This is, I know, a very inadequate description of a most tragic opera, but I have no more space. There are no separate numbers, save the Porter's song, which could be detached from the rest of the work. The opera must be taken as an entity or not at all. There are no attempts at sustained, beautiful melody; everything is sacrificed to the drama. There are no effective bits from a singer's point of view, and Mr Arthur Godfrey would have some difficulty in writing a really popular selection founded on this work. For a perfect performance, wonderful acting, singing, orchestral playing, andmise-en-scèneare absolutely essential. It requires months of the most careful rehearsal, but the result would justify all the time and labour spent over it. It should be a great privilege to take the smallest part in a performance of such a stupendous tragedy.
It is the general custom of amateurs to sneer atSpohr. True, he was the finest classical violinist of his time, but that cannot account for the general abuse from which he suffers: there must be something else. The something else seems to me to be the curious foresight he had with regard to Richard Wagner's works. When no one, save Liszt, would hear them or of them, dear old-fashioned classical Spohr risked his whole reputation to produce operas by this young art—and practical—revolutionary at his theatre at Cassel. There was something very splendid about him. Among the enormous quantity of music he has written there is one overture, "Macbeth," to which I wish to draw attention; it is short, it is conventional, but there is a lot of the real feeling ofMacbethin it. I don't say for an instant that this is an epic, but it is a very excellent piece of work and quite worthy of the great man, if not great composer, who devised it.
In some editions ofRobert Schumann'spianoforte works the "Novelette," op. 21, No. 3, is headed with these words fromMacbeth: "When shall we three meet again?" They certainly fit in with the first phrase of the movement,and the whole sounds very like a witches' dance, but there is no mention of the words in Peters' edition. I hope it is true, as that gives us another piece of Schumann's Shakespearian music in addition to theJulius Cæsaroverture and the last Clown's song fromTwelfth Night.
Raff's"Macbeth" overture is quite one of his most successful works. It opens with a dance of the Witches, mostly for flute and piccolo at first, but getting very wild later; then there is a sort of dialogue between Macbeth (wood wind and horns) and Witches (their own dance). These themes are developed with considerable skill, and a new one (Lady Macbeth) is added, as are some odd little bits of a sort of Scottish character. There is fine fight-music near the end, and the final triumph of Macduff is celebrated with a very cheerful noise. This overture would make an admirable opening for an elaborate stage performance ofMacbeth.
Henry Hugo Piersonwas an English composer, born at Oxford, 1815, but is still unknown to the majority of his fellow-countrymen. After leaving Cambridge he studied in Germany, where he became very intimate with Mendelssohn. Meyerbeer, Spohr, and Schumann were all his friends and admirers; and in 1844 he succeeded Sir Henry Bishop as Professor of Music at Edinburgh, but very soon resigned, and settled down in Germany, marrying a German literary lady, Caroline Leonhardt. The inordinate Mendelssohn-worship of his day rendered England a difficult home for a modern English composer: so he changed the spelling of his name from Pearson to Pierson, settled down in his adopted country, and died at Leipsic, January 18, 1873.
His symphonic poem, "Macbeth," op. 51, was once performed at the Crystal Palace concerts, but has been very thoroughly neglected since. It is real modern programme music, and scored for a very large orchestra, including a solo part for the cornet-à -pistons and a military drum. The symphonic poem opens at Act ii., Scene 2, and is headedwith the words, "Hours dreadful and strange things." The music is very slow and mysterious, but works up to a climax on the words of the Witches, "Fair is foul and foul is fair." Then comes, verypiano, "The March of the Scottish Army"—a most characteristic piece, the tune on the high wood wind, drones on the bassoons, and great use made of the military drum. This works up to a tremendousfortissimo, and dies away mysteriously before Banquo's words:—
What are these,So withered and so wild in their attire,That look not like th' inhabitants o' th' earth,And yet are on't?
A curious and interesting effect is here made by the tenor trombone, clarinet, and cornet taking the parts of the three witches, and playing the themes that fit what the Witches are supposed to speak. I mean the three "All hail" speeches. The orchestration is full of sinister mystery here; but, on Macbeth's words, "Two truths are told As happy prologue to the swelling act Of the imperial theme," the music becomes, for a time, triumphant, though very wild, and breaks off suddenly for a Lady Macbeth scene. She is reading Macbeth's letter, and these words are printed in the score: "This have I thought good to deliver thee. Lay it to thy heart, and fare thee well." The subjects here used are the Witches' prophetic theme and a passionate Lady Macbeth one. All the music in this section is highly emotional, dramatic, and brilliantly clever. On Macbeth's words, "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly," a gruesome little passage for strings and bassoons heralds the King's feast music, consisting of curious disjointed wood-wind passages, till Macbeth's words, "Is this a dagger which I see before me?", when the music seems to drive him to the murder. After the words, "Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to Heaven or to Hell," there are two intensely dramatic bars; and then,pianissimo, is heard the Witches' propheticmotifon the cornet and horn—a finebit of musical word-painting. Now comes the longest episode in the work, a magnificent Witches' dance, the composer employing nearly every resource of the modern orchestra. Then, in the distance, is heard the march of the English army, very stirring and martial. At the end of this passage, Macbeth says: "It's ripe for shaking, and the powers above Put on their instruments." Here a great stirring is made in the orchestra, and a cry (violin solo) is heard:—
Macbeth: Wherefore was that cry?Seyton: The Queen, my lord, is dead.
Very piteous and poignant music is used in this passage, broken in upon by the strains of battle. At the words, "Blow, wind, come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back," the music dies down for the familiar dialogue between Macbeth and Macduff concerning the gynæcological manner of the latter's birth, and a few more bars of fight music finish off the former. The sound dies down. The prophetic theme is heard very faintly on the trombone and finally on the horn; the music gets softer and slower, and so fades away.
I have written at special length about this composer, because it seems so strange that an English musician, a Harrow and Cambridge man, and a pupil of Attwood and Corfe, should have been so much in advance of his time and especially of his country. Born, as we saw, in 1815, he was only six years younger than Mendelssohn, and forty years old when Sir Henry Bishop died. He was four years younger than Liszt, and doubtless got the general idea of the symphonic poem form, or want of form, from the elder master. He was two years younger than Wagner, yet his earlier compositions are far in advance, musically, of Wagner's early work. It seems deplorable that this remarkable English composer should be so utterly ignored by his countrymen.
Richard Strauss'smagnificent Symphonic Poem on this theme must take a very high place in the musicalcommentary onMacbeth. It is scored for the largest possible orchestra, and every known musical device in orchestration or harmony is to be found in this enormous and complicated score. The poem begins sombrely, but almost at once there breaks in a short fanfare, which occurs repeatedly throughout the work. Immediately after the fanfare the first subject is announced on the brass, and the whole work gets going. Strauss prints a short speech of Lady Macbeth's beginning, "Hie thee hither, that I may pour My spirits in thine ear; And chastise with the valour of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round." In the score the music here is marked "wildlyappassionato," thoughpianissimo(Strauss here uses the device oftremolostrings playing on the bridge with great effect). Afterwards he introduces a long, broad, and very beautiful theme, the sort of theme which his detractors are always challenging him to write, and which he is always writing. Strauss gives no definite programme in his score, and it is up to anyone hearing it to make his own; but one could not go very far wrong. There is no need to describe the various developments, thematic and harmonic, which take place in the themes before the end of this work. It is long. Ninety pages of closely printed full score take some time to play, and a longer time to describe in detail: so I content myself with saying that anyone can get a fine, convincing picture of the life and death of Macbeth by hearing this work and not bothering whether a certain theme means Duncan, Bloody Child, Bleeding Sergeant, Macbeth, or Lady Macbeth.
Wagner'sone known contribution to Shakespearian music is his two-act opera,Das Liebesverbot, founded onMeasure for Measure, and not, as so many people think, onLove's Labour's Lost. It is his second complete opera, and, for reasons I will explain later, was only once performed; now, seeing that the composer, according to some authorities, apparently destroyed all of it except a couple of numbers, it may never be done again. Wagner planned the libretto during the summer of 1834, while on holiday at Teplitz. He had lately heard Auber'sMasanielloat Leipsic, and was astonished at the effect of the striking scenes and rapid action of this opera. Could he not improve on Auber's music and produce an opera in which the action should be equally swift? He tookMeasure for Measure, changed the scene from Vienna to Sicily, "where a German governor, aghast at the incomprehensible laziness of its populace, attempts to carry out a puritanical reform and lamentably fails." (The words in quotation marks are taken from Wagner's article on this opera in volume vii. of his prose works, as with the other quotations that follow.)
The score of the opera was finished while the composer was musical director at the town theatre of Magdeburg, during the winter of 1835-36. Wagner had the right to claim a benefit performance, and, having an excellent troupe of singers at his disposal, decided to produce his opera at this benefit. "In spite of a royal subsidy and the intervention of a theatre committee, our worthy director was in a perennial state of bankruptcy," says Wagner, "and before the end of the season the most popular member ofthe company, in spite of the unpunctuality of the payment of their salaries and the offer of better engagements elsewhere." Wagner modestly says: "It was only through my being a favourite with the whole opera company that I induced the singers not merely to stay until the end of March, but also to undertake the study of my opera, most exhausting in view of the briefness of the time." He only had ten days for all the various rehearsals. He says: "Notwithstanding that it had been quite impossible to drive them into a little conscious settledness of memory, I finally reckoned on a miracle to be wrought by my own acquired dexterity as conductor." This does not bear out the general opinion held in London as to Wagner's conducting. During his season as conductor of the Philharmonic in 1855, he had very severe opposition with which to contend, especially that of the musical critics Chorley and Davison (theAthenæumand theTimes); but I should think Wagner was a pretty useful conductor, to judge from his article about conducting. Wagner kept the company together at rehearsal by singing all their parts and shouting the necessary action, forgetting that this could not be done at the public performance. At the general rehearsal Wagner's conducting, gesticulation, shouting, and prompting kept things together, but at the performance, before a crowded house, there was utter chaos.
Unfortunately, Wagner had allowed the manager, Herr Bethmann, to have the receipts of thepremièreas his benefit; and at the second performance, Wagner's benefit, there were few in the audience, and a free fight, amusingly described by him, was waged behind the scenes.
It takes Wagner six pages of closely printed prose to give arésuméof the plot, and it would be impossible in my present space to do more than comment on some of the changes. The Duke, who is the most indefatigable talker in Shakespeare's play, becomes a King, who never even appears. Angelo becomes a German Governor, who tries to foist German puritanism on the hot-blooded Sicilians. There is no moated grange for Mariana, who in Wagner's version isa fellow-novice of Isabella. Neither King nor Duke ever appearing, Isabella marries Lucio—a strange alteration to make. Isabella, to save her brother Claudio, arranges an appointment with the German Governor at the Carnival (Wagner's idea), and sends Mariana instead. They are discovered, and the Governor expects to be executed for his ill-treatment of Mariana, when news is heard of the King's arrival in harbour. In Wagner's words, "Everyone decides to go in full carnival attire to greet the beloved prince, who surely will be pleased to see how ill the sour puritanism of the Germans becomes the heat of Sicily. The word goes round! Gay festivals delight him more than all the gloomy edicts. Frederick, with his newly married wife Mariana, has to head the procession; the novice, Isabella, lost to the cloister for ever, makes the second pair with Lucio." This is Wagner's ending, and anyone who knows the original text can get a fair idea of his alterations.
With the few, but very important, exceptions I have mentioned, he sticks fairly closely to Shakespeare's text. In regard to the troubles concerning the production, much has been amusingly written by Wagner. The police took offence at the title "Forbidden Love." The production was for the last week before Easter, when only serious pieces were performed. Wagner assured the magistrate that it was founded on a serious play by Shakespeare, and, not having read further than the title, the official passed the opera on condition that the title was changed toThe Novice of Palermo. Wagner says: "In the Magdeburg performance, remarkably enough, I had nothing at all to suffer from the dubious character of my opera text; the story remained utterly unknown to the audience, on account of its thoroughly vague representation." Of his benefit performance the composer says: "Whether a few seats were filled at the commencement of the overture I can scarcely judge. About a quarter of an hour earlier the only people I could see in the stalls were my landlady and her husband, and, strange to say, a Polish Jew in full costume! I was hoping for an increase in the audiencenotwithstanding, when suddenly the most unheard-of scenes took place in the wings. The husband of my primadonna (Isabella) had fallen upon the second tenor, a very pretty young man, who sang my 'Claudio,' and against whom the offended husband had long nursed a secret grudge. It seems that having convinced himself of the nature of the audience when he accompanied me to the curtain, the lady's husband deemed the longed-for hour arrived for taking vengeance on his wife's admirer without damage to the theatrical enterprise. Claudio was so badly cuffed and beaten by him that the unhappy wretch had to escape to the cloak-room with bleeding face. Isabella was told of it, rushed in despair at her raging husband, and received such blows from him that she fell into convulsions." There was a general free fight, all the company paying off old scores. The principals were unable to proceed with the performance, the manager made the usual speech about unforeseen obstacles, and the performance did not take place. This is the correct account of the exciting second and last performance, told almost in Wagner's own words, of the composer's only Shakespearian opera.
Of the music, Grove says the score is in the possession of the King of Bavaria at Munich. In the British Museum there is a copy of a carnival song and chorus, very bright and spirited, but with no trace of the later Wagner. There is also a "Carnival scene" for pianoforte, founded on motives from the opera, by Geo. Kirchner. Unfortunately, the first half of this fantasia is the song I have just noticed, with elaborate bravura passages for the piano, but the middle episode is much more like the real man. It is a fairly slow, melodious passage, full of interesting modulations, quite foreshadowing what the composer might do. If the rest of the work is up to this form, and if the score is really in Munich, I hope that it will be published, and performed with better luck than at Wagner's "benefit."
As there has been so little music composed for this play, I will give a short account of as many settings as I can find of the solitary lyric contained in it. Probably thefirst setting of these words was byDr John Wilson, born at Faversham, 1595, who is supposed to have sung Balthazar inMuch Ado About Nothing, and other similar parts, and to have been mentioned by name in the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays.
In this edition (1623) the stage direction runs, "Enter the Prince, Leonato, Claudio, and Jacke Wilson." This particular song is published in Playford'sSelect Ayres and Dialogues, published in 1659 for one, two, or three voices, to the theorbo-lute or bass-viol. The words are beautifully set to a quaint and pathetic air, and there is no verbal repetition. Dr Wilson adds the second verse, "Hide, O hide those hills of snow," by Fletcher, to make the song an ordinary length, without futile repetition.
The next setting is byJohn Weldon, pupil of Henry Purcell, born at Chichester, January 19, 1676, and educated at Eton. This song is interesting, but very florid, and the words are dreadfully ill-treated. Weldon only sets the verse attributed to Shakespeare. The music was on sale at "The Golden Harp and Hoboy" in Catherine Street. Our music-sellers do not call their shops by such pretty names now.
Next on our list comesJohann Ernst Galliard, happily named as a composer of theatre music, one of our earliest German "peaceful penetrators." Born at Zelle, Hanover, in 1687, he soon emigrated to England, where he successfully composed operas and much dramatic music, including this pretty little song, which was published in 1730. He was organist at Somerset House, and, I suppose, played the organ while the clerks filled in birth certificates and made out income-tax forms. He died in London in 1749.
Thomas Chilcot, composer of the next version of these words, was organist at Bath Abbey from 1733 until he died (1766). This song was published in 1745, and is a good example of the period, slightly florid, but very melodious,with a charming accompaniment for stringed orchestra. It is a song that would repay careful study on the part of a high tenor. The second Fletcher verse is added in this version.
OfChristopher Dixon, the composer of the next setting, no mention is made in Grove'sDictionary of Music and Musicians, and all that seems to be known of him is that he was called "of York," and some cantatas and songs of his are in the British Museum Library. This song, published in 1760, has a flowing, rather sad melody, and the second verse is again used.
A glee for male voices to these words was published about 1780. It was composed by eitherTommasoorGiuseppe Giordani, two composer-brothers—probably by the former, who was born at Naples in 1740 and migrated to Dublin in 1761, and wrote a great deal of music to English lyrics. This glee is a charming setting. The part-writing is always graceful, and often very ingenious, the inner parts melodious and interesting, and the whole effective. The composer has adapted this glee for mezzo-soprano solo with harpsichord accompaniment, and a very pretty song it makes.
Jackson of Exeter, as he was generally called, who wrote the celebrated church service known as Jackson in F, has set these words as a duet, with harpsichord accompaniment. The first verse only is taken, but the composer "rings the changes" on the words to such an unhappy extent that it makes quite a long number. Simple, melodious, and graceful, like nearly all of Jackson's secular music, it is not of much value as a serious setting of the words. Strangely enough, it is markedallegro molto, and, should this instruction be carried out literally, the effect would be very curious, taking the words into consideration. The composer was born at Exeter in 1730, and this duet was published in 1780. He was akeen landscape painter, and imitated the style of his friend Gainsborough.
W. Tindal, whose setting was published in 1785, is not mentioned in Grove'sDictionary, and seems to have composed very little music. Six vocal pieces, of which this is No. 2, and eight English, Spanish, and Scottish ballads, one of which is a quaint setting of part of Hamlet's love-letter, "But never doubt I love," are all the compositions of his I can find. This duet is full of clever bits of imitation and good contrapuntal part-writing, and is melodious as well. Tindal also repeats the words almostad nauseam, and only uses the first verse.
Sir John Andrew Stevenson, Mus.D., composed a glee on these words, which was published in 1795, but is of no great merit.
All that I can discover aboutLuffman Atterburyis that he was a carpenter before he became a musician, was a musician-in-ordinary to George III., sang at the Handel commemoration of 1784, and died in 1796. He composed one beautiful piece of music, a round in three parts to the first verse of these words, which is really a perfect gem. The melody is simple and beautiful, the counter-melodies are equally taking, and the part-writing is very skilful. What more can one desire?
Very few composers seem to have been attracted byThe Merchant of Venice, though in the last act occurs one of the most beautiful eulogies of music in the world—the lines are too familiar to quote. I can only trace two operas on the subject. The first isIl Mercante di Venezia, byCiro Pinsuti, produced at Bologna, November 8, 1873. It is in four acts, and the libretto is by G. T. Cimino, who very freely adapted Shakespeare's story. The work opens with a short overture-prelude of no very great importance, and the curtain rises on a street in Venice with chorus singing and gondolas floating by. Presently Portia appears in a gondola with the Prince of Morocco, playing the lute. She sings a greeting to Venice and its inhabitants, and exits with the Prince, who has not a singing or speaking part in the opera. But Bassanio and Antonio have observed her, and the former has fallen in love with her and tells Antonio about it. They exit, and the chorus, cunningly knowing that Shylock is about to enter, sings a derisive anti-Semitic song. Shylock tells them that he is following a really inoffensive industry, but no one seems to believe him. It would be wearisome to follow the plot too closely here. Shylock has a terrific aria about his daughter's elopement, after which the pound of flesh contract is made; and this scene is really impressive. Then there is a long trio between the three—Shylock, Antonio, and Bassanio—which makes a brilliant finale to the first act.
Act ii. opens at Belmont. Portia is wondering about her father's will, and she sings quite a long and florid songabout it. Bassanio enters and declares his love, and a long and impassioned duet follows, at the end of which is a lengthy fanfare, succeeded by the strangest caricature of Mendelssohn's Wedding March I have ever heard. The rhythm is exactly the same, and the melody and harmony are almost identical. This brings on poor Morocco again. The casket business, very much shortened, takes place, and Bassanio, as usual, wins. Then comes the March again, this time quite frankly called "Marcia Nuziale," and the act finishes with the bad news of Antonio and Bassanio's hurried exit to try to save him.
The third act discovers Shylock in a bad temper, still singing about his daughter's elopement. (Really Shakepeare's construction was not quite so bad as his adapters seem to think.) Afterwards a chorus of Jews comes on and sings hymns at Shylock. This seems to make him even more angry. The Trial scene is very much curtailed, and Portia "comes to the 'osses" very much more quickly than Shakespeare lets her.
The fourth and last act opens with a long and elaborate choral ballet, at the end of which (Jessica and Lorenzo being cut out) Portia and company soon finish off the plot; but, for some probably operatic reason, the full chorus is at Belmont, and, what is stranger, the chorus of Jews break in on it with Yiddish hymns. At the back of the stage a ship is seen on which is Shylock. The Jews and Christians continue singing, but gradually the Christians win, the Jews dying away as the Christians become more vociferous. So the curtain slowly falls. It is a strange and interesting work, and not without some dramatic touches. The themes are mostly cheap andbanal, and there is little or no dignity about the part of Shylock; but the work is noteworthy if only for the fact that it is the only opera but one ever written or in any way produced onThe Merchant of Venice. Also Shylock has one thing in his favour—he is not a tenor.
Louis Deffès, a French composer, born at Toulouse,July 25, 1819, also composed an opera on this subject, in four acts, calling itJessica. The libretto is by Jules Ardevies. The work was first performed on March 25, 1898, at the composer's birthplace. M. Deffès was a pupil of the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied under Halévy and subsequently won the Prix de Rome. The librettist has taken the elements of his dramatic poem from Shakespeare's play, but has, owing to musical exigencies, very much cut down the work. On the other hand, he introduces a tragic dénouement that had no place in Shakespeare's drama. To this book the composer has written most moving and dramatic music, which produced a deep effect on the audience when first performed.
This opera was to have been calledShylockand brought out at the Opéra Comique, where the work had been accepted; but circumstances decided otherwise. Among the prominent numbers that stand out in the first act are the song of Antonio, "C'était le soir," and the fine finale. In the second act Jessica has a charming cavatina, and a very interesting duet with Shylock, who also has a fine song in this act. In the third act, at the culminating point of the work, is a delicious chorus of swallows (at the first performance beautifully sung by a chorus of young lady pupils from the Toulouse Conservatoire); a poetic dream reverie by Portia; and a charming ballet; the act ending with a brilliantly written quintet. In the fourth act are serious songs for Jessica and Shylock, the whole ending with a dramatic version of the Trial scene. The first performance was a veritable triumph for the composer, who, at the age of seventy-nine, an old pupil of the Toulouse Conservatoire, an old Prix de Rome man, and the composer of a dozen works produced in Paris, had returned to his native town to produce the opera and to take over the direction of the school of music at which he had begun his studies.
As regards incidental music, every production of this play must have some. There must be masque music forLorenzo and Jessica to elope to; there must be a setting of "Tell me where is fancy bred"; and Portia has her own private orchestra at Belmont. But most of the specially composed music for theMerchantremains in manuscript.
Sullivanwrote a very elaborate masque for the Calvert production at Manchester, much of which is published. There is a long and very Viennese valse, full of melody and grace, and a grotesque Dance for Pierrots and Harlequins, with a highly comic cadenza for the bassoon. The Bounce is the most familiar number, as it is frequently played as anentr'actein the theatre. It is very attractive, but not at all a bourrée on the old accepted lines. There is also a melodious serenata in the rarely used key of E flat minor. These few numbers are all that have been printed.
Engelbert Humperdinckwrote music for Reinhardt's production of this play in Berlin at the Deutsches Theater. This version of the play begins with a barcarolle sung by a tenor behind the act-drop as the curtain goes up. This, oddly enough, is sung in Italian, and the words are not by Shakespeare. Portia is discovered playing the lute in the second scene, cleverly imitated by Humperdinck on the harp. Before the second act is a very stately saraband. For the Prince of Morocco's entrance there is no attempt at Eastern local colour. Obviously the Prince in this version did not bring his own band, and trusted to Portia's private orchestra for his effects, and they did not know his national anthem; so he only gets an ordinary flourish, two trumpets and kettledrums. The same thing happens to Aragon, only the fanfare is different though in the same key. The march is very wild, working up to a great climax, and then dying away to nothing. "Tell me where is fancy bred" is set as a duet for soprano and contralto with female chorus, and makes a beautiful number. After this there is nothing till the last act. The curtain goes up to exquisite music, which lasts till the end of the play.It is very lightly scored, strings, harps, solo violin, and horns, and every word can be heard through it: so it makes a perfect ending for the whole play. I have never read of this music being performed in England, but I can very strongly recommend it to any future producer ofThe Merchant of Venice.
For Mr Arthur Bourchier's production at the GarrickFrederick Rossecomposed a great deal of music, some of which is published. It is very good stage music, and admirably suited to the production it was written for. There is a prelude to the first act, ending with a sort of barcarolle; then a melodious intermezzo, entitled "Portia"; an Oriental march for Morocco (evidently the Prince brought his own band for this production); a second prelude, rather sickly sentimental; a good stirring march for the Doge; and a pretty setting of "Tell me where is fancy bred" for contralto, baritone, and harp—very serviceable and useful music all of it. But somehow the play itself does not seem to get the best out of musicians.
Gabriel Fauré, the distinguished French musician, who composed the fine incidental music for Mrs Patrick Campbell's production ofPelléas el Mélisande, also wrote incidental music to Edmond Haraucourt's version ofThe Merchant of Venice, called by himShylock. There are not many numbers, but all of them are interesting. The first is a prelude and serenade for light baritone to words of M. Haraucourt's; very graceful and melodious, but unconnected with Shakespeare's plot. The words begin, "Oh les filles, venez les filles aux voix douces." The firstentr'acte, in march time, opens with trumpets. There is a flowing trio founded on the same subject, and then back to the beginning for the close—a very pleasant little interlude. Now comes a so-called madrigal, not in the English sense of a contrapuntal number in several vocal parts, but a very pretty sentimental song, the words, again by M. Haraucourt, "Celle que j'aime a de beauté," beingcharmingly set for baritone once more. The "Épithalme" or "Bridal Song" is for orchestra only; it is a solemn adagio movement, almost too sombre for such a comedy as M. Haraucourt makes ofThe Merchant. The love music is in nocturne form, and is chiefly a duet for solo violin and 'cello. The last number, headed "Finale," is a brilliant quasi-scherzo movement in triple time—rather in the manner of a valse-scherzo. This is the longest and most elaborate section of the suite, finishing with a well-developed coda. Altogether Fauré'sShylockis an interesting, though rather slight, addition to our very scanty amount of music for this play.
It is a curious thing that, though critics are unanimous in saying thatThe Merry Wives of Windsoris the weakest comedy Shakespeare ever wrote, it has directly inspired one opera of first-class importance—Verdi'sFalstaff, by some considered the finest comic opera in the world; also Nicolai'sMerry Wives of Windsor, a first-rate opera in the second division, as it were, still constantly played in Germany, and here by the Carl Rosa Opera Company; and Balfe's comic operaFalstaff, produced at Her Majesty's, July 19, 1838. This work is not so easy to place; it is essentially Italian music, and shows how wonderfully adaptable Balfe's genius was.
Braham, Parry,andHornwrote numbers for a musical version of this play, which was produced in London in 1823, but I cannot trace the score nor any of the numbers.
We will takeBalfe'sopera first. There was a fine cast for the first production—Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini, with Lablache as Falstaff: so the work had every opportunity, as far as singers were concerned, but it never passed into the opera repertory, and few people now have heard of it. Perhaps the libretto by S. M. Maggioni may have helpedFalstaffinto its present oblivion. The work opens with a conventional overture, a slow introduction and a quick second part, getting quicker towards the end—the sort of overture that would suit almost any comedy-opera as well asThe Merry Wives. After the overture comes a duet for Page and Ford; then Falstaff's entrance and song.It is impossible to follow the plot clearly, as there is a great deal of spoken dialogue; but all the principals have very "fat" bits. The composer was obviously writing for singers whom he knew well, and he did not bother much about character, colour, Windsor, or Queen Elizabeth's time; everything is perfectly vocal, and the melodies are quite pleasant.
Balfe certainly had a wonderful gift for melody, but there is no drama at all in the work. Parts of it would sound quite well in a concert-hall, but I could not trust it on the stage. At the end, instead of fairies tormenting Sir John, a chorus of witches is introduced for that purpose, and they do it quite effectively. The work ends with a brilliant ensemble for the principals and chorus, with Grisi "coloraturing" all over the place. The opera is only in two acts, so a good deal of plot is omitted; still, the work is interesting, if merely from the fact that Balfe is the only British composer who has written an opera,The Bohemian Girl, which has been played, and is being played, all over the world. It is the fashion for "superior people" to sneer at Balfe, butThe Bohemian Girlis the sole English opera in the international repertory.
Nicolai'sopera,Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, book by Mosenthal, produced at Berlin in 1849, is now a classic. The overture is quite beautiful; the second subject so attracted Wagner that he "pinched" it and put it into theMeistersinger. The libretto is very well done, too. Although none of the rest of the opera quite reaches this high level, all is very good.
After the overture, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford enter with their letters, and the plot gets under way at once. No tiresome preliminary chorus, but straight to the story. In this charming duet is hatched the plot for the undoing of Falstaff. Fenton is made into a much larger and more importantrôlethan Shakespeare conceived; in point of fact, he is the solo tenor lover, and much very pretty music is given to him. All Sir John's music is very expressiveof the man, and, though vocal, is suited to the character. With the exception of the enlargement of Master Fenton's part, Nicolai's librettist sticks closely to Shakespeare's text; but there are occasional excrescences, mostly harmless. At the opening of the second act, Falstaff sings a song, with male chorus, the words of which begin with the famous Clown's song at the end ofTwelfth Night, "When that I was and a little tiny boy"; but after a few lines it grows into a drinking song. Anyway, there's some Shakespeare in it, and it is a first-rate number.
The third act opens with a ballad about Herne the Hunter and his oak for Mistress "Reich" (Ford). It is a very weird and effective song, and in excellent contrast to the music which has preceded it. Sweet Anne Page also has much more to do in this version of the story than in Shakespeare's; but in opera one must have young lovers, and Falstaff and Mistresses Ford and Page are not quite romantic enough for the average opera audience. The grotesque music for Slender and Dr Caius is wonderfully done, and full of quiet humour. After the "Herne" ballad Sweet Anne Page sings a long and almost tiresome aria, but this is followed by the Moon chorus scene, which opens with the samemotifas the overture. The orchestra plays the beautiful melody, and the chorus sustains long,pianissimosix-part harmonies. The whole effect is very fine. Next comes a ballet with chorus of fairies, also on themes used in the overture. Whenever Nicolai employs a theme from the overture the whole work seems to rise in value and become quite first-rate. With Fenton disguised as Oberon, King of the Fairies, and Anne Page as Titania, Falstaff is "put through the hoops," even as he is in Shakespeare's play, and a very melodious trio begins the finale. This is sung by the three ladies—Anne, Mistress Page, and Mistress Ford. Near the end Falstaff joins in, and for the last fourteen bars principals and chorus sing anensemble.
It is indeed a very merry work, and curiously Shakespearian; all the parts are showy to sing and to act, themusic, though full of character, is thoroughly vocal, and the orchestration is never too heavy for the singers. As a comic opera it is quite one of the best in the world, and fully deserves its place in the repertory of opera for all time.
We now come to the third opera founded onThe Merry Wives of Windsor,Verdi'sFalstaff, libretto by Boito. After the production ofOtello, 1887, the composer was silent operatically; but in 1893, at the age of eighty, he producedFalstaff, and astounded the entire musical world. The work was produced at the Scala, Milan, February 9, and its success was instantaneous. The book by Boito is, as the score says, "derived from Shakespeare'sMerry Wives of Windsor, and from certain passages ofHenry IV.having relation to the personality of Falstaff," and is a masterpiece of construction and adaptation.
The opera is in three acts, each act being in two parts. Shallow, Page, Slender, Sir Hugh, Nym, Simple, and Rugby all go. Certain lines have to be transposed. For instance, in Act i, Scene 1, Caius speaks Shallow's lines, beginning "You have beaten my men"; but these things are necessary in converting a five-act comedy, with two scenes, into a three-act lyrical comedy with six scenes. Sweet Anne Page becomes Annetta Ford, and her part and Master Fenton's are much written up; in fact, they become a very pretty pair of lovers, and their frequent love-duets are beautifully melodious, and never sentimental. Bardolph (tenor) becomes an important part, and he pursues his old master after his dismissal with the utmost malignancy. The scene is Windsor in the time of Henry IV. Falstaff is a baritone. Victor Maurel, the great French baritone, created the part.
As is usual with this composer's later work, there is no overture, the curtain rising on the interior of the Garter Inn at the fourth bar of anallegro vivace. Sir John has just sealed the two love-letters. Dr Caius (tenor) enters angrily and abuses Falstaff nearly in Shallow's words; Falstaff pays no attention, but calls for sherry, and in a brilliant scene the Doctor accuses Falstaff and his followersof making him drunk and robbing him. After Caius's exit, Sir John calls for his bill and sings a song of his wandering from inn to inn, following the light shed by Bardolph's nose, and setting forth how much it has cost him (Falstaff) to get it into its present condition. He then produces the letters, and Pistol and Bardolph refuse to bear them. Falstaff bundles them out of the room and the scene ends. The whole of the music in these comedy scenes is as light as air, the action is wonderfully swift, and every nuance in the words is reflected in the orchestration. It is only necessary to comment on a few features, as the original story is so well known and Boito follows it fairly closely now. There are no real numbers that can be separated from the main body; no songs or concerted pieces that it would be wise to perform apart from the context: the whole work is so welded into one homogeneous whole that it would be sacrilege to do scraps on the concert platform. There are no numbers, like the "Preis" song or Hans Sachs' soliloquies from Wagner's great comic opera, that can be performed with great effect at concerts: with Verdi'sFalstaffit is all or nothing. The reading of the letter by Mistress Ford makes a fine comic effect, and the unaccompanied quartet for the four ladies—Page, Ford, Sweet Anne, and Mrs Quickly—that follows it is a rare bit of vocal writing. The concerted writing throughout is splendid—the counterpoint isneverobtrusive, but always there,—and the orchestration a wonderful combination of lightness and strength.
To return to the plot. Falstaff comes only once to Ford's house, and is thrown out of a window into the Thames, so never escapes as the wise woman of Brentford. A very amusing effect, though not in Shakespeare, is obtained during Ford's mad search for Sir John. Fenton and Anne Page have hidden behind a curtain. In the middle of the fearful din everyone is making there comes a sudden pause, during which the lovers kiss audibly. Ford at once thinks it is Sir John and his wife, creeps up to the arras, jerks it aside, and discloses his daughter and her forbidden lover,much to Ford's anger and the lovers' mutual embarrassment! During this act Falstaff sings to Mistress Ford the fine song about his youth, "Once I was page to the Duke of Norfolk."
Though Verdi does not use theleit-motifin the ordinary sense of the word, much use is made of a triplet figure. Mistress Quickly employs it first to announce to Sir John his appointment with Mistress Ford. It is used by Sir John when he announces to Ford, disguised as Brook, his appointment with Ford's wife. Unfortunately, the original Italian cannot be, or has not been, rendered into the same number of syllables in the English version (I am speaking of Ricordi's edition), so there is one syllable missing, which spoils the whole effect. This figure is used wonderfully as an accompaniment during the duet that follows, and the eighty-year-old composer gets heaps of natural boyish fun (though technically marvellous) out of those six notes.
The first part of the third act opens with, for Verdi, quite a long introduction,agitatoin nature, on the theme that interrupts Falstaff's love-making in the previous act. The scene is the exterior of the Garter Inn. Falstaff is alone, and sings his famous soliloquy on the wicked, treacherous world. He calls for wine, drinks deeply, and begins to feel better. He mixes the sack with the Thames water he has swallowed, and sings, "How sweet it is to drink good wine while basking in the sunshine." Mistress Quickly comes on, and makes the appointment for Herne's oak at midnight. She begins the story of Herne the Hunter very impressively, and Mistress Page finishes it.
The next and last scene takes place a little before midnight, at the oak in Windsor Park. Anne Page and Fenton open with a love-duet, and as the bell strikes twelve Sir John enters wearing a pair of antlers. After a short scene with Mistress Page, Anne Page is heard as Fairy Queen summoning her wood nymphs, dryads, and goblins. Falstaff falls on his face, and the fairies enter. There is a long and beautiful sort of choral ballet, in which Falstaff is badly treated by everyone, especially by Bardolph. Inthe hubbub Dr Caius elopes with Bardolph disguised as Anne Page, and Fenton and Anne manage to get Ford's consent to their marriage. Then comes the great moment of all. All parties are reconciled; Ford invites everyone to carouse at his house, and Sir John Falstaff leads off with the subject of the great choral fugue that forms the finale. The words begin, "Jesting is man's vocation," etc. Fenton takes the answer, then Dame Quickly, then Mistress Ford. At first the orchestration is very light, but as the rest join in it grows heavier. Mistress Page then enters with the subject, followed by Sweet Anne instretto, Pistol meanwhile starting with the counter-subject, closely followed by Ford, with Dr Caius instretto. It would take too long to describe the ramifications of this, as Browning says of another, "mountainous fugue," but it is one of the most superb pieces of vocal fugal writing extant, and makes one of the finest endings to an opera the brain of man has ever conceived.
The idea of having a great fugue in eight and ten parts, with a full chorus and orchestra, quite independent of the solo parts, to finish a comic opera was a stroke of genius that could only have occurred to a supreme mind, and could only have been carried out by one of the great musical and dramatic geniuses of the world. It is extraordinarily successful, and its daring is gloriously vindicated. Let those lovers of musical comedy, ragtime, and sentimental ballads who sneer at fugue, counterpoint, form, and technique hear this, and wonder. It does not sound very complicated or difficult, but really it is quite as complex as the finale of Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony, the "Cum Sancto Spiritu" from Bach's B minor Mass, or the great fugato finale from the third act of Wagner'sMeistersinger. Verdi and Mozart make the numbers I have spoken of sound simple and almost easy; Bach and Wagner sound as difficult as they are, and all are equally difficult at bedrock.
I have written a great deal on this work, though no number of pages of mine could do any kind of justice toit; but if I have helped one reader to a little fuller understanding of this great comic opera I shall have "acquired grace," and, anyhow, that is something.