The Masters and their Music Part 15

Rubinstein: Tarantelle in B minor.

"Kamennoi-Ostrow," No. 22.

Valse Caprice, in E-flat.

Barcarolle in G major.

"La Melancholic."

"Polka Boheme."

Melodie in F.

Staccato Study in C major.

Tschaikowsky: Scherzo from Opus 2.

Barcarolle in G minor. Opus 37. No. 6.

Song without Words. In F major. Opus 12.

"Weihnachten" Waltz. Opus 37, No. 1.

Songs (_ad lib._).

Polonaise from "Eugen Onegin," arranged by Liszt. Or Waltz from "Eugen Onegin," arranged by Pabst.

Excellent four-hand arrangements are to be had of all the orchestral works by Rubinstein and Tschaikowsky. Address the publishers of this work for particulars.

CHAPTER V.

THE LATER ROMANTICISTS.

Among the numerous composers of Germany in recent times, of whom there are a very large number worthy of special notice, there are four who, by reason of their personal qualities and the general directions in which they have expressed their talent, demand special attention.

Their names are Adolf Jensen, Xaver Scharwenka, Moritz Moszkowski, and I. J. Paderewski. As will be noticed from the names, three of these artists are Polish in nationality and stock.

Adolf Jensen (born at Konigsburg, January 12, 1837; died January 23, 1879) was mainly a self-taught composer, inasmuch as he had only two years' instruction. Nevertheless, at the age of twenty he was sufficiently advanced to be appointed conductor of the orchestra at Posen. Afterward he lived in Russia, and at Copenhagen, and was finally back as teacher in the school of Tausig, in Berlin. Very soon afterward, however, he contracted a pulmonary disease, which was the cause of his death.

Jensen was a very prolific composer in many departments, but especially brilliant as a song writer and as a composer of romantic pieces for the pianoforte. As a song writer, Riemann considers him the legitimate successor of Schumann; and among the hundreds of songs which he produced are many of very great beauty. His piano pieces are elegantly written,--somewhat Schumannesque in point of style, although not nearly so rugged and much more fluent,--and the pieces on the program below give a sufficiently fair idea of the general features of his style in this department. The selection of songs may, perhaps, be left to the convenience and taste of the singers, since it is impossible to designate any two or three songs of his which so fully ill.u.s.trate his capacity as to be held up as models of all the rest.

The second upon the list is Xaver Scharwenka, born at Samper, January 6, 1850. He was educated at the Kullak School, in Berlin, and at the age of eighteen was appointed teacher in Kullak's Academy. His first concert appearance was made at the age of nineteen in the Sing-Akademie, with great success, and his reputation as a distinguished and accomplished player was almost immediately established, and was strengthened by numerous appearances for years.

In 1881 he opened in Berlin the Scharwenka Conservatory, which is still in existence, his older brother, Philip, upholding there the family name.

Scharwenka made a very marked impression on the musical world by his earlier compositions, an impression which perhaps has not been fully reinforced by some of his later works, which seem, somehow, to be wanting in those qualities of spontaneity and innate grace of style which distinguished the earlier pieces. The best work from his pen, undoubtedly, is the first concerto for piano, which is one of the cleverest works in this department of recent years. He is the author of a large amount of chamber music and pieces of different sorts. The most popular of all his compositions is the well-known "Polish Dances."

One of the most meritorious is the theme and variations on the program below.

I. J. Paderewski, the famous piano virtuoso, is so well known that particulars are, perhaps, not necessary in his case. He was born November 6, 1859, at Polodien. He has written a considerable number of pieces for the piano and for chamber instruments, and a little for orchestra. His music is melodious and sentimental, occasionally brilliant. Opinions differ very much in regard to the essential originality of his melody, numerous resemblances existing between his successful pieces and others which have been popular some time earlier.

At any rate, he is an interesting personality, with a certain natural grace and style which ent.i.tle him to consideration. The most highly esteemed of his compositions are the three upon the list below, although no one of the pieces of his which attained American popularity is here included.

The most distinguished of this entire group is Moritz Moszkowski, the well-known composer and pianist, who was born August 23, 1854, at Breslau, the son of a Polish father. He had his early musical training at Breslau and Dresden, and later at Berlin, where for many years he has been established as a teacher. He early attracted attention as a pianist, and very soon also began to be distinguished as a composer.

He has produced a large number of piano pieces of various sorts, many compositions for orchestra, songs, etc. His music is melodious and artistic, although, as a rule, of no great depth. Among the more attractive of his works are the pieces on the present list. His fascinating little Serenata in D major for piano will be remembered, as well as a number of more _ad captandum_ pieces which he has turned out at different times.

PROGRAM.

Scharwenka: Theme and Variations.

Staccato etude, E-flat.

Valse Caprice.

Paderewski: Nocturne in B-flat.

Burlesque.

Suite a l'Antique.

Jensen: Eroticon, No. 3, No. 7.

Berceuse.

Moszkowski: Polonaise, D major.

G-flat Study.

Barcarolle, G major.

Moment Musicale, in C-sharp minor.

CHAPTER VI.

GOTTSCHALK AND MASON.

Owing to the composite character of our American civilization, in which so many different nationalities are mingled, several of which maintain as long as possible their own language and customs, there is a certain crudity in the national life and a want of ripeness which as yet has prevented the development of what properly can be called an American school of musical composition. Almost all our composers have been educated in Germany, many of them at Leipsic, and their compositions do not differ in a striking degree from those of good German composers.

Minor traits of individuality and differences of imaginative scope are noticeable and afford marks of distinction; but, essentially considered, there has been very little music composed in this country which is at the same time good and so characteristically American that it could not have been produced under any other circ.u.mstances.

Nevertheless, there have been at least two American composers who are characteristically American and who could not have been produced under any different circ.u.mstances; and a number of others in whom the American traits are well defined.

The two American composers of original and characteristic genius are the late Louis Moreau Gottschalk and the famous march king, John Philip Sousa. As the compositions of Mr. Sousa have shown themselves able to take care of themselves, and as his popularity needs no a.s.sistance from this quarter, I will consider his case first, and say that in this son of an Italian father and a German mother, born and raised in the city of Washington, D. C., we have a thoroughly characteristic American, in whom different heredities mingle in a curious way and give rise to a certain originality of temperament and style.

While Mr. Sousa, from his earlier career, and probably by force of his temperament, has naturally taken the position of a popular composer, he has done so almost entirely in consequence of the inherently popular character of the music he has turned out, which, for striking rhythm and melodic piquancy, has taken the ear not alone of the United States but of the whole world, his marches being widely played in all foreign countries, where they are received with the liveliest demonstrations of approval. In fact, very much the same kind of mild excitement that a _chic_ American girl awakens in a foreign reception, the band music of Sousa affords to the travel-worn palates of European bandmasters. It stirs them up and gives them a new sensation. It is a mistake, therefore, to speak of this artist in terms implying an unwillingness to cla.s.sify him among serious composers. He is ent.i.tled to a very honorable place among those who have loved their fellow-men so well that they have made them feel good.

LOUIS MOREAU GOTTSCHALK.

In the year 1829 our two first American pianists were born: Louis Moreau Gottschalk in New Orleans, and William Mason in Boston. The heredity, environment, and training of these two men were as different as it is possible to imagine. Gottschalk was the son of a German who came to New Orleans by way of England, and in this country married a French woman. New Orleans at that time was practically a French city, and the French language was very largely spoken in the family life.

The boy, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, showed talent for music at the earliest possible age, and made a number of public appearances of a very interesting and creditable kind, and at the age of thirteen, when he was sent to Paris to go on with his education, he had already established quite a little reputation. In Paris he was educated under the late Charles Halle and Stamaty, and in 1844, at the age of fifteen, he produced his first two works, called ballads, "Ossian" and "The Dance of the Shades." His concert career in Europe began in 1846, when he was seventeen years of age, and he gave a series of concerts at the Italian Opera in Paris in which he was a.s.sociated with the celebrated Hector Berlioz.

He made a genuine furor as pianist, and Berlioz, in charmingly turned phrases, speaks of him as follows:

"Gottschalk is one of the very small number who possess all the different elements of a consummate pianist--all the faculties which surround him with an irresistible prestige and give him a sovereign power. He is an accomplished musician--he knows just how far fancy may be indulged in expression. He knows the limits beyond which any liberties taken with the rhythm produce only confusion and discord, and upon these limits he never encroaches. There is an exquisite grace in his manner of phrasing sweet melodies and throwing off light touches from the higher keys. The boldness and brilliancy and originality of his play at once dazzle and astonish, and the infantile navete of his smiling caprices, the charming simplicity with which he renders simple things, seem to belong to another individuality distinct from that which marks his thundering energy. Thus the success of M. Gottschalk before an audience of musical cultivation is immense."

His first American tour was made in 1853-54. Then ensued a time of travel in the West Indies, but in 1862 he was back in New York again, and his American tours lasted until 1869, when he went to South America, where he died at the comparatively early age of forty.

There is a disposition at the present time to undervalue the work of Gottschalk. He was a melodist pure and simple, and his distinction from an American standpoint consists in his having given a new note to his music by availing himself of the rhythms and characteristic cadences of negro, creole, and Spanish nationalities in the southern United States and Central America. At the present time of the pianistic day, when very little attracts attention unless it is very difficult, it seems incredible that works so simple in their nature as those of Gottschalk could have attracted the attention they did; but there is more in this simplicity than at first sight appears, even if we admit that from a critical standpoint the introductions and endings are entirely too long for the matter they contain. Gottschalk himself had a way of doing them which made them seem extremely significant, and when he came to the melody itself it was played with such a delicacy and such a masterly touch that it seized the attention and concentrated the interest to a remarkable degree. Harmonically considered, almost all his works are within rather narrow limits, but as compared with the French composers of the day when his works made so much furor in Paris, Gottschalk has nothing to apologize for, since his music has a charm and a distinction of originality superior to almost all of that time or the present.

Many of the things with which Gottschalk made a great effect in his concert tours would not have been composed if he had lived thirty or forty years later. I mean now his four-hand arrangements of the overtures to "William Tell" and "Oberon." These are extremely brilliant and sensational arrangements, and are well worthy the attention of boarding-schools and clubs desiring something out of the ordinary way. It was his custom, in his concerts, to play the upper part himself while the best available local performer played the other part. This gave most of the melody and all of the brilliant work to the masterly fingers of the pianist himself.

The poetic thread or suggestion underlying many of his pieces is very slight. Nevertheless, it is not without value. Take, for instance, the beautiful "Marche de Nuit," a piece which opens with six lines of introduction, amounting practically to an excellent study of crescendo, the idea being to show the effect of the march-music in the extreme distance and its gradual approach. At length we come to the march itself, and it is a pleasant and agreeable melody, and the difficulty of the whole is no more than is now well within the powers of a pupil in the early fifth grade. The famous "Last Hope" is well known to all, and is one of the most persistent melodies which any American composer has produced in instrumental music. The introduction and the coda are both much too long, and can only be saved by a certain distinction in the manner of performing them. Mr. Wolfsohn said that such was the charm of Gottschalk's personality and touch that everything he played impressed itself and you remembered it a very long time. Dr. Mason tells me that in these pianissimo runs in _alt_, which abound in so many of his works, Gottschalk's fingers were like little steel hammers, the tone being perfectly clear and like a bell, but not pianissimo in the true sense of the term.

It seems puerile now that in his concerts Gottschalk could have made an effect with his famous piece "The Banjo," which is a very realistic transcription of a negro banjo performance, the banjo effect on the piano, in his case, I think, having been accomplished by the touch, whereas many others find themselves obliged to lay a sheet of music on the strings in order to impart to the vibrations the peculiar tw.a.n.g of the original.

Another and more favorable example of his talent is in the beautiful "Slumber Song," which can be had for voice or for piano alone. There is another cla.s.s of pieces by Gottschalk which seem very peculiar at the present time. They are the rather loud and somewhat difficult concert fantasies called the "Bamboula," or "Negro Dance," and "Jerusalem," the latter being made upon certain melodies in Verdi's "I Lombardi." Another piece of his which made a great effect in his concerts and was a general favorite of students was the "Aeolian Murmurs," a pleasant melody with a lot of fine pianissimo work to represent the murmurs. Speaking of the misleading effect of the Gottschalk performances, I will mention that the well-known piece, "The Dying Poet," was played by him many and many a time in public, to the great pleasure of the audience; yet before we gather up stones to throw at the American concert audiences of the early '60's, let us not forget that within the past few years audiences have shown themselves equally vulnerable to the charm of Paderewski's "Minuet," a work in no respect superior to the slightest of our American pianist. In this case, as in the former, it is a question of the personality and appealing nature of the performer.