Studies in Modern Music Part 11

The other point is the change in emotional and melodic phraseology, due partly to the influence of Beethoven and Schubert, partly to that of the more distinctively Romantic composers. It is quite certain that the characteristic melody of the eighteenth century is, on the whole, more susceptible of polyphonic treatment than that of our own time. The finale of the Jupiter Symphony is, in any case, a stupendous effort of genius; but take five typical tunes of Liszt or Berlioz, and Mozart himself could not have dealt with them as he dealt with his own phrases.

The curve of melody has altered in some degree, and thus, while it has given new effects of beauty, it has become a little less adaptable to certain of its requirements. No doubt Schumann developed a wonderful polyphonic system of his own; but even in him we may recognise certain limits: and, moreover, he stands, in this respect, almost alone as an intermediary between Bach and Brahms. We are driven, then, to conclude either that polyphony should grow obsolete, which the most unthinking audacity can hardly affirm, or that the extreme of Romantic expression has lost in art what it has gained in poetry. And herein Brahms appears as a true reformer. His thought is in full accord with the general poetic conception of our age, but he has selected from its entire range those particular forms of phrase and melody which are most conspicuously plastic and malleable. The opening of the A major Quartett is romantic enough, but it admits of that marvellous piece of contrapuntal imitation which surprises us in the coda. The Symphony in F major is one of the least formal of compositions, but the most laborious academician in music could not compile a more elaborate polyphony than Brahms has here created. Indeed, there is little necessity to search for instances: they may be found on almost every page of the concerted or choral works. And, though it be true that Bach is often curiously modern in idea, though he frequently stands nearer to us than Handel or Haydn or Mozart, the fact still remains, that Brahms is in closer and more intimate sympathy with him than even the romantic composers who made him their ostensible pattern and prototype.

So far, then, as relates to the harmonic aspect, Brahms may be regarded as a real stage in the evolution of Musical Art. There remains the more important question of his contributions to the development of structure: in other words, of his relation to Beethoven. The harmonic ideal had been maintained, in varying degree, by all composers of the first rank, and herein the traditions of Schumann and Chopin were of distinct and momentous service to their successor; but the structural ideal had, since 1830, been allowed to fall into comparative neglect, and in restoring it Brahms had virtually to do his work single-handed. No doubt, in short lyric forms, and even in their direct expansion to a larger scale, the Romantic musicians had shown a considerable mastery of outline; but in the more complex organism of symphony and concerto, they had fallen somewhat out of the line of progress, and had diverged from the methods of the 'Emperor' and the 'A major.' Hence the estimate of Brahms' position in this matter is of double interest: partly because of the intrinsic value of key-structure in musical organisation, partly because the line of development was in some degree broken and obliterated.

Now it has been already maintained that the sonata form, in its widest and most comprehensive signification, represents the highest type of structure to which the Art of Music has yet advanced. Other instrumental forms--the romance, the fantasia, the nocturne--are modelled, with more or less of exact.i.tude, upon sonata movements; and the same is true even of vocal forms, except in so far as they are influenced by the fugue or affected by the extra-musical requirements of the words. It is therefore to works ostensibly in sonata form that we must primarily address ourselves. And here it may at once be stated that in a vast majority of the details, Beethoven seems to have reached

The outside verge that rounds our faculty.

In the construction of the separate movements, taken as individual unities, there has been little or no progress since his time, for little or no progress was possible. We can only say, then, that in this respect the work of Brahms is as organic as that of his master; and, in saying this, we are merely propounding a matter of comparative a.n.a.lysis which can readily be settled by an appeal to facts. It is as true of Brahms as of Beethoven, that there is in him no redundant phrase, no digression, no parenthesis, nothing that does not bear some intimate relation either to its immediate context, or, with more subtlety, to a remoter part of the subsequent issue. Take, for instance, the rondo tune which opens the Finale of the B flat Sestett. A careless observer may regard the beginning of its second stanza as mere padding, devised to fill a gap until the princ.i.p.al strain recurs. Turn a few pages, and we find that it was the presage of a complete and important episode which itself is vital to the structure as a whole. Again, in the first movement of the same work, if any reader will compare the entry of the second subject with the corresponding place in Beethoven's Hammerclavier Sonata, he will see with what accuracy Brahms learned his lesson and with what consummate skill he applied it. And in all other qualities of organic structure--in choice of tonal centres, in the relative length of const.i.tuent sections, in perfect balance of exposition and development--the same line of legitimate succession may be traced. It is not a question of imitation. Brahms is no copyist, reproducing with careful fidelity the precise outline of a master's original. In this, as in his polyphony, he has a.s.similated the principles of a past method and has turned them to his own account.

But for the complete organisation of a symphony, or a sonata, it is not sufficient that each movement should be structurally exact; they must be so inter-related as to produce an effect of organism in the whole. And there are three chief ways in which this inter-relation can be secured.

The first is by unity of emotional effect; by making the whole work tell the same story, and represent the same general type of feeling. In Beethoven's Appa.s.sionata, for instance, a scherzo would be an impertinence, in his Eighth Symphony a slow movement would be an intrusion; for the one is as wholly tragic in character as the other is light and humorous. The second is by the proper choice of key for each of the successive numbers; for the selection, that is, among all possible alternatives, of the tonic note that will give the most complete and satisfying result. And herein we may confess that we have one of the few cases in which Beethoven's work was injuriously affected by convention. Of course, the Seventh Symphony stands almost unique and unapproachable, a culminating point of structural excellence, but, as a rule, his scheme, though less h.o.m.ogeneous than that of Mozart, has too little diversity to be accepted as final. Thirdly, the entire composition may be held together by a transference of themes, that is, by the reminiscence in one number of phrases or melodies that have already been employed in another. Of this device there is hardly any example in Beethoven until the end of his career, and even then the only conspicuous instance is the finale of the Choral Symphony. It is, indeed, the latest-born of all the forces that tend to organisation, and along its lines the sonata form of the future will probably find the readiest opportunity of progress.

If, then, Brahms is the inheritor of Beethoven's method, we may expect to find a continuity of tradition in his treatment of these three points respectively. And a.s.suredly the a.n.a.lysis of his work will not disappoint us. For, in the first place, the poetic unity of his compositions is beyond dispute. In each of the great concerted pieces, whether for the chamber or the orchestra, we find one general type of feeling worked out, it may be, to successive issues, but developed in orderly sequence from a single source. His cast of mind is usually grave and reflective, therefore he has for the most part discarded the scherzo, and replaced it by a movement of more earnest and serious character. His manner of thought is logical and coherent, therefore his finales, like those of Beethoven, are not mere light-hearted fantasias, intended to send away the audience in a good temper, but true conclusions, carefully planned and adequately presented. Even in such works as the Horn Trio, where the contrast is probably at its strongest, there is no real obscurity in the underlying relation; while in the four symphonies, to take the opposite extreme, we need only hear the sequence of movements to p.r.o.nounce it inevitable.

And as we find an organic unity in the emotional aspect, so we find an organic diversity in the choice of keys. Except for the obvious principle, that first and last movements must acknowledge the same tonic, Brahms admits none of the _a priori_ laws by which his predecessor was occasionally bound. In other words, he takes as his unit not the separate movement but the entire series, and selects his keys for Adagio and Intermezzo with the same structural care as he uses for a 'second subject,' or a 'development section.' Allusion has already been made to the Violoncello Sonata in F, one of the most marvellous pieces of successful audacity in all musical form; but hardly less remarkable is the Symphony in E minor, where the key of the slow movement is equally unusual, and equally necessary. Indeed, any of the concerted works will serve for ill.u.s.tration. The choice is sometimes simple, sometimes recondite, but in all cases it is justified by the event.

Transference of themes is a device attended by one imminent danger. If awkwardly employed, it may look like poverty of thought, or at best that artless _navite_ of repet.i.tion which is only tolerable in a ballad literature. But if this danger be avoided, and its avoidance is only a question of skill, the reminiscence of a previous melody may round off and complete an entire work in much the same way as the 'Recapitulation'

rounds off and completes a single movement. It has been already said that Beethoven makes little use of this method. Schumann indicated some of its possibilities, but Schumann died while the work was still incomplete, and left its further elaboration to other hands. And though Brahms is somewhat tentative and uncertain in the matter, though he leaves room for future advance and future progress, yet at least we may say that he has explored more of the new ground than any of his predecessors. In the Finale of the G major Violin Sonata, and in that of the Quartett in B flat, he is satisfied to carry out the suggestion of Schumann;[56] but elsewhere, as in the second Symphony and the clarinet Quintett, he develops them in a new direction, by founding two movements on thematic variants of the same idea. It is difficult to overrate the value of these hints for future guidance, though, as yet, they are only hints, not complete solutions. For, grant that an entire sonata or symphony can never be called organic in precisely the same sense as its const.i.tuent parts; grant that their a.n.a.logue is the man, and its a.n.a.logue the corporate community; still some further organisation of the whole is undoubtedly possible, and we may well expect it to follow the method which Brahms has here indicated.

In one word, he has completed, for present purposes, the emanc.i.p.ation of musical form, not by the false freedom of anarchy, but by the true freedom of a rational code. Artistic progress, like that of the political commonwealth, has always tended towards the abolition of purely conventional laws, and to the maintenance and development of those that are founded upon broad principles of human nature. By Brahms, so far as we can see, the last links of convention have been snapped, and the form has now room to grow and expand in perfect liberty. Look, for instance, at his treatment of the Concerto, which, up to his time, was the most unsatisfactory, because the most conventional, of all cla.s.sical types. He has broken down the unnecessary rule of the three movements, he has finally overthrown the tyranny of the solo instrument, he has given the whole form a free const.i.tution similar to that of the Quartett and the Symphony. And though we be disinclined to regard our present sonata-form as ultimate; though it may some day develop into a new type, as it was itself developed from the Part.i.ta, yet the very possibility of future advance depends upon conditions which it has been the work of Brahms to secure. Hence, to call him a reactionary, as some writers are fond of doing, is simply to misunderstand his whole relation to musical art. In all history, there is no composer more essentially progressive.

But, it may be objected, is not all this insistence on minutiae somewhat pedantic and artificial? Does it really matter whether a concerto has four movements or three? whether an adagio is in A flat or A natural?

Indeed, is not the whole sonata-form a piece of academic subtlety, and _a fortiori_, must we not regard its details as points of grammar rather than points of art? And the critic, whom we are only too probably supposing, will go on to speak of 'melody beaten out into thematic gold-leaf,' or will even tell us that there is more music in an intermezzo, where the composer's thought 'runs freely without restrictions of form,' than in all the studious ingenuity of codas and development sections. In short we are asked to believe that beauty is too spiritual for legislation, and that any attempt to render it amenable to a code is as futile as the countryman's endeavour to break Pegasus into harness.

Now, in the first place, to commend a musician for disregarding the laws of form is even more unreasonable than to commend a poet for his halting verses, or a painter for his bad drawing. If by laws are meant conventions, then the criticism is just in itself, but it does not touch the point at issue; if natural laws are meant, then the critic has done no more than express his own personal preference for chaos. The little pianoforte pieces of Brahms, for example, are charming, not because they are formless, but because their form is perfect. The only difference between them and the sonata movements, from which they are derived, is a difference of development: the underlying principles are identical. In the second place, it has already been maintained that the sonata is not an artificial construction, but an organic growth evolved, in steadily-increasing complexity, from a living origin: and, further, that its const.i.tuent parts represent between them all the general types of all existing instrumental compositions. Either, then, this conclusion must be refuted, or the 'academic' view of the sonata must be abandoned as untenable. And in the third place, if it be demurred that although some general laws of form are advisable, yet the artist should treat them with a free hand, and not expend himself on niggling details, then it is an obvious answer, that this objection rests on a confusion of thought. The little masters have sometimes to choose between a superficial facility and an elaboration that smells of the lamp: the great masters have so a.s.similated their principles, that exact.i.tude with them is a second nature. In Tintoret's Miracle of S. Mark, the twisted rope strands could not have been drawn more perfectly if they had cost weeks of calculation and measurement: yet each is finished with a single sweep of the brush. And so again in Brahms this accuracy of detail is not a matter of diligence, but a matter of insight, cultivated, no doubt, by past training, but employed at the moment with a direct and unerring certainty. It may legitimately be questioned whether perfection of form is not sometimes too dearly bought by a sacrifice of vigour or originality: if the two can be set in ant.i.thesis, we may understand that a critical judgment should hesitate between them.

But, given vigour and originality, and, in Brahms, no serious writer has ever denied these gifts, it hardly admits of discussion that the form of a work is, in some degree, a measure of its artistic value.

We may conclude, then, that in what has been called the treatment of the musical medium, Brahms occupies an incontestable position among the greatest composers of the world. It now follows that we should consider the character of his ideas, the nature of his melody, and, in a word, the particular qualities implied in his power of invention and his emotional standpoint. It is, perhaps, inevitable that we should do this with something of a prepossession. For, as we have already seen, in music, form and thought are obverse and reverse of the same set of relations, and the organism of the one is our best guarantee for the vitality of the other. Here, at any rate, academic methods are always imitations, copies which in no way advance upon their pre-existing model: and thus, if the artistic structure of a work be really living and progressive, we need have little fear about its artistic function.

But, at the same time, music can adumbrate so many different types of emotion, that it is worth inquiring whether a given artist has seized them all, and whether, if he be limited to a part of the field, his value is affected or impaired by the limitation.

Now it is sometimes maintained that the music of Brahms is deficient in emotional sensibility: that it is too sober, too self-controlled, too intellectual to be really artistic. The composer, like the poet, should be animated by a 'divine madness and enthusiasm;' he should leave to philosophy the more cautious attributes of deliberate thought; he has the free wind of heaven in his sails, and should run before it on a full tide, neither anxious for his safety nor careful of his direction. But of two things, one: Either we are to hold that art gains by hysteria and extravagance, and that its highest climax is a delirium of unrestrained and riotous pa.s.sion; or, if this be impossible, we must accept the only alternative, and admit self-control as a necessary principle. The only true question at issue, then, must be the measure in which the restraining influence is to be exercised--the point at which it sets up its barrier and says, 'Thus far and no farther.' And if we recall the t.i.tanic strength of Brahms' first Symphony, or the romance of the _Tragic Overture_, and the vigour and variety of such 'Dramatic Lyrics'

as _Verrath_, or _Entfuhrung_, or _Meine Liebe ist Grun_, we shall hardly a.s.sert that their limit has here been suggested by any timidity or any lack of emotional force. In short, when confronted with the facts, the whole attack dwindles into a statement that Brahms' pa.s.sion is sane and manly--a conclusion which we are not in any way concerned to deny.

But at least, it may be urged, the range of feeling is circ.u.mscribed: there is little humour, little gaiety, little expression of the brighter and more genial aspects of life. Granted, with a few notable exceptions, but the same may be said of aeschylus and Dante, of Milton and Wordsworth. It is merely a relic of primitive barbarism that makes us look upon music as an adjunct to conviviality, as an appanage to the 'banquet of wine,' as a pleasant emotional stimulus designed for the amus.e.m.e.nt of an idle hour. Music is an art of at least the same dignity as poetry or painting, it admits of similar distinctions, it appeals to similar faculties, and in it, also, the highest field is that occupied with the most serious issues. Not that we have any need to undervalue the charm of its more playful moments: we may enjoy Offenbach in precisely the same way as we enjoy Labiche; but it is no very extreme paradox to say that Tristan is a greater work than Orphee aux Enfers, and that La Cagnotte is on a different literary plane from Lear and Hamlet. And in like manner, if we are disposed to find fault with Brahms because the greater part of his work is grave and earnest, let us at least endeavour to realise how such a criticism would sound if it were directed against the Divina Commedia, or the Agamemnon, or Paradise Lost.

Indeed, it is incredible that anyone should listen to Brahms' melody and not be convinced. Do we want breadth? There is the Sestett in B flat, the Second Symphony, the Piano Quartett in A. Do we want tenderness?

There is the Minnelied, there is 'Wie bist du meine Konigin,' there is the first Violin Sonata. Is it simplicity? We may turn to Erinnerung, to Sonntag, to the later pianoforte pieces. Is it complexity? We have the Symphony in E minor, the four Concertos, the great masterpieces of vocal counterpoint. For pure, sensuous beauty, apart from all other attributes, it is impossible to surpa.s.s the Schicksalslied, or the F major Symphony, or the Clarinet Quintett. Indeed, the difficulty in Brahms is to find a poor tune or a clumsy pa.s.sage. No doubt, in work of such wide scope and extent, there will always be parts that do not appeal to a given hearer, that represent a mood with which he is out of sympathy, or contain some form of expression that fails to interest him; but, at the very lowest, we may say that the mood of Brahms is never ign.o.ble, and its expression very seldom inadequate. Even the unlucky and much-abused theme in the third movement of the Clarinet Trio has certain qualities of style which redeem it from triviality; and in any case it remains almost a solitary exception--one cankered bud in a whole garden of delight.

Here a word may be said on Brahms' indebtedness to the actual melody of previous musicians. It is indisputable that in his work we sometimes find phrases, and very rarely complete strains, which recall Beethoven, or Schubert, or Schumann. But, in the first place, there is seldom or never any case of direct quotation, the outline of an idea is borrowed and filled with a new content; and in the second place, a charge of plagiarism is only serious if it implies poverty of invention. That one man may steal a horse while another may not look over the hedge, is, if considered aright, the highest embodiment of abstract justice: the thief may be your personal friend, in whose honesty of intention you have every reason to confide, the face at the field-edge may wear a hang-dog look which fills you with not unnatural apprehension.

And seriously, it is idle to suppose that Brahms adopted these pa.s.sages--half-a-score, perhaps, in a list of a hundred and twenty elaborate compositions--because he felt that his own supply was running short, and that it must needs be supplemented by a raid over the border. Plagiarism means either the appropriation of an entire work, or the embellishment of a poor texture with some patch of purple that does not belong to the artist. It has nothing whatever to do with these casual and unimportant reminiscences.

There are one or two matters of detail in Brahms' melody which it may be worth while to notice. In the first place, it is conspicuously diatonic, founded for the most part on the ordinary notes of the simplest scale, and so indued with a robustness and a virility which is wanting to the progression by semitones. Besides, he is thus enabled to keep his chromatic effects in reserve, either for purposes of remote modulation, as in the aeolsharfe, or for marking an emotional crisis, as in the slow movement of the Horn Trio, or the close of the stanza in Feldeinsamkeit.

Against this, no doubt, may be set his use of the flattened sixth, which is so frequent as to be almost a mannerism, but it will be observed that this appears more often in the harmonisation of the melody than in its actual statement. It is a point of colour, not a point of drawing.

Again, there are two general types of melodic curve; one which rises and falls by a progression of consecutive notes, one which follows the const.i.tuent parts of a chord in arpeggio. As a rule, the great melodies of the world contain elements of both, with a characteristic preponderance of the former; and attempts to construct tunes out of the latter alone, as, for instance, the opening theme of Weber's Second Pianoforte Sonata, have usually ended in disappointment. But to this rule Brahms is an exception. In a large number of his themes the arpeggio predominates, and always with a special interest and a special personality. Thus, in Von ewiger Liebe, in the Sapphic Ode, in the Violoncello tune, from the first movement of the B flat, Sestett we have melodies designed after this pattern which are not only clear and salient, but strikingly beautiful as well. It will be seen that in all three cases the same device is employed, a pa.s.sage from dominant to mediant, which leaves the intervening tonic untouched, and in this small matter is indicated the real secret of their effectiveness. Brahms does not merely take the harmonic notes as they are presented by the simple arpeggio, he makes selection among them, omitting one and emphasising another, until he has given character to the whole progression. It is hardly extravagant to say that there is as much difference between a chord-tune of Brahms and a chord-tune of Weber as between a well-written accompaniment figure and an Alberti ba.s.s.

A third feature is the remarkable variety and ingenuity of his metrical system. The device of cross-rhythm acquires with him an entirely new significance; it does not defy the restrictions of the bar, but totally disregards them. In the first movement of the Violin Concerto, for instance, the measure of three crotchets is traversed by a phrase of five thrice repeated, the effect of which is a momentary obliteration of the time signature, and the subst.i.tution not of a similar rhythm in slower tempo, but of an interpolated phrase, which seems to stand wholly out of relation to the beat: and yet the pa.s.sage does not project from the general plane of the movement, as do the famous syncopated chords in the Eroica, it is woven into the texture, and forms a h.o.m.ogeneous part of the substance. Again Brahms is fond of placing his melody so that the stress falls outside the princ.i.p.al accent of the bar, thus baffling the hearer who feels that rhythm and tempo are really the same, but is yet conscious that for the moment they do not coincide. It would be an interesting experiment for any musician, who has never seen the Quartett in G minor, to write down from dictation the first Pianoforte phrase of the intermezzo; and an instance even more striking may be found in the first movement of the Clarinet Quintett, where the string melody seems to be shifted forward a quaver in advance of the beat, until the solo instrument sets the pa.s.sage back in its place, and the discrepancy is resolved. Here, then, is another reason why the music of Brahms is difficult at a first hearing. 'Was ist das uberhaupt fur ein Takt?' said the Viennese critics, after vainly endeavouring to count their way through a complicated pa.s.sage, and the inexperienced beginner will often feel tempted to sympathise with their impatience. But, as we gradually learn how to thread the intricacies of the phrase, and how to balance the alternatives that proffer their incompatible claims, we gain a more lasting pleasure from the intellectual stimulus than can ever be afforded by glowing harmony or by opulence of tone. And if it be objected that this is little better than a musical enigma, a mere piece of child's play below the dignity of a serious art, then the answer is, that dramatic irony must fall under the same condemnation, for it aims at precisely the same effect. To confuse the n.o.ble with the trivial employment of artistic illusion, is to see no difference between a play of Sophocles and a puppet show.

Lastly, we may notice the rightness and finality which mark the most characteristic of his phrases. In Shakespear it often happens that we come across a line where there is nothing unusual in the thought, nothing recondite in the language, nothing but the simplest idea exhibited in the simplest words, and yet when we read it we feel at once that it could have been said in no other way, and that it can never be said again. And, in his own art, Brahms too has this gift of making simplicity memorable. For instance, in the opening theme of the F minor Quintett, there is nothing that can be called a device; the short loop, by which the second melodic curve picks up the first, is common enough in music; so is the use of the two alternative leading notes, so is the repet.i.tion of the same emphatic sound on the chief accent of three successive figures. But no one who has once heard the phrase can ever forget it: and no one can imagine its being altered by a single note without serious loss and detriment. In a word, it is inevitable, and therefore final: a plain statement of a primary truth which remains with us as a delight when the most elaborate epigrams have pa.s.sed away into weariness or oblivion. And in two of the Violin Sonatas, in the A minor Quartett, in a hundred other works and movements, we shall find that the first sentences give an equally striking ill.u.s.tration of this power.

Many composers become commonplace when they try to be simple: they can only seize our attention with an effort, with some special trick of colour or contrast. Brahms, who has at his command every shade in the whole gamut of colour, can make an abiding masterpiece with a few strokes in black and white.

In the foregoing a.n.a.lysis, nothing has been attempted except a bare description of the organism. The mystery of life, the breath of thought and inspiration, the secret language by which mind speaks to mind,--all these are beyond our reach, and in dealing with them we should only confess our ignorance of our own inadequacy. But this at least we may say, that wherever the divine principle is present, it makes itself known by the witness of visible signs--by law, by progress, by inter-relation of parts and unity of function. If, then, we can read the signs, we may guess at the thing signified: if the words be clear and consecutive, we may claim that there is a meaning in the sentence. In music it is possible, as the old Psychologists fabled, that the soul is the true realisation of the body, the power that moulds and shapes the organs into their fulness of existence and energy. And thus, though we can never put into words what we mean by the soul of music, we may yet point to perfection of body as its evidence. No man will deny that the art of Brahms is a living force--a genuine, spontaneous outcome of personal feeling and personal vitality. And, if it be so, the a.n.a.lysis of its external form may, to some extent, indicate its possession of the more spiritual gifts.

That he stands beside Bach and Beethoven is hardly any more a matter for controversy. All three are poets of the same order--n.o.ble, dignified, majestic--followers of the statelier muses, and of Apollo, who teaches to men the truths of prophecy. All three are consummate artists, in whose supreme mastery of utterance the highest message has found fit and adequate expression; and finally, in all three alike may be seen the culmination and fulfilment of an epoch in musical history--a climax of achievement which not only closes the chapter of its own age but renders possible the further record of the ages, to come. True, the work of Brahms is still too near us to receive its proper meed of appreciation.

We are not yet so familiar with his method as with that of his two forerunners: in his speech there is still something new and strange which now and again baffles our understanding. But all true art is unfathomable: we see the play of colour upon its surface, and know from the very richness and glory of the sight, that below are depths which no plummet can measure. By our century of experience we have learned to know a little of Beethoven: we shall no more master his secret than we shall enter into the mind of Shakespear or Goethe. And in like manner, if we call Brahms obscure, we are imputing our own weakness as the fault of a man who is too great for us. It is not for nothing that we love best those of his writings which we have most carefully studied. It is not for nothing that every decade adds to the number of those who see in him the highest expression of our present ideal. When music attains to fuller knowledge and n.o.bler practice, it will grant him a due place among its foremost leaders, and to us who honour him as a monarch, will succeed a generation which reverences him as a hero.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] Dr Parry, _Art of Music_, pp. 173-4.

[56] Compare the corresponding movements in Schumann's D minor Violin Sonata and Pianoforte Quintett.

THE END