Musical Criticisms Part 3

But he was all the more human for that.

We may here say something about his piano playing. Johnstone, of course, never professed to be more than an amateur. He was quite aware that the difference in executive skill between the professional and the best amateur is almost as great in music as in billiards; and that, to paraphrase Matthew Arnold's saying, "Technique is three-fourths of musical performance." As to the remaining fourth his playing stood on a very high level. Even in undergraduate days the charm of his rendering was considerable, always carefully thought out and individual. If he had never heard a piece performed, his insight was remarkable, lighting instinctively upon what one realised was the best way of playing it. His touch was very delicate; he never forced the tone out of a piano, and always avoided anything that might be called hard hitting. He liked best playing something in the style of a Rubinstein barcarolle, where the music should speak through a veil of sound. But his strength really lay in a fine sense of rhythm, a rare gift even among great pianists.

Whatever piece he attempted he took at the proper pace, even if occasionally a note might be missed or a pa.s.sage blurred, rather than give a false idea of it by playing too slowly; what was altogether beyond his powers he left alone. On his return from the Cologne Conservatoire his actual execution was at its best, the fingers strong and lissom; and, being at the top of his physical health, his playing was full of almost exuberant vitality. A weak circulation was always a trial, and it was his habit to warm his fingers at a fire, when possible, before sitting down to the piano. It was perhaps a small talent, but singularly dainty and cultivated, for which our memory of twenty-five years is profoundly grateful.

We might expect that the qualities he aimed at in his own playing would be those that most attracted him in the great pianists of his period. Of course he admired at their full value those transcendent players, Rubinstein, Sophie Menter, Paderewski, Rosenthal; but there are also artists equally unapproachable in their own delicate way, such as Pachmann, G.o.dowsky, Reisenauer, Siloti, and it was from them he received the greatest personal pleasure.

As critic his first object was to explain the qualities and scope of the music (in Pater's words, "to disengage its virtue"); to show, if a cla.s.sic, why it had attained its position, if modern, why it should command serious attention. He never a.s.sumed too much musical knowledge on the part of his readers, avoiding the use of technical expressions, still more of stereotyped phrases. Bad work and slovenly performance he could chastise unsparingly, but he never wrote harshly when he recognised genuine effort, and he was very generous in his praise of young performers, and often attended minor concerts at some inconvenience to encourage rising artists. His style was clear and precise, rather expository in tone; coloured when the occasion demanded, and occasionally enriched with allusions to other arts. Thus the elaborate tracery of Gothic architecture exhibited in Strasburg Cathedral (a favourite figure) is employed to ill.u.s.trate Bach and contrasted with the formal cla.s.sicism of earlier composers, and the Palladian style of Handel; Elgar's "Dream of Gerontius" is compared to some "jewelled _ciboire_ of the Middle Ages;" a pianist's playing of arabesque pa.s.sages reminds him of the "arrogance and costly unreason of fine jewellery." His discernment of any new work of permanent value was quick and unerring; we may instance his early estimate of Elgar and indeed of Strauss too (for his position then was uncertain) as having been in advance of general musical opinion, though unquestioned at the present day. Tchakovsky's Pathetic Symphony was a more obvious discovery; here he showed his critical power rather in quenching the popular enthusiasm (which he had at first a.s.sisted in creating) for this work when the public seemed to have lost all sense of proportion, by reminding his readers that after all "Tchakovsky and Dvorak are inspired barbarians and must not be put on the same level with Beethoven and Schumann." Mention too should be made of his appreciation of Liszt, whose services to music are too frequently ignored--the creator of the modern pianoforte technique, the brilliant and original composer, and the generous friend of Wagner.

In their choice of the articles of which this volume is composed the editors have given special prominence to those on the works of Sir Edward Elgar and Herr Richard Strauss, the two composers of our time who, as Johnstone considered, would bear the largest share in influencing the cause of musical development. Many of the articles were written on the first production of important works, and, in Elgar's case, further impressions are given of later performances of the same work. Those on the great acknowledged masters, if they cannot add much more to our stock of actual knowledge, are interesting as confessions of a sound musical faith. It is also true that the sum of potential energy in the works of these great masters is infinite; in this sense, that they strike a new flash out of every fresh and apprehensive mind.

They can beget generations of critics, each with another thing to say.

Such criticism is not a mere absorptive or pa.s.sive process; it is re-creation: it puts into fresh terms, by the art of words, some of the impressions that have been built up of sound without language; or it tells those who have felt the same thing what they did not clearly know or remember that they had felt. The power to explain music is rarer than competence in judging books. It may be thought that amongst Englishmen of our generation Arthur Johnstone had as large a share as any of this re-creative genius.

Musical Criticisms

CHAPTER I.

BACH.

[Sidenote: =The Genius of Bach.=

_November 27, 1901._]

In the minds of those who have specially at heart the welfare and progress of musical art in this country nothing at the present time looms larger than the church music of Bach. To acquiesce in the prevalent indifference of the public to that music we feel to be impossible. If Shakespeare is nothing but a bore, there seems to be an end of imaginative literature; and similarly, in music, any person whom Bach entirely fails to interest had better give up all pretence to being musical. For Bach is not one of the composers, like Berlioz, Liszt, Tchakovsky, Dvorak, or Richard Strauss, whom it is allowable to like or dislike. Bach is the musical Bible--the foundation of the faith.

Historically considered, both Bach and Handel are artists of the Reformation and the Renaissance. But if we fix attention on their essential musical personalities, we find a certain broad difference between the two great eighteenth century composers, which is fairly well suggested by calling Bach a Gothic and Handel a Renaissance artist.

Bach's "Pa.s.sion according to St. Matthew" stands to Handel's "Messiah"

in something like the same kind of contrast that Strasburg Cathedral presents to St. Peter's in Rome. On the other hand, in its course of development music has been quite different from architecture and the graphic and plastic arts, and modern music owes quite a hundred times more to Bach than it does to Handel. Bach represents by far the greatest stimulating influence that has ever existed in the musical world. His stupendous industry, resulting in a body of first-rate work that may be reckoned among the greatest wonders of the world (it is not possible for a modern to know it all); his awe-inspiring union of very great talent with very great character; the completeness of his human nature and the absolute purity of his life and art--these things unite to make of Bach's personality something truly august, something that administers a quietus to the ordinary critical, fault-finding spirit. Glancing over the huge library of his collected works and knowing the glories that a few of them contain, one is fain to say, "There were giants in the earth in those days." Yet "giant" is scarcely the word. For the astounding sinew and st.u.r.diness of the man were quite secondary in the composition of his character to that quality, in virtue of which he worked on throughout a long life as though in perpetual consciousness of something higher than ordinary human judgment; not waiting for full appreciation, which did not come till about a century after his death (very much as in Shakespeare's case), but perfectly realising the great ethical ideal of Marcus Aurelius--the good man producing good works, just as the vine produces grapes. No greater praise can be bestowed on Handel than to say that in his very best moments he is almost worthy of Bach, as, for example, in the choral section "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all," or in the tenor of the recitative "He looked for some to have pity on Him, but there was no man; neither found He any to comfort Him."

[Sidenote: =Bach's Ma.s.s in B minor.=

_November 29, 1901._]

Under Dr. Richter's irresistible generalship the most arduous task ever yet undertaken by the Halle Choir was yesterday carried through to a brilliantly successful issue. Bach's great Ma.s.s ill.u.s.trates his tendency to throw all the weightier eloquence of a sacred composition into the chorus, a solo or duet being treated as a delicate interlude, some florid _obbligato_ for violin, oboe, or "corno di caccia"--the eighteenth century name for the ordinary orchestral horn--being intertwined with the melodic line in the manner of Gothic tracery. The Ma.s.s is in six main divisions--the Kyrie, with three sub-sections; the Gloria and the Credo, each in eight; the Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei, each in two sub-sections. The two choruses of the Kyrie--the former a wailing supplication, the latter a mystical counterpart washed clean of earthly pa.s.sion--were sufficient to show that the choir had a most thorough grasp of their parts, all the difficult and complex chromatic harmonies coming out with admirable clearness and correctness. The first chorus of the Gloria, with its joyous _vivace_ movement, breaks into a style much more generally "understanded of the people." Here the choir were on thoroughly firm ground. The ring of the voices was magnificent, and the superbly effective contrast at the words "Et in terra pax" was perfectly given. The first occasion on which we noticed any serious defect in the choral singing was in the burst of jubilant melody at the opening of the "Et resurrexit." The jar was only momentary and was doubtless the result of an over-vehement attack. It can scarcely be questioned that the most marvellous chorus in the whole work is the Sanctus, which expresses in six-part harmony the mystical rapture of celestial beings set free from all care, pain, and strife. The effect of those persistent three-quaver groups in their garlanded similar motion is like nothing else in this world. They create a harmony of unparalleled richness, filling the ear with a feast of ravishing sound.

The contrast with such choruses as Handel's "Hallelujah" and "Worthy is the Lamb" is extremely striking. Handel was always of the Church Militant. He was always strenuous, affirming the faith as it were with a note of triumph over its enemies. Such a rose of Paradise as this Sanctus of Bach's is quite remote from all that Handel could do. For an earthly choir, however, with lungs and vocal chords liable to weariness, all this infinitely ornate and elaborate pa.s.sage-work is very trying, notwithstanding the absolute suavity of the musical expression, and in the ensuing "Hosanna" there were occasional signs of exhaustion. But the choir recovered their breath during the two succeeding solos, and gave a magnificent performance of the concluding "Dona n.o.bis pacem."

[Sidenote: ="St. Matthew Pa.s.sion."=

_January 25th, 1900._]

It is possible to regard the "St. Matthew Pa.s.sion" of Sebastian Bach as the greatest work of sacred musical art in existence, and thus as greater than Handel's "Messiah"; while at the same time thoroughly acquiescing in the greater popularity of the "Messiah." Handel was a mighty artist and a most lordly person; but he was a man of the world and a Court composer, and his religion, though perfectly genuine, was external and official in character. Bach, too, was a mighty artist, but he was not a man of the world. He was a devout and pious man and a man of the people, and his religion was inward and personal. Again, Handel was cosmopolitan, whereas Bach was thoroughly German. Not that Bach was wanting in knowledge of Italian and other foreign music. He was a perfectly comprehensive encyclopaedia of the musical knowledge that existed in his time. But the basis of his character was too homely, simple and loyal to be modified by foreign influence. Thus while Handel became musically an Italian, Bach remained thoroughly German. All these circ.u.mstances suggest reasons for the much wider popularity of Handel's music by comparison with Bach's. The general public like the clear and definite outline, the structural simplicity, that they find in the Italian and quasi-antique style of Handel, while they are bewildered by the subtlety, the complexity, the varied imaginative play, and the rejection of set forms that they find in Bach. It must be remembered that the average man of the world to a great extent determines the tone of the general public; one may be thankful that there exists any work of sacred musical art so splendid as "Messiah," which is to a great extent intelligible to the average man of the world, and one may rest satisfied that, for the present at any rate, the "Messiah" should be performed often, the Pa.s.sion music seldom.

A long line of Christian aspiration and endeavour culminates in the "St.

Matthew Pa.s.sion" music. The Good Friday service, or mystery, of the Pa.s.sion dates back to mediaeval times. Musical settings of it are quite innumerable. They fall into three main groups, according to style. The earliest are in the "Plain-song" of the mediaeval church. At the period of Luther's Reformation the plain song gave way to the chorale style.

Finally, there are many settings in the oratorio style. Of these Bach himself certainly wrote four, and probably five. By universal consent the "St. Matthew Pa.s.sion" is the finest of Bach's settings. The main outlines of the scheme were fixed by tradition. Bach had the a.s.sistance of a poet named Picander in arranging his text, but it was by Bach's own judgment that all important points were settled. He divided the story into two parts. The first comprises the conspiracy of the High Priest and Scribes, the anointing of Christ, the inst.i.tution of the Lord's supper, the prayer on the Mount of Olives and the betrayal of Judas, and ends with the flight of the disciples. In the second part are set forth the hearing before Caiaphas, Peter's denial, the judgment of Pilate, the death of Judas, the progress to Golgotha, the Crucifixion, Death and Burial of Christ. Between the two parts there is a broad contrast, a certain solemn stillness prevailing in the first and a pa.s.sionate stir in the second. Fifteen chorales are heard in the course of the work, each forming a meditation upon the foregoing incident in the story. The chorus is double, and there is immense power in the manner in which the two main ma.s.ses of sound are used, both to emphasise all that has poetic value and to express the many elements composing the mighty picture.

Most of the solos are supported by the first choir. The utterances of Christ are given by a ba.s.s voice with string quartet accompaniment. The ba.s.s voice is in accordance with tradition. Most of the other recitatives have an _obbligato_ accompaniment, in which a _motif_ bearing figurative reference to some prominent image in the text is worked out. The _obbligato_ is in most, though not in all, cases a.s.signed to a wind instrument, so as to contrast still further with the music accompanying the words of Christ. The longest solo part is that of the Narrator, who sings tenor. In the course of a long and masterly discussion Dr. Spitta, the great biographer of Bach, contends that the "St. Matthew Pa.s.sion" is not, strictly speaking, either dramatic music or oratorio music. One pa.s.sage in the discussion may here be quoted:--"Consider the pa.s.sage where the Jewish people, prompted by the High Priests and Elders, demand the release of Barabbas. The Evangelist makes them reply to Pilate's question with the single word 'Barabbas.'

The situation is, no doubt, full of emotion, and an oratorio writer might have let the tension of the moment discharge itself in a chorus.

But it would necessarily have been embodied in a form in which the chorus could have its full value as a musical factor, in a broadly worked-out composition with a text of somewhat greater extent. The dramatic composer would have given it the utmost brevity, since it stands midway in the critical development of an event. He would have to consider the progress of the action as well as the expression of feeling. A sudden roar of the excited populace--thronging tumultuously about the governor--a sudden roar and brief turmoil of voices would be the effect best suited to his purpose. Bach, composing a devotional Pa.s.sion, makes the whole choir groan out the name 'Barabbas' once only, on the chord of the minor seventh approached by a false close."

Dr. Spitta's point is that Bach's music interprets the feeling of devout Christians, neither subordinating the purport of the text to a musical poem, like a conventional oratorio composer, nor entering into the point of view of the actor, like any other kind of dramatic composer. Dr.

Spitta's arguments on this point are quite convincing; and we do not follow his practice of calling the work a "mystery" instead of an oratorio, only because the former word would not be generally intelligible, and because, in this country, we call any work of sacred art for voices and instruments an oratorio, if it is not a Ma.s.s, and if it is on too grand a scale to be called a cantata.

[Sidenote: =A Minor Concerto.=

_March 14, 1902._]

Anyone who knows his interpretation of Bach's A minor Concerto can scarcely help a.s.sociating Dr. Brodsky with that work very much as one a.s.sociates Joachim with Beethoven's, and Sarasate with Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. There is no other work that gives us so much of Bach's musical individuality within the scope of a clear, simple, and widely intelligible scheme. Bach made no music for the theatre, the casino, or the fashionable ballroom. He seems to have written almost exclusively for the church and for innocent, paternally safeguarded merry-making. He was a good old patriarch who composed either to praise G.o.d or to help the young people enjoy themselves--for if anyone imagines that Bach's gigues, gavottes, sarabandes, and so forth were not meant for actual dancing he is greatly mistaken. In such works as the Concertos one may still trace the twofold impulse clearly enough, though all is idealised, structurally elaborated, and otherwise adapted to a purely artistic purpose. For in the first movement of the A minor Concerto--Dr.

Brodsky's special piece--we have something that brings the spirit into the proper atmosphere. Bach takes us, as it were, to church, composing our minds, as we go, with strong and able talk about subjects appropriate to the religious season and the service that we are to attend. The second movement is the service, and the Finale is the afternoon walk or dance; Bach would probably have approved of Sunday dancing. Dr. Brodsky is unsurpa.s.sable in the andante, where the powerful, composed, and majestic rhythm of the ba.s.s finds a poetic and delicately fanciful commentary in the solo part. Here one perceives the difference between Bach's and Beethoven's religious standpoint, between the ages of faith and of strife, between the _ancien regime_ and the revolutionary period. For Bach the ancient faith is enough, while in the spirit of Beethoven there ferment, fume and rage the ideas of the French Revolution. The h.e.l.lmesberger cadenza played by Dr. Brodsky in the Finale is perhaps the best-written excursus of its kind in existence. It pa.s.ses in review the thematic material of the entire work, with unfailing felicity of touch, and good judgment as to the amount of development; and the extremely rich and florid figuration is all so neatly spun out of elements contained in the body of the work, that it seems to have grown where we find it hanging, and has no suggestion of anything alien about it.

CHAPTER II.

BEETHOVEN.

[Sidenote: =C Minor Symphony, No. 5.=

_October 22, 1897._]

The opening of the first movement forms the subject of a celebrated pa.s.sage in Wagner's pamphlet on conducting, where he complains of the manner in which the pauses on E flat and D used to be scamped, and of many other defects which were usual in the performances of forty years ago. He represents Beethoven rising from his grave and apostrophising the conductor with a harangue that begins: "Hold thou my _fermate_ [pauses] long and terribly." Wagner was a most exacting critic, but we venture to think that he would have been fairly satisfied with last night's rendering of the first movement. The contrast of the masculine and feminine elements which are inherent in the first and second subjects respectively was presented with all possible effect; the pauses were as long and terrible as Wagner could have desired, and were sustained with a perfectly equable tone-delivery; the beautiful unaccompanied phrase for oboe--which on the recurrence of the pa.s.sage takes the place of the _fermata_, or pause, at the twenty-first measure--was given with all possible force of expression; and many other individual beauties of the rendering might be cited. The second movement is less taxing for the performers than the rest of the work; it was given in a manner well in keeping with the spirit of the symphony, which is like some vast work of sculpture in bronze, such as the gates of the Baptistery at Florence. Just such plastic force in the moulding of mighty tone-elements and just such n.o.bility of the imagination did Beethoven possess as enabled Ghiberti to mould those wonderful gates, concerning which Michelangelo said that they were worthy to be the gates of Paradise. The scherzo, too, was an artistic triumph for the orchestra. Not a point was missed in that wonderful and uncanny tone-picture. A dance of demons it has been called; but it must be remembered that many great artists have treated grotesque and grisly subjects with an ineffably beautiful touch, such as we see, for example, in Alfred Rethel's marvellous drawing "Death the Friend." Not that the scherzo in Beethoven's C minor symphony breathes the spirit of that drawing, which is restful and serene, while the scherzo is full of weird mockery. The only point of the comparison is that in both works we find a grotesque subject enn.o.bled and beautified by a great artistic imagination. Strange that the C minor symphony should often have been quoted as an irregular and anarchical composition. Sir George Grove has pointed out in his well-known a.n.a.lysis that the entire work conforms most strictly to structural principles, and that its chief irregularities are the linking together of the scherzo and finale and the _reprise_ of the scherzo shortly before the concluding presto.

[Sidenote: =The Sixth Symphony.=

_February 24, 1899._]

In dealing with this symphony, the conductor had occasion to show qualities different from those that have been called forth by the preceding works of the present Beethoven series. The third and fifth symphonies are of a strongly exciting character, the second is also distinctly exciting, at any rate in the finale, the fourth is a kind of mildly celestial or seraphic utterance, and the first does not truly represent the mature master in any of his moods. In previous performances of the series it was the successful rendering of some exciting element in the music, or the interpretation of a sublime emotion, upon which the conductor seemed to lay a kind of stress.

Yesterday the case was quite different. The Pastoral Symphony is not exciting, or sublime, or mysterious, those qualities being alien to the genius of pastoral music or poetry. It is an expression of the emotion stirred by simple and homely delights; and for its interpretation it requires, in addition to the technical equipment, only a certain fresh and healthy energy. Even the religious note near the end is of a simple idyllic character. Once more the interpretation was, in our view, very admirable. The conductor seemed fully to grasp the poetic import of each section, and, under his guidance, the orchestra fully conveyed the breezy delights of the opening movement, the soothing murmur of the brook, the boisterous mirth of the ensuing allegro, the contrasting note of the storm, and the final hymn of thanksgiving. It has been said that Beethoven's music has an ethical bearing; and, as many persons have great difficulty in understanding how any music can have an ethical bearing, it may be worth while to suggest that the Pastoral Symphony, following the tremendous emotions of the preceding symphonies, teaches precisely the same lesson as the opening of Goethe's "Faustus and Helena," where the sylphs, typifying simple, untroubled natural influences, are busied about the person of the sleeping "Faust," pitying the "unhappy man whether good or wicked," and seeking to soothe his tormented spirit. According to the view of Goethe and Beethoven there is no other healing for the unhappy man's tormented spirit but in the simple, untroubled influences of nature. Such, in addition to its musical beauties, is the ethical lesson of the Pastoral Symphony.

[Sidenote: =The Seventh Symphony.=

_March 3, 1899._]

One quality differentiating Beethoven's Seventh Symphony from the rest of the nine is well expressed by Sir George Grove in his famous book ("Beethoven and his Nine Symphonies") when he calls it the most rhythmical of them all. Beyond question the rhythm is on the whole more strongly marked in the seventh than in any of the others. The slow movement is not called a march; yet it has a far more definite tramping rhythm than the movement that is called a march in the Heroic Symphony.

In the finale the rhythmical emphasis attains a degree of reckless violence that has never been surpa.s.sed by any composer except Tchakovsky. A scherzo is always strongly rhythmical; but in the scherzo of this symphony one finds a kind of frenzied rushing, whirling movement that is rare in Beethoven's works. Another differentiating quality of the symphony is grotesque expression, which is strong in the vivace, stronger in the scherzo, and goes all lengths in the finale. As with the later works of many other great artists, it is hard to divine the poetic intention of this symphony. One perceives a marvellous design, for the most part grotesque in character; one perceives the work of a gigantic imagination, smelting the stubborn tone-ma.s.ses as in a furnace and moulding them to its purposes with a kind of superhuman plastic force. But what the mighty design ill.u.s.trates is not, at present, obvious. The grotesqueness of the first, third, and last movements is all the more striking from the character of the slow movement, which is absolutely remote from the grotesque. The quality of the expression in that slow movement eludes all cla.s.sification. It is not exactly a funeral march, and not exactly a dirge, though it is undoubtedly mournful in character. A kind of unearthly rhythmical chant one might imagine it to be, accompanying some mysterious function among the G.o.ds of the dead. There is perhaps no slow movement left by Beethoven the beauty of which is more penetrating or more imposing.

After a fine and spirited rendering of the introduction and vivace, the slow movement--inscribed "allegretto" in the score, though the composer afterwards expressed a desire that the indication should be changed to "andante quasi allegretto"--was played with fine expression, though perhaps a trifle too quickly. The scherzo was entirely admirable. At the opening of the finale the rushing semiquavers in the violin part were, for some reason, not quite clear, though later in the movement, when the music had become more complex, the same figure sounded clear enough. On the whole, the rendering of the symphony well maintained the success that had previously attended the series.