The main Allegro melody not so much grows out of the Largo prelude, as it is of the same fibre and

[Music: Allegro moderato 4 times molto expr. (Violins) (Wood with tremolo strings) (Strings with clarinets and bassoons)]

identity. The violins sing here against a stately march of harmonies. Such is the fine coherence that the mere heralding rhythm is wrought of the first chords of the Largo, with their descending stress. And the expressive melody is of the same essence as the original sighing motto, save with a shift of accent that gives a new fillip of motion. In this movement at least we see the type of real symphony, that throbs and sings and holds us in the thrall of its spirit and song.

Moments there are here of light and joy, quickly drooping to the darker mood. Following the free flight of main melody is a skein of quicker figures, on aspirant pulse, answered by broad, tragic descent in minor tones.

Milder, more tranquil sings now the second melody, a striking embodiment of the sense of striving ascent. Chanted in higher reeds, it is immediately

[Music: (Oboes and clarinets) (Violins) (Oboes and clar'ts) (Horns) (Bassoons) dolce (Pizz. strings)]

followed and accompanied by an expressive answer in the strings. On the wing of this song we rise to a height where begins the path of a brief nervous motive (of the first notes of the symphony) that with the descending tone abounds in various guise. As a bold glance at the sun is punished by a sight of solar figures all about, so we feel throughout the tonal story the presence of these symbols. An epilogue of wistful song leads to the repeated melodies.

The main figure of the plot that follows is the first melody, now in slow, graceful notes, now in feverish pace, though the brief (second) motive moves constantly here and there. A darkest descent follows into an Avernus of deep brooding on the legend, with an ascending path of the brief, nervous phrase and a reverse fall, that finally wears out its own despair and ends in a sombre verse of the prelude, with new shades of melancholy, then plunges into an overwhelming burst on the sighing phrase. Thence the path of brooding begins anew; but it is now ascendant, on the dual pulse of the poignant motto and the brief, nervous motive. The whole current of passion is thus uttered in the prelude strain that at the outset was pregnant with feeling. At the crisis it is answered or rather interwoven with a guise of the second theme, in hurried pace, chanted by stentorian brass and wood in hallooing chorus that reaches a high exultation. To be sure the Russian at his gladdest seems tinged with sense of fate. So from the single burst we droop again. But the gloom is pierced by brilliant shafts,—herald calls (of brass and wood) that raise the mood of the returning main melody, and in their continuous refrain add a buoyant stimulus. And the verse of quicker figures has a new fire and ferment. All absent is the former descent of minor tones. Instead, in solemn hush of tempest, without the poignant touch, the tranquil second melody returns with dulcet answer of strings. A loveliest verse is of this further song where, in a dual chase of tune, the melody moves in contained rapture. In the cadence is a transfigured phase of the ascending tone, mingled with the retiring melody, all woven to a soothing cadence.

But the struggle is not over, nor is redemption near. The dulcet phrases sink once more to sombre depth where there is a final, slow-gathering burst of passion on the motto, with a conclusive ring almost of fierce triumph.

II.—The second movement, Allegro molto, is a complete change from introspection and passion to an

[Music: Allegro molto (Insistent strum of strings) Marcato]

abandon as of primitive dance. Strings stir the feet; the horns blow the first motive of the savage tune; the upper wood fall in with a dashing jingle,—like a stroke of cymbals across the hostile harmonies.

Whether a recurring idiom is merely personal or belongs to the special work is difficult to tell. In reality it matters little. Here the strange rising tone is the same as in the former (second) melody. In the rude vigor of harmonies the primitive idea is splendidly stressed.

Right in the answer is a guise of short, nervous phrase, that gets a new touch of bizarre by a leap of the seventh from below. In this figure that moves throughout the symphony we see an outward symbol of an inner connection.—Bells soon lend a festive ring to the main tune.

In quieter pace comes a tranquil song of lower voices with a companion melody above,—all in serene major. Though it grew naturally out of the rude

[Music: Molto cantabile]

dance, the tune has a contrasting charm of idyll and, too, harks back to the former lyric strains that followed the second melody. When the dance returns, there is instead of discussion a mere extension of main motive in full chorus.

But here in the midst the balance is more than restored. From the dance that ceases abruptly we go straight to school or rather cloister. On our recurring nervous phrase a fugue is rung with all pomp and ceremony (meno mosso); and of the dance there are mere faint echoing memories, when the

[Music: Meno mosso (Oboe) molto marcato (Violins) staccato]

fugal text seems for a moment to weave itself into the first tune.

Instead, comes into the midst of sermon a hymnal chant, blown gently by the brass, while other stray

[Music: Leggiero]

voices run lightly on the thread of fugue. There is, indeed, a playful suggestion of the dance somehow in the air. A final tempest of the fugue[A] brings us back to the full verse of dance and the following melodies. But before the end sounds a broad hymnal line in the brass with a dim thread of the fugue, and the figures steal away in solemn stillness.

[Footnote A: It is of the first two notes of the symphony that the fugal theme is made. For though it is longer in the strings, the brief motion is ever accented in the wood. Thus relentless is the themal coherence. If we care to look closer we see how the (following) chant is a slower form of the fugal theme, while the bass is in the line of the dance-tune. In the chant in turn we cannot escape a reminder, if not a likeness, of the second theme of the first movement.]

III.—The Adagio has one principal burden, first borne by violins,—that rises from the germ of earlier

[Music: Adagio (Strings with added harmony in bassoons and horns)]

lyric strains. Then the clarinet joins in a quiet madrigal of tender phrases. We are tempted to find here an influence from a western fashion, a taint of polythemal virtuosity, in this mystic maze of many strains harking from all corners of the work, without a gain over an earlier Russian simplicity. Even the Slavic symphony seems to have fallen into a state of artificial cunning, where all manners of greater

[Music: (Solo clarinet) espress. (Divided strings) dolce]

or lesser motives are packed close in a tangled mass.

It cannot be said that a true significance is achieved in proportion to the number of concerting themes. We might dilate on the sheer inability of the hearer to grasp a clear outline in such a multiple plot.

There is somehow a false kind of polyphony, a too great facility of spurious counterpoint, that differs subtly though sharply from the true art where the number entails no loss of individual quality; where the separate melodies move by a divine fitness that measures the perfect conception of the multiple idea; where there is no thought of a later padding to give a shimmer of profound art. It is here that the symphony is in danger from an exotic style that had its origin in German music-drama.

From this point the Rachmaninow symphony languishes in the fountain of its fresh inspiration, seems consciously constructed with calculating care.

There is, after all, no virtue in itself in mere themal interrelation,—in particular of lesser phrases. One cogent theme may well prevail as text of the whole. As the recurring motives are multiplied, they must lose individual moment. The listener's grasp becomes more difficult, until there is at best a mystic maze, a sweet chaos, without a clear melodic thought. It cannot be maintained that the perception of the modern audience has kept pace with the complexity of scores. Yet there is no gainsaying an alluring beauty of these waves of sound rising to fervent height in the main melody that is expressive of a modern wistfulness.

But at the close is a fierce outbreak of the first motto, with a defiance of regret, in faster, reckless pace, brief, but suddenly recurring. Exquisite is this

[Music: (Ob.) cantabile (Strings, wood and horns)]

cooing of voices in mournful bits of the motto, with a timid upper phrase in the descending tone.

On we go in the piling of Ossa on Pelion, where the motto and even the Scherzo dance lend their text. Yet all is fraught with sentient beauty as, rising in Titanic climb, it plunges into an overwhelming cry in the Adagio melody. Throughout, the ascending and descending tones, close interwoven, give a blended hue of arduous striving and regret.

After a pause follow a series of refrains of solo voices in the melody, with muted strings, with mingled strains of the motto. In the bass is an undulation that recalls the second theme of former movement. And the clarinet returns with its mystic madrigal of melody; now the Adagio theme enters and gives it point and meaning. In one more burst it sings in big and little in the same alluring harmony, whence it dies down to soothing close in brilliant gamut as of sinking sun.

IV.—Allegro vivace. Throwing aside the clinging

[Music: Allegro vivace Molto marcato (Strings, wood and horns with reinforced harmonies)]

fragments of fugue in the prelude we rush into a gaiety long sustained. Almost strident is the ruthless merriment; we are inclined to fear that the literal coherence of theme is greater than the inner connection of mood. At last the romp hushes to a whisper of drum, with strange patter of former dance. And following and accompanying it is a new hymnal (or is it martial) line, as it were the reverse of the other

[Music: (Reeds and horns) (Strings with the quicker dance phrase of 2d movement)]

chant. The gay figures flit timidly back,—a struggle 'twixt pleasure and fate,—but soon regain control.

If we cared to interpret, we might find in the Finale a realized aspiration. The truth is the humors of the themal phrases, as of the movements, jar: they are on varying planes. The coarser vein of the last is no solace to the noble grief of the foregoing.

Again the change or series of moods is not clearly defined. They seem a parade of visions. The hymn may be viewed as a guise of the former chant of the Scherzo, with the dance-trip in lowest bass.

Straight from the rush and romp we plunge anew into a trance of sweet memories. The lyric vein here binds together earlier strains, whose kinship had not appeared. They seemed less significant, hidden as subsidiary ideas. If we care to look back we find a germ of phrase in the first Prelude, and then the answer of the second (Allegro) theme of first movement. There was, too, the sweep of dual melody following the rude dance of Scherzo. Above all is here the essence and spirit of the central Adagio melody of the symphony.

The answering strain is of high beauty, with a melting sense of farewell. From the sad ecstasy is a

[Music: (Strings with higher and lower 8ve.) (Wood and horns in 8ves.) (Basses of strings and reeds)]

descent to mystic musing, where abound the symbols of rising and falling tones. More and more moving is the climactic melody of regret with a blended song in large and little. Most naturally it sinks into a full verse of the Adagio tune—whence instantly is aroused a new battle of moods.

While the dance capers below, above is the sobbing phrase from the heart of the Adagio. The trip falls into the pace of hymnal march. The shadows of many figures return. Here is the big descending scale in tragic minor from the first movement. Large it looms, in bass and treble. Answering it is a figure of sustained thirds that recalls the former second (Allegro) melody. And still the trip of dance goes on.

Sharpest and strongest of all these memories is the big sigh of sombre harmonies from the first Largo prelude, answered by the original legend. And the dance still goes tripping on and the tones rumble in descent.

The dance has vanished; no sound but the drone of dull, falling tones, that multiply like the spirits of the sorcerer apprentice, in large form and small, with the big rumbling in a quick patter as of scurrying mice.

Suddenly a new spirit enters with gathering volume and warmer harmony. As out of a dream we gradually emerge, at the end with a shock of welcome to light and day, as we awake to the returning glad dance. And here is a new entrancing counter-tune above that crowns the joy.

Once again the skip falls into the ominous descent with the phantom of Scherzo dance in basses. Now returns the strange hymnal line of march and the other anxious hue.

But quickly they are transformed into the tempest of gaiety in full parade. When a new burst is preparing, we see the sighing figure all changed to opposite mood. The grim tune of Scherzo dance enters mysteriously in big and little and slowly takes on a softened hue, losing the savage tinge.

After the returning dance, the farewell melody sings from full throat. Before the ending revel we may feel a glorified guise of the sombre legend of the symphony.



CHAPTER XII

SIBELIUS. A FINNISH SYMPHONY[A]

[Footnote A: Symphony No. 1, in E minor, by Jan Sibelius, born in 1865.]

We must expect that the music of newer nations will be national. It goes without saying; for the music comes fresh from the soil; it is not the result of long refined culture. There is the strain and burst of a burden of racial feeling to utter itself in the most pliant and eloquent of all the languages of emotion. It is the first and noblest sentiment of every nation conscious of its own worth, and it has its counterpart in the individual. Before the utterance has been found by a people, before it has felt this sense of its own quality, no other message can come. So the most glorious period in the history of every country (even in the eyes of other nations) is the struggle for independence, whether successful or not.

All on a new plane is this northernmost symphony, with a crooning note almost of savage, and sudden, fitful bursts from languorous to fiery mood. The harmony, the turn of tune have a national quality, delicious and original, though the Oriental tinge appears, as in Slav and Magyar music, both in bold and in melancholy humor. Though full of strange and warm colors, the harmonic scheme is simple; rather is the work a tissue of lyric rhapsody than the close-woven plot of tonal epic. A certain trace of revery does find a vent in the traditional art of contrary melodies. But a constant singing in pairs is less art than ancient folk-manner, like primal music in the love or dance songs of savages.

The symphony begins with a quiet rhapsody of solo clarinet in wistful minor, clear without chords, though there is a straying into major. There is no accompaniment save a soft roll of drum, and that soon dies away.

[Music: Andante, ma non troppo espress. (Clarinet)]

The rhapsody seems too vague for melody; yet there are motives, one in chief, winding to a pause; here is a new appealing phrase; the ending is in a

[Music]

return to the first. Over the whole symphony is cast the hue of this rhapsody, both in mood and in the literal tone.

All opposite, with sudden spring of buoyant strings, strikes the Allegro tune ending in a quick, dancing trip. The first voice is immediately pursued by another

[Music: Allegro energico (2d violins) Piu forte (Violins with higher 8ve.) (Cellos with higher 8ve. in violas)]

in similar phase, like a gentler shadow, and soon rises to a passionate chord that is the main idiom of the movement.

[Music: (Strings, wood and horns)]

A second theme in clear-marked tones of reed and horns, as of stern chant, is taken up in higher wood and grows to graceful melody in flowing strings.

[Music: marcato]

There is a series of flights to an ever higher perch of harmony until the first Allegro motive rings out in fullest chorus, again with the companion tune and the cadence of poignant dissonance.

A new episode comes with shimmering of harp and strings, where rare and dainty is the sense of primal

[Music: marcato (Flutes) (Strings with chord of harp)]

harmony that lends a pervading charm to the symphony. Here the high wood has a song in constant thirds, right from the heart of the rhapsody, all bedecked as melody with a new rhythm and answer. Soon this simple lay is woven in a skein of pairs of voices, meeting or diverging. But quickly we are back in the trance of lyric song, over palpitating strings, with the refrain very like the former companion phrase that somehow leads or grows to a

[Music: Tranquillo (Oboe, with other wood) (Strings with higher E)]

rhythmic verse of the first strain of the rhapsody. Here begins a long mystic phase of straying voices (of the wood) in the crossing figures of the song, in continuous fantasy that somehow has merged into the line of second Allegro theme, winging towards a brilliant height where the strings ring out the strain amid sharp cries of the brass in startling hues of harmony and electric calls from the first rhapsody.

From out the maze and turmoil the shadowy melody rises in appealing beauty like heavenly vision and lo! is but a guise of the first strain of rhapsody. It rises amid flashes of fiery brass in bewildering blare of main theme, then sinks again to the depth of brooding, though the revery of the appealing phrase has a climactic height of its own, with the strange, palpitating harmonies.

In a new meditation on bits of the first Allegro theme sounds suddenly a fitful burst of the second, that presently emerges in triumphant, sovereign song. Again, on a series of flights the main theme is reached and leaps once more to impassioned height.

But this is followed by a still greater climax of moving pathos whence we descend once more to lyric meditation (over trembling strings). Follows a final tempest and climax of the phrase of second theme.

The movement thus ends, not in joyous exultation, but in a fierce triumph of sombre minor.

The Andante is purest folk-melody, and it is strange how we know this, though we do not know the special theme. We cannot decry the race-element as a rich fount of melody. While older nations strive and strain, it pours forth by some mystery in prodigal flow with less tutored peoples who are singing their first big song to the world. Only, the ultimate goal for each racial inspiration must be a greater universal celebration.

The lyric mood is regnant here, in a melody that, springing from distant soil, speaks straight to every heart, above all with the concluding refrain. It is of the purest vein, of the primal fount, deeper than mere racial turn or trait. Moreover, with a whole coronet of gems of modern harmony, it has a broad swing and curve that gives the soothing sense of fireside;

[Music: Andante ma non troppo lento (Muted violins) (Sustained horns and basses with lower 8ve.; constant stroke of harp) (Clarinets)]

it bears a burden of elemental, all-contenting emotion. In the main, the whole movement is one lyric flight. But there come the moods of musing and rhapsodic rapture. In a brief fugal vein is a mystic harking back to the earlier prelude. In these lesser phrases are the foil or counter-figures for the bursts of the melody.

It is the first motive of the main tune that is the refrain in ever higher and more fervent exclamation, or in close pressing chase of voices. Then follows a melting episode,—some golden piece of the melody in plaintive cellos, 'neath tremulous wood or delicate choirs of strings.

But there is a second tune, hardly less moving, in dulcet group of horns amid shimmering strings and harp, with a light bucolic answer in playful reed.

[Music: Molto tranquillo (Violins) dolce (Horns) (With arpeggic harp)]

And it has a glowing climax, too, with fiery trumpet, and dashing strings and clashing wood.

Gorgeous in the warm depth of horns sound now the returning tones of the first noble melody, with playful trill of the wood, in antiphonal song of trumpets and strings. And there are revels of new turns of the tune (where the stirring harmony seems the best of all) that will rise to a frenzy of tintinnabulation. A quicker counter-theme lends life and motion to all this play and plot.

A big, solemn stride of the middle strain (of main melody) precedes the last returning verse, with all the tender pathos of the beginning.

The Scherzo is wild race-feeling let loose—national music that has not yet found a melody. Significantly the drums begin the tune, to a dancing strain of pizzicato strings. The tune is so elemental that the

[Music: Allegro (Violins) (Pizz. cellos double above in violas)]

drums can really play it; the answer is equally rude,—an arpeggic motive of strings against quick runs of the higher wood. Out of it grows a tinge of tune with a fresh spring of dance,—whence returns the first savage motive. This is suddenly changed to the guise of a fugal theme, with new close, that starts a maze of disputation.

Right from the full fire of the rough dance, sad-stressed chords plunge into a moving plaint with much sweetness of melody and higher counter-melody. Then returns again the original wild rhythm.

[Music: Lento ma non troppo]

In the last movement the composer confesses the "Fantasy" in the title. It begins with a broad sweep of the returning rhapsody, the prologue of the symphony, though without the former conclusion. Now it sings in a strong unison of the strings largamente ed appassionato, and with clang of chord in lower brass. The appealing middle phrase is all disguised in strum as of dance. The various strains sing freely in thirds, with sharp punctuating chords. Throughout is a balance of the pungent vigor of harmonies with dulcet melody.

In sudden rapid pace the strumming figure dances in the lower reed, then yields to the play (in the strings) of a lively (almost comic) tune of a strong national tinge,—a kind that seems native to northern countries and is not unlike a strain that crept into

[Music: Allegro molto]

American song. A tempest of pranks is suddenly halted before the entrance of a broad melody, with underlying harmonies of latent passion. The feeling of fantasy is in the further flow, with free singing chords of harp. But ever between the lines creeps in the strumming phrase, from the first prelude, returned to its earlier mood.

[Music: Andante assai (Violins) cantabile ed espressivo (Horns) (Clarinets) (Tremolo cellos, with lower C in basses)]

With baffling mystery anon come other appealing phrases from the beginning, that show the whole to be the woof almost of a single figure, or at least to lie within the poetic scope of the prologue. A fugal revel of the comic phrase with the quick strum as counter-theme ends in a new carnival,—here a dashing march, there a mad chase of strident harmonies. Now sings the full romance and passion of the melody through the whole gamut from pathos to rapture. It ends with poignant stress of the essence of the song, with sheerest grating of straining harmonies. In the midst, too, is again the mystic symbol from the heart of the prelude. Then with a springing recoil comes a last jubilation, though still in the prevailing minor, with a final coursing of the quick theme.

The whole is a broad alternation of moods, of wild abandon and of tender feeling,—the natural dual quality of primal music. So, at least in the Finale, this is a Finnish fantasy, on the very lines of other national rhapsody.



CHAPTER XIII

BOHEMIAN SYMPHONIES

In the music of modern Bohemia is one of the most vital utterances of the folk-spirit. The critic may not force a correspondence of politics and art to support his theory. Yet a cause may here be found as in Russia and Finland. (Poland and Hungary had their earlier song). There is a sincerity, an unpremeditated quality in Bohemian music that is not found among its western neighbors. The spirit is its own best proof, without a conscious stress of a national note. Indeed, Bohemian music is striking, not at all in a separate tonal character, like Hungarian, but rather in a subtle emotional intensity, which again differs from the wild abandon of the Magyars. An expression it must be of a national feeling that has for ages been struggling against absorption. Since ancient times Bohemia has been part of a Teutonic empire. The story of its purely native kings is not much more than legendary. Nor has it shared the harder fate of other small nations; for the Teuton rule at least respected its separate unity.

But the long association with the German people has nearly worn away the racial signs and hall-marks of its folk-song. A Bohemian tune thus has a taste much like the native German. Yet a quality of its own lies in the emotional vitality, shown in a school of national drama and, of late, in symphony. It is not necessary to seek in this modern culmination a correspondence with an impending danger of political suppression. Art does not follow history with so instant a reflection.

The intensity of this national feeling appears when Smetana himself, the minstrel of the people, is charged at home with yielding to the foreign influence. Here again is the hardship of the true national poet who feels that for the best utterance of his message he needs the grounding upon a broader art; here is the narrow Chauvinism that has confined the music of many lands within the primitive forms.

Two types we have in Bohemian music of later times: one, Smetana, of pure national celebration; a second, Dvorak, who with a profound absorption of the German masters, never escaped the thrall of the folk-element and theme.

SMETANA. SYMPHONIC POEM, "THE MOLDAU RIVER"[A]

[Footnote A: Friedrich Smetana, 1824-1884, foremost among Bohemian dramatic composers, wrote a cycle of symphonic poems under the general title "My Country." Of these the present work is the second.]

Simplicity is uppermost in these scores; yet the true essence is almost hidden to the mere reader. With all primitive quality they are more difficult than many a classic symphony. The latent charm of folk humor and sentiment depends more on tradition and sympathy than on notation.

The naively graphic impulse (that we find throughout the choral works of Bach) that merely starts a chance themal line, as here of the first branch of the Moldau, does not disturb the emotional expression. And while the feeling is sustained, the art is there, not to stifle but to utter and set free the native spring of song.

It must be yielded that the design is not profound; it smacks of the village fair rather than of grand tragedy. Song is ever supreme, and with all abundance of contrapuntal art does not become sophisticated. The charm is not of complexity, but of a more child-like, sensuous kind.

It must all be approached in a different way from other symphonic music. The minstrel is not even the peasant in court costume, as Dvorak once was called. He is the peasant in his own village dress, resplendent with color and proud of his rank.

We cannot enjoy the music with furrowed brow. It is a case where music touches Mother Earth and rejuvenates herself. Like fairy lore and proverbs, its virtue lies in some other element than profound design. For any form of song or verse that enshrines the spirit of a people and is tried in the forge of ages of tradition, lives on more surely than the fairest art of individual poet.

The stream is the great figure, rising from small sources in playful flutes, with light spray of harp and

[Music: Allegro commodo non agitato lusingando (Flute with chord of pizz. strings)]

strings. The first brook is joined by another (in clarinets) from a new direction. Soon grows the number and the rustle of confluent waters. The motion of the strings is wavelike, of a broader flow, though underneath we scan the several lesser currents. Above floats now the simple, happy song, that expands

[Music: dolce (Reeds and horns with waving strings and stroke of triangle)]

with the stream and at last reaches a glad, sunny major.

Still to the sound of flowing waters comes the forest hunt, with all the sport of trumpets and other brass.

It is descriptive music, tonal painting if you will; but the color is local or national. The strokes are not so much of events or scenes as of a popular humor and character, which we must feel with small stress of each event. The blowing of trumpets, the purling of streams, the swaying of trees, in primal figures, all breathe the spirit of Bohemia.

The hunt dies away; emerging from the forest the jolly sounds greet us of a peasant wedding. The

[Music: Tempo moderato (Reeds and strings)]

parade reaches the church in high festivity and slowly vanishes to tinkling bells.

Night has fallen; in shifted scene the stream is sparkling in the moonlight still to the quiet sweet harmonies. But this is all background for a dance of nymphs, while a dulcet, sustained song sounds through the night. At last, to the golden horns a faintest harmony is added of deeper brass. Still very softly, the brass strike a quicker phrase and we seem to hear the hushed chorus of hunt with the call of trumpets, as the other brass lead in a new verse that grows lustier with the livelier song and dance, till—with a flash we are alone with the running stream with which the dance of nymphs has somehow merged.

On it goes, in happy, ever more masterful course, a symbol of the nation's career, surging in bright major and for a moment quieting before the mighty Rapids of St. Johann. Here the song of the stream is nearly lost in the rush of eddies and the strife of big currents, with the high leaps of dashing spray,—ever recurring like unceasing battle with a towering clash at the height of the tempest. At last all meet in overpowering united torrent, suddenly to hush before the stream, at the broadest, rushes majestically along in hymnal song of exalted harmonies and triumphant melody, with joyous after-strains.

As the pilgrim to his Mecca, so the waters are wafted into the climactic motive of the Hradschin, the chant of the holy citadel. The rest is a long jubilation

[Music: Motiv Vyserad (Full orchestra, with rapid figures in the strings)]

on quicker beats of the chant, amid the plash of waters and the shaking of martial brass. Strangely, as the other sounds die away, the melody of the stream emerges clear and strong, then vanishes in the distance before the jubilant Amen.

In the general view we must feel a wonderful contrast here with the sophomoric state of the contemporary art in other lands where the folk-song has lost its savor,—where the natural soil is exhausted and elegant castles are built in the air of empty fantasy, or on the sands of a vain national pride.

DVORAK. SYMPHONY, "FROM THE NEW WORLD."[A]

[Footnote A: Anton Dvorak, 1841-1904.]

It is a much-discussed question how far Dvorak's American symphony is based on characteristic folk-song. Here are included other questions: to what extent the themes are based on an African type, and whether negro music is fairly American folk-song. Many, perhaps most people, will answer with a general negative. But it seems to be true that many of us do not really know the true negro song,—have quite a wrong idea of it.

To be sure, all argument aside, it is a mistake to think that folk-song gets its virtue purely from a distinctive national quality,—because it is Hungarian, Scandinavian, or Slavonic. If all the national modes and rhythms of the world were merged in one republic, there would still be a folk-song of the true type and value. There is a subtle charm and strength in the spontaneous simplicity, all aside from racial color. It is here that, like Antaeus, the musician touches Mother Earth and renews his strength. So, when Dvorak suddenly shifts in the midst of his New World fantasy into a touch of Bohemian song, there is no real loss. It is all relevant in the broad sense of folk feeling, that does not look too closely at geographical bounds. It is here that music, of all arts, leads to a true state of equal sympathy, regardless of national prejudice. What, therefore, distinguishes Dvorak's symphony may not be mere negro melody, or even American song, but a genuine folk-feeling, in the widest meaning.

In one way, Dvorak's work reminds us of Mendelssohn's Scotch Symphony: both exploit foreign national melody in great poetic forms. One could write a Scotch symphony in two ways: one, in Mendelssohn's, the other would be to tell of the outer impression in the terms of your own folk-song. That is clearly the way Mendelssohn wrote most of the Italian Symphony,—which stands on a higher plane than the Scotch. For folk-song is the natural language of its own people. It is interesting to see the exact type that each theme represents; but it is not so important as to catch the distinction, the virtue of folk-song per se and the purely natural utterance of one's own. Of course, every one writes always in his folk-tones. On the other hand, one may explore one's own special treasures of native themes, as Dvorak himself did so splendidly in his Slavic Dances and in his Legends. So one must, after all, take this grateful, fragrant work as an idea of what American composers might do in full earnest. Dvorak is of all later masters the most eminent folk-musician. He shows greatest sympathy, freedom and delight in revelling among the simple tones and rhythms of popular utterance, rearing on them, all in poetic spontaneity, a structure of high art. Without strain or show, Dvorak stood perhaps the most genuine of late composers, with a firm foot on the soil of native melody, yet with the balance and restraint and the clear vision of the trained master.[A]

[Footnote A: The whole subject of American and negro folk-song is new and unexplored. There are races of the blacks living on the outer reefs and islands of the Carolinas, with not more than thirty whites in a population of six thousand, where "spirituals" and other musical rites are held which none but negroes may attend. The truest African mode and rhythm would seem to be preserved here; to tell the truth, there is great danger of their loss unless they are soon recorded.]

In a certain view, it would seem that by the fate of servitude the American negro has become the element in our own national life that alone produces true folk-song,—that corresponds to the peasant and serf of Europe, the class that must find in song the refuge and solace for its loss of material joys. So Dvorak perhaps is right, with a far seeing eye, when he singles the song of the despised race as the national type.

Another consideration fits here. It has been suggested that the imitative sense of the negro has led him to absorb elements of other song. It is very difficult to separate original African elements of song from those that may thus have been borrowed. At any rate, there is no disparagement of the negro's musical genius in this theory. On the contrary, it would be almost impossible to imagine a musical people that would resist the softer tones of surrounding and intermingling races. We know, to be sure, that Stephen Foster, the author of "The Old Folks at Home," "Massa's in the Cold, Cold Ground," and other famous ballads, was a Northerner, though his mother came from the South. We hear, too, that he studied negro music eagerly. It is not at all inconceivable, however, Foster's song may have been devoid of negro elements, that the colored race absorbed, wittingly or unwittingly, something of the vein into their plaints or lullabies,—that, indeed, Foster's songs may have been a true type that stirred their own imitation. From all points of view,—the condition of slavery, the trait of assimilation and the strong gift of musical expression may have conspired to give the negro a position and equipment which would entitle his tunes to stand as the real folk-song of America.

The eccentric accent seems to have struck the composer strongly. And here is a strange similarity with Hungarian song,—though there is, of course, no kinship of race whatever between Bohemians and Magyars. One might be persuaded to find here simply an ebullition of rhythmic impulse,—the desire for a special fillip that starts and suggests a stronger energy of motion than the usual conventional pace. At any rate, the symphony begins with just such strong, nervous phrases that soon gather big force. Hidden is the germ of the first, undoubtedly the chief theme of the whole work.

It is more and more remarkable how a search will show the true foundation of almost all of Dvorak's themes. Not that one of them is actually borrowed, or lacks an original, independent reason for being.

Whether by imitation or not, the pentatonic scale of the Scotch is an intimate part of negro song. This avoidance of the seventh or leading tone is seen throughout the symphony as well as in the traditional jubilee tunes. It may be that this trait was merely confirmed in the African by foreign musical influence. For it seems that the leading-note, the urgent need for the ascending half-tone in closing, belongs originally to the minstrelsy of the Teuton and of central Europe, that resisted and conquered the sterner modes of the early Church. Ruder nations here agreed with Catholic ritual in preferring the larger interval of the whole tone. But in the quaint jump of the third the Church had no part, clinging closely to a diatonic process.

The five-toned scale is indeed so widespread that it cannot be fastened on any one race or even family of nations. The Scotch have it; it is characteristic of the Chinese and of the American Indian. But, independently of the basic mode or scale, negro songs show here and there a strange feeling for a savage kind of lowering of this last note. The pentatonic scale simply omits it, as well as the fourth step. But the African will now and then rudely and forcibly lower it by a half-tone. In the minor it is more natural; for it can then be thought of as the fifth of the relative major. Moreover, it is familiar to us in the Church chant. This effect we have in the beginning of the Scherzo. Many of us do not know the true African manner, here. But in the major it is much more barbarous. And it is almost a pity that Dvorak did not strike it beyond an occasional touch (as in the second quoted melody). A fine example is "Roll, Jordan Roll," in E flat (that opens, by the way, much like Dvorak's first theme), where the beginning of the second line rings out on a savage D flat, out of all key to Caucasian ears.

We soon see stealing out of the beginning Adagio an eccentric pace in motion of the bass, that leads to the burst of main subject, Allegro molto, with a certain

[Music: Allegro molto (Strings) (Horns) Pizz. (Strings) (Clarinets doubled below in bassoons) (Strings)]

ragged rhythm that we Americans cannot disclaim as a nation. The working up is spirited, and presently out of the answer grows a charming jingle that somehow strikes home.

[Music: (Violins, with harmony in lower strings)]

It begins in the minor and has a strange, barbaric touch of cadence. Many would acknowledge it at most as a touch of Indian mode. Yet it is another phase of the lowered seventh. And if we care to search, we find quite a prototype in a song like "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel." Soon the phrase has a more familiar ring as it turns into a friendly major. But the real second theme comes in a solo tune on the flute, in the major,

[Music: (Solo flute) (Strings)]

with a gait something like the first.[A] Less and less we can resist the genuine negro quality of these melodies, and, at the same time, their beauty and the value of the tonal treasure-house in our midst.

[Footnote A: Again it is interesting to compare here the jubilee song, "Oh! Redeemed," in the collection of "Jubilee and Plantation Songs," of the Oliver Ditson Company.]

The whole of the first Allegro is thus woven of three melodious and characteristic themes in very clear sonata-form. The second, Largo, movement is a lyric of moving pathos, with a central melody that may not have striking traits of strict African song, and yet belongs to the type closely associated with the negro vein of plaint or love-song. The rhythmic

[Music: Largo (English horn solo)]

turns that lead to periods of excitement and climaxes of rapid motion, are absent in the main melody. But

[Music: (Oboe and clarinets) (Basses pizz. with tremolo figures in violins)]

they appear in the episode that intervenes. Even here, in the midst, is a new contrast of a minor lament that has a strong racial trait in the sudden swing to major and, as quickly, back to the drearier mode. This is followed by a rhapsody or succession of rapid, primitive phrases, that leads to a crisis where, of a sudden, three themes sing at once, the two of the previous Allegro and the main melody of the Largo, in distorted pace with full chorus. This excitement is as suddenly lulled and soothed by the return of the original moving song.

The Scherzo starts in a quick three-beat strum on the chord we have pointed to as a true model trait of negro music, with the lowered leading-note. The

[Music: molto vivace (Fl. and oboes) (Strings) (Cl't.)]

theme, discussed in close stress of imitation, seems merely to mark the rapid swing in the drone of strange harmony. But what is really a sort of Trio (poco sostenuto) is another sudden, grateful change to major, perfectly true to life, so to speak, in this turn of mode and in the simple lines of the tune. The lyric mood all but suppresses the dance, the melody sounding like a new verse of the Largo. The trip has always lingered, but not too much for the delicious change when it returns to carry us off our feet.

The Scherzo now steals in again, quite a piece, it seems, with the Trio. As the rising volume nears a crisis, the earliest theme (from the first Allegro) is heard in the basses. In the hushed discourse of Scherzo theme that follows, the old melody still intrudes. In mockery of one of its turns comes an enchanting bit of tune, as naive an utterance as any, much like a children's dancing song. And it returns later with still new enchantment of rhythm. But the whole is too full of folk-melody to trace out, yet is, in its very fibre, true to the idea of an epic of the people.

Presently the whole Scherzo and Trio are rehearsed; but now instead of the phase of latest melodies is a close where the oldest theme (of Allegro) is sung in lusty blasts of the horns and wood, with answers of the Scherzo motive.

In the last movement, Allegro con fuoco, appears early a new kind of march tune that, without special

[Music: Allegro con fuoco (Horns and trumpets with full orchestra)]

trick of rhythm, has the harsh note of lowered leading-note (in the minor, to be sure) in very true keeping with negro song. The march is carried on, with flowing answer, to a high pitch of varied splendor and tonal power. The second theme is utterly opposed in a certain pathetic rhapsody. Yet it rises, at the close, to a fervent burst in rapid motion. We

[Music: (Solo clarinets) (tremolo strings)]

may expect in the Finale an orgy of folk-tune and dance, and we are not disappointed. There is, too, a quick rise and fall of mood, that is a mark of the negro as well as of the Hungarian. By a sudden doubling, we are in the midst of a true "hoe-down," in jolliest jingle, with that naive iteration, true to life; it comes out clearest when the tune of the bass (that sounds like a rapid "Three Blind Mice") is

[Music: (Strings, wood and brass) (See page 205, line 9.)]

put in the treble. A pure idealized negro dance-frolic is here. It is hard to follow all the pranks; lightly as the latest phrase descends in extending melody, a rude blast of the march intrudes in discordant humor. A new jingle of dance comes with a redoubled pace of bits of the march. As this dies down to dimmest bass, the old song from the Largo rings high in the wood. Strangest of all, in a fierce shout of the whole chorus sounds twice this same pathetic strain. Later comes a redoubled speed of the march in the woodwind, above a slower in low strings. Now the original theme of all has a noisy say. Presently the sad second melody has a full verse. Once more the Largo lullaby sings its strain in the minor. In the close the original Allegro theme has a literal, vigorous dispute with the march-phrase for the last word of all.

The work does less to exploit American music than to show a certain community in all true folk-song. Nor is this to deny a strain peculiar to the new world. It seems a poet of distant land at the same time and in the same tones uttered his longing for his own country and expressed the pathos and the romance of the new. Dvorak, like all true workers, did more than he thought: he taught Americans not so much the power of a song of their own, as their right of heritage in all folk-music. And this is based not merely on an actual physical inheritance from the various older races.

If the matter, in Dvorak's symphony, is of American negro-song, the manner is Bohemian. A stranger-poet may light more clearly upon the traits of a foreign lore. But his celebration will be more conscious if he endeavor to cling throughout to the special dialect. A true national expression will come from the particular soil and will be unconscious of its own idiom.

The permanent hold that Dvorak's symphony has gained is due to an intrinsic merit of art and sincere sentiment; it has little to do with the nominal title or purpose.



CHAPTER XIV

THE EARLIER BRUCKNER[A]

[Footnote A: Anton Bruckner, born at Annsfelden, Austria, 1828; died in Vienna in 1896.]

Whatever be the final answer of the mooted question of the greatness of Bruckner's symphonies, there is no doubt that he had his full share of technical profundity, and a striking mastery of the melodious weaving of a maze of concordant strains. The question inevitably arises with Bruckner as to the value of the world's judgments on its contemporary poets. There can be no doubt that the furore of the musical public tends to settle on one or two favorites with a concentration of praise that ignores the work of others, though it be of a finer grain. Thus Schubert's greatest—his one completed—symphony was never acclaimed until ten years after his death. Even his songs somehow brought more glory to the singer than to the composer. Bach's oratorios lay buried for a full century. On the other hand, names great in their day are utterly lost from the horizon. It is hard to conceive the eclat of a Buononcini or a Monteverde,—whose works were once preeminent. There are elements in art, of special, sensational effect, that make a peculiar appeal in their time, and are incompatible with true and permanent greatness. One is tempted to say, the more sudden and vehement the success, the less it will endure. But it would not be true. Such an axiom would condemn an opera like "Don Giovanni," an oratorio like the "Creation," a symphony like Beethoven's Seventh. There is a wonderful difference, an immeasurable gulf between the good and the bad in art; yet the apparent line is of the subtlest. Most street songs may be poor; but some are undoubtedly beautiful in a very high sense. It is a problem of mystic fascination, this question of the value of contemporary art. It makes its appeal to the subjective view of each listener. No rule applies. Every one will perceive in proportion to his capacity, no one beyond it. So, a profound work may easily fail of response, as many works in the various arts have done in the past, because the average calibre of the audience is too shallow, while it may deeply stir an intelligent few. Not the least strange part of it all is the fact that there can, of necessity, be no decision in the lifetime of the poet. Whether it is possible for obscure Miltons never to find their meed of acclaim, is a question that we should all prefer to answer in the negative. There is a certain shudder in thinking of such a chance; it seems a little akin to the danger of being buried alive.

The question of Bruckner's place can hardly be said to be settled, although he has left nine symphonies. He certainly shows a freedom, ease and mastery in the symphonic manner, a limpid flow of melody and a sure control in the interweaving of his themes, so that, in the final verdict, the stress may come mainly on the value of the subjects, in themselves. He is fond of dual themes, where the point lies in neither of two motives, but in the interplay of both; we see it somewhat extended in Richard Strauss, who uses it, however, in a very different spirit. The one evident and perhaps fatal lack is of intrinsic beauty of the melodic ideas, and further, an absence of the strain of pathos that sings from the heart of a true symphony. While we are mainly impressed by the workmanship, there is no denying a special charm of constant tuneful flow. At times this complexity is almost marvellous in the clear simplicity of the concerted whole,—in one view, the main trait or trick of symphonic writing. It is easy to pick out the leading themes as they appear in official order. But it is not so clear which of them constitute the true text. The multiplicity of tunes and motives is amazing.

Of the Wagner influence with which Bruckner is said to be charged, little is perceptible in his second symphony. On the contrary, a strong academic tradition pervades. The themes are peculiarly symphonic. Moreover they show so strikingly the dual quality that one might say, as a man may see double, Bruckner sang double. Processes of augmenting and inverting abound, together with the themal song in the bass. Yet there is not the sense of overloaded learning. There is everywhere a clear and melodious polyphony.

But with all masterly architecture, even enchanting changes of harmony and a prodigal play of melody, the vacuity of poetic ideas must preclude a permanent appeal. Bruckner is here the schoolmaster: his symphony is a splendid skeleton, an object lesson for the future poet.

In the FOURTH (ROMANTIC) SYMPHONY the main light plays throughout on the wind. The text is a call of horns, that begins the work. It is a symphony

[Music: In tranquil motion (Horns, espressivo) (Strings)]

of wood-notes, where the forest-horn is sovereign,—awakening a widening world of echoes, with a murmuring maze of lesser notes. One has again the feeling that in the quiet interweaving of a tapestry of strains lies the individual quality of the composer,—that the forte blasts, the stride of big unison figures are but the interlude.

In the Andante the charm is less of tune than of the delicate changing shades of the harmony and of the colors of tone. We are ever surprised in the gentlest way by a turn of chord or by the mere entrance of a horn among the whispering strings. The shock of a soft modulation may be as sudden as of the loud, sudden blare. But we cannot somehow be consoled for the want of a heart-felt melody.

The Scherzo is a kind of hunting-piece, full of the sparkle, the color and romance of bugles and horns,—a spirited fanfare broken by hushed phrases of strings or wood, or an elf-like mystic dance on the softened call of trumpets. The Trio sings apart, between the gay revels, in soft voices and slower pace, like a simple ballad.

The Finale is conceived in mystical retrospect, beginning in vein of prologue: over mysterious murmuring strings, long sustained notes of the reed and horn in octave descent are mingled with a soft carillon of horns and trumpets in the call of the Scherzo. In broad swing a free fantasy rises to a loud refrain (in the brass) of the first motive of the symphony.

In slower pace and hush of sound sings a madrigal of tender phrases. A pair of melodies recall like figures of the first Allegro. Indeed, a chain of dulcet strains seems to rise from the past.

The fine themal relevance may be pursued in infinite degree, to no end but sheer bewilderment. The truth is that a modern vanity for subtle connection, a purest pedantry, is here evident, and has become a baneful tradition in the modern symphony. It is an utter confusion of the letter with the spirit. Once for all, a themal coherence of symphony must lie in the main lines, not in a maze of unsignificant figures.

Marked is a sharp alternation of mood, tempestuous and tender, of Florestan and Eusebius. The lyric phase yields to the former heroic fantasy and then returns in soothing solace into a prevailing motive that harks back to the second of the beginning movement. The fantasy, vague of melody, comes

[Music: (Wood and horns) (Strings)]

(in more than one sense) as relief from the small tracery. It is just to remember a like oscillation in the first Allegro.

When the prologue recurs, the phrases are in ascent, instead of descent of octaves. A climactic verse of the main dulcet melody breaks out in resonant choir of brass and is followed by a soft rhapsody on the several strains that hark back to the beginning. From the halting pace the lyric episode rises in flight of continuous song to enchanting lilt. Now in the big heroic fantasy sing the first slow phrases as to the manner born and as naturally break into a paean of the full motive, mingled with strains of the original legend of the symphony, that flows on to broad hymnal cadence.

In mystic musing we reach a solemn stillness where the prologue phrase is slowly drawn out into a profoundly moving hymn. Here we must feel is Meister Bruckner's true poetic abode rather than in the passion and ecstasy of romance into which he was vainly lured.[A]

[Footnote A: Bruckner's Fifth Symphony (in B flat) is a typical example of closest correlation of themes that are devoid of intrinsic melody.

An introduction supplies in the bass of a hymnal line the main theme of the Allegro by inversion as well as the germ of the first subject of the Adagio. Throughout, as in the Romantic Symphony, the relation between the first and the last movement is subtle. A closing, jagged phrase reappears as the first theme of the Finale.

The Adagio and Scherzo are built upon the same figure of bass. The theme of the Trio is acclaimed by a German annotator as the reverse of the first motive of the symphony.

In the prelude of the Finale, much as in the Ninth of Beethoven, are passed in review the main themes of the earlier movements. Each one is answered by an eccentric phrase that had its origin in the first movement and is now extended to a fugal theme.

The climactic figure is a new hymnal line that moves as central theme of an imposing double fugue.]



CHAPTER XV

THE LATER BRUCKNER

In Bruckner's later works appears the unique instance of a discipline grounded in the best traditions, united to a deft use of ephemeral devices. The basic cause of modern mannerism, mainly in harmonic effects, lies in a want of formal mastery; an impatience of thorough technic; a craving for quick sensation. With Bruckner it was the opposite weakness of original ideas, an organic lack of poetic individuality. It is this the one charge that cannot be brought home to the earlier German group of reaction against the classic idea.

There is melody, almost abundant, in Wagner and Liszt and their German contemporaries. Indeed it was an age of lyricists. The fault was that they failed to recognize their lyric limitation, lengthening and padding their motives abnormally to fit a form that was too large. Hence the symphony of Liszt, with barren stretches, and the impossible plan of the later music-drama. The truest form of such a period was the song, as it blossomed in the works of a Franz.

Nor has this grandiose tendency even yet spent its course. A saving element was the fashioning of a new form, by Liszt himself,—the Symphonic Poem,—far inferior to the symphony, but more adequate to the special poetic intent.

Whatever be the truth of personal gossip, there is no doubt that Bruckner lent himself and his art to a championing of the reactionary cause in the form that was intrinsically at odds with its spirit. Hence in later works of Bruckner these strange episodes of borrowed romance, abruptly stopped by a firm counterpoint of excellent quality,—indeed far the best of his writing. For, if a man have little ideas, at least his good workmanship will count for something.

In truth, one of the strangest types is presented in Bruckner,—a pedant who by persistent ingenuity simulates a master-work almost to perfection. By so much as genius is not an infinite capacity for pains, by so much is Bruckner's Ninth not a true symphony. Sometimes, under the glamor of his art, we are half persuaded that mere persistence may transmute pedantry into poetry.

It seems almost as if the Wagnerians chose their champion in the symphony with a kind of suppressed contempt for learning, associating mere intellectuality with true mastery, pointing to an example of greatest skill and least inspiration as if to say: "Here is your symphonist if you must have one." And it is difficult to avoid a suspicion that his very partisans were laughing up their sleeve at their adopted champion.

We might say all these things, and perhaps we have gone too far in suggesting them. After all we have no business with aught but the music of Bruckner, whatever may have been his musical politics, his vanity, his ill judgment, or even his deliberate partisanship against his betters. But the ideas themselves are unsubstantial; on shadowy foundation they give an illusion by modern touches of harmony and rhythm that are not novel in themselves. The melodic idea is usually divided in two, as by a clever juggler. There is really no one thought, but a plenty of small ones to hide the greater absence.

We have merely to compare this artificial manner with the poetic reaches of Brahms to understand the insolence of extreme Wagnerians and the indignation of a Hanslick. As against the pedantry of Bruckner the style of Strauss is almost welcome in its frank pursuit of effects which are at least grateful in themselves. Strauss makes hardly a pretence at having melodic ideas. They serve but as pawns or puppets for his harmonic and orchestral mise-en-scene. He is like a play-wright constructing his plot around a scenic design.

Just a little common sense is needed,—an unpremeditated attitude. Thus the familiar grouping, "Bach, Beethoven and Brahms" is at least not unnatural. Think of the absurdity of "Bach, Beethoven and Bruckner"![A]

[Footnote A: A festival was held in Munich in the summer of 1911, in celebration of "Bach, Beethoven and Bruckner."]

The truth is, the Bruckner cult is a striking symptom of a certain decadence in German music; an incapacity to tell the sincere quality of feeling in the dense, brilliant growth of technical virtuosity. In the worship at the Bayreuth shrine, somehow reinforced by a modern national self-importance, has been lost a heed for all but a certain vein of exotic romanticism, long ago run to riotous seed, a blending of hedonism and fatalism. No other poetic message gets a hearing and the former may be rung in endless repetition and reminiscence, provided, to be sure, it be framed with brilliant cunning of workmanship.

Here we feel driven defiantly to enounce the truth: that the highest art, even in a narrow sense, comes only with a true poetic message. Of this Bruckner is a proof; for, if any man by pure knowledge could make a symphony, it was he. But, with almost superhuman skill, there is something wanting in the inner connection, where the main ideas are weak, forced or borrowed. It is only the true poetic rapture that ensures the continuous absorption that drives in perfect sequence to irresistible conclusion.

SYMPHONY NO. 9

I.—Solenne. Solemn mystery is the mood, amid trembling strings on hollow unison, before the eight

[Music: Misterioso (Eight horns with tremolo strings on D in three octaves)]

horns strike a phrase in the minor chord that in higher echoes breaks into a strange harmony and descends into a turn of melodic cadence. In answer is another chain of brief phrases, each beginning

[Music: (1st violins) (Lower reeds with strings tremolo in all but basses)]

with a note above the chord (the common mark and manner of the later school of harmonists[A]) and a new ascent on a literal ladder of subtlest progress, while hollow intervals are intermingled in the pinch of close harmonies. The bewildering maze here begins of multitudinous design, enriched with modern devices.

[Footnote A: See Vol. II, note, page 104.]

A clash of all the instruments acclaims the climax before the unison stroke of fullest chorus on the solemn note of the beginning. A favorite device of Bruckner, a measured tread of pizzicato strings with interspersed themal motives, precedes the romantic episode. Throughout the movement is this alternation of liturgic chorale with tender melody.

[Music: Molto tranquillo (Strings) espressivo (Oboes and horns)]

Bruckner's pristine polyphonic manner ever appears in the double strain of melodies, where each complements, though not completes the other. However multiple the plan, we cannot feel more than the quality of unusual in the motives themselves, of some interval of ascent or descent. Yet as the melody grows to larger utterance, the fulness of polyphonic art brings a beauty of tender sentiment, rising to a moving climax, where the horns lead the song in the heart of the madrigal chorus, and the strings alone sing the expressive answer.

[Music: (Violins doubled in 8ve.) (Strings, woods and horns)]

A third phrase now appears, where lies the main poetry of the movement. Gentle swaying calls of

[Music: Tranquillo (Wood and violins) (4 horns in 8ve.) (Horns) (Strings with bassoons)]

soft horns and wood, echoed and answered in close pursuit, lead to a mood of placid, elemental rhythm, with something of "Rheingold," of "Ossian" ballad, of the lapping waves of Cherubini's "Anacreon." In the midst the horns blow a line of sonorous melody, where the cadence has a breath of primal legend. On the song runs, ever mid the elemental motion, to a resonant height and dies away as before. The intimate, romantic melody now returns, but it is rocked on the continuing pelagic pulse; indeed, we hear anon a faint phrase of the legend, in distant trumpet, till we reach a joint rhapsody of both moods; and in the never resting motion, mid vanishing echoes, we dream of some romance of the sea.

Against descending harmonies return the hollow, sombre phrases of the beginning, with the full cadence of chorale in the brass; and beyond, the whole prelude has a full, extended verse. In the alternation of solemn and sweet episode returns the tender melody, with pretty inversions, rising again to an ardent height. The renewed clash of acclaiming chorus ushers again the awful phrase of unison (now in octave descent), in towering majesty. But now it rises in the ever increasing vehemence where the final blast is lit up with a flash of serene sonority.

This motive, of simple octave call, indeed pervades the earlier symphony in big and little. And now, above a steady, sombre melodic tread of strings it rises in a fray of eager retorts, transfigured in wonderful harmony again and again to a brilliant height, pausing on a ringing refrain, in sombre hue of overpowering blast.

A soft interlude of halting and diminishing strings leads to the romantic melody as it first appeared, where the multiple song again deepens and ennobles the theme. It passes straight into the waving, elemental motion, where again the hallowed horn utters its sibyl phrase, again rising to resonant height. And again merges the intimate song with the continuing pulse of the sea, while the trumpet softly sounds the legend and a still greater height of rhapsody.

Dull brooding chords bring a sombre play of the awing phrase, over a faint rocking motion, clashing in bold harmony, while the horns surge in broader melody. The climactic clash ends in a last verse of the opening phrase, as of primal, religious chant.

II.—Scherzo. In the dazzling pace of bright clashing harmonies, the perfect answers of falling and rising phrases, we are again before the semblance, at

[Music: Vivace (Flute with pizz. violins) (Flute) (Pizz. strings)]

least, of a great poetic idea. To be sure there is a touch of stereotype in the chords and even in the pinch and clash of hostile motives. And there is not the distinctive melody,—final stamp and test of the shaft of inspiration. Yet in the enchantment of motion, sound and form, it seems mean-spirited to cavil at a want of something greater. One stands bewildered before such art and stunned of all judgment.

A delight of delicate gambols follows the first brilliant dance of main motive. Amid a rougher trip of unison sounds the sonorous brass, and to softest jarring murmur of strings a pretty jingle of reed,

[Music: grazioso (Oboe) (Pizz. strings with soft chord of wind and rhythmic bassoon)]

with later a slower counter-song, almost a madrigal of pastoral answers, till we are back in the ruder original dance. The gay cycle leads to a height of rough volume (where the mystic brass sound in the midst) and a revel of echoing chase.

In sudden hush of changed tone on fastest fairy trip, strings and wood play to magic harmonies. In calming motion the violins sing a quieter song, ever

[Music: Piu tranquillo Dolce (Violins) (Oboe) (Violins) (Oboes with sustained strings)]

echoed by the reed. Though there is no gripping force of themal idea, the melodies are all of grateful charm, and in the perfect round of rhythmic design we may well be content. The original dance recurs with a full fine orgy of hostile euphony.

III.—Adagio. Feierlich,—awesome indeed are these first sounds, and we are struck by the originality

[Music: Molto lento (Solenne) (Violins, G string) broadly (Strings with choir of tubas, later of trombones and contrabass-tuba)]

of Bruckner's technic. After all we must give the benefit at least of the doubt. And there is after this deeply impressive introit a gorgeous Promethean

[Music: (Woodwind and low brass with tremolo strings) (3 trumpets) (4 horns)]

spring of up-leaping harmonies. The whole has certainly more of concrete beauty than many of the labored attempts of the present day.

The prelude dies down with an exquisite touch of precious dissonance,—whether it came from the heart or from the workshop. The strange and tragic part is that with so much art and talent there should not be the strong individual idea,—the flash of new tonal figure that stands fearless upon its own feet. All this pretty machinery seems wasted upon the framing and presenting, at the moment of expectation, of the shadows of another poet's ideas or of mere platitudes.

In the midst of the broad sweeping theme with a

[Music: (Strings, with cl't and oboe) Very broadly (G string)]

promise of deep utterance is a phrase of horns with the precise accent and agony of a Tristan. The very semblance of whole motives seems to be taken from the warp and woof of Wagnerian drama. And thus the whole symphony is degraded, in its gorgeous capacity, to the reechoed rhapsody of exotic romanticism. It is all little touches, no big thoughts,—a mosaic of a symphony.

[Music: (Horns)]

And so the second theme[A] is almost too heavily laden with fine detail for its own strength, though

[Music: (Violins, reeds and horns) Poco piu lento dolce (Pizz. of lower strings)]

it ends with a gracefully delicate answer. The main melody soon recurs and sings with a stress of warm feeling in the cellos, echoed by glowing strains of the horns. Romantic harmonies bring back the solemn air of the prelude with a new counter melody, in precise opposite figure, as though inverted in a mirror, and again the dim moving chords that seem less of Bruckner than of legendary drama. In big accoutrement the double theme moves with double answers, ever with the sharp pinch of harmonies and heroic mien. Gentlest retorts of the motives sing with fairy clearness (in horns and reeds), rising to tender, expressive dialogue. With growing spirit they ascend once more to the triumphant clash of empyraean chords, that may suffice for justifying beauty.

[Footnote A: We have spoken of a prelude, first and second theme; they might have been more strictly numbered first, second and third theme.]

Instead of the first, the second melody follows with its delicate grace. After a pause recurs the phrase that harks from mediaeval romance, now in a stirring ascent of close chasing voices. The answer, perfect in its timid halting descent, exquisite in accent and in the changing hues of its periods, is robbed of true effect by its direct reflection of Wagnerian ecstasies.

As if in recoil, a firm hymnal phrase sounds in the strings, ending in a more intimate cadence. Another chain of rarest fairy clashes, on the motive of the prelude, leads to the central verse, the song of the first main melody in the midst of soft treading strings, and again descends the fitting answer of poignant accent.

And now, for once forgetting all origin and clinging sense of reminiscence, we may revel in the rich romance, the fathoms of mystic harmony, as the main song sings and rings from the depths of dim legend in lowest brass, amidst a soft humming chorus, in constant shift of fairy tone.

A flight of ascending chords brings the big exaltation of the first prophetic phrase, ever answered by exultant ring of trumpet, ending in sudden awing pause. An eerie train of echoes from the verse of prelude leads to a loveliest last song of the poignant answer of main song, over murmuring strings. It

[Music: (Tremolo violins with lower 8ve.) (Reeds) (Horns) (Violas)]

is carried on by the mystic choir of sombre brass in shifting steps of enchanting harmony and dies away in tenderest lingering accents.[A]

[Footnote A: In place of the uncompleted Finale, Bruckner is said to have directed that his "Te Deum" be added to the other movements.]



CHAPTER XVI

HUGO WOLFF[A]

"PENTHESILEA." SYMPHONIC POEM[B]

[Footnote A: Hugo Wolff, born in 1860, died in 1903.]

[Footnote B: After the like-named tragedy of Heinrich von Kleist.]

An entirely opposite type of composer, Hugo Wolff, shows the real strength of modern German music in a lyric vein, sincere, direct and fervent. His longest work for instruments has throughout the charm of natural rhythm and melody, with subtle shading of the harmony. Though there is no want of contrapuntal design, the workmanship never obtrudes. It is a model of the right use of symbolic motives in frequent recurrence and subtle variation.

In another instrumental piece, the "Italian Serenade," all kinds of daring suspenses and gentle clashes and surprises of harmonic scene give a fragrance of dissonant euphony, where a clear melody ever rules. "Penthesilea," with a climactic passion and a sheer contrast of tempest and tenderness, uttered with all the mastery of modern devices, has a pervading thrall of pure musical beauty. We are tempted to hail in Wolff a true poet in an age of pedants and false prophets.



PENTHESILEA.—A TRAGEDY BY HEINRICH VON KLEIST.[A]

[Footnote A: German, 1776-1811.]

As Wolff's work is admittedly modelled on Kleist's tragedy, little known to the English world, it is important to view the main lines of this poem, which has provoked so divergent a criticism in Germany.

On the whole, the tragedy seems to be one of those daring, even profane assaults on elemental questions by ways that are untrodden if not forbidden. It is a wonderful type of Romanticist poetry in the bold choice of subject and in the intense vigor and beauty of the verse. Coming with a shock upon the classic days of German poetry, it met with a stern rebuke from the great Goethe. But a century later we must surely halt in following the lead of so severe a censor. The beauty of diction alone seems a surety of a sound content,—as when Penthesilea exclaims:

"A hero man can be—a Titan—in distress, But like a god is he when rapt in blessedness."

An almost convincing symbolism has been suggested of the latent meaning of the poem by a modern critic,[A]—a symbolism that seems wonderfully reflected in Wolff's music. The charge of perverted passion can be based only on certain lines, and these are spoken within the period of madness that has overcome the heroine. This brings us to the final point which may suggest the main basic fault in the poem, considered as art. At least it is certainly a question whether pure madness can ever be a fitting subject in the hero of a tragedy. Ophelia is an episode; Hamlet's madness has never been finally determined. Though the Erinnys hunted Orestes in more than one play, yet no single Fury could, after all, be the heroine of tragedy. Penthesilea became in the crisis a pure Fury, and though she may find here her own defense, the play may not benefit by the same plea. On the other hand, the madness is less a reality than an impression of the Amazons who cannot understand the heroine's conflicting feelings. There is no one moment in the play when the hearer's sympathy for the heroine is destroyed by a clear sense of her insanity.

[Footnote A: Kuno Francke. See the notes of Philip Hale in the programme book of the Boston Symphony Orchestra of April 3-4, 1908.]

For another word on the point of symbolism, it must be remembered that the whole plot is one of supernatural legend where somehow human acts and motives need not conform to conventional rule, and where symbolic meaning, as common reality disappears, is mainly eminent. It is in this same spirit that the leading virtues of the race, of war or of peace, are typified by feminine figures.

The Tragedy is not divided into acts; it has merely four and twenty scenes—upon the battle-field of Troy. The characters are Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons; her chief leaders, Prothoe, Meroe and Asteria, and the high priestess of Diana. Of the Greeks there are Achilles, Odysseus, Diomede and Antilochus. Much of the fighting and other action is not seen, but is reported either by messengers or by present witnesses of a distant scene.

The play begins with the battle raging between Greeks and Amazons. Penthesilea with her hosts amazes the Greeks by attacking equally the Trojans, her reputed allies. She mows down the ranks of the Trojans, and yet refuses all proffers of the Greeks.

Thus early we have the direct, uncompromising spirit,—a kind of feminine Prometheus. The first picture of the heroine is of a Minerva in full array, stony of gaze and of expression until—she sees Achilles. Here early comes the conflict of two elemental passions. Penthesilea recoils from the spell and dashes again into her ambiguous warfare. For once Greeks and Trojans are forced to fight in common defence.

"The raging Queen with blows of thunder struck As she would cleave the whole race of the Greeks Down to its roots....

* * * * *

"More of the captives did she take Than she did leave us eyes to count the list, Or arms to set them free again.

* * * * *

"Often it seemed as if a special hate Against Achilles did possess her breast.

* * * * *

"Yet in a later moment, when His life was given straight into her hands, Smiling she gave it back, as though a present; His headlong course to Hades she did stay."

In midst of the dual battle between Achilles and the Queen, a Trojan prince comes storming and strikes a treacherous blow against the armor of the Greek.

"The Queen is stricken pale; for a brief moment Her arms hang helpless by her sides; and then, Shaking her locks about her flaming cheeks, Dashes her sword like lightning in his throat, And sends him rolling to Achilles' feet."

The Greek leaders resolve to retreat from the futile fight and to call Achilles from the mingled chase of love and war.

Achilles is now reported taken by the Amazons. The battle is vividly depicted: Achilles caught on a high ledge with his war-chariot; the Amazon Queen storming the height from below. The full scene is witnessed from the stage,—Penthesilea pursuing almost alone; Achilles suddenly dodges; the Queen as quickly halts and rears her horse; the Amazons fall in a mingled heap; Achilles escapes, though wounded. But he refuses to follow his companions to the camp; he swears to bring home the Queen wooed in the bloody strife of her own seeking.

Penthesilea recoils with like vehemence from the entreaties of her maids, intent upon the further battle, resolved to overcome the hero or to die. She forbids the Festival of Roses until she has vanquished Achilles. In her rage she banishes her favorite Prothoe from her presence, but in a quick revulsion takes her back.

In the next scene the high priestess and the little Amazon maids prepare the Feast, which Penthesilea had ordered in her confident attack upon the fleeing Greeks. One of the Rose-maidens recounts the passing scene of the Queen's amazing action. The indignant priestess sends her command to the Queen to return to the celebration. Though all the royal suite fling themselves in her path, Penthesilea advances to the dual battle.[A]

[Footnote A: The law of the Amazons commanded them to wage war as told them by the oracle of Mars. The prisoners were brought to the Feast of Roses and wedded by their captors. After a certain time they were sent back to their homes. All male children of the tribe were put to death.]

In a renewal of her personal contest, regardless of the common cause, and in her special quest of a chosen husband, Penthesilea has broken the sacred law.

The flight now follows of the Amazon hosts. When the two combatants meet in the shock of lances, the Queen falls in the dust; her pallor is reflected in Achilles' face. Leaping from his horse, he bends o'er her, calls her by names, and woos life back into her frame. Her faithful maids, whom she has forbidden to harm Achilles, lead her away. And here begins the seeming madness of the Queen when she confesses her love. For a moment she yields to her people's demands, but the sight of the rose-wreaths kindles her rage anew. Prothoe defends her in these lines:

"Of life the highest blessing she attempted. Grazing she almost grasped. Her hands now fail her For any other lesser goal to reach."

In the last part of the scene the Queen falls more and deeper into madness. It is only in a too literal spirit that one will find an oblique meaning,—by too great readiness to discover it. In reality there seems to be an intense conflict of opposite emotions in the heroine: the pure woman's love, without sense of self; and the wild overpowering greed of achievement. Between these grinding stones she wears her heart away. A false interpretation of decadent theme comes from regarding the two emotions as mingled, instead of alternating in a struggle.

Achilles advances, having flung away his armor. Prothoe persuades him to leave the Queen, when she awakes, in the delusion that she has conquered and that he is the captive. Thus when she beholds the hero, she breaks forth into the supreme moment of exaltation and of frenzied triumph. The main love scene follows:

Penthesilea tells Achilles the whole story of the Amazons, the conquest of the original tribe, the rising of the wives of the murdered warriors against the conquerors; the destruction of the right breast (A-mazon); the dedication of the "brides of Mars" to war and love in one. In seeking out Achilles the Queen has broken the law. But here again appears the double symbolic idea: Achilles meant to the heroine not love alone, but the overwhelming conquest, the great achievement of her life.

The first feeling of Penthesilea, when disillusioned, is of revulsive anger at a kind of betrayal. The Amazons recover ground in a wild desire to save their Queen, and they do rescue her, after a parting scene of the lovers. But Penthesilea curses the triumph that snatches her away; the high priestess rebukes her, sets her free of her royal duties, to follow her love if she will. The Queen is driven from one mood to another, of devoted love, burning ambition and mortal despair.

Achilles now sends a challenge to Penthesilea, knowing the Amazon conditions. Against all entreaty the Queen accepts, not in her former spirit, but in the frenzy of desperate endeavor, in the reawakened rage of her ambition, spurred and pricked by the words of the priestess.

The full scene of madness follows. She calls for her dogs and elephants, and the full accoutrement of battle. Amidst the terror of her own warriors, the rolling of thunder, she implores the gods' help to crush the Greek. In a final touch of frenzy she aims a dart at her faithful Prothoe.

The battle begins, Achilles in fullest confidence in Penthesilea's love, unfrightened by the wild army of dogs and elephants. The scene, told by the present on-lookers, is heightened by the cries of horror and dismay of the Amazons themselves.

Achilles falls; Penthesilea, a living Fury, dashes upon him with her dogs in an insane orgy of blood. The Queen in the culminating scene is greeted by the curses of the high priestess. Prothoe masters her horror and turns back to soothe the Queen. Penthesilea, unmindful of what has passed, moves once more through the whole gamut of her torturing emotions, and is almost calmed when she spies the bier with the hero's body. The last blow falls when upon her questions she learns the full truth of her deed. The words she utters (that have been cited by the hostile critics) may well be taken as the ravings of hopeless remorse, with a symbolic play of words. She dies, as she proclaims, by the knife of her own anguish.

The last lines of Prothoe are a kind of epilogue:

"She sank because too proud and strong she flourished. The half-decayed oak withstands the tempest; The vigorous tree is headlong dashed to earth Because the storm has struck into its crown."[A]

[Footnote A: Translations, when not otherwise credited, are by the author.]

The opening scene—"Lively, vehement: Departure of the Amazons for Troy"—begins impetuous and hefty with big strokes of the throbbing motive,

[Music: (Tutti with higher 8ves.) (Piccolo in 8ve.) (Bass in 8ve.)]

the majestic rhythm coursing below, lashed by a quicker phrase above. Suddenly trumpets sound, somewhat more slowly, a clarion call answered by a choir of other trumpets and horns in enchanting retort of changing harmonies. Ever a fresh color of

[Music: (Flutes and oboes) (Answering groups of brass) (Lower strings pizz.)]

tone sounds in the call of the brass, as if here or yonder on the battle-field. Sometimes it is almost too sweetly chanting for fierce war. But presently it turns to a wilder mood and breaks in galloping pace into a true chorus of song with clear cadence.

[Music: (Flutes with reeds in lower 8ve.) (Violins with upper 8ve.) (Lower strings and brass with lower 8ve.)]

The joyful tinge is quickly lost in the sombre hue of another phase of war-song that has a touch of funeral trip (though it is all in 3/4 time):

[Music: (Muted strings) (Horns and bassoons)]

A melody in the minor plays first in a choir of horns and bassoons, later in united strings, accompanied by soft rolls of drums and a touch of the lowest brass. Harp and higher woodwind are added, but the volume is never transcendent save in a single burst when it is quickly hushed to the first ominous whisper. Out of this sombre song flows a romance of tender sentiment, tranquillo in strings, followed by the wood. The crossing threads of expressive melody

[Music: Tranquillo (Strings) (In the midst enters a strain of solo horn)]

rise in instant renewal of stress and agitation. The joy of battle has returned, but it seems that the passion of love burns in midst of the glow of battle, each in its separate struggle, and both together in one fatal strife. The sombre melody returns in full career, dying down to a pause.[A]

[Footnote A: In a somewhat literal commentary attributed to Dr. Richard Batka, the Amazons here, "having reached their destination, go into night-encampment—as represented by the subdued roll of the kettle-drums, with which the movement concludes."]

Molto sostenuto, in changed rhythm of three slow beats, comes "Penthesilea's Dream of the Feast of Roses." Over a thick cluster of harmonies in harp and strings the higher wood sing a new song in long drawn lyric notes with ravishing turns of tonal color,—a

[Music: Molto sostenuto (Flutes, oboes and clarinets) (Rapid arpeggic figures of harps and muted strings)]

dual song and in many groups of two. The tranquil current of the dream is gradually disturbed; the main burden is dimmed in hue and in mood. Faster, more fitful is the flow of melody, with hostile intruding motive below; it dashes at last into the tragic phase—Combats; Passions; Madness; Destruction—in very rapid tempo of 2/2 rhythm.

In broad, masterful pace, big contrary figures sweep up and down, cadencing in almost joyous chant, gliding, indeed, into a pure hymn, as of triumph (that harks back to the chorussing song in the beginning).

Throughout the poem the musical symbols as well as the motives of passion are closely intertwined. Thus the identity of the impetuous phrase of the very beginning is clear with the blissful theme of the Dream of the Feast of Roses. Here, at the end of the chorussing verse is a play or a strife of phrases where we cannot escape a symbolic intent. To tremolo of violas the cellos hold a tenor of descending melody over a rude rumbling phrase of the basses of wood and strings, while the oboe sings in the treble an expressive answer of ascending notes. A conflict is

[Music: (Molto vivace) (cello molto espressivo) (Violas) (Basses and bassoons with upper 8ve.) (Oboe) espressivo]

evident, of love and ambition, of savage and of gentle passion, of chaos and of beauty. At the height, the lowest brass intrude a brutal note of triumph of the descending theme. To the victory of Pride succeeds a crisis of passionate yearning. But at the very height is a plunge into the fit of madness, the fatal descending phrase (in trombones) is ever followed by furious pelting spurts in the distorted main theme.

At last the paroxysm abates, throbbing ever slower, merging into the tender song of the Dream that now rises to the one great burst of love-passion. But it ends in a wild rage that turns right into the war-song of the beginning. And this is much fuller of incident than before. Violins now ring an hostile motive (the former rumbling phrase of basses) from the midst of the plot against the main theme in trumpets. Instead of the former pageantry, here is the pure frenzy of actual war. The trumpet melodies resound amidst the din of present battle. Instead of the other gentler episodes, here is a more furious raving of the mad Queen (in the hurried main motive), where we seem to see the literal dogs of war let loose and spurred on,—each paroxysm rising to a higher shock.

Great is the vehemence of speed and sound as the dull doom of destruction drones in the basses against a grim perversion of the yearning theme above, that overwhelms the scene with a final shriek.

Slowly the dream of love breathes again, rises to a fervent burst, then yields to the fateful chant and ends in a whisper of farewell.



CHAPTER XVII

MAHLER[A]

[Footnote A: Gustav Mahler, 1860-1911.]

In Mahler the most significant sign is a return to a true counterpoint, as against a mere overlading of themes, that began in Wagner and still persists in Strauss,—an artificial kind of structure that is never conceived as a whole.

While we see in Mahler much of the duophonic manner of his teacher, Bruckner, in the work of the younger man the barren art is crowned with the true fire of a sentient poet. So, if Bruckner had little to say, he showed the way to others. And Mahler, if he did not quite emerge from the mantle of Beethoven, is a link towards a still greater future. The form and the technic still seem, as with most modern symphonies, too great for the message. It is another phase of orchestral virtuosity, of intellectual strain, but with more of poetic energy than in the symphonies of the French or other Germans.

In other forms we see this happy reaction towards ancient art, as in the organ music of a Reger. But in the Finale of Mahler's Fifth Symphony there is a true serenity, a new phase of symphony, without the climactic stress of traditional triumph, yet none the less joyous in essence.

We cannot help rejoicing that in a sincere and poetic design of symphony is blended a splendid renaissance of pure counterpoint, that shines clear above the modern spurious pretence. The Finale of Mahler's Fifth Symphony is one of the most inspired conceptions of counterpoint in all music. In it is realized the full dream of a revival of the art in all its glorious estate.

SYMPHONY NO. 5

I.—1. Funeral March. 2. In stormy motion (with greatest vehemence). II.—3. Scherzo (with vigor,—not too fast). III.—4. Adagietto (very slowly). 5. Rondo-Finale (allegro).

Mahler's Fifth Symphony, whatever be its intrinsic merit, that can be decided only by time and wear, undoubtedly marks a high point of orchestral splendor, in the regard of length and of the complexity of resources. By the latter is meant not so much the actual list of instruments as the pervading and accumulating use of thematic machinery.[A]

[Footnote A: The symphony is probably the longest instrumental work that had appeared at the time of its production in 1904. The list of instruments comprises 4 flutes, 3 oboes, 3 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contra-bassoon, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, kettle-drums, cymbals, bass-drum, snare-drum, triangle, glockenspiel, gong, harp and strings.

Compared with D'Indy's Second Symphony, the Fifth of Mahler has a larger body of brass as well as of woodwind.]

The plan of movements is very original and in a way, two-fold. There are three great divisions, of which the first comprises a Funeral March, and an untitled Allegro in vehement motion. The second division has merely the single movement, Scherzo. In the third are an Adagietto and a Rondo Finale.

I.—1. Funeral March.—A call of trumpet, of heroic air and tread, is answered by strident chords ending in a sonorous motive of horns that leads to the funeral trip, of low brass. The mournful song of the principal melody appears presently in the strings, then returns to the funeral trip and to the strident chords. The first trumpet motive now sounds with this clanging phrase and soon the original call abounds in other brass. The deep descending notes of the horns recur and the full song of the funeral melody much extended, growing into a duet of cellos and high woodwind,

[Music: (Strings, bassoons and clarinets)]

and further into hymnal song on a new motive.

[Music: (Wood, horns and strings) (Bass notes in lowest wood and strings)]

So the various melodies recur with new mood and manner. Suddenly, in fierce abandon, a martial tramp of the full band resounds, in gloomy minor,

[Music: Suddenly faster. Impassioned (Rapid descending figure in violins) (Trumpet) (Trombones) (Tuba and strings)]

the violins in rapid rage of wailing figure: the trumpet strikes the firm note of heroic plaint.

Wild grief breaks out on all sides, the strings singing in passionate answer to the trumpet, the high wood carrying on the rapid motion. At the height of the storm the woodwind gain control with measured rhythm of choral melody. Or perhaps the real height is the expressive double strain, in gentle pace, of the strings, and the wood descending from on high.

[Music: (Woodwind doubled below) (Strings doubled above) espressivo (Brass and strings)]

The duet is carried on in wilder mood by most of the voices.

A return to the solemn pace comes by imperceptible change, the softer hues of grief merging with the fiercer cries. Now various strains sound together,—the main funeral melody in the woodwind.

In the close recurs the full flow of funeral song, with the hymnal harmonies. In the refrain of the stormy duet the sting of passion is gone; the whole plaint dies away amid the fading echoes of the trumpet call.

I.—2. The second movement, the real first Allegro, is again clearly in two parts. Only, the relative paces are exactly reversed from the first movement. In tempestuous motion, with greatest vehemence, a rushing motive of the basses is stopped by a chord of brass and strings,—the chord itself reverberating to the lower rhythm.

[Music: In stirring motion. With greatest vehemence (Brass and strings) (Bass of wood and string) (Trumpets)]

Throughout the whole symphony is the dual theme, each part spurring the other. Here presently are phrases in conflicting motion, countermarching in a stormy maze. It is all, too, like noisy preparation,—a manoeuvring of forces before the battle. Three distinct figures there are before a blast of horn in slower notes, answered by shrill call in highest wood. There enters a regular, rhythmic gait and a clearer tune, suggested by the call.

[Music: (Horns, oboes and 1st violins, G string) (Strings and wood) (Tuba and strings) (Second violins)]

In the brilliant medley there is ever a new figure we had not perceived. So when the tune has been told, trumpets and horns begin with what seems almost the main air, and the former voices sound like mere heralds. Finally the deep trombones and tuba enter with a sonorous call. Yet the first rapid trip of all has the main legend.

As the quicker figures gradually retire, a change of pace appears, to the tramp of funeral. Yet the initial and incident strains are of the former text. Out of it weaves the new, slower melody:

[Music: Much slower (in the tempo of the former funeral march) (Oboes) (Flutes and clarinets) (Cellos) molto cantando]

Throughout, the old shrill call sounds in soft lament. Hardly like a tune, a discourse rather, it winds along, growing and changing naively ever to a new phrase. And the soft calls about seem part of the melody. An expressive line rising in the clarinet harks back to one of the later strains of the funeral march.

The second melody or answer (in low octaves of strings) is a scant disguise of the lower tune in the stormy duet of the first movement. Yet all the strains move in the gentle, soothing pace and mood until suddenly awakened to the first vehement rhythm.

Before the slower verse returns is a long plaint of cellos to softest roll of drums. The gentle calls that usher in the melody have a significant turn, upwards instead of down. All the figures of the solemn episode appear more clearly.

On the spur of the hurrying main motive of trumpets the first pace is once more regained.

A surprise of plot is before us. In sudden recurrence of funeral march the hymnal song of the first movement is heard. As suddenly, we are plunged into the first joyful scene of the symphony. Here it is most striking how the call of lament has become triumphant, as it seems without a change of note. And still more wonderful,—the same melody that first uttered a storm of grief, then a gentle sadness, now has a firm exultant ring. To be sure, it is all done with the magic trip of bass,—as a hymn may be a perfect dance.

Before the close we hear the first fanfare of trumpet from the opening symphony, that has the ring of a motto of the whole. At the very end is a transfigured entrance,—very slowly and softly, to a celestial touch of harp, of the first descending figure of the movement.

II.—3. Scherzo. Jovial in high degree, the Scherzo begins with the thematic complexity of modern fashion. In dance tune of three beats horns lead off with a jolly call; strings strike dancing chords; the lower wind play a rollicking answer, but together with the horns, both strains continuing in dancing duet. Still the saucy call of horns seems the main text, though no single tune reigns alone.

[Music: (Horns) Scherzo. With vigor, not too fast (Strings and flutes) (Strings) (Clarinets and basses)]

The violins now play above the horns; then the cellos join and there is a three-part song of independent tunes, all in the dance. So far in separate voices it is now taken up by full chorus, though still the basses sing one way, trebles another, and the middle horns a third. And now the high trumpet strikes a phrase of its own. But they are all in dancing swing, of the fibre of the first jolly motive.