The Masters and their Music Part 11

A plus B plus A plus Coda.

This is the form of the great majority of polkas and waltzes, except that the song forms standing for A and B respectively are very often of three periods instead of two. This form also lies at the foundation of the great majority of salon pieces for the piano.

The only difference between the rondo form and the form last described--the proper designation of which is "song form with trio"--is that the rondo introduces pa.s.sage work between the subject and the second subject. Should it be desired to develop the rondo to a greater length, the second subject can be repeated after the repet.i.tion of the first, and the first subject brought in still again. A third subject can be introduced, and in the longest rondo form the schedule is like this, C standing for the third subject:

A-B-A-C-A-B-A-Coda.

A form of this sort might extend to a very considerable length, as happens in the case of Chopin's Rondo in E-flat major, opus 18, which reaches to ten or twelve pages and occupies about ten minutes to perform.

The essential principle of musical form--form in music--is quite a.n.a.logous to form in literature. As in a poem or article the first consideration is Unity, or the preponderance of a leading idea, and the second Variety, or the occurrence of interesting ill.u.s.trative matter, and the third Symmetry, or the just relation between the different parts in order that the leading idea may not be obscured by the prolixity of the subordinate ideas, so the same principles prevail in music. Unity also is attained by peculiarly similar means in both cases. As in the article the leading idea is repeated a number of times in order to impress it upon the hearer, but frequently in different language, so in music the princ.i.p.al idea is repeated more times than any other in the course of the piece; and in the small forms, or rather in the molecular construction of a piece of music, the repet.i.tions are in a great variety of speech, exactly as they are in a well-made article. The same idea can be presented in different aspects, and different words may express it. In music this takes place through the appearance of the motive in different chords from those in which it first appeared, giving rise to variations in the melodic intervals and the like.

Symmetry in music is much more exactly observed than in literary composition, even in verse, since music itself is a matter of time and vibration, and the proportionate and mathematical relation of parts belongs to the very essence of the art. Every musical form, therefore, whether large or small, consists essentially of one leading idea and of two or more subordinate ideas, brought in with whatever cleverness of treatment the composer may find convenient, and the whole turned over and diversified according to his fancy.

In certain aspects the musical forms bear a good deal of resemblance to the quasi-geometric figures called arabesques, in which a certain line or form is many times repeated; or to the arrangement of crystals which the frost forms upon the gla.s.s of the window, when the simple crystalline form of water is repeated in a great diversity of ways, and larger figures and curious symmetries and suggestions are brought out.

In music of a serious construction the leading motives are diversified in a great variety of ways by being made to appear in different chords and intervals from the original form, and by being carried into other keys, whereby the impression upon the ear is very materially modified, at the same time without destroying the unity of the idea.

Musical forms in general may be divided into elementary and complete.

The elementary forms are those which are used as structural elements in the larger or complete forms. Thus, a motive repeated becomes a phrase; a phrase repeated or answered by counter-theme becomes a section; a section repeated becomes a period; the period repeated or modified becomes a two-period form or a period group, which may extend to a considerable number of periods. Out of these elementary forms the large forms are constructed. Beginning with the song form as the princ.i.p.al subject, the rondo goes on with a second song form as second subject, and so on to any extent desirable, according to the plan given above. In a.n.a.lyzing a large piece of music to find these leading subjects, the student should begin by first finding the great divisions in the piece, such as, for instance, those where an entirely new melody comes in a change of key, and the like. Having found the larger points of joining, he should then proceed to find the dividing lines in the smaller parts, which, in music, is rendered somewhat more difficult in consequence of the entire absence of punctuation bringing out relations of this kind. Not only are the marks wanting, but the bars confuse the eye and make it more difficult to find the real point where the ideas begin and end. The student, however, accustomed to memorizing his music, and consequently to thinking about it, will soon be able to find it by his intuition, in the same way that the reader knows when the sentence has been completed by the sense and not necessarily by the period which is placed after the last word.

There are a few leading types of form to which all others more or less conform. The first of these, and perhaps, on the whole, the most important, are those which are called unitary forms. A unitary form is a musical form with only one leading melodic idea, out of which the entire piece is developed. This can only be done in one or the other of three ways. Taking the simplest way first, it will be to develop this leading idea into a song form according to the pattern given above, in the beginning of this discussion. This, being sufficiently obvious on the face of it, requires no further attention here. Forms of this kind belong essentially to popular music, although they are not uncommon by way of relief in the more elevated art music.

There are two types of unitary form, however, which enter into and color all instrumental music to a degree, making it indispensable that the pupil thoroughly understand them. The first of these is the fugue.

In the fugue a melodic subject of two measures or four, rarely more, is taken by a single voice and is answered by another voice in the dominant, and this again by the third voice in the original key, and so on according to the number of voices performing the fugue. The voice which has completed the subject goes on with the counter-subject or the counterpoint while the second voice is singing the subject. When all the voices have had their turn at the phrase there is an interlude of modulating material, after which the subject comes again and is answered one or more times in the properly related keys, for which the artificer of fugues has his rules already prepared, following the principles laid down by Bach. After this second appearance of the theme in these new keys, another interlude, and then an additional strophe in still a different key and with finer treatment; and thus, according to the fancy of the composer and his skill, the piece is extended to one, two, or even six or eight pages. But during the whole of it the princ.i.p.al subject has reappeared at very short intervals and in a great variety of keys, while the interlude matter has always been of a lighter and less significant character. In order to arrive at an appreciation of fugues, the student perhaps can not do better than to begin with some of the two-part inventions of Bach, which, while not following the fugue form strictly, approximate it very nearly. The first invention and the eighth are perhaps the best for this purpose.

After these, an easy fugue in the "Well-tempered Clavier," such as the one in D major or that in C minor; more difficult examples are those in C-sharp major and in G major. In the development of fugues the old masters made use of a great variety of artifices, including all the devices of double counterpoint at the tenth and twelfth, canon and inversion, the latter applied not alone to the relation of the voices but also to the melodic material const.i.tuting a voice. "The fugue,"

Cherubini says, "contains everything which a good composer ought to know," and it is, in fact, the underlying element in all serious moments of modern music except those which are purely lyric. The fugue underlies the elaboration in the middle of a sonata-piece, and, in fact, is the original source, as said before, of nearly all the serious moments in the higher departments of art.

The second serious unitary form is the theme and variation. In this case the theme is itself a complete song form of perhaps two or three periods, and each variation is precisely of the same number of measures, and follows the same harmonic structure in many cases.

There are, however, in modern use, two types of the variation form.

One of these, called formal variations, leaves the harmony entirely the same in all the variations, except, perhaps, to change the melody from major to minor of the same key and back again. In the best examples the harmony remains entirely unchanged, but the melody is diversified rhythmically in various ways. Good examples of this type of variations are to be found in the works of Mozart and in the second movement of Beethoven's Sonata in G major, opus 14, and in the second movement of the "Sonata Appa.s.sionata" of Beethoven.

The character variation pursues a different course. At times the key is changed and the harmony changes very much. In order to see how this can be accomplished without destroying the ident.i.ty of the musical idea, it should be remembered that a musical idea consists essentially of three elements: it has a rhythm, a melodic figure, and a harmonic foundation. If the melodic figure is retained, and the harmonic figure, the rhythm can be diversified indefinitely, and, in fact, if any two of these elements are retained the third can be modified very much. In the latest practice of variation writing, two of these elements are changed at the same time, leaving only one element fixed, and in some instances it is difficult to find exactly where any of the original element of the theme remains. Beethoven began the development of character variation in his Sonata, opus 26, the first movement of which is in this form. He also did more or less in this direction in his famous "Thirty-two Variations." The variations of Schumann in the "etudes Symphoniques" pa.s.s even beyond the bounds here defined. While remaining fast upon the original harmonic foundation, measure for measure, entirely new melodies come in and wholly different rhythms, so that in many instances only a few notes of the original theme are retained in any one variation. The student desiring to explore the most advanced variation writing will find examples ready to his hand in Brahms' variation on a theme of Handel and the two books of variations on a theme of Paganini. These may be considered as at present the _ultima thule_ of variation-making art. The principle of the variation lies at the foundation of very much that meets us in the higher departments of music, even when the variation form is not heard of.

All modifications or amplifications of a theme belong essentially to the variation type, and it is liberally applied to all long compositions where the same material is used a number of times.

When a piece of music consists of two fully developed melodic ideas, it is said to be binary in form, and these are all either song forms with trio or small rondo forms. Nearly all of the slow movements of Beethoven in the sonatas are binary forms, the dimensions of which may vary extremely. The student desiring to investigate this part of the subject more thoroughly is referred to the "Primer of Musical Forms,"

by W. S. B. Mathews (Arthur P. Schmidt & Co., Boston), where the principles are more fully unfolded.

There is one form in modern music which is the type of so large a proportion of extended instrumental movements that the student will do well to master its peculiarities at the earliest possible moment. This is the form sometimes called the sonata form or sonata-piece. The term sonata was originally used in two senses: in its larger sense it indicates an extended musical composition with three or four movements, all which taken together form the sonata. By the term sonata-piece, however, is meant the particular movement of the sonata which gives the name to the whole piece. This, as a rule, is the first movement, but sometimes it is the closing movement, and in some instances there are three of these movements in the same sonata, so arranged with reference to one another as to form the necessary contrasts. The sonata-piece is the form which contains within itself very much of the essence of all the smaller forms. It generally consists of three large chapters, beginning with the princ.i.p.al subject, which may be longer or shorter, according to the fancy of the composer, and may end on its own princ.i.p.al key or on the dominant, and may be followed by pa.s.sage work or not, to any extent the composer chooses; then comes a second subject. According to Beethoven's almost invariable practice, the first subject of a sonata form is thematic in its character, and in developing this theme many of the principles of variation work are applied. The second subject is almost invariably a lyric melody, sometimes very charming, and always in a different key from that of the first subject, usually in the dominant; or, if the first subject is a minor, this will be in the relative major. Then follows a concluding paragraph of anywhere from six to thirty measures, and a double bar with a repeat sign. This forms the first chapter of the sonata-piece.

After the double bar comes the second chapter, which is an elaboration or free fantasia on the material of the first part. At the end of this free fantasia, which may be longer or shorter at the fancy of the composer, comes the recapitulation, or the repet.i.tion of the entire first part, the only change being that the second subject is now in the princ.i.p.al key. In the elaboration of the sonata all sorts of musical fancies are liable to appear--queer juxtapositions of motives from the different parts of the first and second subjects, inversions, variations, and so on.

The sonata-piece is the type, not alone of the princ.i.p.al movement in symphonies and chamber quartets and trios, but it is also the type of all serious overtures, and therefore it has been well designated by German theorists as the Princ.i.p.al Form of modern music.

Whether longer or shorter, whether serious or lively, all musical forms have the same conditions to satisfy--viz., those of unity, or the preponderance of a single idea; symmetry, or just proportion of parts; and variety, the proper relief and introduction of new material. If the princ.i.p.al idea is repeated too much, monotony ensues; if there are too many accessory ideas, in place of variety we have looseness and want of unity. And in carrying out these principles in compositions of different lengths and in different styles, the composer has practically unlimited freedom.

PART II.

MODERN MASTERS

AND

AMERICAN COMPOSERS

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

According to the original design, this work was completed with the ten chapters in which the great masterworks of the leading composers of the period from 1750 to 1850 were compared and their peculiarities and individualities emphasized.

In response to a wide-spread demand, however, it is deemed advisable to add a few programs of later masters, and a few of the leading American composers, who, although not yet to be mentioned in the same connection as those forming the subject of the original ten chapters, are, nevertheless, of more immediate interest to a large circle of students, and in demand for the use of musical clubs, lecture recitals, and the like. The selection of these later composers has been a matter of no small difficulty, but the names decided upon for the present are Grieg, Brahms, Rubinstein, Tschaikowsky, and a miscellaneous list of the later romantic German composers. The American names included are those of Dr. William Mason, L. Moreau Gottschalk, E. A. MacDowell, Mrs. H. H. A.

Beach, Arthur Foote, Ethelbert Nevin, and Wilson G. Smith, with scattering compositions from a few others of the more notable composers of the present time.

Concerning these supplementary programs, it is also to be said that only one name belongs to the high category of great immortals embraced in the first ten chapters--namely, that of Johannes Brahms. Grieg, however, is certainly a composer of rare poetry and originality; and the same is to be said of Rubinstein and Tschaikowsky--even with greater emphasis of the last mentioned. Still, the student will be wise to remember that in the works of these latest composers there is much which, as yet, is imperfectly understood, and its ultimate place in the pantheon of art unascertained. That all these have shown great originality is unmistakable; yet no one of them has written pianoforte music uniting elegance and pianoforte tact with complete originality and success. If any exception is to be made at this point, it should be in the case of Brahms, who has shown, in orchestral and vocal writing, constructive and poetic powers of the very highest order.

This fact, taken in connection with his unquestioned mastery of the pianoforte and the epoch-marking originality of his technic and effects upon this instrument, should make us pause before considering anything of his as standing beyond the line of the beautiful. Schumann was condemned for many years after his death, yet at the present time no master stands higher as a pianoforte writer pure and simple. It is more than likely that Brahms will later stand as the maker of an epoch in piano playing not less significant than that established by the works of Liszt, Chopin, and Schumann.

One of our American masters also, Mr. Edward Alexander MacDowell, is held by many to belong to the very highest rank of living composers (1898). Comparisons of this kind have no proper place in a work like the present. The question which these chapters are intended to a.s.sist in solving is not as to the highest, the broadest, the most pleasing, but the characteristic individuality of certain composers, of ability so high that they have gained the ears of their own generation and have been found of lasting interest.

"_What_ have these men done?" And "What is the new note which they have sounded in the pantheon of art?" These are the two questions which this little essay is meant to discuss.

Moreover, we may remember that it is one of the laws of gravitation that it increases in proportion to the "square of the proximity," as they say in social science. Composers near to us, and the outgrowth of our own conditions of life and our national heredity, can hardly escape bringing to expression in their works something of the American character and turn of thought. This inner something may well give their works a transient interest for us which better works wanting these national traits might fail to awaken. The programs in these supplementary chapters, therefore, should be taken up after those of the first ten have been fully mastered.

If a word of regret is needed that so little of American matter has been included, the explanation must be that the scope of this work and the present resources of the writer do not afford him the means of treating American music in the broad and comprehensive way possible to epochs in art the works of which are fully finished and catalogued. In the nature of the case the treatment of American writers herein is tentative and incomplete. Later on, additions will be made, as occasion may arise.

MODERN MASTERS AND AMERICAN COMPOSERS.

CHAPTER I.

NATIONALITY IN MUSIC

The outflow of musical production has become so wide during the last fifty years, and so many composers have distinguished themselves in every part of the world, that it is a matter of no small difficulty to make a selection of names sufficiently representative to ill.u.s.trate the many-sided individualities of this movement. Dividing the entire list into countries which have produced the composers, or in which they have princ.i.p.ally expressed themselves, we have at least four great European provinces or musical centers, viz., Germany (including also Austro-Hungary), Russia, France, and the Scandinavian countries, including Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. To this list of characteristic nationalities in music must be added our own, the American.

As soon as we pa.s.s beyond the short roll of the great masters in instrumental music of the first cla.s.s, we immediately come upon a large circle of composers of such cleverness that they have just missed becoming enrolled in the higher list, and perhaps some of them will, later on, be included among the immortals. The operation of this slow promotion is something like that of the French Academy, where, when one member dies, a new one is elected to take his place. In this way, with forty immortals constantly on duty, as one may say (although as a matter of fact they are rarely elected to that honor until their productive activity has practically ceased), the nation has a long roll of distinguished and honored authors, composers, artists, and the like.

In all this music since Liszt there are curious resemblances and equally curious differences. To speak first of the resemblances, it is an interesting circ.u.mstance that by far the greater number of the composers have been educated, at least in part, at the Conservatory of Leipsic, which, ever since it was founded by Mendelssohn, has held a wholly unique pre-eminence among the music schools of the world--a pre-eminence which in many respects it has not deserved, especially upon the technical side of musical instruction; and most emphatically with reference to the pianoforte, where for at least ten years after the death of Schumann nothing of Chopin, Schumann, or Liszt was admitted or permitted to be taught to the students. Then a very grudging reception was given to the works of Chopin, while Schumann had to wait some time longer; and it is only within a very recent period that the peculiar value of Liszt as a writer for the piano-forte has been recognized at all. On the other hand, it is evident that any school able to attract to itself so large a percentage of the highly gifted musicians of the different countries, who have afterward shown themselves to possess creative talent of a high order, must have had about it a quality at least unusual and commanding. Almost all the composers who will be taken up have been educated in Germany, or by teachers who were themselves educated in Germany. Almost the only exceptions to this rule are probably the American, Gottschalk, and the Frenchman, Saint-Saens. Accordingly, the marks of nationality and of individuality in the music of the different composers are rarely sufficient to prevent the works of any composer from being current in any other country, and, from the mere sound of the works, in a great majority of cases it would be difficult to tell whether they are German or of some other nationality, so strongly does the German influence pervade and underlie nearly the whole of this production.

The opportunity for expressing nationality in music, or, to say it differently, the possibility of national coloring in music, is somewhat narrow. It is only in the case of the nations which are distinctly unmusical that it is entirely easy to recall their peculiarities, and the features by means of which this is usually done amount to parody.

For example, when it is a question of something Turkish, much is made of the tambourine, the cymbals, and the fife. In something Persian or Arabic, the triangle cuts quite a figure; but when it is a question between composers of the civilized countries of Europe, music has become a cosmopolitan language among them all, and only a small number of national traits are to be found distinguishing the production of one country from that of another. It would be an interesting study to trace these marks of nationality, but it would take us too far.

Suffice it to say that in general, taking German music as representing the purest type of instrumental music, in which the musical idea as such has full sway, the Russians differ from this mainly in their own uncontrollable energy and a certain fondness for a semi-barbaric display of over-coloration. The pigments with which they work and the manner of treating their ideas are not materially different from that of the German composers of the purest type. It is only a question of exaggerating certain features--to judge them from the German standpoint. This is true, in a general way, of the entire list of Russian composers, all of whom have been influenced a good deal from Leipsic, although Russia has had for many years a very strong music school of its own at St. Petersburg, established by Rubinstein in 1862.

It was at this school that Tschaikowsky and Glazounow were educated.

In the Austro-Hungary empire there are two nationalities which have left quite an impress upon their music productions. They are the Bohemians and the Hungarians. The Hungarian, representing the extreme of the emphasis and caprice; the Bohemian, showing a great deal of impetuosity;--which, however, they lose in their productions in proportion as they become polished and finished writers. Bohemianism, in German music, has more the character of provincialism than of a national mark.