Weber was the first of the romantic composers—the first, at least, to gain the ear of the public. These operas, with their beautifully descriptive music, in which voices and orchestra co-operate with the action and scene as one, were composed at the same time that the young Franz Schubert was improvising his beautiful songs in Vienna. From one end of Germany to the other, and in all Europe, these operas made their way. "Der Freischuetz" has lasted fifty years, and is still presented with success. More than that, as already noticed, Weber furnished the model, or point of departure, for a multitude of smaller composers, who developed the opera in various side directions; and last, but not least, for Richard Wagner himself.

Moreover, in the department of piano playing Weber was no less epoch-marking than in that of opera. In 1812 his sonata in C, Opus 24, was produced, a work which is distinctly in advance of those of Clementi or any other writer before that time. The finale of this work is the well known rondo "Perpetual Motion," which, indeed, contains no new principle of piano playing, but is an elegant example of melodiousness and real musicianly qualities displayed at the highest possible speed. His next sonata, Opus 39, in A flat (1816), is still more remarkable. The piano playing here is of an extremely brilliant and picturesque description. Here also, in the Andante we have the tricks which he afterward made so effective in the Concertstueck, of the legato melody accompanied by chords pizzicati. Equally significant in this way is the sonata in D minor, Opus 49, published in the same year as the preceding. Here we have very strong contrast and an enormous fire and vigor. The romantic impulse, however, had been displayed yet earlier in his "Momento Capriccioso," Opus 12, in B flat (1808). This extremely rapid piece of changing chords pianissimo is like a reminiscence from fairy land, and the second subject contrasts with it to a degree which would have satisfied Schumann. It is a choral-like movement with intervening interludes in the bass, upon which Rubinstein must have modeled his "Kamennoi Ostrow," No. 22. But the most decided token of the romantic movement is seen in the "Invitation to the Dance," and the "Polacca Brilliant," both of which were published in 1819. Two years later came the concert piece, which for seventy years has remained a standard selection for brilliant pianists, and for fifteen years was Liszt's great concert solo. It marks a transition from Moscheles, Dussek and Clementi to Thalberg and Liszt. The "Invitation to the Dance," moreover, was the first salon piece idealized from a popular dance form.

III.

Yet another distinguished name might well have been enrolled among those of the great virtuosi of the first part of the nineteenth century. Jacob Liebmann Beer, better known as Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), was born at Berlin, the son of a rich Jewish banker. The name Meyer was prefixed to his own later, as a condition of inheriting certain property from a distant relative. As the boy showed talent for music at a very early age, he was put to the study of the pianoforte, and it was his ambition to distinguish himself as a virtuoso, which his talent undoubtedly permitted, if he had not been diverted from it by the success of his early attempts at opera. He was taught by a pupil of Clementi, and for a while by Clementi himself, as well as by other distinguished teachers, and if reports are to be believed concerning his playing, he must have become by the time he was twenty years old one of the very first virtuosi in Europe. His studies in theory were carried on under Abbe Vogler, at Darmstadt, where he was a schoolmate with C.M. von Weber and Gansbacher, and later with Salieri at Vienna. At Darmstadt he wrote an oratorio "God and Nature," which was performed by the Singakademie, of Berlin, in 1811; and an opera, "Alimelek" ("The Two Caliphs"), which also was successfully given at Munich in the Grand Opera House in the same year, 1811. Both works were anonymous. The opera made considerable reputation, and was played in several other cities. Upon Salieri's direction he went to Venice, where he arrived in 1815, to find Rossini's star in the ascendant, and all Venice, and Italy as well, wild over the bewitching melodies of "Tancredi." Meyerbeer, having that vein of cleverness and adaptability so characteristic of his race, immediately became a composer of Italian operas, and produced in Venice, "Romilda e Constanza" (Padua, 1815), "Semiramide Riconosciuta" (Turin, 1819), "Emma di Resburgo" (Venice, 1820), the latter also making a certain amount of reputation in Germany as "Emma von Leicester." Then followed "Margherita d'Anjou" (Milan, La Scala, 1820), "L'Esule di Granata" (Milan, 1822) and "Il Crociato in Egitto" (Venice, 1824). All of these were Italian operas, with melody in quite the Rossini vein, with the same attention as Rossini to the light, the pleasing and the vocal, but with a certain added element of German cleverness of harmony and thematic treatment.



He now returned to Berlin, but his opera, "Das Brandenburger Thor," which he had written for Berlin, was not performed, owing to opposing intrigues. Nevertheless, for about six years Meyerbeer remained in his native city, married, and presently lost two infant children. In 1830 he took up his abode in Paris, where already his "Il Crociato" had been performed, in 1826, and in that city, as the leading composer for grand opera, he lived six years, and finally died there. For the Paris stage he produced a succession of large and sensational operas, following to some extent the footsteps of Spontini, in respect to the heroic, the spectacular and the theatrical. Up to the time of his going to Paris, Meyerbeer had figured as an Italian composer in grace of melody, German in his harmony, and now he became a French composer in refinements of rhythm. His first work in Paris was "Robert le Diable," 1831, and it made his reputation, and at the same time made an epoch in operatic construction. It was followed by "Les Huguenots," 1838, which when played in Berlin, in 1842, so pleased the king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, that he created Meyerbeer "General Musical Director" for Prussia, and Meyerbeer came to Berlin to reside. Here in 1842 he wrote his "Das Feldlager in Schlesien" in which Jenny Lind made a great success. Later, however, he made over a great part of this music for his opera of "L'Etoile du Nord," 1854, for the Opera Comique in Paris. His remaining works were "L'Africaine," performed after his death, in 1865; "Le Prophete," 1843, and "Dinorah," 1859. He died in Paris while superintending the production of his "L'Africaine." In his will he left a fund of 10,000 thalers, the interest of which to be used as a prize for the support of a young German composer during eighteen months' study in Italy, Germany and France, six months in each. Besides the operas above mentioned Meyerbeer wrote a quantity of other music for orchestra, cantatas, and occasional pieces for festival purposes, of which the "Schiller March" is an example.

The music of Meyerbeer is extremely sensational. His instrumentation is rich, at times bizarre, and strongly contrasted. His knowledge of stage effect, such that he knew by intuition what would do, and what not. He was to some extent created by circumstances, a striking instance of which is told in connection with the opera of the "Huguenots," where the parting with Valentine at the end of the fourth act was originally without important music. But the tenor declined to take the part unless suitable music could be furnished him at this point. Whereupon Meyerbeer wrote the impassioned duet, since so celebrated, and which in fact is generally recognized as one of the most suitable, not to say most effective, incidents of the whole opera. Meyerbeer's operas follow the lead of Spontini in their fondness for military glory and spectacle. They partake of the virtuoso spirit of the other great geniuses mentioned in a later chapter—all of whom wrote for the sake of an effect to be arrived at, rather than from any inner necessity of carrying out their tone-poems in such and such a way. Meyerbeer's influence, about 1830 to 1840, was supreme upon the stage. It was to consult him that young Wagner undertook his journey to Paris, bringing with him his splendid spectacular opera "Rienzi," quite in the Meyerbeer vein. This feature in the work, most likely, was the one chiefly concerned in preventing its acceptance at Paris under Meyerbeer's direction. Wagner was very much influenced by Meyerbeer in all his earlier works, particularly in the matter of splendid appointments for the stage. With all the splendid brilliancy of Meyerbeer's music, there is something insincere about it. It rarely touches the deeper springs of feeling. This is true of the greatest of his pieces, no less than of the smaller numbers.

IV.

The most interesting story in the history of opera, and one so resplendent that it is impossible not to regard the others as merely in some degree preparatory to it, is that of Richard Wagner (1813-1883). This remarkable man was born in Leipsic in 1813, the son of a superintendent of police. His mother was a woman of refined and spiritual nature. After the death of his father, his mother married again—an actor named Geyer—a circumstance having an important bearing on the future of the composer. His brother Albert and his sister Rosalie became actors, and Wagner himself was familiar with the stage from earliest childhood. He studied music while a boy, but his ambition was to become a poet. He translated the twelve books of the Odyssey. He made the acquaintance of Shakespeare's plays, first in German, afterward in English. He made a translation of Romeo's soliloquy, and began to compose music for it. At the age of eighteen he copied Beethoven's ninth symphony in score, for the purpose of knowing it more thoroughly. His musical progress was such that at the age of twenty-one he was able to accept a position as the conductor of the opera at Magdeburg. In 1836 this failed, and he accepted a place at Koenigsberg. He had then written one opera, called "The Love Veto." In 1837 he was much interested in Bulwer's "Rienzi," and immediately made a libretto from it. He was now musical director at Riga, and his wife had leading feminine roles in opera. His favorite composer in opera just then was Meyerbeer. For some reason he lost his place at Riga, and resolved to visit London, taking ship across the Black sea. It was a sailing vessel of small burden, and they encountered a very violent storm. He heard the legend of the Flying Dutchman, and the next year made a poem of it and commenced to write the opera. He spent some time in Paris, where he hoped to get his "Rienzi" accepted at the Grand Opera. This opera he had written on a large scale in the hope of pleasing Meyerbeer, whose influence at Paris was very strong at this time. This, however, he failed to do, very possibly because his opera was too good. He was reduced to great straits, and had to write potpourri for the cornet and piano at a beggarly price, in order to gain a living. In 1843 his "Rienzi" was accepted at Dresden, through the influence of Meyerbeer. It was performed with great success, and Wagner was called there as conductor. Here he had an important position, having to produce the best operas of all schools. He brought out his own "Flying Dutchman" and had already finished "Tannhaeuser." He read the Arthur legends, and conceived the idea of an opera upon a subject connected with the Holy Grail. This was "Lohengrin," completed in March, 1848. It was in a fair way to have been produced under his own direction if he had had the good sense to let politics alone; but in some way he mixed himself up in the revolutionary attempt of that year, and was obliged to flee the country. He went to Zurich, where he lived in great poverty at first, but afterward with a certain moderate income, for nearly ten years. This circumstance was evidently providential, as will appear in the sequel.



Franz Liszt was now conductor at Weimar, and he brought out "Lohengrin" in 1850. From this moment a friendship was established between these two remarkable men. Liszt sent Wagner a handsome honorarium, and from this time on was his financial guardian. By this time Wagner's art theories had become pretty well defined. From his standpoint the three great arts of music, poetry and drama had been independently explored to their limit—music by Beethoven, poetry and the drama by Shakespeare and Goethe—and the only remaining thing of importance to do was to unite them all in one homogeneous mass, and by their combined operation accomplish a more profound and overwhelming effect than had been made before, or indeed would have been possible to them separately. In his autobiography, speaking of his early experiences as conductor, he says:

"The peculiar, gnawing feeling that oppressed me in conducting our ordinary opera, was often interrupted by an indescribable enthusiastic feeling of happiness, when here and there, in the performance of nobler works, I became thoroughly conscious, in the midst of the representation, of the incomparable influence of dramatic-musical combinations—an influence of such depth, fervor and life, as no other art is capable of producing.

"That such impressions, which, with the rapidity of lightning, made clear to me undreamed-of possibilities, could constantly renew themselves for me—this was the thing which bound me to the theater, much as the typical spirit of our operatic performances filled me with disgust. Among especially strong impressions of this character, I remember the hearing of an opera, by Spontini, in Berlin, under that master's own direction; and I felt myself, too, thoroughly elevated and ennobled for a time, when I was teaching a small opera company Mehul's noble 'Joseph.' And when, twenty years ago, I spent some time in Paris, the performances at the Grand Opera could not fail by the perfection of their musical and dramatic mise en scene to exercise a most dazzling and exciting influence upon me. But greatest of all was the effect produced upon me in early youth by the artistic efforts of a dramatic singer of (in my eyes) entirely unsurpassed merit—Schroeder-Devrient. The incomparable dramatic talent of this woman, the inimitable harmony and strong individuality of her representations, which I studied with eyes and ears, filled me with a fascination that had a decisive influence on my whole artistic career. The possibilities of such a performance were revealed to me, and with her in view, there grew up in my mind a legitimate demand, not for musical-dramatic representation alone, but for the poetic-musical conception of a work of art, to which I could hardly continue to give the name of 'opera.'"



Soon after his removal to Zurich, he commenced to compose the libretto of the "Nibelung's Ring." This work was founded on the famous old German poem, "Die Nibelungen Lied," but with very important modifications of Wagner's own. It is divided into four works. In the first, "Das Rheingold," the gold of the Rhine, is stolen, and a curse is laid upon it. The second opera of the series is "Die Walkuere." In this work the remarkable character of Brunhilde is the central figure. She is one of the Wish-maidens of Odin, whose duty it was to conduct the souls of slain heroes to Walhalla, the dwelling place of the gods. The entire conception of this character is unique, and still more unique in the musical way in which it is worked out. We find in this work also the mother and father of Siegfried, and the opera closes when Brunhilde is thrown into the magic slumber with the fire around her. The third opera of the series is that of Siegfried, the half-divine, half-human hero, who knows no fear—who slays the dragon that captures the gold of the Rhine—awakens Brunhilde from her magic sleep, etc. The fourth opera is called "The Twilight of the Gods," or "The Death of Siegfried." I will not consume space by describing this poem in detail, since this material is easily accessible in every encyclopedia. I have already treated it at considerable length in the second volume of my "How to Understand Music." These works are especially remarkable upon a musical side. The opera of the "Rhinegold" is a little monotonous, but the orchestral score contains many points of beauty, and "The Valkyrie" is beautiful throughout, conceived in a very masterly and poetic vein; the instrumentation, also, is extremely noble and beautiful. In the whole of these two works there is scarcely a single piece which can be played apart from the rest as a concert number. The drama moves straight on from one thing to another. There are no melodies of the conventional type, and the music is closely woven together, like the effects of an April day, with storms, sunshine and shadows following each other without any perceptible break. So great has been the advance in musical taste since these were first composed, that "The Ride of the Valkyries," a famous descriptive piece for orchestra, forming the prelude of the second act, has been played in all parts of the world, as also the "Magic Fire Scene," which closes the opera. These are given over and over again by Thomas, and arrangements of them are often played at the piano. Directly he had finished "Die Walkuere," Wagner sent it to Liszt, and a letter with it, in which he modestly admitted that he thought it was very fine, or words to that effect. Liszt, on his part, was delighted with it. He wrote a most beautiful and noble letter to Wagner about it, and a little later he speaks of Hans von Buelow having been with him, when he could not refrain from giving him "a sight of Walhalla." So he brought out the score, and he said that Hans pounded at the piano, and he himself hummed and howled as well as he could, and they had a great time over it.

Wagner then set to work on the opera of "Siegfried," which interested him very much indeed. This character also is a genuine conception of Wagner's. The wild forest boy who knows no fear, who has the most marvelous strength, is described in music as wild and powerful as himself. When Sieglinde, Siegfried's mother, was married, an old man appeared at the wedding with an ashen staff, his hat brim drooping over one eye, and in the midst of the festivities he drew a mighty sword and with a great blow thrust it into the stem of the ash tree which grew in the center of the house, saying that it was the sword of a hero, and that whoever was strong enough to draw it should wield it in the service of gods. All the strong men tugged at this weapon, but none were able to draw it. When Siegmund, Siegfried's father, comes there, he draws the weapon amid a splendid burst of music. This sword is broken on Wotan's spear, but the pieces are saved for Siegfried, and one of the great scenes in the opera of "Siegfried" is where he welds anew the broken sword, and at the end cleaves the anvil with one mighty stroke. The opera of "Siegfried" closes with the awakening of Brunhilde, and a splendid duet with Siegfried.

The composition of this work was interrupted at the end of the second act, and here we come to one of the most curious circumstances in Wagner's career. He says that he felt it necessary to stop now and write a practical opera for the stage as it then was, in order to re-establish his connection with the German theater, for he did not believe that these works would be performed in his own time. Accordingly he wrote "Die Meistersinger," and the opera of "Tristan and Isolde." They were finished in 1865, and Hans von Buelow, who was then director of the opera at Munich, took them both for rehearsal; they had there about 160 rehearsals of "Tristan and Isolde"—but gave it up as impossible, the singers forgetting from one day to another the music they had learned the previous day. The other work, "Die Meistersinger," fared better. They had sixty-six rehearsals, and finally brought it to a dress rehearsal, which was as far as they got toward performing it. Nothing shows the increased growth that Wagner had made, as well as his unconsciousness of this growth, like this experience of his operas at Munich, under so enterprising and able a director as Hans von Buelow—who was undoubtedly the most competent man in Germany, as well as the most courageous, for the task of producing this kind of work. Although these operas were not successful at the time, "Die Meistersinger" has since become highly appreciated upon large stages, and it is in my opinion the most beautiful opera that has ever been written. The music throughout is in a noble and dignified strain, with melodies beautiful and highly finished, almost suitable for church music, yet comedy in the best sense of the term. The famous prize song in this work is sufficiently well known. There is a most delightful finale in the third act, where Beckmesser's serenade occurs as one of the incidents. The other work, "Tristan and Isolde," is the most difficult opera that has ever been written, and will have to wait a generation yet, most likely, before its beauties are fully appreciated.

After composing these two enormous works, Wagner went on to finish "Siegfried," and then completed the work by writing "Die Goetterdaemmerung" ("The Twilight of the Gods"), or, "The Death of Siegfried," as he had originally intended to call it. This work contains one number which is stupendous in its pathos, "The Funeral March of Siegfried." Nothing like it exists elsewhere. These four operas have a very remarkable peculiarity, that throughout the four there are certain leading motives, which repeatedly occur. There is the motive of "the magic fire," which cuts a great figure in the first opera of the series, where Loki, the fire god, appears and is ushered in by this motive. It occurs again in the magic fire scene, at the close of "Die Walkuere," where Wotan surrounds Brunhilde with shrieking flames, in order that their terrors may deter cowards from waking her. There is the "sword motive," which is heard in the first opera, when this sword is first spoken of; it is finely developed where the sword is drawn, and again in the opera of "Siegfried," where it is freshly welded. There is the "Walhalla motive," the "Siegfried motive," the "Valkyrie motive," and many others, to the number of nearly one hundred. These are woven together, especially in the last opera of the series, in a most astonishing and wonderful way, yet without impairing the musical flow of the work. The scores are also extremely elaborate, from an orchestral point of view, requiring a large number of instruments, most of them having a great deal to do. This great trilogy, as Wagner called it, which was at first supposed to be beyond the ability of the public to appreciate, has now been given in all parts of Germany with great success, and it is no longer beyond the ability of an audience to enjoy.

By the time he had completed this work, Wagner had conceived the idea of a national theater, to be completed regardless of cost, and with appointments permitting it to produce great works in a faultless manner. At first he thought of building it at Munich, but the Munich public proving fickle, he resolved to build it in an inland town, where all his audience would be in the attitude of pilgrims, who would have come from a distance to hear a great work with proper surroundings. The sum required to complete this was about $500,000. It is sufficient compliment to Wagner's ability to say that he secured it, King Louis, of Bavaria, having contributed more than $100,000. Large sums also were sent in by Wagner societies all over the world. The house was completed at Bayreuth. It was a little theater holding about 1,500 people, with a magnificent stage, which at that time was far in advance of any other, but has since been surpassed by many, notably by that of the Auditorium, in Chicago. Here he proposed to have what he called a stage festival—the singers to contribute their services gratuitously, the honor of being selected for this place, and the advantage of the experience, being regarded as ample compensation. The orchestra, likewise, in great part was to be composed of virtuosi—also to play without pay. All these expectations were realized. Leading the violins for several years was the famous virtuoso, Wilhelmj, and the singers of the Bayreuth festival were the best that the German stage possessed. The festival is now carried out upon a more rational basis, the singers receiving something for their services. Wagner completed his achievements by the opera of "Parsifal"—a work nearly related to "Lohengrin"—in some respects more beautiful. This is entirely like church music, and the whole effect of the performance at Bayreuth,—for it has never been given elsewhere—is noble and beautiful. It leaves an impression like a church service.

The peculiarities of Wagner's operas are many. The plays, from a poetic side, are in the vein of magic; irresistible causes work together for irresistible ends. They are somber and primeval, like the voice of the forest. The music fits the poem exactly, without making any attempt at being beautiful on its own account. It is extremely elaborate, and richly scored for orchestra, and full of beautiful science—not intended to be recognized as such by the average hearer. From a dramatic point of view the works are very consistent, and the stage effects are of a remarkable kind. Wagner was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of a mechanic able to carry out some of his most impracticable suggestions.

Wagner left a large number of pamphlets and treatises, which are likely to remain among the classics of musical literature. The most important is his "Opera and Drama," written in 1851. This is a full discussion, in singularly vigorous and clear language, of the entire nature of opera as poetically conceived and as practically carried out by the previous masters, and as proposed to be carried out by Wagner himself. Many of Wagner's writings have now been translated into English. His opera texts are highly esteemed by his admirers, and respected by all. As a poet the general opinion seems to be that he was given to magnificent phraseology rather than to delicacy of fancy or humor. He is most at home with the grand, the gigantic, the superhuman; and in nearly all that he writes the primeval undertone of the minor makes itself felt.

It is entirely uncertain whether opera will continue to follow the lines he laid down, with the same severity, but there can be no question that his influence upon the course of art will be very great. In musical discourse, especially in the harmonic side of it, Wagner has made very great variations from the practices of his predecessors, even the most free of the instrumental writers—Schumann. His modulations are carried into more remote keys, and the tempered scale is taken as a finality of our tonal system. All the keys are brought near, as he treats them, and in any key any chord whatever can be introduced without effecting a modulation, provided it be so managed that the sense of tonality is not unsettled.

Personally Wagner was rather small, very fastidious in his attire and surroundings. In 1869 Mme. Cosima, daughter of Liszt, and wife of Von Buelow, left him and became the wife of Wagner. During the last ten years of his life they had an elegant residence at Bayreuth, where Mme. Wagner still has her home. Wagner died in Venice, whither he had gone for the mild climate. No musician in the entire history of art has occupied the attention of the whole contemporaneous world to anything like the same degree as did Richard Wagner, from the performance of "Lohengrin," in 1850, until his death in 1883.



CHAPTER XXXV.

VIRTUOSITY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY; PAGANINI; BERLIOZ; CHOPIN; LISZT.

I.

Strictly speaking, there was no break in the continuity of art development represented in the virtuoso appearances recorded in Chapter XXX, and those with which we have presently to deal. In point of chronology, many of those recorded in the present chapter were contemporaneous with some of those in the former. Nevertheless, the artists with whom we are now concerned represent principles more decidedly belonging to the romantic, and hence to the nineteenth century, than did those whose operations have already been discussed as part of the record of the eighteenth. This is seen in the quality and the novelty of their playing, and still more in the influence which they exercised upon the musicians who came after.

N. Paganini

Fig. 80.]

Earliest of these in point of time, and most influential in other departments than his own, was the famous Italian violinist, Nicolo Paganini (1784-1840), perhaps the most remarkable executant upon the violin who has ever appeared. His father, a clever amateur, had him taught music at an early age, and when only nine years of age he played in a concert at Genoa with triumphant success. He had already practiced diligently and, with the intuition of genius, had found out his own ways of accomplishing things, so that when, at the age of eleven, he was taken to Parma to the teacher Rolla, he was told that there was nothing to teach him. Returning home, he continued his practice, applying himself as much as eight or ten hours a day, and producing a number of compositions so difficult that he alone could play them. His first European tour took place in 1805, and astonished the world. The most marvelous stories were told of him. It was popularly supposed that he could play upon anything, provided only the catgut and the horsehair were furnished him. His first appearance in France was in 1831, and in the same year he played in London. The height of his fame was reached in 1834, at which time Berlioz, the French composer, presented him with a beautiful symphony, "Harold en Italie." Notwithstanding the fact that Paganini lost money in Paris, he presented Berlioz with 20,000 francs, in order to enable him to pursue his career as a composer unhampered by financial distress. This act was greatly to Paganini's credit, and entirely contrary to the prevalent opinion concerning him, which was that he was very miserly. Among the works which Paganini produced was a set of caprices for the violin which were essentially novelties for the instrument. He enlarged the resources of the violin in every direction, employing double stopping, harmonics, and the high positions with a freedom previously unknown. Notwithstanding Spohr's modest remark that upon a certain evening when playing for some amateurs he delighted them "with all the Paganini juggles," it is certain that he did nothing of the kind.

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It is impossible after this lapse of time to realize the sensation which Paganini's appearances made. His tall, emaciated figure and haggard face, his piercing black eyes and the furor of passion which characterized his playing, made him seem like one possessed, and many hearers were prepared to assert of their own knowledge that they had seen him assisted by the Evil Spirit. His caprices remain the sheet anchor of the would-be virtuoso. The entire art of violin playing rests upon two works—the Bach sonatas for violin solo, and the great Paganini caprices. Everything of which the violin is capable, or which any virtuoso has been able to find in it, is contained in these works.

Upon two composers of this century Paganini's influence was extremely powerful. Schumann took his departure from the Paganini caprices, seeking to perform upon the piano the same kind of effect which Paganini had obtained from the violin, or to discover others equivalent to them. And Liszt set himself to do upon the piano the same kind of impossibilities which Paganini had performed upon the violin. Both these masters accomplished more than they planned for. Schumann enriched the current of musical discourse by his experiments having their departure from Paganini, thereby accomplishing something which Paganini did not; for while the great violinist's works are of astonishing value for the violin, they are not particularly significant as tone-poetry. They are pleasing and sensational, and at times passionate, show pieces for the virtuoso.

II.

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), for whose genius Paganini had such admiration, was perhaps the most remarkable French personality in music during the nineteenth century, and one of the most commanding in the whole world of music. He was born at Grenoble, in the south of France. His father, a physician, intended that the son should follow his own profession, but when the young Berlioz was sent to Paris to study medicine, at the age of eighteen, music proved too strong for him, and he entered the Conservatory as a pupil of Lesueur. His parents were so incensed by this course that the paternal supplies were cut off, and the young enthusiast was driven to the expedient of earning a scanty living by singing in the opera chorus at an obscure theater, La Gymnase Dramatique. The daring originality of the young musician, and his habit of regarding every rule as open to question, rendered him anything but a favorite with Cherubini, the director of the Conservatory, and it was only after several trials that he carried off the prize for composition. The second instance of this kind occurred in 1830, the piece being a dramatic cantata "Sardanapole," which gained him the prize of Rome, carrying with it a pension sufficient to maintain the winner during three years in Italy.

On his return to Paris, he found it extremely difficult to secure a living by his compositions, their originality and the scale upon which he carried them out, placing them outside the conventional markets for new musical works designed for public performance. In this strait he took to writing for the press, in the Journal des Debats, for which his talent was little, if any, less marked than for musical production upon the largest scale. As a writer, he was keen, sarcastic, bright and sympathetic. A man of the world, and at the same time an artist, he touched everything with the characteristic lightness and raciness of the born feuilletonist. Very soon (in 1834), he produced his symphony "Harold en Italie," which Paganini so much admired that he presented Berlioz with the very liberal, even princely douceur of 20,000 francs ($4,000). Meanwhile Berlioz was unable to secure recognition in Paris. His compositions were regarded as extravagant and fantastic, and Parisians were curiously surprised at the reception the composer met with in Germany, when he traveled there in 1842 and 1843, and again in 1852, bringing out his works. The Germans were by no means unanimous regarding his merits. Mendelssohn, who found Berlioz most interesting as a man, had no admiration for his music. To him it appeared crazy and unbeautiful. The sole recognition which Berlioz had in France was the librarianship of the Conservatoire, with a modest salary, and the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In spite of the small esteem in which this clever master was held by his countrymen during his life, he produced a succession of remarkable works, without which the art of music would have missed some of its brightest pages. Among these we may mention his dramatic legend of "The Damnation of Faust," for solos, chorus and orchestra, which marks one of the highest points reached by program music. This great work is now generally accepted as one of the best of the romantic productions, and the orchestral pieces in it have become part of the standard repertory of orchestras everywhere.

Berlioz was above all the composer of the grandiose, the magnificent. This appears in his earliest works. In 1837 he composed his Requiem, for the funeral obsequies of General Damremont. This work is of unprecedented proportions. It is scored for chorus, solos and orchestra, the latter occasionally of extraordinary appointment. In the "Tuba Mirum," for example, he desires full chorus of strings, and four choirs of wood-wind and brass. The wood-wind consists of twelve horns, eight oboes, and four clarinets, two piccolos and four flutes. The brass is disposed in four choirs as follows, each at one of the corners of the stage; the first consists of four trumpets, four tenor trombones and two tubas; the second of four trumpets and four tenor trombones; the third the same; the fourth of four trumpets, four tenor trombones and four ophicleides. The bewildering answers of these four choirs of brass give place at the words "Hear the awful trumpet sounding," to a single bass voice, accompanied by sixteen kettle drums, tuned to a chord. A movement of similar sonority is the "Rex Tremendae Majestatis." At other times the work is very melodious. It is indeed singular that a young composer should commence his career with a piece so daring. But to Berlioz's credit it must be said he never makes a mistake in his calculations of effect. When he desires contrast and blending effect of different masses, these results always follow whenever his work is performed according to his directions.

All the music of Berlioz belongs to the category of "program music," that is to say, everywhere there is an attempt at painting a scene or representing something by means of music, that something being habitually suggested and explained by the text, if the work be vocal, or by explanatory notes, if the work be instrumental. This is as true of his symphonies, "Romeo and Juliet," and "Harold in Italy," as in the vocal works themselves. The list of these contains an oratorio, "The Childhood of Christ" (1854), "The Damnation of Faust" (1846), the operas "Benvenuto Cellini," produced at the Academie, 1838, "The Trojans" (1856), "Beatrice et Benedict" (1863). The first was performed under the direction of Liszt at Weimar, about 1850, but with indifferent success. Berlioz instrumented several pianoforte compositions for orchestra, the best known of them being Weber's "Invitation to the Dance," and "Polonaise in E flat." His treatise upon instrumentation, published in 1864, remained standard until since the appearance of the elaborate and more systematic work upon this subject by F.A. Gevaert. The greatest of Berlioz's works is his splendid "Te Deum," written during the years 1854 and 1855, for some kind of festival performance. He planned this composition as part of a great trilogy of an epic-dramatic character in honor of Napoleon, the first consul. At the moment of his return from his Italian campaigns, he was to have been represented as entering Notre Dame, where this "Te Deum" is sung by an appointment of musical forces consisting of a double chorus of 200 voices, a third choir of 600 children, an orchestra of 134, an organ, and solo voices. The entire work was never completed, and the "Te Deum" had its first and only representation in Berlioz's lifetime at the opening of the Palace of Industry, April 30, 1855. The work is full of splendid conceptions, and is freer from eccentricities than any other of the author. It is extremely sonorous, and is destined to be better known as festival occasions upon a larger scale become more numerous.

The whole effect of Berlioz's activity was that of a virtuoso in the department of dramatic and descriptive music, and in the art of wielding large orchestral masses. It is curious that between him and Wagner the relations should never have been cordial, although the ends proposed by both were substantially identical, and the genius of both incontestable. Berlioz had no confidence in Wagner's "endless melody," and when he writes about music he does so in the attitude of a humble follower of the old masters.

III.

The progress in piano playing, in the course of the nineteenth century has been most extraordinary. The music of Beethoven and Schubert, composed during the first quarter of this century, and the influence of the virtuosi prominent during that time, whose activity has been told in connection with those of the century previous (the operative principles of which were the ones mainly influencing them); and the continual strife of the piano makers to increase the resonance, singing quality and artistic susceptibility of the tone and the strength and elasticity of the action, as recounted in the chapter devoted to the history of this, the greatest of modern instruments—were concentrating influences having the effect of calling attention to the new instrument in a very remarkable manner. Add to these causes the meteor-like appearance of Paganini, with his stupendous execution upon the violin, and its novel possibilities. All these together seem to have led four gifted geniuses at about the same time to make independent investigations into the tonal possibilities of the piano, and the mode of producing effects upon it, in the hope of creating a new art, and of rivaling the weird successes of the highly gifted Italian, who apparently had exhausted the possibilities of the violin. The artists thus occupied in developing the art of piano playing were Chopin, Liszt, Thalberg and Schumann, and it is far from easy to determine exactly which one it was who first brought his influence to bear upon the public; or which one it was who first arrived at the successful application of the principles of the new technique, whose essential divergences from the old consisted in a more flexible use of the fingers, hand and arm, and the co-operation of the foot for the promotion of blending, and of bringing into simultaneous use the tonal resources from all parts of the instrument. In this case, as in so many others of remarkable invention, the improvements seem to have been made by several independent investigators acting simultaneously, each one ignorant of the work of the others. The impulse in the direction of greater freedom had already found expression in the pianoforte pieces of the great master, Von Weber, whose sonatas and caprices had been published between 1810 and 1820. (See pp. 410 and 411.) These contain several novelties, which I have found it more convenient to discuss in connection with the personal history of the composer. Liszt has generally been held as a little the earliest of the four in point of time, his arrangement of Berlioz's "Harold" symphony having been published, according to the dates in Weitzmann's history, in 1827, but according to more accurate information, in 1835, while he had published his arrangement of the Paganini caprices in 1832, one year after hearing Paganini. In these works Liszt makes demands upon the hands which were not recognized as among the possibilities of the old technique. But for all this, it is apparently certain that the honor of having developed a style distinctly original, and with peculiarities easily recognizable by the average listener, belongs to the great virtuoso Thalberg. Sigismund Thalberg (1812-1871) was the illegitimate son of Prince Dietrichstein, a diplomat then living at Geneva. His mother was the Baroness von Wetzlar. Thalberg was carefully educated, and accustomed to high-bred society from childhood. His father intended him for a diplomatic career, but the boy's talent for the piano was irresistible, and, so well had his education been advanced by his teacher, the first bassoonist of the Vienna opera, that by the time he was fifteen he made a brilliant success at a concert in Vienna. His first composition in the style which he afterward made so famous was the fantasia on themes from "Euryanthe," which was published in 1828. Later, in 1835, he entered upon his public career as virtuoso with concert tours to all parts of the world, everywhere greeted with admiration and astonishment. He appeared in Paris late in 1834 or early in 1835, finding Liszt there in the plenitude of his powers. Then there was a rivalry between them, and opposing camps were instituted of their respective admirers. The dispute as to their relative excellence ran high, and, as usually happens in personal questions of this sort, victory did not belong entirely to either party. Nevertheless, at this distance it is not easy to see why the question should have been raised, since in the light of modern piano playing Liszt's art had in it the promise of everything which has come since; while Thalberg's had in it only one side of the modern art. Thalberg had a wonderful technique, in which scales of marvelous fluency, lightness, clearness and equality, intervened between chord passages of great breadth and sonority, so that all the resources of the piano were open to him. But his specialty was that of carrying a melody in the middle of the piano, playing it by means of the two thumbs alternately, the other hand being occupied in runs and passages covering the whole compass of the piano, crossing the melody from below, or descending upon it from the highest regions of the treble, and continuing down the keyboard with perfect equality and lightness, without in the slightest degree disturbing the singing of the melody. This, of its own accord, went on in the most artistic manner, as if the pianist had nothing at all else to do than to sing it. The perfection of Thalberg's melody playing was something wonderful, as well it might be; for in order to master the art of it, he studied singing for five years with one of the best teachers of the Italian school, the eminent Garcia. This, however, was later, after he had located in Paris.

This trick of treating the melody was not new with Thalberg. It had previously been done upon the harp by the great Welsh virtuoso, Parish Alvars (1808-1849), whose European reputation had been acquired by a succession of great concert tours, and who at length closed his days in Vienna, where Thalberg lived. There was also an Italian master, Giuseppe Francesco Pollini (1763-1846), who in 1809 became professor of the piano in the Conservatory of Milan. Pollini had been a pupil of Mozart, and dedicated to that great master his first work. Early after being appointed professor he published a great school for the pianoforte (1811), in which the art is fully discussed in all its bearings, and minute directions given for touch and all the rest appertaining to a concert treatment of the instrument. He was the first to write piano pieces upon three staves, the middle one being devoted to the melody; a proceeding afterward followed in some cases by Liszt and Thalberg. Pollini surrounded his melodies, thus placed in the middle of the instrument, where at that time the sonority and singing quality of the pianoforte exclusively lay, with runs and passages of a brilliant and highly ingenious kind. This was done in his "Una de 32 Esercizi in Forma di Toccata," but he had already, in 1801, published several brilliant pieces in Paris, in which novelties occur. I have never seen a copy of these works of Pollini, nor any other account of them than those in Riemann's dictionary and in Weitzmann's history of the pianoforte, but it is altogether likely that when they are examined we shall find in this case, as in many others of progressive development, that the final result was reached by a succession of steps, each one short, and apparently not so very important. The chain of technical development for the piano extended from Bach in unbroken progress, and the discovery of Pollini, who was less known in western lands than others of the great names in the list, enables us to fill in between Moscheles and Thalberg. Pollini's work anticipates the Clementi Gradus by about six years.

To return to Thalberg.—In 1856 he visited America, where his success was the same as in all other parts of the world. Having accumulated a fortune, he retired from active life, and bought an estate near Naples, where he spent the remainder of his life. There were reasons of a purely external and conventional kind why the playing of Thalberg should have attracted more attention, or at least been more admired, than that of Liszt, in Paris and in aristocratic circles everywhere. His manner was the perfection of quiet. Whatever the difficulty of the passages upon which he was engaged, he remained perfectly quiet, sitting upright, modestly, without a single unnecessary motion. Moreover, the general character of his passages, which progressed fluently upward or downward by degrees, instead of taking violent leaps from one part of the keyboard to another, permitted him to maintain this elegant quiet with less restriction than would have been possible in such works, for instance, as the great concert fantasias of Liszt. It is to be noticed, further, that the peculiar sonority of Thalberg's playing depended upon the improvements in the pianoforte, made just before his appearance and during his career. His method of playing the melody, moreover, while perhaps not distinctly so recognized by him, employed a noticeable element of the arm touch, while his passage work was a ringer movement of the lightest and most facile description. His chords, also, were often struck with a finger touch, and he was perhaps the originator of the peculiar effect produced by touching a chord with the fingers only, but rebounding from the keys with the whole arm to the elbow. A chord thus played has the delicacy peculiar to finger work, but in the removal from the keys the muscles of the arm are called into action in such a way that the finger stroke is intensified to a degree somewhat depending upon the height to which the rebound is carried.

IV.

Francois Frederic Chopin (1809-1849) was one of the most remarkable composers of this epoch, and in some respects one of the most precocious musical geniuses of whom we have any record. He was born at Zela-Zowa Wola, a village six miles from Warsaw, in Poland, the son of a French merchant living there, who had married a Polish lady. Later, in consequence of financial reverses, his father became a teacher in the university. The boy, Francois, was brought up amid refined and pleasant surroundings, and his education was carefully looked to. Although rather delicate in appearance, he was healthy and full of spirits. His precocity upon the piano was such that at the age of nine he played a concerto in public with great success, from which time forward he made many appearances in his native city. He early began to compose, and by the time he was thirteen or fourteen, had undertaken a number of works of considerable magnitude. After having received the best instruction which his native city afforded, he started out, at the age of nineteen, for a visit to Vienna, where he appeared in two concerts, and to his own surprise was pronounced one of the greatest virtuosi of the day. This, however, is not the point of his precocity. When he started upon his tour to Vienna, he had with him certain manuscripts, which he had composed. His Opus 2 consisted of variations upon Mozart's air, "La ci Darem la Mano," of which later Schumann wrote such a glowing account in his paper at Leipsic. These variations were enormously difficult, and in a wholly novel style. There were several mazurkas, the three nocturnes, Opus 9, of which the extremely popular one in E flat stands second; the twelve studies, Opus 10, dedicated to Franz Liszt, and a concerto in F minor, and all or nearly all of that in E minor. These were the work of a boy then only nineteen, the pupil of a comparatively unknown provincial teacher. When we examine these works more minutely, our astonishment increases, for they represent an entirely new school of piano playing. New effects, new management of the hands, new passages, beautiful melody, exquisitely modulated harmonies—in short, a new world in piano playing was here opened. So difficult and so strange were these works, that for nearly a generation the more difficult ones of them were a sealed book to amateur pianists, and even virtuosi like Moscheles declare that they could never get their fingers reliably through them.



Much pleased with his success in Vienna, Chopin returned to Warsaw, and after some months, set out for London, by way of Paris. Here his fortune varied somewhat. At first he found it impossible to secure a hearing, his only acquaintances being a few of his exiled fellow-countrymen, who were there. At length one evening a friend took him to a reception at the Rothschild's, and in this cultivated society he found appreciative listeners to his marvelous playing. From that time on he remained in Paris, only leaving it when his health made it necessary to visit the south of France. He very seldom appeared in public. His touch was not sufficiently strong to render his playing effective in a large hall.

The whole of the Chopin genius is summed up in his early works, which he took with him on his visit to Vienna. All his later works are in some sense repetitions. The ideas and the treatment are new, but the principles underlying are the same, and rarely, if ever, does he reach a higher flight than in some of these earlier works. His most celebrated innovation was that of the Nocturne, a sentimental cantilena for the pianoforte, in which a somewhat Byronic sentiment is expressed in a high-bred and elegant style. The name "nocturne" was not original with Chopin—the Dublin pianist, John Field, having published his first nocturnes in 1816. Field himself derived the name from the prayers of the Roman Church which are made between midnight and morning. The name, therefore, implies something belonging to the night—mysterious, dreamy, poetic. In Field's there is little of this, aside from the name; the melodies are plain and the sentiments commonplace. With Chopin, however, it is entirely different. In some instances the treatment for the piano is very simple, as in the popular nocturne in E flat, already mentioned; but in other cases he exercises the utmost freedom, and very carefully trained fingers are needed to perform them successfully. This is the case, for example, in the beautiful nocturne in G, Opus 37, No. 2, where the passages in thirds and sixths are extremely trying; also in the very dramatic nocturne in C minor, Opus 48.

Chopin's place in the Pantheon of the romantic school is that of the popularizer of pianoforte sentiment. His compositions, by whatever name they may be called, are essentially lyric pieces, songs, ballads and fanciful stories in rhyme. The subjects are frequently tender or sad, sometimes morbid—in short, Byronic. The treatment is always graceful and high-bred, and the contrasts strong. The melodies are embroidered with a peculiar kind of fioratura, which he invented himself, founded upon the Italian embellishment of that kind—a delicate efflorescence of melody, which, when perfectly done, is extremely pleasing. The names applied to the different compositions such as Ballade, Scherzo, Prelude, Rondo, Sonata, Impromptu, have only a remote reference to the nature of the piece. Occasionally the entire composition is morbid and unsatisfactory to a degree. These belong to the later period of his life, when he was in poor health. He is a woman's composer. In his strongest moments there is always an effeminate element. In this respect he is exactly opposite to Schumann and Beethoven, whose works, however delicate and refined, have always a manly strength. Chopin made the most important modifications in the current way of treating the piano. In this part of his activity he seemed to realize the possibilities of the instrument, in the same way that Paganini had recognized those of the violin. His passages, while based upon those of Hummel, nevertheless produced effects of which Hummel was totally incapable. Chopin is the originator of the extended arpeggio chord, of the chromatic sequences of the diminished sevenths with passing notes, and cadenza forms derived from them. He is thoroughly French in his views of "changing notes," as, for instance, in the accompaniment to the impromptu in A flat, Opus 29. His influence upon the general progress of musical development is to be traced in the works of Liszt, especially in the later pianoforte works, and in a large number of less gifted imitators, like Doehler.

V.

Aside from Wagner, the most remarkable figure of this century is that of Franz Liszt, who was born at Raiding, in Hungary, 1811, and died at Bayreuth, 1886. His father, Adam Liszt, was an official in the imperial service, and a musical amateur, capable of instructing his son in piano playing. At the age of nine he made his first public appearance, with so much success that several noblemen guaranteed the money to enable him to pursue his studies for six years in Vienna. Here he became a pupil of Czerny, Salieri and Randhartinger. He made the acquaintance of Schubert, and upon one occasion played before Beethoven, who kissed him, with the prophecy that he would make his mark. His first appearance as a composer was in a set of variations on a waltz by Diabelli, the same for which Beethoven wrote the thirty-three variations, Opus 120. Liszt's variation was the twenty-fourth in the set to which Beethoven did not contribute. It was published in 1823, when he was twelve years old. The same year he went to Paris, his father hoping to enter him at the Conservatory, in spite of his foreign origin; but Cherubini refused to receive him, so he studied with other composers. His operetta of "Don Sanche" was performed at the Academie Royale in 1825, and was well received. At this time he was in the height of his youthful success in Paris, tall, slender, with long hair and a most free and engaging countenance, with ready wit and unbounded tact. He performed marvels upon the piano, such as no one else could attempt. His repertory at this time seems to have consisted of pieces of the old school. In 1827 he lost his father, and being thrown upon his own resources, he began his concert tour. He appeared in London in 1827, his piece being the Hummel concerto. Three years later he played in London again, his number being the Weber Concertstueck.

There was something weird and magnetic about his playing. He was very tall, about six feet two inches, slender, with piercing eyes, very long arms, but small hands; he played without notes, and amid the most frightful difficulties of execution kept his eyes fixed upon this, that or the other person in the audience. He moved about at the piano very much in the exciting passages, not, apparently, on account of the difficulty of overcoming technical obstacles, but simply from innate fire and excitement. As for technical difficulties, they did not exist. Everything that the piano contained seemed to be at his service, and the only regret was that the instrument was not better able to respond to his demand. In the fortissimo passages his tone was immense, and his pianissimos were the most delicate whispers. In these his fingers glided over the keys with inconceivable lightness and speed, and the tone fell upon the ear with a delicate tracery with which no particular was lost by reason of speed or lightness. This wonderful control of the instrument stood him in equal stead with his own compositions, especially adapted to his own style of playing; or with the works of the old school, which he transfigured as they had never been played before; or the last sonatas of Beethoven, which at that time were a sealed book to most musicians. These, indeed, he did not play in public, but in private. The essential novelties of the Liszt technique were the bravura cadenzas. The other sensational features, such as carrying the melody in the middle range of the piano with surrounding embroidery, the rapid runs and the extravagant climaxes, were all more or less common to the three representative virtuoso piano writers of this epoch—Liszt, Chopin and Thalberg.

A careful study of all the circumstances and influences surrounding Liszt at the time, leads to the conclusion that his ideas of the possibilities of the pianoforte were matured very gradually, not reaching their complete expression in the operatic fantasias before about 1834 or 1835. His early appearances were in pieces of the old school, and there is nothing more to be found in contemporary accounts of his playing than admiration for its superior fire and delicacy. Upon the appearance of Paganini, however, this was changed. The temporary eclipse, which this brilliant apparition made of the rising Liszt, led him to new studies in original directions. Thus arose the transcriptions of the Paganini caprices in 1832, and the composition of his own "Studies for Transcendent Execution," in the same or the following year. Farther sensational improvements were probably the result of the Thalberg contest in Paris during 1835.

Liszt's influence may be inferred from such incidents as the following: In 1839 there was a movement on foot to erect a monument to Beethoven at Bonn, but after some months' solicitation the committee found it impossible to realize the desired sum, or anything approaching it. Whereupon Liszt wrote them to give themselves no further uneasiness, for he himself would be responsible for the entire amount, about $10,000. This large sum he raised by his own exertions, and paid over, and a monument was unveiled with brilliant ceremonies in 1845. One of the performances upon that occasion was that of the Beethoven fifth concerto, which Liszt himself played. Concerning this memorable performance Berlioz himself writes: "The piano concerto in E flat is generally known for one of the better productions of Beethoven. The first movement and the Adagio, above all, are of incomparable beauty. To say that Liszt played it, and that he played it in a fashion grand, fine, poetic, yet always faithful, is to make a veritable pleonasm, and there was a tumult of applause, a sound of trumpets, and fanfares of the orchestra, which must have been heard far beyond the limits of the hall. Liszt immediately afterward mounted the desk of the conductor to direct the performance of the symphony in C minor, which he made us hear as Beethoven wrote it, including the entire scherzo, without the abridgment, as we have so long been accustomed to hear at the Conservatory at Paris; and the finale, with the repeat indicated by Beethoven. I have always had such confidence in the taste of the correctors of the great masters that I was very much surprised to find the symphony in C minor still more beautiful when executed entirely than when corrected. It was necessary to go to Bonn to make this discovery."

In 1849 a new epoch was opened in the history of this remarkable man. The grand duke of Weimar invited him to assume the direction of his musical establishment, including the opera. The salary was absurdly small—$800 or $1,000 a year. This, however, cut no figure in Liszt's mind, for he had always been singularly open-handed, yet at same time prudent. From his successful concert tours he had put by funds, 20,000 francs for his aged mother, and 20,000 francs for each of the three children he had by the Countess D'Agoult (known in literature as Daniel Stern), and he considered that the position would afford him an opportunity of developing his own talent for composition, and at the same time of affording a hearing for important new works, which, on account of their novelty and originality, were impossible of performance in the theaters of large cities. The repertory of the Weimar opera, from this time on, was most extraordinary. Here were produced for the first time Wagner's "Flying Dutchman," "Tannhaeuser," and "Lohengrin," "Benvenuto Cellini," of Berlioz, Schumann's "Genoveva" and "Mannfred," and Schubert's "Alfonso and Estrella." Here were produced, also, the best of the operas of previous generations. Every master work of this sort Liszt revised with the greatest care, giving endless patience to every detail, and supplementing the resources of the theater, when insufficient, by "guests" from the great operas in the capital. Thus the musical establishment at Weimar became a sort of Mecca, to which all the musicians of the world gathered, especially the young and energetic in the pursuit of knowledge, and creative artists seeking a hearing or fresh inspiration. From an artistic standpoint, nothing more beautiful than the life of Liszt at Weimar could be desired. Besides these operatic performances and his symphony concerts, he gathered about him a succession of young virtuosi pianists. These had lessons, more or less formally, some of them for many years. Liszt never received money for lessons, and took no pupils but those whom he regarded as promising, or who were personally attractive to himself. About 1850 the American, Dr. William Mason, was there, and for two years following. The class at this time contained the well known names of Rubinstein, Carl Klindworth, Pruckner, Tausig, Joachim Raff, and Hans von Buelow. From this time on there is scarcely a concert pianist in the world who did not spend a few months or longer with Liszt at Weimar. Nor did his influence stop here. He produced a constant succession of important works, and conducted concerts and festivals in Hungary, and in different parts of Germany and France. Everywhere his inspiring presence and his keen insight were prized above all ordinary resources.

There is not space here to sketch in detail his singular and trying relations to that self-conscious genius, Wagner, who, when absconding to Zurich, sent the score of "Lohengrin" to Liszt. It can be imagined with what force the elevated and noble beauty of this epoch-marking work appealed to a genius so sensitive as Liszt. He not only produced the opera with great care, but prepared the public for it by means of extended articles in important journals in Leipsic, Berlin and Paris. From this time on, Liszt became the good angel of Wagner. There are few records in the annals of music more creditable than the letters of Liszt to Wagner. He took charge of his business in Germany, exercised his wholly unique and commanding influence to secure performances of Wagner's operas, sent him money out of his own purse, and secured some from his friends. More than this, he greeted every new work of Wagner's with an appreciation as generous and noble as it was intelligent and fine.

About 1852 Liszt commenced his symphonic poems. In these he avails himself of two of Wagner's suggestions. Much is made of the leading motive, and the orchestration is handled in a sonorous and brilliant manner, which Berlioz and Wagner first introduced. The works are very effective and original. Certain ones of them have become almost classic, like "The Preludes" and "Tasso." He also wrote a number of large choral works, among them his "Legend of the Holy Elizabeth," the "Graner Mass," etc.



There is hardly a province of musical composition in which Liszt did not distinguish himself. The orchestral compositions number about twenty. There are several important arrangements, such as Schubert marches, Schubert's songs, "Rakoczy March," and a variety of arrangements for pianoforte and orchestra, including two concertos, the Weber Polacca in E, and the Schubert fantasia. The pianoforte compositions are extremely numerous. Of the original pieces there are perhaps one hundred. Of important arrangements, such as the etudes from Paganini, the organ preludes and fugues from Bach, Schubert marches, etc., there are thirty or forty. Of the operatic fantasias there are perhaps a hundred or more. There are fifteen Hungarian Rhapsodies, and a large number of transcriptions of vocal pieces (of songs alone there are upwards of a hundred). Of masses and psalms about twenty. Two oratorios, several cantatas, about sixty original songs for single voice and piano, and very many other writings of a literary and musical kind. In 1865 Liszt left Weimar for several years, and resided in Rome, where he began to take holy orders.



In the closing years of Wagner's life, after the Bayreuth festival theater had been inaugurated, Liszt was a central figure, and there are few large cities in Europe which he did not visit for the sake of encouraging important productions of the Wagnerian works. Thus, taken as a composer, a performer, a conductor, and an appreciative friend of art, his name is one which deserves to be revered as long as the history of music in the nineteenth century is remembered.

Fig. 84 represents him as he appeared in the last years of his life. The portrait of Liszt as abbe is taken from Grove's Dictionary. Neither of these last pictures gives an adequate idea of the sweetness of his expression. While the profile in middle life was sharp and clearly cut, as we see it in the abbe picture, and while in old age the mouth assumed a stern and set expression in repose, his smile was extremely winning, and the habitual expression of his face in conversation one of amiability and kindness.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

MENDELSSOHN AND SCHUMANN.

I.

One of the most fortunate personalities among modern composers was Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847), who was born in Berlin, the grandson of Moses Mendelssohn, the famous Jewish philosopher. The father of Felix was a banker, and his mother a woman of a very sweet and amiable disposition. The children of Abraham Mendelssohn were baptized in the Christian faith in order to escape in some degree the prejudice against the Jewish race. Felix, having a strong inclination to music, at an early age made great progress in it. His first concert appearance was made at the age of ten, in which he played the piano part in a trio by Woelfl, and was very much applauded. As early as his twelfth year he began systematically to compose, and being naturally of methodical habits, which were still further encouraged by his father and mother, he kept an accurate record of his works, which at the last filled forty-four folio volumes, the most of the pieces being dated, and the place given where they were written. In the year 1820 he composed between fifty and sixty movements, of almost every sort, songs, part songs, pieces for organ, piano, strings and orchestra, as well as a cantata, and a little comedy for voices and a piano. In the summer of 1820, the whole family made a tour of Switzerland, and a very large number of pieces were composed at this time. In this same year he made a more important concert appearance with Aloys Schmitt, in which he played with Schmitt a duet for two pianos. This continued exercise in composition was not entirely of an abstract nature, for the Mendelssohn family were accustomed to have reunions on Sunday evenings, when these pieces were played. For occasions like this he wrote several small operas, and his talent was encouraged in every way by his parents, and by his very judicious teacher, the celebrated Zelter. When he was scarcely more than twelve years old, Zelter had him play before Goethe, and a trio of the boy's was also played, after which he was sent to play in the garden while his seniors discussed his prospects. Thus the boy grew up under the most favorable circumstances possible, his father being a wise and careful man, who, although not a musician, thoroughly sympathized with the artistic aims of his son; and his mother also encouraged him to more serious efforts. Even at this early age he was a prolific composer of orchestral music, the year 1824 being that of the composition of the symphony in C minor, now known as No. 1, but in Mendelssohn's catalogue marked the thirteenth of his compositions. In this year Moscheles passed through Berlin on his way to London, and made the acquaintance of Mendelssohn. At the Sunday morning music in the Mendelssohn house, Moscheles recalls the performance of Felix's C minor quartette, D major symphony, a concerto by Bach, played by Fanny, and a duet for two pianos. In the same year Spohr came to Berlin, and a little later Hiller, both of whom speak of Mendelssohn's playing as something very remarkable. His celebrated octette for strings, Opus 20, was composed in 1825. This was the first of his works which has retained its popularity. The year following he composed the overture to "The Midsummer Night's Dream," one of the most remarkable pieces of the early romantic school. In this the fairy-like music of Titania and her elves is charmingly contrasted with the folk songs and the absurd bray of the transformed Bottom. He had already written an opera "Camacho," which had been submitted to Spontini, the musical director of Berlin, but it was never performed. He entered at the University and attended the lectures of Hegel and Carl Ritter, the geographer, but for mathematics he had no talent. Two folio volumes of notes of the lectures of Hegel and Ritter are preserved from the years 1827 and 1828. His overture to "The Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage" was written in 1828. In the year following he started on a long journey of three years, carefully planned by his father, in which all the countries of Europe were to have been visited successively, and observations made on civilization and society. His first appearance before an English audience was at a Philharmonic concert, May 25, 1828, when he conducted his symphony in C minor and improvised on the piano. He was received with the utmost applause. Five days later he played the Concertstueck of Von Weber, and, which was a great innovation at that time, with no music before him. His letters from London are very charming indeed. At a concert later, his overture to "The Midsummer Night's Dream" was performed with great success; this was the beginning of his English popularity, lasting all the rest of his life.

The first of his "Songs without Words" was published in 1830, having been originally composed for his sister Fanny. In this simple act he opened a new chapter of the literature for the piano. The form of the song without words had already been given in Field's nocturnes, the first of which were published in 1816; but Mendelssohn, by giving it the title, "Song, without Words," put the hearer in a different relation to the composition—that of seeking to find in the work a poetic suggestion in addition to pleasing melody and finely modulated harmony. This, also, is extremely characteristic of the romantic epoch, in which music has its origin in poetry. He had already written a number of those charming capriccios, in which the piano is treated with light staccato changing chords, such as Von Weber had suggested nearly twenty years earlier in his "Moment Capriccio," but which no writer brought to such perfection as Mendelssohn. These two styles of pianoforte writing—the fairy-like scherzo, and the "Song without Words," are Mendelssohn's specialties, in which no other writer can be compared with him. He also wrote a number of concertos for piano and orchestra, and one for violin, in which these two elements are very strong features. Without having the effective passage work of Thalberg, Liszt or Chopin, or the bold originality of Schumann, Mendelssohn was an extremely original and pleasing pianoforte writer. During his life, especially in the later part of it, he was somewhat over-estimated; but at the present time, through the emergence of Schumann from the obscurity into which Mendelssohn's reputation cast him, the works of Mendelssohn are often underestimated. He opened a new chapter in tone-poetry, popularizing pianoforte sentiment.

The famous G minor concerto for the piano was first produced in Munich in 1831. In the same year he went to Paris, where many of his works were performed and others were composed. The next year he was in London again, when the Hebrides overture was produced and the first book of "Songs without Words" was published. He also played the organ at several of the churches, and excited general admiration by his vigorous style. He is said to have been the first to play a Bach pedal fugue in England, certainly the first to play any of the important ones. In 1833 he was settled at Duesseldorf, as musical director of the church and two associations. There he immediately instituted a reform in the music of the church, and in the character of the selections for concert. In the church there were masses by Beethoven and Cherubini, motettes by Palestrina, and cantatas by Bach. The next year his oratorio of "St. Paul" was begun. In 1837 he was married to a very charming lady—Miss Cecilia Jeanrenaud, daughter of a clergyman of the Reformed Church at Frankfort. Very soon after the wedding he was in London and Birmingham, where he conducted "St. Paul" and commenced to prepare the libretto for his oratorio of "Elijah." Among the Bach fugues which he played in London on the organ at this time were the D major, the G minor, the E major, the C minor and the short E minor. His pedal playing was very highly esteemed.



In 1835 he commenced to conduct the Gewandhaus concerts at Leipsic, and the celebrated conservatory there was founded in 1843. The first professors were Hauptmann, David, Schumann, Pohlenz and C.F. Becker. Ferdinand David (1810-1873) was the greatest master of the violin during the third quarter of the century. Moritz Hauptmann (1792-1868), originally a violinist, was one of the most original theorists of this century. His greatest work, "Harmony and Meter," was published in 1853. Soon afterward Moscheles became associated with them. The city of Leipsic remained his home during the remainder of his life. The founding of the conservatory may have been hastened by certain plans which Mendelssohn had endeavored three years before to get adopted in Berlin, where there was a project for founding a royal music school upon a different basis from any at that time existing. From some change in the ministry, or temporary political disturbance, the plan fell through, but in Leipsic it was carried out. This famous school from that time forward, for nearly fifty years, exercised an influence greater than that of any other music school in the world. Among its graduates are a very large number of the most successful teachers and celebrated professional musicians. They had been drawn to Leipsic by the reputation given the conservatory by the possession of such masters as Mendelssohn, Schumann, Hauptmann, Moscheles, Plaidy, Dr. Paul, Becker, Brendel, Reinecke and others. After Mendelssohn's death, indeed, the tradition of his ideas hampered the efficiency of the school to some extent, but very thorough work has always been done there. During his four years' connection with the conservatory Mendelssohn conducted the Gewandhaus concerts and superintended the entire educational operations of the school. In addition to this he conducted a succession of important festivals in all parts of Europe, producing new works of his own, and the greatest works of the masters before him. He made a great reputation as concert pianist, playing his own concertos and those of Beethoven, as well as the Concertstueck of Von Weber. Everywhere he improvised upon the organ or the piano, and through all the admiration which he received remained the same simple, unaffected, sincere artist that he was when a boy. His home life was very happy. In Ferdinand Hiller's reminiscences many charming pictures of it are given.

The greatest of Mendelssohn's works was "Elijah," which was produced at Birmingham, August 26, 1846. Staudigl, the famous baritone of Vienna, was Elijah. The work went extremely well at the first performance—better, Mendelssohn says, than any former work of his. The continual anxiety of producing the new work, the travel and the many responsibilities belonging to his position finally undermined his health, and at length, November 4, 1847, he died at Leipsic. It is doubtful whether any musician ever left a warmer or a more distinguished circle of friends than Mendelssohn. In all parts of the musical world his death was regarded as a calamity.



In "Elijah" and in the first part of "St. Paul" Mendelssohn made an addition to the world's stock of oratorios scarcely second to any other works, excepting Haendel's "Messiah." "Elijah," in particular, had the advantage of an extremely dramatic and picturesque story, and a text well selected from the Scriptures. There are many moments in this work of rare and exquisite beauty. The choruses when contrapuntally developed, have themes somewhat too short, whereby the effect of the words is lost in the intermingling of voices coming in at later moments, but there are other parts of the work which are extremely beautiful. There is a lovely chorus, "He Watching over Israel," in which the gentle Mendelssohnian melody is accompanied by soft triplets in the strings, whereby a most delightfully light and spirituelle effect is produced. Near the end of the work there is a very graphic recitative to the words, "And One Cherub Cried to Another"; then a soprano voice with grand phrase sings "Holy, Holy Is God, the Lord," three other soprano voices joining in the last words. These are very lightly accompanied. Immediately thereupon, the entire chorus, orchestra and organ, with the utmost power, come in with the same melody, "Holy, Holy Is God, the Lord." This antiphon between the full chorus and the female quartette continues in varying style throughout the chorus, and the result is thrilling in the extreme. Extremely dramatic, also, is the great chorus "Thanks Be to God, for He Laveth the Thirsty Land." There are many solo numbers in the work, all of them remarkable for the care with which the text is treated, and the clearness with which the musical utterance expresses the words. The famous tenor song, "If with All Your Hearts Ye Truly Seek Him," the alto song, "Oh Rest in the Lord," the angel trio, "Lift Thine Eyes," the great soprano song, "Hear Ye Israel," and the bass aria, "It Is Enough," and especially the prayer of Elijah, "Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel," are scarcely surpassed in the entire range of oratorio music. There is very remarkable instrumentation, also in the scenes on Mt. Carmel, and especially at the series of choruses where "God, the Lord, Passed By."

During his life, Mendelssohn was very highly esteemed as a composer of orchestral music, symphonies and overtures. While his works in this department contain many beauties, and are carried out with elegant clearness of form, and with that refinement and taste which characterized everything which Mendelssohn did, they have not maintained their reputation at the high level where it formerly stood. It was Mendelssohn's fortune to be one of the masters instrumental in introducing the romantic school; but upon principle and education he was classical in his taste and instincts, and while his works had a very important use in cultivating an appetite for novelty, whereby the other masters of the romantic school profited later, he went so short a distance in the new path that the march of events has since left him somewhat behind.

II.

If it were asked to name the two masters most representative of the nineteenth century, one could scarcely go amiss, the names of Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner immediately occurring. Robert Schumann (1810-1856), the son of a very intelligent book seller, was born at Zwickau, in Saxony, and was intended for the law. He received lessons in music at an early age, and his talent was unmistakable. When he was about eleven he accompanied a performance of Frederick Schneider's "Weltgericht." At home, with the aid of some musical companions he got up performances of musical compositions, and had a small orchestra. He entered at the Leipsic University as a student of law, but devoted the most of his time to playing the piano, and to reading Jean Paul, for whom he had a great fondness. He immediately attached himself to the musical circles, entering himself as a pupil with Wieck, the father of his future wife. A year later he transferred his attendance to the University of Heidelberg, attracted thither by the lectures of the famous teacher Thibaut, the same whose work upon the "Purity of Musical Art," had only recently been published. Here, as in Leipsic, his principal occupation was practicing upon the piano, which he did to the extent of six or seven hours a day. Notwithstanding his fondness for music, his mother was violently opposed to his entering the musical profession, and as his father was now dead, her wishes naturally had much weight. He had already commenced to write songs, quite a number of which belong to the year 1830, when he was living in Heidelberg.

He made a tour to the north of Italy, and heard the Italian musician Paganini, which fired him with so much ardor, that he immediately set himself to transcribe his Caprices for the piano, and to accomplish upon this instrument similar effects to those which Paganini produced upon the violin. At length, after much difficulty with his guardian and his mother, it was agreed that he might fit himself for a musician, so in 1830 he was back again in Leipsic studying diligently with Master Wieck. In his ardor for great results in a short time, he undertook some kind of mechanical discipline for the fourth finger of his right hand, the effect of which was that the tendons became overstrained, the finger crippled, and for a long time he was utterly unable to use it in piano playing. In composition he now entered upon regular instruction with Heinrich Dorn, at that time conductor of the opera in Leipsic. Dorn recognized the greatness of Schumann's genius, and devoted himself with much interest to his improvement. In 1832 a symphony of his was produced in Zwickau, but apparently with little success, for the work was never heard of afterward. At this same concert Wieck's daughter, Clara, who was then thirteen years of age, appeared as a pianist, and Zwickau, Schumann says, "was fired with enthusiasm for the first time in its life." Already he was very much interested in the promising girl, and expresses himself concerning her with much ardor. He seems to have been singularly slow in composition. At this time, 1833, he had written the first and third movements of the G minor sonata, had commenced the F minor sonata and completed the "Toccata," which had been begun four years before. He also arranged the second set of Paganini's caprices, Opus 10. He found a faithful friend in Frau Voigt, a pianist of sense and ability. Schumann usually passed his evenings in a restaurant in company with his friends, after the German fashion, but while the others talked he usually remained silent. Frau Voigt told W. Taubert that one lovely summer evening after making music with Schumann, they both felt inclined to go upon the water. They sat side by side in the boat for an hour in silence. At parting Schumann pressed her hand and said, "Good day, we have perfectly understood one another."

The immediate result of the musical associations of Schumann, in Leipsic, was the project for a musical journal, devoted to progress and sincerity. In opera Rossini was then the ruling force. At the piano Herz and Huenten; and musical journalism was represented by Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, published by Breitkopf & Haertel, which praised almost everything, upon general principles. In 1834, the first number of the Neue Zeitschrift fuer Musik saw the light. The editors were Robert Schumann, Friedrich Wieck, Ludwig Schunke and Julius Knorr. Schumann was the ruling power, and he proceeded to develop his literary faculty in a variety of forms. He writes under many pseudonyms, and has much to say about the "David league against the Philistines," a society existing in his imagination only. One of the famous early articles in this paper was that upon Chopin's variation "La ci Darem," greeting the work of the talented young Pole as a production of rare genius. Schumann himself thought so well of this article that he placed it at the beginning of his collected writings. It will be impossible within available limits to define the influence of this journal. During the ten years when Schumann was editor, many of the most important productions of the modern school first saw the light, and all come in for discussion, from a point of view at the same time sympathetic and intelligent.

As an example of the musical life at Leipsic in this time, Moscheles mentions an evening in 1835, when Mendelssohn conducted his first concert in the Gewandhaus; the day before this there had been a musical gathering at Wieck's, at which both Mendelssohn and Schumann were present, perhaps the first time that these two great geniuses were brought together. The next day Mendelssohn, Schumann, Moscheles and Banck dined together, and the next day there was music at Wieck's house—Moscheles, Clara Wieck and L. Rakemann from Bremen, playing Bach's D minor concerto for three pianos, Mendelssohn putting in the orchestral accompaniments on the fourth piano. With Mendelssohn he contracted quite an intimacy. In 1836 he found himself very much devoted to Clara Wieck, and in order to secure a more favorable opening for his career, resolved to transfer himself and the paper to Vienna, but after a year he returned again to Leipsic, and then the course of true love became more difficult, for Papa Wieck was resolutely opposed to the match; but after some months his consent was given, and they were married in 1840. During this year he had an extraordinary activity as a song writer. The "Woman's Love and Life," the "Poet's Love," and various other cycles of song, were all produced under the stress of his happy prospects with Clara. It is not easy to ascertain the order of his compositions, since, as we have already seen, the sonatas and some of the other works appearing late in the list of opus numbers were composed very early.

The romantic tendency is the most marked of all of Schumann's characteristics as a composer. He is above all others the composer of moods. His long pieces are invariably aggregates of shorter ones. The typical forms of Schumann's thought are two, and two only, the Song and the Fantasia. He made diligent efforts to master counterpoint and fugue, and manly attempts in these provinces can be found among his writings; but counterpoint and fugue remained to him a foreign language. The smoothness of Mendelssohn, the readiness of Bach, of Beethoven, or even Mozart, are impossible to him. On the other hand, when he follows his own inclination, he creates forms that are clear, concise and original. One scarcely knows which to admire more—the graphic correspondence of the music with the suggestive title placed at the head, or the original style of the music itself, which is entirely unlike anything by any former composer. His Opus 2 is a set called Papillons, "Butterflies," or "Scenes at a Ball," consisting of twelve short movements in different style, without explanatory titles. Some are fantastic, others are sentimental, all original and striking. The eleventh number of this is a short but magnificent polonaise in D major, an extremely spirited and beautiful movement which has since been very popular. The transcriptions of the Paganini caprices were undertaken as studies for the composer himself in the direction of unexplored pianoforte effects, but Schumann had also the intention of providing in music new discipline for piano students. In my opinion the technical value of these works has not yet been realized, and it is quite possible that a later generation may esteem them more highly than the present. However this may be, the practice of writing gave Schumann a greater freedom, the effect of which is seen upon the next set of pieces, the six Intermezzi. These, however, are vague and mystical, rather than clear. With the "David's League Dances" the Schumann nature appears more plainly. The style is freer, and these new combinations are very charming, although they must undoubtedly have been fatal stumbling blocks to the fingers of a pianist trained in Dussek and Huenten. "The Carnival," a series of fanciful scenes, belongs to an earlier period, having been composed in 1834 and 1835. The different numbers, of which there are twenty-one, are provided with explanatory titles, such as "Pierrot," "Harlequin," "Valse Noble," "Eusebius," "Chopin," etc. Of all the earlier works the Fantasy-Pieces, Opus 12, are the most successful. These eight pictures, "In the Evening," "Soaring," "Why," "Whims," "In the Night," "Fable," "Dreams," and "The End of the Song," or peroration, are extremely characteristic and beautiful, and it is not easy to assign the pre-eminence of one number over the others. Of the same general class, only upon a smaller scale, are the "Scenes from Childhood," Opus 15, of which there are thirteen little pieces, each with an explanatory title, such as "Playing Tag," "Happy Enough," "Dreams" (Traumerei). In this direction Schumann often composed at a later period of his life. There is the "Album for the Young," Opus 68, containing forty-three short pieces, all with titles; the twenty "Album Leaves," Opus 124, and the "Forest Scenes," with titles like "The Entrance," "The Hunter on the Lookout," "Solitary Flowers," "Prophetic Bird," "Hunting Song," etc.