[Sidenote: The percussive element.]

[Sidenote: Melody with drum-beats.]

[Sidenote: Rhythmical accentuation.]

[Sidenote: A universal substitute.]

It is to be noted, further, that by a beautiful application of the doctrine of compensations, the factor which limits the capacity of the pianoforte as a melody instrument endows it with a merit which no other instrument has in the same degree, except the instruments of percussion, which, despite their usefulness, stand on the border line between savage and civilized music. It is from its relationship to the drum that the pianoforte derives a peculiarity quite unique in the melodic and harmonic family. Rhythm is, after all, the starting-point of music. More than melody, more than harmony, it stirs the blood of the savage, and since the most vital forces within man are those which date back to his primitive state, so the sense of rhythm is the most universal of the musical senses among even the most cultured of peoples to-day. By themselves the drums, triangles, and cymbals of an orchestra represent music but one remove from noise; but everybody knows how marvellously they can be utilized to glorify a climax. Now, in a very refined degree, every melody on the pianoforte, be it played as delicately as it may, is a melody with drum-beats. Manufacturers have done much toward eliminating the thump of the hammers against the strings, and familiarity with the tone of the instrument has closed our ears against it to a great extent as something intrusive, but the blow which excites the string to vibration, and thus generates sound, is yet a vital factor in determining the character of pianoforte music. The recurrent pulsations, now energetic, incisive, resolute, now gentle and caressing, infuse life into the melody, and by emphasizing its rhythmical structure (without unduly exaggerating it), present the form of the melody in much sharper outline than is possible on any other instrument, and much more than one would expect in view of the evanescent character of the pianoforte's tone. It is this quality, combined with the mechanism which places all the gradations of tone, from loudest to softest, at the easy and instantaneous command of the player, which, I fancy, makes the pianoforte, in an astonishing degree, a substitute for all the other instruments. Each instrument in the orchestra has an idiom, which sounds incomprehensible when uttered by some other of its fellows, but they can all be translated, with more or less success, into the language of the pianoforte—not the quality of the tone, though even that can be suggested, but the character of the phrase. The pianoforte can sentimentalize like the flute, make a martial proclamation like the trumpet, intone a prayer like the churchly trombone.

[Sidenote: The instrument's mechanism.]

[Sidenote: Tone formation and production.]

In the intricacy of its mechanism the pianoforte stands next to the organ. The farther removed from direct utterance we are the more difficult is it to speak the true language of music. The violin player and the singer, and in a less degree the performers upon some of the wind instruments, are obliged to form the musical tone—which, in the case of the pianist, is latent in the instrument, ready to present itself in two of its attributes in answer to a simple pressure upon the key. The most unmusical person in the world can learn to produce a series of tones from a pianoforte which shall be as exact in pitch and as varied in dynamic force as can Mr. Paderewski. He cannot combine them so ingeniously nor imbue them with feeling, but in the simple matter of producing the tone with the attributes mentioned, he is on a level with the greatest virtuoso. Very different is the case of the musician who must exercise a distinctly musical gift in the simple evocation of the materials of music, like the violinist and singer, who both form and produce the tone. For them compensation flows from the circumstance that the tone thus formed and produced is naturally instinct with emotional life in a degree that the pianoforte tone knows nothing of.

[Sidenote: Technical manipulation.]

[Sidenote: Touch and emotionality.]

In one respect, it may be said that the mechanics of pianoforte playing represent a low plane of artistic activity, a fact which ought always to be remembered whenever the temptation is felt greatly to exalt the technique of the art; but it must also be borne in mind that the mechanical nature of simple tone production in pianoforte playing raises the value of the emotional quality which, nevertheless, stands at the command of the player. The emotional potency of the tone must come from the manner in which the blow is given to the string. Recognition of this fact has stimulated reflection, and this in turn has discovered methods by which temperament and emotionality may be made to express themselves as freely, convincingly, and spontaneously in pianoforte as in violin playing. If this were not so it would be impossible to explain the difference in the charm exerted by different virtuosi, for it has frequently happened that the best-equipped mechanician and the most intellectual player has been judged inferior as an artist to another whose gifts were of the soul rather than of the brains and fingers.

[Sidenote: The technical cult.]

[Sidenote: A low form of art.]

The feats accomplished by a pianoforte virtuoso in the mechanical department are of so extraordinary a nature that there need be small wonder at the wide prevalence of a distinctly technical cult. All who know the real nature and mission of music must condemn such a cult. It is a sign of a want of true appreciation to admire technique for technique's sake. It is a mistaking of the outward shell for the kernel, a means for the end. There are still many players who aim to secure this admiration, either because they are deficient in real musical feeling, or because they believe themselves surer of winning applause by thus appealing to the lowest form of appreciation. In the early part of the century they would have been handicapped by the instrument which lent itself to delicacy, clearness, and gracefulness of expression, but had little power. Now the pianoforte has become a thing of rigid steel, enduring tons of strain from its strings, and having a voice like the roar of many waters; to keep pace with it players have become athletes with

"Thews of Anakim And pulses of a Titan's heart."

[Sidenote: Technical skill a matter of course.]

They care no more for the "murmurs made to bless," unless it be occasionally for the sake of contrast, but seek to astound, amaze, bewilder, and confound with feats of skill and endurance. That with their devotion to the purely mechanical side of the art they are threatening to destroy pianoforte playing gives them no pause whatever. The era which they illustrate and adorn is the technical era which was, is, and ever shall be, the era of decay in artistic production. For the judicious technique alone, be it never so marvellous, cannot serve to-day. Its possession is accepted as a condition precedent in the case of everyone who ventures to appear upon the concert-platform. He must be a wonder, indeed, who can disturb our critical equilibrium by mere digital feats. We want strength and velocity of finger to be coupled with strength, velocity, and penetration of thought. We want no halting or lisping in the proclamation of what the composer has said, but we want the contents of his thought, not the hollow shell, no matter how distinctly its outlines be drawn.

[Sidenote: The plan of study in this chapter.]

[Sidenote: A typical scheme of pieces.]

The factors which present themselves for consideration at a pianoforte recital—mechanical, intellectual, and emotional—can be most intelligently and profitably studied along with the development of the instrument and its music. All branches of the study are invited by the typical recital programme. The essentially romantic trend of Mr. Paderewski's nature makes his excursions into the classical field few and short; and it is only when a pianist undertakes to emulate Rubinstein in his historical recitals that the entire pre-Beethoven vista is opened up. It will suffice for the purposes of this discussion to imagine a programme containing pieces by Bach, D. Scarlatti, Handel, and Mozart in one group; a sonata by Beethoven; some of the shorter pieces of Schumann and Chopin, and one of the transcriptions or rhapsodies of Liszt.

[Sidenote: Periods in pianoforte music.]

Such a scheme falls naturally into four divisions, plainly differentiated from each other in respect of the style of composition and the manner of performance, both determined by the nature of the instrument employed and the status of the musical idea. Simply for the sake of convenience let the period represented by the first group be called the classic; the second the classic-romantic; the third the romantic, and the last the bravura. I beg the reader, however, not to extend these designations beyond the boundaries of the present study; they have been chosen arbitrarily, and confusion might result if the attempt were made to apply them to any particular concert scheme. I have chosen the composers because of their broadly representative capacity. And they must stand for a numerous epigonoi whose names make up our concert lists: say, Couperin, Rameau, and Haydn in the first group; Schubert in the second; Mendelssohn and Rubinstein in the third. It would not be respectful to the memory of Liszt were I to give him the associates with whom in my opinion he stands; that matter may be held in abeyance.

[Sidenote: Predecessors of the pianoforte.]

[Sidenote: The Clavichord.]

[Sidenote: "Bebung."]

The instruments for which the first group of writers down to Haydn and Mozart wrote, were the immediate precursors of the pianoforte—the clavichord, spinet, or virginal, and harpsichord. The last was the concert instrument, and stood in the same relationship to the others that the grand pianoforte of to-day stands to the upright and square. The clavichord was generally the medium for the composer's private communings with his muse, because of its superiority over its fellows in expressive power; but it gave forth only a tiny tinkle and was incapable of stirring effects beyond those which sprang from pure emotionality. The tone was produced by a blow against the string, delivered by a bit of brass set in the farther end of the key. The action was that of a direct lever, and the bit of brass, which was called the tangent, also acted as a bridge and measured off the segment of string whose vibration produced the desired tone. It was therefore necessary to keep the key pressed down so long as it was desired that the tone should sound, a fact which must be kept in mind if one would understand the shortcomings as well as the advantages of the instrument compared with the spinet or harpsichord. It also furnishes one explanation of the greater lyricism of Bach's music compared with that of his contemporaries. By gently rocking the hand while the key was down, a tremulous motion could be communicated to the string, which not only prolonged the tone appreciably but gave it an expressive effect somewhat analogous to the vibrato of a violinist. The Germans called this effect Bebung, the French Balancement, and it was indicated by a row of dots under a short slur written over the note. It is to the special fondness which Bach felt for the clavichord that we owe, to a great extent, the cantabile style of his music, its many-voicedness and its high emotionality.

[Sidenote: Quilled instruments.]

[Sidenote: Tone of the harpsichord and spinet.]

[Sidenote: Bach's "Music of the future."]

The spinet, virginal, and harpsichord were quilled instruments, the tone of which was produced by snapping the strings by means of plectra made of quill, or some other flexible substance, set in the upper end of a bit of wood called the jack, which rested on the farther end of the key and moved through a slot in the sounding-board. When the key was pressed down, the jack moved upward past the string which was caught and twanged by the plectrum. The blow of the clavichord tangent could be graduated like that of the pianoforte hammer, but the quills of the other instruments always plucked the strings with the same force, so that mechanical devices, such as a swell-box, similar in principle to that of the organ, coupling in octaves, doubling the strings, etc., had to be resorted to for variety of dynamic effects. The character of tone thus produced determined the character of the music composed for these instruments to a great extent. The brevity of the sound made sustained melodies ineffective, and encouraged the use of a great variety of embellishments and the spreading out of harmonies in the form of arpeggios. It is obvious enough that Bach, being one of those monumental geniuses that cast their prescient vision far into the future, refused to be bound by such mechanical limitations. Though he wrote Clavier, he thought organ, which was his true interpretative medium, and so it happens that the greatest sonority and the broadest style that have been developed in the pianoforte do not exhaust the contents of such a composition as the "Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue."

[Sidenote: Scarlatti's sonatas.]

The earliest music written for these instruments—music which does not enter into this study—was but one remove from vocal music. It came through compositions written for the organ. Of Scarlatti's music the pieces most familiar are a Capriccio and Pastorale which Tausig rewrote for the pianoforte. They were called sonatas by their composer, but are not sonatas in the modern sense. Sonata means "sound-piece," and when the term came into music it signified only that the composition to which it was applied was written for instruments instead of voices. Scarlatti did a great deal to develop the technique of the harpsichord and the style of composing for it. His sonatas consist each of a single movement only, but in their structure they foreshadow the modern sonata form in having two contrasted themes, which are presented in a fixed key-relationship. They are frequently full of grace and animation, but are as purely objective, formal, and soulless in their content as the other instrumental compositions of the epoch to which they belong.

[Sidenote: The suite.]

[Sidenote: Its history and form.]

[Sidenote: The bond between the movements.]

The most significant of the compositions of this period are the Suites, which because they make up so large a percentage of Clavier literature (using the term to cover the pianoforte and its predecessors), and because they pointed the way to the distinguishing form of the subsequent period, the sonata, are deserving of more extended consideration. The suite is a set of pieces in the same key, but contrasted in character, based upon certain admired dance-forms. Originally it was a set of dances and nothing more, but in the hands of the composers the dances underwent many modifications, some of them to the obvious detriment of their national or other distinguishing characteristics. The suite came into fashion about the middle of the seventeenth century and was also called Sonata da Camera and Balletto in Italy, and, later, Partita in France. In its fundamental form it embraced four movements: I. Allemande. II. Courante. III. Sarabande. IV. Gigue. To these four were sometimes added other dances—the Gavotte, Passepied, Branle, Minuet, Bourree, etc.—but the rule was that they should be introduced between the Sarabande and the Gigue. Sometimes also the set was introduced by a Prelude or an Overture. Identity of key was the only external tie between the various members of the suite, but the composers sought to establish an artistic unity by elaborating the sentiments for which the dance-forms seemed to offer a vehicle, and presenting them in agreeable contrast, besides enriching the primitive structure with new material. The suites of Bach and Handel are the high-water mark in this style of composition, but it would be difficult to find the original characteristics of the dances in their settings. It must suffice us briefly to indicate the characteristics of the principal forms.

[Sidenote: The Allemande.]

The Allemande, as its name indicates, was a dance of supposedly German origin. For that reason the German composers, when it came to them from France, where the suite had its origin, treated it with great partiality. It is in moderate tempo, common time, and made up of two periods of eight measures, both of which are repeated. It begins with an upbeat, and its metre, to use the terms of prosody, is iambic. The following specimen from Mersenne's "Harmonie Universelle," 1636, well displays its characteristics:

[Music illustration]

[Sidenote: Iambics in music and poetry.]

Robert Burns's familiar iambics,

"Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae fu' o' care!"

might serve to keep the rhythmical characteristics of the Allemande in mind were it not for the arbitrary changes made by the composers already hinted at. As it is, we frequently find the stately movement of the old dance broken up into elaborate, but always quietly flowing, ornamentation, as indicated in the following excerpt from the third of Bach's English suites:

[Music illustration]

[Sidenote: The Courante.]

The Courante, or Corrente ("Teach lavoltas high and swift corantos," says Shakespeare), is a French dance which was extremely popular in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries—a polite dance, like the minuet. It was in triple time, and its movement was bright and brisk, a merry energy being imparted to the measure by the prevailing figure, a dotted quarter-note, an eighth, and a quarter in a measure, as illustrated in the following excerpt also from Mersenne:

[Music illustration]

The suite composers varied the movement greatly, however, and the Italian Corrente consists chiefly of rapid running passages.

[Sidenote: The Sarabande.]

The Sarabande was also in triple time, but its movement was slow and stately. In Spain, whence it was derived, it was sung to the accompaniment of castanets, a fact which in itself suffices to indicate that it was originally of a lively character, and took on its solemnity in the hands of the later composers. Handel found the Sarabande a peculiarly admirable vehicle for his inspirations, and one of the finest examples extant figures in the triumphal music of his "Almira," composed in 1704:

[Sidenote: A Sarabande by Handel.]

[Music illustration]

Seven years after the production of "Almira," Handel recurred to this beautiful instrumental piece, and out of it constructed the exquisite lament beginning "Lascia ch'io pianga" in his opera "Rinaldo."

[Sidenote: The Gigue.]

[Sidenote: The Minuet.]

[Sidenote: The Gavotte.]

Great Britain's contribution to the Suite was the final Gigue, which is our jolly and familiar friend the jig, and in all probability is Keltic in origin. It is, as everybody knows, a rollicking measure in 6-8, 12-8, or 4-4 time, with twelve triplet quavers in a measure, and needs no description. It remained a favorite with composers until far into the eighteenth century. Shakespeare proclaims its exuberant lustiness when he makes Sir Toby Belch protest that had he Sir Andrew's gifts his "very walk should be a jig." Of the other dances incorporated into the suite, two are deserving of special mention because of their influence on the music of to-day—the Minuet, which is the parent of the symphonic scherzo, and the Gavotte, whose fascinating movement is frequently heard in latter-day operettas. The Minuet is a French dance, and came from Poitou. Louis XIV. danced it to Lully's music for the first time at Versailles in 1653, and it soon became the most popular of court and society dances, holding its own down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was long called the Queen of Dances, and there is no one who has grieved to see the departure of gallantry and grace from our ball-rooms but will wish to see Her Gracious Majesty restored to her throne. The music of the minuet is in 3-4 time, and of stately movement. The Gavotte is a lively dance-measure in common time, beginning, as a rule, on the third beat. Its origin has been traced to the mountain people of the Dauphine called Gavots—whence its name.

[Sidenote: Technique of the Clavier players.]

[Sidenote: Change in technique.]

The transferrence of this music to the modern pianoforte has effected a vast change in the manner of its performance. In the period under consideration emotionality, which is considered the loftiest attribute of pianoforte playing to-day, was lacking, except in the case of such masters of the clavichord as the great Bach and his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, who inherited his father's preference for that instrument over the harpsichord and pianoforte. Tastefulness in the giving out of the melody, distinctness of enunciation, correctness of phrasing, nimbleness and lightness of finger, summed up practically all that there was in virtuosoship. Intellectuality and digital skill were the essential factors. Beauty of tone through which feeling and temperament speak now was the product of the maker of the instrument, except again in the case of the clavichord, in which it may have been largely the creation of the player. It is, therefore, not surprising that the first revolution in technique of which we hear was accomplished by Bach, who, the better to bring out the characteristics of his polyphonic style, made use of the thumb, till then considered almost a useless member of the hand in playing, and bent his fingers, so that their movements might be more unconstrained.

[Sidenote: Bach's touch.]

[Sidenote: Handel's playing.]

[Sidenote: Scarlatti's style.]

Of the varieties of touch, which play such a role in pianoforte pedagogics to-day, nothing was known. Only on the clavichord was a blow delivered directly against the string, and, as has already been said, only on that instrument was the dynamic shading regulated by the touch. Practically, the same touch was used on the organ and the stringed instruments with key-board. When we find written praise of the old players it always goes to the fluency and lightness of their fingering. Handel was greatly esteemed as a harpsichord player, and seems to have invented a position of the hand like Bach's, or to have copied it from that master. Forkel tells us the movement of Bach's fingers was so slight as to be scarcely noticeable; the position of his hands remained unchanged throughout, and the rest of his body motionless. Speaking of Handel's harpsichord playing, Burney says that his fingers "seemed to grow to the keys. They were so curved and compact when he played that no motion, and scarcely the fingers themselves, could be discovered." Scarlatti's significance lies chiefly in an extension of the technique of his time so as to give greater individuality to the instrument. He indulged freely in brilliant passages and figures which sometimes call for a crossing of the hands, also in leaps of over an octave, repetition of a note by different fingers, broken chords in contrary motion, and other devices which prefigure modern pianoforte music.

[Sidenote: The sonata.]

That Scarlatti also pointed the way to the modern sonata, I have already said. The history of the sonata, as the term is now understood, ends with Beethoven. Many sonatas have been written since the last one of that great master, but not a word has been added to his proclamation. He stands, therefore, as a perfect exemplar of the second period in the scheme which we have adopted for the study of pianoforte music and playing. In a general way a sonata may be described as a composition of four movements, contrasted in mood, tempo, sentiment, and character, but connected by that spiritual bond of which mention was made in our study of the symphony. In short, a sonata is a symphony for a solo instrument.

[Sidenote: Haydn.]

When it came into being it was little else than a convenient formula for the expression of musical beauty. Haydn, who perfected it on its formal side, left it that and nothing more. Mozart poured the vessel full of beauty, but Beethoven breathed the breath of a new life into it. An old writer tells us of Haydn that he was wont to say that the whole art of composing consisted in taking up a subject and pursuing it. Having invented his theme, he would begin by choosing the keys through which he wished to make it pass.

"His exquisite feeling gave him a perfect knowledge of the greater or less degree of effect which one chord produces in succeeding another, and he afterward imagined a little romance which might furnish him with sentiments and colors."

[Sidenote: Beethoven.]

[Sidenote: Mozart's manner of playing.]

Beethoven began with the sentiment and worked from it outwardly, modifying the form when it became necessary to do so, in order to obtain complete and perfect utterance. He made spirit rise superior to matter. This must be borne in mind when comparing the technique of the previous period with that of which I have made Beethoven the representative. In the little that we are privileged to read of Mozart's style of playing, we see only a reflex of the players who went before him, saving as it was permeated by the warmth which went out from his own genial personality. His manipulation of the keys had the quietness and smoothness that were praised in Bach and Handel.

"Delicacy and taste," says Kullak, "with his lifting of the entire technique to the spiritual aspiration of the idea, elevate him as a virtuoso to a height unanimously conceded by the public, by connoisseurs, and by artists capable of judging. Clementi declared that he had never heard any one play so soulfully and charmfully as Mozart; Dittersdorf finds art and taste combined in his playing; Haydn asseverated with tears that Mozart's playing he could never forget, for it touched the heart. His staccato is said to have possessed a peculiarly brilliant charm."

[Sidenote: Clementi.]

[Sidenote: Beethoven as a pianist.]

The period of C.P.E. Bach, Haydn, and Mozart is that in which the pianoforte gradually replaced its predecessors, and the first real pianist was Mozart's contemporary and rival, Muzio Clementi. His chief significance lies in his influence as a technician, for he opened the way to the modern style of play with its greater sonority and capacity for expression. Under him passage playing became an entirely new thing; deftness, lightness, and fluency were replaced by stupendous virtuosoship, which rested, nevertheless, on a full and solid tone. He is said to have been able to trill in octaves with one hand. He was necessary for the adequate interpretation of Beethoven, whose music is likely to be best understood by those who know that he, too, was a superb pianoforte player, fully up to the requirements which his last sonatas make upon technical skill as well as intellectual and emotional gifts.

[Sidenote: Beethoven's technique.]

[Sidenote: Expression supreme.]

Czerny, who was a pupil of Beethoven, has preserved a fuller account of that great composer's art as a player than we have of any of his predecessors. He describes his technique as tremendous, better than that of any virtuoso of his day. He was remarkably deft in connecting the full chords, in which he delighted, without the use of the pedal. His manner at the instrument was composed and quiet. He sat erect, without movement of the upper body, and only when his deafness compelled him to do so, in order to hear his own music, did he contract a habit of leaning forward. With an evident appreciation of the necessities of old-time music he had a great admiration for clean fingering, especially in fugue playing, and he objected to the use of Cramer's studies in the instruction of his nephew by Czerny because they led to what he called a "sticky" style of play, and failed to bring out crisp staccatos and a light touch. But it was upon expression that he insisted most of all when he taught.

[Sidenote: Music and emotion.]

More than anyone else it was Beethoven who brought music back to the purpose which it had in its first rude state, when it sprang unvolitionally from the heart and lips of primitive man. It became again a vehicle for the feelings. As such it was accepted by the romantic composers to whom he belongs as father, seer, and prophet, quite as intimately as he belongs to the classicists by reason of his adherence to form as an essential in music. To his contemporaries he appears as an image-breaker, but to the clearer vision of to-day he stands an unshakable barrier to lawless iconoclasm. Says Sir George Grove, quoting Mr. Edward Dannreuther, in the passages within the inverted commas:

[Sidenote: Beethoven a Romanticist.]

"That he was no wild radical altering for the mere pleasure of alteration, or in the mere search for originality, is evident from the length of time during which he abstained from publishing, or even composing works of pretension, and from the likeness which his early works possess to those of his predecessors. He began naturally with the forms which were in use in his days, and his alteration of them grew very gradually with the necessities of his expression. The form of the sonata is 'the transparent veil through which Beethoven seems to have looked at all music.' And the good points of that form he retained to the last—the 'triune symmetry of exposition, illustration, and repetition,' which that admirable method allowed and enforced—but he permitted himself a much greater liberty than his predecessors had done in the relationship of the keys of the different movements, and parts of movements, and in the proportion of the clauses and sections with which he built them up. In other words, he was less bound by the forms and musical rules, and more swayed by the thought which he had to express, and the directions which that thought took in his mind."

[Sidenote: Schumann and Chopin.]

It is scarcely to be wondered at that when men like Schumann and Chopin felt the full force of the new evangel which Beethoven had preached, they proceeded to carry the formal side of poetic expression, its vehicle, into regions unthought of before their time. The few old forms had now to give way to a large variety. In their work they proceeded from points that were far apart—Schumann's was literary, Chopin's political. In one respect the lists of their pieces which appear most frequently on recital programmes seem to hark back to the suites of two centuries ago—they are sets of short compositions grouped, either by the composer (as is the case with Schumann) or by the performer (as is the case with Chopin in the hands of Mr. Paderewski). Such fantastic musical miniatures as Schumann's "Carnaval" and "Papillons" are eminently characteristic of the composer's intellectual and emotional nature, which in his university days had fallen under the spell of literary romanticism.

[Sidenote: Jean Paul's influence.]

[Sidenote: Schumann's inspirations.]

While ostensibly studying jurisprudence at Heidelberg, Schumann devoted seven hours a day to the pianoforte and several to Jean Paul. It was this writer who moulded not only Schumann's literary style in his early years, but also gave the bent which his creative activity in music took at the outset. To say little, but vaguely hint at much, was the rule which he adopted; to remain sententious in expression, but give the freest and most daring flight to his imagination, and spurn the conventional limitations set by rule and custom, his ambition. Such fanciful and symbolical titles as "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces," "Titan," etc., which Jean Paul adopted for his singular mixtures of tale, rhapsody, philosophy, and satire, were bound to find an imitator in so ardent an apostle as young Schumann, and, therefore, we have such compositions as "Papillons," "Carnaval," "Kreisleriana," "Phantasiestuecke," and the rest. Almost always, it may be said, the pieces which make them up were composed under the poetical and emotional impulses derived from literature, then grouped and named. To understand their poetic contents this must be known.

[Sidenote: Chopin's music.]

[Sidenote: Preludes.]

Chopin's fancy, on the other hand, found stimulation in the charm which, for him, lay in the tone of the pianoforte itself (to which he added a new loveliness by his manner of writing), as well as in the rhythms of the popular dances of his country. These dances he not only beautified as the old suite writers beautified their forms, but he utilized them as vessels which he filled with feeling, not all of which need be accepted as healthy, though much of it is. As to his titles, "Preludes" is purely an arbitrary designation for compositions which are equally indefinite in form and character; Niecks compares them very aptly to a portfolio full of drawings "in all stages of advancement—finished and unfinished, complete and incomplete compositions, sketches and mere memoranda, all mixed indiscriminately together." So, too, they appeared to Schumann: "They are sketches, commencements of studies, or, if you will, ruins, single eagle-wings, all strangely mixed together." Nevertheless some of them are marvellous soul-pictures.

[Sidenote: Etudes.]

[Sidenote: Nocturnes.]

The "Etudes" are studies intended to develop the technique of the pianoforte in the line of the composer's discoveries, his method of playing extended arpeggios, contrasted rhythms, progressions in thirds and octaves, etc., but still they breathe poetry and sometimes passion. Nocturne is an arbitrary, but expressive, title for a short composition of a dreamy, contemplative, or even elegiac, character. In many of his nocturnes Chopin is the adored sentimentalist of boarding-school misses. There is poppy in them and seductive poison for which Niecks sensibly prescribes Bach and Beethoven as antidotes. The term ballad has been greatly abused in literature, and in music is intrinsically unmeaning. Chopin's four Ballades have one feature in common—they are written in triple time; and they are among his finest inspirations.

[Sidenote: The Polonaise.]

Chopin's dances are conventionalized, and do not all speak the idiom of the people who created their forms, but their original characteristics ought to be known. The Polonaise was the stately dance of the Polish nobility, more a march or procession than a dance, full of gravity and courtliness, with an imposing and majestic rhythm in triple time that tends to emphasize the second beat of the measure, frequently syncopating it and accentuating the second half of the first beat:

[Music illustration]

[Sidenote: The Mazurka.]

National color comes out more clearly in his Mazurkas. Unlike the Polonaise this was the dance of the common people, and even as conventionalized and poetically refined by Chopin there is still in the Mazurka some of the rude vigor which lies in its propulsive rhythm:

[Music illustration] or [Music illustration]

[Sidenote: The Krakowiak.]

The Krakowiak (French Cracovienne, Mr. Paderewski has a fascinating specimen in his "Humoresques de Concert," op. 14) is a popular dance indigenous to the district of Cracow, whence its name. Its rhythmical elements are these:

[Music illustration] and [Music illustration]

[Sidenote: Idiomatic music.]

[Sidenote: Content higher than idiom.]

In the music of this period there is noticeable a careful attention on the part of the composers to the peculiarities of the pianoforte. No music, save perhaps that of Liszt, is so idiomatic. Frequently in Beethoven the content of the music seems too great for the medium of expression; we feel that the thought would have had better expression had the master used the orchestra instead of the pianoforte. We may well pause a moment to observe the development of the instrument and its technique from then till now, but as condemnation has already been pronounced against excessive admiration of technique for technique's sake, so now I would first utter a warning against our appreciation of the newer charm. "Idiomatic of the pianoforte" is a good enough phrase and a useful, indeed, but there is danger that if abused it may bring something like discredit to the instrument. It would be a pity if music, which contains the loftiest attributes of artistic beauty, should fail of appreciation simply because it had been observed that the pianoforte is not the most convenient, appropriate, or effective vehicle for its publication—a pity for the pianoforte, for therein would lie an exemplification of its imperfection. So, too, it would be a pity if the opinion should gain ground that music which had been clearly designed to meet the nature of the instrument was for that reason good pianoforte music, i.e., "idiomatic" music, irrespective of its content.

[Sidenote: Development of the pianoforte.]

In Beethoven's day the pianoforte was still a feeble instrument compared with the grand of to-day. Its capacities were but beginning to be appreciated. Beethoven had to seek and invent effects which now are known to every amateur. The instrument which the English manufacturer Broadwood presented to him in 1817 had a compass of six octaves, and was a whole octave wider in range than Mozart's pianoforte. In 1793 Clementi extended the key-board to five and a half octaves; six and a half octaves were reached in 1811, and seven in 1851. Since 1851 three notes have been added without material improvement to the instrument. This extension of compass, however, is far from being the most important improvement since the classic period. The growth in power, sonority, and tonal brilliancy has been much more marked, and of it Liszt made striking use.

[Sidenote: The Pedals.]

[Sidenote: Shifting pedal.]

[Sidenote: Damper pedal.]

Very significant, too, in their relation to the development of the music, were the invention and improvement of the pedals. The shifting pedal was invented by a Viennese maker named Stein, who first applied it to an instrument which he named "Saiten-harmonika." Before then soft effects were obtained by interposing a bit of felt between the hammers and the strings, as may still be seen in old square pianofortes. The shifting pedal, or soft pedal as it is popularly called, moves the key-board and action so that the hammer strikes only one or two of the unison strings, leaving the other to vibrate sympathetically. Beethoven was the first to appreciate the possibilities of this effect (see the slow movement of his concerto in G major and his last sonatas), but after him came Schumann and Chopin, and brought pedal manipulation to perfection, especially that of the damper pedal. This is popularly called the loud pedal, and the vulgarest use to which it can be put is to multiply the volume of tone. It was Chopin who showed its capacity for sustaining a melody and enriching the color effects by releasing the strings from the dampers and utilizing the ethereal sounds which rise from the strings when they vibrate sympathetically.

[Sidenote: Liszt.]

[Sidenote: A dual character.]

It is no part of my purpose to indulge in criticism of composers, but something of the kind is made unavoidable by the position assigned to Liszt in our pianoforte recitals. He is relied upon to provide a scintillant close. The pianists, then, even those who are his professed admirers, are responsible if he is set down in our scheme as the exemplar of the technical cult. Technique having its unquestioned value, we are bound to admire the marvellous gifts which enabled Liszt practically to sum up all the possibilities of pianoforte mechanism in its present stage of construction, but we need not look with unalloyed gratitude upon his influence as a composer. There were, I fear, two sides to Liszt's artistic character as well as his moral. I believe he had in him a touch of charlatanism as well as a magnificent amount of artistic sincerity—just as he blended a laxity of moral ideas with a profound religious mysticism. It would have been strange indeed, growing up as he did in the whited sepulchre of Parisian salon life, if he had not accustomed himself to sacrifice a little of the soul of art for the sake of vainglory, and a little of its poetry and feeling to make display of those dazzling digital feats which he invented. But, be it said to his honor, he never played mountebank tricks in the presence of the masters whom he revered. It was when he approached the music of Beethoven that he sank all thought of self and rose to a peerless height as an interpreting artist.

[Sidenote: Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies.]

[Sidenote: Gypsies and Magyars.]

Liszt's place as a composer of original music has not yet been determined, but as a transcriber of the music of others the givers of pianoforte recitals keep him always before us. The showy Hungarian Rhapsodies with which the majority of pianoforte recitals end are, however, more than mere transcriptions. They are constructed out of the folk-songs of the Magyars, and in their treatment the composer has frequently reproduced the characteristic performances which they receive at the hands of the Gypsies from whom he learned them. This fact and the belief to which Liszt gave currency in his book "Des Bohemiens et de leur musique en Hongrie" have given rise to the almost universal belief that the Magyar melodies are of Gypsy origin. This belief is erroneous. The Gypsies have for centuries been the musical practitioners of Hungary, but they are not the composers of the music of the Magyars, though they have put a marked impress not only on the melodies, but also on popular taste. The Hungarian folk-songs are a perfect reflex of the national character of the Magyars, and some have been traced back centuries in their literature. Though their most marked melodic peculiarity, the frequent use of a minor scale containing one or even two superfluous seconds, as thus:

[Sidenote: Magyar scales.]

[Music illustration]

may be said to belong to Oriental music as a whole (and the Magyars are Orientals), the songs have a rhythmical peculiarity which is a direct product of the Magyar language. This peculiarity consists of a figure in which the emphasis is shifted from the strong to the weak part by making the first take only a fraction of the time of the second, thus:

[Music illustration]

[Sidenote: The Scotch snap.]

[Sidenote: Gypsy epics.]

In Scottish music this rhythm also plays a prominent part, but there it falls into the beginning of a measure, whereas in Hungarian it forms the middle or end. The result is an effect of syncopation which is peculiarly forceful. There is an indubitable Oriental relic in the profuse embellishments which the Gypsies weave around the Hungarian melodies when playing them; but the fact that they thrust the same embellishments upon Spanish and Russian music, in fact upon all the music which they play, indicates plainly enough that the impulse to do so is native to them, and has nothing to do with the national taste of the countries for which they provide music. Liszt's confessed purpose in writing the Hungarian Rhapsodies was to create what he called "Gypsy epics." He had gathered a large number of the melodies without a definite purpose, and was pondering what to do with them, when it occurred to him that

"These fragmentary, scattered melodies were the wandering, floating, nebulous part of a great whole, that they fully answered the conditions for the production of an harmonious unity which would comprehend the very flower of their essential properties, their most unique beauties," and "might be united in one homogeneous body, a complete work, its divisions to be so arranged that each song would form at once a whole and a part, which might be severed from the rest and be examined and enjoyed by and for itself; but which would, none the less, belong to the whole through the close affinity of subject matter, the similarity of its inner nature and unity in development."[D]

[Sidenote: The Czardas.]

The basis of Liszt's Rhapsodies being thus distinctively national, he has in a manner imitated in their character and tempo the dual character of the Hungarian national dance, the Czardas, which consists of two movements, a Lassu, or slow movement, followed by a Friss. These alternate at the will of the dancer, who gives a sign to the band when he wishes to change from one to the other.

FOOTNOTES:

[D] Weitzmann, "Geschichte des Clavierspiels," p. 197.



VII

At the Opera

[Sidenote: Instability of taste.]

[Sidenote: The age of operas.]

Popular taste in respect of the opera is curiously unstable. It is surprising that the canons of judgment touching it have such feeble and fleeting authority in view of the popularity of the art-form and the despotic hold which it has had on fashion for two centuries. No form of popular entertainment is acclaimed so enthusiastically as a new opera by an admired composer; none forgotten so quickly. For the spoken drama we go back to Shakespeare in the vernacular, and, on occasions, we revive the masterpieces of the Attic poets who flourished more than two millenniums ago; but for opera we are bounded by less than a century, unless occasional performances of Gluck's "Orfeo" and Mozart's "Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Magic Flute" be counted as submissions to popular demand, which, unhappily, we know they are not. There is no one who has attended the opera for twenty-five years who might not bewail the loss of operas from the current list which appealed to his younger fancy as works of real loveliness. In the season of 1895-96 the audiences at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York heard twenty-six different operas. The oldest were Gluck's "Orfeo" and Beethoven's "Fidelio," which had a single experimental representation each. After them in seniority came Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor," which is sixty-one years old, and has overpassed the average age of "immortal" operas by from ten to twenty years, assuming Dr. Hanslick's calculation to be correct.

[Sidenote: Decimation of the operatic list.]

[Sidenote: Dependence on singers.]

The composers who wrote operas for the generation that witnessed Adelina Patti's debut at the Academy of Music, in New York, were Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Meyerbeer. Thanks to his progressive genius, Verdi is still alive on the stage, though nine-tenths of the operas which made his fame and fortune have already sunk into oblivion; Meyerbeer, too, is still a more or less potent factor with his "Huguenots," which, like "Lucia," has endured from ten to twenty years longer than the average "immortal;" but the continued existence of Bellini and Donizetti seems to be as closely bound up with that of two or three singers as was Meleager's life with the burning billet which his mother snatched from the flames. So far as the people of London and New York are concerned whether or not they shall hear Donizetti more, rests with Mesdames Patti and Melba, for Donizetti spells "Lucia;" Bellini pleads piteously in "Sonnambula," but only Madame Nevada will play the mediator between him and our stiff-necked generation.

[Sidenote: An unstable art-form.]

[Sidenote: Carelessness of the public.]

[Sidenote: Addison's criticism.]

[Sidenote: Indifference to the words.]

Opera is a mixed art-form and has ever been, and perhaps must ever be, in a state of flux, subject to the changes of taste in music, the drama, singing, acting, and even politics and morals; but in one particular the public has shown no change for a century and a half, and it is not quite clear why this has not given greater fixity to popular appreciation. The people of to-day are as blithely indifferent to the fact that their operas are all presented in a foreign tongue as they were two centuries ago in England. The influence of Wagner has done much to stimulate a serious attitude toward the lyric drama, but this is seldom found outside of the audiences in attendance on German representations. The devotees of the Latin exotic, whether it blend French or Italian (or both, as is the rule in New York and London) with its melodic perfume, enjoy the music and ignore the words with the same nonchalance that Addison made merry over. Addison proves to have been a poor prophet. The great-grandchildren of his contemporaries are not at all curious to know "why their forefathers used to sit together like an audience of foreigners in their own country, and to hear whole plays acted before them in a tongue which they did not understand." What their great-grandparents did was also done by their grandparents and their parents, and may be done by their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren after them, unless Englishmen and Americans shall take to heart the lessons which Wagner essayed to teach his own people. For the present, though we have abolished many absurdities which grew out of a conception of opera that was based upon the simple, sensuous delight which singing gave, the charm of music is still supreme, and we can sit out an opera without giving a thought to the words uttered by the singers. The popular attitude is fairly represented by that of Boileau, when he went to hear "Atys" and requested the box-keeper to put him in a place where he could hear Lully's music, which he loved, but not Quinault's words, which he despised.

[Sidenote: Past and present.]

It is interesting to note that in this respect the condition of affairs in London in the early part of the eighteenth century, which seemed so monstrously diverting to Addison, was like that in Hamburg in the latter part of the seventeenth, and in New York at the end of the nineteenth. There were three years in London when Italian and English were mixed in the operatic representations.

"The king or hero of the play generally spoke in Italian and his slaves answered him in English; the lover frequently made his court and gained the heart of his princess in a language which she did not understand."

[Sidenote: Polyglot opera.]

At length, says Addison, the audience got tired of understanding half the opera, "and to ease themselves entirely of the fatigue of thinking, so ordered it that the whole opera was performed in an unknown tongue."

[Sidenote: Perversions of texts.]

There is this difference, however, between New York and London and Hamburg at the period referred to: while the operatic ragout was compounded of Italian and English in London, Italian and German in Hamburg, the ingredients here are Italian, French, and German, with no admixture of the vernacular. Strictly speaking, our case is more desperate than that of our foreign predecessors, for the development of the lyric drama has lifted its verbal and dramatic elements into a position not dreamed of two hundred years ago. We might endure with equanimity to hear the chorus sing

[Sidenote: "Robert le Diable."]

"La soupe aux choux se fait dans la marmite, Dans la marmite on fait la soupe aux choux"

at the beginning of "Robert le Diable," as tradition says used to be done in Paris, but we surely ought to rise in rebellion when the chorus of guards change their muttered comments on Pizarro's furious aria in "Fidelio" from

[Sidenote: "Fidelio."]

"Er spricht von Tod und Wunde!"

to

"Er spricht vom todten Hunde!"

as is a prevalent custom among the irreverent choristers of Germany.

Addison confesses that he was often afraid when seeing the Italian performers "chattering in the vehemence of action," that they were calling the audience names and abusing them among themselves. I do not know how to measure the morals and manners of our Italian singers against those of Addison's time, but I do know that many of the things which they say before our very faces for their own diversion are not complimentary to our intelligence. I hope I have a proper respect for Mr. Gilbert's "bashful young potato," but I do not think it right while we are sympathizing with the gentle passion of Siebel to have his representative bring an offering of flowers and, looking us full in the face, sing:

"Le patate d'amor, O cari fior!"

[Sidenote: "Faust."]

[Sidenote: Porpora's "Credo."]

It isn't respectful, and it enables the cynics of to-day to say, with the poetasters and fiddlers of Addison's day, that nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense. Operatic words were once merely stalking-horses for tunes, but that day is past. We used to smile at Brignoli's "Ah si! ah si! ah si!" which did service for any text in high passages; but if a composer should, for the accommodation of his music, change the wording of the creed into "Credo, non credo, non credo in unum Deum," as Porpora once did, we should all cry out for his excommunication.

As an art-form the opera has frequently been criticised as an absurdity, and it is doubtless owing to such a conviction that many people are equally indifferent to the language employed and the sentiments embodied in the words. Even so serious a writer as George Hogarth does not hesitate in his "Memoirs of the Opera" to defend this careless attitude.

[Sidenote: Are words unessential?]

"The words of an air are of small importance to the comprehension of the business of the piece," he says; "they merely express a sentiment, a reflection, a feeling; it is quite enough if their general import is known, and this may most frequently be gathered from the situation, aided by the character and expression of the music."

[Sidenote: "Il Trovatore."]

I, myself, have known an ardent lover of music who resolutely refused to look into a libretto because, being of a lively and imaginative temperament, she preferred to construct her own plots and put her own words in the mouths of the singers. Though a constant attendant on the opera, she never knew what "Il Trovatore" was about, which, perhaps, is not so surprising after all. Doubtless the play which she had fashioned in her own mind was more comprehensible than Verdi's medley of burnt children and asthmatic dance rhythms. Madame de Stael went so far as to condemn the German composers because they "follow too closely the sense of the words," whereas the Italians, "who are truly the musicians of nature, make the air and the words conform to each other only in a general way."

[Sidenote: The opera defended as an art-form.]

[Sidenote: The classic tragedy.]

Now the present generation has witnessed a revolution in operatic ideas which has lifted the poetical elements upon a plane not dreamed of when opera was merely a concert in costume, and it is no longer tolerable that it be set down as an absurdity. On the contrary, I believe that, looked at in the light thrown upon it by the history of the drama and the origin of music, the opera is completely justified as an art-form, and, in its best estate, is an entirely reasonable and highly effective entertainment. No mean place, surely, should be given in the estimation of the judicious to an art-form which aims in an equal degree to charm the senses, stimulate the emotions, and persuade the reason. This, the opera, or, perhaps I would better say the lyric drama, can be made to do as efficiently as the Greek tragedy did it, so far as the differences between the civilizations of ancient Hellas and the nineteenth century will permit. The Greek tragedy was the original opera, a fact which literary study would alone have made plain even if it were not clearly of record that it was an effort to restore the ancient plays in their integrity that gave rise to the Italian opera three centuries ago.

[Sidenote: Genesis of the Greek plays.]

Every school-boy knows now that the Hellenic plays were simply the final evolution of the dances with which the people of Hellas celebrated their religious festivals. At the rustic Bacchic feasts of the early Greeks they sang hymns in honor of the wine-god, and danced on goat-skins filled with wine. He who held his footing best on the treacherous surface carried home the wine as a reward. They contended in athletic games and songs for a goat, and from this circumstance scholars have surmised we have the word tragedy, which means "goat-song." The choric songs and dances grew in variety and beauty. Finally, somebody (tradition preserves the name of Thespis as the man) conceived the idea of introducing a simple dialogue between the strophes of the choric song. Generally this dialogue took the form of a recital of some story concerning the god whose festival was celebrating. Then when the dithyrambic song returned, it would either continue the narrative or comment on its ethical features.

[Sidenote: Mimicry and dress.]

The merry-makers, or worshippers, as one chooses to look upon them, manifested their enthusiasm by imitating the appearance as well as the actions of the god and his votaries. They smeared themselves with wine-lees, colored their bodies black and red, put on masks, covered themselves with the skins of beasts, enacted the parts of nymphs, fauns, and satyrs, those creatures of primitive fancy, half men and half goats, who were the representatives of natural sensuality untrammelled by conventionality.

[Sidenote: Melodrama.]

Next, somebody (Archilocus) sought to heighten the effect of the story or the dialogue by consorting it with instrumental music; and thus we find the germ of what musicians—not newspaper writers—call melodrama, in the very early stages of the drama's development. Gradually these simple rustic entertainments were taken in hand by the poets who drew on the legendary stores of the people for subjects, branching out from the doings of gods to the doings of god-like men, the popular heroes, and developed out of them the masterpieces of dramatic poetry which are still studied with amazement, admiration, and love.

[Sidenote: Factors in ancient tragedy.]

The dramatic factors which have been mustered in this outline are these:

1. The choric dance and song with a religious purpose.

2. Recitation and dialogue.

3. Characterization by means of imitative gestures—pantomime, that is—and dress.

4. Instrumental music to accompany the song and also the action.

[Sidenote: Operatic elements.]

[Sidenote: Words and music united.]

All these have been retained in the modern opera, which may be said to differ chiefly from its ancient model in the more important and more independent part which music plays in it. It will appear later in our study that the importance and independence achieved by one of the elements consorted in a work by nature composite, led the way to a revolution having for its object a restoration of something like the ancient drama. In this ancient drama and its precursor, the dithyrambic song and dance, is found a union of words and music which scientific investigation proves to be not only entirely natural but inevitable. In a general way most people are in the habit of speaking of music as the language of the emotions. The elements which enter into vocal music (of necessity the earliest form of music) are unvolitional products which we must conceive as co-existent with the beginnings of human life. Do they then antedate articulate speech? Did man sing before he spoke? I shall not quarrel with anybody who chooses so to put it.

[Sidenote: Physiology of singing.]

Think a moment about the mechanism of vocal music. Something occurs to stir up your emotional nature—a great joy, a great sorrow, a great fear; instantly, involuntarily, in spite of your efforts to prevent it, maybe, muscular actions set in which proclaim the emotion which fills you. The muscles and organs of the chest, throat, and mouth contract or relax in obedience to the emotion. You utter a cry, and according to the state of feeling which you are in, that cry has pitch, quality (timbre the singing teachers call it), and dynamic intensity. You attempt to speak, and no matter what the words you utter, the emotional drama playing on the stage of your heart is divulged.

[Sidenote: Herbert Spencer's laws.]

The man of science observes the phenomenon and formulates its laws, saying, for instance, as Herbert Spencer has said: "All feelings are muscular stimuli;" and, "Variations of voice are the physiological results of variations of feeling." It was the recognition of this extraordinary intimacy between the voice and the emotions which brought music all the world over into the service of religion, and provided the phenomenon, which we may still observe if we be but minded to do so, that mere tones have sometimes the sanctity of words, and must as little be changed as ancient hymns and prayers.

[Sidenote: Invention of Italian opera.]

[Sidenote: Musical declamation.]

The end of the sixteenth century saw a coterie of scholars, art-lovers, and amateur musicians in Florence who desired to re-establish the relationship which they knew had once existed between music and the drama. The revival of learning had made the classic tragedy dear to their hearts. They knew that in the olden time tragedy, of which the words only have come down to us, had been musical throughout. In their efforts to bring about an intimacy between dramatic poetry and music they found that nothing could be done with the polite music of their time. It was the period of highest development in ecclesiastical music, and the climax of artificiality. The professional musicians to whom they turned scorned their theories and would not help them; so they fell back on their own resources. They cut the Gordian knot and invented a new style of music, which they fancied was like that used by the ancients in their stage-plays. They abolished polyphony, or contrapuntal music, in everything except their choruses, and created a sort of musical declamation, using variations of pitch and harmonies built up on a simple bass to give emotional life to their words. In choosing their tones they were guided by observation of the vocal inflections produced in speech under stress of feeling, showing thus a recognition of the law which Herbert Spencer formulated two hundred and fifty years later.

[Sidenote: The music of the Florentine reformers.]

[Sidenote: The solo style, harmony, and declamation.]

[Sidenote: Fluent recitatives.]

The music which these men produced and admired sounds to us monotonous in the extreme, for what little melody there is in it is in the choruses, which they failed to emancipate from the ecclesiastical art, and which for that reason were as stiff and inelastic as the music which in their controversies with the musicians they condemned with vigor. Yet within their invention there lay an entirely new world of music. Out of it came the solo style, a song with instrumental accompaniment of a kind unknown to the church composers. Out of it, too, came harmony as an independent factor in music instead of an accident of the simultaneous flow of melodies; and out of it came declamation, which drew its life from the text. The recitatives which they wrote had the fluency of spoken words and were not retarded by melodic forms. The new style did not accomplish what its creators hoped for, but it gave birth to Italian opera and emancipated music in a large measure from the formalism that dominated it so long as it belonged exclusively to the composers for the church.

[Sidenote: Predecessors of Wagner.]

[Sidenote: Old operatic distinctions.]

[Sidenote: Opera buffa.]

[Sidenote: Opera seria.]

[Sidenote: Recitative.]

Detailed study of the progress of opera from the first efforts of the Florentines to Wagner's dramas would carry us too far afield to serve the purposes of this book. My aim is to fix the attitude proper, or at least useful, to the opera audience of to-day. The excursion into history which I have made has but the purpose to give the art-form a reputable standing in court, and to explain the motives which prompted the revolution accomplished by Wagner. As to the elements which compose an opera, only those need particular attention which are illustrated in the current repertory. Unlike the opera audiences of two centuries ago, we are not required to distinguish carefully between the various styles of opera in order to understand why the composer adopted a particular manner, and certain fixed forms in each. The old distinctions between Opera seria, Opera buffa, and Opera semiseria perplex us no more. Only because of the perversion of the time-honored Italian epithet buffa by the French mongrel Opera bouffe is it necessary to explain that the classic Opera buffa was a polite comedy, whose musical integument did not of necessity differ from that of Opera seria except in this—that the dialogue was carried on in "dry" recitative (recitativo secco, or parlante) in the former, and a more measured declamation with orchestral accompaniment (recitativo stromentato) in the latter. So far as subject-matter was concerned the classic distinction between tragedy and comedy served. The dry recitative was supported by chords played by a double-bass and harpsichord or pianoforte. In London, at a later period, for reasons of doubtful validity, these chords came to be played on a double-bass and violoncello, as we occasionally hear them to-day.

[Sidenote: Opera semiseria.]

[Sidenote: "Don Giovanni."]

Shakespeare has taught us to accept an infusion of the comic element in plays of a serious cast, but Shakespeare was an innovator, a Romanticist, and, measured by old standards, his dramas are irregular. The Italians, who followed classic models, for a reason amply explained by the genesis of the art-form, rigorously excluded comedy from serious operas, except as intermezzi, until they hit upon a third classification, which they called Opera semiseria, in which a serious subject was enlivened with comic episodes. Our dramatic tastes being grounded in Shakespeare, we should be inclined to put down "Don Giovanni" as a musical tragedy; or, haunted by the Italian terminology, as Opera semiseria; but Mozart calls it Opera buffa, more in deference to the librettist's work, I fancy, than his own, for, as I have suggested elsewhere,[E] the musician's imagination in the fire of composition went far beyond the conventional fancy of the librettist in the finale of that most wonderful work.

[Sidenote: An Opera buffa.]

[Sidenote: French Grand Opera.]

[Sidenote: Opera comique.]

[Sidenote: "Mignon."]

[Sidenote: "Faust."]

It is well to remember that "Don Giovanni" is an Opera buffa when watching the buffooneries of Leporello, for that alone justifies them. The French have Grand Opera, in which everything is sung to orchestra accompaniment, there being neither spoken dialogue nor dry recitative, and Opera comique, in which the dialogue is spoken. The latter corresponds with the honorable German term Singspiel, and one will not go far astray if he associate both terms with the English operas of Wallace and Balfe, save that the French and Germans have generally been more deft in bridging over the chasm between speech and song than their British rivals. Opera comique has another characteristic, its denouement must be happy. Formerly the Theatre national de l'Opera-Comique in Paris was devoted exclusively to Opera comique as thus defined (it has since abolished the distinction and Grand Opera may be heard there now), and, therefore, when Ambroise Thomas brought forward his "Mignon," Goethe's story was found to be changed so that Mignon recovered and was married to Wilhelm Meister at the end. The Germans are seldom pleased with the transformations which their literary masterpieces are forced to undergo at the hands of French librettists. They still refuse to call Gounod's "Faust" by that name; if you wish to hear it in Germany you must go to the theatre when "Margarethe" is performed. Naturally they fell indignantly afoul of "Mignon," and to placate them we have a second finale, a denouement allemand, provided by the authors, in which Mignon dies as she ought.

[Sidenote: Grosse Oper.]

[Sidenote: Comic opera and operetta.]

[Sidenote: Opera bouffe.]

[Sidenote: Romantic operas.]

Of course the Grosse Oper of the Germans is the French Grand Opera and the English grand opera—but all the English terms are ambiguous, and everything that is done in Covent Garden in London or the Metropolitan Opera House in New York is set down as "grand opera," just as the vilest imitations of the French vaudevilles or English farces with music are called "comic operas." In its best estate, say in the delightful works of Gilbert and Sullivan, what is designated as comic opera ought to be called operetta, which is a piece in which the forms of grand opera are imitated, or travestied, the dialogue is spoken, and the purpose of the play is to satirize a popular folly. Only in method, agencies, and scope does such an operetta (the examples of Gilbert and Sullivan are in mind) differ from comedy in its best conception, as a dramatic composition which aims to "chastise manners with a smile" ("Ridendo castigat mores"). Its present degeneracy, as illustrated in the Opera bouffe of the French and the concoctions of the would-be imitators of Gilbert and Sullivan, exemplifies little else than a pursuit far into the depths of the method suggested by a friend to one of Lully's imitators who had expressed a fear that a ballet written, but not yet performed, would fail. "You must lengthen the dances and shorten the ladies' skirts," he said. The Germans make another distinction based on the subject chosen for the story. Spohr's "Jessonda," Weber's "Freischuetz," "Oberon," and "Euryanthe," Marschner's "Vampyr," "Templer und Juedin," and "Hans Heiling" are "Romantic" operas. The significance of this classification in operatic literature may be learned from an effort which I have made in another chapter to discuss the terms Classic and Romantic as applied to music. Briefly stated, the operas mentioned are put in a class by themselves (and their imitations with them) because their plots were drawn from the romantic legends of the Middle Ages, in which the institutions of chivalry, fairy lore, and supernaturalism play a large part.

[Sidenote: Modern designations.]

[Sidenote: German opera and Wagner.]

These distinctions we meet in reading about music. As I have intimated, we do not concern ourselves much with them now. In New York and London the people speak of Italian, English, and German opera, referring generally to the language employed in the performance. But there is also in the use of the terms an underlying recognition of differences in ideals of performance. As all operas sung in the regular seasons at Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera House are popularly spoken of as Italian operas, so German opera popularly means Wagner's lyric dramas, in the first instance, and a style of performance which grew out of Wagner's influence in the second. As compared with Italian opera, in which the principal singers are all and the ensemble nothing, it means, mayhap, inferior vocalists but better actors in the principal parts, a superior orchestra and chorus, and a more conscientious effort on the part of conductor, stage manager, and artists, from first to last, to lift the general effect above the conventional level which has prevailed for centuries in the Italian opera houses.

[Sidenote: Wagner's "Musikdrama."]

[Sidenote: Modern Italian terminology.]

In terminology, as well as in artistic aim, Wagner's lyric dramas round out a cycle that began with the works of the Florentine reformers of the sixteenth century. Wagner called his later operas Musikdramen, wherefore he was soundly abused and ridiculed by his critics. When the Italian opera first appeared it was called Dramma per musica, or Melodramma, or Tragedia per musica, all of which terms stand in Italian for the conception that Musikdrama stands for in German. The new thing had been in existence for half a century, and was already on the road to the degraded level on which we shall find it when we come to the subject of operatic singing, before it came to be called Opera in musica, of which "opera" is an abbreviation. Now it is to be observed that the composers of all countries, having been taught to believe that the dramatic contents of an opera have some significance, are abandoning the vague term "opera" and following Wagner in his adoption of the principles underlying the original terminology. Verdi called his "Aida" an Opera in quattro atti, but his "Otello" he designated a lyric drama (Dramma lirico), his "Falstaff" a lyric comedy (Commedia lirica), and his example is followed by the younger Italian composers, such as Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and Puccini.

[Sidenote: Recitative.]

In the majority of the operas of the current list the vocal element illustrates an amalgamation of the archaic recitative and aria. The dry form of recitative is met with now only in a few of the operas which date back to the last century or the early years of the present. "Le Nozze di Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" are the most familiar works in which it is employed, and in the second of these it is used only by the bearers of the comedy element. The dissolute Don chatters glibly in it with Zerlina, but when Donna Anna and Don Ottavio converse, it is in the recitativo stromentato.

[Sidenote: The object of recitative.]

[Sidenote: Defects of the recitative.]

[Sidenote: What it can do.]

In both forms recitative is the vehicle for promoting the action of the play, preparing its incidents, and paving the way for the situations and emotional states which are exploited, promulgated, and dwelt upon in the set music pieces. Its purpose is to maintain the play in an artificial atmosphere, so that the transition from dialogue to song may not be so abrupt as to disturb the mood of the listener. Of all the factors in an opera, the dry recitative is the most monotonous. It is not music, but speech about to break into music. Unless one is familiar with Italian and desirous of following the conversation, which we have been often told is not necessary to the enjoyment of an opera, its everlasting use of stereotyped falls and intervallic turns, coupled with the strumming of arpeggioed cadences on the pianoforte (or worse, double-bass and violoncello), makes it insufferably wearisome to the listener. Its expression is fleeting—only for the moment. It lacks the sustained tones and structural symmetry essential to melody, and therefore it cannot sustain a mood. It makes efficient use of only one of the fundamental factors of vocal music—variety of pitch—and that in a rudimentary way. It is specifically a product of the Italian language, and best adapted to comedy in that language. Spoken with the vivacity native to it in the drama, dry recitative is an impossibility in English. It is only in the more measured and sober gait proper to oratorio that we can listen to it in the vernacular without thought of incongruity. Yet it may be made most admirably to preserve the characteristics of conversation, and even illustrate Spencer's theory of the origin of music. Witness the following brief example from "Don Giovanni," in which the vivacity of the master is admirably contrasted with the lumpishness of his servant:

[Sidenote: An example from Mozart.]

[Music illustration: Sempre sotto voce.

DON GIOVANNI. LEPORELLO. Le-po-rel-lo, o-ve sei? Son qui per Le-po-rel-lo, where are you? I'm here and

D.G. LEP. dis-gra-zi-a! e vo-i? Son qui. Chi e more's the pit-y! and you, Sir? Here too. Who's

D.G. mor-to, voi, o il vec-chio? Che do- been killed, you or the old one? What a

LEP. man-da da bes-tia! il vec-chio. Bra-vo! ques-tion, you boo-by! the old one. Bra-vo!]

[Sidenote: Its characteristics.]

Of course it is left to the intelligence and taste of the singers to bring out the effects in a recitative, but in this specimen it ought to be noted how sluggishly the disgruntled Leporello replies to the brisk question of Don Giovanni, how correct is the rhetorical pause in "you, or the old one?" and the greater sobriety which comes over the manner of the Don as he thinks of the murder just committed, and replies, "the old one."

[Sidenote: Recitative of some sort necessary.]

[Sidenote: The speaking voice in opera.]

I am strongly inclined to the belief that in one form or the other, preferably the accompanied, recitative is a necessary integer in the operatic sum. That it is possible to accustom one's self to the change alternately from speech to song we know from the experiences made with German, French, and English operas, but these were not true lyric dramas, but dramas with incidental music. To be a real lyric drama an opera ought to be musical throughout, the voice being maintained from beginning to end on an exalted plane. The tendency to drop into the speaking voice for the sake of dramatic effect shown by some tragic singers does not seem to me commendable. Wagner relates with enthusiasm how Madame Schroeder-Devrient in "Fidelio" was wont to give supreme emphasis to the phrase immediately preceding the trumpet signal in the dungeon scene ("Another step, and you are dead!") by speaking the last word "with an awful accent of despair." He then comments:

"The indescribable effect of this manifested itself to all like an agonizing plunge from one sphere into another, and its sublimity consisted in this, that with lightning quickness a glimpse was given to us of the nature of both spheres, of which one was the ideal, the other the real."

[Sidenote: Wagner and Schroeder-Devrient.]

I have heard a similar effect produced by Herr Niemann and Madame Lehmann, but could not convince myself that it was not an extremely venturesome experiment. Madame Schroeder-Devrient saw the beginning of the modern methods of dramatic expression, and it is easy to believe that a sudden change like that so well defined by Wagner, made with her sweeping voice and accompanied by her plastic and powerful acting, was really thrilling; but, I fancy, nevertheless, that only Beethoven and the intensity of feeling which pervades the scene saved the audience from a disturbing sense of the incongruity of the performance.

[Sidenote: Early forms.]

[Sidenote: The dialogue of the Florentines.]

The development which has taken place in the recitative has not only assisted in elevating opera to the dignity of a lyric drama by saving us from alternate contemplation of the two spheres of ideality and reality, but has also made the factor itself an eloquent vehicle of dramatic expression. Save that it had to forego the help of the instruments beyond a mere harmonic support, the stilo rappresentativo, or musica parlante, as the Florentines called their musical dialogue, approached the sustained recitative which we hear in the oratorio and grand opera more closely than it did the recitative secco. Ever and anon, already in the earliest works (the "Eurydice" of Rinuccini as composed by both Peri and Caccini) there are passages which sound like rudimentary melodies, but are charged with vital dramatic expression. Note the following phrase from Orpheus's monologue on being left in the infernal regions by Venus, from Peri's opera, performed A.D. 1600, in honor of the marriage of Maria de' Medici to Henry IV. of France:

[Sidenote: An example from Peri.]

[Music illustration:

E voi, deh per pie-ta, del mio mar-ti-re Che nel mi-se-ro cor di-mo-ra e-ter-no, La-cri-ma-te al mio pian-to om-bre d'in-fer-no!]

[Sidenote: Development of the arioso.]

[Sidenote: The aria supplanted.]

[Sidenote: Music and action.]

Out of this style there grew within a decade something very near the arioso, and for all the purposes of our argument we may accept the melodic devices by which Wagner carries on the dialogue of his operas as an uncircumscribed arioso superimposed upon a foundation of orchestral harmony; for example, Lohengrin's address to the swan, Elsa's account of her dream. The greater melodiousness of the recitativo stromentato, and the aid of the orchestra when it began to assert itself as a factor of independent value, soon enabled this form of musical conversation to become a reflector of the changing moods and passions of the play, and thus the value of the aria, whether considered as a solo, or in its composite form as duet, trio, quartet, or ensemble, was lessened. The growth of the accompanied recitative naturally brought with it emancipation from the tyranny of the classical aria. Wagner's reform had nothing to do with that emancipation, which had been accomplished before him, but went, as we shall see presently, to a liberation of the composers from all the formal dams which had clogged the united flow of action and music. We should, however, even while admiring the achievements of modern composers in blending these elements (and I know of no more striking illustration than the scene of the fat knight's discomfiture in Ford's house in Verdi's "Falstaff") bear in mind that while we may dream of perfect union between words and music, it is not always possible that action and music shall go hand in hand. Let me repeat what once I wrote in a review of Cornelius's opera, "Der Barbier von Bagdad:"[F]

[Sidenote: How music can replace incident.]

"After all, of the constituents of an opera, action, at least that form of it usually called incident, is most easily spared. Progress in feeling, development of the emotional element, is indeed essential to variety of musical utterance, but nevertheless all great operas have demonstrated that music is more potent and eloquent when proclaiming an emotional state than while seeking to depict progress toward such a state. Even in the dramas of Wagner the culminating musical moments are predominantly lyrical, as witness the love-duet in 'Tristan,' the close of 'Das Rheingold,' Siegmund's song, the love-duet, and Wotan's farewell in 'Die Walkuere,' the forest scene and final duet in 'Siegfried,' and the death of Siegfried in 'Die Goetterdaemmerung.' It is in the nature of music that this should be so. For the drama which plays on the stage of the heart, music is a more truthful language than speech; but it can stimulate movement and prepare the mind for an incident better than it can accompany movement and incident. Yet music that has a high degree of emotional expressiveness, by diverting attention from externals to the play of passion within the breasts of the persons can sometimes make us forget the paucity of incident in a play. 'Tristan und Isolde' is a case in point. Practically, its outward action is summed up in each of its three acts by the same words: Preparation for a meeting of the ill-starred lovers; the meeting. What is outside of this is mere detail; yet the effect of the tragedy upon a listener is that of a play surcharged with pregnant occurrence. It is the subtle alchemy of music that transmutes the psychological action of the tragedy into dramatic incident."