“Don Quixote, the knight of the sorrowful countenance; Sancho Panza.”Moderato, D minor, 4-4. The Don Quixote theme is announced by solo violoncello. It is of close kin to the theme of the introduction. Sancho Panza is typified by a theme given first to bass clarinet and tenor tuba; but afterward the solo viola is the characteristic instrument of Sancho.
The Knight and the Squire set out on their journey. “In a leisurely manner,” D minor, 12-8. The beautiful Dulcinea of Toboso inspires the Knight (a version of the “Ideal Woman” theme), who soon sees some windmills (brass) and prepares to attack. A breeze arises (wood-wind and strings), and the Knight, angry at the challenge, attacks, and is knocked down by the sails (run in wood-wind, harpglissando, heavy drum-beats).
The Victorious Battle against the Host of the Great Emperor Alifanfaron. “Warlike,” D major, 4-4. There is a cloud of dust; surely a great army approaches; the Knight rushes to fight, in spite of the warnings of Sancho, who sees the sheep. There is a pastoral figure (wood-wind), and out of the dust cloud (strings) comes a chorus of “Ba-a-a-a” (muted brass). Don Quixote charges and puts the foes to confusion.
The Dialogues of the Knight and the Squire.Moderato, 4-4. Sancho questions the worth of such a life. Don Quixote speaks of honor and glory (first theme), but Sancho sees nothing in them. The dispute waxes hot. Don Quixote speaks nobly of the ideal. Sancho prefers the easy, comfortable realities of life. At last his master is angry and bids him hold his tongue.
The Adventure with the Penitents. “Somewhat broader,” D minor, 4-4. A church theme (wind instruments) announces the approach ofa band of pilgrims. Don Quixote sees in them shameless robbers, desperate villains. He attacks them. They knock him senseless and go on their prayerful way. Sancho, sorely disturbed, rejoices when his master shows signs of life, and after he has helped him, lies down by his side and goes to sleep (bass tuba, double bassoon).
The Knight’s Vigil. “Very slow,” 4-4. Don Quixote, ashamed to sleep, holds watch by his armor. Dulcinea, answering his prayers, appears in a vision (the “Ideal Woman” theme, horn). Acadenzafor harp and violins leads to a passage portraying his rapture.
The Meeting with Dulcinea. G major, 2-4, 3-4. A common country wench comes along (wood-wind, tambourine), and Sancho by way of jest points her out to his master as Dulcinea. The Knight cannot believe it. Sancho swears it is so. The Knight suddenly knows that some magic has worked this transformation, and he vows vengeance.
The Ride through the Air. D minor, 8-4. Knight and Squire sit, blindfolded, on a wooden horse, which, they have been made to believe, will bear them through the air. Their respective themes soar skyward. The wind whistles about them (chromatic flute passages, harp, drum roll, wind machine). They stop suddenly (long-held bassoon note), and, looking about them, they think themselves still on the ground. “The persistenttremoloof the double basses on one note may be taken to mean that the two did not really leave the solid earth.”
The Journey in the Enchanted Bark. Don Quixote sees an empty boat, and he is sure it is sent by some mysterious power, that he may do a glorious deed. He and Sancho embark. His typical theme is changed into a barcarolle. The boat upsets, but they succeed in gaining the shore; and they give thanks for their safety (wind instrumentsreligioso).
The Combat with Two Magicians. “Quickly and stormily,” D minor, 4-4. Don Quixote is again on his famous horse, eager for adventure. Two peaceable monks are jogging along on their mules, and the Knight sees in them the base magicians who have worked him harm. He charges them and puts them to flight. The two themes are a version of the Don Quixote motive and an ecclesiastical phrase for the bassoons.
Don Quixote, defeated by the Knight of the White Moon, returns home and resolves to be a shepherd. “Know, sir,” said the Knight of the White Moon, “that I am styled the Bachelor Samson Carrasco, and am one of Don Quixote’s town; whose wild madness hath moved as many of us as know him to compassion, and me amongst the rest most; and believing that the best means to procure his health is to keep him quiet, and so to have him in his own house, I thought upon this device.” So said this knight after the furious battle which is thus described:
“They both of them set spurs to their horses, and the Knight of the White Moon’s being the swifter, met Don Quixote ere he had run a quarter of his career so forcibly (without touching him with his lance, for it seemed he carried it aloft on purpose) that he tumbled horse and man both to the ground, and Don Quixote had a terrible fall; so he got straight on the top of him; and, clapping his lance’s point upon his visor, said, ‘You are vanquished, Knight, and a dead man, if you confess not, according to the conditions of our combat.’ Don Quixote, all bruised and amazed, without heaving up his visor, as if he had spoken out of a tomb, with a faint and weak voice, said, ‘Dulcinea del Toboso is the fairest woman in the world, and I the unfortunatest Knight on earth; and it is not fit that my weakness defraud this truth; thrust your lance into me, Knight, and kill me, since you have bereaved me of my honor.’ ‘Not so truly,’ quoth he of the White Moon, ‘let the fame of my Lady Dulcinea’s beauty live in her entireness; I am only contented that the grand Don Quixote retire home for a year, or till such time as I please, as we agreed, before we began the battle.’ And Don Quixote answered that, so nothing were required of him in prejudice of his Lady Dulcinea, he would accomplish all the rest, like a true andpunctual knight.” The variation portrays the fight. The pastoral theme heard in the second variation—the battle with the sheep—reappears. Don Quixote loses one by one his illusions.
The Death of Don Quixote. “Very peacefully,” D major, 4-4. The typical theme of the Knight takes a new form. The queer harmonies in a section of this theme are now conventional, commonplace. “They stood all gazing one upon another, wondering at Don Quixote’s sound reasons, although they made some doubt to believe them. One of the signs which induced them to conjecture that he was near unto death’s door was that with such facility he was from a stark fool become a wise man. For, to the words already alleged, he added many more so significant, so Christian-like, and so well couched, that without doubt they confidently believed that Don Quixote was become a right wise man.... These heavy news opened the sluices of the tears-ful and swollen-blubbering eyes of the maid, of the niece, and of his good Squire Sancho Panza; so that they showered forth whole fountains of tears and fetched from the very bottom of their aggrieved hearts a thousand groaning sighs. For in effect (as we have already declared elsewhere) whilst Don Quixote was simply the good Alonso Quixano, and likewise when he was Don Quixote de la Mancha, he was ever of a mild and affable disposition and of a kind and pleasing conversation: and therefore was he not only beloved of all his household, but also of all those that knew him.... He had no sooner ended his discourse and signed and sealed his will and testament, but a swooning and faintness surprising him, he stretched himself the full length of his bed. All the company were much distracted and moved thereat, and ran presently to help him; and during the space of three days, that he lived after he had made his will, he did swoon and fall into trances almost every hour. All the house was in a confusion and uproar; all which notwithstanding the niece ceased not to feed very devoutly: the maidservant to drink profoundly, and Sancho to live merrily. For, when a man is in hope to inherit anything, that hope doth deface or at least moderate in the mind of the inheritor the remembrance or feeling of the sorrow and grief which of reason he should have a feeling of the testator’s death. To conclude, the last day of Don Quixote came, after he had received all the sacraments; and had by many andgodly reasons made demonstration to abhor all the books of errant chivalry. The notary was present at his death and reporteth how he had never read or found in any book of chivalry that any errant knight died in his bed so mildly, so quietly, and so Christianly as did Don Quixote. Amidst the wailful plaints and blubbering tears of the bystanders, he yielded up the ghost, that is to say, he died.”
“Tremolos in the strings indicate the first shiver of a deadly fever.” The Knight feels his end is near. Through the violoncello he speaks his last words. He remembers his fancies; he recalls the dreams and the ambitions; he realizes that they were all as smoke and vanity; he is, indeed, ready to die.
We doubt ifEin Heldenlebenwill be ranked among Strauss’s important works, though some of the sections, notably “The Hero’s Escape from the World, and Conclusion” are impressive, having emotional depth, being the baring of a soul. No man is perhaps a hero to his valet; but Strauss is evidently a hero to himself. He is autobiographical in this tone poem, as in hisDomesticsymphony. There is a certain presumption in asking one to hear musical descriptions of a composer’s struggles, his feelings at being adversely criticized by wretched Philistines, who do not appreciate him, his sulking and withdrawal, like Achilles to his tent. And why drag Frau Strauss into the musical story and typify her, capricious, coquettish, by whimsical measures for the violin? This tone poem, in spite of the sections just referred to, might be justly entitled “A Poseur’s Life,” and a blustering poseur at that.
Still, inEin Heldenlebenthere is the peaceful, contemplative ending, pages that Strauss has seldom surpassed, only in the recognition scene ofElektraand the presentation of the rose by the cavalier.
Ein Heldenleben, aTondichtung, was first performed at the eleventh concert of the Museumsgesellschaft, Frankfort-on-the-Main, March 3,1899, when Strauss conducted from manuscript and Alfred Hess played the violin solo.
Strauss began the composition of this tone poem at Munich, August 2, 1898; he completed the score December 27, 1898, at Charlottenburg. The score and parts were published at Leipsic in March, 1899.
The score calls for these instruments: sixteen first and second violins, twelve violas, twelve violoncellos, eight double basses, two harps, a piccolo, three flutes, three or four oboes, an English horn, clarinet in E flat, two clarinets in B flat, bass clarinet, three bassoons, double bassoon, eight horns, five trumpets, three trombones, a tenor tuba, a bass tuba, kettledrums, bass drum, snare drum, side drum, cymbals. It is dedicated to Willem Mengelberg and his orchestra in Amsterdam. Strauss has said that he wroteA Hero’s Lifeas a companion work to hisDon Quixote, Op. 35: “Having in this later work sketched the tragi-comic figure of the Spanish Knight whose vain search after heroism leads to insanity, he presents inA Hero’s Lifenot a single poetical or historical figure, but rather a more general and free ideal of great and manly heroism—not the heroism to which one can apply an everyday standard of valor, with its material and exterior rewards, but that heroism which describes the inward battle of life, and which aspires through effort and renouncement towards the elevation of the soul.”
There are many descriptions and explanations ofEin Heldenleben. One of the longest and deepest—and thickest—is by Friedrich Rösch. This pamphlet contains seventy thematical illustrations, as well as a descriptive poem by Eberhard König. Romain Rolland quotes Strauss as saying: “There is no need of a programme. It is enough to know there is a hero fighting his enemies.”
The work is in six sections:
The chief theme, which is typical of the hero, the whole and noble man, is announced at once by horn, violas and violoncellos, and the violins soon enter. This theme, E flat major, 4-4, is said to contain within itself four distinct motives, which collectively illustrate the will power and self-confidence of the hero, and their characteristic features are used throughout the work in this sense. Further themes closely related follow. They portray various sides of the hero’s character—hispride, emotional nature, iron will, richness of imagination, “inflexible and well-directed determination instead of low-spirited and sullen obstinacy,” etc. This section closes with pomp and brilliance, with the motive thundered out by the brass; and it is the most symphonic section of the tone poem. “A pause is made on a dominant seventh: ‘What has the world in store for the young dreamer?’”
They are jealous, they envy him, they sneer at his aims and endeavors, they are suspicious of his sincerity, they see nothing except for their own gain; and through flute and oboe they mock and snarl. They are represented by about a half-a-dozen themes, of which one is most important. Diminutions of the preceding heroic themes show their belittlement of his greatness. (It has been said that Strauss thus wished to paint the critics who had not been prudent enough to proclaim him great.) “Fifths in the tubas show their earthly, sluggish nature.” The hero’s theme appears in the minor; and his amazement, indignation, and momentary confusion are expressed by “a timid, writhing figure.” Finally the foes are shaken off.
This is an amorous episode. The hero is shy. The solo violin represents the loved one, who at first is coy, coquettish, and disdains his humble suit. There is a love theme, and there are also two “thematic illustrations of feminine caprice” much used later on. At last she rewards him. The themes given to the solo violin, and basses, violoncellos, and bassoon, are developed in the love duet. A new theme is given to the oboe, and a theme played by the violins is typical of the crowning of happiness. The clamorous voices of the world do not mar the peacefulness of the lovers.
There is a flourish of trumpets without. The hero rushes joyfully to arms. The enemy sends out his challenge. The battle rages. The typical heroic theme is brought into sharp contrast with that of the challenger, and the theme of the beloved one shines forth amid the din and the shock of the fight. The foe is slain. The themes lead intoa song of victory. And now what is there for the hero? The world does not rejoice in his triumph. It looks on him with indifferent eyes.
This section describes the growth of the hero’s soul. The composer uses thematic material fromDon Juan,Also sprach Zarathustra,Tod und Verklärung,Don Quixote,Till Eulenspiegel’s lustige Streiche,Guntram,Macbeth, and his song, “Traum durch die Dämmerung.” Jean Marnold claims that there are twenty-three of these reminiscences, quotations, which Strauss introduces suddenly, or successively, or simultaneously, “and the hearer that has not been warned cannot at the time notice the slightest disturbance in the development. He would not think that all these themes are foreign to the work he hears, and are only souvenirs.”
The world is still cold. At first the hero rages, but resignation and content soon take possession of his soul. The bluster of nature reminds him of his old days of war. Again he sees the beloved one, and in peace and contemplation his soul takes flight. For the last time the hero’s theme is heard as it rises to a sonorous, impressive climax. And then is solemn music, such as might serve funeral rites.
(Born at Oranienbaum, near St. Petersburg, on June 5, 1882)
As for Stravinsky, we personally prefer the Stravinsky of theSacre du Printempsto the Stravinsky who of late has been attempting to compose in the manner of Bach. To begin with, we do not hear music now with the ears of the earlier centuries, and the old idiom today has no pertinence except when it has been handed down to us by a master of it, who broke through the idiom and made a universal language of it for many years to come. Stravinsky’s feeble echo is simply dull, boresome. His “Muscovism” is greatly to be preferred.
In the summer of 1909 Diaghilev asked Stravinsky to write a ballet founded on the old Russian legend of the Fire-Bird. The score was ready in May, 1910. The scenario was the work of Fokine.
The first performance ofL’Oiseau de Feu, aConte dansé, in two scenes, was at the ParisOpéraon June 25, 1910. The Fire-Bird, Tamara Karsavina; The Beautiful Tsarevna, Mme Fokina; Ivan Tsarevitch, Fokine; Kastcheï, Boulgakov. Gabriel Pierné conducted. The stage settings were by Golovine and Bakst. Balakirev had sketched an opera in which the Fire-Bird was the central figure, but nothing came of it. Kastcheï (or Kostcheï) is the hero of Rimsky-Korsakov’s operaKastcheï the Immortal: an Autumn Legend, produced at the Private Opera, Moscow, in 1902. He also figures as “the man-skeleton” in Rimsky-Korsakov’sMlada, a fairy opera-ballet (St. Petersburg, 1893) and, by implication, Moussorgsky’s symphonic poem,A Night on Bald Mountain.
Mr. Montagu-Nathan[50]says in his sketch of Stravinsky: “In identifying the literary basis ofThe Fire-Birdwith that of Korsakov’sKastcheï, it should be pointed out that the latter work is but apasticheof episodes derived from legendary lore, with the monster as a central figure. In Stravinsky’s ballet, the ogre is an accessory character, so far as concerns the dramatic action, but his presence in the scheme is nevertheless vital to it.”
“Ivan Tsarevich, the hero of many tales, wandering in the night, espies the Fire-Bird attempting to pluck the golden fruit from a silver tree, and, after a chase, succeeds in capturing her. But receiving the gift of a glowing feather he consents to forego his prize. As the darkness of night lifts, Ivan discovers that he is in the grounds of an old castle, from which thirteen maidens presently emerge. They are observed by the concealed youth to make play with the tree and its fruit. Disclosing himself, he obtains possession of a golden apple. With the approaching dawn the maidens withdraw into the castle, which Ivan now recognizes as that of the fearsome Kastcheï, captor of decoyed travelers, over whom he tyrannously wields his magic power. Ivan resolves upon entering Kastcheï’s abode, but on opening the gate he is confronted first by a motley horde of freakish monsters and then by the ogre himself, to whose court they belong. Kastcheï seeks to bewitch the young adventurer and to turn him to stone, but Ivan is protected by the glowing feather. Presently the bird comes to his aid and nullifies Kastcheï’s threatened spell, and, after demonstrating its power by causing the frightful company of courtiers to break into a frenzied dance, reveals the casket in which Kastcheï’s ‘death’ ishidden. From the casket Ivan takes an egg, which he dashes to the ground; the death it contains unites itself with its owner, and the dread wizard dies. His castle vanishes, his victims are liberated, and Ivan receives the hand of the most beautiful of the maidens.”
The score, which was later revised with a smaller orchestration, calls for piccolo, three flutes (one interchangeable with a second piccolo), three oboes, English horn, three clarinets in A (one interchangeable with a small clarinet in D), bass clarinet, three bassoons (one interchangeable with a second double bassoon), double bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, bells, tambourine, xylophone, celesta, pianoforte, three harps, sixteen first violins, sixteen second violins, fourteen violas, eight violoncellos, six double basses.
Carnival—The Magician—Russian Dance—Petrouchka—The Arab—Dance of the Ballerina—Carnival—Nurses’ Dance—The Bear and the Peasant Playing a Hand-Organ—The Merchant and the Gypsies—The Dance of the Coachmen and Grooms—The Masqueraders—The Quarrel of the Arab and Petrouchka, and the Death of Petrouchka.
The balletPetrouchka: Scènes burlesques en 4 Tableaux, scenario by Alexandre Benois, was completed by Stravinsky at Rome in May (13-26), 1911. It was produced by Diaghilev at the Châtelet, Paris, on June 13, 1911. The chief dancers were Mme Tamar Karsavina, La Ballerine; Nijinsky, Petrouchka. Mr. Monteux conducted; Mr. Fokine was the ballet master. The scenery and costumes were designed by Benois; the scenery was painted by Anisfeld.
“This ballet depicts the life of the lower classes in Russia, with all its dissoluteness, barbarity, tragedy, and misery. Petrouchka is a sort of Polichinello, a poor hero always suffering from the cruelty of the police and every kind of wrong and unjust persecution. This represents symbolically the whole tragedy in the existence of the Russian people, a suffering from despotism and injustice. The scene is laid in the midst of the Russian carnival, and the streets are lined with booths in one ofwhich Petrouchka plays a kind of humorous rôle. He is killed, but he appears again and again as a ghost on the roof of the booth to frighten his enemy, his old employer, an allusion to the despotic rules in Russia.”
The following description of the ballet is taken fromContemporary Russian Composers, by Mr. Montagu-Nathan:
“The ‘plot’ ofPetrouchkaowes nothing to folklore, but retains the quality of the fantastic. Its chief protagonist is a lovelorn doll; but we have still a villain in the person of thefocusnik, a showman who for his own ends prefers to consider that a puppet has no soul. The scene is the Admiralty Square, St. Petersburg; the time ‘Butter-Week,’ somewhere about the eighteen-thirties.... Prior to the raising of the first curtain the music has an expectant character and the varied rhythmic treatment of a melodic figure which has a distinct folk-tune flavor has all the air of inviting conjecture as to what is about to happen. Once the curtain goes up we are immediately aware that we are in the midst of a carnival, and are prepared for some strange sights. The music describes the nature of the crowd magnificently, and in his orchestral reproduction of a hurdy-gurdy, whose player mingles with the throng, Stravinsky has taken pains that his orchestral medium shall not lend any undue dignity to the instrument.... Presently the showman begins to attract his audience, and, preparatory to opening his curtain, plays a few mildly florid passages on his flute. With his final flourish he animates his puppets. They have been endowed by the showman with human feelings and passions. Petrouchka is ugly and consequently the most sensitive. He endeavors to console himself for his master’s cruelty by exciting the sympathy and winning the love of his fellow doll, the Ballerina, but in this he is less successful than the callous and brutal Moor, the remaining unit in the trio of puppets. Jealousy between Petrouchka and the Moor is the cause of the tragedy which ends in the pursuit and slaughter of the former. The Russian Dance which the three puppets perform at the bidding of their task-master recalls vividly the passage of a crowd in Rimsky-Korsakov’sKitezh.
“When at the end of the dance the light fails and the inner curtain falls, we are reminded by the roll of the side drum which does duty as entr’acte music that we have to do with a realist, with a composer who is no more inclined than was his precursor Dargomijsky to make concessions; he prefers to preserve illusions, and so long as the drumcontinues its slow fusillade the audience’s mind is kept fixed upon the doll it has been contemplating. The unsuccessful courtship is now enacted and then the scene is again changed to the Moor’s apartment, where, after a monotonous droning dance, the captivation of the Ballerina takes place. There are from time to time musical figures recalling the showman’s flute flourishes, apparently referring to his dominion over the doll.... The scene ends with the summary ejection of that unfortunate (Petrouchka), and the drum once more bridges the change of scene.
“In the last tableau the Carnival, with its consecutive common chords, is resumed. The nurses’ dance, which is of folk origin, is one of several items of decorative music, some of them, like the episode of the man with the bear, and the merchant’s accordion, being fragmentary. With the combined dance of the nurses, coachmen, and grooms, we have again a wonderful counterpoint of the melodic elements.
“When the fun is at its height, it is suddenly interrupted by Petrouchka’s frenzied flight from the little theater. He is pursued by the Moor, whom the cause of their jealousy tries vainly to hold in check. To the consternation of the spectators, Petrouchka is slain by a stroke of the cruel Moor’s sword, and a tap on thetambour de Basque.
“The showman, having demonstrated to the satisfaction of the gay crowd that Petrouchka is only a doll, is left alone with the corpse, but is not allowed to depart in absolute peace of mind. To the accompaniment of a ghastly distortion of the showman’s flute music the wraith of Petrouchka appears above the little booth. There is a brief reference to the carnival figure, then four concludingpizzicatonotes, and the drama is finished. From his part in outlining it we conclude that Stravinsky is an artist whose lightness of touch equals that of Ravel, whose humanity is as deep as Moussorgsky’s.”
The ballet calls for these instruments: four flutes (two interchangeable with piccolo), four oboes (one interchangeable with English horn), four clarinets (one interchangeable with bass clarinet), four bassoons (one interchangeable with double bassoon), four horns, two trumpets (one interchangeable with little trumpet, in D), twocornets-à-pistons, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, snare drum,tambour de Provence, bass drum, tambourine, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, xylophones, tam-tam, celesta (two and four hands), pianoforte, two harps, strings. The score, dedicated to Alexandre Benois, was published in 1912.
Introduction—Harbingers of Spring—Dance of the Adolescents—Abduction—Spring Rounds—Games of the Rival Cities—The Procession of the Wise Men—The Adoration of the Earth (The Wise Man)—Dance of the Earth.
Introduction—Mysterious Circles of the Adolescents—Glorification of the Chosen One—Evocation of the Ancestors—Ritual of the Ancestors—The Sacrificial Dance of the Chosen One.
The Rite of Spring, or more literally according to the RussianSpring Consecration, scenery and costumes designed by Nicolas Roerich, choreography by W. Nijinsky, was produced at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées on May 29, 1913, by the Diaghilev Ballet Russe. Mr. Monteux conducted. The chief dancers were M. Nijinsky and Mlle Piltz. The performance, while it delighted some, incited howls of protest. The hissing was violent, mingled with counter cheers, so that M. Astruc ordered the lights turned up. The late Alfred Capu wrote a bitter article published inLe Figaro, in which he said:
“Bluffing the idle rich of Paris through appeals to their snobbery is a delightfully simple matter.... The process works out as follows: Take the best society possible, composed of rich, simple-minded, idle people. Then submit them to an intense régime of publicity. By pamphlets, newspaper articles, lectures, personal visits and all other appeals to their snobbery, persuade them that hitherto they have seen only vulgar spectacles, and are at last to know what is art and beauty. Impress them with cabalistic formulæ. They have not the slightest notion of music, literature, painting, and dancing; still, they have heretofore seen under these names only a rude imitation of the real thing. Finally assure them that they are about to see real dancing and hear real music.It will then be necessary to double the prices at the theater, so great will be the rush of shallow worshipers at this false shrine.”
Mr. Carl Van Vechten describes the scene in his book:Music after the Great War:
“I attended the first performance in Paris of Stravinsky’s anarchistic (against the canons of academic art) ballet,The Rite of Spring, in which primitive emotions are both depicted and aroused by a dependence on barbarous rhythm in which melody and harmony, as even so late a composer as Richard Strauss understands them, do not enter. A certain part of the audience, thrilled by what it considered to be a blasphemous attempt to destroy music as an art, and swept away with wrath, began very soon after the rise of the curtain to whistle, to make cat-calls, and to offer audible suggestions as to how the performance should proceed. Others of us, who liked the music and felt that the principles of free speech were at stake, bellowed defiance. It was war over art for the rest of the evening, and the orchestra played on unheard, except occasionally when a slight lull occurred. The figures on the stage danced in time to music that they had to imagine they heard, and beautifully out of rhythm with the uproar in the auditorium. I was sitting in a box, in which I had rented one seat. Three ladies sat in front of me, and a young man occupied the place behind me. He stood up during the course of the ballet to enable himself to see more clearly. The intense excitement under which he was laboring, thanks to the potent force of the music, betrayed itself presently when he began to beat rhythmically on the top of my head with his fists. My emotion was so great that I did not feel the blows for some time. They were perfectly synchronized with the beat of the music. When I did, I turned around. His apology was sincere. We had both been carried beyond ourselves.”
There were five performances in Paris that season.
When this ballet was brought out at Drury Lane, London, on July 11, 1913, with Mr. Monteux conductor, it was thought advisable to send a lecturer, Mr. Edwin Evans, in front of the curtain, to explain the ideas underlying the ballet. At the end of the performance there was greater applause than hissing.
The music of this ballet was performed for the first time in concert form by an orchestra conducted by Mr. Monteux at one of his concerts at the Casino de Paris in Paris on April 5, 1914, when it was enthusiastically applauded.
And nowThe Rite of Springis acclaimed by many as Stravinsky’s “greatest work.”
The orchestration is as follows: piccolo, 3 flutes (the third interchangeable with a second piccolo), bass flute; five oboes (the fourth interchangeable with English horn); small clarinet in E flat, three clarinets and bass clarinet; three bassoons, two double bassoons; eight horns (two interchangeable with tenor tubas); small trumpet in D, three trumpets in C, bass trumpet; three trombones; two bass tubas; kettledrums, bass drum, two antique cymbals, tam-tam, scratcher, and strings.
(Born at New York, December 22, 1885)
It is a pleasure to find an American composer of talent who is willing to write music that is cheerful, not portentous; whose fancy is delicate; who uses a large orchestra discreetly, not chiefly to make a thunderous noise. Mr. Taylor for his inspiration went to a book that for years has pleased children from the tender age to that of white hair; he did not ransack the Grecian or the Scandinavian mythology; he had no thesis, no exposition of colors; he did not attempt to portray in music cave life and the rude rites of primitive man. Nor did he strive painfully to be ultra-modern in the French, Italian, or German manner. He remembered Lewis Carroll’s story. Pleasant and amusing musical thoughts came into his head, and he expressed them musically, without laboring after transliteration. Even his narration of the Jabberwock’s fate is not too realistic, and in this movement the measures that may be taken to picture the peaceful scene while the hero waited “with vorpalsword” in hand by the Tumtum tree the approach of the fearful monster are charged with poetic beauty. Charming also is the “Dedication.” The whole work shows genuine fancy, a gift of expression in an individual manner. Whether without titles the music would identify this or that episode is not to the point. The suite is frankly programme music, but of the better kind; natural, not pretentious; amusing, but as a man of talent amuses first himself, then those who are privileged to be with him.
This suite, inspired byThrough the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832-98), was written in 1917-19 for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, pianoforte, and strings. It was produced in this form at a concert of the New York Chamber Music Society in New York on February 18, 1919. The suite was then in three movements. In September, 1921, Mr. Taylor began to revise the suite for full orchestra. He added “The Garden of Live Flowers.” The first performance of the revised work was by the New York Symphony Orchestra in Brooklyn, March 10, 1923. The performance was repeated in New York the following afternoon.
The score, dedicated “To Katharine Moore Taylor from a difficult son,” calls for these instruments: three flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, double bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, a set of three kettledrums, snare drum, tambourine, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, xylophone, pianoforte, and strings.
When the suite was produced by the Symphony Society of New York, the programme contained a description by Mr. Taylor:
“The suite needs no extended analysis. It is based on Lewis Carroll’s immortal nonsense fairy tale,Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, and the five pictures it presents will, if all goes well, be readily recognizable to lovers of the book. There are four movements, the first being subdivided into two connected parts.”
Carroll precedes the tale with a charming poetical foreword, the first stanza of which the music aims to express. It runs:
Child of the pure, unclouded browAnd dreaming eyes of wonder!Though time be fleet, and I and thouAre half a life asunder,Thy loving smile will surely hailThe love gift of a fairy tale.
Child of the pure, unclouded brow
And dreaming eyes of wonder!
Though time be fleet, and I and thou
Are half a life asunder,
Thy loving smile will surely hail
The love gift of a fairy tale.
A simple song theme, briefly developed, leads to
(The score contains this extract from the book:
“‘O Tiger Lily,’ said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, ‘I wish you could talk.’“‘We can talk,’ said the Tiger-Lily, ‘when there’s anybody worth talking to.’“‘And can the flowers talk?’“‘As well as you can,’ said the Tiger-Lily, ‘and a great deal louder.’”)
“‘O Tiger Lily,’ said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, ‘I wish you could talk.’
“‘We can talk,’ said the Tiger-Lily, ‘when there’s anybody worth talking to.’
“‘And can the flowers talk?’
“‘As well as you can,’ said the Tiger-Lily, ‘and a great deal louder.’”)
Shortly after Alice had entered the looking-glass country she came to a lovely garden in which the flowers were talking—in the words of the Tiger-Lily, “as well as you can, and a great deal louder.” The music, therefore, reflects the brisk chatter of the swaying, bright-colored denizens of the garden.
This is the poem that so puzzled Alice, and which Humpty-Dumpty finally explained to her. The theme of that frightful beast, the Jabberwock, is first announced by the full orchestra. The clarinet then begins the tale, recounting how on a “brillig” afternoon, the “slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” Muttered imprecations by the bassoon warn us to “beware the Jabberwock, my son.” A miniature march signalizes the approach of our hero, taking “his vorpal sword in hand.” Trouble starts among the trombones—the Jabberwock is upon us. The battle with the monster is recounted in a short and rather repellent fugue, the double basses bringing up the subject and the hero fighting back in the interludes. Finally his vorpal blade (really a xylophone) goes “snicker-snack” and the monster, impersonated by the solo bassoon, dies a lingering and convulsive death. The hero returns to thevictorious strains of his own theme—“O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” The whole orchestra rejoices—the church bells are rung—alarums and excursions.
Conclusion. Once more the “slithy toves” perform their pleasing evolutions, undisturbed by the uneasy ghost of the late Jabberwock.
(The score contains extracts from the dialogue of Alice and the gnat “about the size of a chicken” about various insects, among them the bread-and-butter-fly.
“‘And what does it live on?’“‘Weak tea with cream in it.’“‘Supposing it couldn’t find any?’“‘Then it would die, of course.’“‘But that must happen very often,’ said Alice thoughtfully.“‘It always happens,’ said the gnat.”)
“‘And what does it live on?’
“‘Weak tea with cream in it.’
“‘Supposing it couldn’t find any?’
“‘Then it would die, of course.’
“‘But that must happen very often,’ said Alice thoughtfully.
“‘It always happens,’ said the gnat.”)
Here we find the vociferous diptera that made such an impression upon Alice—the Bee-elephant, the Gnat, the Rocking-horse-fly, the Snap-dragon-fly, and the Bread-and-butter-fly. There are several themes, but there is no use trying to decide which insect any one of them stands for.
(The score contains extracts from the conversation of the White Knight, and an account of his leave-taking.)
He was a toy Don Quixote, mild, chivalrous, ridiculous, and rather touching. He carried a mouse-trap on his saddle-bow, “because, if they do come, I don’t choose to have them running about.” He couldn’t ride very well, but he was a gentle soul, with good intentions. There are two themes: the first, a sort of instrumental prance, being the Knight’s own conception of himself as a slashing, dare-devil fellow. The second is bland, mellifluous, a little sentimental—much more like the Knight as he really was. The first theme starts off bravely, but falls out of the saddle before very long, and has to give way to the second. The two alternate, in various guises, until the end, when the Knight rides off, with Alice waving her handkerchief—he thought it would encourage him if she did.
He was a toy Don Quixote, mild, chivalrous, ridiculous, and rather touching. He carried a mouse-trap on his saddle-bow, “because, if they do come, I don’t choose to have them running about.” He couldn’t ride very well, but he was a gentle soul, with good intentions. There are two themes: the first, a sort of instrumental prance, being the Knight’s own conception of himself as a slashing, dare-devil fellow. The second is bland, mellifluous, a little sentimental—much more like the Knight as he really was. The first theme starts off bravely, but falls out of the saddle before very long, and has to give way to the second. The two alternate, in various guises, until the end, when the Knight rides off, with Alice waving her handkerchief—he thought it would encourage him if she did.
(Born at Votkinsk, in the government of Viatka, Russia, May 7, 1840; died at St. Petersburg, November 6, 1893)
It is true that in more than one page of his symphonies Tchaikovsky narrowly escapes the reproach of vulgarity; but the earnestness, the sincerity of the speech makes its way even before the development and the amplification make them seem inevitable. The heart of Tchaikovsky was that of a little child; the brain was that of a man weary of the world and all its vanities. And so we have the singular phenomenon of naïveté, accompanied by a super-refined skill—and all this in the body and mind of a man fundamentally oriental in his tastes and especially in his love of surprising or monotonous rhythms and gorgeous colors. The very modernity of Tchaikovsky, his closeness to us as the spokesman of the things we think and dare not say—these qualities may war against his lasting fame; but in our day and generation he is the supreme interpreter by music of elemental and emotional thought. The emptiness of life obsessed him, and in the expression of his thought he is again the man of his period. When faith returns again to the world, his music may be studied with interest and curiosity as an important document in sociology. But in the present we are under his mighty spell.
If Tchaikovsky had a programme in mind when he composed his Fifth and Sixth symphonies, he never published it to the world; but for the Fourth he wrote an elaborate one. Does the music gain by it? To us the Fourth symphony is interesting because it seems nearer to the Russian spirit and life as portrayed by Dostoivsky than the later ones. Even the ornamentation, the arabesques, that in another’s music would seem as so many excrescences, perhaps frivolous, are here in place. The neurotic, self-torturing Tchaikovsky was for years obsessed by the thought of death and the charnel house. Fate was to him not a word to be associated only with the story of Œdipus or Pelop’s line. The Fourth symphony is a personal document, revealing the man, as his letters revealed him. It is easy to pick flaws in it; to dismiss it as a suite, not a symphony; to complain of this or that; but the music with its deep-rooted melancholy, its noisy attempt to forget the inevitable end, its drunken hilarity, its dark and sinister sadness, is not easily to be put aside, not easily to be forgotten.