How to Appreciate Music Part 10

A Pa.s.sage in "Die Walkure."

In the Magic Fire Scene in the finale of "Die Walkure," Wagner wrote violin pa.s.sages which not even the greatest soloist can play cleanly, yet which, when played by all the violins, simulate in _sound_ the _aspect_ of licking, circling flames. Indeed, the effects that Wagner understood how to draw from the orchestral instruments are little short of marvellous. In the "Lohengrin" prelude the tone quality of the violins is absolutely angelic in purity; while in the third act of "Siegfried," the upswinging violin pa.s.sages as the young hero reaches the height where _Brunnhilde_ slumbers, depict the action with a thrilling realism.

Besides the regular string band, Wagner made frequent use of the harp.

It is related that at the Munich performance of "Rheingold," when the harpist Trombo protested to him that some of the pa.s.sages were unplayable, the composer replied: "You don't expect me to play the harp, too, do you? You perceive the general effect I am aiming at; produce that and I shall be satisfied." Liszt, in his "Dante Symphony," uses the _glissando_ of the harp as a symbol for the rising shades of _Francesco da Rimini_ and her lover, and a very beautiful use of harmonics on the harp with their faint tinkle is to be found in the Waltz of the Sylphs in Berlioz's "d.a.m.nation de Faust."

The Woodwind.

Flutes, oboes and clarinets form the woodwind. One of the best known pa.s.sages for flute is in the third "Leonora Overture" of Beethoven, where it is employed with conspicuous grace. Probably, however, more fun has been made of the flute than of any other orchestral instrument, and a standard musical joke runs as follows:

"Are you musical?"

"No, but I have a brother who plays the flute."

It has also been insinuated that in Donizetti's "Lucia" the heroine goes mad, not because she has been separated from _Edgardo_, but because a flute obbligato accompanies her princ.i.p.al aria. The piccolo is a high flute used for shrill effects.

The instruments of both the oboe and clarinet families are reed instruments, with this difference, however: the instruments of the oboe family have two vibrating reeds in the mouthpieces; those of the clarinet family, only one. The oboe family consists of the oboe proper, the English horn which is an alt oboe, and the ba.s.soon which is the ba.s.s of this group of instruments. In Italian the ba.s.soon is called a _f.a.gotto_, a name derived from its supposed resemblance to a bundle of f.a.gots. "Candor, artless grace, tender joy, or the grief of a fragile soul, are found in the oboe's accents," says Berlioz of this instrument, and those who remember the exquisite oboe melody, with which the slow movement of Schubert's C major symphony opens, will agree with the French composer. Richard Strauss, in his "Sinfonia Domestica," employs the almost obsolete oboes d'amore to represent an "innocent, dreamy, playful child."

The English Horn in "Tristan."

The most famous use of the English horn is found in the third act of "Tristan," where it plays the "sad lay" while _Tristan_ awaits news of the ship which is bearing _Isolde_ toward him, and changes to a joyous strain when the ship is sighted. The ba.s.soon and contraba.s.soon, besides their value as the ba.s.s of the oboe family, have certain humorous qualities, which are admirably brought out in Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and in the march of the clownish artisans in Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream" music. In opera, Meyerbeer made the ba.s.soon famous by his scoring of the dance of the _Spectre Nuns_ in "Robert le Diable" for it, and he also used it for the accompaniment to the female chorus in the second act of "Les Huguenots." The theme of the romanza, "Una fortiva lagrima," in Donizetti's "L'Elisir d'Amore," which Caruso sings so beautifully, is introduced by the ba.s.soon, and with charming effect.

The clarinets have a large compa.s.s. Usually three kinds of clarinets (in A, B flat and C because they are transposing instruments) are employed in the orchestra, besides the ba.s.s clarinet. The possibilities of the clarinet group have been enormously developed by Wagner. It is necessary only to recall the scene of _Elsa's_ bridal procession to the cathedral in the second act of "Lohengrin"; _Elisabeth's_ sad exit after her prayer in the third act of "Tannhauser," in which the melody is played by the ba.s.s clarinet, while the accompaniment is given to three flutes and eight other clarinets; the change of scene in the first act of "Gotterdammerung," when clarinets give forth the Brunnhilde Motive; and pa.s.sages in the second act of "Die Meistersinger," in the scene at nightfall; while for a generally skillful use of the woodwind the introduction to the third act of "Lohengrin" is a shining example.

Bra.s.s Instruments.

People usually a.s.sociate the bra.s.s instruments with noise. But as a matter of fact, wonderfully rich and soft tone effects can be produced on the bra.s.s by a composer who knows how to score for it. Just as the pianissimo of many violins is a finer pianissimo than that of a solo violin, so a much more exquisitely soft effect can be produced on a large bra.s.s group than on a few bra.s.s instruments or a single one.

When modern composers increase the number of instruments in the bra.s.s group, it is not for the sake of noise, but for richer effects.

The trumpet is the soprano of the bra.s.s family. The fanfare in "Fidelio" when at the critical moment aid approaches; the Siegfried Motive and the Sword Motive, in the "Ring of the Nibelung," need only be cited to prove the effectiveness of the instrument in its proper place; and Richard Strauss instances the demoniacal and fateful effect of the deep trumpet tones in the introduction to the first act of Bizet's "Carmen."

Although the notes of the trombone are produced by a slide, this instrument belongs to the trumpet family. For this reason, in the "Ring of the Nibelung," Wagner, in addition to the usual three tenor trombones, reintroduced the almost obsolete ba.s.s trombone. He wanted a trombone group complete in itself, and thus to be able to utilize the peculiar tone color of the instrument; as witness in the Walhalla Motive, where it is scored for the three tenor trombones and ba.s.s trombone, resulting in a wonderfully rich and velvety quality of tone.

Excepting Wagner and Richard Strauss, there probably is not a composer who would not have used the ba.s.s tuba here instead of taking the trouble to revive the ba.s.s trombone. But Wagner wanted an unusually rich tone which should be solemn without a trace of sombreness, and his keen instrumental color sense informed him that he could secure it with the ba.s.s trombone, which, as it belongs to the trumpet family, has a touch of trumpet brilliancy, whereas the tone of the ba.s.s tuba is darker.

[Music ill.u.s.tration]

Mozart employed the trombone with fine effect in _Sarastro's_ solo in the "Magic Flute"; Schubert showed his genius for instrumentation by the manner in which he used them in the introduction to his C major symphony, as well as in the first movement of that symphony, in which a theme is given out by three trombones in unison; and another familiar example of good scoring for trombones is in the introduction to the third act of "Lohengrin." In the Death Prophecy scene in the second act of "Die Walkure," a trumpet melody is supported by the four trombones, another instance of Wagner's sense of h.o.m.ogeneity in sound, since trumpets and trombones belong to the same family. In fact, throughout the "Ring," as Strauss points out, Wagner wrote for his trombones in four parts, adding the ba.s.s trombone in order to differentiate wholly between it and the tuba, which latter he used with the horns, with which it is properly grouped.

Wagner has a tremendous tuba recitative in a "Faust Overture," and in the Funeral March in the "Gotterdammerung" he introduces tenor tubas in order, again, to differentiate between the tone color of tubas and trombones and not to be obliged to employ trombones in this particular scene, the general tone color of the tuba being far more sombre than that of the trombone.

Richard Strauss's Tribute to the Horn.

To mention tubas and trombones before the horns is very much like putting the cart before the horse, but I have reserved the horns for the last of the bra.s.s on account of the great tribute which Richard Strauss has paid them. In the early orchestras one rarely found more than two horns. Beethoven used four in the Ninth Symphony, and now it is not at all unusual to find eight.

"Of all instruments," says Richard Strauss, "the horn is perhaps the one that best can be joined with other groups. To substantiate this in all its numerous phases, I should be obliged to quote the entire 'Meistersinger' score. For I do not think I exaggerate when I maintain that the greatly developed technique of the valve horn has made it possible that a score which, with the addition of a third trumpet, a harp and a tuba, employs the same instruments as Beethoven used in his Fifth Symphony, has become with every bar something entirely different, something wholly new and unheard of.

"Surely the two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets and two ba.s.soons of Mozart have been exhausted by Wagner in every direction of their technical possibilities and plastically combined with an almost weird perception of all their tone secrets; the string quintet, through the most refined divisions into parts, and with added brilliance through the employment of the harp, produces innumerable new tone effects, and by superb polyphony is brought to a height and warmth of emotional expression such as never before was dreamed of; trumpet and trombones are made to express every phase of solemn or humorous characterization--but the main thing is the tireless partic.i.p.ation of the horn, now for the melody, now for filling out, now as ba.s.s. The 'Meistersinger' score is the horn's hymn of praise. Through the introduction and perfection of the valve horn the greatest improvement in the technique of scoring, since Berlioz's day, has been made possible.

"To ill.u.s.trate exhaustively this Protean character of the horn, I should like (again!) to go through the scores of the great magician, bar by bar, beginning with 'Rheingold.'

"Whether it rings through the primeval German forest with the sunny exuberance of _Siegfried's_ youthful heart and joy of living; whether in Liszt's 'Mazeppa' it dies out in the last hoa.r.s.e gasp of the Cossack prince nigh unto death in the vast desert of the steppes; whether it conjures the childlike longing of _Siegfried_ for the mother he never has known; whether it hovers over the gently undulating sea which is to bring _Isolde's_ gladdening form to the dying _Tristan_, or nods _Hans Sachs'_ thanks to the faithful _'Prentice_; whether in _Erik's_ dream it causes in a few hollow accents the North Sea to break on the lonely coast; bestows upon the apples of Freia the gift of eternal youth; pokes fun at the curtain-heroes ('Meistersinger,' Act III); plies the cudgels on _Beckmesser_ with the jealous _David_ and his comrades, and is the real instigator of the riot; or sings in veiled notes of the wounds of _Tristan_--always the horn, in its place and to be relied on, responds, unique in its manifold meanings and its brilliant significance."

Famous horn pa.s.sages in the works of other composers are in the trio of the Scherzo in the "Eroica Symphony"; in the second movement of Schubert's C major symphony, the pa.s.sage of which Schumann said that the notes of the horns just before the return of the princ.i.p.al subject were like the voice of an angel; in the opening of Weber's "Freischutz" overture; in the introduction to _Michaela's_ romance in "Carmen"; and in the opening theme of the slow movement of Tschaikowsky's Fifth Symphony, which is the perfection of a melodic phrase for solo horn.

Instruments of Percussion.

In the "battery" the instruments of prime importance are the tympani.

Beethoven gave the cue to what could be accomplished with these in the scherzo of the Fifth Symphony and also in the octave thumps in the scherzo of the Ninth Symphony, while for a weirdly sombre effect there is nothing equal to the faint roll of the tympani at the beginning and end of the Funeral March in "Gotterdammerung." Cymbals are used in several ways. Besides the ordinary clash, Wagner has produced a sound somewhat like that of a gong, by the sharp stroke of a drum-stick on one cymbal, and also a roll by using a pair of drum-sticks on one cymbal.

Among composers since Beethoven, Weber, Liszt, Saint-Saens, Dvorak, Tschaikowsky, and, of course, Richard Strauss--it hardly is necessary to mention either Berlioz or Wagner again--have shown brilliant technique in orchestration. On the other hand, Schumann and Brahms do not appear to have understood or to have taken the trouble to understand the individual characteristics of orchestral instruments, and, as a result, their works for orchestra are not as effective as they should be. Their orchestration has been called "muddy."

It is Richard Strauss's opinion that the next advancement in orchestration will be brought about by adding largely to certain groups of instruments which now have only comparatively few representatives in the orchestra. He instances that at the Brussels Conservatory one of the professors had Mozart's G minor symphony performed for him on twenty-two clarinets, of which four were ba.s.set horns (alto clarinets), two bra.s.s clarinets, and one contra-ba.s.s clarinet; and he suggests that it will be along such lines that the orchestra of the future will be enlarged. With an orchestra with all the family groups of instruments complete in the manner suggested by Strauss, and used by a musical genius, a genius who combines with melodic invention virtuosity of instrumentation, marvellous results are yet to be achieved.

XI

CONCERNING SYMPHONIES

I have said that music, like all other arts, had a somewhat formless beginning, then gradually acquired form, then became too rigidly formal, and in modern times, while not discarding form, has become freer in its expression of emotion.

Instrumental music, since the beginning of the cla.s.sical period, has been governed largely by the symphony, which the reader should bear in mind is nothing more than a sonata for orchestra, the form having first developed on the pianoforte and having been handed over by it to the aggregation of instruments. Sir Hubert Parry, from whose book, "The Evolution of the Art of Music," I have had previous occasion to quote, has several apt paragraphs concerning the earlier development of the sonata, which of course apply with equal force to the symphony.

After stating that the instinct of the composers who first sought the liberation of music from the all-predominating counterpoint, impelled them to develop movements of wider and freer range, which should admit of warm melodic expression, without degenerating into incoherent, rambling ecstasy, Sir Hubert continues: "They had the sense to see from the first that mere formal continuous melody is not the most suitable type for instrumental music. There is deep-rooted in the matter of all instrumental music the need of some rhythmic vitality.

These composers then set themselves to devise a scheme in which, to begin with, the contour of connected melodic phrases, supported and defined by simple harmonic accompaniment, gave the impression of definite tonality--that is, of being decisively in some particular key and giving an unmistakable indication of it. They found out how to proceed by giving the impression of using that key and pa.s.sing to another without departing from the characteristic spirit and mood of the music, as shown in the 'subjects' and figures; and how to give the impression of relative completeness, by closing in a key which is in strong contrast to the first, and so round off one-half of the design.

"But this point being in apposition to the starting point, leaves the mind dissatisfied and in expectation of fresh disclosures; so they made the balance complete by resuming the subjects and melodic figures of the first part in extraneous keys, and working back to the starting point; and they made their final close with the same figures as were used to conclude the first half, but in the princ.i.p.al key instead of the key of contract." This is a somewhat more elaborate method of describing the sonata form than I have adopted in the division of this book relating to the pianoforte.

Esthetic Purpose of the Symphony.

Later on in his book, Sir Hubert, in discussing the type of sonata movement which was fairly established by the time of Haydn and Mozart, gives a simpler esthetic explanation, pointing out that the first part of the movement aims at definiteness of subject, definiteness of contrast of keys, definiteness of regular balancing groups of bars and rhythms, definiteness of progressions. By the time this first division is over the mind has had enough of such definiteness, and wants a change. The second division, therefore, represents the breaking up of the subjects into their const.i.tuent elements of figure and rhythm, the obliteration of the sense of regularity by grouping the bars irregularly; and aims, by moving constantly from key to key, to give the sense of artistic confusion; which, however, is always regulated by some inner but disguised principle of order. When the mind has gone through enough of the pleasing sense of bewilderment--the sense that has made riddles attractive to the human creature from time immemorial--the scheme is completed by resuming the orderly methods of the first division and firmly re-establishing the princ.i.p.al theme which has been carefully avoided since the commencement.

The earlier symphonic writers usually wrote their symphonies in three movements: the first or sonata movement; a second slow movement in a simpler type of form, usually of the song, aria, or rondo type; and a final movement in lively time, also usually adapted to the rondo form.

Concerning this three-movement symphony of the early writers, it was said by an old-time wit that they wrote the first movement to show what they could do, the second movement to show what they could feel, and the third movement to show how glad they were it was over--and this may be said to describe the view of the ultra-modern music-lover toward rigidity of form in general.

Regarding form in music there is much prejudice one way or the other.

The sonnet in poetry certainly is a rigid form; and yet those poets who have mastered it have produced extremely effective and highly artistic poems, and poems abounding in profound emotional expression.

Walt Whitman, on the other hand, was quite formless, and yet he is sure to be ranked in time as one of the greatest poets of his age.

Wagner's idea was that the symphonic form had reached its climax with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony; yet it is by no means incredible that if Wagner in his maturer years had undertaken to compose a symphony, the result would have disproved his own theory.