A Popular History of the Art of Music Part 14

[Music ill.u.s.tration: EXTRACT FROM SONG, "VAGHE STELLE."

(From the opera "Erismena," 1655. Francesco Cavalli.)

Va-ghe stel-le, Lu-ci-bel-le, Non dor-mi-te, non dor-mi-te.

Va-ghe stel-le, Lu-ci-bel-le, Non dor-mi-te, non dor-mi-te.]

[Music ill.u.s.tration: ARIA.--"LASCIAMI PIANGERE."

(From a cantata. Alessandro Scarlatti.)

La-scia-mi, la-scia-mi pian-ge-re ch'io s per-che io s, io s, io s per-che.

La-scia-mi pian-ge-re, la-scia-mi pian-ge-re ch'io s per-che, per-che, ch'io s perche, La-scia-mi pian-ge-re ch'io s per-che, io s, io s, io s per-che.

Del-le mie la-gri-me La sor-te per-fi-da Sa-zia non e, sa-zia non e.

Del-le mie la-gri-me La sor-te per-fi-da Sa-zia non e, Del-le mie la-gri-me La sor-te per-fi-da Sa-zia non e n, n, n, n, n, sa-zia non e.

_Da capo._ La-scia-mi....]

CHAPTER XIX.

BEGINNINGS OF OPERA IN FRANCE AND GERMANY.

I.

From Florence the art of dramatic song spread to all other parts of the world, yet not so rapidly as would have been supposed. For it was not until nearly half of the century had already elapsed that opera made a beginning in France, the country where ruled the unfortunate princess for whose nuptials the first opera had been written. French opera grew out of the ballet. This term, which at present is restricted to entertainments in which dancing is the princ.i.p.al feature, and the story is entirely told in pantomime, had formerly a more extended signification. It was equivalent to the English term "Mask," a play in which dancing, songs and even dialogue found place.

This light and sprightly form of drama has been favored in France from a remote period. As early as the first quarter of the seventeenth century Antoine Boesset (1585-1643) composed ballets for the entertainments of the king, Louis XIII. His son succeeded him at the court of Louis XIV. Some of the ballets of the elder Boesset were produced in 1635, and in these we must find the beginnings of French opera, if indeed we do not go back still farther, and find it in the play of "Robin and Marian," written by Adam de la Halle. In fact, dramatic entertainment has been indigenous in France from an early date, and it is by no means easy to say that at any particular moment the line was crossed where modern opera begins. The ballets of Boesset were, no doubt, slight upon the dramatic side, having even less of serious intention in the music than the lightest of comic opera of the present day.

The impulse to grand opera came from a different quarter. A sagacious cleric, the Abbe Perrin, heard, either at Florence or in Paris, from the company of Italian singers brought over in 1645, Peri's "Eurydice," which made a great impression upon him, and he suggested to a musician of his acquaintance, Robert Cambert, the production of another work in similar style. Several things in this account appear strange, but strangest of all, the total ignorance that prevailed in Paris of the vast development that had been made in Italian opera by Monteverde and the other Italians, during the forty years since Peri's experiment had been first composed. With the leisurely movement of the times, the new work of the French composers was produced in 1659. This was "_La Pastorale_," performed with the greatest applause at the chateau of Issy. This was followed by several other works in similar style, "Ariane," "Adonis" and the like, and in 1669 Perrin secured a patent giving him a monopoly of operatic performances in France for a period of years.

Meanwhile a certain ambitious and unscrupulous youngster was feeling his way to a position where he might make himself recognized. It was the youthful violinist, Jean Baptiste Lulli, the illegitimate son of a Florentine gentleman, his dates being about 1633-1687. Lulli had been taught the rudiments of knowledge, including that of the violin, by a kind-hearted priest of his native city, and, when yet a mere lad, made his way to Paris in the suite of the duke of Guise. Once in Paris his way was open. Gifted with a quick wit, a total absence of principle or honor, but of insatiable ambition, he made his way from one position to another, and at length had been so prominent as a composer of dance music, and leader of the king's violins, as to have opportunity to distinguish himself by composing the music for the ballet of "_Alcidiane_," and others, in which Louis XIV himself danced. Lulli's ambition was still farther stimulated and his style influenced by the study of the music of Cavalli, for several of whose operas he composed ballets, upon the occasion of their production in France.

Within thirteen years he produced no less than thirty ballets. In these he himself took part with considerable success as dancer and comic actor. The success of Cambert and Perrin's operas of "_Pomone_"

and "The Pains and Pleasures of Love" (1671) awakened in him the desire of supplanting them in the regard of the king. After intrigues creditable neither to himself nor to the powers influenced by them, he succeeded in this same year in having the patent of Perrin set aside, and a new one issued, giving him the sole right of producing operas in France for a period of years. Then ensued a career of operatic productivity most creditable and influential from every point of view.

In the s.p.a.ce of fourteen years Lulli produced twenty operas, or _divertiss.e.m.e.nts_, of which the best, perhaps, were "_Alceste_," 1674, "_Thesee_," 1675, "_Amadis de Gaule_," 1684, and "Roland," 1685. Lulli made certain improvements upon the Italian models, which he originally followed, making the recitative more stately, and employing the accompanying orchestra for purposes of dramatic coloration. He was a great master of the stage, and introduced his effects with consummate judgment. His declamation of the text was most excellent, and in this respect his operas have served as models in the traditions of the French stage from that time until now. As a musician, however, he was clever rather than deep, and the music is often monotonous and rather stilted. Nevertheless, his operas held the stage for many years after the death of their author, and occasional revivals have taken place at intervals, even after the advance in taste and musical knowledge had effectually quenched their ability to please a popular audience. His "Roland" was performed as an incident in the regular season at Paris as late as 1778, when Gluck's "Orpheus" had already been heard. The example of Lulli's music given on pages 240 and 241 is from this work. The melody is vigorous and appropriate.

The most commendable feature of this beginning of opera in France was the attention given to the musical treatment of the vernacular of the country. The principle once recognized, that opera not in the vernacular of the country can never have more than an incidental and advent.i.tious importance, has always been maintained in France. The _Academie de Musique_, for which the patent was granted to Perrin, and transferred to Lulli, has been maintained with few interruptions ever since, and has been the home of a native French opera, constantly increasing in vigor, originality and interest. Italian opera has been fashionable in Paris for brief periods, and as the amus.e.m.e.nt of the fashionable world, but the native opera has nearly always held the place of honor in the affections of the people, and the foreign works produced there have been translated into the French language.

[Music ill.u.s.tration: SONG.--"ROLAND, COUREZ AUX ARMES."

(From the opera "Roland," 1685. J.B. Lulli.)

Ro-land, cou-rez aux ar-mes, aux ar-mes, cou-rez aux ar-mes, Que la gloi-re a de charm-es, Que la gloi-re a de charm-es; L'a-mour de ses di-vins ap-pas, Fait vi-vreau de-la du tre-pas, L'a-mour de ses di-vins ap-pas, Fait vi-vreau de-la du tre-pas.

Ro-land, cou-rez aux ar-mes, aux ar-mes, cou-rez aux ar-mes, Que la gloi-re a de charm-es, Que la gloi-re a de charm-es.]

II.

In Germany the contrary was the case for more than a century later.

The first operatic performance, indeed, was given in the German language. A copy of Peri's "Dafne" was sent to Dresden and as a preparation for performance the text was translated, but it was found impossible to adapt the German words to the Italian recitative, owing to the different structure of the German sentences, bringing the emphasis in totally different places. In this stress the local master, Heinrich Schutz, was called upon to compose new music, which he did, and the work was given in 1627. This beginning of German opera, however, was totally accidental. All that was intended was the repet.i.tion of the famous Italian work. Nor did the persons concerned appear to recognize the importance and high significance of the act in which they had co-operated, for no other German operas were given there or elsewhere until much later. Schutz, moreover, did not pursue the career of an operatic composer, but turned his attention mainly to church music and oratorio, in which department he highly distinguished himself, as we will presently have occasion to examine farther.

It was not until the beginning of the century next ensuing, that German opera began to take root and grow. The beginning was made in the free city of Hamburg, which was at that time the richest and most independent city of Germany, and, being remote from the centers of political disturbance, it suffered less from the thirty years' war than most other parts of the country. The prime mover here was Reinhard Keiser (1673-1739), born at Weissenfels, near Leipsic, and educated at the Thomas School. His attention had been directed to dramatic music early, and at the age of nineteen he was commissioned to write a pastoral, "_Ismene_," for the court of Brunswick. The success of this gained him another libretto, "_Basilius_," also composed with success. He removed to Hamburg in 1694, and for forty years remained a favorite with the public, composing for that theater no less than 116 operas, of which the first, "Irene," was produced in 1697. In 1700 he opened a series of popular concerts, the prototypes of the star combinations of the present day. In these entertainments the greatest virtuosi were heard, the most popular and best singers, and the newest and best music. His direction of the opera did not begin until 1703; here also he proved himself a master. The place of this composer in the history of art is mainly an advent.i.tious one, depending upon the chronological circ.u.mstance of his preceding others in the same field, rather than upon the more important reason of his having set a style, or established an ideal, for later masters. His operas subsided into farce, the serious element being almost wholly lacking, and, according to Riemann, the last of them shows no improvement over the first. Their only merit is that they are not imitations of the Italian nor upon mythological subjects, but from common life. In his later life he devoted himself to the composition of church music, in which department he accomplished notable, if somewhat conventional, success. The Hamburg theater furnished a field for another somewhat famous figure in musical history, that of Johann Mattheson, a singularly versatile and gifted man, a native of that city (1681-1764). After a liberal education, in which his musical taste and talent became distinguished at an early age, he appeared on the stage as singer, and in one of his own operas, after singing his role upon the stage, came back into the orchestra in order to conduct from the harpsichord the performance, until his role required him again upon the stage. Indeed, it was this eccentricity which occasioned a quarrel between him and Handel, who resented the implication that he himself was incapable of carrying on the performance. Mattheson composed a large number of works, including many church cantatas of the style made more celebrated in the works of Sebastian Bach, later, the intention of these works having been to render the church services more interesting by affording the congregation a practical place in the exercises. Mattheson is best known at the present time by his "Complete Orchestral Director," a compilation of musical knowledge and notions, intended for the instruction of those intending to act in this capacity.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XX.

THE PROGRESS OF ORATORIO.

I.

As already noticed in the previous chapter, the oratorio had its origin at the same time as opera, both being phases of the _stilo rappresentativo_, or the effort to afford musical utterance to dramatic poetry--at first merely a solemn and impressive utterance, later, as the possibilities of the new phase of art unfolded themselves, a descriptive utterance, in which the music colored and emphasized the moods of the text and the situation. The idea of oratorio was not new. All through the Middle Ages they seem to have had miracle plays in the Church, as accessories of the less solemn services, and as means of instruction in biblical history. The mediaeval plays had very plain music, which followed entirely the cadences of the plain song, and made no attempt at representing the dramatic situation or the feelings growing out of it. All that the music sought to do was to afford a decorous utterance, having in it, from a.s.sociation with the cadence of the music of the Church, something impressive, yet not in any manner growing out of the drama to which it was set. The Florentine music drama was something entirely different from this, or soon became so, and in oratorio this was just as apparent as in opera, although the opportunities of vocal display were not made so much of.

The modern oratorio exists in two types: The dramatic cantata, of which the form and general idea were established by Carissimi; and the church cantata, which differed from the Italian type chiefly in being of a more exclusively religious character, and of having occasional opportunities for the congregation to join in a chorale. The former of these types was established by Giacomo Carissimi (1604-1674), who was born near Rome, and held his first musical position as director at a.s.sisi, but presently obtained the directorship at the Church of St.

Apollinaris in Rome, where he served all the remainder of his long and active life. Without having been a genius of the first order, it was Carissimi's good fortune to exercise an important influence upon the course of musical progress, particularly in the direction of oratorio, in which all the more attractive elements came from his innovations.

Carissimi was a prolific composer, having constant occasion for new and pleasing attractions for the musical service of the rich and important Jesuit church, where he held his appointment. These compositions are of every sort, but cantatas form the larger portion, consisting of pa.s.sages of Scripture set in consecutive form, with due alternation of solo and chorus, in a style at once pleasing and dramatically appropriate. The majority of his compositions have been lost, many of them going to the waste paper baskets when the Jesuits were suppressed. Enough remain, however, to indicate the interest and importance of his work. Moreover, there, is another curious commentary upon the value of his music, in the fact that Handel took twelve measures well nigh bodily out of one of the choruses in Carissimi's "Jephthah," and incorporated them in "Hear Jacob's G.o.d" in his own "Samson." Mr. Hullah gives an excellent aria from this work, but it is too long for insertion here. The more important of Carissimi's innovations were in the direction of pleasing qualities in the accompaniments, and agreeable rhythms. He was teacher of several of the most important Italian musicians of the following generation, among them being Ba.s.sani, Cesti, Buononcini and Alessandro Scarlatti.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 47.

HEINRICH SCHuTZ.]

II.

The other type of oratorio received important a.s.sistance toward full realization in Germany, at the hands of Mattheson, as already noticed, and from those of Heinrich Schutz (1585-1672), who, after preliminary studies in Italy, where he acquired the Italian representative style from Gabrieli in Venice, in 1609, three years later returned to Germany, and in 1615 was appointed chapel master to the elector of Saxony, a position which he held with slight interruptions until his death, at the advanced age already indicated. Notice has already been taken in a former chapter of his appearance in the field of opera composition, in setting new music to Rinuccini's "Dafne," on account of the German words being incapable of adaptation to the music of Peri. But before this he had demonstrated his versatility and talent in the production of certain settings of the psalms of David, in the form of motettes for eight and more voices. In his second work, an oratorio upon the "Resurrection," he shows the same striving after a freer dramatic expression. His great work "_Symphoniae Sacrae_,"

consists of cantatas for voices, with instrumental accompaniments, in which the instrumental part shows serious effort after dramatic coloration. The first of his works in this style was the "Last Seven Words" (1645), which contained the distinguishing marks of all the later Pa.s.sion music. It consisted of a narrative, reflections, chorales, and the words of the Lord Himself. Many years later he produced his great Pa.s.sions (1665-1666), and in these he accomplishes as much of the dramatic expression as possible by means of choruses, which are highly dramatic in style and very spirited. The voluminous works of this master have now been reprinted, and some of them possess a degree of interest warranting their occasional presentation. Schutz occupies an intermediate position between the masters of the old school, with whom the traditions of ecclesiastical modes governed everything, and those who have pa.s.sed entirely beyond them and polyphony, into modern monody. The music of Schutz is always polyphonic, but there is much of dramatic feeling in it, nevertheless.

He was one of those clear-headed, practical masters, who, without being geniuses in the intuitive sense, nevertheless contrive to impress themselves upon the subsequent activity in their province, chiefly through their sagacity in seizing new forms and bringing them into practicable perfection. Into the forms of the Pa.s.sion, as Schutz created it, Bach poured the wealth of his devotion and his inspiration; so later Beethoven put into the symphony form, created to his hand by the somewhat mechanical Haydn, the amplitude of his musical imagination, which, but for this preparatory work of the lesser master, would have been driven to the creation of entirely new forms for his thoughts, not only hampering the composer, but--which would have been equally unfavorable to his success--depriving him of an audience prepared to appreciate the greatness of the new genius through their previous training in the same general style.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXI.

BEGINNINGS OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.

The beginning of instrumental music, apart from vocal, is to be found in the latter part of the sixteenth century, but the main advances toward freedom of style and spontaneous expression were made during the seventeenth, and, as we might expect, originally in Italy, where the art of music was more prosperous, and incitations to advance were more numerous and diversified. Upon all accounts the honor of the first place in the account of this part of the development of modern music is to be given to Andreas Gabrieli (1510-1586), who from a singing boy in the choir of St. Mark's, under the direction of Adrian Willaert, succeeded in 1566 to the position of second organist, where his fame attracted many pupils. Among the numberless compositions emanating from his pen were ma.s.ses, madrigals, and a considerable variety of pieces for organ alone, bearing the names of "_Canzone_,"

"_Ricerari_," "_Concerte_," and five-voiced _Sonatas_, the latter printed in 1586, being perhaps the earliest application of this now celebrated name to instrumental compositions. The pieces of Gabrieli were mostly imitations of compositions for the voice, fugal in style, and with never among them a melody fully carried out. Among the pupils of Andreas Gabrieli were Hans Leo Ha.s.sler, the celebrated Dresden composer, and Swelinck, the equally celebrated Netherlandish organist, of whom there is more to be said.

The beginning of organ composition, and the higher art of organ playing, made by Andreas Gabrieli, was carried much farther by his nephew and pupil, Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612), who, born and trained at Venice, early entered the service of its great cathedral, and in 1585 succeeded Claudio Merulo as first organist of the same. As a composer Giovanni Gabrieli continued the double-chorus effects which had been such a feature of the St. Mark's liturgy since the time of Willaert, but especially he distinguished himself in improving the style of organ playing, and in giving it a freedom and almost secular character somewhat surprising for the times. A large number of his compositions of all sorts are in print, very many "for voices or instruments." The alternative affords a good idea of the subordinate position still occupied by instrumental music, but a beginning had been made, which later was to lead to great things.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 48.