How to Appreciate Music Part 8

The "Piano Doctor."

We who have our pianofortes in our own homes and are content with an occasional visit from the tuner, little dream of the care bestowed upon the instrument on which an artist like Paderewski plays.

Instrument? I should have said instruments; for, when he is on tour, he has a whole suite of them, no less than four, and each is coddled as if it were a prima donna fresh from the hands of Madame Marchesi, instead of a thing of wood, metal and ivory. True, these pianos do not have their throats sprayed on the slightest possible occasion, but they are carefully protected against extremes of heat and cold, and, while the prima donna consults her physician only at intervals, a "piano doctor" is in constant attendance on these instruments.

Paderewski's "piano doctor" has traveled with him for several seasons, occupying the same private car and practically living with him during the entire tour. He was with him on the tour, in fact at his table at breakfast with him, when his special train was run on to an open siding near East Syracuse and left the track, Paderewski being thrown forward on his hands against the table and straining the muscles of one arm so severely that he was obliged to cancel his remaining engagements. Up to that time, however, his net receipts from seventy-four concerts had been $137,012.50, while before this American tour began he gave thirty-six concerts in Australia with average receipts of $5,000. His record concert was at Dallas, Texas, some years ago, when the receipts were $9,000. It occurred during a Confederate reunion. While he was at the pianoforte, the various posts marched up to the hall with bands and fife-and-drum corps playing.

Paderewski, however, kept right on through the blasts and shrilling.

But when one of the posts let out the famous "rebel yell," the pianist leaped from his seat as if he expected a tiger to spring at his throat. Then he realized what had happened, smiled and continued amid laughter and applause. He had heard of the famous "rebel yell," but this was the first time he had heard it.

Pianofortes on Their Travels.

But to return to the pianofortes on tour. When Paderewski came to this country from Australia, his piano doctor met him at San Francisco with four instruments which had been selected with great care in New York and been shipped West in charge of the "doctor." One of these the virtuoso reserved for his private car, for he practices en route whenever there is a stop long enough to make it worth while. He rarely plays when the car is in motion. Of the other three instruments, the two he liked best were sent to his hotel, where during four days preceding his first concert, he practiced from seven to eight hours a day, notifying the "doctor" twenty-four hours in advance which pianoforte he would use. This instrument became, officially, No. 1; the others No. 2 and No. 3.

The pianist's route took him from San Francisco to Oakland, San Jose, and Portland, Oregon. To make certain that he always will have a fine instrument to play on, a method of shipping ahead the instruments not in use is adopted. Thus, while he was playing on No. 1 in San Francisco and Oakland, No. 2 was sent on to San Jose and No. 3 to Portland. Of course, none but an expert could detect the slightest difference in these pianofortes, but a player like Paderewski is sensitive to the most delicately balanced distinctions or nuances in tone and action. One of his idiosyncrasies is that always before going on he asks the "doctor" which of the three instruments is on the stage, because, as he himself expresses it, "I don't want to meet a stranger." After each concert, at supper, this conversation invariably takes place:

Paderewski: "Well, 'Doctor,' it sounded all right to-night, didn't it?"

"Doctor": "Yes, sir."

Paderewski: "Well, then, please pa.s.s me the bread."

There never has been occasion to record what would happen if the "doctor" were to say, "No, sir." For he always has been able to answer in the affirmative, with the most scrupulous regard for veracity.

Paderewski is as careful to play his best in the least important place in which he gives a concert as he is in New York. This high sense of duty toward his public accounts in part for his supremacy among pianists Paderewski is not a mere virtuoso. He is a man of fine intellectual gifts who plays the piano like a poet. Paul Potter, the playwright, who lives in Geneva, Switzerland, and occasionally has dined there with Paderewski, tells me that he has conversed with the pianist on almost every conceivable subject _except music_ and always found him remarkably well informed. His knowledge of the history of his native land, Poland, and of its literature is said to be quite wonderful. Chopin, also a Pole, he idolizes and regards as far and away the greatest composer for the piano. To the fund for the Chopin memorial at Warsaw he contributes by charging one dollar for his autograph, and two dollars for his signature and a few bars of music.

From the money received as the proceeds of one season's autographs he was able to remit about $1,300 to the fund.

When the amusing little dialogue at the supper table, which I have recorded, takes place, the pianoforte which the virtuoso has used at his concert already will be on the way to its next destination. For it is part of the "doctor's" duty to see it safely out of the hall and onto the train before rejoining the party on the private car. The instrument is not boxed. The legs are removed and then a carefully fitted canvas is drawn over the body and held in place by straps. The body is slid out of the hall and slowly let down onto a specially constructed eight-wheel skid, swung low, so as to be as nearly as possible on a level with the platform. This skid is part of the outfit of the tour. The record time for detaching the legs of the pianoforte, covering the body, removing the instrument from the stage and having it on the skid ready to start for the station, is seven minutes.

"Thawing Out" a Pianoforte.

The instruments never are set up except under the "doctor's" personal supervision. Before each concert the pianoforte on which Paderewski is to play is carefully gone over and put in perfect condition--tuned and, if necessary, regulated, and this no matter how recently he may have used it. Defects so trifling that neither an ordinary player nor the public would notice them, would jar on the sensitive ear and nerves of the virtuoso. Sometimes the instrument has been exposed to such a low temperature that frost is found to have formed not only on the lid, but even on the iron plate inside. In such cases the pianoforte is set up and, after the film of frost has been sc.r.a.ped off, is allowed to thaw out slowly and naturally before it is touched for tuning or regulating.

There was an amusing incident in the handling of one of the Paderewski instruments at Columbus, Mississippi, where Paderewski played for seven hundred girls at the State College, although it was more exciting than diverting at the time it happened. The "doctor" relies on local help for getting the pianoforte from the skid to the stage and back again. Usually efficient helpers are obtainable, but at Columbus, where the college hall is upstairs and reached only by a narrow flight of steps, there was no aid to be had save from among the negroes lounging on the public square. The "doctor" went among them.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Nawthin'."

"Want a job?"

"Naw, too busy," was the usual reply.

At last, however, a band of twenty "colored gentlemen" was secured in the hope that muscle and quant.i.ty would make up for lack of quality.

But never before has a high-grade pianoforte been in such imminent peril. It was got upstairs well enough, in spite of the fact that the negroes walked all over each other. But the descent! The "doctor,"

Emil C. Fischer, stood at the top of the stairs directing; J. E.

Francke, the treasurer of the tour, below. Around the latter fell a shower of fragments from the wall, the rail, the posts; and at one time it seemed as if the whole banister would give way and the pianoforte crash in splinters on the floor. There were other moments of suspense, for the pianoforte as well as for the two watchers, who drew a long breath when the instrument safely was on the skid.

Fortunately such untoward incidents are forgotten in the general atmosphere of good-humor which the pianist diffuses about him. He enjoys his little joke. During the last tour he handed a photograph of himself to Mr. Francke inscribed: "To the future Governor of Hoboken."

At the Auditorium hotel, Chicago, Millward Adams' brother, about leaving on a trip, asked for an autograph. Paderewski, quick as a flash, wrote:

"For the brother of Mr. _Adams_ on the _Eve_ of his departure from Chicago."

Paderewski travels on a special train. With him usually are his wife, his manager, the treasurer of the tour, the piano "doctor," a secretary, valet and maid. His home is a villa on Lake Geneva, where he has a beautiful garden and vinery, his dogs, his room for billiards, a game of which he is very fond, and unlimited opportunity for swimming, his favorite exercise. Apparently slender and surely most poet-looking at the piano, he is a man of iron strength as well as of iron will.

HOW TO APPRECIATE AN ORCHESTRAL CONCERT

IX

DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORCHESTRA

The appreciation and consequent enjoyment of an orchestral concert will be greatly enhanced if the listener is familiar with certain details regarding the orchestra itself and some of the compositions he is apt to hear. This I have borne in mind in the chapter divisions of this portion of my book, and, as a result, I have divided the subject into the general development of the orchestra, the specific consideration of the princ.i.p.al orchestral instruments, a cursory commentary on certain phases of orchestral music and a chapter on Richard Strauss who represents its most advanced aspects.

The first music of which we moderns take account was unaccompanied (_a capella_) singing for church service. It was composed in the old ecclesiastical modes, which are quite different from our modern scales, and the name which comes most prominently to mind in connection with this beginning of our musical history is that of Palestrina. With the influence of this old church choral music so dominant, there is little wonder that the first efforts to write music for instruments were awkward. It may be said right here that this awkwardness, or rather this lack of knowledge and appreciation of the individual capacity of various instruments, is shown throughout the school of contrapuntal composition, even by Bach. When Bach wrote for orchestral instruments he did not consider their peculiar tone quality, or their capacity for individual expression, but simply their pitch--which instrument could take up this, that or the other theme in his contrapuntal score, when he had carried it as high or as low as he could on some other instrument. This also is true of Handel, although in less degree.

But just as we have seen that Domenico Scarlatti worked along original lines for the pianoforte and created the germ of the sonata form, while Bach was weaving and plaiting the counterpoint of his suites, part.i.tas and "Well-Tempered Clavichord," so in Italy, during a large part of this contrapuntal period, a distinct kind of orchestral music was springing up. Again, just as we have seen that in Italy the pianoforte shook off the trammels of counterpoint when it began to be used as an accompaniment for dramatic recitative in opera, so the instruments in the orchestra, when composers began to use them for operatic accompaniments, were employed more with reference to their individual tone qualities and power of expression.

Primitive Orchestral Efforts.

Although, strictly speaking, not the first composer to use orchestral instruments in opera, and to display skill in utilizing their individual characteristics, the most important of these early men was Claudio Monteverde (1568-1643). In his "Orpheo," which he produced in 1608, he utilized, besides two harpsichords (and it may be of interest to note here that instruments of the pianoforte cla.s.s were long used in orchestras as connecting links between all the other instruments), two ba.s.s viols, two tenor viols, one double harp, two little French violins, two large guitars, two wood organs, two viola di gambas, one regal, four trombones, two cornets, one octave flute, one clarion, and three trumpets with mutes--a fairly formidable array of instruments when the period is considered. Of especial interest are the "two little French violins," which probably were the same as our modern violins, now the prima donnas of the orchestra and far outnumbering any other instrument employed.

It was Monteverde who in his "Tancredi e Clorinda" made use for the first time of a tremolo for stringed instruments, and it is said so to have astonished the performers that they at first refused to play it.

Before Monteverde there were operatic composers like Jacopo Peri, and after him Cavalli and Alessandro Scarlatti, who did much for their day to develop the orchestra. This is a very brief summary of the early development of instrumental music, a story that easily could fill a volume--which, probably, however, very few people would take the trouble to read.

Beethoven and the Modern Orchestra.

The first really modern composer for the orchestra was Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), who also may be considered the father of the symphony.

Born before Mozart, he also survived that composer. His music is gay and naive; while Mozart, although he had decidedly greater genius for the dramatic than Haydn, nevertheless is only a trifle more emotional in his symphonies. The three greatest of these which he composed during the summer of 1788, the E flat major, G minor and C major (known as the "Jupiter"), show a decided advance in the knowledge of orchestration, and the E flat major is notable because it is the first symphonic work in which clarinets were used. Haydn's and Mozart's symphonies--that is, the best of them--sound agreeable even to-day in a concert hall of moderate size. But because modern music with its sonorous orchestra requires large auditoriums, like Carnegie Hall in New York, these charming symphonic works of the earlier cla.s.sical period are swallowed up in s.p.a.ce and much of their naive and pretty effect is lost.

Beethoven may be said to have established the modern orchestra. Very few instruments have been added to it since his time, and if an orchestra to-day sounds differently from what it did in his day, if the works of modern composers sound richer and more effective from a modern point of view than his orchestral compositions, it is not because we have added a lot of new instruments, but because our composers have acquired greater skill in bringing out their peculiar tone qualities and because the technique of orchestral players has greatly improved.

It is for precisely the same reasons that Beethoven's symphonies show such a great advance upon those of his predecessors. The point is not that Beethoven added a few more instruments to the orchestra, but that, so far as his own purposes were concerned, he handled all the instruments which he included in his band with much greater skill than his predecessors had shown. Many writers affect to despise technique.

But in point of fact the development of technique and the development of art go hand in hand. An artist, be he writer, painter or musician, cannot adequately express his ideas unless he has the means of doing so or the genius to create the means.

How He Developed Orchestral Resources.

In following Beethoven's symphonies from the First to the Ninth, we can see the modern orchestra developing under his hands from that handed over to him by Haydn and Mozart. In the First and Second Symphonies, Beethoven employs the usual strings, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two ba.s.soons, two horns, two trumpets and tympani. In the Third Symphony, the "Eroica," he adds a third horn part; in the Fifth a piccolo, trombones and contraba.s.soon. Although employed in the finale only, these instruments here make their first bow in the symphonic orchestra. In the Ninth Symphony Beethoven introduced two additional horns, the first use of four horns in a symphony. The scoring of these symphonies is given somewhat more in detail in the chapter "How the Orchestra Grew," in Mr. W. J.