Musical Myths and Facts Volume I Part 11

Some of the best examples for ill.u.s.trating the studies of our great composers are to be found in those compositions which originally formed part of earlier and comparatively inferior works, and which were afterwards incorporated by the composers into their most renowned works.

In thus adopting a piece which would otherwise probably have fallen into oblivion, the composer has generally submitted it to a careful revision; and it is instructive to compare the revision with the first conception.

Gluck has used in his operas several pieces which he had originally written for earlier works, now but little known. For instance, the famous ballet of the Furies in his 'Orfeo,' is identical with the Finale in his 'Don Juan,' where the rake is hurled into the burning abyss; the overture to 'Armida' belonged originally to his Italian opera, 'Telemacco;' the wild dance of the infernal subjects of Hate, in 'Armida,' is the Allegro of the duel-scene in his 'Don Juan.'

As an instance of adoption from a former work wonderfully improved by reconstruction, may be noticed Handel's Sarabande, in his opera 'Almira,' performed the first time at Hamburg in the year 1705:--

[Music]

From this Sarabande, Handel, six years later, constructed the beautiful air "Lascia ch'io pianga," in his opera 'Rinaldo,' performed in London in the year 1711:--

[Music:

Las-cia ch'io pian-ga mia cru-da sor-te e che so-spi-ri la li-ber-ta, e che so- -spi-ri, e che so-spi-ri la li-ber-ta,

Las-cia ch'io pian-ga mia cru-da sor-te, e che so-spi-ri la li-ber- ta.

Il duolo in fran-ga que-ste ri-tor-te de miei mar-ti-ri sol per pie----ta de miei so-spi-ri sol per pie-ta.]

Beethoven's third overture to his opera 'Leonora' (later called 'Fidelio') is a reconstruction of the second. A comparison of these two overtures affords an interesting insight into Beethoven's studies. It must be remembered that Beethoven, not satisfied with the first overture, wrote a second, and subsequently a third, and a fourth. The first three, which are in C major, he wrote when the opera was known by the name of 'Leonora;' and the fourth, which is in E major, when the opera was brought anew on the stage in its revised form under the name of 'Fidelio.' The air of Florestan is indicated in Nos. 1, 2, and 3, composed in 1805 and 1806. No. 2 has the distant trumpet-signal, produced on the stage; and in No. 3 this idea is further carried out; but in No. 4, written in 1814, it is dropped.

A composer who borrows from his former works deserves reproach as little as a person who removes his purse from one pocket into another which he thinks a better place. To borrow from the works of others, as some composers have done, is altogether a different thing. However, it would be unreasonable to regard such a plagiarism as a theft unless the plagiarist conceals the liberty he is taking by disguising the appropriation so as to make it appear a creation of his own. Some inferior musicians display much talent in this procedure. Our great composers, on the other hand, have often so wonderfully enn.o.bled compositions of other musicians which they have thought advisable to admit into their oratorios, operas, or other elaborate works, that they have thereby honoured the original composers of those pieces as well as benefited art. It is a well-known fact that Handel has, in several of his oratorios, made use of the compositions of others. As these adoptions have been pointed out by one or two of Handel's biographers, it may suffice here to allude to them. Beethoven has adopted remarkably little. His employment of popular tunes where they are especially required, as for example in his Battle Symphony, Op. 91, can hardly be regarded as an instance to the contrary. At any rate, popular tunes have frequently been adopted by our great composers for the purpose of giving to a work a certain national character. Weber has done this very effectively in his 'Preciosa.' Gluck, in his 'Don Juan,' introduces the Spanish fandango. Mozart does the same in his 'Le Nozze di Figaro,'

twenty-five years later. Here probably Mozart took a hint from Gluck.

However this may be, there can be no doubt that Gluck's 'Don Juan'

contains the germs of several beautiful phrases which occur in Mozart's 'Don Giovanni.' Even on this account it deserves to be better known to musicians than it is, independently of its intrinsic musical value. A detailed account of it here would, however, be a transgression. Suffice it to state that Gluck's 'Don Juan' is a ballet which was composed at Vienna in the year 1761, twenty-six years before Mozart produced his 'Don Giovanni.' The programme of the former work, which has been printed from a ma.n.u.script preserved in the Bibliotheque de l'Ecole Royale de Musique of Paris, shows that it is nearly identical with the scenarium of the latter work. The instrumental pieces, of which there are thirty-one, are mostly short, and increase in beauty and powerful expression towards the end of the work. The justly-deserved popularity in Vienna of Gluck's 'Don Juan' probably induced Mozart to have his 'Don Giovanni' first performed under the t.i.tle of 'Il Dissoluto Punito,' and the great superiority of this opera may perhaps be the cause of Gluck's charming production having fallen into obscurity.

Mozart's facility of invention was so remarkably great that he can have had but little inducement to borrow from others. Plagiarisms occur but rarely in his works, but are on this account all the more interesting when they do occur. Take for instance the following pa.s.sage from 'Ariadne of Naxos,' a duodrama by Georg Benda. It is composed to be played by the orchestra while Ariadne exclaims: "Now the sun arises! How glorious!"

[Music]

Mozart was in his youth a great admirer of this duodrama. He mentions in one of his letters that he carried its score constantly with him. The great air of the Queen of Night in 'Die Zauberflote,' Act 1, commences thus:--

[Music]

It is, however, quite possible that Mozart had made Benda's work so thoroughly his own that he borrowed from it in the present instance without being aware of the fact.

Again, Johann Heinrich Rolle published in the year 1779 an oratorio ent.i.tled 'Lazarus, oder die Feier der Auferstehung' (Lazarus, or the Celebration of the Resurrection). The second part of this oratorio begins with an introductory symphony, as follows:--

[Music]

Perhaps Mozart was not acquainted with Rolle's oratorio when he wrote his overture to the 'Zauberflote,' in the year 1791. The curious resemblance in the two compositions may be entirely owing to the form of the fugue in which they are written.

Moreover, the theme of Mozart's overture to the 'Zauberflote' resembles also the theme of a Sonata by Clementi which was composed ten years earlier than the overture. In Clementi's Sonata it is as follows:--

[Music]

In the complete edition of Clementi's pianoforte compositions this Sonata is published with the appended notice that Clementi played it to the Emperor Joseph II. when Mozart was present, in the year 1781. Mozart appears to have been fond of the theme, for he introduces a reminiscence of it into the first movement of his Symphony in D major, dating from the year 1786.

The first chorus in Mozart's 'Requiem' was evidently suggested by the first chorus in Handel's 'Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline.' The _motivo_ of both is however an old German dirge dating from the sixteenth century, which begins thus:--

[Music:

Wenn mein Stundlein vor-han-den ist, und soll hinfahrn mein Stras-se.]

and which may have been familiar to Mozart as well as to Handel.

The _motivo_ of the Kyrie Eleison in Mozart's 'Requiem:'--

[Music:

Chri-ste e-le---- Ky-ri-e e-le--i-son! e-]

occurs also in Handel's oratorio 'Joseph:'--

[Music:

We will re- We will re-joice ... &c.

Hal-le-lu--jah! Hal----le-]

and in Handel's 'Messiah:'--

[Music:

And with his stripes we are heal-ed, And with His, &c.]

Likewise in a Quartet for stringed instruments by Haydn, Op. 20, thus:--

[Music]

In the solemn phrase of the Commendatore, in 'Don Giovanni,' we have an interesting example of the happy result with which Mozart has carried out ideas emanating from Gluck. In the opera 'Alceste,' by Gluck, the Oracle sings in one tone, while the orchestral accompaniment, including three trombones, changes the harmony in each successive bar, as follows:--

[Music:

Le roi doit mou-rir au-jour- -d'hui, si quelqu'autre au tre-pas ne se liv-re pour lui.]

That Mozart was much impressed with the effect of Gluck's idea may be gathered from the circ.u.mstance of his having adopted it in 'Don Giovanni,' and likewise, to some extent, in 'Idomeneo.' The Commendatore in 'Don Giovanni' sings, accompanied by trombones:--

[Music:

Di ri-der fi-n-rai pria dell' au-ro-ra Ri-bal-do! au-da-ce! las-cia a'mor-ti la pa-ce!]

There can hardly be a greater difference in the styles of two composers than exists in the style of Gluck and that of J. S. Bach. The masterly command of Bach over the combination of different parts according to the rules of counterpoint is just the faculty in which Gluck is deficient.

It is on this account especially interesting to observe how Gluck has employed an idea which he apparently borrowed from Bach. The student may ascertain it by carefully comparing the air, 'Je l'implore, et je tremble,' in 'Iphigenia in Tauris,' with J. S. Bach's beautiful gigue in B flat major, commencing:--

[Music]

Clementi, a pianoforte composer, who has certainly but little in common with Gluck, has for his B minor Sonata dedicated to Cherubini--perhaps his best work--a theme which may be recognised as that of the dance of the Scythians in 'Iphigenia in Tauris.'

Again, Beethoven's style, especially in his later works, is as different from Haydn's as possible; nevertheless we occasionally meet with a phrase in Beethoven's later works which appears to have been suggested by Haydn. For instance, Haydn, in his Symphony in B flat major (No. 2 of Salomon's set) has a playful repet.i.tion of a figure of semi-quavers leading to the re-introduction of the theme, thus:--