The Masters and their Music Part 12

In France there has been a national school this long time in which all the young composers are educated; a school which has turned out men like Berlioz, Gounod, Bizet, Delibes, Ma.s.senet, and a great and honored roll of composers and artists. French music differs from German primarily in taking itself less seriously. Everything tends to be shorter; there is a more fanciful and capricious use of pa.s.sing tones and by-tones of every sort, and its general complexion is that of daintiness and sensuous sweetness, rather than of deep thought. The French school is therefore well adapted for imparting refinement to the style of a performer.

The writers of the Scandinavian peninsula have certain peculiarities in their melody which impart to their work a trait of local color. This one finds in the writings of Grieg, Svendsen, and to some extent in those of Gade. A similar coloring was. .h.i.t upon much earlier by Mendelssohn in the beginning of the "Hebrides" overture.

America can not be said, as yet, to have attained a national school.

We had one genius who might be called self-instructed--viz., Louis Moreau Gottschalk. All of our composers since have been German educated, or educated under teachers who themselves were German taught, and as yet our music is little more than a slightly modified German production, although our composers are beginning to show as much originality and force as the better cla.s.s of the writers of any country.

Selecting only those names the most prominent in the several countries, and more particularly the composers who have distinguished themselves in pianoforte music, the following seem, on the whole, the most worthy of our attention:

In Germany--Brahms, Dvorak, Raff, D'Albert, Nicode, Moszkowski, Jensen, Reinecke, Paderewski, and Scharwenka.

In Russia--Rubinstein, Henselt, Tschaikowsky, Balakirew, Glazounow, and Karganoff.

In France--Stephen h.e.l.ler, Saint-Saens, Pierne, Faure, Widor, Guyrand, and Benoit.

In Scandinavia--Grieg, Gade, Svendsen, Kjerulf, and Meyer-Helmund.

In America--Gottschalk, Mason, Wollenhaupt, Foote, Chadwick, MacDowell, and others.

CHAPTER II.

BRAHMS.

JOHANNES BRAHMS.

Born at Hamburg, May 7, 1833.

Died at Vienna, April 3, 1897.

In Johannes Brahms we have a musical master of the first order. His quality as master was shown in his marvelous technic, in which respect no recent composer is to be mentioned as his superior, if any can be named, since Bach, as his equal. This technic was at first personal, at the pianoforte, upon which he was a virtuoso of phenomenal rank; but this renown, great as it is in well-informed circles, sinks into insignificance beside his marvelous ability at marshaling musical periods, elaborating together the most dissimilar and apparently incompatible subjects, and his powers of varying a given theme and of ever unfolding from it something new. These wonderful gifts--for such they were, rather than laboriously acquired attainments--Brahms showed at the first moment when the light of musical history shines upon him.

It was in 1853, when the Hungarian violinist, Edouard Remenyi, found him at Hamburg and engaged him as accompanist, and having ascertained his astonishing talents, brought him, a young man of twenty, to Liszt at Weimar, with his first trio and certain other compositions in ma.n.u.script. The new talent made a prodigious effect upon Liszt, who needed not that any one should certify to him whether a composer had genius or merely talent. And that Brahms on his own part made the regrettable mistake of falling asleep while Liszt in turn was playing for him his newly completed sonata for pianoforte, is an incident which was important only for the moment. The Liszt circle took up the Brahms cult in earnest, played the trio at the chamber concerts, and the members, when they departed to their homes, generally carried with them their admiration of this new personality which had appeared in music.

William Mason, the New York teacher and pianist, was at Weimar at the time, and when he came back to New York and, with the young Theodore Thomas, opened the celebrated series of chamber concerts,--modeled, as the prospectus said, "after those of Mr. Liszt at Weimar,"--the first program included the Brahms Trio in B-flat. From that time until now, for nearly forty years, Mr. Thomas has paid his tribute to the genius of Brahms, introducing the new works as fast as they have appeared, and repeating the older ones many times.

Johannes Brahms was born at Hamburg, May 7, 1833, the son of a fine musician who was player upon the double ba.s.s in the orchestra there.

The boy was always intended for a musician, and his instruction was taken in hand with so much success that at the age of fourteen he played in public pieces by Bach and Beethoven, and a set of original variations. At the age of twenty he was a master, and it was in this year that he accompanied Remenyi, made the acquaintance of Joachim and Liszt, and had a rarely appreciative notice from a master no less than Robert Schumann himself, who, in his "New Journal of Music," said:

"He has come--a youth at whose cradle graces and heroes kept watch.

Sitting at the piano, he began to unveil wonderful regions. We were drawn into more and more magical circles by his playing, full of genius, which made of the piano an orchestra of lamenting and jubilant voices. There were sonatas, or rather veiled symphonies; songs whose poetry might be understood without words; piano pieces both of a demonaic nature and of the most graceful form; sonatas for piano and violin; string quartets, each so different from every other that they seemed to flow from many different springs. Whenever he bends his magic wand, there, when the powers of the orchestra and chorus lend him their aid, further glimpses of the magic world will be revealed to us.

May the highest genius strengthen him! Meanwhile the spirit of modesty dwells within him. His comrades greet him at his first entrance into the world of art, where wounds may perhaps await him, but bay and laurel also; we welcome him as a valiant warrior."

The next few years were spent by Brahms in directing orchestra and chorus at Detmold and elsewhere, and in Switzerland, which always had great attraction for him. In 1859 he played in Leipsic his first great pianoforte concerto; most of the criticisms thereon were, however, such as now excite mirth. In the later years of his life he played in Leipsic again, conducted several of his works, and was greeted with the reverence and enthusiasm due the greatest living representative of the art of music. In 1862 Brahms located in Vienna, where he lived until his death. Mr. Louis Kestelborn, in "Famous Composers and their Works," says: "About thirty years ago the writer first saw Brahms in his Swiss home; at that time he was of a rather delicate, slim-looking figure, with a beardless face of ideal expression. Since then he has changed in appearance, until now he looks the very image of health, being stout and muscular, the n.o.ble, manly face surrounded by a full gray beard. The writer well remembers singing under his direction, watching him conduct orchestra rehearsals, hearing him play alone or with orchestra, listening to an after-dinner speech or private conversation, observing him when attentively listening to other works, and seeing the modest smile with which he accepted, or rather declined, expressions of admiration."

The Serenade, Opus 11, in D major, was written before 1859. It consists of six pieces, in form a.n.a.logous to a suite. The first is marked allegro molto. It is in the key of D, the melody opening for horn. This is followed by a counter-theme of clarinets, after which all the instruments take part. Much is made of a pleasing motive in thirds by the clarinets. There is a charming elaboration containing bold and free modulations, touching such keys as D-flat, B-flat, D minor, etc.

The second movement, scherzo, allegro non troppo, is in the key of D minor and in the style of a Beethoven scherzo, which, again, is a legitimate outgrowth of certain movements of Bach. It opens with an idea for violins and ba.s.soons, and goes on in a very buoyant and vigorous manner, with abundant syncopations, modulations, and unexpected incidents. It is beautifully developed. Then it gives place to a trio in B-flat, in which the violins start with a syncopated rhythm, and later all the orchestral persons take their turn in the development. After this is finished the scherzo is recapitulated.

The adagio opens with a melody for ba.s.soons and ba.s.ses, which later leads to a very legato and lovely melody for violins, treated at times with very elaborate figuration, especially at the return of the princ.i.p.al theme.

The first menuetto begins with a melody for clarinets, which is developed into a short form. Then follows the second menuetto, which many would have called a trio, excepting that it really is a complete little minuet, the leading idea of which is given by the second violins; after this the first menuetto returns.

Then follows another scherzo, in D major, the subject being given out by the horns, accompanied by the 'cellos.

In the trio the same combination takes precedence, but the 'cello figures are twice as fast.

The work concludes with a rondo, the princ.i.p.al subject of which is very sprightly in character, given out by the clarinets and ba.s.soons, accompanied by the lower strings. This movement is carried out with great spirit. The work as a whole is of singularly genial character.

It happened to the writer to enter the rehearsal once during one of the movements. He was expecting something by Tschaikowsky or Richard Strauss. As he listened, the simplicity and navete of the ideas suggested Mozart; but presently there was an earnestness foreign to Mozart, and Beethoven was recalled. Just then the counterpoint took a turn which was plainly not Beethoven, but surely the work of some late master, and the question was, Who could have done a thing of this kind so delightfully, with such reserve? All at once the author's name occurred. "Surely," he said, "it is Brahms"; and it was. It is the beauty of an unpretending work of this character by so great a master that the hearer is able to follow it with so much enjoyment and from purely musical motives, without making himself unhappy in the effort to realize a story or some great and mysterious power. It is genius in its moments of pure enjoyment.

The Symphony in E minor was first published in 1885, and immediately was p.r.o.nounced by advanced musicians the most significant of Brahms, because showing the composer's nature more completely and, so to say, more spontaneously. This opinion, says Dr. Kretschmar, is based upon the elevation of the work and the fact that in it Brahms for the first time fully displays his many-sided individuality and genius in the province of symphony. "The singer of the great German requiem stands before us." Like its predecessors, it is developed out of a small number of fundamental ideas, but with a degree of complexity beneath its apparent simplicity which makes it a rich field for musical a.n.a.lysis.

The first movement is marked allegro non a.s.sai (quick, but not too quick). In spirit it is n.o.ble, forceful, yet tender and extremely musical. The opening melody is itself made up thematically out of the first little molecule of two tones, or out of the first four tones, if you please. This is carried through sixteen measures in order to bring it to completion; it is immediately resumed with an added element of rhythmic motion and varieties of harmony, and carried through along to the second idea.

The instruments concerned in the first enunciation of the theme are mainly the strings, the horns having long holding tones, and the wood-wind coming in with accompanying chords upon the off beat.

Presently a second or transitional theme enters, of a jolly free character, which brings us almost immediately to a beautiful second theme for the 'cellos, the sustained and song-like character of which well contrasts with the broken character of the leading idea.

The elaboration now follows the jolly little counter-theme in connection with the leading theme, and while the continued treatment of the working out seems simple, it is in fact extremely rich, and well managed for intensifying the elegiac character of the opening subject.

Abundance of melodic life meets us in every one of the orchestral voices, and the richness of detail is like that of one of the old cathedrals, where the mighty ma.s.s of the whole is no less significant to the distant observer than the patient care with which all the smaller s.p.a.ces have been elaborated is grateful to the close student.

A curious circ.u.mstance of this movement is the apparent resumption of the princ.i.p.al theme prematurely in its own key, the development immediately taking a new turn, and when finally the princ.i.p.al theme returns, it is at first in a foreign key, almost at once, however, giving place to the original harmonies.

A movement of this character is not to be judged or studied from a technical standpoint, but from that of enjoyable hearing. It is a musical discourse, in which the first thing to feel is the very patent fact that the author is trying to say something to us; and the second to make out something of what this significance may mean in its general and larger aspects; and, only later than this, what it is in its details.

In two respects this work seems to the student different from the symphonic work of Beethoven on the one hand, and from the earnest orchestral work of later masters on the other. It is thoroughly modern in its thematic handling. Everything grows out of a very few central roots; yet out of these vital germs, as in the stories of Eastern magicians, a mighty tree forms itself before our very eyes. Or, to change the figure, while the actual melodic germ is very small, its development into the leading subject takes it over a considerable range of rhythm and harmony, and brings it to us with almost a song-like character. Then, when we come to a second subject, it is not so completely contrasted as in Beethoven; or, rather, it still partakes of the modern spirit, being, if very legato, nevertheless very appealing and earnest in its harmonic treatment. This is one point where Beethoven always did differently, for his second subjects are almost invariably simple and lyric, with something very like a folk-song turn of melody. Brahms remains upon the elevated plane of musical earnestness which he a.s.sumes at starting, and throughout the entire work carries us ever to greater heights.

Again, from the side of tone-color Brahms differs from later writers in not giving himself much to mere lusciousness of tone contrast, but confines himself to carrying out his ideas with those portions of the orchestra best suited in turn, and with more reference to c.u.mulative impression from the treatment than to mere richness and contrast of color. The contrasts do still meet us here, but they are never glaring. It is even a question whether the colors are so strongly contrasted as commonly in Beethoven. But it is not a question whether the music is strong, meaningful, and musicianly. These qualities are patent to even a casual hearing. Equally recognizable is that inner something which has been called the ethical element; a something in the general spirit of treatment, or behind it, which we intuitively feel as consistent with our highest thoughts, n.o.blest moods, and best resolutions. This is distinguished from the merely sensuous, as represented sometimes in Berlioz, Goldmark, Gounod, and the like; and the fantastic, inconsequent, and irresponsible, as represented, for instance, in Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel."

The second movement, andante moderate, although very strange in certain of its peculiarities, is nevertheless very beautiful, and at the same time novel. The subject is given out first by the horn alone; afterward it is taken up by the oboes and flutes, while the strings have a secondary place and complete the harmony.

Kretschmar says that it reminds one of a story of the olden time, an impression due to the archaic tonality, the first version of the theme being in the Gregorian Phrygian mode--a key of E in which all the notes are naturals. On its repet.i.tion it is given a different turn, the scale having a major seventh, but minor third and sixth.

Kretschmar says: "In the middle of this movement, where the triplets begin, the music forsakes this neutral tone and shows a friendly spirit and breaks out into heart-felt lamentations." In other words, a subordinate subject is introduced which Mr. Apthorp characterizes (in the Boston Symphony Orchestra programs) as "a grave, solemn melody, harmonized and scored in the richest coloring."

A third melodic idea still remains to be mentioned. It is the melody for 'cello, which is delicately accompanied by the higher strings.

Later the first subject returns in a variety of treatment, always c.u.mulative in its character, and frequently with strange transformations. The impression of the whole is, after all, that already mentioned; it is a story of the olden times, into which a modern thread has been woven, and through which the modern heart still thrills and vibrates none the less powerfully for the strange-sounding accents of the ancient tonality.

The third movement, allegro giocoso (giocoso primarily means jokingly), opens with full orchestra. This movement takes the place of a scherzo.

It is earnest, vigorous, and free; at times, as Mr. Apthorp says, "almost fierce"; and for straightforward directness stands in manly contrast to the movements preceding.

The fourth movement, again, is marked allegro energico epa.s.sionato (quick, energetically, and pa.s.sionately). It opens with eight measures for all the bra.s.s. The melody lies in the upper voice.

Upon this as cantus firmus Brahms has developed what is known as a pa.s.sacaglia; originally a rather slow and stately dance, but in musical use denoting a movement developed over a ground ba.s.s, or single harmonic foundation, the final result partaking somewhat of the nature of variations; but more of a sort of c.u.mulative playing with musical elements, finally reaching a great degree of complexity, which, if well done, should also be a complexity of idea and a fullness and richness of expression. It was in this spirit that Bach handled the form in his great C minor Pa.s.sacaglia for organ, now transcribed for orchestra, and played occasionally, if I remember, by Mr. Thomas; and it is in this spirit that Brahms works here. Occasionally the spirit changes to something tender, meditative; but this is only to gain strength.

Immediately it resumes, and is carried ever and ever to higher pitches of force and meaning. Melody after melody appears in prominent places, but under every one lies the harmonic foundation of the fundamental subject. There are thirty-two of these variations in all.

The criticism which has been made upon Brahms, that a movement of this kind has no proper place in symphony, is "not competent," as lawyers say; for, setting aside the demonstrated fact that Brahms knew better what could be done in symphony than any of his critics, there is plenty of precedent for doing almost anything one cares to try in the fourth movement of a symphony. The old practice had a rondo for the final movement of the sonata. Beethoven rightly felt the insignificance of this form and its half trivial spirit, and in many directions he sought to get out of it, and to end his sonatas with a climax of the spiritual interest. The same desire is shown in his symphonies and chamber music. Brahms has here given us a manly, vigorous, strongly developed piece. At least, it closes the symphony without loss of vitality--whether with increasing elevation of spiritual meaning is for each hearer to determine according to the measure of his capacity and receptive ness. Inspiration is not a question of light being ready, but of clear gla.s.s to shine through.

For virtuoso pianists an entirely new world remains to be conquered in the works of Brahms. Beginning with those of his earliest period, there is even then a marvelous novelty in the combinations and, above all, a peculiarly rich and melodic quality of thought which rarely forsakes him, even in the pa.s.sages where at first sight it seems impossible to make anything of the music beyond an extremely trying exercise. The melodiousness of Brahms and the complexity of the forms in which beautiful conceptions express themselves is even surpa.s.sed by the endless variety of new forms and effects which these works reveal.