Symphonies and Their Meaning Part 21

echoed by the reed. Though there is no gripping force of themal idea, the melodies are all of grateful charm, and in the perfect round of rhythmic design we may well be content. The original dance recurs with a full fine orgy of hostile euphony.

_III.--Adagio._ _Feierlich,--awesome_ indeed are these first sounds, and we are struck by the originality

[Music: _Molto lento (Solenne)_ (Violins, G string) _broadly_ (Strings with choir of tubas, later of trombones and contraba.s.s-tuba)]

of Bruckner's technic. After all we must give the benefit at least of the doubt. And there is after this deeply impressive _introit_ a gorgeous Promethean

[Music: (Woodwind and low bra.s.s with _tremolo_ strings) (3 trumpets) (4 horns)]

spring of up-leaping harmonies. The whole has certainly more of concrete beauty than many of the labored attempts of the present day.

The prelude dies down with an exquisite touch of precious dissonance,--whether it came from the heart or from the workshop. The strange and tragic part is that with so much art and talent there should not be the strong individual idea,--the flash of new tonal figure that stands fearless upon its own feet. All this pretty machinery seems wasted upon the framing and presenting, at the moment of expectation, of the shadows of another poet's ideas or of mere plat.i.tudes.

In the midst of the broad sweeping theme with a

[Music: (Strings, with cl't and oboe) _Very broadly_ (G string)]

promise of deep utterance is a phrase of horns with the precise accent and agony of a _Tristan_. The very semblance of whole motives seems to be taken from the warp and woof of Wagnerian drama. And thus the whole symphony is degraded, in its gorgeous capacity, to the reechoed rhapsody of exotic romanticism. It is all little touches, no big thoughts,--a mosaic of a symphony.

[Music: (Horns)]

And so the second theme[A] is almost too heavily laden with fine detail for its own strength, though

[Music: (Violins, reeds and horns) _Poco piu lento_ _dolce_ (_Pizz._ of lower strings)]

it ends with a gracefully delicate answer. The main melody soon recurs and sings with a stress of warm feeling in the cellos, echoed by glowing strains of the horns. Romantic harmonies bring back the solemn air of the prelude with a new counter melody, in precise opposite figure, as though inverted in a mirror, and again the dim moving chords that seem less of Bruckner than of legendary drama. In big accoutrement the double theme moves with double answers, ever with the sharp pinch of harmonies and heroic mien. Gentlest retorts of the motives sing with fairy clearness (in horns and reeds), rising to tender, expressive dialogue.

With growing spirit they ascend once more to the triumphant clash of empyraean chords, that may suffice for justifying beauty.

[Footnote A: We have spoken of a prelude, first and second theme; they might have been more strictly numbered first, second and third theme.]

Instead of the first, the second melody follows with its delicate grace.

After a pause recurs the phrase that harks from mediaeval romance, now in a stirring ascent of close chasing voices. The answer, perfect in its timid halting descent, exquisite in accent and in the changing hues of its periods, is robbed of true effect by its direct reflection of Wagnerian ecstasies.

As if in recoil, a firm hymnal phrase sounds in the strings, ending in a more intimate cadence. Another chain of rarest fairy clashes, on the motive of the prelude, leads to the central verse, the song of the first main melody in the midst of soft treading strings, and again descends the fitting answer of poignant accent.

And now, for once forgetting all origin and clinging sense of reminiscence, we may revel in the rich romance, the fathoms of mystic harmony, as the main song sings and rings from the depths of dim legend in lowest bra.s.s, amidst a soft humming chorus, in constant shift of fairy tone.

A flight of ascending chords brings the big exaltation of the first prophetic phrase, ever answered by exultant ring of trumpet, ending in sudden awing pause. An eerie train of echoes from the verse of prelude leads to a loveliest last song of the poignant answer of main song, over murmuring strings. It

[Music: (_Tremolo_ violins with lower 8ve.) (Reeds) (Horns) (Violas)]

is carried on by the mystic choir of sombre bra.s.s in shifting steps of enchanting harmony and dies away in tenderest lingering accents.[A]

[Footnote A: In place of the uncompleted Finale, Bruckner is said to have directed that his "_Te Deum_" be added to the other movements.]

CHAPTER XVI

HUGO WOLFF[A]

_"PENTHESILEA." SYMPHONIC POEM_[B]

[Footnote A: Hugo Wolff, born in 1860, died in 1903.]

[Footnote B: After the like-named tragedy of Heinrich von Kleist.]

An entirely opposite type of composer, Hugo Wolff, shows the real strength of modern German music in a lyric vein, sincere, direct and fervent. His longest work for instruments has throughout the charm of natural rhythm and melody, with subtle shading of the harmony. Though there is no want of contrapuntal design, the workmanship never obtrudes.

It is a model of the right use of symbolic motives in frequent recurrence and subtle variation.

In another instrumental piece, the "Italian Serenade," all kinds of daring suspenses and gentle clashes and surprises of harmonic scene give a fragrance of dissonant euphony, where a clear melody ever rules.

"Penthesilea," with a climactic pa.s.sion and a sheer contrast of tempest and tenderness, uttered with all the mastery of modern devices, has a pervading thrall of pure musical beauty. We are tempted to hail in Wolff a true poet in an age of pedants and false prophets.

PENTHESILEA.--A TRAGEDY BY HEINRICH VON KLEIST.[A]

[Footnote A: German, 1776-1811.]

As Wolff's work is admittedly modelled on Kleist's tragedy, little known to the English world, it is important to view the main lines of this poem, which has provoked so divergent a criticism in Germany.

On the whole, the tragedy seems to be one of those daring, even profane a.s.saults on elemental questions by ways that are untrodden if not forbidden. It is a wonderful type of Romanticist poetry in the bold choice of subject and in the intense vigor and beauty of the verse.

Coming with a shock upon the cla.s.sic days of German poetry, it met with a stern rebuke from the great Goethe. But a century later we must surely halt in following the lead of so severe a censor. The beauty of diction alone seems a surety of a sound content,--as when Penthesilea exclaims:

"A hero man can be--a t.i.tan--in distress, But like a G.o.d is he when rapt in blessedness."

An almost convincing symbolism has been suggested of the latent meaning of the poem by a modern critic,[A]--a symbolism that seems wonderfully reflected in Wolff's music. The charge of perverted pa.s.sion can be based only on certain lines, and these are spoken within the period of madness that has overcome the heroine. This brings us to the final point which may suggest the main basic fault in the poem, considered as art. At least it is certainly a question whether pure madness can ever be a fitting subject in the hero of a tragedy. Ophelia is an episode; Hamlet's madness has never been finally determined. Though the Erinnys hunted Orestes in more than one play, yet no single Fury could, after all, be the heroine of tragedy. Penthesilea became in the crisis a pure Fury, and though she may find here her own defense, the play may not benefit by the same plea. On the other hand, the madness is less a reality than an impression of the Amazons who cannot understand the heroine's conflicting feelings. There is no one moment in the play when the hearer's sympathy for the heroine is destroyed by a clear sense of her insanity.

[Footnote A: Kuno Francke. See the notes of Philip Hale in the programme book of the Boston Symphony Orchestra of April 3-4, 1908.]

For another word on the point of symbolism, it must be remembered that the whole plot is one of supernatural legend where somehow human acts and motives need not conform to conventional rule, and where symbolic meaning, as common reality disappears, is mainly eminent. It is in this same spirit that the leading virtues of the race, of war or of peace, are typified by feminine figures.

The Tragedy is not divided into acts; it has merely four and twenty scenes--upon the battle-field of Troy. The characters are Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons; her chief leaders, Prothoe, Meroe and Asteria, and the high priestess of Diana. Of the Greeks there are Achilles, Odysseus, Diomede and Antilochus. Much of the fighting and other action is not seen, but is reported either by messengers or by present witnesses of a distant scene.

The play begins with the battle raging between Greeks and Amazons.

Penthesilea with her hosts amazes the Greeks by attacking equally the Trojans, her reputed allies. She mows down the ranks of the Trojans, and yet refuses all proffers of the Greeks.

Thus early we have the direct, uncompromising spirit,--a kind of feminine Prometheus. The first picture of the heroine is of a Minerva in full array, stony of gaze and of expression until--she sees Achilles.

Here early comes the conflict of two elemental pa.s.sions. Penthesilea recoils from the spell and dashes again into her ambiguous warfare. For once Greeks and Trojans are forced to fight in common defence.

"The raging Queen with blows of thunder struck As she would cleave the whole race of the Greeks Down to its roots....

"More of the captives did she take Than she did leave us eyes to count the list, Or arms to set them free again.