he did was to write songs absolutely in the fine old German song tradition after he had fertilized his mind and invention with an accurate knowledge of the works of the greatest modern German musician.

[Illustration: Hugo Wolf] _After a photograph from life._

Wolf’s two predominant technical qualities were truly in line with the development of German song, apart from any extraneous influence. These two influences were the significance given to the piano part and the closest accuracy in the treatment of the words. Wolf’s procedure with the words--his rigid adherence to the ‘one-syllable, one-note’ principle, his insistence that the voice part should agree with the special accents of meaning as well as with the ordinary accents of prosody--this might have been merely a meticulous fad with another composer. But with Wolf it truly represented his attitude toward the art-song, an attitude strongly contrasted with, say, that of Brahms. He carried it out not as a rule to be observed (he occasionally broke it himself), but as an expression of his artistic feeling. His melody, of course, is somewhat free, but its musical integrity is never disfigured to meet the demands of the text. It is genuinely lyrical, but so managed as to give more regard to details than in most composers’ songs. Wolf’s piano parts are an unending delight to the musical student. They are more ambitious, more complex, more exuberant than those of Franz, but no less perfect from the point of view of workmanship. Unlike Franz, again, they are very highly colored and filled with details which interpret particular nuances in the text. Especially are they interesting for doing in an emotional and dramatic way what Franz so often did in an intellectual way--developing his piano part from a simple musical germ. Franz’s accompaniments are charming in the highest degree, but rarely emotionally moving. Wolf’s speak with an emotional voice not surpassed in any songs of the nineteenth century.

Ernest Newman points out as Wolfs highest glory the immense variety and distinctness of the characters he has interpreted in his songs. Heroes, lovers, fools, warriors, drunkards--these and a host of others he has put into his music with almost unvarying success. Newman compares him in this respect with Shakespeare. Certainly, many of the greatest masters have shown marked limitations in this respect. Wolf’s interpretative ability seems almost unlimited. He felt his poems as few other composers have done. He worked much as Schubert worked--in a sort of trance, dreaming over his poems, living and sleeping with his characters, composing his music in a kind of hypnotic state and writing down his music with such inspired insight that the first draft was nearly always the last. As a result we feel that his interpretation is the ultimate and perfect interpretation. He seems to have had no technique, in the sense of a musical system which dictates notes of itself. Wolf’s notes were dictated by direct inspiration as with few other song-writers in musical history. The songs are as individual as the songs of Franz and far more dissimilar in the external plan and contour. There is such a thing as a Franz style. There is no such thing as a Wolf style; each song stands utterly by itself.

The numerous songs written by Wolf before 1888 are not to be counted in this general summary of his work. They are experimental and youthful, showing a progress toward the masterful maturity of his great period. But they comprise several which can rank with his best. Of these we may mention ‘The Mouse Trap,’ an exquisitely humorous thing, and ‘To Rest,’ which is very tender and moving. ‘Biterolf,’ composed in 1886, is a warrior’s song, striking the great vein of heroism. The ‘Serenade’ of 1888 is one of the best known of the Wolf songs, a piece in which the piano and voice sing together as if they were parts of one complex instrument. The fifty-three Möricke songs of the year 1888 include such a number of masterpieces that it may well be called the most remarkable single group of songs ever written. The variety and perfection of these songs would lead one to believe that they were the selected work of many years of labor. We cannot sufficiently praise the variety of expression--the human types of _Das verlassene Mägdlein_, _Agnes_, _Der Jäger_, _Erstes Liebeslied_, and the _Lied eines Verliebten_; the religious emotion of _Auf ein altes Bild_, _Schlafendes Jesuskind_, _Zum neuen Jahr_, and the _Gebet_; the poetry and fantasy of the _Elfenlied_, _Um Mitternacht_, _Nixe Binsefuss_, and others; the deep and varied emotion of _Der Genesene_ and _Die Hoffnung_, _Er ist’s_, _Nimmersatte Liebe_, _An eine Aeolsharfe_, _Verborgenheit_, _Lebewohl_, and the _Gesang Weylas_, the lively humor of _Der Tambour_, _Auftrag_, and _Abschied_. Humor is also present in the group of thirteen Eichendorf songs, as in the delightful _Der Scholar_. The passionate note is finely struck in _Liebesglück_ and _Seemann’s Abschied_; and the _Nachtzauber_ and ‘Serenade’ show a masterful power of poetic suggestion.

The Goethe songs are generally regarded as, on the whole, a retrogression after the magnificent Mörike group. They are slightly less spontaneous, somewhat too loaded down with detail. But nothing could be finer as an expression of passion than _Hochbeglückt in deiner Liebe_ and _Komm Liebchen, komm_. In the grand manner are _Grenzen der Menschheit_ and _Prometheus_, the latter one of the most magnificent songs ever written. A certain inimitable dithyrambic humor sings in the Drinking Songs--_So lang man nüchtern ist_, _Was in der Schencke waren heute_, and _Trunken müssen wir alle sein_. Far removed from the Teutonic nobleness of Goethe are the Spanish and Italian songs, to words by Geibel and Heyse. Their average is very high and it is almost at random that we select the following for mention: _Nun bin ich dein_; _Geh, geliebter_; _Ich führ über Meer_; _Komm, o Tod von Nacht umgeben_, _Tief im Herzen_, _In dem Schatten meiner Locken_, _Auf deinem grünen Balkon_, _Der Mond hat eine schwere Klag erhoben_, _Was für ein Lied_, _Und willst du deinen Liebsten sterben sehen_, and _Sterb’ ich, so hüllt in Blumen meine Glieder_. Finally, we should mention the fine settings to three sonnets of Michael Angelo, the last things Wolf wrote before going to the madhouse, hopelessly insane. _Wohl denk’ ich oft_, _Fühlt meine Seele_, and _Alles endet was entstehet_ are deeply sincere expressions of the pessimism which comes at times over the greatest of souls.

II

Gustav Mahler (1860-1910) has received little recognition as a song-writer outside of Germany. The great effort of his life was expended on his symphonies, which are planned on a scale larger than man had ever thought of before. In many ways Mahler was a very great master. As an artist he was unimpeachable. As a writer for the orchestra he was original and forceful. As a developer of the new radical technique he holds a high place in the history of German music. It may be doubted whether his musical ideas and his power of musical architecture were equal to the execution of his stupendous plans. But these faults, if they exist, do not enter greatly into his songs--at least into the most typical of them. For Mahler had one quality which always stood by him when others failed. This was his intimate feeling for the folk-song. A peasant by birth, he retained a certain simplicity of soul in his attitude toward music which seems contradicted by his great technical complexity. He can reproduce not only the simple form of the folk-song, but also its spirit, its naïve literal quality, which takes joy in what a sophisticated person would find common. This quality we find very frequently in his songs. The greatest of these is the group entitled _Kindertotenlieder_, which are loved in Germany (and especially in Vienna) almost beyond any other. These dirges for children have hardly any parallel in music. They combine an intense pathos with something of the naïve simplicity of the child. They are not mere dirges. They are dirges for those ‘the doubly dead in that they died so young.’ The congenital faults of Mahler are not to be found here. The songs are almost above criticism from the musical standpoint. But Mahler the peasant is to be seen especially in the songs from _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_, that wonderful collection of German folk-poetry which has been such a storehouse for the nation in the last century. While these have not the spiritual elevation or the consistently high musicianship of the _Kindertotenlieder_, they preserve an unconventional freshness of spirit which is hardly less remarkable.

Richard Strauss is generally regarded as the great continuer of the German song tradition. That he is a true continuer is perfectly correct. Whether his music, absolutely considered, is as ‘great’ as people once thought is still undecided by the public. Some profess to discover liberal injections of the charlatan in Strauss’s work. Whether he sometimes gets his effects by cheap means which the artist in him would despise is a question to be argued elsewhere. We must, however, grant him two great faculties--the faculty of beautiful melody and that of musical ability. In sheer beauty of theme (and this is especially true in some of his songs) he is worthy to be regarded as of the line of Schubert and Brahms. In musical learning there are probably not half a dozen men in the world to-day to equal him and there was a time, ten or more years ago, when he seemed to stand almost alone. While for some years past his symphonic poems and operas have overshadowed his smaller work, he has been known from the beginning as a brilliant writer of songs, and has not ceased to give some of his best energies to song composition. The result is a truly brilliant list of lyrics. We can no more deny the able musicianship of the later ones than we can deny the impressive beauty of the earlier. They are far from being repetitions of each other. This great variety, both in mood and in technical style, proves what a rich fund of ideas and artistic power the composer had to draw from. The technique of the later ones is about that familiar to us in the Strauss operas, a brilliant use of dissonance and rapid modulation combined with an extremely bold polyphony. At the basis of this style is always a theme or a group of themes as simple, as conventional in conception as anything in Schubert. It is as though Strauss were afraid of losing utterly the interest of the average man and gave him every now and then a simple tune that he would be sure to enjoy. But it is more than this. For Strauss is a German of the Germans. His whole musical culture is truly built on the great German tradition of Bach-Beethoven-Brahms. His complexity is only a development of the noble simplicity of all fine German music. It is right and proper that his themes should be simple and understandable. But it is possible, and probably perfectly just, to argue that he has failed to make the one part of his music seem a development of the other. We feel here that the new style and the old are both present, that they are juxtaposed, that they have not been fused or synthesized. And this duality, which we feel in some of the operas and in the later orchestral works, also appears in his songs. It makes these later songs less admirable, from the technical standpoint, than those of Ravel, who has organized his materials into an almost homogeneous technique.

However the case may stand in this matter Strauss’s early songs will remain as worthy of a place in the great German hierarchy. Opus 10 contains a number of masterpieces. _Zueignung_ is, in sheer beauty, almost equal to Schumann at his best. ‘The Night’ is a simple song of great loveliness and ‘Patience’ is a superbly eloquent piece of emotional writing based on an accompaniment of simple repeated chords. It is in work like this that a great composer tests himself out. This power to achieve great beauty within narrow limitations is, as we have so often pointed out in the course of this book, the proof that genuine creative power is there. These songs which we have just mentioned are among the very best in the Strauss list. Others of the first rank are: ‘I Love Thee,’ opus 37, a powerful example of emotional lyricism; _Ich trage meine Minne_, opus 32, a simple piece of marvellous beauty and grace; and ‘With Thy Blue Eyes,’ opus 56, a song of unusually tender and appealing quality. Among the earlier songs we should mention the charming _Morgen_; _Wozu, Mädchen, soll es frommen_, opus 19; _Nachtgang_, opus 29; and _Traum durch die Dämmerung_, the last one of the most admired. ‘Rest My Soul’ and the ‘Nuptial Song’--the former very simple and the latter highly organized--are stimulating examples of Strauss’s art. Of the later songs (which seem to show a falling off in artistic sincerity) we may mention ‘The Three Holy Kings,’ opus 56, which is a sort of miniature opera, with an abundance of incidental music in the form of a stately march. ‘The Lonely One’ of opus 51 contains a bass part very effectively used and ‘The Valley’ is musical description of a high order.

Max Reger (born 1873) is a sharp contrast to Strauss. People have seen fit to describe him as a schoolmaster. This is justified in that Reger is one of the most eminent technical musicians in Germany and a master of strict fugue and counterpoint in the modern idiom equalled by no one else in the world. His cast of mind seems to be all with the classics, though he is radical enough in his musical style when he chooses to be. He writes largely in the ‘absolute’ forms and seeks none of the means for effect that are so generally cultivated nowadays. In these respects he may be a ‘schoolmaster.’ But beneath the austerity of his style there is a wonderful fund of ideas and along with it a deftness in using them that makes his technique available for many very different sorts of music. In his songs Reger shows a wide variety. The fact which proves that he is musician and not schoolmaster is that the songs requiring fancy, deftness, sense of style are quite as fine as the others. He always considers well what he writes. By some his songs may not be considered lyrical as Schubert’s are, but his vocal music is truly music that can be sung and its effectiveness on the platform is likely to outstrip expectations. The songs have much beauty of melody, much suavity and charm, and especially a nice adaptation to the spirit of the text. They contain in rich quantity the gift of humor. In downright lively fun Reger reminds one of Chabrier. The songs are all very human. The first feeling one has in studying them is respect for the man’s musicianship. But his technical learning is so unfailing that this quality becomes a bore and one becomes conscious of the genuineness of the feeling and the accuracy of expression. Reger’s superb technique has not used him; he has used it. We may consider it likely that Reger’s reputation will grow considerably in years to come. The songs in particular should be more widely known and loved. They will not tickle lazy ears, but they will give a rare delight to discriminating ones. Certainly there are few men working now who are on the whole more admirable in their songs than Reger.

Reger’s technical style marks most of his songs. But underneath they have a distinct individuality. The Folk-Song in opus 37 is managed with great simplicity and taste. ‘The Dying Child,’ from opus 23, exemplifies Reger’s free but well considered harmonic method. ‘Of Kissing,’ from the same group, shows us another Reger, as dainty and popular as Brahms in lighter mood. _Traum durch die Dämmerung_, from opus 35, has a wonderful accompaniment of half-suggested interweaving voices and is considered superior to Strauss’s setting of the same poem. The long-drawn melodies (in both the piano and the voice part) of ‘Love-Longings’ show us still another Reger, a master of restrained sensuous effect. The Lullaby of opus 43 is fitted out with a very complex accompaniment but retains a luscious and quiet effect from sheer power of musicianship. Two of Reger’s best songs are ‘I Believe, Dear Love’ and the ‘Prayer,’ from opus 62. The former is a charming scherzo movement and the latter illustrates the tendency, increasing in song accompaniments for half a century, to spread the piano part over an extremely wide range of notes. ‘The Willow Tree’ of opus 48 is a study in a style common to the French song writers, that of gaining emotional effect from the mere juxtaposition of chords.

The _Schlichte Weisen_ of opus 76 are perhaps Reger’s most typical and most highly developed product in this field. These ‘simple tunes’ are not at all simple in point of technique, making use of all the virtuosity and finesse of his wonderful musical equipment. The songs are nearly all in lighter vein and most of them are brightened with a delicious humor. They alone would place Reger among the most notable of musical humorists. None but the trained musician can appreciate all the technical genius that went into the writing of these songs. But any music-lover, any concert audience, in fact, can appreciate their beauty and sprightly charm. The thirty-six songs maintain a remarkably high level of creative musicianship, and in point of variety and taste they are almost unsurpassed. Nearly all of them are worth knowing, but we may mention a few among the best. ‘In a Little Rose Garden’ is written in imitation of the old German _Lied_. ‘The Child’s Prayer’ is utterly delightful in its simplicity. The ‘Dialogue’ is inimitable in humorous description. In ‘The Oath’ and ‘Concerning Love’ the humor is irresistible, and in ‘God’s Blessing’ musical learning has been put to the service of delicate delineation of mood.

III

Arnold Schönberg (born 1874) has gained a place for himself in Vienna as the foremost spokesman of the ultra-radical school of German music. At the present time he is gradually coming to similar recognition in other countries. His musical manner is so utterly foreign to anything else we are familiar with that men believed for a long time (and quite excusably) that he was a mere charlatan, one who, failing to gain recognition by legitimate means, had resorted to the methods of the sideshow. That such a view is not tenable is shown by the recent course of events. In his earlier music he showed a fairly conservative style, based chiefly on Strauss, and used in a manner nothing short of masterful. Much of this early music has not been heard until recently, because of its astounding proportions. But it was ambition and not incompetence that kept Schönberg from prompt recognition. His development into the new style was steady. It could not possibly have been achieved without a very large fund of musical learning. The later scores show a contrapuntal ability which is astounding. The style, in the later works, is quite without parallel. Harmony is dropped altogether. Next to nothing remains of the system of Bach and Beethoven. On the other hand, the complexity of the contrapuntal web surpasses anything we have ever seen. The man’s whole effort seems to be toward exuberant, overpowering counterpoint, a mass of separate voices mingled in delirious profusion, with inversions and augmentations and diminutions that make the brain dizzy. Judged by ears that have anything of the old-fashioned left in them this music cannot be beautiful. But Schönberg’s appeal is to a different faculty, and only time can determine whether the appeal is justified. Schönberg explains that he is not trying to write emotional music, or descriptive music, or music with any sort of a meaning--but just pure music. If this be music, there are some definitions yet to be altered.

His songs, however, so far as they are yet catalogued, do not belong to this last period. The numerous songs of opera 1, 2, and 3 are of the first period, in which the style of Strauss was pretty closely adhered to. The ‘Eight Songs’ of opus 6 and the ‘Six Orchestral Songs’ of opus 8 are the product of the second period, the transition time in which the new Schönberg style was fairly well developed, but was used with frequent admixtures of the old. In the work of this period the hearer has a breathing space and can feel at first hearing that the music has _something_ in it after all. However, second period or not, the two groups of songs we have mentioned will be quite mystifying to the average student. They are all very long and extremely difficult to sing. For that reason they are by no means available for ordinary concert use. They can be sung only by the highly capable singer and listened to only by an audience with highly trained ears. Perhaps, even under these conditions the listener will conclude they are not worth the trouble. But the one virtue which we can predicate of Schönberg without fear of contradiction is ability, and this virtue stands out strongly in the songs. We may mention from opus 6 the ‘Maiden’s Songs,’ which attains a sense of immense physical violence. ‘Forsaken’ maintains its mood by a remarkably powerful use of a constantly repeated chromatic figure in the bass. But the best of these songs, and probably the greatest Schönberg has written, is ‘The Wanderer,’ words by Nietzsche. The other songs may be chaotic, but this has a cogent form. Moreover, it has definite melody and an accompaniment manipulated with a strong sense of design. The song as a whole is eloquent and impressive.

The Six Orchestral Songs are also arranged for piano accompaniment and may be sung in concert. They are rather scenes than songs, being very long and composite and generally descriptive or dramatic, rather than lyrical. In them the technical element is all powerful. _Voll jener Süsse_, words from Petrarch, is a masterful study in the free movement of contrapuntal voices treated as in close harmony. _Das Wappenschild_ is a magnificent song of action. The basic theme is stirring, the melody is marked and impressive, and the general structure is clear and cogent. The song exemplifies Schönberg’s genius for making his counterpoint seem to express tremendous power of will. _Sehnsucht_ is a comparatively simple song, the best of the six for the student to begin on. _Nie ward ich, Herrin, müd_ is a magnificent study in powerful counterpoint. The tempo is slow, the themes are drawn out and sustained as though played slowly by a ’cello. The piece is extremely difficult to sustain at this slow tempo and is a tax on the listener’s attention beyond anything of the sort that can be called to mind, but if one can feel its beauty at all one must be impressed by the majesty of the thing.

Another modern song writer whose work centres chiefly in Vienna is Joseph Marx, who has been prolific and successful. His style has many elements of the modern, but on the whole it is clear and intelligible and does not require a new set of ears for its appreciation. Marx’s songs are often fresh and spontaneous and his sense of proportion is keen. Another of Schönberg’s contemporaries is Franz Schrecker, whose work is likewise representative of the most advanced tendencies of the new Viennese school. This school is rather left behind by one of Schönberg’s pupils, Anton von Webern, whose strange song, ‘Over the Borders of the All,’ is incapable of description in any terms hitherto used in connection with music. Which men of such a group will prove valuable to posterity is not to be decided at first investigation. But it will be well worth anyone’s while to maintain an open mind and regard an innovator as innocent until he has proved himself guilty.